The 15 hazmat suit-cladded investigators digging around the fire wreckage in downtown Arcata last week were insurance investigators, city manager Merritt Perry told the Outpost. 

It’s the next step towards eventually clearing out all the rubble from the site of the Jan. 2 fire. All three of the property owners on the burned half-block have their own insurance carrier, each of whom did their own investigation at the same time last week. 

The investigators didn’t discover anything the fire department hadn’t already found, Arcata Fire District assistant chief Wayne Peabody told the Outpost, though he said he hadn’t yet seen their final reports.

There’s no timeline set yet on when the debris will be cleared. Perry said city hall is working with the property owners, introducing them to contractors, helping prepare them to deal with any technicalities or file for any necessary permits, like those for dealing with hazardous waste or contamination. Getting through all the red tape can be daunting, Perry said, but it’s important to ensure the community’s safety.

“A lot of the property owners haven’t done something like this before,” Perry said. “This isn’t something they’ve done before. No one’s an expert in it, so we try and pull together resources so they can understand it and proceed with the work.”

Video courtesy Stu’s Brews.

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On March 2, 2026, at approximately 8:45 a.m., an officer with the Eureka Police Department observed a blue Ford Mustang traveling northbound on I Street before turning eastbound and proceeding the wrong way onto 6th Street.

The officer attempted to conduct a traffic stop; however, the driver refused to yield. The driver corrected his direction of travel on 6th Street but continued to evade the officer. The driver, later identified as Travis Evans, 30, made several turns and proceeded onto 4th Street without stopping.

Due to light traffic conditions, officers continued pursuing Evans. While Evans was traveling on 4th Street, officers successfully deployed a spike strip, puncturing the vehicle’s tires. Evans continued driving, turned southbound onto Broadway, and eventually came to a stop on the 2400 block of Broadway.

Upon stopping, Evans immediately exited the vehicle and fled on foot. Officers detained him after a brief struggle. No officers or members of the public were injured during the incident.

Evans was transported to a local hospital for medical clearance prior to being booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on the following charges:

• VC 23152(f) – Driving Under the Influence of Drugs
• VC 2800.2(a) – Evading a Peace Officer with Wanton Disregard for Safety
• VC 2800.4(a) – Evading a Police Officer While Driving the Wrong Way
• VC 14601(a) – Driving on a Suspended License
• PC 148(a)(1) – Obstructing, Delaying, or Resisting a Peace Officer
• PC 1203.2(a) – Violation of Probation
• VC 21651 – Driving the Wrong Way on a One-Way Street
• VC 21657 – Driving on the Wrong Side of the Roadway
• VC 22350 – Unsafe Speed

This case remains under investigation. Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to contact the Eureka Police Department at 707-441-4300.

You live in the red, you could be eligible for the thing discussed below. Scroll around and zoom if you wanna.

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Press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that households impacted by the power outages as a result of winter storms in California could be eligible for replacement of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. This is one of many recent steps USDA has taken to ensure California residents in need have food to eat.

Rather than require SNAP households to report food losses individually, USDA allowed the state of California to approve automatic mass replacements of 50 percent benefits for residents who lost food as a result of the winter storm. The waiver applies to 22 counties (Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Humboldt, Mariposa, Mendocino, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sonoma, Trinity, Tulare, Tuolumne, Yolo, Yuba) and 74 zip codes (95689, 95666, 95629, 95978, 95930, 95942, 95954, 9594, 95248, 95223, 95226, 95232, 95224, 95257, 95720, 95684, 95709, 95726, 95634, 95636, 95233, 95255, 95251, 93664, 93628, 93621, 93664, 93651, 95556, 95555, 95558, 95570, 95546, 93623, 95389 95417, 95986, 95715, 95714, 95701, 95717, 95631, 95983, 95934, 95947, 95984, 92341, 92280, 93426, 94060, 94074, 94020, 96125, 95910, 95944, 95936, 95568, 95419, 95497, 95527, 93633, 93603, 95364, 95375, 95335, 95346, 95383, 95321, 95679, 95637, 95925, 95922, 95919, 95981).

