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A weary old fishing vessel docked at the Eureka Public Marina went ahead and gave up the ghost this morning, sinking a few feet before its hull settled into the tidal mudflats.

Eureka employees responded to the scene around 11:30 this morning and employed tools from an emergency response trailer that the city acquired through a grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, according to reporting from local ABC affiliate KRCR. 

The photos above and below, submitted by LoCO reader Gabriel Douge, show the floating booms that were deployed to contain any oil spillage from spreading.

We’ve reached out to OSPR for more information and will update this post if we learn anything either substantive or interesting about this incident.

In the meantime, pour one out for the Terry S. 

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It looks like we may have reached the conclusion of the 15-year legal battle over a Caltrans project that aims to modify a stretch of Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park.

In a ruling handed down March 26, a three-judge panel in California’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed a lower court’s decision to reject the latest lawsuit from conservation groups that challenged the project’s compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). 

Last week’s ruling effectively says that the legal dispute over the adequacy of the project’s environmental analysis was resolved in earlier cases, and any further attempts to challenge the project on those grounds are procedurally barred.

The judges make this point explicit in the final sentence of their ruling, which says, “The CEQA battle has come to its end.”

The Richardson Grove Improvement Project, as Caltrans has dubbed it, will modify an approximately one-mile stretch of Highway 101 as it wends through the state park’s massive coast redwoods, some of which are more than 300 feet tall and thousands of years old.

Caltrans describes the work as “minor adjustments” that are necessary to improve traffic safety and accommodate industry-standard-sized semi trucks that are currently prohibited from passing through this narrow stretch of 101.

Project opponents, on the other hand, argued that both the construction activity and the resulting road realignment could harm the ancient trees — not by removing any of them down but by cutting into their root systems. Their initial suit argued that the environmental impact report (EIR) published in 2010 failed to properly analyze those risks, and in 2012, a federal judge agreed, ordering Caltrans to redo a couple major elements in the report. 

This was just the beginning of a “litigation odyssey” that proved to be “about as labyrinthine as the root systems of the redwood trees themselves,” as the latest appellate court ruling poetically observes. 

Caltrans redid the deficient sections of its EIR and prepared addenda and recertifications in 2017 and 2023 as the legal challenges kept coming. In 2019 Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Kelly Neel ruled that Caltrans had not followed proper procedure because it hadn’t recirculated its revised EIR for public comment. 

After the agency went back and did so, the court “discharged” (closed) the previous rulings, giving Caltrans the green light to proceed with the project. But the appellants, including the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), the Center for Biological Diversity, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics and others, appealed yet again, arguing that the environmental review was still deficient.

But in this latest ruling, the appellate court concluded that this dispute had already been resolved by the trial court, whose ruling was final and unappealable. The Latin legal term for this is res judicata, meaning “claim preclusion” or “a matter judged.”

Even if that weren’t the case, though, the appellate court said the plaintiffs’ underlying argument “lacks merit.”

You can read the full decision, linked below.

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UPDATE, 2:36 p.m.:

Shortly after this story was published, Caltrans sent along the following statement:

The Richardson Grove Improvement Project is intended to make minor targeted improvements along about one mile of U.S. 101 through Richardson Grove State Park so standard STAA trucks can travel through the corridor, which is important for goods movement on the North Coast.

No old-growth redwoods will be removed by the project. As part of early efforts, Caltrans recently completed time-sensitive tree work ahead of nesting bird season. Only younger, newer-growth trees of various types were marked and removed in preparation for construction, and all tree removals planned for the project are now complete.

Because of the setting, Caltrans plans to use methods such as hand digging and air spades to help reduce impacts on old-growth redwood root systems. A certified arborist analyzing project impacts determined that limited root disturbance would not have a significant impact on appearance, stability, and continued health of the old-growth redwoods in Richardson Grove.

The project has been the subject of more than 15 years of litigation, involving many hours of work by our legal team across multiple rounds of court proceedings.

