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At last night’s meeting, the Eureka City Council unanimously approved an ordinance banning the sale and distribution of nitrous oxide within city limits in an effort to curb recreational use. The ordinance, which is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2026, includes some exceptions for legitimate commercial uses. 

The ban is part of a nationwide effort to limit the availability of nitrous oxide — commonly known as laughing gas, whippits or NOS —  which has surged in popularity among teenagers and young adults with the advent of new flavors and eye-catching packaging. 

Recreational sales, distribution and use of nitrous oxide is already a misdemeanor in California, but there are loopholes in state regulations that allow “food grade” nitrous cartridges to be sold as a whipped cream propellant in convenience stores and smoke shops. The substance can even be ordered online from Amazon and eBay.

Earlier this year, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors became one of the first California counties to pass a retail ban on nitrous oxide in unincorporated areas of the county. The City of Eureka and other local municipalities have been working on their own ordinances since last year.

Speaking at last night’s meeting, Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery said the city’s ordinance — linked here — would prohibit the sale and distribution of nitrous oxide in city limits. Those found in violation of the ordinance could face a $1,000 fine or up to one year in county jail. 

Slattery | Screenshot

“There are certain exemptions [built] into the ordinance … for medical purposes and food-grade products,” Slattery said. “I want to clarify that when it says food-grade products, those are already packaged products. That would be your whipped cream that’s already in a canister that you would buy from a grocery store, or any other already pre-packaged item at a grocery store.”

Councilmembers Kati Moulton and Renee Contreras-DeLoach noted that the ordinance includes exemptions for medical professionals and asked why there weren’t similar carve-outs for restaurants and coffee shops that use nitrous cartridges for whipped cream canisters and other aerated foods. 

Slattery said a culinary exemption was discussed in meetings with county administrators and local law enforcement officials, but they worried that it would allow certain retailers to continue to sell the substance under the guise of a food product.

“Those same companies that are selling this against state law could still sell this to individuals who came in and said, ‘I own a store for that [and] I use this for whipped cream or whatever,’” Slattery said. “There are other businesses that do use nitrous, but none of those were related to us locally. The only ones that they had concerns about [were] the coffee shops.”

Councilmember Scott Bauer wondered if some of the local coffee shops purchased nitrous oxide from a wholesale retailer and, if so, whether the vendor could be added to the list of exemptions. Councilmember Leslie Castellano had the same thought.

“I think that the issue that you would have there is, I’m not sure whether the vendors check and see if they are a [real] restaurant,” Slattery said.

Responding to a question from Councilmember G. Mario Fernandez about the public health and safety impacts of nitrous use, Slattery recalled last year when a 66-year-old pedestrian was hit and killed by a driver who admitted to being under the influence of nitrous oxide.

“We’ve had a case where a community member was high on this and ended up killing somebody on our streets,” he continued. “There’s plenty of cases of underage [use] and adults that have consumed [nitrous] and ended up in the ER.”

Fernandez also asked how the city would prevent residents from buying the substance online. Slattery said the city can work with online retailers to prohibit sales to certain zip codes. 

During public comment, Eureka resident Deborah Dukes urged the city council to pass the ordinance, adding that she is “sick to death of picking up those canisters” that litter the alley behind her house near Eureka High School. “I know every time I see one, it’s a kid who’s doing damage to their brain.”

Dukes | Screenshot

“What we’re doing to our young people by making these canisters accessible at all is horrible,” she said. “I would ask you to please think about our kids and think about little old ladies going around picking up canisters instead of just enjoying the nice walk.”

Another speaker, who did not identify themselves, noted that some of the local coffee shops get nitrous oxide from Sysco, and supported the previous suggestion that the city exempt certain wholesale producers from the ban. They also encouraged the city to target retailers that sell nitrous oxide, not individuals who possess it.

“I know you’re saying it’s not about possession, but if you have an individual selling it on the street to another individual — that’s not really what we want to be going after,” they said. “We want to be going after the community health crisis. In order to do that, if you want to curtail the head shops, which is what [EPD] said are mostly the issue here.”

