Former supervisor dies

Art Gilman, who in the early 1970s represented the west Chico and Durham areas on the county Board of Supervisors, died on the Fourth of July. He was 80.

Gilman, a farmer, was a burly, plainspoken man who played a role in trying to preserve the farm lands on Chico’s west side. In 1977, three years after he left the board, he became the replacement candidate in an effort to recall then-Dist. 2 Supervisor Bernie Richter, who’d voted several times to allow development of orchard lands on the city’s west side. Gilman promised to save ag land.

The recall effort failed to gain the support of the town’s liberal political machine headed by Bob Mulholland and Jane Dolan, however, and failed. A year later, Dolan ran against Richter and won. During her first term, the supervisors voted to draw the Greenline protecting westside farm land.