Apr 192024
 

Tenessa vs D’Acquisto regarding the removal of a planning commissioner. Watch her interrupt and run over the top of him at the 1:18 mark. It appears that Tenessa has been getting more aggressive with people in public lately. (Tenessa is the Mayor and D’Acquisto is a Redding Councilmember)

What seems to be at work is the 3-2 majority that is derided as being from Bethel Church. They are systematically removing people, stopping development, and the like.

Allow me to suggest to Ms. Audette something to be focused on instead of shutting down the fairgrounds, micromanaging staff and interrupting colleagues from the deius:

Yeah that’s right 93% of American Cities are safer than Redding, Ca.

Mayor Crime wave has herself far worse problems than Mike D’Acquisto talking about the Bethel Juggernaut. (Don’t forget that Ms. Audette was talking about being Mayor months before being elected mayor – suggesting insider dealing – aka a Brown Act violation)

Quoting the linked information above:

With a crime rate of 36 per one thousand residents, Redding has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 28. Within California, more than 91% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Redding.

((SNIP))

For Redding, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation, across communities of all sizes (both large and small). Violent offenses tracked included rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout’s analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Redding is one in 160.

Ouch.

I think the ruling junta on the Redding City Council have some explaining to do, and perhaps Mr. D’Acquisto and Mezzano are completely justified in their withering criticism of the majority!

There were more meltdowns beyond Tenessa shouting down a colleague on the council… last night the Shasta GOP voted to remove Dan Sloan as Chair.

Less than an hour after being removed as Chair of the Shasta GOP by a 15-3 Vote, Dan Sloan sent an email. I have gotten this email more than once. I will excerpt the email, but anyone that got it will know exactly that this is true:

Greetings, Committee,

The meeting tonight included bylaw violations. The committee did not vote to suspend the Bylaws with a 2/3 vote before removing the chair on an interim basis. I confirmed with fWin Carpenter that the 2/3 verbiage and comments were NOT part of that discussion.
Dan Sloan ran for supervisor and some ugliness in his background was exposed. There was a trail of financial and behavioral malfeasance documented in what I saw. Regardless of the rheem of court documents I was sent, it is clear that Sloan only stepped up to serve as Chair of the Shasta GOP in order to set up his run for office.
It is clear I am not alone in the opinion based on the 15-3 vote.
So the committee, fed up with the drama and infighting decided to deal with it and let the drama continue in the mayor’s office instead. It appears that Sloan still thinks he is chair of the committee even after losing on a 5-1 margin.
Let me assist the former Chairman with a Robert’s Rules lesson (and the Shasta By-Laws are governed by Robert’s Rules).
#1 when removing an officer you do NOT need to suspend the bylaws, in fact, it is quite the opposite. It is the by-laws that defer to Robert’s Rules for removal of officers unless the by-laws specify a process.
#2 Removing an officer (or most other 2/3 votes) does not need to be noticed and can be done from the floor. The reason why endorsements are different is because that process is typically enumerated in a group’s by-laws.
#3 There is no requirement for comments on any motion.
The email continues:
I just spoke with John Dennis in San Francisco and informed him of the committee’s desire to learn more about the 10% “ask” on the speaker series. John and I spoke for a while about the situation and timeline. I am in favor of the 10% contribution.
Dan Sloan is likely going to have another restraining order levelled against him if he continues acting like the Chairman of Shasta County.
It sounds like there are a lot of issues there. I do not envy the new Shasta GOP Chair’s life the rest of 2024. Yikes.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Redding is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Redding, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 33, which is a rate of 30 per one thousand population.

Importantly, we found that Redding has one of the highest rates of motor vehicle theft in the nation according to our analysis of FBI crime data. This is compared to communities of all sizes, from the smallest to the largest. In fact, your chance of getting your car stolen if you live in Redding is one in 223.

They have got a lot of problems out there. We need strong leadership in Shasta County. I hope the new chair can help. I hope we get Mezzano and D’Acquisto some help and we need Megan Dahle and Heather Hadwick for adult supervision at the state level. Yikes.

Oct 292023
 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. In this case, I am referring to the fantastical corruption monster that seems to infect conservative county parties. They convince themselves there are ghosts of Tammany Hall in their own county that they alone have to ferret out.

