Shasta County supervisors voted four to one on Thursday, Nov. 14, to issue a series of email communications between election officials, a former county attorney and others.

The emails reference concerns from Supervisors Patrick Jones and Kevin Crye that current and former election officials “circumvented” or “usurped” the Board’s authority in the process of seeking Board approval for a bill . $1.5 million grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).

The more than 200-page document includes a series of messages from 2023 in which former Shasta County Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen and current ROV aide Joanna Francescut speak with former County Councilman Jim Ross of how to appropriately follow county policy in order to agree to this. grant and associated membership.

In April 2024, well after the newly published emails were written, supervisors chose to accept the funds of the CTCL and told election officials exactly how these funds could be used. It is unclear from the now public emails and accompanying summary how the messages could be interpreted as an attempt to “circumvent” the will of the Board. Crye did not respond to a request for Shasta Scout to explain how he believes the Council’s authority has been weakened, or what he specifically took issue with in the emails.

Release of the messages required a majority of the board to vote to waive attorney-client privilege for the redacted documents. The only dissenting vote was from Supervisor Tim Garman, who said he had not yet been able to review the redacted version.

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