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PREVIOUSLY: 

• Heated Meeting Sparks Accusations of Dishonesty and Discrimination, Opening Rift Between Tribes and Humboldt County Planning Commission
• Despite Silence From Tribes, Mega-Home Builder Optimistic Ahead of Tonight’s Continued Planning Commission Hearing to Address Permit Violation Fallout

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Hoping to avoid getting overruled by the California Coastal Commission and further damaging relations with local tribes, the Humboldt County Planning Commission postponed a permitting decision last night on a controversial home construction project near the Fay Slough wildlife area north of Eureka.

The hearing was a continuation from the commission’s August 18 meeting, during which Chair Alan Bongio employed incendiary language, repeatedly referring to “the Indians” while accusing both the Wiyot Tribe and the Blue Lake Rancheria of dishonestly manipulating negotiations over the project. [DISCLOSURE: The Blue Lake Rancheria is a minority owner of the Outpost’s parent company, Lost Coast Communications, Inc.]

Local developer and business owner Travis Schneider is pursuing modifications to a coastal development permit and special permit in order to resume construction of his 8,000-square-foot home on Walker Point Road. The project has been halted for the past eight months as the result of a stop work order issued by the Humboldt County Planning and Building Department.

Schneider was found to have violated the terms of his previous permits by building an access road through environmentally sensitive habitat and disturbing a known Wiyot archaeological site when he used an excavator to clear native blackberries and other foliage. Schneider also built the home’s foundation about 10 feet away from the footprint specified in his site plans, and he initially failed to comply with the county’s stop work order.

Several members of the public spoke out against Bongio’s behavior at the last meeting. The commission chair offered a qualified apology, saying he was sorry “if [he] in any way offended” the tribes. Two of his commission colleagues expressed their own regrets, with Third District representative Noah Levy denouncing Bongio’s “appallingly disrespectful comments” and Fifth District representative Peggy O’Neill describing the previous meeting a “a very dark day in our history.”

During the first public comment period, a woman who introduced herself only as Vanessa spoke out against “the bigotry and the racism that occurred at the last Planning Commission meeting.” She called on Bongio to recuse himself from any decision on the Schneider project.

Local resident Ellen Taylor, chair-person for the Lost Coast League, said the tenor of the previous meeting “took us back to the 19th century” when the region’s colonizers “wanted to sweep the indigenous population off the landscape.” She argued that Schneider’s permit violations should disqualify his project from further permitting and said it would be “a disgrace for the county to approve this exemption after the planning commissioner’s behavior last week.”

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In a staff report, Senior Planner Cliff Johnson recounted the history of the project and said planning department staff reached out to the Wiyot Tribe and the Blue Lake Rancheria after the August 18 meeting in hopes of arranging a meeting but were unsuccessful.

In letters submitted to the commission a day before the last meeting, the Wiyot Tribe and Blue Lake Rancheria both asked for additional environmental review and more time to review the proposed restoration and mitigation measures, with the latter asking the county to revoke Schneider’s building permit.

They also said it was unclear how the recommended conditions would be implemented, monitored or enforced. The Coastal Commission backed the tribes, saying the proposed project didn’t adequately address violations of the Local Coastal Plan nor adequately protect onsite coastal resources.

Johnson also reported that the county’s environmental health division submitted comments after 5 p.m. Wednesday, pointing out that the project doesn’t have an approved septic permit and requesting some additional conditions of approval. The health division’s emailed comments, published yesterday by the North Coast Journal, express concern that Schneider’s temporary road may have impacted the onsite wastewater treatment system’s dispersal field areas.

Regardless, planning staff again recommended approval of the permit modifications, noting that the recommended conditions of approval had been developed in consultation with the tribes and the Coastal Commission, agreed to “in principle” during an August 2 meeting, and that the parties have not offered suggested alternative conditions. However, staff also prepared an alternative resolution to deny the project. 

Planning Commissioner Melanie McCavour recused herself, as she did at the previous meeting, so that she could participate as the tribal historic preservation officer of the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria, another Wiyot-area tribe that has been involved in negotiations on the project.

On behalf of the Bear River tribe, McCavour offered suggestions for how to avoid such messy situations in the future. She proposed, for example, that a separate page be attached to conditions of approval for any project on which there are known tribal cultural resources, and that applicants be required to sign the page.

Unlike the other two Wiyot-area tribes, which have requested archeological excavation to more fully assess damage to the tribal cultural resource onsite, the Bear River Band wants the area to be capped or fenced because it considers excavation disrespectful. McCavour reiterated that position on Thursday.

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During another public comment period — this one dedicated specifically to Schneider’s project — the applicant himself addressed the commission.

“Several planning commissioners have indicated to me that they have personally and proactively reached out to the stakeholders and had not received any negative comment, which has also been my experience,” Schneider said, adding, “I’m glad we found common ground.”

Apparently taking the tribes’ recent lack of communication as consent, Schneider said, “I’m proud of the fact that when I put my my kids to bed this evening we will have shown them how, by working together patiently, we can navigate an adverse situation and come to a thoughtful resolution.”

Apologies

After the previous meeting, Wiyot Tribal Administrator Michelle Vassel told the Outpost that she had attended via Zoom and tried to raise her hand to participate after commissioners complained that nobody from the tribe had shown up to answer questions.

