Shasta County Board of Supervisors, from left: District 1 Joe Chimenti, District 3 Mary Rickert, District 5 Les Baugh, District 2 Tim Garman and District 4 Patrick Jones. Photo source: Shasta County website.
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors has as much jurisdiction over federal and state abortion decisions as it has over the DMV, FBI, CIA or PTA.
And District 5 Supervisor Les Baugh knows it. But guess what? Baugh doesn’t give two squirts about acknowledging federal/state/county jurisdiction designations.
Raise your hand if you’re surprised.
District 5 Supervisor Les Baugh.
Baugh has a defiant supervisor history, and it ain’t purty. He didn’t give two squirts about his unauthorized breach of board chambers. Likewise, Baugh didn’t give two squirts about using the dais to demonstrate his collaboration with right-wing extremists who destroyed a colleague’s career via a dirty recall, and led the charge to fire Shasta County’s health officer whose greatest sin was obeying her oath to keep citizens safe.
Today, we follow Baugh’s lead and discuss abortion. Abortion was on Baugh’s secret personal agenda during Tuesday’s Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting. As with many Baugh stunts, it was a surprise, at least to most of the people in the board chambers.
Baugh spoke into the microphone and had everyone’s rapt attention when he said he had something to say. Some people became rather excited. Those watching the meeting virtually did happy dances.
“Glory hallelujah! He’s resigning! Break out the champagne!”
Alas, Tuesday was not Shasta County citizens’ lucky day.
For the last two years’ of Shasta County’s famous political upheaval and instability, we’ve grown accustomed to Shasta County Board of Supervisors meetings replete with a host of unexpected “oh my God!” moments: Death threats and obscenities hurled by angry mobs against so-called “RINO” supervisors and county staff. Board chambers breached numerous combined times by kindred supervisors Les Baugh and Patrick Jones.
Supervisors Patrick Jones and Les Baugh try to figure out how to share a computer during their unauthorized presence in county board chambers.
A failed mass citizens’-arrest attempt by a notoriously unhinged regular speaker upon the supervisors, the then-CEO and current county counsel.
Rightwing provocateur Rich Gallardo about to be ejected from the Shasta County Board of Supervisors as recall proponents Elissa McEuen and Vladislav Davidzon look on.
Bullhorns, yelling, personal verbal attacks, mocking props and signs, blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth.
Elissa McEuen bullhorns her speech through supervisor chamber doors closed because of a spike in COVID cases.
No wonder we’ve grown yawningly nonplussed by bat-shit-crazy occurrences inside the Shasta County Board of Supervisor chambers. Same old, same old.
Tuesday’s supervisors meeting provided another jaw-dropping moment to add to the list of spectacles to happen inside the board chambers; this time not by members of the public, but by none other than board chair/supervisor Baugh himself.
Baugh’s inappropriate soapbox stunt had nothing to do with county business. Instead, he delivered a hyperbolic abortion monologue related to 13 abortion-related bills recently signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Look for the time stamp at approximately 1:04:58 on the county’s board of supervisors meeting video to see for yourself.
Here’s what Baugh said:
“I take this opportunity to publicly denounce the actions of the governor of the state of California. Last week, Governor Newsom signed 13 abortion bills, essentially making California the death capital of the world. Billboards placed in Texas, Indiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma extend an open invitation to kill, declaring — and I’m reading from the billboard – ‘Need an abortion? California is ready to help.
Even blatantly twisting the words of Jesus by then quoting Mark 12:31: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.’
Folks, killing your baby has now become California’s newest tourist attraction. It’s now legal in the formerly great state of California to murder your baby – by law – up until the very moment of death. There are no longer restrictions — pardon me, moment of death because that’s where my thought is — the moment of birth.
AB-22-23 goes farther by removing criminal penalties for the abortion-related death of a child in the days after birth, declaring open season on killing babies.
Govenor Newsom is more than anti-pro-life. He is pro-death. His actions are nothing short of evil incarnate. And I don’t expect anybody else to do this, but I’m going to stand in protest of the governor’s actions. You’re welcome to stand with me, should you choose. Thank you for receiving my protest here.”
Who does he think he’s kidding? There was no choice for those inside the board chambers to receive or not receive Baugh’s “protest”. Rather, it was rammed down the throats of everyone who had the misfortune of attending or tuning in to the Oct. 4 board of supervisors meeting that Baugh commandeered for his personal religious platform.
With that, the board’s extremist destructive majority – supervisors Baugh, Jones, and me-too Garman – rose in an overly dramatic silent protest of Newsom’s attempts to preserve women’s rights to control what does or does not happen to our bodies.
Although Baugh’s sanctimonious soliloquy caught most people by surprise, it was obvious that Jones knew what was coming by the way he put his hands on the arms of his chair and lifted his keister from his cushion, all without looking at Baugh; before Baugh uttered the words “stand”.
Supervisor Garman? It’s hard to tell whether Garman – not known as a quick-on-the uptake guy – had prior knowledge of Baugh’s performance.
Following Baugh’s unethical and perhaps even illegal use of the chambers for his own pious sermon, there was a rather awkward moment on the dais when District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert and District 1 Supervisor Joe Chimenti remained seated.
Simultaneously, there was another awkward moment inside the board chambers for the few dozen people in the audience, where about a quarter of the spectators joined Baugh and stood, while the majority remained seated.
Then, it was over as if nothing happened. Baugh, Jones and Garman sat down. Supervisor Chimenti didn’t miss a beat as he carried on with his board report presentation.
Later, during the public comment period, Redding resident Susanne Baremore expressed her disapproval of Baugh’s “stunt” and his “commentary on how women should be making the very personal decision of how to manage their own reproductive health.”
