Far-right-led recall roils Shasta County
Moderate Republican supervisor backed COVID rules
“This is not the community I’ve known for 30 years.” Judy Maxwell, a registered Republican who runs a small insurance business in Redding
REDDING — In a small storefront cluttered with American flags, MAGA hats and gun memorabilia, about a half dozen people waited their turn for a haircut. They hadn’t come to the Cottonwood Barber Shop on a recent afternoon, though, just for a trim.
“What’s going on with the election, Woody?” asked one of the customers, among scores who regularly drop by the shop to talk local politics with barber Woody Clendenen, a well-known resident of Shasta County and head of the town of Cottonwood’s much-talkedabout militia.
Things are looking good, Clendenen replied.
Shasta County, an uncommon bastion of conservatism in deep blue California, was about to anchor its position on the political right after a highprofile recall election last week — one criticized for, among other reasons, being supported by a militia leader.
Voters in this rural stretch of California, about four hours north of San Francisco, succeeded in toppling the chairman of the county Board of Supervisors. The ousted leader, Leonard Moty, a former police chief of the county seat of Redding and lifelong Republican, will be replaced by a more conservative candidate, who supporters say better represents the county’s interests.
Opponents, though, say the board is slipping dangerously into the hands of people sympathetic to xenophobic, conspiratorial and racist views. Tensions have run high.
“I just see us going more toward the Constitution and more toward liberty,” said Clendenen, whose barbershop, about 20 miles south on Interstate 5 from Redding, has become an almost spiritual center for residents pressing for change on the far right.
In many ways, the politics in Shasta County mirror a broader rift within state and national Republican ranks. Establishment candidates, even in out-of-the-way places, are increasingly facing more conservative challengers, many inspired by former President Donald Trump.
But the narrative in this part of the Sacramento Valley, rimmed on three sides by mountains, has a distinct North State-feel, infused by the anger and fear that come with a well-armed electorate; proponents of the State of Jefferson, who are trying to forge a breakaway 51st state; and a well-funded election campaign strewn with cowboys and tough talk.
Whether or not Shasta County residents like the result of the election, and whatever they think about the sometimes vicious run-up, the contest has undeniably left what’s long felt like a tightly bound community in stark discord.
“This is not the community I’ve known for 30 years,” said Judy Maxwell, a registered Republican who runs a small insurance business in Redding and who opposed the recall. “People are generally so open and friendly here, whether they’re at the grocery store or wherever. But things have snowballed into all this argument and disagreement. To see this is very upsetting to me.”
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Kathy Stainbrook, one of the architects of the recall, said it didn’t have to come to this.
Before she set her sights on the Board of Supervisors, and before she even got interested in politics, the Redding resident and former teacher with five kids and eight grandchildren was simply an advocate for schools. When the pandemic hit, that changed, like so much else.
Many in Shasta County, where Republicans outnumber Democrats more than 2 to 1, were irate over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID restrictions, and they took their fury to the supervisors. Some complained about businesses being told to shut down in an effort to slow the spread of the deadly virus, but for Stainbrook, it was the closure of schools and the masking and social distancing of students that disturbed her most.
“We’ve done this to our children for every day for two-plus years,” she said. “Every kid’s grades have tanked.”
While county supervisors have little say over state policies, much less schools, Stainbrook and others say the board should have been more vocal in its opposition and tried to influence the debate.
“If they had been brave and courageous and said, ‘No more,’ we could have started linking arms with other brave counties and become a force,” Stainbrook said.
The outrage over COVID restrictions wasn’t unique to Shasta County, and health and education experts across the country have been critical of resistance to proven strategies for combating infection.
As it was, officials in Shasta County rarely enforced COVID rules, and masks have never been widely worn.
Nonetheless, anger with state mandates not only festered but fed off long-standing frustration with Sacramento. The sparsely populated North State has never had the representation to push its conservative agenda, making its residents essentially invisible when it comes to state policy, be it gun laws, tax codes or approaches to criminal justice.
Shasta County numbers about 180,000 people.
“You don’t want to be told what to do all the time. No one does,” said Terry Rapoza, a recall supporter and coordinator for the State of Jefferson movement, which for years has been seeking to create a new state for nearly two dozen rural counties in Northern California and southern Oregon. “It’s really about the people wanting their voices heard.”
The discontent in Shasta County began to turn supervisors’ meetings into circus-like affairs, with bullhorns, shouting matches and name-calling. On a number of occasions, criticism morphed into threats of violence.
“Right now we’re being peaceful,” said bar owner and local militia member Carlos Zapata in comments that were widely circulated online from a board meeting two years ago. “But it’s not going to be peaceful much longer, OK. And this isn’t a threat. I’m not a criminal. I’ve never been a criminal. But I’m telling you good citizens are going to turn to real concerned and revolutionary citizens real soon.”
Some dismissed the heated proclamations as harmless rhetoric. The intimidation, however, was real, especially with the increasing involvement of militia members in local politics.
