Press release from the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom:

Governor Gavin Newsom today proclaimed a state of emergency in Del Norte County due to the Smith River Complex fires and in Siskiyou County due to the Happy Camp Complex fires. The proclamations support the ongoing emergency response to the fires, which have destroyed homes, caused power outages, and driven the evacuation of residents.

Among other provisions, the proclamations waive certain licensing requirements and fees for out-of-state contractors and others working with California utilities to restore electricity. The proclamations also support impacted residents by easing access to unemployment benefits and waiving fees to replace driver’s licenses and records such as marriage and birth certificates.

The text of the Del Norte County emergency proclamation can be found here and the text of the Siskiyou County emergency proclamation can be found here.

Press release from the Arcata Police Department:

On August 29, 2023, at 6 a.m., Arcata Police Detectives, with the assistance of the Humboldt and Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department SWAT teams, served an arrest and search warrant for Arcata homicide suspect Gregory Nelson Mattox, in the 13000 block of Bald Hills Road Orick, CA.

Mattox was wanted for the July 2, 2023, killing of 36-year-old Joshua Gephart, in the 5000 block of Boyd Road in Arcata. Mattox was taken into custody without incident and was booked at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on the following violations of the California Penal Code:

• 187(a)-Murder
• 29800(a)(1)-Felon in Possession of a Firearm
• 1203.2-Violation of Probation
• 148.9-Providing False Identity to a Peace Officer.

The Arcata Police Department would like to thank the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department SWAT, Major Crimes Division, and Crisis Negotiation Team, as well as the Mendocino County Sherrif’s Departments SWAT, Arcata Mad River Ambulance, and Cal-Fire for their assistance.

Anyone with information about this investigation is encouraged to contact the APD Investigations Unit at 707-822-2424, or the anonymous tip line at 707-825-2588.  

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Arcata Police Name 24-Year-Old McK Man as Suspect in July 2 Valley West Homicide
• ARCATA HOMICIDE: 36-Year-Old Fortuna Man Shot and Killed; APD Seeking Suspect

This afternoon, a flurry of activity on the 3-9 Fire prompted the Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services to issue an “evacuation warning” for the areas surrounding that blaze, which has been burning north of Dinsmore and just west over the ridge from Hyampom.

The “warning” — the lowest level of alert published by the Office of Emergency Services — was published to the Office of Emergency Services social media channels at around 3:20 p.m. It asks residents to be ready to evacuate, and advises people who need extra time to leave to do so now.

Due to #fire activity on the #SouthForkComplex, an 𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗖𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 has been issued for Zones:
▪️ 𝗭𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗛𝗨𝗠-E114-A (N of Henry Ridge, E of the Mad River)
▪️ 𝗭𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗛𝗨𝗠-E114-B (S of Henry Ridge, N & E of the Mad River)
𝗠𝗔𝗣: https://t.co/ar7VCNusGU pic.twitter.com/ecyNrhU767

— Humboldt Co OES (@HumCoOES) August 29, 2023

Fortunately, the warning doesn’t appear to affect many people, if anyone at all. Though the OES has split up the “E114” zone into three for purposes of this fire, then issued a warning for two of those three subzones, records from last year show that the OES estimates that only one person actually lives in any of the three subzones.

This afternoon, fire managers on the South Fork Complex wrote on their own Facebook page that it’s been busy today.

“Spot fires occurred in the southern flank of the 3-9 fire area, which were spread by northwest winds with gusts up to 30 mph,” they wrote. “Fire behavior is showing a rapid rate of spread to the south, close to Henry Ridge.”

Elsewhere in the county: The town of Orleans and surrounding areas remain under a similar evacuation warning due to the nearby Pearch Fire, which stands at about 2,700 acres.

Press release from Mad River Community Hospital:

Early yesterday morning, 8/28/23, Mad River Community Hospital experienced a close call when a blue mustang was reported to be speeding on Janes Road.  The vehicle subsequently lost control, jumped the curb and sidewalk, and landed on the hospital’s front lawn.  The car slid over 75 feet, hitting the PG&E transformer box and electrical box for the medical suites in front of the hospital.  Fortunately, the hospital never lost power, but some ancillary buildings behind the hospital were without power for the day.  

We would like to extend our gratitude to the first responders who quickly arrived on the scene, including the Arcata Fire District and Arcata Police Department.  Additionally, we would like to thank Colburn Electric and Buddy’s towing for their prompt response and assistance and PG&E working late into the night to restore power to the affected buildings.