“I never saw any of those hands come up,” Bongio said last night. “I truly apologize if anybody on either side of the item [was] not allowed to get up and speak.”

Levy said that in the past week he sent letters to both the Wiyot Tribe and the Blue Lake Rancheria apologizing for making an issue of their non-attendance “and, secondly, for the disrespectful way that I feel Chair Bongio spoke about and treated them throughout that meeting.”

He said he was upset not only by Bongio’s language and treatment of the tribes but also by “the overall biased handling of the matter that I felt infected that item from the start. It betrayed, I felt, our role that we need to strive for to be a neutral and fair and unbiased body when these items and these stakeholders come before us.”

Levy said he didn’t feel Bongio’s mea culpa went far enough to repair the damage done to tribe-county relations and suggested drafting “a simple and formal apology on behalf of the whole commission to submit to those tribes, and I would offer to work with the chair and with the [planning] director to help draft such a letter.”

Bongio said he’d be willing to be part of that.

O’Neill said she worked for the Wiyot Tribe about 30 years ago. “Of all the tribes in Northern California … there’s no tribe that has been treated worse than the Wiyot people,” she said, recounting their wholesale displacement and the Wiyot Massacre of 1860. Given this history, O’Neill said she was particularly offended by Bongio’s suggestion that future applicants may have to go before “the Indians” for approval on all projects.

“I don’t think that we can make the comment that ‘the Indians’ are going to tell us what to do,” she said. “And it was very offensive because they are tribes and they’re all separate tribes. They have separate languages, cultures [and] history. … So I wanted to say that and, you know, give my apologies as a part of this commission, too, [for] what I felt was a very dark day in our history.”

From there the commission worked to find a path forward. Levy said he really wanted to find a way to approve the permit, but Planning and Building Director John Ford warned that the California Coastal Commission remains unsatisfied with the county’s proposed conditions of approval. 

The commissioners tossed out a few ideas for possible ways to appease the Coastal Commission. Commissioner Brian Mitchell, for example, wondered aloud about requiring Schneider to demolish the portion of his home that was constructed within the 100-foot wetland setback area. 

Bongio got into a back-and-forth exchange with Ford over the appropriateness of Schneider’s 8,000-square-foot home, with Ford eventually cutting him off and saying he was merely trying to articulate potential objections from the Coastal Commission.

“They’re concerned with the size and the mass of the house in a very scenic location and whether or not that fits within the setting of the property,” Ford said.

Bongio defended the merits of the project and again voiced frustration with the length and complexity of the permit review process.

“I mean, everything to this point that has been asked for, the applicant has readily offered to give and do … ,” he said. “So with all the mitigations that have been proposed and everything, I think that we should move forward on this.”

He suggested that the details should be left for the Coastal Commission, tribes and applicant to work out among themselves.

“I think that we’re more of the 30,000-foot view on this and not in the trenches, you know, mucking out the details,” Bongio said. Later he added, “I think it’s our job to move this along.”

Mitchell disagreed.

“The Coastal Commission sent a letter, and it was very clear to me that they are reminding us that they have every authority to deny this permit,” he said. “And if we keep heading down the path that we’re on, that’s where we’re going to end up. And so my goal is to try to avoid that dead end.”

Levy said he takes issue with the fact that Schneider was able to take advantage of the county’s Alternative Owner Builder (AOB) program, a less restrictive permitting system originally intended to give flexibility to back-to-the-land residents looking to build low-cost, low-amenity dwellings in the hills.

“That was a legal pathway for the developer to take, but I think what has happened has shown that had there been more oversight, more inspections, we probably wouldn’t have gotten to the point where we’re at with this,” Levy said. “I don’t really think this is an appropriate type of project to be using the AOB permit.”

Eventually it became clear that the choice at hand was whether to approve the project and risk it being appealed to the Coastal Commission or delay a decision once again in hopes of ironing out a more thorough resolution. The commission appeared to be headed toward another contentious vote until Schneider was asked his opinion. 

“I would be reluctant to rush something in spite of our desire to get this structure weatherproofed as we watch natural materials diminish rapidly and we see a great deal of waste,” Schneider said. “I do recognize there are probably some matters that are unresolved.”

He wound up asking the Planning Commission to direct staff to reach back out to the Coastal Commission so they could identify the agency’s specific outstanding concerns about the project’s conformance with the Local Coastal Plan. He said he wants one definitive list of mitigation measures “that would ensure that we can approve this at the local level and satisfy all parties that are involved.”

Commissioner Mike Newman said he appreciates Schneider’s request “because I think in the long run it will speed things along and not jeopardize the project that is at hand here.”

“I always defer to the applicant — or try to,” Bongio said. He argued for establishing a limited timeframe, possibly bringing the item back for a decision at the next meeting. 

Newman said he was hesitant about that suggestion, and Schneider came back up to say he agreed that there should not be a time limit placed on talks with the Coastal Commission.

Mitchell made a motion to table the matter to an unknown future date and direct staff to bring back “regular reports” while continuing talks with the Coastal Commission and other trust agencies, referring to the tribes, presumably. Newman seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.

