The Calif. Dutch Bros franchisee who ousted MAGA in Shasta County

Two highly controversial public officials, once liked for being “outsiders,” were ousted from office in Shasta County last month after residents seemingly had a change of heart.

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Erin Resner, the owner of eight Redding-based Dutch Bros franchises and a current Redding City Council member, will replace Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye, a MAGA-friendly candidate who has held office since 2023. Crye’s tenure was divisive within the community over some of his ideas, like peddling election denial, attempting to end the use of voting machines based on debunked conspiracy theories, and the denial of funding for a mental health project. 

Now, Resner’s win is a sign that the conservative county may be shifting more toward the middle.

“It feels like a signal from the community that they’re done with the chaos,” Resner told SFGATE in a phone call. Resner launched her bid for Crye’s seat in January after another candidate dropped out, saying she felt obligated to put her name in the hat so Crye would have an opponent. 

“I knew six months before the primary was not a lot of time for someone to gain name recognition and raise enough money to compete. I was unwilling to let voters have no other option,” she said. If she hadn’t taken the bet on the board seat, it would mean another four years of a “disruptive leader” who brought “chaos, a lack of solutions, a style of leadership that is the opposite of collaborative,” she said, which she just couldn’t stomach.

Shasta County has been ruled by its heavily conservative city council since 2020, when distrust toward the government and elections grew in the rural community, particularly after Donald Trump sowed conspiracy theories after his presidential election loss. The county lurched even further right in 2022, after a conservative majority took office, and became nationally known as the county overtaken by MAGA.

“I felt like this community was losing out on great people with good ideas because of the vitriolic nature that has become Shasta County politics. It hasn’t always been like that,” she said. 

Crye in particular has been a controversial figure since he was elected. He positioned himself as ultra-conservative, and it became clear that he and two of his colleagues, Chris Kelstrom and Corkey Harmon, would often vote together on issues, icing out more moderate Supervisors Allen Long and Matthew Plummer. 

Crye railed against COVID-19-related health mandates, voted against funding a behavioral health clinic, appointed a Florida lawyer with no track record of experience to run the county’s elections, ditched a contract with a voting machine maker and opposed a 2024 state law that restricts concealed weapons from being carried in certain locations.

There have been small strides of resistance in recent years. In 2024, Supervisor Patrick Jones, another far-right, divisive figure when it came to election denial, lost to Plummer, who garnered 60% of the vote. Now there is Resner, who ran a campaign with the slogan “Let’s Take Back Our Seat.” She received more than 54% of the vote, winning by about 1,500 votes. Resner previously ran against Crye in a close race in 2022; she lost by only 90 votes at that time. 

Resner said she looks forward to working alongside the four other supervisors. She said she sits on two boards with Kelstrom. Despite Kelstrom’s history of voting in alignment with Crye, Resner said she doesn’t see “the same level of desire to create chaos” from him.

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“He obviously holds serious opinions, and he isn’t a fan of mine, but that’s the nature of politics and honestly the nature of being a grown-up,” she said of her future colleague. “You don’t always get to choose your co-workers.” As for Harmon, Crye’s other frequent voting partner, Resner said that she thinks “he can probably work with anybody.”

Resner emphasized the board is meant to be a bipartisan body, but she considers herself a “reasonable Republican” or a “data-driven Republican.” Long and Plummer, who were previously the odd ones out, “both seem to be more data-driven, evidence-based, logical, reasonable,” she said, likening their approach to her own.

As for Crye, Resner said she hasn’t heard from him since the June primary. “I think he’s sort of behaving like there wasn’t an election,” she said. SFGATE reached out to all members of the current board for comment but didn’t hear back in time for publication.

Another departure should help shore up a new, less extreme era in Shasta County. That Florida lawyer who was overseeing county elections, Clint Curtis, was also voted out. 

Curtis was appointed to serve as the registrar of voters, a move that was spearheaded by Crye and his conservative colleagues, after the previous election leader retired. Coming all the way from Florida, Curtis waltzed into office last year and quickly began causing drama.

He has meddled with reporters, and members of the community heavily pushed back on his appointment. Board meetings have been loud with frustrated residents who called for a more transparent voting process and questioned Curtis’ complete lack of government and election experience.

There have been two investigations into Curtis since he’s taken office. Both investigations substantiated reports of verbal abuse and physical threats of violence, including an allegation that Curtis threatened to drag an employee by the hair and “throat punch” someone in his office. At the time, the board did not move forward with any disciplinary action against Curtis and allowed him to keep his job.

Now, the voters have spoken. 

Joanna Francescut, who previously worked in the elections office for nearly two decades, will take Curtis’ place starting next year. Curtis abruptly removed Francescut from her role last May after she’d spent 17 years in the elections office. At the time, he told her it was a “personnel decision,” but Francescut perceived it as a retaliatory move, since she, at the time, had announced she was running for his seat. Her campaign focused solely on the promise to restore trust in the county’s election process.