Shasta County technically never became a charter county, because officials failed to file the paperwork.
District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye revealed this bombshell disclosure during his Sunday, September 7, radio show.
Board Chair Crye, renowned for his scapegoating governing style, often deflects leadership errors by shifting blame to county staff, past officials, or others. This style was on full display Sunday during his weekly radio show.
You can listen to an edit of clips from his show, or you can listen to the entire program on KCNR’s website.
On Crye’s radio show he revealed the stunning admission that Shasta County isn’t technically a charter county, despite voters approving it in the March 5, 2024 election. According to Crye, the mistake was uncovered by current county counsel Joseph Larmour.
Crye shirks responsibility for the failure. Instead, he accuses Joanna Francescut, former Acting Registrar of Voters, of “dropping the ball” by not filing the paperwork. What’s more, he suggests that former county counsel Alan Cox bore responsibility for the error.
But California Government Code 23713 makes the owner of the responsibility abundantly clear: It is the Board’s duty to certify and transmit the charter. If the Board failed to complete its part, then the Registrar’s office had nothing to file, and therefore, county counsel had nothing to transmit. During Crye’s radio show, although he acknowledged that he never spoke to Francescut directly about the matter, he absolved himself of any wrongdoing, and pinned the blame on Francescut.
Francescut no longer works for the county. She was terminated in May during Clint Curtis’s first month as Registrar of Voters.
It’s misleading and even cowardly for Crye to blame others months after the fact for a paperwork failure that the Board itself was legally responsible to see through to full completion to ensure Shasta County’s Charter County status.
Prior to the March 2024 election, Chair Crye was vocal in his support of Measure D, which would establish Shasta County as a Charter County. Crye and other Measure D proponents claimed a Charter County status would outline a framework for local government operations and decision-making to enhance local governance and accountability.
Measure D passed with 28,701 yes votes — 55.61 percent, to 22,914 no votes — 44.39 percent. Measure D was to become law on Jan. 1, 2024.
Crye’s revisionist Redding Rancheria justifications
Regarding the former Redding Rancheria deal (which a judge ruled was illegally performed), Crye tried a different version of the same tactic used to put distance between himself and the Charter County blunder.
In the Redding Rancheria matter, Crye claimed a “stack of emails” dating back to 2019 proved county departments were “in the know” — and that this guaranteed victory on appeal. But the court’s ruling was explicit. The Board’s 2023 approval of the 30-year contract was illegal because the Sheriff, Fire Chief, District Attorney, County Counsel, and Risk Management were excluded from the process. The problem was not whether people knew negotiations were happening years ago. The problem was that the Board majority ignored its own contracting rules and shut out the very departments that would be responsible for carrying out the agreement. Crye’s reference to old emails is a smokescreen for the fact that the Board broke the law.
Crye casts aspersions upon Shasta County Office of Education
The same scapegoating appeared again when Crye previewed Tuesday’s agenda item on state-mandated funding for the Shasta County Office of Education. Crye said he would be questioning a $5 million contract with SCOE, complaining about staff reports that praised the program’s work since 1998. He implied the money might not be well spent and cast doubt on whether SCOE deserved the funding at all. What he did not mention is that these are pass-through dollars from the state. The county is pretty much required to approve them. This is not discretionary spending and it’s not stopping Crye from talking to Director Christy Coleman to find out if he can legally withhold funds from them, again.
For context, Crye has a history with SCOE. In 2024, Superintendent of Schools Mike Freeman described his discomfort after a meeting where Crye used time that should have been about a SCOE contract to pitch his own Ascend program. Freeman flagged it as a troubling conflict of interest. That history matters when Crye now dismisses SCOE’s programs as political. His rhetoric has nothing to do with oversight. Crye is actively undermining an institution he has already tried to sideline.
Shasta County deserves leaders who take responsibility. Crye has shown again and again that when the law is broken or public trust is damaged, his instinct is not to fix the problem, but to find scapegoats to take the blame.
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