Press release from Humboldt Commons:

Humboldt Commons, the nonprofit senior living community currently in development in the McKinleyville Town Center, has officially opened enrollment for all to its Future Residents Priority List.

This community-led project will feature cottages, apartments and shared community spaces on 14.6 acres south of Hiller Road, designed specifically for active adults aged 62 and older.

By joining the Future Residents Priority List with a $1,000 repayable deposit, prospective residents will secure their place in line for future residence selection, receive ongoing project updates and community news, and be among the first to hear about next steps as Humboldt Commons takes shape.

The community is currently in the schematic design phase, with construction plans advancing steadily.

LSW Architects, recognized for innovative design solutions, will provide the designs for Humboldt Commons. Pacific Builders, a locally based contractor with experience in residential construction, will serve as the project’s builder.

Ann Lindsay, President of Life Plan Humboldt, the local group developing the community, shares, “Joining the Future Residents Priority List now means securing your place in a community that’s already generating real excitement — and it helps you take the first concrete step toward calling it your home. Humboldt Commons will be a community where residents age with independence, social connections and purpose. The community is rooted in sustainability and innovation, and reflects the region’s deeply held values of inclusiveness.”

JoAnn Schuch, fellow board member and new member of the priority list, shares, “I hike with my dog Molly every day for exercise, but also for the social contact we find with the other dog walkers.”

“As I get older, I’m really excited to have the off-leash dog park at Humboldt Commons. It will be nice to have a place close by where we can chat with people while we watch the ‘doggos’ play,” JoAnn said.

Features and Amenities

Residents will choose from beautifully designed apartments and cottages with a focus on senior-friendly design and natural light. And they will enjoy an active lifestyle with walking paths, gardens and access to community trails. 

This vibrant community will feature spaces perfect for gatherings, potlucks, music nights and resident-led activities — all centered on staying connected to others and to continuing lifelong learning. And when you need support, comprehensive services have you covered, from health navigation and home maintenance to options for dining and housekeeping.

Welcome Center

To support future residents and interested community members, Humboldt Commons has opened a Welcome Center at 1585 Heartwood Drive, Suite B, in McKinleyville. Staff members are available by appointment to meet with potential residents and answer questions about the development. The organization will host monthly information sessions, both online and in person, to provide detailed insights into the project vision and the benefits of joining the Future Residents Priority List. Information session schedules are available at humboldt.kendal.org/events, and appointments can be made by emailing Humboldt@humboldt..

Community-Led Effort

Humboldt Commons is the result of years of dedication by Life Plan Humboldt, a nonprofit organization founded in 2020 by local residents seeking more choices for aging well in Humboldt County. The organization set out to create a resident-driven nonprofit senior living community that reflects the region’s independent spirit, where neighbors connect through shared interests, social gatherings and a culture of mutual support. Homes will be thoughtfully designed for comfort and functionality, allowing residents to leave behind home repairs, lawn care and endless maintenance tasks.

Kendal Support

As a Kendal Affiliate in Development, Humboldt Commons partners with Kendal, a nationally recognized nonprofit known for its Quaker values and commitment to purposeful aging. This partnership combines local leadership with Kendal’s support and proven track record in senior living communities. Together, Life Plan Humboldt and Kendal are building a forward-thinking approach to aging-in-community, emphasizing stewardship of the land, intergenerational connection and resident-inspired design.

In a rare approach for senior housing, the land abutting Humboldt Commons will also include a lower-income senior housing component to be built and managed by Rural Community Housing. All residents will share amenities and activities, creating an inclusive model that could be adopted in other rural communities across the country.

About Humboldt Commons

Humboldt Commons is a nonprofit senior living community in development in McKinleyville, California, designed for active adults aged 62 and older. As a Kendal Affiliate in Development, Humboldt Commons combines local leadership from Life Plan Humboldt with the support and expertise of Kendal, a nationally recognized nonprofit senior living organization. The community emphasizes purposeful aging, resident-driven design and inclusivity. For more information, visit humboldt.kendal.org.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Cal Poly Humboldt Pays Almost Double to Swipe 16-Acre Arcata Property, Foiling Long-Term Plans for Senior Living Community
• YESTERDAY in SUPES: Board Considers Alternatives to Statewide Gas Tax, Signs Letter of Support for Senior Living Community in McKinleyville and More!
• After a False Start in Arcata, Life Plan Humboldt Secures McKinleyville Property for a Large Senior Residential Community
• Assemblymember Wood Nabs Over $1.4M to Help Build Senior Community in McKinleyville
• Government Addresses McKinleyville Town Center Criticisms at Crowded Public Meeting
• Local Nonprofit Buys 14.6 Acres in McKinleyville Town Center With Plans to Build 101 Senior Apartments and Cottages
• LISTEN UP, MCKINLEYVILLAIN: If You are Interested in the McK ‘Town Center’ Plan, Then You Will Want to Put This Date Into Your Calendar App and Set a Notification, Because it Will Be Important
• DONE DEAL: Humboldt County Supervisors Approve McKinleyville Town Center Ordinance Despite Concerns About Lane Reductions on Central Avenue

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

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In the shaded courtyard of a San Francisco affordable housing complex in early March, California’s most prolific Yes In My Backyard legislator rolled out his congressional campaign’s new housing platform.

For Sen. Scott Wiener, it was all very on brand.

Flanked by union construction workers, campaign volunteers and some of the YIMBY advocates who have been on “Team Wiener” since his days on the city’s Board of Supervisors, Wiener ticked through the housing policy highlights. The package was a mix of hyperambitious spending proposals — the type that rarely make it beyond campaign literature — wonky left-of-center objectives and a raft of the kind of pro-development, deregulatory proposals upon which Wiener has built his political reputation.