A local convenience store owner, who only identified himself as Paul, spoke in favor of the ban, noting that it would “weed out” bad actors in the industry. “We’re totally with you guys on this,” he said. “As a local family that lives in this area and as business [owner], we want to sell general convenience items, and this stuff has come into the industry and created a bad image for everybody.”

Following public comment, Councilmember Castellano made a motion to approve the ban, with an exception for businesses selling directly to restaurants and coffee shops. Councilmember Bauer seconded the action.

The motion passed 5-0. 

Tobacco Retail Ordinance

The city council also approved a Tobacco Retail Licensing Ordinance that aims to enhance local enforcement and protect youth by reducing accessibility to tobacco products. Retailers will have 90 days to come into compliance with the ordinance after it takes effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

During a brief presentation to the council, Slattery noted that the ordinance would work in tandem with the nitrous ordinance. “If we find somebody in violation of the nitrous ordinance, that can trigger this ordinance to allow us to remove their license,” he said. 

Just yesterday, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors revisited the county’s Tobacco Retailer Licensing Ordinance and, in response to pushback from local retailers, asked staff to make a few adjustments to the ordinance that would allow for a tobacco retail license to be transferred upon the sale of the business. The board will consider the proposed changes at a future meeting.

Under the city’s ordinance, “A tobacco retailer’s license is nontransferable and is valid only for the person and location of license issued, and unless it is suspended or revoked for cause, for the period indicated.” However, staff added a couple of lines to Section 123-8, which covers the Issuance and Renewal of a License, that notes, “If the business is sold, the new owner must apply for a license for that location before acting as a tobacco retailer.”

Slattery said staff also added a line to the ordinance that prohibits tobacco retailers from operating within 600 feet of a school.

During public comment, the previous commenter, known only as Paul, said he was at Tuesday’s board meeting and was among the ranks of business owners asking the county to reconsider its rules for license transfers.

“These [businesses are our livelihoods,” he said. “We’re not here to champion the cause of tobacco or promote smoking, but it still is a large part of the convenience store business. … Enforcement is necessary and [is] the more natural way to weed out any of the people that are causing problems in the community. … If a business has been there for 60 years … and they’re following the rules, there should be some way that they’re allowed to continue doing their business.”

After public comment, Councilmember Bauer made a motion to approve the ordinance. Councilmember Fernandez offered a second, asking if Bauer would be willing to add an amendment to prohibit retailers from operating within 600 feet of a community center. He agreed.

The motion passed in a 5-0 vote.

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It’s official: Sen. Scott Wiener is finally running for Congress.

The San Francisco lawmaker’s announcement today made clear that he’s done waiting for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step aside, as he previously insisted he would.

But rather than rely on his many legislative accomplishments – which span from fast-tracking housing development to policing reforms – the five-term state senator spent the majority of his launch video promising to fight back against President Donald Trump’s agenda and defend his city, which the president has threatened to target next for troop deployment.

“My family escaped fascism in Europe. I never thought the United States would slip into fascism like we’re seeing today,” Wiener tells viewers, holding a photo of his ancestors before the video cuts to distorted and dystopic images of President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and billionaire Elon Musk.

“I’m running for Congress to defend San Francisco – our values, our people, and the constitution of the United States – with everything I have.”

Wiener joins a race that also includes progressive challenger Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff to New York’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Chakrabarti has been vocal in urging Pelosi to step aside and make room for a younger generation of leaders.

Pelosi has said she will announce her plans for 2026 after the statewide special election on Nov. 4. She was first elected to Congress in 1987 and led her party in the House from the George W. Bush administration through former President Joe Biden’s time in office.

Wiener is best known for pushing legislation in Sacramento that speeds up development of new housing by blowing holes in California’s landmark environmental laws, which housing advocates say are too often weaponized to indefinitely delay projects.

He pushed controversial legislation this year that speeds up construction of apartment buildings near public transit stops in the state’s largest metro areas, which would allow for taller buildings in single-family neighborhoods. He also authored a new law this year that bans immigration and customs enforcement agents from wearing ski masks to conceal their identities.