As shot 10-27-2023 after Safely Crossing the Border back in to the State of my Birth and Residence

Your intrepid blogger went and visited the Shasta GOP meeting on 10-26-2023. On the menu was a Shasta GOP endorsement in CA-01, SD-01 and AD-01. But, there was also a By-Law amendment that would have forced any duly-elected member (or ex-officio) to have to recuse themselves from voting on their own endorsement. This was clearly directed at Tanessa Audette in AD-01.

While I am not a fan of Audette as a candidate because she has told multiple lies on the campaign trail whilst attempting to represent herself as the Bethel Church candidate, this attempt to muzzle candidates is foolish for a variety of reasons. (One example: Audette claimed at the meeting that she had County Supervisor Endorsements in every County of AD-01, this is simply and easily proven false. Another would be her repeatedly claiming to still be working with the Dahle’s in an attempt to imply their support)

One issue I will lay out in public is that the Chair of the Shasta GOP had a clear agenda and biases. He is entitled to his choice of candidates and his opinion, what is the issue for your intrepid blogger is the lack of transparency. It was clear that Dan Sloan supported the insane and dishonest David Fennell for SD-01 and Mark Mezzano for AD-01. Now you have further color for the run at Tanessa’s ability to vote for herself.

One member of the Shasta GOP took the argument over the By-Law amendment public. (It was tabled to March because it seemed absurd to change the rules mid-process.)

Start the Windmills folks, it is time to get jiggy

The AD-01 endorsement failed after 4 ballots. The Shasta GOP used a secret ballot AND a collapsing ballot for their endorsement process. Both are pretty unusual for an endorsement process and using both in the same process is typically only done when there is a desired outcome in mind. (This has been my observation for over 20 years) The SD-01 endorsement also failed because blank ballots were counted as votes against the total needed.

In the days since the endorsement meeting, there have been a ton of emails flying around. (Typical for county parties, lol) Your intrepid blogger has gotten several of them.

It seems that the Shasta GOP Chair by taking a run at Tanessa Audette under the veneer of corruption has activated a fringe of the County Party over an issue that is not even illegal nor is it challenged in Robert’s Rules of Order.

In fact, in my years in Placer County, several sitting electeds were on the committee and voting on their own endorsements and sometimes on those of their colleagues! It is and never was an issue because it is allowed in Robert’s Rules.

Central Committees are exempt from the Brown Act. So there goes that argument.

Further, getting a Shasta GOP endorsement does not guarantee a financial outcome for a candidate. Some offices are not compensated and others that have compensation are not guaranteed to be compensated by the time said person gets sworn in. For these reasons and more there have never been laws or regulations similar to what is being proposed in Shasta County.

Every Partisan elected gets members to the county parties within their district. But, a side effect of passing such a by-law amendment would be to deny them the ability to represent their own interests because it is some sort of “Perk” of office. I’d submit that being part of a County Party is the furthest thing from a “Perk” of office there can be – especially when groups like the Shasta GOP accuse them of corruption simply for existing.

The saddest thing is that if this by-law amendment were to pass, it would not stand up in court because it would strip duly-elected members of their rights. What Mr. Gorman, who should know better as he is a campaign operative in part of his life, is that Audette got elected separately to the Central Committee several years before running for AD-01.

Also, in public, Dan Sloan and another candidate have publicly pledged to recuse themselves from their own endorsements. This means little as neither Dan’s pending endorsement for County Supervisor in D3 or the other guy in D2 are controversial to the Shasta GOP. I doubt if the endorsement was hotly contested either would make such a move.

Central Committees are supposed to be incubators for Candidates. Good Committees (like Placer) recruit candidates and get them elected. If you do it the proposed Shasta way, you are telling people that get elected to Central Committee that decide later to run for office they are crooks if they attempt to advance their campaign as a member of the Central Committee. What a message!

Tanessa’s AD-01 Campaign is going to fail on its’ own for a variety of reasons. This is not one of them.

There are emails out there that may well have been forwarded multiple times by now. This issue should have never been created and now it is going to further marginalize the Shasta GOP. Worse, they are railing against something that neither an issue of morality or illegal.

The more things change with County Parties, the more they stay the same.