by Yucheng Tang
posted Oct. 11
The District 3 City Council race feels like deja vu to many Chico voters.
Two years ago, Monica McDaniel and Dale Bennett both ran for the District 3 council seat, with McDaniel narrowly losing by about 200 votes. This year, the two are once again competing for the same position.
McDaniel remembers feeling incredibly nervous while waiting for the results and frustrated upon learning she had lost. McDaniel believes this year there could be a different outcome.
ChicoSol interviewed and photographed McDaniel on Oct. 3. Bennett did not respond to requests for an interview that were delivered in emails and phone calls.
Bennett, as an incumbent, emphasized the City’s accomplishments while speaking at the Sept. 17 Chamber of Commerce candidate forum. He seemed proud of the progress he says the City has made on homelessness, affordable housing and in other areas.
Challenger McDaniel told ChicoSol: “When the voters see the word incumbent after his name, they might just go, ‘Let’s just vote for him because we’ve been doing it. Let’s just keep it status quo.’ But I think that public opinion is against what they’re seeing. I think that public opinion is against the bumpy roads, against seeing people illegally camping in the park.
“I’ve got a really good team this time while I was doing it all by myself last time.”
Transparency
One of the criticisms of the current City Council is what some view as a lack of transparency. District 4 Councilmember Addison Winslow told ChicoSol in early September that the council tends to hold too many discussions in closed sessions or direct the mayor to deal with matters privately with City staff.
“There’s no ability to educate the public about why they’re making these decisions or give the public the opportunity to consider alternatives,” Winslow said.
During the Sept. 17 forum, Bennett noted that some discussions were not public in order to comply with a court order.
McDaniel, though, believes there’s an ongoing lack of transparency. “I’ve seen decisions made unilaterally without the collaboration of people. ”
Creating transparency is what she wants to achieve if she gets elected. “The way democracy works is, we’re not supposed to do things without the public being made aware of it, because we allocate money, we make decisions, we do things, and the public needs to be able to weigh in on it,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel wants to create transparency by naming advisory boards and listening to their findings. “Let’s just take fire for instance – the seven members on the council say we have a fire problem, and how are we gonna solve that? Then you can create a subcommittee, and they workshop, they look at it, and then they come back and advise the council and the council makes a decision,” she said. “City Council members cannot just make decisions themselves.”
City Growth
District 3 is primarily a suburban area where, in terms of party preference, Democrats have an edge.
The development and expansion of the City is a hot topic, closely related to how it can provide affordable housing for residents.
First, McDaniel believes that the Green Line, which was designed to be the point of demarcation between urban development and agricultural land on the west side, needs to be preserved, and “the Green Line means that we’re not going to sprawl out and out, and we’re gonna keep our footprint the same way it is.”
McDaniel also said that infill development shouldn’t be the only focus in planning growth.
“I also feel like a lot of the other liberal candidates say that they want infill and high density,” she said. “I agree with the high density, but I also think we need single family homes for young families.”
She continued, “It’s like what we called the American Dream, to own your own home. When you pay rent over and over again, the money goes to someone else, but when you own a home, you’re investing in your future.”
McDaniel said it’s more common for young people to choose to rent, but, “I think after the young families have kids, they will want a longer-term investment instead of a more transitory renting option. I know there’s something really cool about owning your own home.”
Bennett, her opponent, said during the Sept. 17 forum that the City Council has done a lot to support the development of affordable housing. But he also said: “We need to have an inventory of all types of housing. Affordable (housing), three-bedroom with two bathrooms and an attached garage … We need it all. We’re way behind.”
On Bennett’s campaign website, he wrote: “As a Chico native, I want Chico to continue to grow, without losing that charm which makes it special.”
Bennett said the City needs to support those entities, those businesses and those developers who will come into Chico and create affordable housing. “Valley’s Edge was a great project, a great project,” Bennett said of his support for the housing development that was rejected in a referendum.
On McDaniel’s website, she wrote: “The Valley’s Edge plan faced compelling opposition from the public and the Council majority not only approved the development but did so with no work addressing concerns and no conditions of approval. This has been a pattern of their decision-making.”
Homelessness
Homelessness is an important issue for District 3 as well. Although the City-sanctioned Cohasset and Eaton roads encampment is just outside the district, people who live in this area still encounter many unhoused people.
A 47-year-old man wearing a black MAGA cap, encountered in a grocery parking lot, said he’s most worried about homelessness. “I want our parks back. I want our clean waterways back,” he said. “We don’t owe them. Why do we need to give them washers and dryers? My taxes could have been used better.”
When asked for a possible solution, he said “Just let them go somewhere else.”
He complained that many of the unhoused people are young, rather than those who are not able to work like the elderly or disabled.
Another District 3 resident, Gail Mandaville, who is also McDaniel’s campaign manager, said it is a more complicated issue than people think.
“You cannot tell if a person is disabled or unhealthy by looking at them. That’s what people are doing. They don’t know much about mental health.” She thinks that many equate the homeless with “bad people” who are on drugs. But many unsheltered individuals cannot manage their lives and they need help.
Both Bennett and McDaniel think that camping in public areas is illegal and those camps should be cleared. McDaniel says on her website that she supports a plan to set a firm line against camping in parks, paths, and near schools.
But McDaniel differs from Bennett in some ways. McDaniel argues that before clearing the encampments, the City should provide some suitable options for sheltering homeless individuals. She believes there should be managed campgrounds.
Bennett wrote on his campaign website: “We must not allow illegal encampments to establish in our public spaces creating fire risk, environmental damage, and crime in our neighborhoods when there are shelter beds available.”
During the Sept. 19 forum, Bennett said: “We’re still struggling with what to do about those who are resistant to help. There needs to be a compassionate, yet effective way to address this. I don’t know anybody that has the silver bullet.”
McDaniel shared her opinions about shelter-resistant unhoused people at the same forum: “There needs to be something more. There needs to be better outreach. There needs to be better options available that can give individuals the opportunity to take responsibility for their own care and to be part of their own healing.”
Yucheng Tang is a California Local News Fellow reporting for ChicoSol. Read his District 1 race story here.