Eureka’s most prolific public commenters seized the opportunity to grill city staff about a roster of local issues during a candidate briefing at Eureka City Hall this week. Seemingly at every turn, the group of five individuals – none of whom are officially running for local office – incessantly questioned city staff about hot-button issues surrounding mental health, homeless, drug abuse, needle litter and housing.

The idea behind Wednesday’s candidate briefing was to give Eureka City Council hopefuls and members of the public a better idea of how local government works ahead of the November General Election by outlining the city’s departmental structure as well as the duties and responsibilities of the mayor and council. Department representatives came prepared with presentations outlining their individual operations within the city’s organizational structure and major projects candidates ought to be aware of.

The briefing was not intended to be an open forum for community members to air out their grievances, although that seemed to be this group’s sole intent.

The forum began on a civil note with staff introductions and a brief summary of city functions from City Clerk Pam Powell. There were no more than 10 members of the public in attendance, including city council candidates Nicholas Kohl, John Fullerton and Renee Contreras De Loach. Councilmember and soon-to-be Mayor Kim Bergel was in attendance, as was her near competitor and frequent public commenter Stephen Parr, who failed to gain enough valid signatures to qualify for the mayor’s race.

Mental Health in Eureka

City Manager Miles Slattery began his portion of the forum by focusing on one of the city’s biggest issues: mental health.

“Mental health is obviously a big discussion point in the city and we’ve been trying to be really proactive,” he said. “About two years ago, we had planned on starting a pilot program for an alternative response team [that would] respond to some of the mental health-related services that [the Eureka Police Department] is regularly called out to. We worked with the [Human Resources] department to establish a mental health clinician position that we’ve recently hired for. [They are] already starting to divert … those community members that are having mental health issues away from the ER and Sempervirens to provide services.”

Parr asked why the city wanted to divert people away from Sempervirens and if the city had “any concrete plans to actually help people.” Because of staffing limitations at local hospitals and Sempervirens, Slattery said, the city is making a concerted effort to proactively respond and “treat individuals out in the field” whenever possible. 

Citing “an ever-increasing number of mental health issues on our streets,” Cornelius Lowenstein, a member of the aforementioned group of public commenters, asked “what draws people here, what attracts them to Eureka?” Slattery emphasized that mental health issues “are not specific to our community members experiencing homelessness” and pointed to a marked increase in mental health issues worldwide.

“What is the percentage of the drug-riddled, psychosis-riddled people living on the streets that cause the vandalism, the crime, the decay that affect citizens, that affect tourists … versus people that are housed? Versus people that had a mental health crisis because of COVID, because of unemployment or being isolated from family?” Lowenstein persisted.

Slattery felt as though “it is a misnomer that the people that are causing those crimes are definitely community members experiencing homelessness, or even people that have mental health issues.” He added that recent data from the City’s 2022 Homeless Survey indicates homelessness has gone down in Eureka in the last two years.

Fullerton asked if the city had identified a new site for Betty Kwan Chinn’s trailer village, which aims to provide transitional housing for Eureka’s homeless. The project hit a snag in July when an early morning fire destroyed the 12 trailers that were donated to the Betty Chinn Foundation by PG&E. Even still, Slattery said the new trailers will go on the same site at the foot of Hilfiker Lane.

Parr asked if the city had looked into “more durable, less expensive alternatives” to the trailers.

“The trailers [we’re looking at] are meant specifically for people to live in,” Slattery said. “After we got the grant, COVID and supply chain things happened and the cost for everything increased significantly. That’s why we put out [a request for proposals]. We have a couple of potential people with proposals that would make the work more cost-effective.”

Harry Wilcox, another frequent public commenter, returned to the issue of crime and harassment coming from the city’s homeless community, specifically in local parks.

“You can’t even walk your dog there without getting harassed or yelled at … and people are sleeping right on the sidewalk,” he said. “This is a person – I know for a fact – [who] has had many police contacts, and they refuse to go to shelters, they refuse to get any help. I was wondering what the legal situation is [to force] these people to get help because some of them are mentally, you know, beyond talking to or dealing with.”

The County of Humboldt is currently participating in a pilot program under Laura’s Law which allows for court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment for a small subset of individuals with serious mental illness, Slattery explained. To qualify for the program, an individual must have a recent history of psychiatric hospitalizations and/or acts of violent behavior.

“If that’s not the case, there are very limited things we can do,” he said. “A lot of people will say ‘don’t bring new services here,’ but if we don’t bring in new services we cannot use the stick part of the carrot [and the stick] that we need to demonstrate that we do have the capacity to house everybody. So adding housing, adding those things and having a place for people … that need to be sheltered is a good thing. …We can’t just arrest them and put them in jail.”

Wilcox pushed back. “Give somebody housing – I’ve seen it happen – they just wreck it and walk off.”

Slattery explained, as Wilcox attempted to interrupt him, that the city “has learned from past mistakes” and has acquired a housing specialist to check in with newly housed individuals and landlords. “I think we’ve lost two folks who have been housed in a two-year period,” he said.

Parr began questioning Slattery about the money being spent on local housing initiatives. Already a half-hour into the forum, Slattery made an attempt to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand: informing candidates about City functions. 

The forum would carry on this way for another hour and a half. 

