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Humboldt sheriff deputies will soon be the newest stars of “On Patrol: Live,” a reality television series that follows on-duty law enforcement officers in real-time. 

At today’s meeting, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a one-year access agreement with Half Moon Pictures, LLC, the production company behind “On Patrol: Live,” despite hesitation among some board members. Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson asked to change his vote after the votes were cast, but his request was denied.

Appearing via Zoom, Humboldt Sheriff William Honsal told the board that the show would give his department an opportunity to “highlight the professional law enforcement services” it provides and, ideally, bring in more potential recruits. 

Honsal | Screenshot

“I think this is an opportunity for us to highlight Humboldt County … and also talk about how California law enforcement is different [from other states],” Honsal said. “[W]e hold people accountable, but we also are all about building trust with our community. This is another layer that we can present to our community and to highlight, again, the professional services that we do here.” 

Honsal noted that the agreement would be a “trial run,” adding later in the meeting that the county would have 45 days to terminate its contract with the production company. “If everything works, you know, we can do an additional year,” he said.

Citing concerns brought up in the Outpost’s previous reporting on the subject, Wilson asked what kind of precautions the sheriff’s office and the producers of the show would take to ensure camera crews did not distract deputies from their duties. 

“The cameramen do have some strict guidelines that they are not to interfere, that they’re to be on the sidelines viewing from an area that is accessible to the public,” Honsal responded. “They’re not going to go into people’s homes without consent. … They don’t have the same ability to go into private areas as law enforcement does, so they have to hang on the street and in public areas.”

Asked to address concerns around liability, Honsal said the sheriff’s office would “share that liability” with the production company. The terms of the agreement stipulate that the producer must maintain workers’ compensation insurance for its own employees and general commercial liability insurance that includes the County of Humboldt as “an additional insured” party.

“They [the producers] are reputable, they are professional and they do know their stuff, so that’s why I’m willing to go into this agreement with them – as long as the county agrees with it,” Honsal said. “I think this is a really good show that highlights what’s going on around the country with crime and law enforcement. I think it [will provide] a real, first-hand view of what our deputies are facing out there on the street. … I believe this is a positive thing. I believe that it is ultimately going to be a great thing for Humboldt County.”

Wilson | Screenshot

Wilson thanked Honsal for answering his questions but said he had a “different view” on the subject matter. “I don’t know if it’s given me a lot of confidence, but I appreciate your thoughts on that,” he said.

Similarly, Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo said she was “a little anxious” about “potential reputational harm” to the county. However, she said she could also understand that the show could be an effective recruiting tool, adding, “I know a few people [who] have gone into law enforcement because they saw a show like this … and it seemed like an exciting and interesting career.”

“I understand that this type of show has evolved from the stuff I saw as a kid, [which was] probably intended more to shock,” Arroyo continued. “It’s probably more realistic now. … I think I’ll just say, I’m putting confidence in you to make a good recommendation to us.”

“If I didn’t have total confidence in them, I wouldn’t be in a position to promote this access agreement,” Honsal responded. 

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone did not directly address the agreement with Half Moon Pictures but said he looked forward to hearing Honsal’s response to the recent Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury report that called for additional civilian oversight over the Sheriff’s Office.

Bohn said the TV show would give the county a chance to “showcase the men and women of our sheriff’s department who do a great job.” He quipped that he “didn’t see anybody pushing back when Murder Mountain” was being filmed in the county, adding that Netflix docuseries was “not a good representation of Humboldt.”

The request to approve the agreement appeared on the board’s consent calendar, which is typically approved in one motion unless an item is pulled for discussion. Well, the item wasn’t technically pulled for discussion before it was discussed, which resulted in a confusing back and forth among board members. Wilson said he wanted to approve the consent calendar, but not the access agreement with Half Moon Pictures. He tried to make a motion to that effect, which was seconded by Madrone.

Annoyed that the item wasn’t pulled at the beginning of the meeting, Bohn and Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell voted against the motion. County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes informed the board that a couple items on the consent calendar required a 4/5th vote. 

Eventually, Arroyo made a motion to approve the entire consent calendar, which was seconded by Bushnell. Right after the 5-0 vote passed, Wilson asked to change his vote to ‘no’ because “that was the whole point,” but his request was denied.

“Let everybody know that Mike is opposed to it, though, in heart and soul,” Bohn said.

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Check back tomorrow for more coverage of today’s Board of Supervisors meeting!

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Eureka Council to Consider New 73-Word Phrasing for Pro-Parking ‘Housing for All’ Ballot Initiative
• Eureka Council Rebels Against City Attorney’s Summary of the ‘Housing for All’ Initiative, Special Meeting Called Monday to Resolve the Question

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During a brief special meeting last night, the Eureka City Council set language for the “Housing for All and Downtown Vitality” initiative that will appear on November’s ballot. Limited to 75 words, it was the Council’s second go at framing the complicated measure after rejecting its original wording last week due to concerns about clarity and neutrality. The controversial initiative aims to prevent replacing city-owned parking lots with affordable housing — like the EaRTH Center in downtown Eureka, for example. 