We are relieved that no hospital patients, employees, or visitors were injured during this incident.  As always, the safety and well-being of those in our care remain our top priority.

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Anyone who read about it surely remembers the story of Hunter Lewis, a local 21-year-old who tragically died at sea in December 2021 while planting the final piece of an epic treasure hunt he planned for his friends and family. It was a story so unusual and touching that it’s difficult to forget. 

Now Brianna Chapman, a 22-year-old film student who was friends with Lewis, is writing and directing a short film about his story and will soon be traveling to Humboldt with her film crew to shoot the movie. 

Chapman is from Eureka but now lives in L.A., where she’s in her final year at Chapman University (no relation, although Chapman did say that the name is part of what made her interested in the school.) Chapman is completing her double major in business and film, and has written and directed many short films already, which you can check out on her website. Now Chapman is making the film about Lewis as her senior thesis project. 

“[It’s] such a great way to be able to do something for Hunter and to honor him,” Chapman said in a recent phone interview with the Outpost. “And I think for me, the best way that I can do that and express who he was is through film, because that’s what I’m passionate about.”

Chapman and Lewis met just after their freshman year of high school, when they were both attending a summer film camp in Humboldt. The two bonded over a mutual passion for film and stayed friends throughout high school and into college. Lewis went to school in Long Beach, pretty close to Chapman’s school, so they were able to visit each other easily. Chapman is also good friends with Kinsley, Lewis’s girlfriend, who also attends Chapman University, and said she was there when the couple met for the first time. “They instantly fell in love,” she said. 

Chapman was also a part of the days-long treasure hunt that ultimately led to Lewis’s death. The hunt took place when Lewis and his friends were back in Humboldt for winter break. Chapman, her brother and another longtime friend of Lewis’s, Michael, were on one of the treasure-hunting teams. Starting on Christmas Day and continuing for the next several days, Lewis’s friends and family solved cryptic riddles he created and searched for clues he had hidden in different locations throughout the area.

But the treasure hunt took a tragic turn on Dec. 30, when Hunter paddled a canoe off the coast of Trinidad and never returned. 

For days following his disappearance, hundreds of people coordinated online to search for Lewis. People would meet in Trinidad at 7 a.m., Chapman said, to be assigned different areas to comb for signs of Lewis or his boat. The whole effort was coordinated largely by Kinsley and Lewis’s father, Corey. 

“It was really amazing, to be honest, how much Hunter’s father, Corey, and his girlfriend, Kinsley, were managing everyone,” Chapman said. “It was just amazing how much they were able to step up and manage a huge search party in the midst of such a traumatic incident.” 

Chapman near Hunter’s memorial bench in Trinidad, wearing a “Lost Lewis Treasure” sweatshirt made by Hunter’s father

Chapman said she was also inspired by how much the community rallied together to search for Lewis and to support his family during such a difficult time. She saw how hard the experience was for Lewis’s family, and since she is good friends with Kinsley, she especially knows how hard it was for her. Many people would bring Kinsley gifts and offer her support during her grief.

As a close friend of Hunter’s and Kinsley’s, Chapman also experienced first-hand the intense love the two shared, and that is something she really wants to focus on with the film. The movie, entitled “Where the Heart Lies” is a narrative that will tell the story of Hunter’s disappearance, but will also focus on the relationship between Hunter and Kinsley, Chapman said. 

Since the story takes place on the beautiful Humboldt coastline, Chapman thought it would be best to shoot the film on location in Humboldt. In June, Chapman and her cinematographer came out to scout filming locations and will be shooting some of the film at Hunter’s childhood home, which Chapman is very excited about. The crew is also hoping to shoot at the Coast Guard station in Samoa, Chapman said, and part of the next steps will be acquiring permits for the shooting locations and getting approval from the Coast Guard. Chapman is also currently in the process of casting actors to play Hunter, Kinsley and Corey and has a “few contenders” in mind.

Chapman and her crew will travel to Humboldt to film in March 2024 and will also be hiring some local people for the film crew. In particular, Chapman is searching for a local artistic director, a sound mixer and potentially some production assistants and said she will likely try to recruit some students from Cal Poly Humboldt. Since travel expenses will be one of Chapman’s biggest costs, she’s trying to only bring a “skeleton crew” with her from L.A. 

