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Sure, indiscriminate bitching can sometimes scratch an itch. For a moment you feel like the monarch of your own particular world, laying down decrees about how things should be. But the world rarely complies. Stupid world.

But, lo! What have we here? A survey! A chance to gripe to someone who cares! Sign me up!

Whether you think homeless people are symptoms of multifaceted and complex societal ills or merely crime-committing layabouts who need a good shoving onto the next outgoing bus, some good people in Eureka want to hear more.

EPD press release:

The Eureka Police Department is asking community members to fill out this short survey for the City Homeless Improvement Program.

The City Homeless Improvement Program (CHIP), which is comprised of community members, elected officials, and staff from both the City of Eureka and County of Humboldt, have been meeting in recent months to identify and address issues associated with homelessness in our area. Currently, the group is reaching out to business owners, the homeless community, and residents to get a better grasp on the situation. As part of this effort, we need a few minutes of your time to fill out the short survey linked below. 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FLGYKLD

Please keep in mind that with the survey, we are only intending to gather information on a small part of the larger homelessness problem. This survey focuses primarily on crime, with the goal of efficiently directing resources where they will be best utilized. Other attempts are being made to identify programs that may be made available to homeless individuals interested in accepting assistance.

Thank you for taking the time to take this survey.

Three men and one woman were arrested yesterday at 11 a.m. in Mendocino County according to Casey Rettig of the US Department of Justice on a DEA warrant out of Arkansas. A fifth person was arrested at noon on the same day.

The men were booked into Humboldt County jail yesterday and scheduled to have their initial appearance before the judge today.

Ryan Marie and Brian Hartman, Nicholas Durupt, Paul Larramendy and Keith Johnson are slated to face charges coming out of Arkansas.

LoCO has a request for more information placed to the DEA public information officer for the Arkansas area.

Snipped from LoCO’s Booked.

UPDATE 4/10: The Willits News has a some more details about why the five were arrested.

Every 15 Minutes, a two-day drunk driving program aimed at teens, was held at Arcata High School on Thursday, with a final assembly with a mock trial on Friday. Every 15 Minutes challenges teenagers to make appropriate decisions and recognize that their actions affect others. 

The California Highway Patrol says:

The Every 15 Minutes program is a two-day program focusing on high school students, which challenges them to think about drinking, driving, personal safety, the responsibility of making mature decisions and the impact their decisions have on family, friends, and many others.

Day 1 consists of the grim reaper pulling students out of the classroom every 15 minutes to illustrate that somewhere in the United States, a driver dies of a DUI traffic collision every 15 minutes*. The student participants will then take a tour of the morgue, the county jail, and the hospital emergency room followed by a student retreat.

The goal is to make this as realistic as possible to show new and upcoming drivers the seriousness of the results of driving under the influence.

*In the early 1990’s when the ‘Every 15 Minutes’ program was developed, a death occurred every 15 minutes somewhere in the United States as the result of a DUI driver. Because of education efforts such as the ‘Every 15 Minutes’ program, aggressive enforcement by law enforcement, and DUI laws, the death rate is now every 30 minutes, a figure which continues to be unacceptable.

This program would not have been possible without the combined efforts of countless city, county, and state agencies, as well as civic groups and individuals who have generously contributed funding and time.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

With the Martin Slough interceptor project in deep doo-doo, the predictable finger-pointing continues today with local subcontractor SHN Consulting Engineers & Geologists defending itself against accusations from Oregon’s Apex Directional Drilling.

Apex recently announced via press release that it has abandoned Eureka’s multi-million-dollar sewer system upgrade, blaming SHN for allegedly misidentifying the type of soil it would find under Pine Hill, near the Eureka Municipal Golf Course. This mistaken conclusion, along with the City of Eureka’s stubborn refusal to accept the facts in the ground, forced Apex to give up for the first time in its history, according to the company.

SHN today responded with its own press release, saying Apex’s claims are “inaccurate and misleading.” In a phone interview this morning, SHN President and CEO Jeff Nelson said the company stands by its work. He said discussions with other drilling companies are underway.

This mutual finger-pointing will almost certainly wind up in a courtroom. Apex has retained local attorney John Lopez, who told the LoCO yesterday that city officials declined his client’s offer to split cost overruns 50/50.

With lawsuits looming, Nelson said he couldn’t discuss the details of the project’s current status.

Calls to Eureka engineer Charles Roecklein have not been returned.

Here’s the press release from SHN:

In the interest of providing accurate information regarding the abandonment of the Martin Slough project by Apex Drilling from Portland, Oregon, SHN is submitting this brief statement to correct the misinformation contained within the recent press release from Apex. SHN does not intend to discuss in detail potential areas of litigation regarding the role or performance of Apex Drilling in a public forum. That would be unprofessional and inappropriate. The information in Apex’s press release is inaccurate and misleading.

Soil conditions at the Martin Slough project were identified accurately by SHN’s geologists and engineers. Apex did not follow SHN’s recommendations which resulted with their failed efforts with the project. In a March 25th letter to Apex, the City of Eureka stated that it is not in agreement with many of the conditions and statements made by Apex, including Apex’s claim of “change of soil conditions … This leaves the City no choice but to terminate Apex’s control of the project work” as stated in the letter.