Last night, councilmembers reviewed new phrasing, which, really, is not that different from the language they discussed and rejected last week. Before approving the revised statement, the Council agreed to remove a few words due to a lawsuit threat from the initiative’s proponents, a move that concerned opposition. 

Eureka City Attorney Autumn Luna explained that after releasing the agenda with reworked language, Brad Johnson, an attorney representing Citizens for a Better Eureka – the group that supports the measure – shared some comments. (The same thing happened before last week’s meeting.)

“It is my recommendation tonight that we do make a couple of adjustments based on that feedback from Mr. Johnson, in an effort, again, to work with proponents and ensure that there isn’t litigation about the ballot question itself,” Luna said.

Specifically, Luna recommended removal of “above ground level” and “subject to review for consistency with state law” from the following proposal:

Shall the measure amending Eureka’s General Plan, creating an overlay designation for downtown that limits 21 City-owned lots, with exceptions, to parking at or above the current capacity and above-ground-level high-density housing, and creating an overlay designation for the former Jacobs Middle School site, allowing housing, public, quasi-public, and commercial uses, with at least 40% of non-public use area dedicated to high-density housing, subject to review for consistency with state law, be adopted?

Here is the result, clocking in at 64 words:

Shall the measure amending Eureka’s General Plan, creating an overlay designation for downtown that limits 21 City-owned lots, with exceptions, to parking at or above the current capacity and high-density housing, and creating an overlay designation for the former Jacobs Middle School site, allowing housing, public, quasi-public, and commercial uses, with at least 40% of non-public use area dedicated to high-density housing, be adopted?

Councilmember G. Mario Fernandez asked why “subject to review for consistency with state law” was deleted, and Luna explained that those words “frankly could go without saying,” and therefore seemed worth removing given the litigation threat.

During public comment, Solomon Everta – a member of the group “I Like Eureka Housing!” which was formed to oppose the Housing for All and Downtown Vitality initiative – voiced concern about the proponents’ influence over the ballot language, and said he’d happily contribute as well.

“Just wanted to note that opposition is here and is aware of what’s going on. And we would like [the measure] to be extremely neutral and not be favoring,” Everta said. “And the rewrite, in my mind, seemed to be favoring the proponents more than the initial offering had been — but I’m no lawyer.”

The only other commenter was Johnson, who thanked Luna for suggesting the changes and said that proponents “would not see a need to litigate” over the revised wording. 

During discussion, Fernandez questioned why supporters of the measure were involved but not its opponents. 

Luna explained that the City didn’t reach out to either side for input, but that proponents independently submitted detailed comments prior to both meetings that agendized the ballot wording.

“What we receive ahead of time is what we can then propose to Council,” Luna said, adding that the City didn’t receive “lengthy input from opponents.” 

“I’m responding to an attorney, who is the proponent’s attorney, who has suggested that if the language were not amended, the City would face litigation,” Luna said. 

“It’s one of my primary jobs to advise you in a way that ensures that the City doesn’t get sued. I have done that while still being faithful to a neutrality in the question.”

Councilmember Leslie Castellano said she continues to feel concerned about the initiative’s ability to balance neutrality with relevant context and education about the measure’s intent, and asked how a potential lawsuit would impact the City.

Luna responded that it would take up time and resources, and tentatively predicted that the outcome would be similar to approving the revised 64-word version that was before the Council. 

Before the group voted, Mayor Kim Bergel noted that Luna will prepare a neutral 500-word statement to appear in the voter information guide, which is distributed with ballots. 

The present council members each voted to approve the revised 64-word statement, with Councilmember Scott Bauer absent. Watch the full 15-minute meeting above.

Video: Daniel Braden

In a world that seems increasingly divided, it’s good to be reminded that, in times of great strain, our community can band together to defeat common enemies conspiring to oppress us all. 

Today in Eureka, that enemy was a flaming garbage truck.

Friend of the LoCO Daniel Braden files an uplifting report from Eureka’s Westside, where, earlier today, a smoking Recology truck prompted a swift response from neighbors, who, through their efforts, ensured that less garbage would burn. The following is Braden’s firsthand account: 

“I was out walking the dogs when I saw smoke coming from the Recology truck. The driver pulled over at B & Trinity in Eureka. Across the street lives a state police officer (fish and game?) and they came out to assist and assess. Soon other neighbors came out and brought garden hoses. One citizen climbed onto the truck and was handed a hose to spray from the top while the driver operated the hydraulic compactor to smother the flames. Fire truck arrived after the truck was extinguished.”