Of course, like with all projects, one of Chapman’s biggest challenges is finding funding. Chapman University is providing $6,000 for the project, she said, but she is hoping to raise an additional $20,000 for the filming expenses and has launched a Kickstarter campaign, which has so far raised nearly $10,000. 

Chapman also mentioned that a major motion picture based on the Rolling Stone article about Hunter is currently in the works. Though she didn’t know many details about the production or when the film is planned to be released, she did say that the film will be written by one of the writers for the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” though the Outpost was unable to confirm this. But Chapman said that she expected other films to be made about the story and knowing one is in process doesn’t deter her from pursuing her project. 

“I wanted to continue to make my thesis even though that [movie] is separately being made,” Chapman said. “I really want to retain the personal authenticity of who Hunter was, because he was such a unique spirit and such a beautiful person and he has such a unique love with Kinsley that I really want to capture that.” 

The process of creating a film that is so personal to her has been difficult at times and it will be an emotional experience for her to return work on this project back in her homeland of Humboldt, Chapman said, but it has also been a good way for her to process her own grief for the loss of her friend. 

“I think it’s a very cathartic process,” Chapman said. “As artists, that is how we process and how we heal. And I think through this process of writing the script, writing all these conversations that Hunter is having with Kinsley, I feel like I’m almost getting to know him even more and feeling him with me.”

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Back in 2021, California passed a new law — AB 481 — that requires local police agencies to have a written policy in place for their acquisition and use of military equipment. The law also requires local agencies to hold a public meeting on that policy.

Tonight, at Arcata City Hall — 736 F Street — the Arcata City Council will have that meeting. The public is, of course, invited. According to the agenda, there’ll be a presentation on the law, an explanation of the police department’s published policy, and a Q&A session.

The law requires that police agencies disclose all military-grade equipment it possesses. (“Military equipment” is defined in the text of the law; it may or may not be actual military surplus.) As of now, according to the department, Arcata currently has:

• One “command vehicle,” suitable for use in crisis situations.
• 13 patrol rifles.
• 12 less-than-lethal shotguns modified to fire bean bags, marked by an orange stock.
• 4 pepper-spray ball launchers.

So if you’d like to talk about that, or anything else in the department’s policy, tonight’s the night. The meeting will be held at Arcata City Hall tonight — Tuesday, Aug. 29 — at 5 p.m.

DOCUMENTS:

• Arcata Police Department Policy 710 — Military Equipment
• Agenda for the Military Equipment Policy Meeting — Aug. 29, 5 p.m.

California’s culture wars escalated Monday as the state sued a school district over its transgender student policy, and a parents’ group took the first step toward placing a trio of initiatives on next year’s ballot that would restrict protections for transgender youth.

The moves follow highly publicized incidents last month in which state leaders attempted to rein in school boards they said had run afoul of civil rights laws. Under California’s local control system, school boards have wide latitude to enact their own policies — a freedom that’s now being tested as a handful of districts move to expand parental rights by limiting the rights of LGBTQ students.

Monday morning, Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a complaint against the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County over its new policy requiring parental notification when students change their gender identity at school.

The complaint, filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court, seeks a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the policy, which Bonta referred to as the “forced outing” of transgender and gender nonconforming students, while the court determines whether it violates state law.

“It presents students with a terrible choice,” the attorney general said at a news conference in Los Angeles. “Either walk back your rights to gender identity and gender expression, to be yourself, to be who you are, or face the risk of serious harm. Mental harm, emotional harm, physical harm.”

The policy requires schools to notify parents when students request to be identified by a name or pronoun, or use facilities or participate in a program that does not align with the sex on their official records. Parents would be notified even if they do not have the student’s permission.

“In its function, in its text and in its context, this policy is destructive, it’s discriminatory and it is downright dangerous.”
— Attorney General Rob Bonta

Bonta said this could potentially put students with parents hostile to their gender expression in danger. He argued that the policy violates California’s constitutional right to privacy, as well as the state’s equal protection clause and state laws that guarantee students the equal right to an education regardless of their gender identity.

Citing comments from school board members who said transgender students were suffering from a mental illness and a perversion, Bonta said the policy was plainly discriminatory.

“In its function, in its text and in its context, this policy is destructive, it’s discriminatory and it is downright dangerous,” Bonta said. “It has no place in California, which is why we have moved in court to strike it down.”

‘Desperate attempt to stop us’

Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley’s school board president, was undaunted by the lawsuit, and said the district’s policy is legally sound.