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For years Burbank residents, business owners and elected officials have been squabbling over a plan to run a speedy new bus line through the middle of town.

The North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit project is slated to carve a bus-only corridor linking the eastern edge of the San Fernando Valley to the western extent of the San Gabriel Valley while connecting two of LA County’s most well-trafficked rail lines. To do so, LA Metro plans to take away a lane of traffic and a ton of parking spaces along most of the 18-mile route, which includes much of a four-lane stretch that runs through downtown Burbank.

Ever since the agency floated the project in 2017, a vocal coalition of ticked-off Burbankers, Glendalians and denizens of the northeast LA neighborhood of Eagle Rock has been protesting, petitioning and (unsuccessfully) suing to block, delay or revamp the plan.

Now, with the sweep of his pen, Gov. Gavin Newsom has turned this long-simmering battle over a bus into a full-fledged war over housing, local control and the future of the single-family neighborhoods.

Earlier this month, Newsom signed a law allowing apartment buildings to sprout up within a half-mile of major public transit stations. That includes stops for select bus routes that run frequently, get priority at stop lights and have their own lanes

The purpose of the law is to locate new housing close to publicly funded transportation, funneling more would-be riders onto those systems, while minimizing the traffic, pollution and climate impact of new residential development.

But the law also applies to future transit projects that have reached a certain point in the planning pipeline — including the NoHo to Pasadena bus line.

Susan O’Carroll, a planning and environmental consultant and Burbank resident, said she has long had issues with the bus plan. Now that its development carries the promise of a neighborhood-spanning zoning overhaul, the stakes feel much higher. The bus, in effect, will “destroy the single family neighborhoods on either side” of the route, she said.

The only way to stop the apartments now, she said, is to stop the bus.

The brewing battle in Burbank is an unintended consequence of Senate Bill 79, a law that pro-housing advocates, public transit boosters and many environmentally-minded urbanists lauded as a historic victory for sustainable planning. That law represents the culmination of a legislative trend, in which California has relaxed minimum parking requirements and allowed for more affordable housing and accessory dwelling unit development on lots close to bus and rail lines.

But even supporters of transit-oriented development recognize that it can sometimes result in “perverse” political incentives, said Amy Lee, a transportation researcher at UC Davis, who recently published a paper on how California city governments responded to a 2022 law banning local parking requirements for housing near transit.

When housing and transportation are tied together, for opponents of new residential construction, “logically, a response is to just say, ‘okay, we’ll just reduce the transit,’” she said.

That might mean scrapping a project altogether. In the case of the Senate Bill 79, it could also mean campaigning to put a bus back in the flow of car traffic or slowing down a commuter rail system, so as to skirt the specific thresholds that would trigger a rezoning.

Density-averse city governments may also exploit ambiguities in the law. For example, if a bus only gets a dedicated lane on part of its route, as is the case with the line designed to cut through Burbank, is rezoning triggered at every stop along its route, none of them or just those where the bus has its own lane?

Turning contentious local disputes over new bus or rail lines into even more contentious rezoning battles also just has a way of turbo-charging the politics of both. “It’s chummed the waters,” said Lee.

A barrier to LA’s transit boom?

It’s not that the backers of the new law didn’t see this coming.

The statute purposefully limits rezoning to projects that have already entered a regional transportation improvement plan — a short-list of projects that have already received a short- to medium-term funding commitment.

“If, in a few weeks, the Orange County Transportation Authority says they want to do a street car project from Fullerton to Disneyland, that wouldn’t be eligible,” said Marc Vukcevich, state policy director for Streets For All, which co-sponsored Senate Bill 79.

Further out, projects can still trigger changes to zoning once they are added to one of those transportation short-lists in the future, but only if they are part of a region’s longer-term capital plan as of the end of this year.

The pipeline of such projects isn’t especially full in most of the state’s major metro areas. The Bay Area’s transit system isn’t growing much these days. Nor is San Diego’s, where the city has upzoned most of its major transit hubs anyway.

