No recap of the week could be written without mentioning the attempted assassination of former United States President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.

As so often happens when things reach what feels like an untenable boiling point in the political world, we’ve had a good number of leaders — local, statewide, national and even international — put forth calls of unity and civility in response, along with reminders that “we’re all in this together, so maybe we’d better all start acting like it.”

And in that spirit, we’re going wade into the ongoing biggest issue in Chico — homelessness — and do our best to applaud what we consider to be some positive steps while also renewing our calls to, simply, do the right things going forward. We hope the notion of “that’s a lot more productive than never-ending hatred and demagoguery” makes more sense to everyone today.

HIT >> To the surprise of almost no one after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Grants Pass homelessness case, the City of Chico served notice this week that it is attempting to exit the Warren v. Chico settlement, saying plaintiffs rejected proposed conditions that would supersede current enforcement procedures.

Calling the settlement agreement “unworkable” — and judging by the never-ending game of Whack-A-Mole that continues from one end of the city to the next, we largely agree — Chico claimed the settlement has greatly restrained the city’s ability to address public health and safety issues on public property. (One need only glance at the Eaton and Cohasset camp site to see the city’s point.)

Legal Services of Northern California, also not surprisingly, said no such changes in the lawsuit agreement were warranted, and that the city has “no legal authority or argument for this position.” It also took exception, in its letter, that the city’s notification basically gave plaintiffs a mere 24 hours to respond.

Typically, there’s more to the story than that. City Manager Mark Sorensen told us the city contacted LSNC on July 10 to discuss the settlement. A week later, there had still been no response, following what the city says has been a pattern for the past several years.

That, too, doesn’t surprise us. For months, the response from LSNC almost any time we ask a question has been “no comment.” That wasn’t the case a couple of years ago, when they were filing the lawsuit that ended up with a $600,000 settlement (only $12,000 of which went to the eight homeless plaintiffs).

And for all of the complaints about the Eaton/Cohasset site being an unmanaged disaster, the city tells us LSNC maintains the city has no management authority over the site, because the lawsuit settlement doesn’t say it does.

Really? And how’s that been working out for everybody?

What we’re after today is an end to the embarrassing “us versus them” nonsense and the gamesmanship gotchas. We’d like to see Legal Services stop strong-arming and the city to move forward with homeless services because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s being forced to do so.

We feel the city should continue to operate the Pallet shelter (and bring order to the Eaton/Cohasset site) while being free to enforce its ordinances, which have now, at long last, been deemed constitutional. Those who fail to comply need to be held accountable — go to a shelter and/or seek services from the county. Take the available help.

Don’t get us wrong, we understand it was “legal wrangling” that led to the creation of the Pallet shelter in the first place. That was a good thing. It needs to continue and a level of compassionate care must continue.

But the rest of this nonsense needs to stop.

HIT >> On a similar note, we applaud the city’s decision to convey a city lot in the Chapman neighborhood to Habitat for Humanity of Butte County for affordable housing. We were also thrilled to see, at the same council meeting, recognition of law enforcement personnel who found a missing special needs girl in just 20 minutes recently.

We’re not giving a “miss” this week. The near-miss in Pennsylvania should have been a big enough wakeup call for all of us.

Hits and misses are compiled by the editorial board.