Debra Lucero’s desire to remove North Chico from her county supervisor district reeks of desperation. Since when do politicians openly advocate to no longer represent portions of their district? I guess only when it makes sense for them to avoid a challenger in their re-election bid. In this case, removing North Chico from Lucero’s district would ensure that Peter Durfee couldn’t run against her next year.
We all know that the districts are going to have to look much different than they do now because of the Camp Fire. The population size of the five districts need to be equal using the new census data. Right now, Supervisor Teeter’s district on the ridge is vastly underpopulated. Re-drawing his district lines to even out the population will impact every supervisor in the county. But it shouldn’t be done to give Lucero or any other supervisor a political advantage.
Supervisor Lucero shouldn’t be surprised that people are upset with what she was trying to do. Of course people were going to see her real motivation for removing North Chico from her district. What did she expect? Lucero should recuse herself from the vote on redistricting. She’s the only supervisor attempting to use this process for personal political gain and it shouldn’t be tolerated.
— Catherine McGovern, Chico