Wonderful. The moral of the story here, friends, (if you want one), is together we can still do great things. As we forge ahead into an uncertain future, let us remember the lesson learned the day a flaming garbage truck brought out the best in Eureka. Namaste. 

Press release from Calfire:

After another wet winter and above average snowpack, warming temperatures and winds are quickly drying out the abundant annual grass crop. The increasing fire danger posed by the high volume of dead grass and hotter, drier conditions in the region is prompting CAL FIRE to suspend all burn permits for outdoor residential burning within the State Responsibility Area of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. This suspension takes effect July 1st, 2024, and suspends all residential outdoor burning of landscape debris such as branches and leaves.

Since January 1, 2024, CAL FIRE and firefighters across the state have already responded to over 2,429 wildfires. While outdoor burning of landscape debris by homeowners is no longer allowed, CAL FIRE is asking residents to take that extra time to ensure that they are prepared for wildfires by maintaining a minimum of 100 feet of Defensible Space around every home and buildings on their property and being prepared to evacuate if the time comes.

Here are some tips to help prepare homes and property:

• Clear all dead and or dying vegetation 100 feet from around all structures. • Landscape with fire resistant plants and non-flammable ground cover. • Find alternative ways to dispose of landscape debris like chipping or hauling it to a biomass energy or green waste facility

The department may issue restricted temporary burning permits if there is an essential reason due to public health and safety. Agriculture, land management, fire training, and other industrial-type burning may proceed if a CAL FIRE official inspects the burn site and issues a special permit.

The suspension of burn permits for residential landscape debris does not apply to campfires within organized campgrounds or on private property. Campfires may be permitted if the campfire is maintained in such a manner as to prevent its spread to the wildland. A campfire permit can be obtained at local fire stations or online at PreventWildfireCA.org.

For additional information on how to create Defensible Space, on how to be prepared for wildfires, as well as tips to prevent wildfires, visit www.ReadyForWildfire.org.

Months of speculation and complaints about when, or even if, Gov. Gavin Newsom would give his annual State of the State address ended this morning with more of a whimper than a bang.

At promptly 10 a.m., Newsom posted a pre-recorded speech to his social media channels. Flanked by American and California flags, the Democratic governor solemnly warned that “the California way of life is under attack” by forces threatened by the state’s diversity, pluralism and innovative spirit.

“Our values and our way of life are the antidote to the poisonous populism of the right, and to the fear and anxiety that so many people are feeling today,” Newsom said. “For conservatives and delusional California bashers, their success depends on our failure.”

Eschewing the convention of delivering live remarks to the Legislature in the stately Assembly chambers of the Capitol, Newsom’s subdued approach this year drew fierce condemnation from his Republican critics — who had fastidiously tracked the days since he canceled his original speech in March and called him a coward for not showing up in person to defend his record in office.

“While this pre-recorded speech fulfills the governor’s legal mandate, it does not in any real way fulfill his responsibility to Californians who deserve a safe, affordable and opportunity-filled future,” Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Murrieta Republican, said in a pre-response video.

But the governor’s dodge is unlikely to matter to most Californians, many of whom may not register this low-key event at all. And that’s precisely the point.

Letting the rescheduling of the State of the State drag on for so long was a mistake that opened Newsom to unnecessary, if largely inconsequential, criticism, said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant who served as communications director for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Forgoing a big speech ends the saga with as little attention as possible.

“He got caught in tough circumstances here,” Stutzman said.

Newsom’s remarks included a lengthy defense of what California has accomplished in the past few years — protecting reproductive rights, seizing fentanyl at the border with Mexico, clearing homeless encampments — which he argued undermines a persistent narrative of a failing state.

Faced with rising concerns over how California is handling crime, Newsom pointed to statistics that indicate gun violence is far higher in Republican-led states.

“All of those facts fly in the face of the California haters who want to tear us down because they know our success is a spotlight on their own failures,” Newsom said.

The governor also highlighted the CARE Court system that he developed to push more people with serious mental health challenges into treatment and a bond approved by voters in March to fund more beds for those patients.

“Every year, the people of California stun the world with something new that our detractors could never have dreamed of,” he said. “The only surprise is that they keep being surprised.”

It’s not unprecedented for Newsom to skip a traditional State of the State address. He’s done it three times in his six years in office, including a speech from an empty Dodgers Stadium in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and a four-day policy tour across California last year.

But today’s event — fulfilling the governor’s constitutional obligation to “report to the Legislature each calendar year on the condition of the State” by sending them the text of his remarks — was the most muted of Newsom’s tenure, reflecting the sour political mood that he currently faces.

Newsom originally planned to deliver the State of the State in March, following the primary election, but he abruptly delayed the speech when results for his signature mental health care proposal wound up too close to call. It ultimately passed by less than four-tenths of a percentage point, after weeks of counting.

