Redding Council Forms Ad Hoc Committee to Consider Long-Term Lease with Redding Rodeo Association

A packed crowd at the Redding City Council meeting Tuesday night, September 3, included plenty of cowboy hats. Dozens of supporters of the Redding Rodeo showed up to speak on behalf of a tradition that’s been around for more than seventy-five years.

Among them was Sandy Winters, who told the crowd to rousing applause that she was crowned Redding Rodeo Queen in 1958. Winters said she met her husband while in line to enter the arena on horseback and they’ve now been married almost sixty-six years. She shared some of the history of the Redding Rodeo, spanning back to just after World War 2 when she moved to the area.

For decades the Redding Rodeo has rented prime public land on the riverfront. But since the fall of 2021 when the City first began seriously considering developing riverfront land, the long-term future of the lease of that land has been in question. 

The nonprofit organization’s current contract requires a payment of only $50 a year for land located at the edge of the Sacramento River, quite close to the Sundial Bridge. The Redding Rodeo Association has said they need the City to sign a long-term contract for the use of that property to provide them the stability needed to access funding for much-needed upgrades to their Rodeo facilities.

The idea to form an ad hoc committee to study issues associated with agreeing to a long-term lease with the Redding Rodeo, came from newly-appointed Council member and local developer Joshua Johnson who says he feels such a committee would be the best way to ensure a good outcome for both parties.

A majority of Council members agreed with Johnson during this week’s meeting. After hearing from the public, they voted four to one, with only Council member Mark Mezzano opposing, to form a committee that will include Redding Mayor Tenessa Audette and Council member Johnson. 

Audette, who has several years left on her Council term but could vacate her seat early if she wins her bid for California’s Assembly this fall, pushed for a role on the ad hoc committee. She reasoned that her title as Mayor would benefit the Committee and said she’s already been in talks with a state agency whose ruling on the land use may be needed prior to a lease agreement.

According to the City’s staff report on the topic, the Committee may discuss issues including lease length and terms, lease value, lease boundaries, prevailing wage requirements and environmental considerations as well as a state law known as the Surplus Land Act. The staff report says the intent would be to “accelerate any further negotiations with the Rodeo Association should the City Council determine, at a later date, it wishes to consider approval of a long-term lease.”

The Committee has an end date of July 1, 2025. Since it consists of less than a majority of the Council and is limited in both time and scope, it can meet out of view of the public under California’s transparency law, known as the Brown Act.

September 5, 2024 at 11:43 am: We have updatd the article to correct a candidate name.

Speaking to Shasta Scout yesterday, September 4, Redding Rodeo Association President Ted Bambino said overall he views the events of Tuesday night as progress, but he doesn’t think a special committee was needed to discuss lease issues, saying it’s the job of attorneys to look into such specifics. 

During Tuesday’s meeting, Bambino presented the Council with a letter indicating that the organization’s attorney would be presenting specifics of a proposed long-term lease contract within the next few weeks. He told the Council that the Redding Rodeo has been an active stakeholder in many months of riverfront planning meetings and has invested half-a-million dollars into improvements to the property just over the last several years. 

After the meeting, Bambino echoed concerns from other public speakers that the Redding Rodeo’s land needs are being used by Council candidates for political purposes. Both Johnson and Council member Mark Mezzano are running to regain seats during the fall election which is only two months away.

Council member Julie Winter, whose term expires this year and who is not running for reelection, said she found the idea that the Rodeo lease was being used for political purposes “offensive,” saying there are real concerns with signing the lease that need to be addressed. 

“Just signing a thirty-year lease doesn’t wave the issues away,” Winter told the public. “The issues are there and I want to make sure we’re dealing with the issues so that both parties are successful.”

Bambino said what’s actually offensive is Winter’s claim that the formation of a Committee isn’t political in nature, saying the timing is evidence.

“You wonder what the underlying agenda is,” Bambino told Shasta Scout later. “Whatever it is, it isn’t going to materialize. We just got to be resilient so we can get our long-term lease.” 

Another Council candidate, David Backues, also spoke on the issue during Tuesday’s Council meeting. He said signing a long-term lease with the Redding Rodeo is a “no-brainer.”

“ . . . You send something to a Committee to die,” Backues said. “And that’s what I believe you guys are trying to do with this action . . . there’s no reason to send this past the election . . . If you want to say no, we’re not going to do a lease, say it publicly so that way everyone knows.”

According to Bambino, while the Redding Rodeo’s lease payments to the City are relatively small, the organization’s value to the community is enormous. He said the Rodeo brings in about $8–10 million in economic value to the region annually, a number Shasta Scout has not yet confirmed.

The Redding Rodeo Association’s operations receive support from a separate nonprofit, the Asphalt Cowboys, which hosts popular traditional Redding events annually, including the Asphalt Cowboys Pancake Breakfast and the Redding Rodeo parade. 

The Asphalt Cowboys also uses its substantial fundraising power to support numerous charitable events in the community, as noted during Tuesday’s meeting by public speaker Ginger Solido, founder of the local nonprofit Exodus Farms Ministry.

“It’s impossible to argue the countless dollars that come into this community everyday because of the Redding Rodeo,” Solido said. 

“But I think little is known of the work and the dollars and the efforts that Redding Rodeo pours back into this community year-round every year, decade after decade.”

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