More details will be made available through the California Department of Social Services.

SNAP participants in areas hardest hit by the disaster may have a portion of their February benefits replaced. SNAP recipients residing in other affected areas may request replacement benefits by filing an affidavit with the local office attesting to disaster-related loss.

For more information about assistance available to residents of California impacted by the winter storm, visit this link..

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PREVIOUSLY

• (UPDATING) Huge Fire in Downtown Arcata
• ‘We Would Love to Rebuild’: Northtown Books Owner Dante DiGenova Addresses Devastating Fire, Thanks the Community and Looks Toward Next Steps
• Investigation Finds No Evidence of Foul Play in January 2 Arcata Fire; Cause Remains Undetermined

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Today marks exactly two months since a structure fire consumed an entire block of downtown Arcata, destroying seven businesses and multiple upstairs apartments. 

Among the incinerated storefronts were those occupied by Northtown Books, the oldest and arguably most cherished bookstore in Humboldt County, and Dandar’s Boardgames and Books, which specializes in sci-fi and fantasy books, manga, tabletop games, tarot cards and the like. Dandar’s was a newcomer to downtown Arcata, having relocated from Valley West just months prior, but it had already established a loyal fanbase. 

Last week, the Outpost spoke with Northtown Books owner Dante DiGenova and exchanged emails with Dan Gilkey, who co-owns Dandar’s with his wife Doranna Benker-Gilkey. We asked each about their plans for the future, including the search for new digs. [DISCLOSURE: Dan and I are old friends; we attended McKinleyville High School together and were roommates for a while in the late ‘90s.]

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Dandar’s owners announced on social media last week — in a post that featured a new phoenix-adorned logo — that while the search for a new permanent home continues, a temporary spot on the plaza, inside Jacoby’s Storehouse, will allow them “to get back on our feet and back to business.”

“Bill Chino at Jacoby’s Storehouse has been absolutely amazing working with us and making a space for us,” Gilkey said of the building’s owner. “He has us on a month-to-month lease so we can continue to look for a long-term location with more space. We will be able to make a good little shop here in the meantime.”

There won’t be quite enough room to accommodate tables for gaming, but Gilkey said there should be “a reasonable selection” of games and manga. 

“We are going to have to scale back on our regular book selection and focus more on special orders (not ideal but just the reality of stocking a smaller place),” Gilkey said. 

As for a new permanent location, he said they’d prefer to remain in downtown Arcata, though there aren’t many suitable locations available.

“We are talking to a couple places but it is an uphill struggle getting something both big enough and affordable,” Gilkey said. “We are really thankful to have the flexibility the Jacoby’s Storehouse is providing.”

Dandar’s hopes to open in its temporary location early next month.

DiGenova, meanwhile, said he’d prefer to find a new permanent location, rather than reopening somewhere temporarily, though he noted that “temporary” means different things to different people.

“According to my insurance company, ‘temporary’ means [up to] two years,” DiGenova said. That kind of arrangement might work, he said, but anything shorter term “is just not appealing to me. I would rather, at this time, just still focus on website orders.”

In the first days and weeks after the fire, community support for Northtown flowed in, both through an online fundraiser, which has allowed DiGenova to retain some of his employees, and via a wave of customer book orders through the store’s website. (Such orders are delivered directly to customers’ home addresses.)

“It was pretty incredible,” DiGenova said of the community’s support. “The first month was kind of overwhelming. We had three people working on website orders.” 

That wave of online orders has since subsided, which was to be expected, he said. 

“We’re not known as an online retailer. It’s not the preferred method for us or our customers.”

But online orders do still help to support the store. DiGenova said he’s been trying to spread the word that Northtown can still do bulk orders for schools and institutions, too. Those are handled via email (info@northtownbooks.com) rather than the website. 