Economic Development and Public Works

Eureka’s Economic Development Director Swan Asbury, talked about her team’s efforts to update two of the city’s guiding documents: the Economic Development Strategic Plan and Strategic Arts Plan. Her department also oversees the Eureka Visitor Center (which recently relocated) and Eureka Main Street.

“We also manage a lot of city events like the Fourth of July and the Eureka Street Art Festival,” she said. “We also do a number of programs for business assistance. We just wrapped up a bridge program to help pay businesses’ rent over the past few years. … We also have a facade [improvement] program, which offers grants for exterior beautification and security improvements. If a business installs security cameras or exterior lighting, we will reimburse them $2,500.”

Slattery said the city’s transient occupancy tax “has broken records” in the last year. He added that development in Eureka is “probably the most it’s ever been,” with a mixed-use building going in at the corner of Second and E Streets, a new senior living facility being built on Myrtle Avenue, a hotel next to Harbor Lanes on Broadway and, of course, the EaRTH Center.

“So, where is [the city] at with the EaRTH Center?” Dianna Hardwick, another public commenter, asked.

“We have a pre-development agreement approved with Servitas,” Slattery said. “They’re working with Cal Poly Humboldt right now, and that should be coming to a head soon.”

If you recall, earlier this year the Eureka City Council gave staff the green light to move forward with the ambitious (yet contentious) transit and housing development on two city-owned parking lots on Third Street between G and H streets, behind Lost Coast Brewery. The city held numerous public meetings on the subject and, despite concerns over parking accessibility in Old Town, decided to move forward with the project.

“This room was packed with people telling you ‘We don’t want the EaRTH Center,’ so I’m hoping you’re putting the brakes on it,” Hardwick said. She pointed to the City of Arcata’s outreach efforts surrounding the Gateway Area Plan and encouraged the city to take note and engage with the public. 

Slattery said the project “is not stopping because it’s already been voted on.” 

Hardwick interjected, accusing the city of “not caring about the local business community.” She continued to push Slattery on the subject. After a bit of back and forth, he asked her to hold her questions until the end of the meeting when he would be happy to talk about the EaRTH Center “’til I’m blue in the face.”

During a presentation from Public Works Director Brian Gerving, Lowenstein pressed him about the presence of drugs and COVID-19 in the city’s wastewater. Gerving tried to explain that the “water coming out of the tap is absolutely safe” because the city’s wastewater treatment plant, well, treats the wastewater.

Lowenstein also asked about the presence of needle litter in the city’s plumbing system to which Gerving responded, “People flush any number of surprising things down the toilet.” 

“Honestly, the biggest bane of our existence in maintaining the wastewater system are those so-called flushable wipes – which are not flushable,” he added.

James Harrison Graham, another public commenter, interjected to point out the issue of needle litter on the city’s Waterfront Trail and criticized the construction of new trails in the city.

“People are worried about new trails and their houses are nearby and they’re worried about drug addicts coming through their yard at night,” he said. “We see it all over Facebook. …So you build this new trail and the drug-addicted transients take it over and there’s needle litter all over it and human feces on the side … it doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”

Slattery interjected, once again, to emphasize that the Waterfront Trail, “all the way from Pound Road up to Tydd [Street], is 10 times better than it used to be. That’s a fact.”

Kristen Goetz, the principal planner for the City of Eureka, began talking about the city’s Waterfront Development Plan but was interrupted with concerns over needle litter throughout the city’s waterfront and more concerns about the EaRTH Center.

The group of public commenters began talking over one another and accusing staff of dodging their questions. City Clerk Pam Powell very nearly begged the group to hold their questions until the end of the meeting, reminding attendees that the intention of the meeting was to brief candidates on city functions.

This is how the remainder of the forum went. City staff would deliver a brief presentation on their department for the candidates – remember, this forum was supposed to be a candidate briefing – only to be interrupted by the small group of commenters who seemed hell-bent on stirring up controversial issues to no end.

Local Policing

The tone suddenly changed when Eureka’s interim police chief Todd Jarvis stepped to the front of the room as the final speaker of the evening. Suddenly the raucous group was respectful and complimentary, asking Jarvis if he had any intentions of staying with the City of Eureka as police chief (he couldn’t say) and praising the work he’s accomplished during his short time on the force.

Jarvis praised the work of EPD staff, commending them for rising to the occasion and working as hard as his former colleagues at the San Diego Police Department. “Everybody here is pitching in and working together like nothing I’ve ever seen, and that’s what has kept me here in town and makes me excited to be a part of the department,” he said. “I can tell you from the bottom of my heart, I have never seen a level of support from a community for a police department that I’ve seen here.”

Jarvis acknowledged that the department had to pull back on its Problem Oriented Policing (POP) unit and relocate the department’s Old Town Patrol officer to meet staffing needs. However, he was optimistic that new hires over the coming months will alleviate the staffing shortage.

Fullerton asked if Jarvis had any indication as to when the POP unit would be up and running. Once the city gets three of its new hires into the field, Jarvis said, EPD will be able to begin staffing special assignments. “I hope within the next six months that we can get pumped back up and running.”

Kohl asked about patrols in Old Town and requested EPD Officer Brian Ross return to his assignment. “I was able to develop a rapport with him that allowed me to engage in a way that was immediate,” he said. “I cannot stress enough how impactful he was in that district.”

