Letter from Tehama County Administrator Xavier Banion to State Senate President Ben Allen and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon opposing Disincorporation of Red Bluff. January 10, 2023.
Senator Allen and Speaker Rendon:
I am in receipt of a copy of Assembly Bill 973, proposing the disincorporation of the City of Red Bluff, as well as several letters and petitions from local leaders and others in support of that position. One of my five County Supervisors has also asked me to be in support of this. However, the Board of Supervisors of Tehama County voted 4-1 to oppose the disincorporation of Red Bluff and to request that I write and lobby you and your colleagues to that effect.
The actions of Pacific Gas and Electric are abhorrent and beyond the pale. That you have allowed the Public Utilities Commission to continue to exist in its current form when that Commission has so abdicated its responsibilities to the electricity-needing public is shameful, and instead of shifting ostensible responsibility from the municipality to the county, you should use your immense power to demand that the Public Utilities Commission make PG&E uphold its side of the bargain made when it agreed to become a regulated monopoly and provide electric power to the City of Red Bluff.
That being said, and I hope you’ll excuse the intemperance of a lifelong small-town North-Stater, the Board of Supervisors and the People of Tehama County, particularly the more than three-quarters of them who weren’t Red Bluff residents in September of 2021, have serious concerns about the potential disincorporation of that city.
The first concern that’s been raised to me by the Supervisors, by the District Attorney, and by members of the public is the obvious one: if Red Bluff can’t afford it, Tehama County probably can’t either. A county of right around 65,000 people has very limited capacity to absorb any budget shock, much less one on the order of $10-15 million on a regular basis. The Supervisors and I are very worried that a disincorporation of Red Bluff would leave us in a position of having to negotiate a new contract with PG&E to serve the former townsite and the residents and businesses there. As you know, PG&E has shown no desire to negotiate in good faith on any aspect of insuring the lines through our county, and I doubt that the small additional bargaining power our County might have would make a meaningful difference as long as the state is choosing not to step in. We cannot afford that big an unfunded mandate in our budget, and I sincerely doubt that the good people of this county would vote to tax themselves to send that money down the lines with no guarantee that it would even lead to a permanent re-electrification. It is not reasonable to pay taxes to pad the wallets of insurance company stockholders or worse, PG&E.
The second concern that’s been raised to me is that the people of Red Bluff are opposed, by and large, to disincorporation. I understand that you have received a letter from the City Council calling for that step to be taken, and I understand that representative democracy being what it is, a 3-2 vote to send the letter is as persuasive and final as a 5-0 vote would be. But know that the proud citizens of Red Bluff, those who have chosen to stick it out this long and under these unfathomable-in-this-country conditions and those excited to return to their homes and routines, have also elected a County Supervisor who voted to send this letter to you, opposing disincorporation, and in my conversations with people in the town there is significant and unwavering pro-cityhood sentiment.
Finally, know that a bonafide disincorporation would mean years of hardship and loss of local control that is unconscionable for the people of Red Bluff. Such a move would require a change in the name of the town if a new one was ever incorporated there, age and ages hence. Such a decision would mean that zoning and planning (what planning would be possible in an environment of terrifying uncertainty) and community improvement decisions would be made in Corning, at a remove, and decided by folks from Los Molinos and Vina [ed note: when Senator Allen said the name of this town on the Senate floor, he pronounced it “VEE-na” as if it were a Spanish word instead of the locally-preferred “VIE-nuh”] and the farm and hill country around, rather than the people to whom it means the most. This is why Sen. Nielsen and Rep. Dahle are opposed to the Governor’s disincorporation bill.
I understand that a disincorporation looks like the easiest solution to this problem, the kind of solution that allows a new negotiation on a new footing. But what is lost in a disincorporation may probably be impossible to return to. I understand that in your bustling metropolises of multiple cities flowing one into the next in sprawl burdened only by the impenetrable hillsides of the steep mountains, losing a single city, particularly a city of only 15,000 and likely only temporarily, would be a minor inconvenience. But here, in a small place, in a county where one of only three incorporated areas is a ghost town lost to a previous natural disaster, it means something different. It means the loss of our home.
I ask you to instead take up Assemblymember Addison Goldberg’s bill, AB 1203. She is a fellow North-Stater, and a strong advocate for rural communities. She covers the most rural district represented by a member of your party, and understands the unique problems of our small towns. While our own Assemblymember has been deaf to our cries, Assemblymember Goldberg’s bill satisfies us: it has the money to pay two years of insurance and for the repair of the lines. It has the requirement that the Public Utilities Commission require PG&E to renegotiate the insurance contract, and it requires them to negotiate in good faith or lose their franchise across the whole North State. And it requires them to compensate the people of Red Bluff for all losses incurred since the night they turned our people off. Please consider and pass that bill instead.
My very best to you and yours,
Xavier Banion,
Administrator
Tehama County
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