Proposals to cut red tape might seem an odd fit for Congress, which has historically steered clear of local land-use and construction rules. Wiener was happy to address the apparent mismatch.

“It was also an area, first of all, that the state traditionally was not involved in — and we changed that,” he said.

Since Wiener joined the state Senate in 2017, California’s legislature has undergone a historic pivot on housing. Majorities now embrace the notion, at least rhetorically, that the state has an active role to play in promoting the construction of more homes, even if that means bigfooting local governments and neighborhood groups. More so than any other legislator, Wiener has been the hinge of that pivot.

The question now is whether Wiener, if elected, could help orchestrate the same feat of political reengineering in Congress, given its longstanding aversion to legislating on his policy issue of choice — or, as is increasingly the case, to doing much of anything.

‘Where everything good goes to die’

On the one hand, of course Wiener wants to go to Washington.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision last year to step aside after holding the seat for nearly four decades created a once-in-a-generation opportunity in San Francisco, a city brimming with Democratic political talent and few empty rungs further up the electoral ladder. Wiener has been a professional politician going on 16 years and is possessed of a professional politician’s career ambitions. He’s also termed out of the state legislature in 2028. When he announced his candidacy last October, it was a well-foreshadowed decision that caught virtually no one in the political world by surprise.

On the other hand…really, Congress?

While the legislative branch of the federal government is not a body known for its productivity, Wiener is an exceptionally productive lawmaker. He is the rare California state legislator who can plausibly claim a degree of public name recognition not just outside of his district, but outside the state. That’s in part thanks to his knack for taking up searingly controversial, headline-baiting bills – banning ICE agents from wearing masks, decriminalizing psychedelics, regulating AI, forcing corporations to publicize their carbon footprints and repealing penalties for activities related to sex work.

But it’s also because he has a habit of actually getting a lot of them passed.

State Sen. Scott Wiener addresses lawmakers during a Senate floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Jan. 23, 2025. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

The Center for Effective Lawmaking, run jointly out of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, regularly rank lawmakers on a “State Legislative Effectiveness Score” based on the number of bills authored, how far those bills go and how substantive they are. In California’s Senate last legislative session, Wiener came first, and has spent his entire Senate tenure in the top five.

Wiener has been particularly effective at pushing legislation aimed at boosting the construction of new housing. He has authored bills to speed up the building of apartment buildings, tighten the screws on uncooperative local governments and limit environmental review for new development. In an ideological grand finale last year, Gov. Newsom signed a Wiener bill that legalizes mid-rise apartments around major public transportation stops. That’s been a policy priority of Wiener’s since his first year in the Legislature.

It might be some time before anyone can say conclusively whether those bills have actually resulted in significantly more homes getting built or if the state has become more affordable as a result. But love him as the state’s most prolific housing champion or hate him as a developer shill — there are plenty who fall into either camp — no one can deny that Wiener gets bills passed.

Congress, where he hopes to serve, does not.

By some measures, 2025 may be among the least productive years in recent congressional memory and legislative productivity has been on a downward slope for decades. That makes it an odd place for Wiener to take his next career step.

“I gave him that same speech when he was running for state Senate,” said Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action and longtime Wiener ally, describing Wiener’s 2016 legislative run while still on the San Francisco board. “I was like ‘Scott, the state is a garbage hole. You’re gonna leave us here when we’re actually making some progress here locally. You’re gonna go up to the state level where everything good goes to die.’”

“So there’s a lesson learned there,” she said.

Wiener pushed back on the caricature of a “Do Nothing” Congress, pointing to an expansion of the Child Tax Credit during the pandemic and massive clean energy spending programs enacted under the Biden administration.

“Is Congress a tough place? Absolutely. But am I excited about the prospect of being able to take our work federal? I’m very excited about that,” he said.

Left to right, State senators Scott Wiener, Henry Stern, and Benjamin Allen talk before the start of the Senate floor session at the Capitol Annex Swing Space in Sacramento on Oct. 7, 2024. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

He also stressed that his plan would not be to simply re-run his state legislative playbook at the federal level.

“At the state level, what we learned and acted on was that the state has dramatic power to shape zoning and permitting,” he said. But other barriers, like the high cost of construction, a relative shortage of construction workers and costly financing, are well within Congress’ wheelhouse, he added.

Other big ticket items from his platform include the creation of a federal revolving loan fund for mixed-income “social housing” projects, a proposed boost in funding for rental assistance programs and more federal support for trade schools.

“The proposals that I’m making for Congress strongly complement the land use reforms at the state level,” he said.

But there are also some Wiener classics in the mix. They include tweaking construction regulations and building codes to allow for cheaper development, rewriting the National Environmental Policy Act so that it won’t impede “climate friendly housing” and the creating a “Prohousing Incentive Fund” to reward the governments of localities where more housing is getting built.

Is Congress going YIMBY?

Congress does appear to be coming around slowly to Wiener’s view on housing.

A year-and-a-half ago, a bipartisan group of House members formed the chamber’s first YIMBY Caucus. No coincidence that many of them, like Democratic co-chairs Robert Garcia from Long Beach and Scott Peters from San Diego, hail from California, the political birthplace of the movement and Patient Zero of what has now become a national housing affordability crisis.

“California is a little ahead of the curve because we had our crisis hit 10 years ago,” said Rep. Laura Friedman, a Burbank Democrat and former Assemblymember who ran for Congress under the YIMBY mantle in 2024. It’s only in the last few years that once-affordable refuges across the country are starting to look a bit Californian.