Parr questioned Jarvis about the necessity of the “Big Brother cameras” and “what exactly [the city] hopes to accomplish with [this] investment.”

Jarvis explained that the security cameras were installed in specific, problem areas of the city in an attempt to deter crime but to also capture footage of crimes taking place.

“If I can solve a murder or a child abduction or anything like that with this technology, then it’s working,” he said. “Is it a perfect system? No, but I think it’s going to be beneficial.”

Candidate Feedback

After Wednesday’s doozy of a meeting, the Outpost asked the three city council candidates in attendance how they felt the briefing went. In classic campaign fashion, each candidate offered a polite and gracious response.

Kohl said he “had not had the chance to meet several of the [city’s] department heads” and appreciated the opportunity to ask specific questions about the ward he hopes to serve.

“It also allowed me to ask specific questions facing the departments,” he wrote in an email to the Outpost. “I appreciated the city staff’s efforts in conveying their structure and scope. …The nature of transparent participation in government means that a meeting’s direction may be swayed by personal agenda. I felt it [was] good practice for maintaining focus and intention under those circumstances.”

Contreras De Loach, Kohl’s opponent, said she was expecting more of a discussion between city staff and the candidates about ongoing and upcoming city projects.

“I appreciated the opportunity to learn in greater detail the opportunities and challenges facing the city,” she told the Outpost. “I thought some of the presentations were excellent and was impressed by the enthusiasm and commitment shown. We have some really exciting developments in progress in Eureka and they are happening because committed and dedicated people are making them happen.”

The questions and criticisms posed by members of the public “were beneficial in giving candidates a realistic view of public discussions and criticisms that may occur after their election,” she added, noting that “misinformation and criticism is always a challenge.”

Fullerton took a similar stance.

“I asked several questions and was satisfied with the answers,” Fullerton wrote in an email to the Outpost. “I wish the five people from the public hadn’t dominated the night, a few questions from them might have been OK but they seem[ed] determined to debate issues and that was not what the event was for. I had heard from those five [people] many times before and their disruptions last night were not productive.”

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Press release from the unified command of the Six Rivers Lightning Complex:

Today, California Incident Management Team 15 assumed command of the SRF Lightning Complex. CAIIMT 15 will join the unified command with California Highway Patrol, Trinity County Sheriff, and Humboldt County Sheriff. The Six Rivers Lightning Complex is currently 39,721 acres with 64% containment and 1,573 personnel assigned to the incident.

CURRENT SITUATION

The Campbell and Ammon fires are the last two uncontained fires after a lighting event occurred in the early morning hours of August 5th . Over the last month, crews have worked hard to implement a full suppression strategy through the mixture of direct line construction, and tactical operations where the steep rugged terrain made direct actions impossible.

Fire resources will continue the current strategy and focus on holding and securing the control lines on the north side of the Campbell fire on either side of Cedar Creek. If successful, controlling this flank will ensure the fire remains off Hoopa Reservation jurisdiction. The crews will also focus on securing the fire along the system of roads being used to contain the southeast portion of the Campbell fire above the community of Trinity Village, minimizing the potential impacts to the area’s infrastructure. Minimal fire activity is expected on the Ammon fire.

Wildland firefighters continue to contain spot fires across the control lines during the persistent warm and dry conditions. This weather trend will continue into the weekend as a ridge of high pressure intensifies across the state.

The morning inversion will again move smoke into communities West of the Campbell Fire. This smoke is expected to lift late afternoon and overnight. For more information on air quality conditions please check out this link. .

ROAD CLOSURES

Due to a large presence of fire personnel and machinery working to build containment lines for the Ammon Fire, residents are asked to limit travel on Titlow Hill Road/Route 1 in zones HUM-E052 and HUM-E062 to essential traffic only. Residents may still use roads to travel out of evacuation order zones:

The following roads into evacuation zones have been closed.

- Forest Route 7n15 at Six Rivers Forest Boundary

The following roads are restricted to local traffic only:

- Horse Linto Creek Road at Saddle Lane (Open to residents only)

- 6N06 Sandy Bar (Route 6)

- Titlow Hill Road (Route 1) at Horse Mountain Botanical Area

State Route 299 remains open to through traffic. Residents are encouraged to visit the Caltrans Quickmap to check for state highway closures.

FOREST CLOSURES

Forest order NO. 22-10-06 Six Rivers Lightning Complex is currently in place, which includes river access at Kimtu Park.

To view this closure and map, please visit this link.

EVACUATION UPDATES

For the latest evacuation information go to Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services or Trinity County Office of Emergency Services. For an interactive map of evacuation zones visit: Zonehaven Aware To sign up for alerts this link..

ANIMAL EVACUATION CENTER

Hoopa Rodeo Grounds
1767 Pine Creek Rd., Hoopa, CA 95546
Phone: (707) 492-2851

Press release from the Humboldt County Drug Task Force:

In early August of 2022 the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF) initiated an investigation into Luis Alberto Valenzuela-Pardo (30 years old from Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico) for distribution of heroin and methamphetamine in Humboldt County. On August 31st, 2022, HCDTF Agents with the assistance of the Eureka Police Department (EPD) and Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) made a traffic stop on Valenzuela-Pardo in the 3300 block of Broadway St. in Eureka. Valenzuela-Pardo was detained without incident.