As with Gilkey, DiGenova has a few leads on possible new homes for Northtown Books, though each has its own financial and logistical challenges. He’d love to go back into the same location once it’s rebuilt, but with sky-high construction costs, the store’s rent would inevitably be much higher. Plus, there’s still no telling how long reconstruction will take.

Then there’s the matter of insurance. DiGenova said his store’s policy will cover increased rent for a limited time period but not building upgrades for landlords. Insurance adjusters have been spotted recently in hazmat suits, scouring the wreckage of the fire

Shortly after the fire there were rumors that Northtown was relocating to the former Hatchet House location on G Street, just south of the plaza, and while both Dandar’s and Northtown explored that as a possibility, it didn’t work out.

The owners of both stores said they appreciate the community’s support and will continue to work diligently toward reopening.

Condors A0 and A1 were close even as kids. Video: Yurok Tribe.

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Press release from the Yurok Tribe:

A free-flying pair of condors in the Pacific Northwest recently established the region’s first nest in more than a century.

Based on a series of behavioral changes and an analysis of flight data, the Northern California Condor Restoration Program determined that condors A0 (Ney-gem’ ‘Ne-chween-kah) and A1 (Hlow Hoo-let) may have started tending to a newly laid egg in early February, although actual confirmation of an egg is impossible due to the remoteness of the nesting site. A0 would have deposited the egg within a cavity of an old-growth redwood in the Redwood Creek drainage after months of searching for the ideal location.

“This is a huge moment for our Northern California flock,” said Chris West, the Northern California Condor Restoration Program Manager and Yurok Wildlife Department Senior Biologist. ““It is important to remember that these are wild birds. We trap them occasionally for health monitoring, but if they nest, and how successful they are, is totally up to them, with as little interference from us as possible.”

NCCRP is thrilled by this development, although much can still happen between now and the potential hatch day. In wild populations, the initial egg produced by a breeding pair of condors frequently exhibits low survival, due to the adults’ lack of experience with the incubation and care process.

“I have been waiting for this moment since the first condors arrived in 2022,” said Yurok Wildlife Department Director Tiana Williams-Claussen. “As a scientist, I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up too high, but that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer for these young parents’ success.”

Condors A1 (studbook 969), and A0 (studbook 973) will incubate the approximately 10‑ounce, light‑blue egg for 55 to 58 days. These large scavengers engage in biparental incubation, with the male and female alternating incubation duties and brooding and care of the chick once it hatches.

NCCRP staff are closely monitoring the breeding pair using data collected from wing transmitters and field observations. Changes in the adult condors’ rates and timing of feeding can be used to determine how the nest is doing, hatching of a chick, and various stages of the chick’s development. The NCCRP is also currently working through the logistics for potential use of an unmanned aerial vehicle or drone for visual confirmation of the nest.

Free flying since 2022, A1 and A0 were among the first condors reintroduced to the Northern California/Southern Oregon area. Currently, 24 condors reside in the wild within Yurok ancestral territory. With a goal of establishing a self-sustaining condor flock, NCCRP plans to release at least one group of birds every summer for at least 20 years.

A0 or Ney-gem’ ‘Ne-chweenkah’ which translates to “She carries our prayers”, was the only female in the first released NCCRP cohort. She is 6 years and 10 months old and was bred at Oregon Zoo before being transferred to NCCRP for release in 2022.

A1, nicknamed ‘Hlow Hoo-let’ which means “At last I (or we) fly!”, is also 6 years and 10 months old and was bred at the World Center for Birds of Prey.

Condors are slow to reproduce, with females laying only one egg at a time, and usually nesting only every other year. Young condors take months to learn to fly and rely on their parents for more than a year. They reach sexual maturity around 6 years old.

Most commonly, condors stay paired with mates for successive years, although a new partner will be sought if one dies. If condors fail to produce a chick, they may split up, but they will typically remain as a pair if successfully fledging chicks.

In general, condors begin breeding between 6 and 7 years old and can live more than 50 years. The next oldest male and female condors under NCCRP management are 5 year and 11-month-old male A2 (studbook 1010) Nes-kwe-chokw, and 4 year and 8-month-old female A7 (studbook 1109) He-we-chek’.