More project information, including visual simulations, is available on the project webpage, and Caltrans District 1 will continue sharing updates on social media as appropriate.

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DOCUMENT:

• Appellate court ruling in Blair, et al. v. California Department of Transportation, et al.

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PREVIOUSLY

• Caltrans Ordered to Redo Richardson Grove Environmental Documentation
• EPIC Claims Victory in Latest Richardson Grove Ruling
• EPIC: Richardson Grove Realignment Project “Not Active At All” Anymore
• Caltrans: Richardson Grove Realignment Project Still Going Forward
• Judge Denies Environmental Groups’ Request for Attorney Fees in Richardson Grove Case
• Caltrans Relaunches Richardson Grove Project; Agency Issues New Environmental Documentation For Controversial Highway 101 Realignment at the South End of the County
• As Expected, EPIC and Others Launch New Lawsuit Against Caltrans’ Richardson Grove Improvement Project
• Here We Go Again: Fifth Lawsuit Filed Against Caltrans’ Richardson Grove Project
• Court Halts Richardson Grove Highway Project Yet Again; Environmental Groups ‘Elated’ at Federal Judge’s Order
• Another Court Puts the Brakes on Caltrans’ Richardson Grove Project; Local Judge Orders Agency to Revise Environmental Impact Report
• Federal Judge Rules For Caltrans in Lawsuit Over Road-Widening Project Through Richardson Grove
• Richardson Grove Conflict Heads to Round Four as Conservation Groups File Legal Challenge to Caltrans’ 101 Realignment Project
• Judge Tosses the Latest Injunction From Environmental Groups Over Caltrans’ Richardson Grove Improvement Project
• Enviro Group Cries Foul as Caltrans Removes a Few Small Trees in Richardson Grove; Agency Says Construction on Long-Delayed Improvement Project Will Start in Spring

Press release from Cal Poly Humboldt: 

This fall, Cal Poly Humboldt is launching five new academic programs designed to prepare students for high-impact careers. From healthcare to sustainable food systems, the programs address workforce needs across California and the North Coast.

The new degrees include four bachelor’s degrees and one master’s program: 

Applied Humanities (B.A.): a multidisciplinary program that connects skills like media literacy, ethics, and cross-cultural communication.

Critical Agriculture Studies & Agroecology (B.A.): combines the study of food systems, environmental justice, and cultural resilience.

Community Health (B.A.): focuses on health equity and how social and environmental conditions shape community well-being.

Health & Medical Science (B.S.): prepares students for careers in healthcare and graduate programs such as medicine, pharmacy, and physical therapy.

STEM Education (M.A.): a hybrid program for STEM educators that allows students to earn a teaching credential and a master’s degree.

Designed to be interdisciplinary, these programs bridge the sciences, arts, and humanities while giving students experience through lab work, internships, and community partnerships.

“These programs are designed to help students find meaningful paths where they can make a difference, and give them the skills to do so,” said Shawna Young, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. “They connect what students learn in the classroom with hands-on experience in the community, so they’re prepared to take on challenges we’re seeing here on the North Coast and beyond.”

The programs are part of Cal Poly Humboldt’s transition to a polytechnic university and join more than a dozen new programs launched since 2023, including Cannabis Studies, Marine Biology, and Fire Science. Last fall, the University also introduced its Media Arts degree, which sits at the intersection of art and technology to prepare students for careers in fields like animation and digital design. 

Additional academic programs are expected to roll out in the coming years as part of the University’s broader polytechnic transformation, with the next programs launching by 2029.

Students applying to Cal Poly Humboldt can explore the new programs and learn more about admissions requirements at humboldt.edu/academics/new-polytechnic-programs. 

ED. NOTE: The Outpost’s Trinidad Bureau Chief, Ted Pease, sent us the following report from Saturday’s northernmost “No Kings” protest on Sunday morning, nearly a full 24 hours after the event took place.

