As a reminder to folks who needed a break from the crazy world of politics, about six weeks ago, liberal Councilmember Scott Huber resigned his position on the council, citing and producing the threatening emails and social media posts, for this decision to resign. Then, just over a week later, conservative Councilmember Kami Denlay resigned her seat on the council after various media outlets learned that she no longer lived in the District that she was elected to represent. To be more specific, there is growing evidence that she did not even live in the City of Chico, but instead Red Bluff.
In response to the two vacant seats, the council had the option to appoint community members to fill those seats, or it could allow voters to decide in a special election. The 4-1 conservative majority decided to use appointments, with only Councilmember Alex Brown calling for an election to let voters decide.
At last night’s council meeting, the conservative majority appointed two conservatives to fill the seats, even replacing liberal Scott Huber with a conservative.
Now, you may be asking yourself right now, isn’t the Chico City Council a non-partisan position? Don’t kid yourself. In this day and age, there is no such thing as a non-partisan position. One of these appointments, which we will talk about later in this program, even contributed the maximum amount of money allowable by law to Mayor Andrew Coolidge’s campaign just last year. But again, we will discuss later the various conflicts of interest within this current council.
So tonight on The Real Issue, we will first talk about the concerns of the 6-1 conservative council’s decisions made last night regarding the issue of homelessness, and in particular, whether those decisions satisfy the concept of good governance, satisfy Judge England’s ruling that regarding the 8th amendment to the Constitution, and the use of taxpayer monies for two inexperienced organizations. Councilmember Alex Brown will share her policy concerns.
And then, we will be joined by the Chair of the Greater Chico Homeless Taskforce, Angela McLaughlin to talk about her concerns with this council, focusing specially on conflicts of interests, and lack of transparency.
