Accountability in the Hot Seat: What's on the Shasta County Board Agenda for February 24

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors holds its next regular meeting on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, beginning at 9:00 a.m. in Board Chambers at the County Administration Center, 1450 Court Street, Suite 263, in Redding. The agenda spans a wide range of county business — from a mid-year budget review affecting dozens of departments to an eminent domain hearing, a veterans' recovery program, and two EV charging station ordinances — but one item is almost certain to dominate the room: a return engagement with the ongoing controversy over County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis.

After the Board's handling of that same discussion at its February 10 meeting drew immediate criticism — including a formal legal challenge under California's open meetings law — supervisors are bringing it back, this time with public comment open as the Brown Act requires.

OPENING REPORTS

The meeting opens as usual with an invocation — this week led by Les Shoup of Ono-Igo Community Church — followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Supervisor Chris Kelstrom.

Item R1 is a retirement recognition for Mike Lindsey, a Deputy Director in the Shasta County Sheriff's Office Administration division, who is being honored for more than 33 years of service to the county. No action is required.

Item R2 is the standard CEO report, during which County Executive Officer David Rickert may provide updates on county operations, pending legislation, and items of concern to the Board. Supervisors also use this time to report on activities in their respective districts.

THE CLINT CURTIS MATTER (R4): A CONTROVERSY THAT WON'T STAY CLOSED

The centerpiece of Tuesday's meeting will almost certainly be R4, which places back before the Board a discussion of "the recent actions by the County Clerk/Registrar of Voters and the alleged misuse of public funds for electioneering and campaigning." No vote is scheduled, but the public will be allowed to comment — something that did not happen at the February 10 meeting, and which a community member subsequently argued in writing was a Brown Act violation.

The item traces back to January 15, 2026, when Curtis hosted a tour of the county elections office for at least six Republican candidates for governor and election conspiracy theorist Doug Frank. During that event — held on county time, at a county facility — Curtis made repeated and pointed allegations that the previous administration had engaged in ballot stuffing, claiming there were instances of more votes than voters and irregular result patterns. Those allegations directly implicated Joanna Francescut, who served as assistant registrar under the prior administration and is now Curtis's opponent in the June 2026 primary election for the permanent county clerk seat.

Curtis told KRCR that he had reported his concerns to the Department of Justice. No verified evidence has been presented to support the ballot stuffing claims, and no legal proceeding has substantiated allegations of wrongdoing in past Shasta County elections. Francescut, who was collecting candidate qualification signatures the same day as the tour, said she had refuted such claims many times and that elections in Shasta County had been transparent for years.

Supervisor Allen Long first raised the issue publicly, saying constituents had contacted him with concerns that Curtis had violated county policy and California state law by making campaign-related statements while acting in his official capacity. The concern is legally significant: California Government Code prohibits public employees from using public resources for campaign purposes, and county policy independently bars electioneering on county property.

When the Board took up the item on February 10, County Counsel Joseph Larmour initially acknowledged a possible county code violation, but later told the Board that further review led him to a different conclusion. The Board let the matter drop — and allowed no public comment. Shouts erupted in the chamber. In the days that followed, Supervisor Matt Plummer sent a mass email acknowledging he had not yet watched the recordings of the tour at the time of the meeting, and that he was "disappointed to learn that the comments were actually quite extensive" compared to how they had been characterized. He said he remained uncertain whether Curtis's remarks rose to the level of campaigning.

Adding further context: at the same time the Board was discussing him on February 10, Curtis was hundreds of miles away in Riverside County, presenting his ballot processing approach to that county's board. In a subsequent interview with The Riverside Record, Curtis reportedly called Shasta County supervisors "idiots" and described constituents who have raised concerns as "morons" and his "little socialists." He also told the outlet that the Board's review of his conduct had produced no consequence for him — an apparent dismissal of the accountability process he was at the time subject to.

In the two weeks since, the legal landscape around Curtis's office has grown more complicated. On February 17, an anonymous plaintiff identified only as "Jane Doe" filed a lawsuit naming both Curtis and the Board of Supervisors as defendants, seeking to block the Voter ID, Hand-Counted Ballots, and Absentee Voting Limits Initiative — widely known as Measure B — from the June ballot and halt any further county spending on it. The measure, which advanced to the ballot after proponents gathered more than 10,000 signatures, would require photo ID for voting, mandate hand-counting of ballots, and limit absentee voting. On February 20, the Board voted 4-1 to take no position on the lawsuit and defer to the courts. Supervisor Kevin Crye cast the lone dissenting vote.

Litigation connected to that initiative — and Measure B itself — likely underlies at least one of Tuesday's closed session items.

The Board's handling of R4 on Tuesday is worth watching carefully. Will supervisors open meaningful discussion, or treat the item as a formality now that legal counsel has declined to find a violation? Will they address the Brown Act concerns raised about the February 10 meeting? And how will the public — which has now had two weeks to review recordings of the January 15 event — use the three-minute comment period the law guarantees them?

MID-YEAR BUDGET REVIEW (R6)

Item R6 is one of the most operationally significant items on Tuesday's agenda. It asks the Board to receive a full mid-year budget update for fiscal year 2025-26, approve budget principles for the upcoming 2026-27 budget cycle, set a formal budget adoption schedule, and approve a sweeping set of mid-year budget amendments across more than 50 departments and funds.