The Los Angeles metro area is a notable exception.

In 2016, county voters backed a sales tax hike to fund public transit improvements. With relatively little public transit infrastructure on and in the ground, LA Metro has a subway, light rail and bus rapid transit boom in its planning pipeline. All of those projects may trigger rezoning under the new housing law and so “have a chance to be impacted by the NIMBY politics of housing,” said Vukcevich.

Beyond Burbank

O’Carroll and other opponents of the NoHo to Pasadena project have called upon LA Metro to conduct another environmental review of the bus line. The first one, drafted back in 2020, didn’t take rezoning into account. That leaves significant land-use changes that would result from the bus line unexamined and unpublicized, she said.

Burbank’s city council has, for its own part, repeatedly voted to ask LA Metro to leave the bus in the regular flow of traffic along its route through the city.

It might be too late.

In a written statement, LA Metro spokesperson Missy Colman said that the agency will continue to “closely coordinate with the cities of Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena” as it finalizes the design “in accordance with the Metro Board approved project.”

What the board approved is a route with a bus-only lane. Construction is scheduled to break ground before next summer. The pressing deadline of the 2028 Olympics could make further delay especially unpalatable.

“The Metro board would have to basically take the unprecedented step of stopping a project that has already begun,” said Nick Andert, a documentary filmmaker and public transportation advocate.

But with so many bus and rail projects in the pipeline across Los Angeles County, the extra-heated politics of Burbank’s new bus may be a preview of what’s to come.

Massive plans are in the works. New rail from the San Fernando Valley to the affluent neighborhoods around UCLA. A subway extension running south out of Hollywood. A bus rapid transit line connecting South Los Angeles to the neighborhoods east of Hollywood. All are controversial in their own right, said Andert. Throwing in the prospect of new apartment buildings could give local elected officials extra reason to dissent.

“Cities can really slow down permitting for certain things if Metro doesn’t work with them hand-in-hand and address their concerns,” he said.

‘They have no idea what’s coming’

Backers of the new zoning law say they hope such controversies will be isolated and short-lived. Once neighborhoods start getting rezoned beginning next July, it will likely take years for developers to start swapping out single-family homes for apartment buildings en masse. Significant, neighborhood redefining densification could take decades in any given location, if ever happens.

“Call me an optimist — or maybe ludicrous — but I think the general public will understand that housing is not the end of the world and that development happens on a really long time frame,” said Vukcevich.

It might be some time before irate homeowners along the NoHo to Pasadena bus line reach such levels of equanimity.

Lisa Cusack, a Glendale homeowner and local GOP activist who sits on the town’s historic preservation commission, said she was late to begin organizing against the planned bus route. It was only after this year’s zoning law advanced out of the state Senate that she realized the full implications of the proposed bus line and launched a petition and website to “save Glenoaks,” the major thoroughfare that will serve as its main route through town.

“I’ve been going around talking to neighbors and they have no idea what’s coming,” she said. When Senate Bill 79 was still floating through the Legislature, the “threat” of densification was a little abstract. Now that Newsom has signed it into law, the pitch to her neighbors is much easier to make — the only way to stop the coming zoning changes is to stop the bus.

“People are only now starting to find out,” she said.

Donald Lloyd Allen
September 6, 1931 to September 15, 2025

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Donald Lloyd Allen, a beloved husband, father and friend, who departed peacefully in Eureka just days after celebrating his 94th birthday with family by his side. Don lived a full life and brought joy to those around him with his sense of humor, infectious smile and willingness to help. He could make or fix about anything, with patience and steadiness. He would always have a pencil and notebook in this flannel shirt pocket, with suspenders and a hat rounding out his typical style.

Don was married to Gloria Benson (Fortuna) for 67 years and they lived most of those years in the house that Don built in Cutten on the street that he built and bears his name. They had three children, Julie Allen in Portland, Leslie Allen in Eureka and Steven Allen (Keri, son Bode) in Cutten.

