CHICO — Tension and tempers both ran high Tuesday evening at the Chico City Council meeting with multiple outbursts from the audience and the council alike. A large protest outside spilled inside the chambers, but it was confusion about what exactly the council was discussing that often led to heated exchanges.
Update
Twenty-six speakers stayed until nearly midnight Tuesday to address the council on their decision to choose the Lavender map and in what order to sequence elections.
Many speakers accused the liberal majority on the council — Karl Ory, Mayor Randall Stone, Vice Mayor Alex Brown and Scott Huber — of colluding to exclude Councilor Sean Morgan from running in his district at the end of his term of office later this year.
“This is a city we all know and love, why are we doing this?” asked Bill Mash. “Let’s just do what’s right for Chico and move on.”
“Incumbency wasn’t supposed to be a factor,” said Nichole Nava. “You willfully ignored the will of your people. You say you represent all of us; I beg to differ.”
Many said they were part of the canvassing effort in District 4 and 2 (Morgan and Huber’s districts) over the weekend to get the word out.
“This whole thing is falling into the category of something that seemed clever at the time, but looking back, you’re going to regret,” said Tom van Overbeek. “This recent decision is just appalling. It’s blatant political trickery. You guys set out to steal (Morgan’s) seat.”
The anger at the council was bipartisan. Nathan Methvin-Terry said he voted for nearly all of the councilors there, and actually “campaigned hard” against Sean Morgan, “But this is wrong,” he said. “This is putting party politics over the will of the voters. There’s a lot of people who like Mr. Morgan. They should have the right to keep him up there.”
He then addressed Ory and Brown directly, and said he was disappointed in their actions.
“You say: ‘We’re at-large and we’re going to represent everybody. Trust us.’ Well I don’t trust you. It’s our job not to trust you,” Methvin-Terry said.
Others called Ory a “master bully” and accused the majority of the council of a deeply partisan divide.
“It’s late, but I’m here because I live in District 4 and I really don’t appreciate the way everyone is trying to make these fun political games, so that one district doesn’t have any political representation for two years,” said Jessica Wilhelm. “Do something courageous, do something different and try to cross the party lines.”
Morgan moved to adopt the ordinance and change the sequencing of elections to districts 1,4,5 and 7, but change the name of district 4 to district 3. That would include every district where there is a councilor up for re-election in 2020. Huber seconded the motion and then made comments.
“I think it’s pretty clear to the community that the Lavender map was created with incumbency considered,” Huber said. “The councilors shouldn’t be voting on councilors. The voters should.”
The motion passed 5-2, with Ory and Stone against. The meeting ended Wednesday morning, at 12:17 a.m., more than six hours after it began.
“The people of Chico should feel their faith in local government is restored,” Morgan said. “It took a lot of dialogue, it took a lot of contention … but at the end of the night, we did the right thing.”
The City Council meeting was adjourned to 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 10, in the City Council Chambers at 421 Main St. in Chico, at which time it will address the second reading and adoption of the new districting ordinance. The council will also meet Tuesday, Feb. 11, again at 6 p.m, to address the adjourned items from the Feb. 4 meeting.
The meeting
According to the city’s administrative policies and procedures, the council has to “request to agendize” items before discussing them — basically, they have to vote on whether or not they even want to have a discussion.
Unfortunately that rule led to some confusion amongst protesters who thought the council was making a final decision on several controversial items surrounding issues of homelessness.
There was an unprecedented amount of speakers at Tuesday’s meeting, more than 20 spoke during the Business From The Floor period, and another 75 spoke on the first six items of councilor requests.
The process to agendize councilor requests is usually taken as one item and generally passed unanimously, but the council voted to address each item separately on Tuesday so that each speaker could be heard.
More than 30 speakers addressed the council just on Mayor Randall Stone and Vice Mayor Alex Brown’s request to rescind the city’s Sit & Lie ordinance, which bans people from sitting or lying on sidewalks in commercials areas, and their request to amend the Offenses Against Public Property Ordinance.
Most seemed to be against agendizing the discussion, but there were a few who encouraged the council to move forward.
“The people who are living on the streets are the people suffering,” said Lauren Kohler, who was in favor of the discussion. “There’s no evidence that people are pushed into services, just that they’re pushed out of public spaces.”
“The Sit & Lie ordinance actually gives tools to law enforcement, it encourages people to go to places where they can find sheltering,” said Bryan Meyers, who was against agendizing the discussion. “It shouldn’t even be on the agenda to discuss. I believe everyone in this room wants solutions and to work together.”