He is fired. But you may as well enjoy his photos from the event.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• (PHOTOS) Thousands Protest Trump at ‘No Kings’ Rally in Eureka

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Press release from Indivisible Trinidad:

A crowd of protesters estimated at 350 to 400 took to the streets of tiny Trinidad Saturday for the little seaside village’s contributions to worldwide No Kings 3 demonstrations against Trump administration policies.

The crowd for Indivisible Trinidad’s demonstration was “bigger than the town,” resident Karen Snell observed, holding a sign in front of her mother’s Main Street home. Barbara Snell, 95, started the pro-democracy protests more than a year ago with signs and upside-down American flags on her front porch.

Trinidad, one of the geographically smallest incorporated cities in California, has an official population of 313.

“You just have to do it,” Barbara told her neighbors when Indivisible Trinidad, part of a nationwide protest network against the Trump White House, formed last fall. Since then, the group has more than 100 members and has now holds rallies in front of Barbara’s house every Saturday at noon.

But none like Saturday’s event, which featured hundreds of signs, chants, a 0.5-mile march around Trinidad, an estimated 28 dogs, a frog, Taiko drummers and Bigfoot wearing an American flag cape. Passing motorists honked and waved. The atmosphere was festive, but the underlying theme was deadly serious. “Hey hey! Ho ho!! Donald Trump has got to go!” marchers chanted as they passed the scenic overlook above Trinidad Bay.

“Protect Our Constitution!” read one sign. Dozens of others included peace signs and, “Stop the Insanity!” “Resist the Police State!” “Dump Trump! Defend Democracy!” “No Fascism!” “No Kings! Can We put smart people back in charge now?”

Other signs: “US Out of Iran!” “No Faux-King Way!” “Where the HELL Is Congress?” “Ashamed of the USA.” “Veto the Cheeto!” “Bridge Players Say: ‘No Trump!’” “No Pedophile Kings!” and many others.

“This is amazing,” said District 5 supervisor candidate Mary Burke of McKinleyville.

Organizers were surprised and ecstatic at the turnout. “This is really wonderful,” said Indivisible Trinidad leader Tina Freeland. “For this many people to come to Trinidad today really should send a message all the way to Washington that we want our country back,” she said.

Nationwide, millions of American turned out Saturday at a reported 3,300 No Kings rallies in all 50 states, sending a strong message to the White House.

“That sign is right,” Freeland said, pointing to a woman wearing a t-shirt reading “Resist. Persist. Insist.” Her sign said, “The POWER of the PEOPLE is greater than the People in Power!”

Several people stopped to thank Barbara Snell, holding an inverted U.S. flag to indicate a nation in distress. “You started all this,” on woman told her.

“It’s really wonderful,” Snell said.

For information about Indivisible Trinidad, go to this link.

If you’d been thinking about joining Arcata’s Public Safety Committee, I’ve got some bad news for you. 

The Arcata City Council will consider dissolving the committee at its meeting this Wednesday. There’s only one person on the committee, the Arcata Police Department’s Lt. Luke Scown, who is the committee’s city liaison. It hasn’t met since April 26, 2023. Every meeting since — one every month — has been announced with a little cancellation notice posted to the city’s website. Despite the city’s efforts to attract potential members, no one’s joined. 

The group was created in 2016 to talk about public safety issues and give recommendations to the city council. A sample from the July 2019 meeting: the five members present talked about community courts, posting case workers around higher-crime areas, expanding a neighborhood watch program, and considered inviting then-HSU president Tom Jackson to speak at one of their meetings in the coming months. An Arcata resident called their Safe Arcata plan “a useless 3 pages that has bored him” and said the committee’s focus is “unclear to him.” 

A staff report on the ordinance to nix the committee says that it’s not necessary to keep it because the problems it was designed to cover are addressed regularly through other means, such as city council meetings, study sessions, and continuing coordination between APD, city staff, and elected officials. 