Born in Eureka to Jesse Judd and Flora Eva Allen, Don was the third born of four brothers — Bill, Neil and Gail — all of whom preceded him in death. The Allen brothers shared a close bond, strengthened through both joyful and challenging times, with the oldest and youngest being born on the same day four years apart.

The brothers were taking care of their family home near Pigeon Point while their parents were both in the hospital after being struck by a drunk driver on their way to work. When clearing and burning brush, Don’s leg was burned and he also ended up in the hospital. The scars remained, and when he and his brother Neil went to enlist in the Air Force, he was rejected because they said he could not wear combat boots. However with the Korean conflict heating up, the Army had no problem drafting him. So Don served in the Army along the DMZ zone in Korea.

After being honorably discharged, he milked cows for local dairies and attended Humboldt State College. However, his love for equipment and construction won the day and he never looked back.

Don was a heavy equipment operator, owning his own equipment and also working with and teaching classes for the Local 3 Union of Operating Engineers. He was a blade man, known for his skill to operate a grader and make grade even without survey grade stakes. He had a great eye and was widely admired for his ability to grade a flat site. He was busy helping the community recover from the ’64 flood and could not get the time off to be at the hospital when his son was born. He worked in Shelter Cove, helped build Highway 101 through Arcata, the bike paths and turn lane to Fern Canyon back when Rolf from Rolf’s Café used to come out and take lunch orders from the crew. He worked with many great people over the years, including Bud Balke, Tom Coy, Ernie and Bill Pierson and Bob King with Redwood Empire Aggregates. You couldn’t drive with dad around Humboldt County without him telling stories about a project he worked on along the way.

He could also make or fix about anything. In addition to building the family home, he built a horse trailer for his daughters, dump trucks from various parts, shops and a treehouse, and he held multiple patents for a radiation shield with his neighbor Harold Godfrey, as well as an adjustable height desk. The desk was recognized in the 1990s as one of the 50 best inventions by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and as such he and his PostureMate business partner Doug Beckstead were invited to Washington DC to showcase their desk. Don also helped his son Steve build two of the original local BMX race tracks and would take Steve to BMX races in Oregon and California. Don also bought, fixed up and enjoyed taking the family and friends out on a wood ocean sport fishing boat catching salmon, crab and other species.

He wore many hats in life, as a son, brother, husband, father, uncle, student, teacher, mentor, veteran, business owner, inventor and friend to many. He was a kind, generous, funny, patient (usually), playful, honorable, honest, creative, loving, talented, accepting, hard working, ethical, happy, optimistic, problem-solving and a very logical person. His dry wit was known by many and often referred to as “Allen humor” as his brothers and family all share some form of the same affliction. As dad often said, do what you want when I am gone as I won’t be there. Enough said.

There is a celebration of life planned at Freshwater Grange from 2 to 5 p.m. on November 15, 2025. Those who knew Don are welcome to come celebrate his life and share stories.

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At today’s meeting, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors got into a tense debate over the fairness of the county’s Tobacco Retailer Licensing Ordinance.

At the heart of the dispute is a non-transferability clause that prevents tobacco retail licenses from being transferred when a business is sold. The ordinance, which only applies to retailers operating in unincorporated areas of the county, allows for a license to be transferred to a “parent, child, spouse, or domestic partner for tobacco retailing at the same retail location” if the current license holder is in good standing with the county. In all other circumstances, “a new tobacco retailer’s license is required whenever a tobacco retailing location has a change in proprietors.”

At the outset of the discussion, First District Supervisor Rex Bohn and Board Chair Michelle Bushnell both admitted that they must have overlooked the non-transfer clause when the board adopted the ordinance in July 2023. 

Bohn | Screenshot

“I did hear the grandfather part — it was mentioned — [but] I thought that meant that they would be able to transfer to anybody,” said Bohn, who was appointed to the Tobacco Retailer Licensing Ordinance ad hoc committee along with Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone. “We’re just still separated on what I feel is … a miscarriage of how [the ordinance] was presented, and [how] it was presented to the retailers.”