Leading the pack in unaffordability also gave California’s lawmakers an early headstart in trying to tackle the problem, she said. “California has become a testing ground for a lot of these solutions.”

Last Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed what is widely seen as the largest housing bill in a generation. The legislation includes measures that would be at home in Wiener’s platform, including tying federal grants to local housing production and adding new tools to speed up or bypass federal environmental review. (The House still needs to pass the bill.)

The bill represents an unusual development in Congress, where housing was thought of as a “silent crisis,” said Dennis Shea, who oversees housing policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington D.C.-based thinktank. “Now you can’t go a day without being bombarded by three or four stories about housing affordability.”

As in California, housing has become an issue that cuts across partisan and ideological lines, making it one of the more dealmaking-friendly topics in Congress.

“Housing has been a bit of an island of bipartisanship in a sea of division,” said Shea. Case in point: The Senate bill is co-authored by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive, and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott.

Even so, policymaking in Congress looks a little different than it does in Sacramento, said Friedman, who served in the Assembly between 2016 and 2024. That can make it challenging for former state lawmakers eager to pick up where they left off in Congress.

State Sen. Scott Wiener speaks to supporters during a campaign event. Photo by Ben Christopher, CalMatters

“The skills are transferable because the skills are really about building consensus, but also being strategic about how you can get things moved through. But the process is much harder,” she said. A Democrat in the much smaller California legislature can expect most of their bills to at least get a hearing. Not so in Congress, said Friedman, which has five times the membership and where leadership plays a more assertive role in elevating or throttling legislative proposals.

The flavor of housing policy is a bit different too.

In California, lawmakers have passed a raft of bills over the last decade, steamrolling the preferences and prerogatives of local governments over issues of development.

“The federal government has never played that role,” said David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Nor is it likely to anytime soon. The bill awaiting a vote in the House is heavy on carrots and light on sticks.

Still, it remains unusual in its aim to promote new housing construction more broadly.

“The speed with which it has become accepted that the federal government should do more on supply is shocking,” Garcia said.

Good timing, it would seem, for California’s YIMBY-in-chief to run for Congress.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• MUSICAL MEMOIR: Playing with Hubert Sumlin and Sunnyland Slim at Arcata’s Jambalaya Club, 1976

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This musicial memoir and others can be found on Paul DeMark’s Substack.

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Sunnyland Slim looked a little stunned when Arcata’s mayor handed him the key to the city.

It was September 4, 1979 when Sunnyland and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson performed two shows together at Bret Harte’s Club in Arcata’s Jacoby Storehouse. Yes, he was called Cleanhead because he was totally bald. 

Today the venue is The Basement and before that it was Abruzzi’s Italian restaurant. Arcata, for non-local readers, is in Humboldt County, Northern California.

I was a 28-year-old Blue Lake resident at the time and a member of a popular local dance band, Caledonia. I was drumming behind both musicians on a two-week Northern California tour. The rest of the band included Harry Duncan – who booked the tour – on harmonica and vocals and Chicago guitarist Steve Freund, now a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area.

I’d been playing on and off with the 73-year-old Sunnyland for seven years. He literally helped create the Chicago blues sound when he moved from Memphis to Chicago in the early 1940s and started playing with Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and his own bands.

It was my first time playing with Vinson, 62 at the time. He had been a star swing-jazz, bebop and R&B singer/alto sax player in the 1940s through the early 1970s. Born in Houston, Texas, he was precocious enough as a young man to hook up with Big Bill Broonzy, the Cootie Williams Band and eventually Jay McShann’s Orchestra.

He recorded a number of hit songs that made the rhythm and blues charts featuring his smooth vocals and sax playing — Kidney Stew Blues, Cherry Red, and Cleanhead Blues. It was an honor to play with such a fine, accomplished performer. A soft-spoken, lean man, he was still swinging hard.

Like Sunnyland, he dressed stylishly for the stage. He used subtle gestures to lead me on the drums. When he was coming to a part in a song where there was a stop, he didn’t motion me with his hand over his head or say “look out” over the mic like many singers do. Instead, standing in front of me, he’d take his right hand behind his back and gently close his fist to signal the pause. Classy.

I decided to try to do something special for these blues legends, especially Sunnyland who had become my musical mentor and friend. 

A few weeks before the tour started, I called my friend Wesley Chesbro, who was on the Arcata City Council. “Wesley, do you think there is any way I could convince the city of Arcata to give the keys to the city to Sunnyland and Cleanhead Vinson?”

“Possibly,” he said. “Write a letter to the city council proposing what you’d like to see happen and I’ll present at the next meeting.”

Poster for the 1979 show, created by Don ‘White King D’ Hunter. Note the ticket price: $4 in advance, $4.50 at the door.

In my letter I said they were two extraordinary artists in the history of black rhythm and blues. I requested the city give them each a key to the city of Arcata. Also, since the Robert Cray Blues Band would also be playing Bret Harte’s later that week, I asked the city council to declare it Blues Week in Arcata.

Chesbro called me the day after the city council meeting. “The council approved both of your proposals,” he said. “Now you need to get the keys made.”

I asked Wesley if they could be made out of a redwood in the shape of keys with metal plates bearing their names and the Arcata Key to the City on it. He said to go for it and the city would pay the bill.   

I found a woodshop in Arcata, made the order and left the next day to begin the tour in San Francisco. They told me I could pick them up when I returned.  

I called Chesbro while on the road to ask how the event would unfold. He said he and Arcata Mayor Dan Hauser would be at the beginning of the first show. I told him I wanted it kept a secret. They should come on to the stage just before we are set to play. 

In the band, only Harry knew what was going to happen. As we filed onto the stage to get ready to play the first set, I watched Chesbro and Hauser walk onto the stage. 