SHN Consulting Engineers & Geologists, Inc. has been successfully providing geotechnical services in the greater Eureka area and throughout Northern California and Southern Oregon for over three decades.

Here’s the latest post in our “Be On the Lookout” series, where we highlight stolen items and ask you, our readers, to help your neighbors by passing on any helpful information to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

On Wednesday, March 26, the Humboldt Amateur Radio Club(AKA HARC) communications rig was burglarized.

The items taken (see photos below) include: an Icom IC-229 VHF transceiver, an Icom IC -2100 VHF transceiver, a Kenwood TS-440 HF transceiver with manual in original shipping box,an Icom MC80 Desk Microphone for Kenwood TS-440 and a tote filled miscellaneous hardware and two CB radios.

HARC is a community driven nonprofit who provide communications for local events like the Foggy Bottoms Run/Walk and the Kinetic Sculpture Race, as well as crucial services in times of local and national emergencies.

According to Tiffany Carrol, “These are the people who operate and maintain our earthquake and tsunami warning systems! The members of this group volunteer their time, their equipment and their expertise to provide these services to our community at large. I am PERSONALLY offering a reward to the person(s) whose information leads to the recovery of the stolen property.”  

If you have any information, please call the Eureka Police Department at 441-4040 and 441-4044.

Previous BOLO:

Left to right: Sophie Buttercup Rocheleau, Nicholas Benjamin Stoiber and Juan Joseph Ferrer, the three suspects in the killing of Douglas Anderson-Jordet.

PREVIOUSLY: Showdown Over Arcata Stabbing Suspect’s Plea Deal This Afternoon

After a 90-minute hearing in a jam-packed courtroom, Judge Joyce Hinrichs has tossed all three plea deals arrived at between the District Attorney’s Office and the accused suspects in the stabbing death of Arcata man Douglas Anderson-Jordet last November.

Judge Hinrichs said it was not in the interest of justice to accept the plea agreements and signaled that she would disqualify herself from hearing the case in the future. Hinrichs said she accepted the plea initially only because Anderson-Jordet’s family appeared comfortable with the decision. Only later did the family speak out against the plea deal, via district attorney candidate Arnie Klein. 

Hinrichs said her “first and foremost” concern was the public’s faith in the justice system, and she invited blame upon herself for not asking enough questions, especially pertaining to the state’s Victims Bill of Rights.

After informing the courtroom of her tentative ruling, Judge Hinrichs allowed for arguments from the attorneys for each defendant as well as District Attorney Paul Gallegos, who last month took the prosecutorial reins from his own deputy DA, Élan Firpo (another DA candidate), saying the case had become too politicized. Firpo was in attendance, watching the proceedings from the front row.

The participating attorneys did argue against the tentative ruling. Defense attorney Marek Reavis, representing Ferrer, asked the judge to reconsider, arguing that the plea deal was a “reasonable resolution” that fit the facts of the case. He also defended the character of his client, calling Ferrer a gentle man, a vegan, a Buddhist and a member of the LGBT community who simply responded in fear to being attacked.

Reavis also took a swipe at Klein, saying the tragedy of Anderson-Jordet’s death “has been compounded by an an individual using this for his own notoriety.” Reavis urged the court to ignore Klein’s filings and chastised what he called Klein’s “despicable behavior.”

Klein himself was in attendance, though he appeared to be suffering from ill health. Before and after the hearing he took to a wheelchair, and he did not address the court directly.

The attorneys for Rocheleau and Stoiber also urged the judge to reconsider her tentative ruling, as did Gallegos, who called the plea deal “a just resolution.”

During this back-and-forth, Judge Hinrichs spoke off the cuff about her reasoning, referring repeatedly to the public’s faith in the justice system. At one point, after being gently challenged by Gallegos, she indirectly chastised him for showing up late, which he did. “I said a lot of things before you came in the door,” Hinrichs said.

The attorneys’ arguments ultimately did not sway Judge Hinrichs. She stuck to her preliminary ruling, setting a preliminary hearing for May 28 at 8:30 a.m.

Regular visitors to LoCOElections! may have noticed this morning that their experience has been upgraded. Elections visitors now have semi-easy access to the local candidates’ financial disclosure forms — the so-called “460s” that everyone is required to file from time to time.

Click on a candidate’s name and voila: There they are. You’ll find everyone who has donated more than $100 to the candidate, along with the details of how they have spent campaign cash.

Now, as of this moment, if you want to delve into a candidate’s finances you gotta download a big, dumb PDF.  This is going to change soon. The Outpost is partnering with former Humboldtian, current Oaklandish dataviz wiz John Osborn to bring you a somewhat less painless painful interface to the candidates’ financials. 

Osborn loves this kind of stuff. You won’t be disappointed.

In the meanwhile, there’s lots more going on over at LoCOElections! Recent question-answerers include DA candidates Maggie Fleming and Allan Dollison and Fifth District Supervisorial Candidate Sharon Latour. Plus: A steady firehose of questions from you, the Outpost reader/community member/citizen journalist.

LoCOElections!, everyone!