“This approach reflects current practice, in which public safety matters are informed by public input received at Council meetings, engagement between staff and community members, and coordination across City departments,” reads the staff report. “It reinforces the Council’s role in setting policy direction in public meetings and the City Manager’s role in implementing that direction through departmental leadership.”

Lt. Scown told the Outpost that APD Chief Chris Ortega will go into greater detail during Wednesday’s meeting. 

“There’s lots of avenues for people to bring concerns and opinions and thoughts about policing in their community to the government,” Scown said. “There’s all different kinds of channels that are open and available and always have been. We are, probably more so than ever, heavily involved in community groups and do a lot of reaching out and interaction with a lot of different groups throughout the community.”

It’s that time of year again!

Yes, the coming of spring in an even-numbered year means that it’s time once again to re-launch LoCO Elections, the website where you, a citizen, can put your questions to the people who would like to represent you in governmental office.

This is a primary election, so we’re talking about county offices, here — representatives on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, the county’s Superintendent of Schools, its Treasurer-Tax Collector, and so on. The races at the city level will come this fall.

It’s not a terribly action-packed season, all things considered. Only two of the offices up for election are contested — the race for Assessor and for supervisor from the Fifth District — but even some candidates running unopposed have signaled their intention to participate.

How does LoCO Elections work? You can read this complete explainer written 12 years ago, amazingly, for a full rundown. Here’s the short version: You submit a question for one or more candidates for office. Outpost staff checks to see if you are not just trolling, and then, if you are not, approves your question for publication. People may upvote your question if they wish to signal to the candidate that it’s a question they would like to see answered. The candidate, then, hopefully, answers it, and you and everyone else reads that answer. Pretty simple!

In addition, the candidate can post press releases from his or her campaign to communicate with the readership directly, cutting LoCO gatekeepers out of the loop.

OK! We’ve got both candidates for Fifth District Supervisor, the county’s marquee race, all signed up and ready to go. Several other candidates are also standing by. We send out an invitation email to all candidates; if you’re one of those and you didn’t receive your invite, just drop us a line at news@lostcoastoutpost.com and we’ll hook you up.

June 2nd is approaching sooner than you think! Get electionizing! Go to LoCO Elections and submit your question now! Click this very long and bolded link to do that!

One final note: The Outpost does not accept endorsement letters-to-the-editor, because they are boring. However: As in years past, we will soon open the floor for endorsement limericks. Not yet, though — it’s too early in the cycle to submit everyone to that pain.

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

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Green-card holders no longer qualify for loans from the Small Business Administration, eliminating a longtime source of financing for immigrants that advocates say will discourage job creation and harm the economy.

The SBA limited access to its loans to U.S. citizens and nationals only starting in March, and expanded that policy to SBA-backed loans beginning in April. On top of that, any business that’s even partly owned by a permanent legal resident with a green card is no longer eligible for the loans.

California — which has the most small businesses and the largest immigrant population in the nation — could be most affected. SBA loans have been important to immigrant entrepreneurs because they typically are low-interest and available to those without an established credit history. The agency has also backed loans by private funders, providing a government guarantee for people banks may deem riskier. Now, all those loans are off the table for owners and would-be owners of restaurants, bake shops, law practices, medical clinics, taxi medallions, nail salons and more who hold green cards.

Small business owners are responsible for 99% of net new jobs in the state, according to the California Office of the Small Business Advocate. Immigrant entrepreneurs make up 40% of the state’s business community and generated $28.4 billion in income in 2023, according to GO-Biz, the governor’s office of business and economic development.

Small Business Majority, a national business advocacy group, wrote to the SBA in mid-March, urging the federal agency to reconsider the changes. The letter, signed by dozens of state and national groups and chambers of commerce, called the new policies “a misguided approach that ignores critical economic data underscoring the job creating power of the immigrant community.”

The SBA has a limited lending capacity, said Maggie Clemmons, a spokesperson for the agency. “The agency’s rule change will help ensure more American citizens have access to funding previously granted to noncitizens,” she said in an email.