Bohn questioned whether staff with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Public Health Division had done an adequate job in researching the ordinance and communicating potential impacts to local retailers. 

DHHS staff provided the board with a detailed presentation on the county’s ongoing outreach efforts, which began back in 2022. Sofia Pereira, the county’s public health director, emphasized that the primary focus of the ordinance is to protect youth and reduce accessibility to tobacco products. She noted that staff would be willing to investigate approaches taken by other counties to address some of the concerns brought forth by business owners.

Bohn mentioned a provision in Sonoma County’s ordinance that allows licenses to be transferred, and suggested that the county adopt something similar.He also highlighted a local tobacco retailer who operates “30-plus stores” across the state, including six in Humboldt. The only time he’s ever had an issue closing escrow on one of his businesses, Bohn said, was when he recently tried to sell a store in Humboldt.

“Out of five counties and this was the only place he couldn’t do it,” Bohn said. “I don’t think anybody understood that they were going to take a viable part of their business … and have it become a non-entity if they changed hands unless it went to a relative. This has taken quite a bit of financial toll on this one individual. It’s actually degraded the business’s values.”

During public comment, several local business owners claimed they didn’t know anything about the ordinance before it took effect. Tom Bero, owner of the Redwoods Market & Deli in Myers Flat, said he didn’t know about the non-transfer clause until he listed his business for sale.

“We didn’t get any information on the new ordinance,” Bero said. “Our market’s been there for about 50 years, and it’s always been able to sell tobacco. We’re in the middle of trying to sell our business … and the person purchasing the business does not want to purchase it unless he can apply for a new license or we can transfer our license. Our family relies on the sale of this business because we want to move on and do something else. … It’s getting to be too much.”

Dan Noga, owner of Country Club Market in the Humboldt Hill community, recalled county staff inspecting his business, but said he was never told that he couldn’t transfer his license. Noga asked why the county has set its sights on tobacco retailers rather than liquor stores and cannabis dispensaries. 

Noga | Screenshot

“Ingesting any smoke into your lungs is not good for your health,” he said. “Yet, there’s tons of marijuana shops that are being approved, and there’s no restrictions on them. … Liquor is bad for your health — just like cigarettes are — yet a liquor license is transferable. I don’t see the problem with transferring a license from one retailer to the next retailer. I understand if you don’t want a new retailer with a tobacco license.”

One speaker, who did not identify himself, noted that most of the business owners who rely on tobacco sales to stay afloat don’t have pensions or retirement funds. “This business is the pension,” he said. “If somebody loses a [significant] portion of their sales, they will not be able to sell the business.”

Following public comment, Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo noted that the board has had “no less than 10 meetings about tobacco retail licensing” and pushed back on the assertion that staff hadn’t done an adequate job in informing business owners about the new ordinance. 

“I’m, frankly, a little bit miffed about the way that we’re talking about the outreach that has happened and the meeting conversations that we’ve had,” Arroyo said. “Not very often do I get ruffled by this board, but thank you for just kind of bearing with it to the staff that are working on this.”

Arroyo said she was open to potential amendments to the ordinance that would lessen the impact on local businesses, as long as those changes didn’t increase the cap on tobacco retail licenses in a given area. “I would actually love to see more restrictions on smoking products,” she added.

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson felt similarly, emphasizing that the goal of the ordinance was to “reduce smoking and the harms of tobacco in general.” He recalled in 1998, when California became the first state to ban smoking inside. 

“I remember very, very clearly the sort of language around the Armageddon that would occur [to] these businesses if that was to happen,” Wilson said. “Well, it turned out some months later that people still went to bars and people still went out. … I think the way that we deal with these changes over time is through caps, and that we do this through attrition. But I think the attrition that we were talking about was the transfer of these licenses.”

Madrone emphasized Arroyo’s previous point about outreach, noting that “it didn’t happen in a vacuum.” He also echoed Wilson’s point that the whole idea of the ordinance was to “reduce the number of outlets down to a cap based on our population.”