The adjustments reflect the normal mid-year process of aligning projected spending with actual conditions, but the scope and direction of some of the changes are worth flagging. Among the larger reductions: a $2.1 million decrease in the County Fire budget, more than $632,000 cut from the Sheriff's core budget, a $5.28 million reduction in Mental Health, a $1.68 million decrease in Alcohol and Drug services, and a $1.21 million cut to Public Health. These are not necessarily indicators of crisis — mid-year budget adjustments often reflect underspending, changed grant levels, or shifted priorities — but residents who rely on public health and behavioral health services will want to look closely at the staff report for the underlying explanations.

On the other side of the ledger, the Board is being asked to increase the Reserves for Contingencies budget by nearly $4 million, and to increase appropriations in the California Children's Services budget by more than $1.76 million. The item requires a 4/5 vote on the budget amendments themselves.

VETERANS RECOVERY PROGRAM (R5)

Item R5 asks the Board to receive a presentation from Justin Bond, CEO and founder of Our Heroes' Dreams, and approve a contract with the organization for treatment and recovery programs serving at-risk veterans. The agreement covers the period from December 15, 2025 through December 14, 2026, and would be funded by $250,000 from the county's Opioid Settlement funds. No general fund money is involved. The item requires a 4/5 vote for the budget amendment.

EMINENT DOMAIN HEARING (R9)

The Board will hold a public hearing on R9 and consider adopting a Resolution of Necessity — the legal mechanism that authorizes the county to acquire private property by eminent domain — for easements needed at three parcels on Parkville Road in unincorporated Shasta County. The easements are required for the Parkville Road at Ash Creek Bridge Replacement Project. Eminent domain proceedings require a 4/5 vote from the Board.

A related consent item (C16) involves approving a right-of-way contract and accepting an easement deed for one of the parcels, as well as authorizing a utility agreement with PG&E not to exceed $55,783.75. A companion CEQA item on the consent calendar also adopts a Mitigated Negative Declaration for the project.

EV CHARGING STATION ORDINANCES (R8 AND R10)

The Board will consider two connected items on electric vehicle infrastructure. R8 would introduce an ordinance adding a new chapter to the Shasta County Code creating a streamlined, expedited permitting process for EV charging stations, as required by California Government Code Sections 65850.7 and 65850.71. R10 would conduct a public hearing and enact a companion zoning amendment updating the county's land use code to accommodate EV charging stations under the Shasta County Zoning Plan. Neither item has a general fund impact. Both reflect state mandates requiring counties to reduce permitting barriers for EV infrastructure.

CONSENT CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS

The consent calendar contains 18 items expected to be routine. A few stand out:

C3 — Legislative letters of support: The Board would authorize letters of support for two federal bills: S.1323 (the FIREWALL Act, addressing wildfire liability and resilience) and S.2744 (the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2025). The item also delegates authority to the CEO to submit future letters without returning to the Board each time, so long as the substance of the county's position is unchanged. Sponsored by Supervisor Allen Long.

C4 and C5 — Legal services contracts: The Board would approve an agreement with the law firm Kronick Moskovitz Tiedemann & Girard for general counsel services (C4) and expand the scope and compensation ceiling of an existing agreement with Elizondo Law Corporation (C5). Both carry future general fund impact and require a 4/5 vote. The timing of these legal services expansions — concurrent with ongoing litigation involving the county — is worth noting, though the agenda does not explain the specific scope of either agreement.

C7 — Document scanning waiver: The District Attorney's office is seeking approval of an agreement with SyTech Solutions, Inc. for document scanning, but the county is asking the Board to waive its normal competitive procurement requirements to do so. Waivers of competitive bidding require scrutiny; the staff report should explain why competitive procurement was not pursued.

C8 — Childhood trauma services: A renewal agreement with Invo Healthcare Associates for the Integrated Multidisciplinary Program to Address Childhood Trauma (IMPACT) in an amount not to exceed $1,194,735.36. No general fund impact.

C14 — Public Defender social workers: Budget amendments to fund three Social Worker positions in the Public Defender's office using $128,000 in opioid settlement funds, supporting defendants with substance use issues. No general fund impact.

C15 and C18 — Winter storm emergency: C15 would formally terminate the emergency proclamation related to county infrastructure damage from the December 2025 winter storms, while C18 would continue the broader local emergency proclamation for those same storms. The two items reflect different layers of emergency authority — one covering infrastructure repair, the other the ongoing local emergency status required to access state and federal disaster resources.

CLOSED SESSION

The Board will recess to closed session, estimated at approximately 50 minutes, for three items:

R11 — Labor negotiations: The Board will meet with labor negotiators regarding multiple Teamsters bargaining units (Mid-Management, Supervisory, Trades and Crafts, and Deputy Coroner Investigators) and the United Public Employees of California Local 792 Professional Unit. Agency negotiators include CEO David Rickert, Personnel Director Monica Fugitt, and outside labor counsel Gage Dungy of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore.

R12 — Existing litigation: The Board will discuss a pending federal case: Chance Dean v. County of Shasta, et al., filed in the Eastern District of California (Case No. 2:26-CV-00223-DMC).

R13 — Anticipated litigation: The Board will discuss one matter of significant exposure to potential litigation. The specifics are not disclosed, as is standard practice under California's open meetings law.

WHY THIS MEETING MATTERS

Tuesday's meeting arrives at a charged moment for Shasta County governance. The county's top elections official is a candidate in his own race, facing unresolved questions about whether he used public resources to campaign and attack his opponent. A citizen-backed election reform initiative is now the subject of a lawsuit. And the county's mid-year budget is being adjusted across dozens of departments at a time when residents in several program areas have real stakes in how those resources are allocated.

And that's the agenda preview.