Meet Chris Kelstrom for District 5 Supervisor 

Tell us briefly about yourself. What’s your current role? What background, experiences or concerns led you to run for supervisor?

Well, I was born and raised right here in Shasta County. I went to the same high school as my parents, Enterprise High. Six years ago I decided that I was going to run. Kind of got tired of politicians. Got tired of the little guy getting squished in the middle. You know, everything was the rich get richer and the little guy gets nothing and gets taxed to death. So I decided that I was gonna run for supervisor. I didn’t like the way things were going, and I didn’t like career politicians making a career out of it. 

Four years ago I ran on term limits, very proud to say I got that on the next ballot, and it passed by 77%, Measure C. I want to make a change and we have already changed a lot. We have a new CEO who is top notch. We have a county counsel who I think is the best county counsel this county has ever had and ever will have. We’ve got a new public health officer. I promoted a public works director from within and a resource manager. 

Another thing I ran on was permitting and building inspections and how it needs to be more user friendly. I’m proud to say that that team has done a lot of hard work. Things are getting easier — to be billed and get permits and get inspections. So I’m very happy with that. You know, there’s still a million rules they have to follow because of the state of California. But we’ve relaxed regulations in the county where we could. 

The role of supervisor involves a public decision-making process that begins with agenda packets followed by a public discussion and vote. How would you increase transparency and accountability in that process? How would you reduce conflict on the board and with the public? 

I’m pretty happy with how it’s been going since I became chair. At my first meeting, we knew they were going to test me. I was told by county counsel to make sure you’re specific about what the behavior is you’re warning them for, because it’s going to end up in court eventually. During that first meeting I told a variety of people who yelled out to be quiet, and then one of them yelled out again, and I gave them a warning and told them to leave the room and they didn’t, and they were arrested. From then on we haven’t had as many disruptions anymore. I think both sides know I’m being more fair.

I mean, let’s face it. Former Supervisor Patrick Jones was much rougher on one side than the other side. Even Supervisor Kevin Crye, he tried to be fair to both sides but he was more likely to jump on one side than the other when he was board chair. But I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what side you’re on. I’m going to treat you all equally. I’ve even banged the gavel on a friend of mine who yelled out. There are rules, and everybody has to follow them, not just one group or the other. It seems to have calmed down. 

You know, we have the same 20 agitators, and they’re on both sides. There’s a dozen on one side and there’s half a dozen or more on the other side, and they’re the same people that are causing the same problems at all of these meetings. A lot of them on the other side have now gone to work in the elections office, so they aren’t at every meeting anymore. But I think it’s gotten a lot better. I think the temperature in the room is cooler because I am fair to both sides, and I’m consistent with both sides. 

There’s been a lot of talk about people wanting me to go back to three minutes per public commenter if we have over 10 speakers. But I didn’t see any need to change the two minutes per speaker that Kevin put in place. Now, in July public comment rules are going to change drastically because of a change in state law. So we’ve tightened our rules down quite a bit, and we’re hoping that it won’t be a problem, and we can expand it back out. But we could have speakers phoning in from Uganda or Ukraine or AI bots calling us. We just have to see what happens. 

What about with board members? Are you reducing conflict there? 

Definitely. I don’t take cheap shots. I don’t go low. I treat everybody with respect. I don’t sit up there and roll my eyes. Believe me, sometimes I roll my eyes in the back of my head, but I try to treat everyone with respect and let them get their points out. It’s much better to work with Supervisors Matt Plummer and Allen Long than it was with former Supervisors Tim Garman and Mary Rickert. We may have differences of opinions, but we all talk like adults. We may not come to the same agreement, but we’re not arguing, and nobody’s being petty. It’s been a great board to work with.

What is a supervisor’s role in implementing solutions to reduce homelessness, and how will you work to do so?  

So first of all, 95% of the problem is happening in the city of Redding. So we catch a lot of flack, but that’s not our jurisdiction. We do have some jurisdiction. We had an issue down in Happy Valley about a year ago, and there was a disagreement about whose jurisdiction it was, and I told the police chief and the sheriff to please work together and get the problem solved, and the sheriff did.

I don’t know what the answer to homelessness is. It’s such a big problem. If they want to get help, we have tons of programs that will get them help. But the vast majority don’t want help. A few years ago I went into Mercy Canyon camp with Kevin along with a guide that took us in. We went to a place where a guy had cut steps into the hillside to go up to his tent, and he had built little shelves inside and had a couch he had dragged in there. When Kevin asked him if he was ready to get out of the camp, he said he wasn’t ready yet. It didn’t seem like he was on drugs, it just seemed like he didn’t want to go back into society.

So what do you do with somebody like that? I don’t know. We have funded some good programs. The Good News Rescue Mission is building a halfway house. I think that’ll be a good project. My favorite one is Shasta College’s Step Up program, which helps prevent homelessness for people coming out of jail by getting their records cleaned up and getting them their degrees. 

