Trump set a poor example for local leaders

Given the Republican party’s subservience to the biggest liar ever elected president, it’s no surprise that its local leaders also lie.

Mayor Coolidge speaking of plaintiff’s attorneys in the Warren case: “we had attorneys not out for their clients but for their own pocketbook … these attorneys will move on to another city and do the same thing.”

Truth: Legal Services of Northern California is a nonprofit corporation that exists to provide civil legal assistance to poor people. It’s been at the same location in Chico since 1977. The attorneys work on salary and the money from the settlement will go to help finance the center’s continuing services to the poor, not to the individual attorneys.

Turning to the supervisors’ races. Given who his political mentors are, we could expect Peter

Durfee to run a slimy campaign for supervisor. He recently accused supervisor Lucero of a “desperate attempt to gerrymander districts.”

Truth: Consultants hired by the board took public testimony, gathered data and submitted a series of possible maps that complied with the law and made sense. Supervisors Lucero and Ritter were happy to accept any of them. The Republican majority on the board could not accept any of them for one reason; all those maps put Durfee into the same district as Kimmelshue. Drawing districts to benefit a candidate is illegal, but that’s what they did. If you like Trump’s big lie about the stolen election, you’ll love Durfee as a supervisor. If you like the truth, not so much. — David Welch, Chico