Hauser approached the mic and told the sold-out house that the Arcata City Council had voted to declare it Blues Week at its last meeting and it was his honor to present the keys to the city to Sunnyland Slim and Eddie Cleanhead Vinson.

Sunnyland, looking surprised but smiling, stood up and received the foot-long redwood key from Hauser. Chesbro then gave Vinson his own key as the crowd cheered. Sunnyland looked over at me and smiled before we hit the first swing number, Cleanhead’s Kidney Stew.

In an interview in March 2026, Chesbro reflected on the event. “It was a real privilege with two cultural superstars coming to town to help get them their deserved special recognition.”

The morning after the show, Sunnyland picked Harry and me up to visit the local record stores to see if they had any of his albums for sale. He was always hustling his trade.  

We first stopped at the Holiday Gardens Motel to see if Cleanhead would like to go with us. I knocked on his door and he came out in his bathrobe looking tired. “I’ve got to stay in to rest,” he said quietly and closed the door.

When I got back to Sunnyland’s car, he said, “What’s happening with Cleanhead?” I told him he wanted to stay in and sleep.

“The man’s acting like he’s 50 years older than Eubie Blake,” an irritated Sunnyland said, Blake, who was 92 at the time, was renowned as an early jazz and ragtime pianist. At the time, Blake looked more like 100.  

While Sunnyland drove to Arcata’s The Record Works, I was sitting in the back seat of his Oldsmobile station wagon with Harry in the front. “Harry, I had a dream last night that Paul was on the city council,” Sunnyland said. “Paul, you could be a politician.”

Maybe I could have been, but I stuck to playing the drums instead.

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Author’s note: Thank you to Pamela Long for editing and Julian DeMark for photo scanning. 

There are sections of roads being blocked off all over Arcata right now as crews work to complete the steel waterline replacement project, but one chunk of street next to where B and 11th streets intersect has been closed off for a while now, and it’s not because the pipes there needed replacement (though they might now). 

Apparently, it was a landslide that took that little corner out in late 2024, and it’s not a cheap fix; the Arcata City Council approved spending $200,000 to fix the problem at their meeting this Wednesday as part of a mid-year budget review. According to City Engineer Netra Khatri, decades of water runoff from the street weakened the creek embankment the road sits on, and a “heavy rain event” caused a small landslide. It cracked the side of the road nearest the creek, and the city closed that side out of an abundance of caution, especially because a bus route runs on that road. 

Khatri said that the city completed a geotechnical investigation and survey work last year, and he estimated that the road will be reopened in late 2026 after some summer construction. He said the engineering department envisions adding large rocks and plants to stabilize the slope, as well as some more intensive techniques.

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Today, Humboldt State University is the mainstay of the city of Arcata, and the university contributes about five percent of the overall economy of Humboldt County. But for more than fifty years, from 1902–1903 to 1956, the Arcata plant of the California Barrel Company, Ltd. (Cabco), was the backbone of Arcata’s economy. The plant was sold to the Roddis Plywood Corporation in 1956 for more than $12 million.

In 1883, the California Barrel Company was founded in San Francisco by John Koster, who had come to California in 1859 from Charleston, South Carolina. At the age of sixteen, his son, Fred Koster, went to work for his father in the Cabco plant at Eighth and Brannan streets in San Francisco in 1887. He succeeded his father and later became superintendent and president in 1905. Fred Koster was a civic and business leader, serving the city of San Francisco on many important committees until his death in 1958.

The Arcata division of the San Francisco company was first known as the Humboldt Cooperage Company and employed fewer than fifty people. The plant included a small warehouse, two dry kilns, a boiler and engine house, and a building that housed the mill. As the demand for wooden containers increased, the company expanded the Arcata plant. By 1915, the company employed 115 persons in the factory and 25 men in the woods, which were located just north of Essex.

The spruce and fir bolts were shipped to Arcata, where they were sawed into staves and shipped to San Francisco. The barrels were assembled in San Francisco and were used for both liquid and dry products, such as oils, asphaltum, sugar, butter, fish and fruit. Henry Koster, another son, enlarged the company’s field of operation by finding an outlet in the Orient. In 1915, the Arcata plant was called “the best-equipped plant of its kind in the United States.”

The Depression hit the local lumber industry hard, and the Arcata Barrel Factory was no exception. Cabco, the parent company in San Francisco, had to be refinanced by a Canadian bank. But the Arcata plant, like many of the other local mills, spread operating hours so that all employees could meet their living obligations.

Through the years, the Arcata factory employed many Arcata residents, and all businesses in the city felt the impact of the company payroll. The company helped many students work their way through Humboldt State College, and before formal salary schedules appeared, many high school and college teachers worked there in the summer to supplement their incomes.

The California Barrel Company first made barrels in San Francisco for the Spreckels Sugar Company. The barrels were made of imported oak and ash from the eastern United States. Rising prices forced the company to turn to local spruce and fir.

As early as 1890, Humboldt County became a major source of supply, and wood bolts were sent from the county to the San Francisco factory. When Cabco acquired timber and built the Arcata plant in 1902–1903, the Arcata operation became the largest of the company’s operations, and soon Cabco was the biggest barrel producer west of the Mississippi River.

The first machinery was operated by steam, but in 1908 the plant was electrified. The plant continued to expand by adding a new kiln and office building in 1909 and a new warehouse by 1911. By 1924, the plant covered more than thirteen acres with an investment of $400,000, exclusive of timberlands. When Roddis Plywood purchased the property in 1956, the plant covered a twenty-nine-acre site in southwest Arcata.