I had LeAnn Massingham’s mother reach out to me before she was killed trying to get help. I asked my mental health guy that gives me advice, and he said there’s nothing you can do if they don’t want help. If they’re not a threat themselves or a threat to anybody else, there’s really nothing you can do. Then when she was killed, I felt terrible. But I don’t know what the answer is. I just know what we’re doing now isn’t working. Continuing to throw money at the problem isn’t working because people just don’t want help.

When I found out the Good News Rescue Mission is never at full capacity, my level of compassion went down a little bit. I’m thinking, you have an opportunity to go get a warm bed, warm shower and eat a warm meal, and you would rather sleep under a bridge because you don’t want to follow a couple rules? That kind of hit home. So again, I don’t know what the answer is. It is a problem, and I’m not sure what the answer is. But again, we’re funding programs that do good work. There’s a lot of programs out there. But we don’t seem to be getting any results.

How about when it comes to solutions for mental health care needs in Shasta. How would you summarize those needs, and how would you use your position as a county board member to address them? 

Well I did end up giving the True North project a letter of support, and so did our Health and Human Service Director, Christy Coleman and Dr. Mu from public health. But for whatever reason, the state didn’t fund it. 

As far as the Family Dynamics one, that was slated for Anderson, I gave a letter of support because I knew we needed the beds. They needed funding from the county, and we made sure that they could only get that funding with support from the Anderson City Council. And they didn’t get that support from the council.

Can you explain the county’s current financial state? How would you work to stabilize county finances? Where would you choose to invest the limited capital funds that are available for projects?

Obviously we need to build a jail, but that’s probably not going to happen. We set aside about $35 million in the last couple of years but the construction costs have skyrocketed since then, so the cost would be more like $150 million now. So we don’t have the funds. The only way that we build another jail would be with a public safety tax. And nobody’s fond of having taxes raised. 

Shasta County is running in the black. But the only reason that we are running in the black is we have some amazing people in charge of the money: CEO David Rickert, Auditor Nolda Short, Deputy CEO Erin Bertain. 

I read every line of the budget every year because that’s taxpayer dollars, and I want to know where they’re going. And you can see where they’re going; everything is pretty transparent. This year we have to tighten our belt a little bit, so there’s going to be a few departments that are going to be bare bones, and they’re going to get some cuts. The Big Beautiful Bill that Trump brags about took some services away. I know he was addressing waste in some places, but when they slash our funding here in Shasta, it hurts. 

I think our finances will be okay. We’re not flush with funds by any means. But there’s still that pot of money. The sheriff wants to use that for the alternative custody program. There’s been a couple other runs at the money. People know the money is there, and they want it, but I back the sheriff up 100%, so I’m pretty sure nobody else is gonna get that money.

Decisions by current board members have impacted Shasta County finances. Specific questions we’ve heard relate to legal costs for lawsuits like the one against the Redding Rancheria contract, the board’s decision to eliminate impact fees and a vote to give yourselves raises. Do you stand by those decisions? Why or why not? 

Yeah, I do. So the impact fees, they’re something developers pay, but they’re also something everyday Joe Blow pays. When we looked at impact fees we felt it was just an illegal tax. So we ended up stopping impact fees in Shasta County and a week later, there was a Supreme Court case from El Dorado County that ruled it was an illegal tax. So I will not go back and reinstitute impact fees, because to me, it’s illegal. It’s been controversial, but it was something that needed to be done. 

As far as raises, the supervisor position hadn’t had a raise in more than 20 years. If we had been going up a little by cost of living for all those years, it would have been close to where we put it at when we gave the raise. It was a big jump. But it’s a livable wage now. We’re still not making anywhere near like what our department heads make. We’re still in the lower end of the public employees. So yeah, it was controversial, but I’ll have to stand by that one, and I feel that we fixed it for future board members too, for future generations.

As far as the lawsuit over the Redding Rancheria contract, the judge made a ridiculous decision. His decision would mean that supervisors couldn’t do anything without elected officials’ approval. That’s not how it works. It’s the other way around. We talked to the department heads. They all came to the meeting where we decided, and they gave their story. The thing is they all wanted a bigger piece of the pie. But there was no pie because no agreement had been reached. So I totally stand by my decision, and I know we’ll win that in court.

What do you see as the most pressing issue for Shasta County right now? 

Public safety should always be number one, and finances should be number two. 

But one of my priorities that nobody’s talking about, and my opponents probably aren’t even aware of, is the North Battle Creek Reservoir and Lake McCumber which are at risk of disappearing now that PG&E hasn’t renewed its license to operate dams there. It reminds me of Kilarc Reservoir up in Whitmore. My kids grew up fishing there. I used to take them in summertime every other week, or every week. Just a beautiful little lake, with a powerhouse down the hill. I mean, it was just a beautiful place, a great spot, and it’s now just a big dry hole in the ground.

It’s probably gonna take the federal government to step in. We’ve sent a letter to the Department of Agriculture to say we need you to step forward to maintain, repair or replace the dams on these lakes, because it’s not just for recreation, it’s habitat. It’s for fire protection. It’s for water storage. It’s for flood control. I mean, there’s a lot of things that those two dams do for that area, so that’s one of my big objectives this next term, is seeing that we can possibly save those and get somebody to step forward.

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