Every election has its own set of circumstances that makes it unique. This year’s election for the Butte County Board of Supervisors is, shall we say, a little more different than most.
First, the typical “Republican versus Democrat” situation exists in only one of the three races: the District 4 election between incumbent Tod Kimmelshue and challenger Joanna Warrens.
In District 5, we have Republican incumbent Doug Teeter facing a challenge — but it’s from another Republican, Julie Threet.
Meanwhile, in District 1, nobody even bothered to take on incumbent Bill Connelly, a fixture on the board for nearly two decades.
Call it the aftermath of redistricting or not wishing to waste resources on a foregone conclusion, but the lack of more Democrats in these races still surprised us. In any case, we’re left with two incumbent Republicans on a board with a current 4-1 conservative advantage facing challenges from a pair of political newcomers.
After interviews with each of the candidates in the two races, we are endorsing Kimmelshue and Teeter to serve another term.
More often than not, we tend to support incumbents if they’re doing a good job of representing the folks who put them into office. We did that two years ago when we endorsed Tami Ritter and Debra Lucero — political opposites of the rest of the board in many respects, which led to a few hotly contested 3-2 votes during their time together on the dais.
A lot has changed since then. While Ritter was easily re-elected, Lucero was defeated by challenger Peter Durfee, an outcome many of her supporters blamed on an allegedly unfair redrawing of district lines (a matter currently under review by the state attorney general). That has left the supervisors who usually swing right on the board with a 4-1 advantage.
Nonetheless, we like the way this board works together, and a good part of that praise belongs to Kimmelshue. He’s served as chair of the board and manages the meeting with a steady hand. He’s capable of placing compromise over politics and is accessible to his constituents. He ran partially on a platform as a consensus-builder four years ago and has proven his ability in that regard on a few hot topics ranging from homelessness to COVID and everything in-between.
Just as Connelly has served as the voice of the southeast county since first being sworn in back in January 2005, Teeter is building a similar record of longevity as the ridge representative — even though his district is a far cry from the one he took over in 2013. The Camp Fire and the resulting loss of ridge residents has Teeter’s District 5 now stretching into parts of Chico, meaning roughly half of the district is new to him.
Teeter worked to get into a leadership role with the Rural County Representatives of California, and that got him appointed to the Wildfire and Forest Resiliency Task Force of California, roles that are important in our fire-prone area. We think he’s a good voice of reason who has earned the trust of most of his constituents, and his experience matters — notably in the area of fire recovery.
Both Warrens and Threet impressed us with their passion, knowledge and enthusiasm. Warrens, in particular, made a good impression in our interview. She’d originally planned to run for Doug LaMalfa’s congressional seat, but changed her mind when the state Democratic Party threw their support behind Rose Penelope Yee. So she jumped in to run against Kimmelshue — no easy task either.
Warrens displayed a good grasp of local issues ranging from the libraries to the rising rents at mobile home parks. She reminded us a bit of Lucero, who has seldom shown up at any meeting without being the most prepared person in the room. In a different district or in a different race, Warrens might have drawn our support; Kimmelshue, though, has earned another four years in our eyes.
Threet surprised us as well — largely in a good way. She’s no stranger to the supervisors, or many others in the community, because of her skepticism about COVID vaccines, a belief she’s brought up repeatedly at the meetings. But it would be wrong to write her off as a one-trick pony in this race; no candidate managed to bring up more different topics in their allotted time with us than she did, and she spoke knowledgably about them all.
We think both Warrens and Threet have a lot to offer the community, and we hope they stay on the scene — perhaps even by seeking office on any number of commissions. But as far as the board of supervisors, we’re happy with the five we’ve got right now. You should be, too.