County Supervisor Mary Rickert, who was among those on the receiving end of death threats, said she tried to reason with her critics, reaching out to them for meetings or phone calls. But she said it was of little use, because they often fell back on hyperbole and misinformation that was tough to make sense of.
“When I get called a socialist or something, I think it’s the most ludicrous thing ever,” she said. “I’m a rancher. I’m not what I would consider liberal, not whatsoever.”
Rickert also became a target for a recall, alongside Moty and Supervisor Joe Chimenti, all Republicans. The three were pegged by county critics after they voted last year to censure their colleagues, Supervisors Les Baugh and Patrick Jones, for opening the board chamber to the public when it was temporarily closed during the pandemic.
Ultimately, enough signatures were collected to qualify only Moty’s recall for the ballot.
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On a recent morning, in farm country outside Redding, Rick Brown pulled his pickup into the parking lot of the Happy Valley Market to purchase a lottery ticket and a package of chewing tobacco.
The longtime county resident acknowledged a recent media blitz by recall supporters, having flooded radio, TV and social media, and said he was inclined to agree with their sentiments. He voted to unseat the supervisor.
“He was all about himself instead of the people,” Brown said, as he sat with his dog, Rowdy, a mix of golden retriever and poodle.
While the recall effort always had core supporters, many say it wouldn’t have had nearly the success without hundreds of thousands of dollars that poured into the campaign, a giant sum for such a small county and offering a huge advantage in outreach.
A half-million dollars of the money came from Reverge Anselmo. A film producer and son of a billionaire, Anselmo once lived in the county before moving to Connecticut, and he is said to harbor a grudge against county leadership over building permits. He declined to discuss the matter with The Chronicle.
The recall effort also was boosted by a controversial documentary series about taking back control of local government. The 10-part “Red, White and Blueprint,” which included Clendenen, Rapoza and Zapata and featured men on horseback and rural families saying they were losing their freedom, won a large following on YouTube.
The production was billed as a means of inspiring recalls of elected officials across the nation. In Shasta County, it helped set the stage for plans to remove not only supervisors, but the district attorney and superintendent of schools, who county critics say are next on a long list of leaders who must go.
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County Supervisor Patrick Jones, who appeared in “Red, White and Blueprint” and pressed for the recall of Moty, said he expects good things to come of the change.
Speaking by phone from his family’s gun shop in Redding, where he’s held office hours during the pandemic, Jones explained that Moty’s likely replacement, local school board President Tim Garman, generally shares his views. His addition will empower the board’s more conservative bloc with a 3-2 majority. Garman led significantly this week in the vote count against three others who are hoping to take Moty’s job, but the result was yet to be called.
“It’s just a course correction,” Jones said. “It might be a tougher and harder approach now, but we want a safe county, and we’re far from it.”
Among the priorities of the supervisors, he said, will be building a new jail, getting homeless people off the streets and eliminating what they see as unnecessary and costly county programs.
It won’t be easy, though. Counties are essentially subunits of the state, required to administer state and federal services, from health care to social support. Only about 10% of Shasta County’s annual $600 million budget is left to the discretion of the supervisors,
giving them limited power.
“In areas like Shasta County, you have a lot of people who are angry at the White House, Senate, Congress, the governor’s mansion, the state Legislature, but they’re taking it out on supervisors,” said Matt Rexroad, a statewide Republican political consultant and former supervisor in Yolo County. “I wonder how much people in Shasta County are really looking at the budget and what supervisors can do.”
As the vote approached, opponents of the recall questioned the wisdom of running out longtime officials and handing inexperienced outsiders the complicated task of managing government.
“They’re just drunk on the idea of tearing everything down without a plan for how they’re going to build it back up,” said Redding resident Judy Salter, a Democrat and community activist who joined with locals in both parties to organize the anti-recall group Shasta Forward.
Moty, who appeared to lose the election by 11 percentage points, has even greater concerns about the county’s new power brokers.
In an interview with The Chronicle, he said the soon-tobe majority on the Board of Supervisors has been receptive and even supportive of “anarchists, extremists, and white supremacists wanting to take over the county.” He expects to see more hatred, more division and more threats of violence going forward.
“It’s going to change the character of our county, much more to the alt-right,” Moty said.
Back at the barber shop in Cottonwood, Clendenen dismisses the dark portrait of the future that recall supporters have painted.
He said it’s easy to make broad-brush characterizations and “demonize” those who have views outside the mainstream. He noted that his local militia, a chapter of the California State Militia, is regularly a target of criticism.
“They try to say that we’re racist, and all kinds of stuff about us, which is not true,” Clendenen said.
Surrounded by the shop’s political mementos, including an “All Lives Matter” banner and the insignia of a Confederate flag, Clendenen described the militia as an inclusive community service group, organizing civic events and providing neighborhood security.
But there’s at least one small price he demands for not sharing his ideology. The cost of a haircut, according to the price list, is $15 — but a $5 surcharge is added if you supported Joe Biden.