Column 283 - March 27, 2026

MLB Opening Day, Groundwater, A Tale of Two Sales Taxes

PLAY BALL! I’m writing this Thursday, Opening Day for Major League Baseball and every team and fan has high hopes for the season. Mets fans like me endured a gut wrenching offseason where heartbreaking trades were made left and right. Closer extraordinaire Edwin Diaz went to the LA Dodgers. Brandon Nimmo, (the last remaining Met to play on the team with David Wright,) to the Texas Rangers. Flying Squirrel Jeff McNeil to the Oakland A’s and his best friend, All-Star slugger Pete Alonso, to the Baltimore Orioles. We lost our Polar Bear.

All four of these players were fan favorites and Mets Nation questioned the front office’s mental health and dusted off the guillotine. Comedian and HBO late night host John Oliver’s 8 year old son took Alonso’s departure very hard and asked his father if he could switch to being an Orioles fan. Oliver told him no, of course, but that didn’t stop the Polar Bear from inviting them both to a game at Camden Yards. Sweet and classy.

But now it’s the 2026 season and we must heal and move on. The Opening Day Mets beat the Opening Day Pittsburgh Pirates 11-7 and I always wonder what the last Day of the Regular Season roster will look like. 161 games to go. Anything can happen and probably will.

Mets rookie Carson Benge made his major league debut with a solo home run after going 0-2. The only Met to do that prior to Benge was Kaz Matsui in 2004 and no I didn’t have that memorized. I am a woman and have the locations of keys, phones, and household items in the brain space where men keep sports records.

I watched today’s game with the sound off because I was also watching the Flood Control and Water Conservation District meeting on my laptop while listening to it on the phone. There is significant lag time in the live stream video the county provides, so if you want to participate in real time without being in the room you have to be on the phone. Unfortunately, the phone has an echo for the caller because the mic in the room picks up what the caller just said and plays it back through the phone again. Distracting? Annoying? So 2005? Yes.

Friday Red Bluff Daily News columnist Shanna Long attended in person, asking great questions and making relevant points. Check out her column from yesterday if you subscribe. Andrew Grady and Gail Wallace also came armed with knowledge and logic to share. Were they heard? Who knows? The Board of Directors (same people as the Board of Supervisors) took it all in, but there is an overwhelming amount of information to absorb.

These five men (well, four Thursday because Steve Zane was absent) have to learn it all, while also tackling all the problems the county faces in everything not related to groundwater. Plus trying to have some balance in their lives with family stuff, personal selfcare, and endless hunting for keys, phones, and household items because they are all men. It’s a lot of work for almost no pay and I am grateful to them for trying, even if I don’t always like the way the votes go.

The county wants your input on the upcoming groundwater fee structure. If you don’t make your voice heard it will cost you money. It’s as simple as that. There are two Public Outreach Meetings this coming week where your opinion will be counted. The first is Wednesday, April 1 at the Red Bluff Community Center. The second is Thursday, April 2 in the Corning City Council Chambers. Both meetings will run from 6-8pm and will cover the same material. Please plan to be at one. Do not wait until there is a new fee on your property tax bill. It will be too late then.

There’s an opportunity for you to pay more for other stuff coming soon to a petition clipboard near you. Recently the Board of Supervisors discussed a one cent Public Safety Tax and created an Ad Hoc Committee, which commissioned a $40,000 survey. The survey told them they probably couldn’t pass a Special Tax, which would require a ⅔ majority vote. The survey did show a potential slight majority of voter support, but fell way short of the ⅔, so the Ad Hoc was dissolved.

Lo and behold, just weeks later a full page Legal Notice shows up in the RBDN classified section, stating the intention of a group of citizens to circulate petitions for signatures to get an initiative onto the November ballot. Citizens’ Initiatives only require a simple majority vote. Coincidence? Of course not.

You probably recall another Citizens Initiative that recently got onto the June primary ballot for a one cent tax to fix the streets in Red Bluff. A grassroots group of citizens did the legwork and got the sigs necessary to get Measure S onto the ballot for the people to vote on. No easy task.

Now along comes a countywide CI that would be collecting signatures for ANOTHER one cent tax for November while voters have their June ballots in their hands. The Safety Tax’s signature sheets would be due June 1 to get on the November ballot. The primary election is June 2. How do you think the Public Safety effort will affect the Streets Tax vote?

This is Tehama County, where taxes go to die after being publicly ridiculed and spat upon. Voters will be faced with voting on one tax while simultaneously deciding whether or not they want to vote on another. How is this helpful to either of them? If they both pass, Red Bluff’s sales tax will go to 9.5%. Oy vey.

I have no final opinion on either tax yet. I drive on RB streets and they are abysmal, but I don’t get to vote on Measure S because I don’t live in Red Bluff. We don’t know exactly what’s in the Public Safety Tax yet, but it appears the DA’s office would get a cut. That’s a hard no for me, unless it includes instructions on how a hydrometer works. Oh look, here are some now.

No, we are never letting Tumblergate go. Never ever.