Another meeting, another week of chaos inside Shasta County Board of Supervisors chamber

Before Tuesday’s Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting, chairman Patrick Jones read off rules for conduct during public speaking time.

He felt compelled to do so after the Aug. 15 meeting. That meeting was interrupted a little more than an hour after it started. Jones at that time ordered security to clear everyone out of the chamber when numerous people in the audience began shouting at a speaker.

Jones’ preemptive actions Tuesday did nothing to quell the chaos.

Once again, he lost control of the meeting and cleared the chamber after Christian Gardinier — who’s often at odds with Jones and the board’s far-right majority — was told to leave after speaking out from his seat.

Gardinier was warned once before he was asked to leave.

But Gardinier remained seated as security, Shasta County deputies and county CEO David Rickert repeatedly asked him to leave as media looked on.

After about 15 minutes, Gardinier got up from his seat, but he vowed to return when the meeting resumed.

“This arbitrary and capricious dictation by the Board of Supervisors chairperson, Patrick Jones, has got to stop. It’s illegal, it’s unconstitutional. I believe I should have sat in there, got arrested, so we could put this through the court case. If we have to do that eventually, it’s going to happen,” Gardinier told the crowd in the foyer as they waited for the meeting to resume.

Gardinier spoke with two Shasta County sheriff’s deputies during the break, then walked back into the meeting and sat in the front row.

He was allowed to stay and even got up to speak again on a proclamation adopting September as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and discussion about sending a letter to Attorney General Rob Bonta regarding how Shasta County prosecuted the Zogg Fire civil and criminal cases.

Jones told the chamber before the meeting that he would give people one warning if they spoke out from their seat and if they refused, he would ask the person to leave and clear the room if they refused to do so.

He warned the audience if the person tried to return to the meeting after the recess, “deputies with the Shasta County Sheriff’s department will make a criminal prosecution for trespassing.”

But that didn’t happen with Gardinier, which left some in the chamber scratching their heads as to why.

Tuesday’s meeting was another reminder of how deeply divided Shasta County is and how that political fissure is becoming an obstacle to getting things done.

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The county is trying to figure out how to, among other things, get a new jail built, how to reopen a floor at the current jail that’s been closed for over a year, reduce homelessness and grow the economy with more and better-paying jobs.

Robert Sid led off public comment Tuesday and acknowledged the deep divide, but he implored people to be civil to each other.

But what unfolded over the hour-plus of public comment — before the meeting was interrupted — was, for the most part, hardly civil and it came crashing down with Jones telling Gardinier to leave the meeting.

Jones also had to clear the chamber after he asked security to remove Nathan Pinkney from a board meeting on May 30.

On May 30, Pinkney was escorted from the chamber by a security guard after Jones got upset with him for speaking out from his seat in the audience.

During a presentation on the potential to build tiny homes in Shasta County, Pinkney, who is Black, got angry when a white man, Alex Bielecki, used the N-word while stating his opposition to tiny homes. Bielecki was not chastised and was allowed to address the board later in the meeting.

A week later, Jones apologized to Pinkney for the racist slur that was used.

Contentious vote on Zogg Fire letter

A divided board was split on its support to send a letter to state Attorney General Bonta regarding the Zogg Fire cases that were prosecuted by District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett against Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

The vote was 3-2 with Supervisors Jones, Kevin Crye and Chris Kelstrom voting to send it. Supervisors Mary Rickert and Tim Garman voted no.

It was Crye at the Aug. 1 board meeting who announced he wanted to hire outside counsel to look into why Bridgett didn’t push harder to criminally prosecute PG&E over the 2020 Zogg Fire, which killed four people and burned 56,000 acres in southwest Shasta County.

More: Kevin Crye, facing recall fight, turns fire on Shasta DA over criminal case against PG&E

A compromise was made to send a letter.

The county provided copies of the original and revised letter in staff reports. However, some pages of the revised letter were missing in Tuesday's staff report, so copies of the full letter were available at the meeting.

Before the vote, Rickert wanted to know who wrote the letter, which was revised from an earlier version brought before the board. Rickert said she supported sending the original letter but felt this version had too many questionable statements and she didn’t think it would be taken seriously.

“Who wrote the letter. For transparency I need know who wrote it,” she said. “Nobody wants to claim ownership? Why is it such a big secret?

Jones said he presented the letter to CEO David Rickert, who is no relation to Supervisor Mary Rickert, but he wasn’t at liberty to name the attorneys involved.

What was certain is acting Shasta County Counsel Matt McOmber was not involved.

“Chair Jones is correct, there’s been a confidential communication and I’m not authorized to disclose that. The general rules of attorney-client privilege would apply,” McOmber said. “The holder of the privilege is the board. So the board gets to choose how it uses that information, not me.”

Rickert said since McOmber did not write the letter, the attorneys who did author the letter were not there to answer her questions, so she could not support sending it to Bonta.

At one point, Crye said he contributed to a good portion of the letter.

“Who was the primary author of this letter?” Rickert countered again.

“Me, how’s that?” Crye replied.

Crye said he didn’t want to name the other people who helped him write the letter because he wanted to protect them from public scrutiny and keep them out of “harm’s way.”

But Dawn Duckett said it’s a public document, so Shasta County residents have the right to know who was involved.

During public comment, several residents from the Igo-Ono area said they were frustrated and upset that their community didn't get more of the money from the county's $50 million settlement with PG&E.

The money from the settlement was distributed to 24 different community groups, including $15.5 million to the Shasta County Fire Department, $3.5 million to the Redding and Anderson fire departments, $7 million to the Children's Legacy Center, $2.4 million to the Shasta College Fire Academy, $2.5 million to Haven Humane Society and $1 million for the Whiskeytown Environmental School.

"The needs of my community are being ignored and pushed to the side. Our town burned to the ground and we are being given a pittance," one Igo-Ono resident said.

David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street" column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: It's happened again: Shasta County supervisors meeting shut down