Northern California Condor Restoration Program

The Northern California Condor Restoration Program is a partnership between the Yurok Tribe and Redwood National and State Parks. The program has received funding from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Administration for Native Americans, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Global Conservation Fund, Redwood National Park Foundation, and many small donations from the public. The Yurok Tribe initiated the condor reintroduction project in 2008 as part of a long‑term effort to heal the landscape within Yurok ancestral territory, a landscape to which the health and well‑being of the Yurok people is inextricably connected. The restoration of California condor, prey-go-neesh in the Yurok language, is a vital part of this environmental and cultural revitalization effort. Alongside condor recovery, the Tribe is also undertaking large‑scale fish and wildlife habitat restoration throughout the Klamath River, its tributaries, and the surrounding region.

If you’d like to support the Yurok Tribe’s condor restoration work, please visit this link.

The bathrooms, they said, could not have locked themselves. 

Two dozen of them were posted up in a large room in the front of Nelson Hall. The cloth curtains, 10 feet wide and effective, blocked outside light and peeping toms; the rows of chairs were a rookery for small groups that constantly formed and broke apart. Supply runners from outside brought in food that they piled on two plastic folding tables in the back; they brought bread and granola bars and candy and floss and trash bags, and they brought news from outside. An uneven rhythm bled through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front, constant shouting broken up with occasional yelling. The nest was nice.

If only they could figure out a proper place to shit. The buckets in the closet, they said, were not cutting it. They elevated the experience by lining them with trash bags and filling them with cat litter, and everyone that used one enlisted someone to stand outside the half-closed closet to stop other people from shitting in the bucket. But the camaraderie they doubtless created by pooping as a team didn’t distract them from the hours-old poop and pee that crept up a little closer to the rim of the bucket every time it was used. There were three working bathrooms across the hall, and they could not use them. They blamed the administration for locking them, accusing them of employing siege tactics. It made them very, very mad, and they talked about the bathrooms almost as much as they talked about the reasons why they were dug into the building deep as a bloodthirsty tick digs into the meaty part of the thigh, why they hid every bit of their flesh with sunglasses, gloves, and surgical masks, why so many of them wore checkered keffiyehs and headwraps, and why they thought committing this crime was worth potentially being expelled. 

Around 20 people seized Nelson Hall on Cal Poly Humboldt’s campus on Friday, holding it until the wee hours of the next morning. It was political theater, except the stage was public university property, and the actors were desperate activists, furious at the university’s administration for not ceding to their demands. CPH’s spokespeople were clever, the occupiers said; they were excellent at presenting a simulacra of partnership, meeting with them for talks about the university’s investments that were tenuously connected to companies that sold weapons to Israel and telling them they had “made progress” without actually doing anything about it. The occupiers wanted the investments sold, they wanted the university to be as inhospitable to Immigrations and Custom Enforcement as it possibly could be, and they wanted CPH to bite the hand that feeds it and throw its weight behind the skilled-labor arm of the Teamsters responsible for maintaining CSU campuses.

Less than 1% of CPH’s $54 million in investments are tangled up in mutual funds that include defense companies, and they make up a small chunk of the portfolios they’re included in. University administrators handed the occupiers these facts — presumably with the idea that telling them that only a minuscule (and indirect) fraction of the university’s money was funding the construction of weapons for an army that has killed thousands and turned cities once filled with people into nothing — would calm them. 

But none of the protesters were the kind of 20-somethings that care about the difference between giving defense companies money through the globalized financial markets that power wealth creation or sending them bags full of cash. They were equally evil, they said.

They let me in through the front of the building. The door into the hallway was locked, and three university staff blocked the direct path into the room they were holed up in. Getting around them was easy for the occupiers. One would stand in front of the guard, using their body like a shield, and the people coming in would walk through the gap. The staff did their best to tell the protesters that they weren’t allowed inside (one literally wagged her finger at them); neither tactic worked. (I got in a different way that didn’t involve any legally questionable space-holding techniques.)

