Kimmelshue best fit for District 4

There are two different and divergent communities in Butte County: Chico and everywhere else. The residents outside our local mini-metropolis have different concerns, different values, a different way of life, and they like it that way.

Non-Chicoans want different things from government — largely, less of it. They want the government they do have to focus on the basic functions of government. They want a deputy to come when they call. They want the fire department to put out fires. They want the roads fixed. They want to make sure agriculture — the core of the rural economy — has secure water. Beyond that, skip it.

And in many cases people live outside Chico specifically because they don’t like some of the things the Chico City Council seem to find important. You could probably put together a list.

You can also measure the difference in a number of ways. In the 2018 election, Chico favored ultra-liberal Gavin Newsom for governor by a 60-40 percent margin. Outside Chico, ultra-conservative John Cox was favored by close to the same 60-40 margin.

And the edge for Cox was even higher in the unincorporated area — and that’s the point of this editorial.

The areas outside municipal boundaries are governed only by the five-member Board of Supervisors, and we believe a majority of that board should reflect the values of the residents outside the cities. That’s why we’re endorsing Tod Kimmelshue for the 4th District seat that opened with the retirement of Steve Lambert.

Two of the five supervisor districts — the 2nd and the

3rd — already elect Chicoans. In the past even the most liberal of them recognized the difference between their ideology, and that of the people who didn’t live inside the cities. They would temper their decisions and work more or less congenially with the other three members of the board.

But, the two current supervisors from Chico have had repeated conflicts with the other three supervisors, who are more clearly aligned with the values of the residents of the unincorporated area. And their response has been to try to get a third liberal Chicoan on the board.

Sue Hilderbrand told our editorial board that she was recruited by Supervisor Tami Ritter to seek the 4th District seat. Ritter’s fingerprints are also on the 5th District race for the seat currently held by Doug Teeter. His rival, Henry Schleiger, is Ritter’s representative for the 3rd District on the county planning commission, even though he lives in the 5th District. That’s odd at the least.

But the 4th is more in play, as about a third of the residents live in Chico.

Hilderbrand is a political science instructor at Butte College and Chico State University, an experience she says gives her a greater understanding of policy.

She seems to be playing to the residents of the unincorporated area. For instance, during the League of Women Voters forum earlier this month she said she lived on a farm between Chico and Durham. That farm is actually Riparia, which is probably technically a farm, when it’s not being a music venue. But it’s a very Chicoish farm, not one a rice farmer in Richvale or peach farmer in Gridley would recognize as such.

She says she supports public safety, but only when she can expand the definition of public safety to include things that most of the residents of the unincorporated area would not recognize as public safety. That broadened definition is apparently a new liberal strategy, as two candidates used almost the same verbiage as Hilderbrand in 2018.

Kimmelshue looks more like the district, although he lived and worked in Chico for many years until retiring to the family farm where he grew up in Durham. He was in farm banking, but has a share in almond orchards owned by his family.

His top priority is recovery from the Camp Fire, calling it a moral and ethical responsibility. Public safety comes next — without any editing — followed by protecting local water and growing agriculture.

He’s vice chairman of the county Water Commission and has been active in a range of civic organizations.

He says he’s a dealmaker and can work with both sides of the aisle, which helps explain how he’s amassed such a startling array of endorsements, from both ends of the political spectrum.

And he has our endorsement as well.