HCDTF Agents served a search warrant on the vehicle and located approx. 3 ounces of heroin and 3 ounces of methamphetamine. Agents then responded to Valenzuela-Pardo’s residence in the 400 block of P St. in Eureka and served the search warrant on a bedroom that Valenzuela-Pardo rented at the house. Agents located approx. 1 pound of methamphetamine, 1 pound of heroin, and 8 grams of cocaine in the bedroom. Agents also located a digital scale, packaging materials and approx. $5,000 in US Currency.

Valenzuela-Pardo was transported to the Humboldt County Jail where he was booked for the above charges:

• 11351 H&S Possession of heroin/cocaine for sale

• 11352 H&S Transportation of heroin for sale

• 11378 H&S Possession of methamphetamine for sale

• 11379 H&S Transportation of methamphetamine for sale

• 11366.5 H&S Operating or maintaining a drug house

Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes are encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-267-9976.

California lawmakers punted on a proposal to rein in agricultural groundwater pumping as drought continues to grip California and more than a thousand domestic wells have run dry.

A bill by Assemblymember Steve Bennett, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, would have added hurdles to obtain a permit to drill an agricultural well. Though the bill cleared the Senate on Monday, Bennett elected to not bring it up for a final vote in the Assembly before the Legislative session timed out Wednesday night. He said California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told him the bill was no longer viable because of changes made.

During one of the driest years in recent history, California legislators did not pass any new laws that would boost the water supply or protect groundwater from overpumping, although funds were included in the budget for groundwater management and programs like water recycling.

The bill would have been the biggest change to California’s groundwater management since the state’s landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act was enacted in 2014, during the height of the last drought, said Roger Dickinson, a former Democratic assemblymember from Sacramento and one of the authors.

Over the past five years — well after passage of the act — more than 6,750 new irrigation wells have been drilled.

“We cannot succeed in reaching sustainability unless we are judicious about continuing to allow well drilling,” said Dickinson, now policy director for CivicWell, a nonprofit group promoting sustainable local policies.

If Bennett’s proposal had been approved, local groundwater management agencies, largely in the Central Valley, would have been required to weigh in on whether a new, enlarged or reactivated well would harm the local aquifer before a local government can grant a permit. The applicant also would have had to submit a study by an engineer or geologist confirming that the well is unlikely to interfere with nearby wells.

The bill is aimed at agricultural wells. Household wells pumping less than two acre-feet a year and public water system wells are excluded.

The bill received little public discussion on the Senate floor before passing on Monday. But it underwent a heated discussion in the Assembly months before, with members from the Central Valley speaking in opposition.

“Continuing to go forward with this kind of heavy-handed approach is simply bringing the day closer when those million acres of agriculture are fallowed, and literally thousands upon thousands of farm workers will be unemployed,” Assemblymember Jim Patterson, a Republican from Fresno, said in May. “The death knell of agriculture is but a few more votes like this away.”

Assemblymember Adam Gray, a Democrat from Merced, said the bill would have “turned the process upside down and imposed a sweeping proclamation from Sacramento with zero consideration for local conditions.”

“Once again we saw a bill written and advocated for by people who aren’t from the Valley who think know what’s best for us,” he said in a statement Thursday.

Business and agricultural groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau Federation, opposed the bill, saying it would interfere with landowners’ rights to use groundwater and spur lawsuits over permitting decisions.

Daniel Merkley, water resources director with the California Farm Bureau Federation, called the bill “premature” and “an overreach.”

He said it could interfere with “what we’re trying to accomplish with our groundwater over the next number of years” and that it failed to address the diversity of California’s groundwater basins.

“Some (basins) are in critical overdraft, some are being managed sustainably already. This bill created a uniform envelope over all of them,” he said.

Bennett said agriculture and business groups had rallied hard against the bill. But he attributed its ultimate death to amendments inserted by the Senate appropriations committee that weakened its provisions compared to an executive order that Newsom issued earlier this year.

The amendments cut a requirement for permit applicants to show their wells would not increase land subsidence. Appropriations chair Anthony Portantino, a Democratic state senator from Glendale, did not respond to a request for comment.

Newsom’s order — issued after a record-dry start to the year — temporarily bars local governments from issuing permits for wells deemed potentially harmful to nearby wells or that could cause subsidence that damages structures.

“If that wouldn’t have happened, if we would have kept it as strong as the executive order, I’m confident the bill would be sitting on the governor’s desk and he would be signing it,” Bennett said. “But instead, we have to start all over again next year.”

Alex Stack, a spokesperson for Newsom, did not answer a question about what the governor’s office told Bennett about the bill.

“The (executive order) is important for conservation and sustainability purposes during this period of extreme and extended drought, and we will work with the Legislature and state agencies on any changes in law that might be helpful to putting the state on a path to navigating our hotter, drier future,” Stack said.

More than 97% of the state is experiencing severe drought, and nearly 1,040 wells have run dry so far this year.

The last time drought parched the state, lawmakers passed the groundwater law as agricultural overpumping spurred a rash of well outages in local communities.

Local groundwater agencies in critically overdrafted basins, mostly in the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast and desert regions, are required to dial back the depletion and stop the consequences from worsening by 2040. Those in less depleted basins have until 2042.