Several of them wanted to talk with me, but only if I promised I wouldn’t take a photo of anyone’s face. I waffled on agreeing to that, but it didn’t matter anyway, because everyone in there was covered head-to-toe. (None were willing to share their names, and gave me aliases instead.) 

The Medic wore duct-tape Red Crosses on sleeves of his jacket. He was the group’s medic because he had his Stop the Bleed and CPR certifications, and he said he knew a little about “chemical decontamination.” 

He is a Muslim. He isn’t Palestinian, but he has a friend who is, and he said the Israeli Defense Forces have killed 200 people in her family since the war in Gaza began in 2023. CPH enabling that with his tuition money — no matter how minor the support, no matter how few percentage points of their endowment are invested in companies that sell arms to the IDF, whether that’s $100,000 or one — is something he will push back on as hard as he possibly can. 

“We want them to stop being complicit in genocide,” he told the Outpost. “Is that small? I don’t think so.”

He said they were “forced” to capture the building. Cal Poly Humboldt hadn’t sold any of the investments the protestors wanted them to sell since the Siemens Hall occupation in 2024. Communication between the pro-divestment students and the administration broke down, The Medic and a couple other students said, when CPH Administration and Finance VP Michael Fisher and a couple other administrators met with them earlier that day to talk about their demands. The occupiers accused the admins of dodging their questions and being “condescending.” 

The activists didn’t admit straight-up that they had planned beforehand to take a building if they didn’t get what they wanted. Rick Toledo, a Students for a Democratic Society organizer, told me that the students felt that it was their only option, and the only way their demands might be met.

“No one organized this,” “Les,” one of the protestors, told me. “This was a spontaneous…” He started laughing. “A spontaneous…fuck.”

Three people all tried to say “spontaneous” at once. “Rosie” jumped in. “This was very spontaneous. Les! Very spontaneous.”

Les spoke and Rosie replied. “The will of the people —” 

“ — The will of the people.”

“There may have been some planning beforehand…but, the will of the people!”

“Well, there was all hypothetical — anyways.”

Then they showed me the shit buckets. 

The bathrooms were locked soon after they took the building. The activists blamed the university, accusing them of starting a war of attrition on the intestinal front. CPH spokespeople told the students that the bathrooms locked themselves. No one was convinced either way. A solid quarter of the call-and-response chants protestors wore their vocal cords out shouting were about opening up the bathrooms, as were many of the signs sympathizers scattered around campus. They updated a running tally on a whiteboard keeping track of the time they hadn’t used a real bathroom and updated it hourly with a little ceremony. 

I suggested that CPH probably wasn’t sending anyone in to unlock them because they feared being attacked; they said the only danger was, of course, the shit bucket.

The fight over the bathrooms became yet another demand on the list, and ended up becoming another example of the university’s inability to connect with the activists during a day that was full of them. They weren’t being taken seriously, they said, and that enraged them. They had quibbles with Fisher calling the meeting earlier that day an “informational meeting” instead of a negotiation and with the vague and noncommittal information the university was feeding them about ditching chunks of their portfolio. Occupying the building was a gamble that had obviously paid off. If it hadn’t, why were Michael Fisher and VP Chrissy Holliday sitting out in the hallway talking with them? Now this, they said, was a negotiation.

“Apparently, they’ve been here working ‘tirelessly,’” The Medic said, air quotes around “tirelessly.” “It’s interesting how they always start working ‘tirelessly’ after something happens, if you know some sort of like — we force their hand, and then, immediately, you know, they’ve been working tirelessly.”

Any rumor of the ordeal ending started a frenzy. A university spokesperson showed up and delivered what one of the occupiers called a “draft divestment policy;” all it had to do was float its way to the CSU Board of Trustees, and it’d be official, they said. All of CPH’s investments would be defense-contractor free. They were convinced it was happening and they were jubilant. 