“This is a desperate attempt to stop us, and quite honestly, it’s embarrassing that Bonta is wasting so much time and money on this,” Shaw said Monday. “Every time he does something like this, it’s a gift, because it exposes who these people really are — extremists who want to come between students and their parents.”

At a boisterous meeting July 20, the Chino Valley Unified board voted 4-1 to pass the policy requiring school staff to notify parents within three days of discovering that a child has changed their gender identity. That could include changing their name or pronouns, joining a single-sex team or club or using bathrooms or locker rooms that don’t align with their gender at birth.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond attended the meeting to protest the policy, but police escorted him out when he spoke longer than his allotted time.

Andi Johnston, Chino Valley Unified communications director, said that the district’s policy does actually include protections for students who might be at risk for abuse from parents. If a student believes they are in danger or may be abused, injured or neglected due to their parents knowing of their preferred gender identity, staff must notify police or child protective services and won’t immediately notify parents.

Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Corona Republican, speaks during a press conference at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 28, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters

Chino Valley Unified was among the state’s first districts to enact such a policy, which is based on a bill that’s currently stalled in the Legislature. Assembly Bill 1314, proposed by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Republican from Riverside, would have reversed the state’s current policy of protecting the privacy of LGBTQ students who might not be “out” at home. Because the chair of the Assembly education committee, Al Muratsuchi, declined to schedule the bill for a hearing, Essayli said he would contact school boards directly and urge them to pursue the issue.

Since then, three other districts — Anderson Union High School District in Shasta County, and Murrieta Valley Unified and Temecula Valley Unified in Riverside County — have adopted similar policies. Several others have proposals in the works.

Going to the voters in 2024

A few hours after Bonta filed his lawsuit, the group Protect Kids California filed state paperwork to place three initiatives on the fall 2024 ballot that would require schools to notify parents when students alter their gender identity; restrict girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms and sports teams to “biological” girls, based on the sex assigned them on their birth certificates; and ban surgery and hormone therapy for transgender minors.

“These initiatives are necessary because we have a Legislature that’s out of touch with most Californians, so we’re taking these issues directly to the voters,” said Jonathan Zachreson, a Roseville City School District board member and president of Students First California, which is backing the initiatives.

“This is a desperate attempt to stop us, and quite honestly, it’s embarrassing that Bonta is wasting so much time and money on this.”
— Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley school board president

The group has until April to gather close to 550,000 signatures per initiative to qualify for the ballot.

At a press conference Monday afternoon on the steps of the Capitol, backers of the initiatives said they were eager to return rights to parents, who they say are best suited to help their children.

“What we are concerned with is who gets to raise our kids, who gets to raise the next generation of students in the state of California,” Essayli said. “Is it the government or is it their parents?”

At the end of the event, a group of young activists confronted one of the speakers but was then surrounded by backers of the initiatives. The activists wanted to know why adults were speaking on behalf of youth who’d be affected by the policies.

Impacts on young people

LGBTQ groups said both efforts — the proposed initiatives and the school board actions — are deeply harmful to LGBTQ students, and the state is right to intervene. The 2015 U.S. Trans Survey found that 10% of transgender people had faced violence from a family member due to their gender identity, and 15% had run away or been forced from their homes. In general, LGBTQ youth are more prone to depression and anxiety and are four times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers, according to the Trevor Project, which advocates for LGBTQ youth.

“These anti-LGBTQ policies are spreading like wildfire, and people need to realize the harmful impact that these policies have on young people,” said Jorge Reyes Salinas, communications director for Equality California, a civil rights organization focusing on LGBTQ issues. “It’s imperative that the state take action. … We’re grateful that Bonta filed this suit to uphold the rights and dignity of LGBTQ students.”

He said he’s confident the ballot initiatives will fail, saying that most Californians oppose “hate and discrimination, especially when it comes to LGBTQ students. But we are ready to continue fighting, and we’re not going to stop until we’re victorious.”

Meanwhile, members of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, with help from Gov. Gavin Newsom, said they were continuing to craft a bill strengthening the rights of transgender students.

“Recognizing the nuance and complexity of this work, we are continuing to refine our legislative approach in this two-year session, including working with the governor and key stakeholders, to ensure the most comprehensive and responsible legislation is proposed,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward, a Democrat from San Diego. “Our LGBTQ Caucus is fully committed to assuring that every student feels safe and supported in their school environment and that teachers aren’t forced into policing and outing students. We know that lives and careers are at stake here.”

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