But groundwater levels are still declining, land subsidence continues and more wells were drilled in the 2021 water year than in any of the previous five years, a state report said.

Bennett’s bill aimed to address a major groundwater disconnect between the local governments that grant drilling permits, and the local groundwater agencies tasked with managing aquifers. According to a bill analysis by an Assembly consultant, granting a well permit is often considered a “ministerial action” with “little or no personal judgment by the public official as to the wisdom or manner of carrying out the project.”

Dickinson said he had hoped when drafting the 2014 law that groundwater agencies and local governments would coordinate. “What we still see is both a failure because of, to a certain extent, the natural inertia of government on the one hand, and the grudging implementation of (the Act), on the other hand,” Dickinson said.

“We cannot succeed in reaching sustainability unless we are judicious about continuing to allow well drilling.”
— Roger Dickinson, former Assemblymember

Environmental and environmental justice groups supported the bill, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club California and Community Water Center because groundwater depletion threatens drinking water supplies.

Bennett said he expects a run on permit applications if Newsom’s executive order expires before a bill is in place.

“I’m really disappointed. And I’m very concerned that if something happens to the executive order, we will have a land rush on well permits,” he said. “But I’m not discouraged. We learned and we’re going to redouble our efforts.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

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The California Legislature rarely passes up an opportunity to place new restrictions on firearms, or stick a finger in the eye of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

But in one of the final acts of the 2022 legislative session, lawmakers declined to do either early Thursday when they opted not to pass a bill that would have rewritten state regulations on concealed carry licenses.

The bill, written by Attorney General Rob Bonta and introduced by Democratic Sen. Anthony Portantino of Glendale, was a direct response to a June high court ruling that struck down a New York state law requiring anyone applying for the right to legally carry around a concealed firearm in public, to demonstrate a “special need” first. California’s similar law, which required the showing of “good cause,” fell along with it.

But despite the very public support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, California’s rejoinder to the court stalled in the Assembly, unable to overcome the wariness of a handful of Democrats and the unified opposition of Republicans. That’s despite some persistent lobbying on the chamber floor by Bonta himself, an Assemblymember for nine years until his 2021 appointment by Newsom to lead the state’s Department of Justice.

According to the final tally, the bill failed by one vote.

“I am deeply disappointed that Californians’ right to live, work, and congregate safely remains at risk as a result of this initial outcome in our Legislature,” Bonta said in a statement. “But make no mistake: We intend to take any and all action necessary to ensure we get a bill that will correct the dangers presented to our communities as a result of” the court’s ruling.

Gun control advocates were also incensed. “A dangerous Supreme Court decision recently put California families and communities at risk, yet last night too many of our representatives disregarded that danger and neglected to take action,” Shannon Watts of the advocacy group Moms Demand Action said in a statement.

For an institution that has for years been reliably receptive to new restrictions on guns and the people who own, buy and sell them, it was a rare retreat. Earlier this year, in response to back-to-back mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, lawmakers passed and Newsom signed a bushel of new gun bills, adding to a thick body of law that already makes California gun restrictions the most numerous in the country.

Adding insult to injury for California gun regulation advocates: New York state passed a similar bill earlier this summer that went into effect on Thursday.

But as if to illustrate some of the concerns held by the California bill’s opponents, a federal judge has already said that there is “a strong likelihood” that the New York law is unconstitutional.

Why this bill was not like the others

For disappointed supporters of the bill, there’s plenty of possible blame to go around.

Even by California standards, the proposal was ambitious in its scope, placing a raft of new requirements on concealed carry applicants and new restrictions on license holders. That earned the opposition of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, representing the officials who would have been tasked with implementing much of the bill, as well as the icy silence of other law enforcement groups.

Though the Supreme Court banned law enforcement agencies from awarding permits based on their own subjective discretion, the ruling left open the possibility that states can add on their own “objective” standards. Under Portantino’s bill, applicants would need to receive a psychological assessment, take at least 16 hours of safety training and provide three reference letters attesting to their moral fitness.

The ruling also permitted counties and states to specify certain “sensitive” gun-free zones. Under the bill, bars and restaurants, medical facilities, parks, public gatherings, airport parking lots and most private businesses would have fallen under that category.

For the bill’s opponents, exploiting a loophole left in the court’s opinion was too cute by half.

“The bait and switch of this bill is disingenuous,” Republican Assemblymember Thurston Smith from Hesperia said on the Assembly floor earlier this week.

Celebrating the bill’s failure on Thursday, National Rifle Association lobbyist Dan Reid called the bill “nothing more than pure defiance of the Supreme Court’s ruling.”

In its opposition letter sent to lawmakers in the final days of the session, the California State Sheriffs’ Association decried the extra administrative costs the bill would place upon them, noted the possibility that it would open their offices to legal liability and bemoaned the fact that the policy would turn much of the state into a gun-free zone.

Other bill watchers noted that judges, retired police officers and prosecutors — professionals likely to have the ear and sympathy of many lawmakers — are disproportionately represented among the state’s concealed carry license holders.

Backers of the bill may have also been victims of their own overconfidence and eagerness. They tacked an “urgency clause” onto the bill, so it would take effect as soon as it was signed by the governor, rather than waiting until Jan. 1. That decision raised the threshold needed to pass the bill from a simple majority to two-thirds.