The governor’s office said at the time that it would work with the Legislature to find a new date. As weeks turned into months, however, their time was consumed instead by negotiations to close California’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit, not to mention bill hearings and a gubernatorial trip to the Vatican to discuss climate change. Newsom has also battled recently with proponents of an initiative to strengthen criminal penalties for drug and property crimes, pushing unsuccessfully to remove it from the November ballot.

Amid a season of unflattering headlines for the governor, a new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California this month found that just 44% of respondents approved of Newsom’s job performance while 54% disapproved, the worst assessment he has received since taking office in 2019.

With Newsom and legislative leaders reaching a budget deal over the weekend, and the Legislature soon heading out of town for most of July on recess, the State of the State was suddenly back on — sort of.

The governor’s office announced its plan for a reformatted speech on Sunday. Instead of visiting the Assembly chambers, Newsom held a private reception with lawmakers before his remarks were posted online, according to a spokesperson.

Despite the brouhaha over this year’s address, the pomp and ceremony of the State of the State has long fluctuated as different governors found variable utility in the event.

Two decades ago, Schwarzenegger capitalized on his movie star power and got the evening newscasts to broadcast his speeches live. Stutzman said the State of the State was a tool for Schwarzenegger to launch his annual agenda.

“There is some benefit to the governor working with the Legislature to lay out some priorities at the beginning of the session,” Stutzman said. “Let ’em know where you’re going to put your political capital.”

Schwarzenegger’s successor, Gov. Jerry Brown, did not seem to relish the requirement and even folded it into the inauguration for his final term. But Brown was very bound by tradition, noted Miriam Pawel, author of “The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation,” and he showed up to the Legislature each year to speak — albeit often for fewer than 20 minutes, offering philosophical admonitions alongside rundowns of his accomplishments.

“They were very in character,” Pawel said. “They were short, they were to the point.”

Though considerably longer, Newsom’s latest speech leaned toward the Brown mode, placing California in an “extraordinary moment in history.” The governor evoked the spread of fascism across Europe in 1939 and, without naming former President Trump, suggested that California was a bulwark against a similar creeping rollback of progress.

“We are presented with a choice between a society that embraces our values and a world darkened by division and discrimination,” Newsom said. “But California won’t bend. We are a success story exactly because of our universality and our extraordinary diversity, and because we practice pluralism.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Humboldt County Drug Task Force release: 

On June 22, 2024, Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF) Agents with assistance from the Fortuna Police Department (FoPD), served a search warrant on Renee Hernandez Pulido (28 years old from Eureka). HCDTF Agents observed Hernandez Pulido travel from Humboldt County to Los Angeles, California. Upon Hernandez Pulido’s return to Humboldt County, Agents conducted a traffic stop on his vehicle. FoPD Officer Stevens and his K9 partner Cain conducted an open-air sniff on the vehicle. K9 Cain alerted to the vehicle indicating drugs were present.   

Inside the vehicle, Agents located Renee Hernandez Pulido and 2.2 pounds of cocaine and fentanyl mixture. The 2.2 pounds of cocaine/fentanyl has a street value of approximately $25,000. 

Renee Hernandez Pulido was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility where she was booked on the following charges:

• HS11351- Possession of a Controlled Substance
• HS11352(A)- Transportation of a Controlled Substances for Sales
• HS11352(B)- Transportation of a Controlled Substance through Non-Contiguous Counties 

Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-267-9976.

To understand the forces tearing apart California’s Shasta County, consider what has happened to Cathy Darling Allen.

In five consecutive elections, voters in the rural county have selected her as their chief election official. That means that since 2004, she’s been responsible for voter registration, the administration of elections, and a host of related tasks. She’s consistently been the only Democrat in countywide office in the conservative county, where Donald Trump won more than 60% of the vote in 2020. In 2022, her most recent appearance on the ballot, she took in nearly 70% of the vote. By those indicators, she seems pretty popular.

But she has received a steady stream of threats from a loud minority of Shasta County residents who falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. She has been repeatedly accused in public meetings and on social media of engaging in both satanism and witchcraft. The most committed MAGA activists have circulated petitions accusing her of sedition and treason. She’s been followed walking to her car. Someone — she still isn’t certain who — installed a trail camera behind her office, where votes are counted.

It’s taken a toll. Darling Allen, 55, had no history of heart problems. But in November, she was diagnosed with heart failure. Doctors say stress was a factor, and told her that in order to stay alive, she would have to reduce it. She went on medical leave in December and officially retired as the county’s registrar of voters in early May, two years before her latest term was scheduled to end.

Retiring early “feels like a get out of jail free card,” she said over a salt-free breakfast at a diner in downtown Redding in March. “But it isn’t. It has all these conditions.”

She monitors her heart rate and goes to “a lot” of doctors appointments. She doesn’t go to county meetings anymore, even though her name comes up at all of them. Her daughter monitors them online, letting her know if something crops up that requires her attention. Often, it does: Shasta County has become a national symbol, roiled by a series of well-publicized clashes over election administration.

