From the Record Searchlight 

Candidates debate city policy

Redding council hopefuls discuss housing, spending, employee pay

By Scott Mobley, Record Searchlight
October 11, 2006

Tuesday evening's forum for Redding City Council candidates was remarkably civil for a campaign that's sparked talk of business boycotts and comparisons to big-city machine politics.

Indeed, the wide-ranging discussion of affordable housing, spending priorities, public employee compensation and government accountability produced as many policy suggestions as rhetorical fireworks.

Challenger Rick Bosetti said the city should use traffic impact fees to build a downtown railroad underpass.

Fellow challenger Dave Rutledge said the city should try to get council agendas to the public sooner than the 72 hours before the meeting required under the Brown Act.

The candidates disagreed sharply on one of the campaign's hottest issues: how the city should pay police and firefighters. But the disagreements did not follow predictable challenger-incumbent lines.

Challenger Patrick Jones and incumbent John Mathena argued the city had to pay top dollar to keep good employees.

"You can't replace a fireman with a person off the street," Mathena said. "And shame on you for thinking it."

Jones defended Redding's practice of comparing salaries to those in other cities, noting that such comparisons are required by city ordinance.

"Redding actually ranks below most of those other cities in pay, and still, they have better infrastructure than we do."

Simple supply and demand ought to set public safety wages, Rutledge said. The city gets more than 100 applicants for a firefighting job and less than a dozen for police, Rutledge noted.

"If we can't recruit qualified applicants, we must raise wages," Rutledge said.

Incumbent Mary Stegall sat on the council that recently approved a five-year contract granting police an average annual raise of 4.75 percent. She said she had nothing to add to Rutledge's remarks.

Candidates sketched out different positions on how the city should tackle housing affordability.

Challengers Jay Gibson and Jones hammered on city fees as a fuel source for the recent housing price run-up in Redding.

"There are no such things as developer fees," Gibson said. "They are homeowners' fees."

Stegall, Bosetti and Mathena emphasized higher-wage job creation as the best answer to the housing affordability problem.

The challengers took a few swipes at the incumbents. Bosetti said he'd spend less time taking trips to conferences and more time actually listening to the preferences of Redding residents.

But the candidates kept a rein on themselves overall. And when fangs flashed, moderator Charles Menoher didn't hesitate to enforce civility.

Menoher gently chastised Jones for even mentioning the incumbents by name while answering an audience question about railroad-spawned traffic jams downtown.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hosted the forum at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center.

Shasta County Citizens Against Racism, Citizens for Responsible Government, the Northern California Hispanic Coalition and the Shasta County Mien Community also sponsored the event, which attracted 65 people.

Viva Downtown Redding will host another forum for Redding City Council candidates in the Cascade Theatre at 6 p.m. today.

Reporter Scott Mobley can be reached at 225-8220 or at smobley@redding.com.