The company operated bolt camps near Essex, at the head of Strawberry Creek and at Dows Prairie. In the late 1920s, Cabco had a bolt camp on the North Fork of the Mad River, where logs were cut into stave bolts and shipped to Arcata by the Northern Redwood Company railroad. Spruce, fir, hemlock and white fir were cut for bolts. Through the years, the Arcata plant also purchased logs from the Hammond Lumber Company.

During 1928–1929, a wirebound box division was added to the Arcata plant. Cabco purchased a wirebound company in Oakland, and the machinery was shipped to Arcata. The previous owners, Robert Yegge and Marren Meyers, came to Arcata to supervise installation and operation. Soon Cabco plants in Arcata and Los Angeles began to turn out thousands of wirebound boxes, and Cabco became the West’s largest and oldest manufacturer of wooden shipping containers. The new boxes combined strength with lightness, forming an ideal container for shipping many products, ranging from agricultural produce to machinery.

The largest orders at the Arcata plant were for wirebound boxes, which became the number one product in quantity. Unitized covers for orange crates, lettuce boxes and similar containers were the number two product. Cabco’s popular slogans were “light weight, great strength, simplicity of setup and handling” and “designed to fit—engineered to protect.” Up to 1950, the Arcata Barrel Factory still produced barrel staves and heads that were sent to San Francisco for assembly.

By 1950, the sawmill at the Arcata Barrel Factory produced box cleat lumber, and a drag saw fed a set of lathes that turned out veneer. These materials were assembled in the wirebound box department by many workers, men and women, on large assembly lines. Other larger cants from the sawmill went to the slicer department, where they were rapidly cut to produce orange crate covers and similar items made from thin sliced veneer.

In another department, logs were split and sawed on specialized equipment to form barrel staves and heads. The varied products produced by the mill totaled approximately sixty million board feet of timber each year. In 1950, about fifteen railroad cars left the plant each day, full of finished containers and parts that were assembled in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Julius John Krohn, or “J.J.” as he was known, came to Arcata in 1903 when the California Barrel Company began operations. In 1905, he became general manager, a post he held until the firm was sold in 1956. In civic life, he represented Arcata’s largest industrial firm for about fifty years, serving on many committees, including the Arcata Masonic Lodge (where he received his fifty-year pin), as a charter member of the Arcata Rotary Club, as an international representative of the Redwood Council of Boy Scouts, as a director of the Camp Fire Girls, as an original member of the Humboldt State College Advisory Board, and as a past president of the Arcata Chamber of Commerce.

Although Krohn was often in the public spotlight, many people remember him as a shy, quiet person who helped many others through the years. He died in Atherton in 1962 at the age of eighty-two. His daughter, Mrs. George Hitt, lived in Indianola. One of Fred Koster’s four daughters, Mrs. Stuart Miller, lived in Arcata beginning in 1936.

Other key personnel who served for many years at Cabco’s Arcata plant included Murrell Warren, personnel manager and superintendent; T. A. Groom, production manager; Rudolph Schott, engineer and draftsman; Dewey Dolf, timber purchaser and logging superintendent; Lloyd Dolf, camp foreman; Harry Krohn and Clark Taylor, purchasing agents; Robert Yegge, planning officer; Walter Sweet, business office; and Ernest Sweet, cost accountant.

Department foremen included Roland Barweger (wirebound box), Adrian Young (veneer department), William Hengen (sawmill), William Denning (truck shop), Lyle Lancaster and Cecil Turner (shipping clerks), Verne Weltz and Harry Wyatt (slicer department), Curley Bray (vegetable hampers), Harry Donahue (barrel department), Gus Westlund (logging operations), Frank Coleman (recovery), Jim Wyatt (kilns), Art Molander (heading department), Harry Parton (carpenter), James Fabbri (boilers), Clyde Johnson (welder), Fred Parton (stave department), Joseph Halbach (craveneer), Ralph Davis (electrician), Frank Knapp (office custodian), and Pete Brundin (woods and logging).

Office personnel included June Anderson, Josephine Marsh, Anna Nielsen, Lily Miller, Laura Stebbins, Mildred Costa, Bubbles Crivelli, Esther Pifferini Giuntoli, Mary Taylor, Effie Yegge, Mae Banducci, Lester Larsen, Don Hall, Gae Russell Moxon, Bruce Palmer, Lena Fornaceri Kovacovich, June Christie and Adele Nix Dolf. Myrtle “Jonsey” handled payroll for many years.

When Roddis Plywood, which had two sawmills in the area at the time, bought the Arcata plant in 1956, the company had plans to manufacture wooden products. However, those plans failed to materialize, and within two weeks of the purchase, the entire Barrel Company operation in Arcata shut down permanently. One of the main reasons was that wooden containers were being replaced by cheaper paper alternatives.

Roddis Plywood sold out to Weyerhaeuser in 1961, and in 1965 the Arcata Redwood Company acquired the Arcata plant. Today, Arcata Redwood, which employs fifty-four people at the site, operates an Industrial Products Division on the grounds of the former California Barrel Company. The company manufactures items such as cigar material, parts for recreational homes, shelves for outdoor barbecue sets, decorative window components, drawer sides and slats for tray tables.

In August 1978, Lt. Clyde Johnson, a former employee then with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, proposed a reunion of former Arcata California Barrel Company employees. On Aug. 26, 1978, the reunion drew 262 attendees and was considered a great success. Albert Ghilarducci was honored for forty-four years of service, and Grover Waldroop, age ninety-one, was the oldest attendee.