Tucked in the heavily forested northeastern reaches of California, Shasta County was named for Mount Shasta, a volcano known to erupt in bursts of activity followed by thousands of years of dormancy. The volcano has been quiet for generations. In contrast, the pressures felt in Shasta County — economic turbulence, the fallout from devastating wildfires and the COVID pandemic, the visible presence of militias, the swelling growth of a local megachurch, a housing crisis, and massive cultural shifts — disrupt daily life for many.

First: Cathy Darling Allen, the County Clerk and Registrar of Voters for Shasta County, in Redding on April 2, 2024. Darling Allen will retire in May to reduce stress in light of new health concerns. Last: Joanna Francescut, Shasta County assistant county clerk and registrar of voters, outside the Shasta Superior Court in Redding on April 2, 2024. Photos by Cristian Gonzalez for CalMatters

Elections aren’t the only fault line, but they’re the most visible, and the cracks are widening.

In mid-March, a volunteer offered the invocation at a county meeting and prayed for “peace and calmness.” Moments later, she called one of the commissioners “the spawn of satan running interference for a hostile” voter registrar. Members of the audience screamed at each other. One woman told the other side of the room to “shove it.” A man blew a raspberry back.

“We are in the third grade,” whispered Joanna Francescut, Darling Allen’s deputy, who began to lead the department in her absence.

While the anger expressed toward them at the meetings is unsettling, neither Francescut nor Darling Allen believes they are the cause of it. Elections aren’t even the cause, they don’t think. “It’s a trauma response,” Francescut later said, while her teenage daughter danced nearby during a line dancing class at a local brewery, packed with families and twirling couples. Darling Allen agreed.

“This community has been through so much,” she said. Elections just became what everyone was mad about after 2020, when national politics and local elected officials became obsessed with Trump’s claims he’d actually won the election. “That’s why the meetings are so bad.”

First: The Shasta County Board of Supervisors votes to certify the primary election in Redding on April 2, 2024. Last: Supervisors Patrick Henry Jones, left, and Supervisor Kevin Crye listen to public comments during the Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting in Redding on April 2, 2024. Photos by Cristian Gonzalez for CalMatters

Democrats and moderate Republicans in Shasta County say they are worried the anger and division will poison the community for good, and the goals of the ongoing assault on local institutions are increasingly unclear.

“This isn’t a big city. We can’t just stop talking to each other,” said lifelong resident Jenny O’Connell, who comes to the board of supervisors meetings each week and begs for civility. “‘Oh, gee, I’d love for my kid to go, but those other kids are there. I’d love to go to dinner, but the wrong people own that restaurant.’ It’s going to start breaking down our economy.”

What’s happening in Shasta County is a concentrated version of the same rage playing out in deep red counties across the United States. Think Kerr County in Texas or Cochise County in Arizona or Washoe County in Nevada, where election administrators have left office citing untenable treatment and consistently outraged constituents. While elections may be the outrage du jour, officials and longtime residents in all of these counties are concerned the damage to civic life will outlive the fad.

Justin Grimmer is a political scientist at Stanford University who monitors specific election conspiracy theorists and reaches out to the counties they engage with, offering rebuttal information. Shasta is one of many he’s visited and dozens he’s interacted with. But it stands out in his mind. While other counties may have talked about election integrity once or twice, Shasta has bogged down, pressing the issue in every supervisors meeting over nearly four years. In his mind, it’s a tragedy, with the community as collateral damage.

“Every minute you are spending working on a fake problem you are not working on a real one, and there are real problems in Shasta County,” he said. The lengths elected officials there are willing to go, and the millions of dollars they are willing to spend, also stand out to him. “It’s hard to think of a parallel.”

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting in Redding on April 2, 2024. Photo by Cristian Gonzalez for CalMatters

When things went too far

O’Connell — who speaks at meetings with a soft voice and often wears strawberry-themed or patterned clothing — has made reuniting the community a personal mission. Her own husband is among the loudest critics of the board of supervisors and writes a regular column on a local news and commentary website, so she recognizes how radical her position seems by contrast.

At times, even she thinks her attempts are futile. At a meeting in late March, Supervisor Patrick Henry Jones was caught on a hot mic referring to her as “stupid Jenny.” During the same meeting, a speaker disguised by a gas mask to protect his identity read “leaked” texts from a different supervisor that referred to O’Connell’s husband, the local blogger who is also a county employee, as “a stupid piece of shit” and joked about beating him up and taking his lunch money.

When O’Connell approached the microphone at a supervisors meeting the following week, she was in tears, struggling to get the words out.

“Patrick was right. I was stupid,” she said between sobs. “I thought if people saw that if this woman could get along that didn’t agree with them, that other people would do it too, but it’s just too far. They won’t.”

