Builder and Developer Joshua Johnson Will Take Dacquisto’s Redding Council Seat, For Now

Tuesday’s special Redding City Council meeting began with a twist when Erin Resner, one of only two candidates being considered to fill a short-term vacancy on the Council, pulled out of consideration for the position during her opening speech.

“Our city is at a pivotal juncture,” Resner said. “Many eyes are watching and many ears are listening to see and hear if we will uphold the beacon of decorum, respect and reverence for local government our community desperately needs right now.”

“After thoughtful consideration and much dialog,” she continued, “I will be declining to participate in the public interview process, and would like to express my support for Joshua Johnson for the interim City Council position.”

Resner and Johnson were being considered for a five-month vacancy to fill the fifth Council seat recently vacated by Michael Dacquisto less than halfway into his four-year term. Former long-term Council member Kristen Schreder was also on the list for possible appointment at the last Council meeting but had already removed her name from consideration. She told Shasta Scout she decided to do so because it was clear that the Council was already evenly split between the other two candidates.

Resner’s surprise move left the Council with a single applicant to consider, Johnson, a builder, developer and newly-appointed city Planning Commissioner who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Council in 2022.

Council members interviewed Johnson briefly, with Winter noting that she had not yet seen his CV but knew him personally. He briefly shared his professional background, including his experience working with the Economic Development Corporation, his role in helping launch Start Up Redding, several housing projects he’s developed, his role on the Shasta Community Action Board and his membership on the Good News Rescue Mission Board.

Asked by Winter asked how he’d manage a potential $1 million budget gap at the City, Johnson didn’t provide specifics, saying he wants to listen to the people on what parts of the budget they’d like cut. As far as his opinion about the Riverfront Specific Planning process, Johnson said while he originally did not support the decision to spend American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds on updating the Riverfront Specific Plan, he now believes the process is providing important insight into the community’s wishes. 

Council member Mark Mezzano asked a series of probing questions that he received from community members over the last week, including whether Johnson favored allowing housing in the Redding Riverfront area by Turtle Bay Exploration Park and whether he’d support a 50-75 year riverfront lease for the Redding Rodeo.

On both questions, Johnson spoke in broad terms, saying he wants to listen to the people, see “progress” at the riverfront and “find out what else that area could be.” He proposed a market study to determine what kind of entertainment venue the community could support at the riverfront.

In response to further questions from Mezzano, Johnson said he does not currently support a sales tax to support the city’s general needs and that if he had to model himself after a current or former council member, it would be some blend of Audette, Winter and former Council member Brent Weaver.

Council Member Jack Munns asked no public questions, saying he’d already asked his questions of both candidates privately. Audette posed only one, asking Johnson how he’d address the city’s decreasing sales tax revenue. Johnson responded with an idea for how to increase revenue from property sales by incentivizing property updates.

The Council voted three to one for Johnson’s appointment, with only Mezzano opposing it. He said he wanted to see the seat left vacant until the fall election, something that Dr. Paul Dhanuka, who’s running for City Council this fall, has also publicly advocated.

The Council could have chosen to do so. Dacquisto timed his departure from city service to ensure that an election would be held during the fall general election to fill the remaining half of his term, two years. But for the next five months there were options. During a July 2 meeting, City Manager Barry Tippin said the Council could basically choose any way they liked to fill the short-term vacancy. They could also decline to fill it at all, pending the fall election.

The Council decided to move forward by inviting three individuals who were believed to have interest in the position, Resner, Johnson and Schreder, to attend public interviews leading up to an appointment. 

But when both Schreder and Resner withdrew from consideration, Johnson’s appointment became almost the default. That concerned some, including realtor David Backues, who’s worked with Mezzano’s campaigns and also unsuccessfully sought a recent appointment to fill a vacancy on the Shasta County Board of Education.

Backues had strong words for how things turned out, referring to the Resner’s withdrawal and Johnson’s acceptance as “political posturing between two individuals . . . making inside deals.” 

That’s not how Resner or Johnson see it. Speaking to Shasta Scout this morning, July 10, Resner said she had wanted to be considered for the position but had become increasingly uneasy about the uncertainty of the process as the week went on. 

During last week’s meeting, Council members did not set any particular structure for either the interviews or the appointment process, voting only to request the three people to show up for interviews. That lack of structure or format, Resner believed, easily lent itself to the appointment process “sliding into a spectacle,” much like what she recently saw occur at county board meetings for the appointment of a new registrar of voters. 

She said she changed her mind on participating in the interview after a conversation with Council Member Jack Munns, when he unexpectedly showed up to her house to deliver an Instacart order for chicken feed just hours before the public interview. She said she’s had a good working relationship with Munns, whom she’s supported with advice regarding Council processes during his first year in office. When he told her he was set on appointing Johnson, she knew the vote was likely to be tied 2-2 . . . and that changed her course of action.

“At roughly that time, around midday,” Resner told Shasta Scout, “I realized . . . . that there was a very strong potential that we’d end in a locked vote and we would have wasted everybody’s time and engaged in a circus and a charade that felt disrespectful to the office and to the seriousness of the decision and to the community . . . “

She said she reached out to Johnson by phone shortly afterwards, just hours before the meeting, to let him know she planned to withdraw from consideration and to ask if he’d consider running for a four-year term while she runs for the two-year to finish out Dacquisto’s term. Without offering specifics, she said she has a few projects she’d like to see to fruition as a Council member, and a two-year term will give her the chance to work on those.

Resner said she believes filling the five-month vacancy up until the election, rather than leaving it vacant, was important for the Council, which has a lot of work to do. She also said she thinks a tied vote would have resulted in still further meetings on the appointment process, unnecessarily extending the issue.

During her speech to the Council, Resner called her decision to withdraw “a testament to what it looks like to work together to find practical solutions and avoid unnecessary chaos or division” and said she is “committed to maintaining a standard that reflects the dignity and gravity of the responsibility associated with city leadership.”

Speaking to Shasta Scout today, July 10, Johnson confirmed that he spoke with Resner several hours before the public interview and agreed to run for the four-year term while she runs for the two-year term. He said he’s excited to have been appointed for the City Council seat and plans to run for a four-year term this fall. But he’s also mourning the loss of his new seat on the Planning Commission.

“I don’t get that seat back if I lose (in November). I risk a four-year seat that I’ve applied for three times since I’ve lived here for the hope of gaining the people’s trust in November. It was high stakes for me because I really love the planning work too.”

Resner said Johnson’s decision to take the five-month appointment was high stakes for another reason: everything he does between now and November, she said, will be top of mind for voters this fall. 

“Everything he does will be on record,” Resner said. “It is a little bit of a risky move for him. Every opinion that I have is pretty well documented at this point in time but as a new person he will be on display and his opinion on everything will be recorded.”

That’s okay with Johnson, who said he’s eager for the public to see for themselves how he’ll make decisions.

“Philosophically I think (I’m) postured similarly (to others on the Council) with what we care about in the city,” Johnson said, “The difference is going to be in the nuance.”

“What I want to bring to the Council,” Johnson continued, “is that if I vote against a particular Council member I want to explain my process and how I got there.”

Ian Hill, a GIS specialist with the Shasta County Assessor’s Office who ran unsuccessfully for the Council in 2022 and is running again this fall, said the process the Council chose to pick Johnson felt to him like favoritism and an unfair advantage.

“I feel like no one else was really given a chance. The Council kept saying Johnson has to prove himself and if the voters don’t like him he’s out, but why does he get a trial run and the rest of us don’t?”

Do you have a correction to this story? You can submit it here. Do you have information to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org