CHICO — Residents from across the city walked the streets of Chico on Saturday afternoon, canvassing District 2 and District 4, urging their neighbors to come out for Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
“We’ve always paid attention to local politics, but we’ve never done anything like this before,” said District 2 resident Andy Willhoit. “We simply could not sit by quietly without doing something.”
Willhoit, his wife Karin, and about thirty others walked the streets of their new districts to knock on doors and inform their neighbors about the council’s decision. They urged people to write to Councilor Scott Huber to change his vote to approve the sequence of elections.
At the Jan. 21 City Council meeting, Councilor Karl Ory made the motion to sequence the first elections in 2020 for the now-named districts 1, 3, 5 and 7, claiming that they contain the highest population of nonwhite residents.
Huber seconded Ory’s motion, and the council voted to approve, 4-3, with councilors Sean Morgan, Kasey Reynolds and Ann Schwab against. That vote effectively locked out Morgan from running again in his district until 2024, even though his term is up in 2020.
No other councilor, except Vice Mayor Alex Brown, is in a district they can’t immediately run in again at the end of their term. But Brown could forfeit her current seat (which extends to 2022) to run in the district election in 2020.
Huber recently indicated he might change his vote; if he did, the sequencing of elections would be back up for consideration.
Saturday’s event was organized by Citizens For A Safe Chico on Facebook. Willhoit said he found most people they talked to were “by and large unaware” of the districting issues, and that “We encourage residents to watch and see how (Huber) responds; send an email encouraging him to do what is right and fair.”
In addition to the weekend canvassing, a protest is planned in front of the City Council Chambers at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, before the meeting starts.
The next City Council meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, in the City Council Chambers at 421 Main St. in Chico.