It wasn’t. It was a signed statement from Fisher and Holliday telling them that CPH had “continued its work towards Environmentally and Socially Responsible investments” and that they would “commit to continuing this work.” It promised nothing concrete and used the word “continue” in every other sentence; in essence, they told the occupiers that they’d be doing nothing new. (CPH’s communications department verified the letter’s authenticity.) But its arrival sparked ebullient chaos anyways. 

Five minutes earlier someone they didn’t recognize showed up outside the building and an equally intense pandemonium broke out. 

“FED!” someone screamed. “That’s a fed!” All two dozen of them ran to the front of the room and peered around the curtain’s edges to get a glimpse of the federal law enforcement agent crashing their event. He turned out to be a returning activist who had just swapped out his disguise.

They had told me that they wouldn’t leave unless their demands were met, and they told me that they were prepared to deal with force. They ended up leaving at 2 a.m. after police officers showed up and told them to disperse, noting the .68 caliber pepper ball guns the cops were toting, one of them told me later. 

CPH will attempt to punish the protestors. A university official told the Outpost that they had identified some of the protestors, and they will “follow up using the appropriate campus and legal processes.” The occupiers had attempted to secure immunity from the university, and argued with me about the feasibility of defending their actions under the First Amendment. Maybe that’ll work. Who knows? 

They let me out the front, around the curtains, out of the incandescent room with the rancid buckets in the back, into the light. I walked away and passed two young women walking towards the parking lot. They didn’t look at the writhing mass of people shouting at a building to their right. One of them was on the phone. 

“Come pick me up,” she said, “And then we can get sushi afterwards?”

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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When a possible measles case is identified in California, a phone rings at the local health department and the clock starts ticking.

Laboratory workers need to process samples as soon as possible to confirm the case. And a public health nurse must call the patient to find out where they’ve been and who they’ve been in contact with recently.

If test results are positive, the communicable disease team has 72 hours or less to identify anyone who has been exposed and may be at high risk of infection or serious illness. Those people must quarantine or take a dose of a post-exposure prophylaxis to prevent spread. For the next 21 days nurses will monitor the group for symptoms.

Measles is the most contagious vaccine-preventable viral infection in the world, and California is fighting multiple outbreaks. In a room where one person is infected, nine out of 10 unvaccinated people will also contract the disease. The viral particles also linger in the air long after the contagious person leaves, risking exposure to those who enter the room up to two hours later.

“That’s ridiculously infectious,” said Dr. Sharon Balter, director of acute communicable disease control with Los Angeles County public health. “It balloons very quickly, and because measles spreads very fast we have to get on it right away. We can’t say we’ll wait until tomorrow.”

California has a high enough vaccination rate — about 95% of kindergarteners — to provide herd immunity against measles, but throughout the state pockets of unvaccinated communities drive outbreaks, experts say.

Shasta and Riverside counties are working to contain localized outbreaks. These are the first measles outbreaks in the state since 2020 and are happening at a time when health departments have less money and fewer staff than in recent years. In total, seven counties have reported a total of 21 measles cases this year, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Throughout the country, 26 states have reported measles cases since the start of the year, including a massive outbreak in South Carolina where officials identified nearly 1,000 cases, mostly among unvaccinated children. It is the largest outbreak since theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention declared measles eradicated more than 25 years ago.

“The United States is experiencing the highest numbers of measles cases, outbreaks, hospitalizations and deaths in more than 30 years, driven by populations with low vaccination rates,” said California Public Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan in a statement earlier this month. “We all need to work together to share the medical evidence, benefits, and safety of vaccines to provide families the information they need to protect children and our communities.”

Containment comes with high costs

Investigating any communicable disease is time-intensive and expensive. The first three measles cases reported in L.A. County this year cost an estimated $231,000, according to a health department analysis.

Why does it cost so much? Because a disease investigation often requires a legion of public health nurses, physicians, epidemiologists and laboratory scientists to follow-up with hundreds of contacts, Balter said.