Without that clause, the bill would have passed the Assembly and likely the Senate.

“Obviously, if we thought it was going to fail, we wouldn’t have put in the urgency cause,” Portantino said later Thursday.

No love lost

Election-year politics and some lingering bad blood between a few key lawmakers probably didn’t help matters, either.

The two Assembly Democrats who voted “no” were Ken Cooley from Rancho Cordova and Bakersfield’s Rudy Salas. Both often take a more skeptical eye toward gun regulations and both are facing competitive elections against Republicans in November.

Assemblymember Jim Cooper, sheriff-elect in Sacramento County, abstained from voting, as did fellow Democrats Joaquin Arambula of Fresno and James Ramos of Rancho Cucamonga. Because the bill needed 54 “yes” votes to pass, failing to cast a vote one way or the other amounts to a tactful way to vote “no.”

But Portantino reserved a special degree of outrage for Patrick O’Donnell, a Democrat from Long Beach, who also declined to vote on the measure.

“To come up one vote short is beyond frustrating and to know that one Assemblymember purposely reversed his vote specifically to kill this important public safety measure is reprehensible,” the senator said in a statement. “California is less safe today because of that action and I am committed to bringing this bill back on December 5th when the chief obstructionist won’t be here to block it.”

O’Donnell, who decided not to seek reelection in November, voted in favor of an earlier amendment to the bill, but did not support the proposal outright when it came up numerous times on the Assembly floor. In an interview, Portantino declined to speculate on the reason behind O’Donnell’s vote. “It’s his conscience and his decision, so you’ll have to ask him,” he said.

In a statement of his own, O’Donnell rejected the idea that he alone was responsible for killing the bill and said that he had concerns about its legal viability.

“I wish I was powerful enough to single-handedly kill any bill. There are 120 members of the Legislature and many of them did not support this bill. That is why it failed,” said O’Donnell, who got into a heated debate with Portantino in June over his decision to kill one of the senator’s bills without a hearing as chairperson of the Assembly Education Committee.

“I’m not going to pass something, even on my last day in the Legislature, that may not be constitutional,” O’Donnell said. “Senator Portantino needs to look in the mirror as to why this bill failed.”

Portantino said he wants to “get it through the system as quickly as possible” in the next session and that he would prefer to keep the urgency provision. Without it, any new law wouldn’t take effect until July 1 at the earliest if it’s incorporated into the state budget. Otherwise, the default start date would be Jan. 1, 2024.

The status quo

Without the bill’s new rules, the pressure is now on county sheriffs to start handing out concealed carry licenses under the Supreme Court’s new standard, if they aren’t in compliance yet.

Many already are — and were even before the ruling. Because California’s prior licensing system granted local discretion over who has “good cause” to have a concealed carry license, counties with gun-rights sheriffs, including Sacramento, Orange County and Fresno, assumed any applicant who met the bare minimum standard as having good cause enough.

But for liberal-leaning urban areas on the coast, changes may be coming.

Some “will be dragging their feet,” said Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association. “But the sheriffs are going to start issuing, and they’re going to be sued very quickly by us if they don’t.”

San Francisco, for example, issued just 11 concealed carry permits over the last decade, rejecting all other applications as unnecessary. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, the department has received 40 applications, said spokesperson Kelvin Wu.

“We have issued no concealed carry permits as of yet. We are finalizing changes to our policies and practices based on the change in the law,” he added.

Now that no change in law is forthcoming from the Legislature — at least not in the short term — the effects of the Supreme Court ruling that Newsom, Bonta and Portantino wanted to shield California from are likely to arrive before long.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Calvin Olbert Hamblin was born in Durango, Colorado in 1930 to Elsie and Calvin Hamblin. They settled in Humboldt County, where Calvin grew up.

As a young boy he ran the streets of Fortuna, where his mother worked as a nurse in the old Fortuna Hospital. From there they moved to Eureka, where Calvin continued to grow up on Everding Street until after high school. He served in the Army and was sent to Korea during the Korean War.

After the war Calvin settled back in Eureka where he began his business as a distributor for Foremost Dairies. He grew his business during the ‘60s and ‘70s in the Willow Creek, Hoopa and Orleans area. During the ‘64 flood, Calvin loaded up his 4-Wheel Drive truck and waited for a road of mud be built. He was able to bring milk into the flooded area and was deemed a hero in that area.

In 1980 he and his wife Betty Lou purchased and ran Harris and F Liquors for 15 years. After they sold the store and settled into retirement, Calvin decided it was not for him and he went to work for Brinks, where he worked for the next eight years.

Calvin loved watching his beloved 49ers and the Warriors and all Sunday football games. He enjoyed his family and debated football with his friends.

Calvin is survived by his loving wife Betty Lou and his children, Dean (Debbie) Hamblin, Gerri Trujillo, Keith (Chantel) Hamblin, Myron (Patty) Anderson and Kim (David) Burns and Graciela (Gerry) Gnech. He has 8 Grandchildren, Travis, Courtney, Molly, Christopher, Alex, Tyler, Cody and Sara. Great Grandchildren, Paydin, Clark, Jacquelynn, Molly, Giovanni, and Gavin and Ella. Great Great Grandchild, Violet!

He was a loving husband and father and will be missed by all.