It’s hard for O’Connell to pin down exactly when things went too far, but she’s certain Jones should shoulder much of the blame. Darling Allen agrees. Even those who agree with his politics acknowledge he has done more than any other elected official to divide the county.

In 2010, while mayor of Redding, Jones protested the construction of a local bridge, vowing to never use it. Instead, he dressed up as George Washington and rowed across the Sacramento River in a wooden boat. He repeatedly invited a far-right documentary crew to film him — complete with flickering lights and dramatic music — doing things like dismantling COVID protections in county offices. In 2021, he paid a technician to come up from Bakersfield and give him a lie detector test after multiple county officials had accused him of lying about attempting to fire a former police chief. He passed.

“Is it possible that Jones actually believes his own bullshit?” a local website asked at the time.

Jones’ efforts have recently been focused on elections.

Last year he led an effort to rid the county of Dominion voting machines, of the type Trump complained about after the 2020 elections. Trump’s rhetoric on voting machines led to a wave of heavily Republican counties rejecting electronic voting of any kind, in favor of hand-cast, hand-counted ballots. Shasta County supervisors voted to hand count ballots in January 2023, over the objections of Darling Allen, who cited cost projections, the county’s own simulations, and multiple academic studies showing the process would be expensive and error prone.

First: Poll workers process ballots at the Shasta County Elections office in Redding on November 7, 2023. Last: A voter fills out their ballot at a polling station at the American Legion in Shasta Lake during a special election in Shasta County November 7, 2023. Photos by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

Poll workers process ballots at the Shasta County Elections office in Redding, California on November 7, 2023. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

Ultimately, the state stepped in, making the practice illegal in a county of Shasta’s size. Jones pressed it anyway, championing the establishment of an election commission to investigate voter fraud, which has been roiled since its inception by resignations and threats of lawsuits. Jones has repeatedly accused the elections department — and Darling Allen personally — of violating election law and fabricating evidence that hand counting is impractical.

There is no proof any of those claims are true. During her 20-year tenure, votes were counted efficiently and the results have never been successfully challenged. California law allows citizens to lodge complaints against local offices with county grand juries, which are then compelled to investigate. In the last five years, the local grand jury has been repeatedly convened for such investigations into her office following allegations that track closely with Jones’. No wrongdoing has ever been found.

For years, Jones has spent hours observing election processes in Darling Allen’s office. He spends much more time there than in his own office one floor up from the board’s chambers. If his constituents need some of his time, they know to skip that office altogether in favor of his family’s Redding gun store, Jones Fort.

There, seated below mounted elk and buffalo heads in the low-slung building that takes up much of a city block, he explained the origins of his election concerns and the reason he was so intent on hand counting. In 2012, he said, he sat next to local union leader Andrew Meredith and counted 30,000 ballots over the course of two days, part of a hand recount in a city council race. He said they never disagreed, and together caught more than 200 “computer errors.” Jones said they regularly had lunch after that, and became friends.

“When you agree on something 30,000 times you start to get along,” he said.

But Meredith flatly says the episode “didn’t happen” and says he’s never interacted socially with Jones. While Jones observed the counting process, Meredith and others who were present in 2012 say he personally counted no ballots. Ultimately, the total changed by two votes. Jones declined to address the contradiction.

“The thing with Patrick, I think,” said District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye, who supports Jones and credits him with his own entry to politics, “is that sometimes he has two different experiences, combines them, and tells them as one story.”

But whether the stories Jones tells are partially true or completely fabricated hasn’t made much difference to Darling Allen, who said his accusations about her credibility and the web of conspiracies they’ve produced have significantly affected her life. Prior to Darling Allen’s retirement and two weeks after she returned from the hospital in November, Jones conveyed through staff that, now that the California Legislature had banned hand counting, he expected her to return hundreds of thousands of dollars from her budget meant to pay for the process.

Much of it had already been spent — hand counting requires significantly more space and different materials than the office had on hand. Returning the money would have meant laying off staff. Darling Allen’s heart rate began to race. That, she says, convinced her to retire.

Christian Gardiner speaks about his frustration with the delay in certifying the results of the March Presidential Primary Election in Redding on April 2, 2024. Photo by Cristian Gonzalez for CalMatters

And even though her deputy, Francescut, has stepped in as the registrar since she went on leave, Darling Allen finds Jones still looms large. The waitress who served Darling Allen her salt-free breakfast thanked her “for her service” and apologized for her treatment before asking when the results of Jones’ race would be announced.

A few days later, Darling Allen and Francescut got up and moved tables at a local lunch spot to avoid the ire of one of Jones’ friends, who was seated nearby.

Back at the office, election staff were continuing to tabulate the results of the primary election from a few days before. The results wouldn’t be final for about two weeks, but it wasn’t looking good for Jones.

Ultimately, his challenger — first-time candidate Matt Plummer — won so resoundingly that there will be no contest in November. Plummer got more than 60%, so he will take Jones’ place in January 2025.