Four women were honored guests: Louise Krohn Hitt, daughter of J.J. Krohn; Mrs. Murrell Warren; Edith Krohn, wife of Harry Krohn; and Effie Yegge, wife of Robert Yegge. The next reunion was scheduled for Aug. 2, 1979.

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The former Cabco plant makes up the bulk of what is called “The Barrel District” in the current Arcata General Plan (here highlighted in green). A subset of the “Gateway Area,” the Barrel District is zoned to accommodate the tallest future apartment buildings in the city.

Tse-Lin Lincoln and William Randolph Billy Warren were formally charged with murder Friday, following the death of 17-year-old Dylan Moon from injuries sustained in a shooting in Hoopa. 

A prosecutor said the District Attorney’s office had not yet made a decision on whether they would pursue the death penalty.

Judge Steven Steward read charges in the amended complaint aloud to the codefendants in the courtroom Friday morning. Murder charges were sought by prosecutors after Moon died of his injuries last week following the March 10 shooting.

Warren and Lincoln each ultimately pleaded not guilty on all counts Friday, and denied all allegations and enhancements. They remain incarcerated on no-bail holds.

When it was time for Warren to enter his plea, his attorney Rebecca Linkous brought up the death penalty. She asked if the prosecution was prepared to waive the death penalty, as the new charge made it a death penalty case, and urged compliance with Marsy’s Law.

Deputy District Attorney Roger Rees said the office had not discussed the topic with the victim’s family — but would not need much time to do so.

Linkous also called for the court to ensure the defense attorneys were qualified to represent clients in a death penalty case — she noted she was qualified and ready to assemble a team.

Later, after the hearing was reconvened to give the District Attorney’s office a chance to speak with the victim’s mother, Lincoln’s attorney Ken Bareilles informed the court “I’ve never had a death penalty case before,” and said he did not want to jeopardize a trial if a new attorney later had to be appointed who was trained on capital punishment.

Linkous argued the case should be treated as a death penalty case, until it is waived on the record.

Rees informed the court “at this time, the people are not committed to a decision,” regarding the death penalty, but said the office would decide prior to a scheduled hearing next month.

Andrea Sullivan was appointed to represent Lincoln, after a conference between the judge and attorneys, something she agreed to while attending the hearing over Zoom. A hearing to confirm this appointment is scheduled for next week. Conflicts have been declared with the Public Defender’s office for both defendants, and the arraignment was previously postponed due to the appointment of a new attorney.

The pair previously pleaded not guilty to the six felonies they were initially charged with. Originally, the codefendants were charged with four counts of assault with firearms against five total victims, along with attempted murder and shooting at an occupied vehicle — they face multiple enhancements for participation in a criminal street gang. The amended complaint replaced attempted murder with murder.

Three juveniles have been arrested for the same incident. One was booked on similar charges as Lincoln and Warren, while the remaining two were booked solely for participation in a criminal street gang. Juvenile court proceedings are confidential.

PREVIOUSLY

• One Person Hospitalized With ‘Life-Threatening’ Injuries Following Yesterday’s Shooting in Hoopa; Suspect Remains At-Large, Says HCSO
• Hoopa Valley Tribe Offers $10K Reward for Information Leading to Arrest of Suspect in Tuesday’s Shooting; Emergency Community Meeting in Council Chambers Tonight
• 15-Year-Old Arrested in Connection With Hoopa Shooting, Sheriff’s Office Says; Two Other Teenage Suspects Still at Large
• Another Suspect in Monday’s Shooting in Hoopa Taken Into Custody
• Third Suspect in Hoopa Shooting Surrenders at the Sheriff’s Office
• The Victim in the Hoopa Shooting Has Died
• Teenagers Charged With Murder in Hoopa Shooting
• Two More Juveniles Arrested in Hoopa in Connection With Last Week’s Murder, Sheriff’s Office Says

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The truckloads of dirt just kept coming. Day after day, neighbors watched as one semi-truck after another came chugging up Humboldt Hill hauling open-top trailers loaded with soil. The drivers would downshift as their rigs crested the hill, groaned past the McMansions along London Drive and navigated the little dogleg-right onto Blue Spruce Drive.

After a few months, Humboldt County’s code enforcement office started receiving complaints about this activity.

“For the past two weeks my neighbors and I have observed between 400 and 500 full size dump trucks (from many different companies including Zabel, Kernan and many others) travel down London Avenue and deposit their load at the end of Blue Tree Ct.,” says a Sept. 15, 2025, complaint, which the Outpost obtained through a Public Records Act request. “I just want to be sure that if permits for a massive project like this were required, that they were obtained.”

Permits were required, as it turned out, but had not been obtained.

The following week, Code Enforcement Investigator Sara Quenell emailed her boss, Chief Building Official Keith Ingersoll.

“I just spoke with a neighbor who is concerned about what she said is ‘hundreds’ of dump trucks taking loads of fill to the end of Blue Spruce Drive, Eureka,” Quenell wrote. (Blue Spruce Drive and Blue Tree Court often get mixed up. The latter is only a few hundred feet long, and the three newly built houses on Blue Tree Court all have Blue Spruce Drive addresses.)

Other Humboldt Hill residents took to the social media website Nextdoor to voice concerns about all that dirt. 

“Must have been over 200 loads so far,” one neighbor wrote.

“I too have been wondering,” wrote another.

A third offered an answer: “They are dumping dirt at the north of London Dr off of one of the new side streets as land fill.”

Another code enforcement complaint, submitted on October 1, included a short video, which the complainant said had been taken about a week earlier, “before the dump trucks arrived that day.” The video was shot atop a plateau of fill dirt extending from the back of a large home onsite. The dirt is covered with bulldozer tracks.

