Your move, general public. That is, if you want campaign finance reform. 

Citing a lack of public interest, the Humboldt County board of Supervisors kicked local Campaign Finance Reform back into your court.

That’s not to say they didn’t have any public input whatsoever. The County’s Open Humboldt forum had 12 comments on the issue, but apparently that’s not enough to get the discussion started.

This doesn’t sit well with former Eureka city councilmember Chris Kerrigan, who called into KHUM this morning. 

Chris Kerrigan on KHUM

Supervisor Mark Lovelace called in shortly after to color in some of the details.

Lovelace explained that it’s a complicated topic that could appear self-serving. He talked about why the board wasn’t necessarily recusing itself from this discussion, who might stand to lose the most from Campaign Finance reform, and how citizens can make their views known to the board. (Hint: it’s really easy.)

Mark Lovelace on KHUM

Rep. Jared Huffman and his mom at the congressman’s swearing-in shindig.

Your Lost Coast Outpost was of divided mind back in the primaries — see here v. here — but we do not stint in congratulating Rep. Jared Huffman upon the occasion of his swearing-in as the North Coast’s representative in the 113rd Congress. We’re punting any lingering rage and bitterness down the field to … tomorrow, probably.

Several weeks ago, Huffman got news that he received his first-choice committee appointment. He’ll serve on the House Resources Committee, which is probably the committee most directly relevant to Humboldt County citizens, and on which his past-life experience as the lead attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council will serve him well.

Team Huffman press release follows:

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Everyone recovered from the emotional highs and lows of election season? Great! Because no matter where you are on the political spectrum, I have some upbeat news to share: While the nation may remain divided in ways too numerous to list here, the people who make decisions for West Coast fisheries have agreed to advance important protections for forage fish – the important, but small and often forgotten fish that form the base of the ocean food web. For communities  like ours with active fishing fleets, this serves as an especially important step in ensuring a productive ocean. For everyone working in natural resource issues, evidence that people from all sides of an issue can find common ground should be inspiration that it can be done.

In other state-local ocean news, implementation of the new North Coast Marine Protected Areas continues on track. Expect them in the water January 1, 2013, thus completing the statewide network and making California the first state in the nation with such comprehensive ocean protection.

The weekend weather forecast is, as Humboldt-usual, iffy: some rain, some fog, maybe some sun, mostly likely some rain – and cold! On the upside, this often leads to dramatic skies, rainbows and a renewed appreciation for the beauty inherent to this place we live.

Dune good!

You can help others discover the wonders of the Humboldt coast by joining Friends of the Dunes for a Coastal Naturalist Ambassador training on Saturday, Nov.10 from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Show up at the Humboldt Coastal Nature Center at 220 Stamps Lane in Manila.

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UPDATE, 2:58 p.m.: Audio below:

Audio

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Moments from now — at 11:30 a.m. or shortly thereafter — Second District Congressional Candidate Jared Huffman will be dropping by the John Matthews program to talk about the state of the campaign and what he hopes to accomplish if (when) he is elected.

Questions for the Huff? Call in and put them to him on the air. The KSLG hotline is 707-786-5784. Tune in at 94.1 FM, or listen online at kslg.com, to hear Huffman get the classic Matthews treatment.

And mark your calendars: Huffman’s opponent, Republican candidate Dan Roberts, will be on with Matthews this Monday, Oct. 22, at 10 a.m.

The following Joe Bonino for City Council mailer appeared in Eureka mailboxes today. Click to make it big:

This vitriol of this thing comes as a bit of a surprise to your Lost Coast Outpost, given that we had assumed that:

• Bonino is already the odds-on favorite in this thing, and
• He was somewhat attached to his reputation as a nice guy.

But it’s probably worthwhile to point a couple of things here that range from dubious to straight-up wrong.

• Atkins did, in fact, vote in Marina Center’s favor back in 2009 — before Measure N — when Security National sought a coastal development permit to do clean-up work on the project. She broke ranks with fellow progressive councilmember Larry Glass on that one. It’s not to say that she voted consistently in favor of Marina Center, but it’s proof that neither did she vote consistently against it.
• The bit about passing confidential information to Occupy protestors and putting EPD officers at risk has been an ongoing obsession of the Eureka right, so perhaps it’s no surprise that it’s surfacing in the campaign. However, it’s no less dubious today than it was at the time. As we noted at the time, Arcata solved its Occupy problems way before Eureka did, largely by doing exactly what Atkins is being excoriated for doing: Talking with the protesters. In Arcata, you had Chief Tom Chapman out on the lawn just about every day, telling folks that a crackdown was a-comin’. Atkins did no more and no less. The Eureka right’s concern about “officer safety” in squaring off against the likes of Verbena is as laughable as ever.
• Cutting off funding to the Eureka Chamber is Commerce is neither so controversial nor so wackadoodle as is being portrayed, here. Most local chambers of commerce are not funded by city government, and a councilmember would be fiscally irresponsible not to consider it in a time of great budget crisis, as the city was. Meanwhile, of course — and with great apologies to LoCO superfriend J Warren Hockaday — Arcata continues to clean Eureka’s clock on developing businesses and jobs in the manufacturing sector, and probably other sectors as well. And the Arcata CoC doesn’t rely on municipal largesse to survive.

So there’s that. Is Bonino actually frightened of losing this race? I wouldn’t have thought so, but this mailer would say otherwise. Why else flush a piece of your reputation down the toi-toi like this? It almost makes one ashamed to be part of the city of Eureka right now.