A computer shows an analysis of measles sequencing results at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health laboratory in Downey on Feb. 26, 2026. Photos Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters

That includes sometimes visiting homes or exposure sites. For example, a recent exposure at a daycare required nurses to wring urine out of used diapers to test babies for measles. County health workers monitored 246 people who had been exposed to those first three measles cases — and the work is ongoing.

On Feb. 19, the county reported its fourth measles case. All of them were related to international travel. Other cases in California also have primarily been related to travel either internationally or to states where there are outbreaks. An unvaccinated child in Napa County contracted measles in January after traveling to South Carolina.

Riverside County health officials reported one measles case where the child had not traveled recently, and Shasta County health officials suspect their first case could be related to travel in Southern California but are waiting for DNA testing for confirmation.

Orange County reported two travel-related cases this year.

Health departments have fewer resources, more cases

Local health departments rely heavily on federal funding to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, but last year, the Trump administration slashed nearly $1 billion of public health funding from California. This year it attempted to claw back another $600 million from California and three other Democratic states.

Pending lawsuits froze the cuts, but local health departments are treating the money as a lost cause because they cannot bear the financial risk if a judge eventually rules in favor of the Trump administration.

Consequently, health departments closed clinics, terminated programs and laid off dozens of workers.

“What we can do with less is less unfortunately,” Balter said. L.A. county is facing a $50 million shortfall due to federal, state and local cuts and recently closed seven public health clinics.

Health departments are also confronting decreased public confidence: The high-profile questioning of vaccine safety and effectiveness by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has complicated public health’s struggle to contain the spread of preventable infections.

California Democratic leaders are aggressively fighting Kennedy’s direction. They sued to block the administration’s new vaccine guidelines, which stripped universal recommendation from seven childhood vaccines. They blame Kennedy and the Trump administration for “dismantling” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and stoking fears over debunked claims that vaccines cause autism.

The state also released its own vaccine guidelines and formed an alliance among four western states to share public health information and recommendations.

“Everything including the outbreaks, the financial cuts, the questions from the federal government that are arising are making our work very difficult,” said Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, Orange County public health officer.

Lab Assistant Abraham Jimenez loads blood samples for automated serology testing for measles immunity status at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health laboratory in Downey on Feb. 26, 2026. Photo by Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters

Twelve years ago, Orange County was the site of California’s largest measles outbreak in decades. An exposure at Disneyland from an unknown source infected 131 Californians and spread to six states, Canada and Mexico.

The outbreak, which lasted four months, spurred state lawmakers to pass some of the strictest childhood vaccine requirements in the country.

But even a single measles case requires “vast amounts of infrastructure” to contain, Chinsio-Kwong said. On average, the department identifies and monitors 100 exposed people per case. Since the start of last year, Orange County has lost $22 million in federal cuts to public health. The department is trying to protect their communicable disease surveillance work, but it gets harder with every cut.

“We’re trying to prioritize our communicable disease control division,” health officer Chinsio-Kwong said. “There are a lot of different federal cuts, but we’re putting that as front and center: That has to be saved no matter what.”

Measles spread in unvaccinated groups

Six hundred miles north, Shasta County is grappling with its first measles cases since 2019 and the state’s largest outbreak of the year.

In late January, a sick child visited a health clinic in Redding with measles symptoms that laboratory testing later confirmed. Health officials interviewed 278 people and identified six locations where others were exposed: a restaurant, a church basketball game, a gym, a park, Costco and the clinic.

They also identified seven other cases among family members or neighbors who were in close contact with the child.

It can take 21 days from the time of exposure for measles symptoms to develop. On Feb. 19, just before the end of that period, health officials confirmed a ninth case.

That person didn’t recognize the symptoms and visited several places while contagious, including a school, a church service, a basketball game and a clinic, said Daniel Walker, a Shasta County supervising epidemiologist. Now, the contract tracing process has started over. The communicable disease team expects to interview even more people this time.

All cases have been among children who were unvaccinated or did not know their vaccination status.

“It’s a great time to get immunized, because you can’t know when you’re next going to be exposed…especially because we’re in an outbreak situation,” Walker said.

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Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.