Christian Gardinier waits outside the locked board chambers for return to the meeting after Shasta County Board Chair Patrick Jones ordered Gardinier to leave the room. Photo by Doni Chamberlain
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the White moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.
Yes, what is happening in Shasta County is not directly equivalent to what has, and is, happening to nonwhites in America; where life, civil rights and voting rights are attacked 24/7.
But, there is a connection, a correlation as exemplified recently in the Shasta County Supervisors Chambers. The attack on Nathan Pinkney, so well documented by A News Cafe (ANC), was not simple happenstance or coincidence; it was empowered and condoned by a prejudiced and biased alt-right board chair.
Shasta County Supervisor Chair Jones’ plans for Shasta County Supervisor meetings appear capriciously biased and prejudiced, and are unambiguously lacking in transparency with the following characteristics.
(1) The meetings violate citizen civil rights.
(2) The meetings violate civil decency.
(3) The meetings violate county established decorum.
(4) The meetings violate and reject training on Rosenberg’s Rules of Orders.
(5) The meetings arbitrarily violate Jones’ own edicts that he pronounces before meetings begin.
Furthermore, Jones does so with admitted wide-open bias for citizens who he agrees with. Why? Because all of the above fortifies the far-right attack on Shasta County.
The Jones, Crye, Kelstrom (JCK) and their cohorts, seemingly consisting of a neo-confederate militia, California secessionists and voter-fraud conspiracists and others, are crystal clear about their mutually developed, well-coordinated plans of using Shasta County as a test case and example of alt-right governance. Examples include, but are not limited to:
(1) Removing a long list of county employees who don’t kiss their alt-right agenda.
(2) Using our county to rubber stamp alt-right, discredited conspiracy nonsense.
(3) Using our county as an NRA test case against safe and sane gun legislation.
(4) And, just as predicted, using our county as a legal test case against AB 969 for Trumpian and Mr. Pillow devotees.
In fact, I believe that the JCK Coalition tried to appoint Chriss Street to attempt to facilitate the local alt-right’s ultimate fantasy: succession from the State of California, even if it means damaging our county to do so, just as they are doing.
To the JCK Coalition, it seems civil rights and civil decorum often take a backseat in their war against representative democracy. That leads us back to the supervisor meetings.
In a recent Shasta Scout interview, Jones proudly admitted he doesn’t enforce decorum rules equally and has no intention of doing so. In fact, in the same interview Jones, just like a tinhorn dictator, unashamedly demanded censorship of our media’s First Amendment rights.
Jones loves to say he protects the First Amendment, but in that regard, he’s an impostor. As David Loy, Legal Director of the First Amendment Coalition stated in the above Shasta Scout interview, “Equal enforcement of board room behavior is an important aspect of First Amendment rights, because unequal enforcement is another way to restrict free speech,” i.e., the First Amendment. Within their “War on The Media,” restriction and censorship are but parts of the alt-right JCK and Cohorts agenda.
For the last few years, as reported in-depth by A News Café and by national, international and local media, Americans have witnessed in astonished bewilderment, alt-right activists persistently dominating and controlling our Shasta County Board of Supervisors Chambers, where decorum is openly violated, where widely debunked alt-right conspiracies are bolstered time and again, and where racism, sexism and even threats of alt-right violence are empowered and practically encouraged by way of no censor by Jones and Mr. Baugh before him.
We have looked on in silence and shock, but silence no more. Now, Shasta County citizens are standing up and demanding POINT OF ORDER. The far right agenda of confiscating constitutional rights must and will be countered.
Yes, just complaining about decorum is unproductive. Rather, we must actively focus on resolutions. Here’s a thought, how about all sides agreeing to already established civil decorum?
Does this look familiar?
“Each person who addresses the Board of Supervisors shall not use loud, threatening, profane, or abusive language, which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the board meeting.” The consistent airing of the dirty-laundry and personal attacks against citizens by people addressing board is ridiculous and has nothing to do with “subject matter” or ” jurisdiction of the board.”
How about sticking to the three-minute rule, or amending it to 4.5 minutes? If more time is needed, the speaker should be placed on a future meeting agenda so the public has the opportunity to respond. I mean, what does a Dark Biden conspiracist in Alabama have to do with any jurisdiction in Shasta County?
And how about the chair preventing the uninterrupted “testimony,” at times rambling up to 12 or more minutes, often letting speakers wander all over the place, not even addressing the consent or resolution item they arose to address, because Mr. Jones, thinks it’s “important?” Again, how about “Equal enforcement of board room behavior!”
How about appointing an equal “special commission” made of equal social-political representation, to sit down and hash out civil decorum recommendations to the board? Clearly something must be done.
“Speak up, speak out, get in the way … Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” — The Late Congressman John Lewis.
In regard to the JCK and Coalition’s conduct in supervisors meetings, I will continue to take peaceful and nonviolent action if fair rules of conduct to protect equality and justice for all are not developed and enforced by Shasta County Supervisors.
We must make Shasta County safe and sane again!
Christian Gardinier
Shasta County