Here’s that video, which includes some image redactions from county staff, presumably to preserve the anonymity of whomever submitted the complaint. 

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Google Earth satellites captured the scene as it appeared last May, a few months before these complaints started coming in. The imagery, seen in the video below, shows a massive volume of dirt graded to form a wedge-shaped plateau just north of a three-story home. The satellites also captured a semi-truck just up the street, about to round the corner of Blue Tree Court with a fresh load of soil.

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The property in question is owned by Mike Duncan, general manager at Schmidbauer Building Supply and a former member of Eureka City Schools’ Board of Trustees. Duncan declined to say very much when we reached him by phone earlier this week. Nor did he reply to an emailed list of questions.

Duncan. | LinkedIn.

Complaints about construction work on his parcel date back years and include allegations of unpermitted vegetation removal in the Coastal Zone; grading in a hillside stream bed without proper erosion control; and grading without obtaining the necessary permits or developing a stormwater pollution prevention plan. 

Immediately downstream of Duncan’s parcel is a property called Mouralherwaqh. It’s a 46-acre coastal wetland that, in 2022, was returned to the stewardship of the Wiyot Tribe due to its cultural significance and environmental importance.

“Mouralherwaqh” (pronounced more-RAH-share-wahg or more-AW-shore-a-wah) is a Wiyot term meaning “wolf’s house.” The parcel is home to one of the West Coast’s southernmost stands of mature Sitka spruce, a verdant forest that serves as a rookery for egrets and herons. It also includes more than 14 acres of freshwater wetlands populated by sedge, cattail and countless other species.

“It’s just bountiful with wildlife and native plant species and frogs,” Wiyot Natural Resources Director Adam Canter said in a recent phone interview. The tribe’s reacquisition of the property was made possible through a $1.2 million grant from California’s Ocean Protection Council. 

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Wiyot Tribal Administrator Michelle Vassel said aerial photos of Mouralherwaqh, like the one above, reveal it to be one of the last undeveloped areas around Humboldt Bay, though the wetlands have suffered following the construction of Hwy. 101, which severed this former estuary from the bay. Still, Vassel said tribal elders have stories about what this area used to be like, and the land remains an important wildlife corridor.

“It’s just one of those places where, when you first open the gates and you walk inside, you mostly see the impact of humans,” Vassel said in a phone interview. “You see the dirt road, you see some invasive species around the circle of the fence — and then you dip into that forest and you’re 650 years in the past. There’s not many places like that.”

Like other neighbors, members of the Wiyot Tribe have been concerned for years about the activity on Duncan’s property. Despite recent inspections and citations from multiple agencies, the tribe didn’t know about the mass quantities of dirt hauled onsite until the Outpost called to ask about it.

Environmental scientists at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) consider Duncan’s parcel the headwaters (or very near the headwaters) of a creek that flows through Mouralherwaqh. Canter said the grading and construction activity could have serious consequences. 

“We have concerns, because who knows what’s in all that soil that he brought in?” he said. “[We’re concerned about] the sedimentation literally filling in wetlands and converting these vegetation types, converting open waterfowl habitat to more vegetative marsh.”

###

A couple of weeks ago, inspectors with the County of Humboldt, CDFW and the California Northcoast Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) conducted a site visit to Duncan’s property. All three agencies found violations within their jurisdictions, according to Humboldt Planning and Building Director John Ford.

The county subsequently issued Duncan a Notice of Violation and Notice to Abate for unpermitted grading and development in a stream-side management area. The notice warns of daily $2,000 fines if corrective action is not taken within 10 days. 

Ford said the county hopes to coordinate with CDFW and the Water Board to resolve the violations through a single, unified plan. Asked if Duncan is cooperating, he said, “I think he wants to resolve this.”

A history of problems

But why were things allowed to get to this point? The property inspection conducted earlier this month came nearly six months after neighbors started filing code enforcement complaints and more than two months into the Outpost’s investigation, which uncovered dozens of emails, inspection reports and photos documenting complaints, citations and negotiations dating back years. That includes a 2023 stop-work order from county code enforcement for this same infraction: unpermitted grading work within a stream-side management area. 

Duncan was not yet the owner of the parcel at the time, but he was the person county staff communicated with to resolve the matter. 

“As I understand the situation, the house was being built for Mike Duncan even though he was not yet the property owner,” Ford explained. Duncan officially took ownership of the parcel last May, according to records on file with the county assessor. Incidentally, the people he bought it from, Anthony Schuler and Brandy Langer, had purchased the property four years earlier from Travis Schneider and Stephenie Bode, the local couple responsible for Humboldt County’s highest-profile code enforcement scandal in decades.

Both the county and the Water Board board received complaints about the property on Blue Tree Court in March 2023. The one submitted to the county reported a range of potential code violations, including:

• grading within a live stream channel on a steep slope without adequate erosion control measures,
• grading topsoils to bare exposed mineral earth,
• construction of building pad, with maximum cut banks exceeding 8-10 feet,
• two excavated pits and two uncovered spoil disposal areas,
• major riparian and wetland vegetation removal in the coastal zone
• large spruce trees felled, with some remaining in the creek, inhibiting natural flow patterns and sediment transport, and
• grading without a county permit or stormwater pollution prevention plan.

Here are a few photos that were submitted with the complaint:

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After reviewing the photos, the water board emailed county code enforcement with concerns, including “potential impacts to waters of the state and sediment delivery.”

A county code enforcement investigator did some research and wrote back, saying there was a building permit on file — for a single-family residence with attached garage — but it did not allow for such grading.

Code enforcement conducted a site visit on April 26, 2023, and posted a stop-work order for unpermitted grading in a stream-side management area.