Baremore said she was disappointed that Baugh introduced such a divisive topic from the supervisors’ dais.
“Thankfully, you have no authority over women’s bodies,” Baremore said.
Baugh, who’s boasted that as board chair he would never weigh in on a person’s comment, replied, “Thank you for your concerns and I stand by my comment.”
Speaking of examples of Baugh not walking his talk, during a few recent board of supervisors meetings, both Jones and Baugh have made inexplicable admonitions to those coming to speak during the public comment period to restrict their comments to issues within the board’s jurisdiction.
I say inexplicable because for more than two years the board of supervisors meetings have been overtaken — sometimes for as long as eight hours – by angry masses of people harping about the “stolen election” and state pandemic mandates, and vaccines, and kids wearing masks at school and the evils of ballot boxes and the cheating Dominion voting machines and other complaints and beliefs that are not within the supervisors’ authority or jurisdiction.
In fact, there are words atop every board agenda that repeat that directive: “Comments should be limited to matters within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the Board.”
With that in mind, along comes Baugh during Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting where he knowingly violated the very request he’d required of citizens.
Double standard much, Les?
It’s no secret that supervisors Chimenti and Rickert are both devout Catholics.
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- Joe Chimenti
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- Dist. 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert.
Inquiring minds want to know: Would it be OK for them to use their board-report time to extol the virtues of Catholicism and their recommendations to bring back Friday-fish days?
Or, would it be OK for some random county staff person, instead of giving their planned presentation to the board, what if they flipped the script and advocated dispensing millions of morning-after pills like free Tik Tacs to every female of child-bearing age, with the instructions to take the pill after every sexual encounter, unless they want to become pregnant?
Ooh, how about this: Would it be OK for that same county staff member to push for mandated reversible vasectomies upon every male at age 13, you know, just until women are no longer treated like criminals and second-class citizens destined for an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale?
Fair is fair, right?
The day after Baugh’s abortion speech, Supervisor Chimenti explained why he didn’t stand (literally) in support of Baugh’s message.
“Les has the right to express his beliefs,” Chimenti said. “I did not stand because, regardless of my personal beliefs, that is not an issue that falls within the purview of the Board of Supervisors.”
Chimenti is correct that Baugh has the right to express his beliefs. However, Baugh does not have the right to express personal religious beliefs during a scheduled supervisors meeting inside a tax-payer funded administration building where Baugh is not only an elected supervisor, but the board chair to boot.
Finally, Baugh did not have the right as a paid elected county employee to politically weaponize abortion during a board meeting in a county that’s still healing from two years’ of evisceration by political rancor, the economy, drought, attempted recalls, protests, Proud Boys, rallies, a completed recall, dry wells, COVID, guns and the militia, to name a sample of the greatest hits.
For what it’s worth, Baugh, who identifies as a born-again Christian, is also a pastor with an adoring congregation who’d probably enthusiastically agree with every word Baugh spoke about abortion. Obviously, Baugh’s church was the appropriate place to preach his abortion beliefs. But where would be the fun for Baugh then?
Don’t be fooled when Baugh clowns around with conduct unbecoming for an elected Shasta County leader. He cares not one whit about breaking rules, whether it’s the Golden Rule, the rule of law, or rules of civility.
Baugh is many things, but he’s not stupid. His words have meaning. His actions are calculated. Do you believe it was a coincidence that Baugh delivered his abortion speech five weeks before an election that could ultimately make or break Shasta County?
I don’t.
No matter what justifications Baugh may invent to explain why he made his abortion declarations during the supervisors meeting, his actions served as a dog whistle to rile up his political base and only further politically divide Shasta County.
Abortion has become extremist conservatives’ lazy litmus test to simplistically and stereotypically divide the good Republican patriots from the murdering Democrat snowflakes, all the while keeping both sides from finding middle ground. Baugh knows that, and he used the abortion issue to his advantage.
Politics aside, there may be some personal benefit to Baugh after he unleashed the abortion controversy upon the chambers: It was a momentary shiny object that expertly redirected the spotlight toward the national hot-button issue of abortion, and away from Baugh and any possible wrong-doings unearthed between now and January, when he leaves his post.
High stakes
No doubt Baugh feels bulletproof. So far, aside from a censorship that he and Jones welcomed as a “badge of honor” for unauthorized breach of closed chambers, Baugh has misbehaved with abandon, free of worry of repercussions.
Supervisors Patrick Jones and Les Baugh enjoy their breached, unauthorized board chambers.
There are so many examples of Baugh’s hypocritical bloviations, unstatesmanlike behavior and abuse of power during his nearly 17-year reign of questionable leadership. For many people, Baugh’s term cannot end soon enough.
Never fear, here’s the good news: In three long months Baugh will no longer be a Shasta County supervisor. One way or another, the Nov. 8 election will determine the county’s next District 5 supervisor.
Even so, we’re not out of the woods yet. The stakes are high between the two candidates vying for Baugh’s District 5 seat. Will the District 5 winner be rational Republican and Anderson City Council member Baron Browning, or self-described “anti-establishment” State-of-Jefferson-pushing, RWB-backed candidate Chris Kelstrom?
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- Baron Browning, District 5 Supervisor candidate
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- Chris Kelstrom, District 5 candidate.
Let’s just hope that the person who replaces Baugh won’t be someone just like him, or worse, if that’s possible.
We’ll see. But after all the trauma Shasta County has endured the last few years, we’re long overdue for a lucky break. It’s time for the crazy circus to pull up stakes, leave the North State and allow a sane board majority to take back the reins and pull us out of this awful ditch.
In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to start stocking up on champagne now. We may need it either way; for celebration or mourning.
