Activist Who Interviewed Clint Curtis in August Is Now Suing Him: Tuesday, September 15th, 2026 Shasta County Agenda

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors meets Tuesday, September 15, and the most consequential item on the agenda is the one the public won't get to watch. Behind closed doors, the board will confer with its lawyers about List v. Curtis, a lawsuit filed six days earlier by a man who spent much of August as one of Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis's most visible supporters. In open session, the board takes up a letter ending the county's lease on the abandoned Eastside Road jail site, a letter that names a property that was never part of the lease. It will again consider removing a planning commissioner without putting a reason in writing. And staff want help with a flood of public records requests for video footage that turns out to be almost entirely about the Sheriff's Office.

The Lawsuit Behind the Closed Door

The agenda's closed-session listing is one line: "List v. Clint Curtis, in his official capacity as Shasta County Clerk/Registrar of Voters, et al.," Shasta County Superior Court Case No. 211712. The county released no other documents about it.

The petitioner is Arne E. List, who produces "Shasta County Shorts," a Facebook video series he filmed largely alongside Curtis in August, including a walkthrough of the elections office narrated by Curtis himself. On September 10, List posted the first page of his petition on Instagram. It carries a Shasta County Superior Court "FILED" stamp dated September 9, 2026, and names three respondents: Curtis in his official capacity, the County of Shasta, and ten unnamed "Does." The county being a named party is why the board is being briefed.

List filed without a lawyer. The petition asks for a writ of mandate and temporary relief, and its opening paragraph describes "a narrow emergency preservation proceeding." List writes that he "does not ask the Court to open, inspect, recount, test, seize, or transfer any ballot." He asks only that the November 5, 2024 election materials, which the petition says were "scheduled for destruction on the morning of September 11, 2026," be kept in the Registrar's custody long enough for a judge to decide whether the legal conditions for destroying them have been met.

The suit was not a surprise to Curtis. KRCR reported that the petition includes a September 8 text exchange in which Curtis told List the ballots would be shredded the morning of September 11 unless federal investigators intervened. Asked whether he would support a petition to stop that, Curtis replied, "Sure. I would prefer them somewhere else but can leave them locked up at the office."

California law requires elections officials to keep those materials for 22 months after an election. Twenty-two months from November 5, 2024 is September 5, 2026, not September 11, and nothing in the record explains the difference. The case is assigned to Judge Benjamin L. Hanna. In his Instagram post, List wrote that the court was "unable to hear the emergency request" the day after he filed and that no temporary restraining order had been issued. Curtis says they weren't. He told KRCR on September 14 that the 2024 materials remain locked up alongside this year's: "Right now nothing's getting shredded until somebody tells me to do it." According to KRCR, a judge is set to hear on September 15, the day of the board meeting, whether to preserve the materials until a September 17 hearing on keeping them longer.

A day after List filed, a federal grand jury in Sacramento subpoenaed Curtis over a different election. A copy List also posted shows the subpoena, issued September 10 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, commanding Curtis to testify September 24. It was requested by a trial attorney in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and asks for original paper records from the June 2, 2026 primary, including voted ballots and voter identification envelopes, "on September 24, 2026, or at another time mutually agreed upon."

The same week, the UCLA Voting Rights Project, supported by gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, asked the Shasta County Grand Jury to begin proceedings to remove Curtis from office and asked supervisors to support it. Board Chair Chris Kelstrom had no comment, according to the Record Searchlight. None of it is on the printed agenda, but constituents will likely discuss it during public comment.

A Letter for an Address That Was Never in the Lease

Item R7 asks the board to approve a letter to the City of Redding ending the county's lease on "7251 Eastside Road, Redding and 7051 Eastside Road, Anderson," the land where the Sheriff planned an alternative custody campus and, eventually, a new jail. The Sheriff announced August 5 that the project would not go forward there.