After the public comment period, Brown moved to agendize the discussion with Councilor Scott Huber’s second. The council voted 4-3, with councilors Sean Morgan, Kasey Reynolds and Ann Schwab against.
“We continue to pick at small pieces of the problem of homelessness when what’s needed is a master plan,” said Huber. He then introduced a request to agendize a discussion to “develop a comprehensive strategy for reducing homelessness and its impacts in Chico.”
The council voted 5-2 to agendize the discussion, with Stone and Brown voting against.
Morgan’s request for a discussion on an ordinance banning needle distribution programs garnered 20 comments, mostly in approval of the request. Many speakers related stories of having to deal with discarded hypodermic needles and reported an increase in incidents involving needles and syringes across the city.
At a certain point, after several outbursts and arguments, the mayor requested a five-minute break and called on the police chief to clear the entire chamber of audience members. City Clerk Debbie Presson said it was not uncommon to remove people who “get unruly” but removing the entire chamber has also happened before.
The plan was to only let people in to make comments on the item, and then return the audience to the chamber afterward, but when the council reconvened from the break, the rest of the council overwhelmingly condemned Stone’s decision and voted 6-1 to allow the public back into the room immediately.
Heated public comment continued until the council voted 7-0 to approve a discussion about alternatives to the current needle distribution program.
The rest of the councilor requests were approved thusly:
- Councilor Karl Ory’s first request to agendize a discussion to consider the Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance for Substantial Remodels was approved 5-2 with Morgan and Reynolds against.
- Ory’s second request for a discussion on the draft Extreme Heat Preparedness Plan and the cost of cooling shelters to be considered during budget time was approved 6-1 with Morgan against.
- Ory’s third request for a discussion on the endorsement of the Disaster Housing Budget Letter was approved 5-2 with Morgan and Reynolds against.
- Ory’s fourth request to agendize a discussion regarding Disaster Tax Credits and Stone’s request for a discussion regarding Safe Space Winter Shelter’s downtime were moved to be considered another day in favor of skipping to the public hearing and other pertinent items on the agenda, in a vote of 6-1, with Stone against.
Districting
More than four hours after the meeting began — and an official vote to extend the meeting to at least 11 p.m. — the meeting finally proceeded to the public hearing, where councilors considered the first reading of the ordinance the city will need to establish district elections.
The city must approve an ordinance within 90 days, and that deadline would be Feb. 10. Therefore, Tuesday’s meeting was the second-to-last opportunity to discuss districting within those boundaries or to request an extension from the law firm and plaintiff that threatened the city with a multi-million dollar lawsuit under the California Voting Rights Act.
City Attorney Andrew Jared said the law firm had indicated that their “biggest priority” was to establish the district elections before the November election, but that there was no official extension given yet. The council said it will consider moving the next meeting to Monday, Feb. 10 to fit within the 90-day requirement.
City demographer Michael Wagaman explained the differences made to the proposed map since it was last seen, including a slight change in numbering and some boundary changes to districts 1 and 6.
“I want everybody to understand how we got here,” Morgan said. “We agreed on the Lavender map, bipartisan.” Morgan then read a portion of the minutes of the Jan. 21 meeting regarding the sequencing process, acknowledging that they were long and complicated.
After reading back the verbatim transcript, Morgan drew comparisons to the famous Abbott and Costello “Who’s On First” routine — which he then also read a significant portion of.
“Boom: 12,000 people without representation on this dais because four people on this council think they know what’s best,” Morgan said.
“Any myth that we’re leaving people unrepresented for two years is wrong,” Ory countered. “I was elected citywide. I will represent the entire city.”
Ory said it wasn’t just Morgan’s district that wouldn’t be able to vote in 2020, it would be three out of the seven, totaling more than 35,000 residents.
“We will disenfranchise thousands of people one way or another. It’s sequencing,” Ory said. “We can’t allow everyone to vote for council. We can only choose four.”
“I hope that you convinced yourself with your little smoke and mirrors,” Morgan replied. “Leave the council members that are up for reelection, up for reelection. Everything is fair and equitable.”
Morgan said risking the $100,000 that may be incurred by pushing the adoption of the ordinance was more favorable to him than disenfranchising the voters of District 4.
The council then took 26 comments from the public, pushing the meeting past midnight, and past this newspaper’s deadline.
