Hey YES-man...not sure if youre living in the area or just doin your business there but there are some things a fella should know about the Paradise/Magalia area(AKA the Ridge). It used to be predominately a meth haven, hidden amongst the retirees in the 80's and 90's. The Stirling City area was one of the worst. LEO pretty much rid the mountain of the tweaker scourge in the early 2000's by forcing them to move on. They are now actually are scattered down in the farm lands: From Chico to Oroville, along Hiway 99. Oroville is pretty much the hub of all things tweak.
However, the tweaker scourge left a bad taste in the mouths of those living on the Ridge (Paradise/Magalia) and left LEO and residents a little paranoid as to anything illegal, including weed. If you couple that with the reefer-madness style of Butte County DA Ramsey and the fact that you can fly over the Ridge fishbowl in about 10 minutes, it makes growing in the area a dicey proposition.
Most of the growers have settled over in the Concow/Berry Creek area just above Oroville. Less trees to contend with and more open land. When the big fire hit Concow several years back, the dumb-ass growers were shooting at the equipment operators trying to cut in containment fire breaks.
Which leads me to this, In my years of living there, I strongly believed that the dumbest of the dumb growers could be found in the Paradise/Magalia area. Gigantic indoor grows in small old houses that would have trouble just running a coffee pot, town police who make up their own rules and a town council corrupt with good ol boy politics. None of this lends to a good growing environment. A good example would be in 2008, a Paradise Police Officer, after rolling up to a domestic disturbance call, shot the resident's dog after exiting his squad car. The neighbors said the dog had just run up to the car to see who had arrived, the officer claimed the dog was attacking. The Paradise Police Force dismissed excessive force charges against the officer and 3 months later, a different officer shot another dog, under the same claims...
Butte County itself is now quietly moving forward on D.A. Ramsey's campaign promises of ridding all of Butte of the vile weed, just as his predecessors did with the tweakers. I say quietly because they dont want to attract the attention of big city lawyers. "We'll clean em out our way before anyone has a chance to say stop"! LEO has always known where the plots scattered around the Ridge are, theyre not hard to find. As money is being slowly allocated, it will escalate. Believe this.
One has to understand the politics of the Ridge. It's small town USA and if you hold office, you can be there for a long time with a kushy job if you hang with the right folks. The key to the city lies in making the residents believe that what LEO does, what the town council does and what Ramsey does is good for you, whether you like it or not. Paradise/Magalia is off the beaten path. They call the shots and youre either with them...or against em. The 215 law does not apply up there, not really. Unless youre one of them...Then, its a different story...BTW- District 5 Board Of Supervisor Yamaguchi lives in the Penzt Rd area below Paradise. And he doesnt care for growers either...CC
Footnote: Butte County is one of the poorest counties in California. The only thing keeping it afloat is the revenue from selling water to the folks down south. I could never, for the life of me, figure out why the political machine up there couldnt connect the green dots and tap the revenue source the growers and dispensaries would bring to the table. It's not like it's a novel concept....dumb, dumb, dumb...
