Democratic Action Club of Chico and other Democratic organizers have organized an election night party at Sierra Nevada's Big Room.

The after-party is at Duffy's Tavern and/or the local Democratic headquarters on Main St. There will be drinks of joy or sorrow at Duffy's on Tuesday night.

The local Republicans, I suspect, are meeting at their usual election night gathering spot - The Holiday Inn. I never get invited, but I hear the food on election night is not so bad.

For years, former City Councilor and current Assemblyman Rick Keene and his allies "borrowed" the City of Chico's video projector for their partisan election night party.

In other words, tax dollar-purchased equipment was used by local Republican activists to enjoy watching voting returns on a big screen.

Thankfully, that "borrowing" practice stopped a few years ago when someone with better sense finally said, "uh, that's not an appropriate use of City equipment. Go get your own video projector somewhere else."

I don't know why local Republican party organizers didn't see the irony of relying on a "government subsidy" to project voting returns for their election night party when the "free market" or private enterprise could sufficiently meet that demand.

But maybe Keene and his friends just assumed in the past that the video projector was in the "public domain" for them to use, even for partisan purposes.

Happy Halloween!

Today's Scrabble word is pawl, a hinged mechanical part.