The lease the letter would end covers one address. When the board approved it on August 19, 2025, the agenda carried the same two-address wording, and Chief Deputy Clerk of the Board Stefany Blankenship told the board, according to that meeting's minutes, that the lease "included the address of 7051 Eastside Road by mistake" and that the address "would be omitted." The signed lease, attached to Tuesday's packet, identifies the property as 7251 Eastside Road and by its parcel numbers. There is no 7051 Eastside Road in it. Thirteen months later, the staff report and the draft letter both repeat the wording the clerk corrected.

The staff report also gets the approval date wrong. It says the board approved the lease on August 26, 2025. The minutes show the vote was August 19, and it was unanimous, even though County Counsel relayed the City of Redding's request that day to pull the item as premature.

Ending the lease is simple on paper. The county can terminate it without cause on 30 days' notice, and no rent was ever paid in either direction. The letter sets October 16 as the end date. The item also asks the board to consider a committee to look for another site. At the August 25 meeting, Supervisor Matt Plummer moved to bring back an ad hoc committee of supervisors, the Sheriff and other public safety leaders to look for a new site. It passed over Kelstrom's no vote, according to the county's video of the meeting. Kelstrom's own motion, for the termination letter and a review of other sites in collaboration with the Sheriff, passed 4-0. Kelstrom now co-sponsors an item that includes the committee. Staff recommend it be made up of three to five county employees rather than supervisors, citing procurement ethics.

What the staff report doesn't mention at all is River Ranch Neighborhood Association v. City of Redding, the environmental lawsuit filed in February challenging this very lease. Whether ending the lease ends that case, and who pays the legal fees if it does, isn't addressed.

Reasons in the Press, None in the Packet

Item R8 is back from August 25: remove Steve Kerns as the District 3 planning commissioner and take Supervisor Corkey Harmon's nomination of civil engineer Kevin Butler. The staff report still gives no reason for the removal, only that "the District 3 Supervisor has decided" to make the change.

What's changed is how many explanations now exist for what happened last time. The August 25 minutes say only that the item was "continued." Tuesday's staff report says it was held "to allow Supervisor Harmon more time to consider his appointment." The meeting video is more specific. Supervisors Allen Long and Matt Plummer pulled the item from the consent calendar. Long said constituents had emailed him with concerns and suggested letting Kerns finish his term; Plummer said he could not support removing Kerns without first notifying him. Public commenters tied Butler to the Millville gun range, the connection this preview reported in August: Butler's firm designed former Supervisor Patrick Jones's gun range, a project Kerns had recused himself from. Kelstrom said the removal "has nothing to do with the gun range whatsoever." The board voted to bring it back.

A reason for the removal itself surfaced in Shasta Scout on September 11. In January, Kerns, a biologist, and Commissioner James Chapin opposed letting a Manton solar project move forward without a full environmental impact report, citing Judge Hanna's ruling against the gun range. The developer withdrew in August. Shasta Scout reported that Kelstrom cited Kerns's pushback on that project as a reason for the removal, and quoted Kelstrom calling Kerns's approach "not very pro-growth." Kerns told the outlet no one from the county had contacted him since August 25, and Plummer indicated he was no longer sure he supports removing Kerns mid-term.

Campaign finance records show no contributions from Butler or his firm to Harmon. The one Butler Engineering contribution on file is $300 to Kelstrom's 2026 campaign, in March.

554 Video Requests, 510 for One Office

Item R9 asks the board for permission to hire outside help reviewing and redacting video footage requested under the California Public Records Act. The staff report describes requests for "large quantities of security video footage from a variety of county offices," many "seeking thousands of hours of footage." It names no office, no requester, and no cost; staff will return with a contract and a budget amendment later.

The county's public records request log fills in some of that. Requests of all kinds have climbed from 213 in 2024 to 932 in 2025 to 1,507 this year through early September. Of the 554 requests this year that ask for video or footage, 510 are directed at the Sheriff's Office, mostly for body camera and incident footage in individual cases. Thirteen are directed at the Elections office. At least one of those is enormous: a December 2025 request for all video the Registrar's office recorded while processing ballots over two months.