###

Humboldt County Chief Building Official Keith Ingersoll met with Duncan and told him that, in addition to applying for a retroactive grading permit, he’d need to submit a new site plan, a grading erosion and sediment control plan prepared by a professional engineer and a biological report and remediation plan.

Efforts to address the damage onsite were complicated by the discovery that May of a massive water main leak uphill from the property, near the intersection of Blue Spruce Drive. Once that was resolved, Duncan contracted with local landscape design firm Samara Restoration, and in July 2023 the county lifted its stop-work order.

Duncan later submitted his remediation plan, which was later altered a bit to accommodate changes suggested by CDFW, and the work was completed. 

Less than six months later, though, the county’s code enforcement office received another complaint, and a subsequent inspection found trouble.

“The erosion control measures that were put in place have failed, and as a result, drainage issues have arisen, which could potentially cause pollution in the state’s water sources,” the code inspection report says. “Immediate action must be taken to address this problem.”

###

Over the next few months, Duncan worked with CDFW and the county to resolve the issues.

“I don’t want any problems,” Duncan wrote to the county’s chief building official in June 2024. “We had to have dirt removed when this all started,” his email said. “I want this done right so I don’t have to have any calls or surprises.”

It’s not clear exactly when Duncan started bringing more dirt onto the property, but as documented by the all-seeing satellites of Google Earth, a huge volume of soil had been deposited onsite by the following May. A few months later, neighbors started submitting official complaints.

And yet, somehow, the first county employee to investigate those complaints said he found nothing amiss. It was Humboldt County Building Inspector Ross Eskra, who reported to Ingersoll and Quenell on September 29:

I visited 89 Blue Spruce today and there was nothing whatsoever going on up there related to the complaint. I was on site 2 weeks ago to final the house for Mr. Duncan and the site is the same today as it was then. Keith, can we close out this case now that the building final [inspection] has been completed?

The county did sign off on the building inspection, but three days later another complaint was filed — the one with video evidence. On October 2, the county issued Duncan another stop-work order, again citing unpermitted grading in a stream-side management area. 

How had Eskra missed this during his prior visits to the property? He tried to explain it in another email to Ingersoll and Quenell, sent on January 5:

My initial drive by didn’t reveal what appeared to me to be any fresh dirt, large piles, etc. (which is what I was assuming there to be). There was just a lot of straw laid out for erosion and sediment control as I had previously recalled.

I made a case note and sent an email internally incorrectly stating that I did not observe anything substantiating the complaint. The complainant’s [sic] reached out to me by phone on October 1st asking about my findings, and I told them that I hadn’t substantiated anything.

They said they had evidence, photos and a video and I said that they could email it to me. … It turned out that it was an accurate complaint, and that a large amount of import and grading had been carried out effectively destroying the retention basin.

###

Among the 575 documents the Outpost obtained through our Public Records Act request, one struck us as particularly unusual. It was a seven-page pdf that reads like a conversation without any attribution:

“How you doing?” it starts out. “Oh, not too bad for Monday. Right. Right. Oh, man. Well, not too bad. Never long enough, but it was nice. Yeah. Yeah.”

And so on.

We reached out to the county for help deciphering it. After a few days, Public Information Specialists Cati Gallardo wrote back, explaining, “This document is an AI-generated transcription from a routine meeting between Humboldt County Chief Building Official Keith Ingersoll and Code Enforcement Investigator Warren Black regarding the Blue Spruce matter. The transcript was auto-generated solely for note-taking purposes, so please be aware that some parts may not accurately reflect the exact wording of the conversation.”

Judging by the tone of the conversation, it seems likely that the two men didn’t know that their conversation was being recorded, or maybe they just didn’t expect the transcript to be released publicly. The document doesn’t differentiate between the two speakers — it’s just one long paragraph of text — but they seem to be on the same page. 

The meeting was recorded on January 5.  Below are a few excerpts, with line breaks added for clarity:

I don’t know if you were aware of that 89 Blue Spruce. They did a bunch of grading in the subdivision, built the house. Then the guy, when we go, they called for final inspection. So we finaled it, he had his road control, everything. But then we got a bunch of complaints over that weekend or two after, of several hundred dump trucks, supposedly. Basically, he leveled the, he did what he shouldn’t have done, dumped a bunch of fill, raised it. So we opened a new case. …

The guy hired Samara to help him do the plan. He had it all. Then he goes thinking, oh, now I can level my yard. Nope. And he did. And all the same complainants are complaining. Now we know he’s going to get hammered.

Well, yeah, especially with the state agencies right there.

But we had it figured out and now the guy just threw all that out. …

Yep. So he basically built a brand new house, got permits, dealt with the stop work order for the violation of the grading, then thought he could pull a fast one. And he did, and now he’s caught again. And this one, this time it’ll be hard to fix.

One of the two men in the meeting said the situation reminded them of Travis Schneider. 

When we reached Duncan by phone on Tuesday, we asked if he could address the violations on his property and the county’s recent notice to abate.

“I don’t really think I want to talk about — I don’t know if there’s anything to really talk about,” he said. “I brought back the dirt that I had taken off the property. So I’m not sure, but I think probably not.”

We brought up the Wiyot Tribe’s concerns about impacts to their property. He thanked us for letting him know.

“I have people, friends at the Wiyot Tribe, so I’ll reach out to them and talk with them.”

We asked again if he could address the history of violations on the property.

“I’d really rather not,” he said.

Yesterday afternoon, we followed up with Ford to ask whether Duncan has complied with the terms of the county’s notice of violation and, if not, whether he’s being assessed the threatened fines of $2,000 per day. We’ll update this story if and when we hear back.

Duncan’s parcel.