When those results came before the board of supervisors in early April, Jones announced he had no intention of certifying the election. His gripes were many and varied: Francescut, following in Darling Allen’s footsteps, had violated vaguely described laws. He described rules for auditing results, which appeared to have no basis in state law, that were also violated. He was confident, he said, that the rest of the supervisors would agree that the results were so flawed as to be invalid.

In fact, that wasn’t in their power. Darling Allen had already certified the results, sending them to the secretary of state. The public declaration was a procedural step only. That didn’t seem to matter to Jones, who called machine voting “an insanity.”

“We’re purchasing machinery we cannot verify,” he said, adding a false claim that machines used by a quarter of Americans “can be hacked with $10.50 of parts.”

A recount performed in the recent election, he said, was error-filled. “They didn’t get it right,” he said. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

Ultimately, Jones was the only supervisor to reject the results.

Election fights mask Shasta’s larger problems

While Jones’ loss was resounding, Supervisor Kevin Crye’s own victory was a squeaker. As part of the March primary, voters had to determine whether the first-term Republican should be recalled. The effort had been raging since nearly the first month he took office in January 2023, when he surprised voters by joining Jones in ending the Dominion contract. He defeated the recall attempt by only 50 votes.

“I didn’t distrust the machines,” he told me. But he said it was clear to him, by the time he took office, that community anger at Dominion wasn’t going away. He also said he preferred to buy machines rather than continue an expensive rental contract. Regardless, he does not personally feel there is adequate proof to suggest the 2020 election was stolen. This distinction matters to Crye, and he says it has been ignored by local and national media. “They keep calling me a fascist. I’m not a fascist.”

For her part, Darling Allen doesn’t find this explanation comforting. During his first race in 2022, Crye — who runs a successful chain of Ninja Warrior gyms — visited her office daily to observe vote counting. Elections staff took pains to engage with him, answering questions about the process. “We spent hours with him explaining how things worked over multiple days, and he was pleasant and understood,” she said, concluding about his 2023 rejection of Dominion machines, “His vote was two-faced.”

That vote sparked the recall effort. Then, a county-funded visit to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s property in Minnesota fanned the flames on the outrage. By the time of Crye’s March 2023 visit, Lindell was already in hot water for his false claims of election malfeasance — he’d been kicked off Twitter, had his cell phone seized by the FBI, and was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 Commission. Crye pulled out of speaking at a Lindell event as a result of the controversy.

The sheer number of public battles over elections have given the false impression, county employees and local Democrats say, that the issue of voting and Darling Allen’s management of it are the most dire problems Shasta County faces. In reality, it has far more pressing concerns: It has among the state’s highest poverty rates and highest infant mortality rates. Suicides occur there at two-and-ahalf times the state average. Homelessness is worse than anyone can remember.

Darling Allen isn’t immune: She’s raising her 6-year-old granddaughter, whose mother has battled drug addiction for years. Darling Allen is open about it — many local families have been broken apart by the county’s high addiction rate.

Shasta County was home to some of the first settlers to California, who were drawn to the area during the Gold Rush. The area that now comprises the city of Redding, the county seat, was originally called Poverty Flats. After the rush wore itself out, the surrounding forests provided thousands of well-paying timber jobs that sustained the community for decades. By the 1970s the industry was declining nationwide, and by the 1990s, legislation to protect the threatened spotted owl shut down nearly all area timber mills. It’s still a sore spot for many.

In 2018, a camper trailer scraping pavement ignited what would become the second most devastating fire in California history — the Carr Fire, named for the intersection at which it started. Before it was completely contained that August, the blaze destroyed 1,100 homes in Shasta County. Many were never rebuilt.

The housing crisis has been compounded by the growth of a local megachurch, Bethel. Thousands have moved from across the country and the world to live near and participate in the church, which has a reported 11,000 members in a city of 90,000 people. The church’s online streaming platform and wildly successful music program — Bethel Music, which has 5 million subscribers on YouTube — have made it a household name in Evangelical Christian worship circles across the world.

Longtime residents say it’s changed the fabric of the community, though they disagree on whether that’s good. The church has driven “faith tourism” to the county, and has brought some racial and ethnic diversity. Nearly all of the new businesses — the hip cafes, pizza restaurants, and bars with good happy hour specials — have been opened by people who moved to the area for Bethel.

Bethel describes itself as “an American non-denominational neo-charismatic megachurch.” It has a conversion therapy program and ministries dedicated to “faith healing” and “dead raising.” Homeless residents, especially those with visible disabilities, say they are sometimes approached several times per day to be “healed” by Bethel churchgoers. In 2019, the church unsuccessfully attempted to resurrect the 2-year-old daughter of one of the pastors.