“And the way that was going to happen was that if a business [was] sold to somebody other than an immediate family member, that they would lose that license,” Madrone continued. “All of a sudden, it sounds like some people feel like they didn’t have any communication, but my understanding was that every effort was made to do that.”

Madrone also voiced frustration over Bohn “trying to push” his opinion at ad hoc meetings. “I don’t want to hear his comments for the 20th and 30th and 50th time on the same stuff over and over again.”

After a bit of additional discussion and a messy attempt at a straw poll, the board ultimately directed staff to further investigate license transfers, with a potential limit for business owners with multiple tobacco retail licenses. The board also asked staff to look into a cap on licenses within a certain radius of one another.

The motion passed in a 5-0 vote.

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PREVIOUSLY

• ‘This is a Big Deal for Humboldt’: State Awards $12.3 Million in Funding for Behavioral Health Triage Center in Arcata
• ‘A Game-Changer for Humboldt’: State Sen. Mike McGuire, County Officials Announce Additional Funding for Behavioral Crisis Triage Center in Arcata

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Large state investments for two mental healthcare facilities coming to Eureka and Arcata were announced by State Senator Mike McGuire at a press conference yesterday, totaling over $6 million for the Mad River Triage Center and the Sorrel Leaf Healing Center

The Mad River Triage Center will be a “crisis stabilization, sobering, and crisis residential center” with beds for 43 patients when it opens in 2027 on Mad River Hospital’s campus in Arcata. McGuire said yesterday that the state has earmarked $5.5 million for the project, which will break ground next year. 

It’s the latest addition to past rounds of funding for the project, which also received $12.3 million from the California Department of Health Care Services in 2023. 

Additionally, McGuire said the state was granting $750,000 to the Sorrel Leaf Healing Center near Indianola, a 12-bed, 13-acre “therapeutic farm” for youth experiencing mental health issues. It’s set to open in 2026. 

McGuire and other local officials highlighted the “desperate need” Humboldt has for expanded behavioral health services. 

“The reality has overwhelmed local emergency rooms and providers for years,” McGuire said. “[There’s an] increased number of homeless on our streets because there’s simply nowhere to go. There aren’t enough services. This is incredibly personal to me; it choked up my family. My family has seen addiction firsthand…From Westhaven to Weott, people in our community desperately need health care that’s appropriate, that’s comprehensive and effective, and treats patients in crisis.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Eureka City Council Looks to Ban Nitrous Oxide Sales

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Press release from the City of Eureka:

The City of Eureka has removed Item G.6 from the October 21, 2025 City Council agenda. This item had proposed seeking Council authorization for the Eureka Police Department (EPD) to begin researching the potential implementation of an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) program. The proposed UAS program was intended to enhance EPD’s ability to safely and effectively respond to specific incidents, including:

• Mental health crises involving self-harm or suicidal individuals;
• Mental health crises involving potentially armed individuals;
• Searches for missing or at-risk persons, including children and adults;
• Barricaded suspect situations requiring interior or aerial assessment; and
• Public safety incidents occurring near schools or densely populated areas.
• Evaluation of Natural Disaster Incidents

These types of deployments have proven to improve outcomes and reduce risks to officers and community members. Currently, EPD must rely on outside agencies for UAS support, which can limit timely access to this critical resource. Examples of prior drone assisted operations include:

• De-escalating and negotiating with a person in crisis that was threatening to jump from the Eureka water tower;
• >De-escalating a crisis involving a person armed with multiple edged weapons inside a vehicle;
• Providing aerial lighting during nighttime tactical operations while maintaining officer concealment;
• Searching structures for armed barricaded suspects before team entry; and
• Locating armed subjects near school campuses during lockdowns.

Under Eureka Municipal Code Chapter 104 (Military Equipment), City Council authorization is required before EPD can begin research or prepare information regarding any UAS system. While this item has been pulled from the current agenda, EPD remains committed to ensuring community safety through the use of Council-approved technologies and maintaining transparency in any future program development.