Contracts Signed After the Fact

The consent calendar again carries a run of health and human services contracts approved after the services began.

Crestwood Behavioral Health, which provides residential mental health treatment for about 29 county clients, gets a new three-year agreement worth up to $10 million, starting July 1, retroactive "as a result of negotiations with vendor regarding the terms of the agreement, specifically concerning rates and the maximum compensation." Together with the previous agreement's $12 million ceiling, that's up to $22 million in spending authority since 2023, paid only when clients are placed. The contract lets the agency director approve many rate changes, up to a cumulative 15 percent for non-Medi-Cal rates, without returning to the board.

A rate increase for Holden's Care Home, a six-bed facility for elderly clients with mental illness, is retroactive to July 2025. Staff blame "a high year-end volume of renewals, a lengthy process for thorough reviews, multiple changes which necessitated additional reviews, as well as changes in staffing and internal County processes." The same item lets the agency director sign future amendments, including retroactive ones. A youth residential placement contract with Scott's Social Services is retroactive for a different reason: a court ordered an emergency placement into a facility the county had no agreement with.

The pattern has already touched one vendor. The board approved a retroactive $385,400 increase for Kings View in June, then on August 25 a retroactive renewal covering only July and August, after Kings View's contract had ended June 30.

Outside health services, the Emergency Operations Center expansion (C13) needs another $609,060, and its architect, Nichols-Melburg & Rossetto, gets a second retroactive amendment that brings the firm's fee to $126,800 from an original $50,000. Staff put the project at $4,027,000 and say more budget amendments are coming.

The Wolf That Became "Wildlife"

Item R5 creates a job classification for a "Wildlife Liaison," sponsored by Harmon. On August 11, according to the minutes, the board directed staff to create a classification "for the position of a liaison to address the wolf issue" and bring it back by the end of September "in order to meet State of California requirements."

The job description that came back doesn't use the word "wolf." Among the qualifications, it asks candidates to "demonstrate support for the goal of facilitating the recovery of the gray wildlife population in California." The classification carries a pay range of $4,867 to $6,212 a month, but Tuesday's vote doesn't create or fund an actual position; staff say that waits on a funding decision from the state.

Also on Tuesday

A bigger reward, not bigger fines (R6). Kelstrom's ordinance doubles the maximum reward for information leading to an illegal dumping conviction, from $500 to $1,000. The board voted July 28 to look at doubling the fines instead, then rescinded that on August 11 in favor of the reward. The staff report doesn't say whether the county has ever paid one.

An outside investigations firm (C4). County Counsel wants a $150,000 agreement with Van Dermyden Makus for workplace investigations, at rates up to $525 an hour. No prior county contract with the firm turned up, and it is not the firm that investigated Curtis.

A storm emergency that won't end (C14). The board is asked, for the fifth time, to keep the December 2025 winter storm emergency in place. Estimated damage stands at $9.29 million, and staff expect the county to pay part of it.

Crops, a milestone, and a new supervisor. The 2025 Crop and Livestock Report puts the county's agricultural production at $98.1 million, up nearly 10 percent, led by cattle (R4). Treasurer-Tax Collector Lori Scott is recognized for 50 years with the county (R2). And District 1 Supervisor-elect Erin Resner asks approval to attend the California State Association of Counties' New Supervisors Institute (C3).

The Pattern Under the Vote

Tuesday's agenda is a study in what goes unwritten. A lawsuit against the county gets one line. A lease letter repeats a mistake the county corrected on the record a year ago. A commissioner's removal comes with reasons in the press and none in the staff report. A request for help with video records doesn't mention that nine in ten of those requests are for Sheriff's footage. Some of it is sloppiness, and some of it may be strategy, but all of it is in the packet for anyone who reads it.

And that's the Agenda Preview.