So, while many in the community are relieved to see Jones’ tenure on the board of supervisors come to a close in January, Plummer’s ascendence has sparked anxieties of its own. Plummer — who will succeed Jones next year — moved to the county almost a decade ago to join Bethel, and is an active participant in the church along with his wife and three daughters.

Plummer hopes that he can help restore order to the board of supervisors’ meetings. His day job is doing team building and critical thinking exercises for companies, and he’s got a lot of ideas for how that might come in handy.

“Maybe I’ll put a marble in a jar for every speaker who follows the rules,” he said, laughing. “When the jar is full I’ll pay for a pizza party.”

Francescut returns to her old job, and a tough task

Francescut took over the reins from Darling Allen in December. She’s been working in the elections office since 2008, when she took an hourly job verifying signatures on ballot petitions. She’s worked her way up in the 16 years since.

At a meeting in April, Francescut explained an extended absence after last November’s election: Her father-in-law had died after a two-year battle with cancer. A man in the audience — whose dog took up the width of the aisle next to his seat, secured by a rope leash — saw an opportunity.

“Karma’s a bitch!” he yelled.

Francescut said she’s mostly unfazed by the treatment. Raised in what she described as “the Ruby Ridge part” of Idaho, she says she’s learned not to take political disagreements personally. That’s becoming more and more difficult, she acknowledges.

Not every gathering in Shasta County is that way, though. Crye, the supervisor for District 1, holds weekly Friday morning gatherings at a coffee shop in his district. While many of the faces there are the same as those in the supervisors meetings, none of them are screaming. A recent one in early April featured a candid conversation about the county’s interpersonal problems. O’Connell was among the attendees, as usual, smiling quietly at the dozen or so people also gathered.

The attendees, mostly supporters of Crye, agreed the community was increasingly polarized and the supervisors meetings were out of hand. They said, though, that things had simmered down from the type of bullhorn-assisted screaming matches that had broken out during COVID lockdowns.

“What am I supposed to do about it? I don’t think I can do anything about it,” Crye, the elected chair for the board of supervisors, told the room when asked how he could shift the tone.

Shasta County District One Supervisor Kevin W. Crye and District Three Supervisor Mary Rickert discuss the proper use of the Center for Tech and Civic Life grant in Redding on April 2, 2024. Photo by Cristian Gonzalez for CalMatters

Francescut thinks the supervisors have more influence on tone than they realize, but — as of mid-June — she is no longer the target of the rage being voiced in their meetings. Last week, after two days of public interviews, the board of supervisors voted 3-2 to hire retired prosecutor Tom Toller to fill Darling Allen’s position through 2026. Toller has never run an election or volunteered as a poll worker. Francescut, who has worked for the office for 16 years, will return to the deputy position.

“What goes on in the elections office at this point is somewhat of a black box to me,” Toller told the board the day before he was appointed. “But I’m committed to quickly learning.”

Republican supervisors lauded Toller for his leadership style and his willingness to buck instructions issued by the secretary of state. In his cover letter to the board, Toller cited his belief that the county was ​​“in no way beholden to the Secretary of State in Sacramento, as if her interpretation was chapter and verse of Holy Writ.”

Clint Curtis, an attorney championed by Jones, also interviewed. After the 2000 election, Curtis claimed to have invented software that could manipulate the results of an election, and has been making similar claims since. Jones allowed him to speak at length during his public interview, where he made clear he would fire most of the staff.

Francescut’s interview, by comparison, was far less collegial. After interrogating her for decisions made by Darling Allen, Jones accused Francescut of “mal-conduct” that he characterized as “grave.” He repeated false accusations that both of them had violated the law, and that he’d witnessed them make errors. When Supervisor Mary Rickert read emails in support of Francescut and highlighted her popularity with the public, Crye said such support was immaterial.

“We’ve all been elected by the people in our district to make the best decisions we feel that need to be made,” he said. “If the people wanted to bring back slavery, I’d say you probably wouldn’t do that.”

Crye said he would vote for Francescut if Jones and others supported Curtis, which ultimately swung the vote in Toller’s favor.

Employees of the elections office were lined up along the back of the room as the vote came in, showing support for Francescut. Many of them are likely to leave as a result of the decision — more than a third of the office’s 21 staff members have already resigned this year.

For her part, Francescut she has no plans to leave. “I can’t go anywhere before November, ethically,” she said, though the decision devastated her. She’ll spend the next few months helping to train Toller and attempting to retain the staff she can convince to stay. The comparative obscurity of the deputy position will also allow her to spend less time interacting with the board.

“I’m tired of being told ‘break the law, and if you don’t we won’t hire you.’ Toller can take that heat for a while,” she said. “I’m just looking for some kind of joy to come back to this process.”

A voter with a mail-in ballot walks into a polling station at the American Legion in Shasta Lake, California, during a special election in Shasta County November 7, 2023. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

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This story is a collaboration with Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat’s free national newsletter here.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.