The SBA approved 3,358 loans for small businesses owned partly by a lawful permanent resident in fiscal year 2025, largely during the Biden administration, Clemmons said. That represented 4% of the 85,000 loans approved by the agency.In California, the changes could affect about 220,000 small business owners who hold green cards, said Carolina Martinez, chief executive of CAMEO Network, a national association of organizations that support small businesses.

“The most important thing for us is to really understand that this SBA decision… is really bad for the American economy,” Martinez said.

Pursuing the American Dream

Cristina Foanene, a Romanian immigrant who arrived in the United States 20 years ago, was a green-card holder when she obtained an SBA loan in 2018 that allowed her and her husband to buy a building and expand their glass company, MCS Glass, in Fresno. They now have 30 employees.

“The loan gave us an opportunity to create more jobs, to have an even greater impact in our community,” Foanene said. Their goal is to manufacture more products and create more positions, she added.

She said she doesn’t know where the business would be today without the SBA loans they received over the years. They just signed their third loan last month, Foanene said, their first as American citizens.

She called herself loyal to this country and said she’s sad that others like her may not have the same opportunities to pursue the American Dream by securing SBA loans while “respecting the laws.”

“It literally breaks my heart,” Foanene said. “There are so many good people with good intentions. I feel it’s unfair.”

Other entrepreneurs or independent contractors also lose a possible safety net that SBA loans once provided.

“During the pandemic, these loans were crucial to people’s survival,” said Dung Nguyen, program and organizing director for California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, an organization that advocates for Vietnamese immigrants, many of whom work in the nail-salon industry. The group signed the Small Business Majority’s letter to the SBA.

Nguyen said the nail-salon workers and owners who took out those loans during the pandemic are still paying them back.

‘A new kind of status’

Kenia Zamarripa, spokesperson for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, which also signed the letter to the SBA, said this latest policy change is another example of how immigrants are more vulnerable as federal funds for other programs have been taken away. Her group and others are pushing for immigration reform that includes a standardized path to citizenship, she said.

“This is a community that’s doing things the right way, looking for a legal path,” she said. “It’s like you’re punishing them for doing the right thing.”

The SBA changes push green-card holders to “informality,” Zamarripa said. “What’s next? What other resources will be taken away? How else will immigrants continue to be targeted?”

Others echo that concern.

“This dialog is really challenging our concept of what undocumented means,” said Gabriela Alemán, a spokesperson for Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco organization that supports and lends to small business owners. “These are community members that are now being pushed into a new kind of status.”

Mission Asset Fund’s lending circles — modeled after the Mexican community-based lending practice called tandas — can provide up to $2,500 in loans to small business owners. The group just got its California lenders’ license and will eventually be able to provide larger loans, Alemán said.

But it will be tough for groups like it to fill the gap left by the SBA’s new policies for permanent legal residents who may want to start or grow their businesses.

“There are not any other options at this scale (that the SBA provides),” said Brian Kennedy Jr., entrepreneur ecosystem director at AmPac Business Capital, a Los Angeles-area community development financial institution and SBA partner. “We’re talking about $35,000 up to $30 million.”

What’s next

Many small business owners already use — and may increasingly rely on — community development financial institutions and other lenders whose mission is to help people with limited options, credit histories and savings.They could also turn to the state for help. State-funded options include a small business loan guarantee program through its IBank, and programs through the treasurer’s office that reduces risks to lenders by pledging state funds as collateral, or contributing to loan-loss reserves.

Microenterprise Collaborative of Inland Southern California works with lenders, technical assistance providers and community partners to help small business owners in Inland Southern California.

Pamela Deans, the group’s executive director, said the SBA’s policy change will alter how the organization refers entrepreneurs to sources of capital. Rather than pointing them to “a relatively straightforward” SBA process, she said the group will have to inform them of a more fragmented set of options and warn them about predatory lending.

“Many of these would‑be owners will have a much harder time piecing together enough safe, affordable capital to lease a space, buy equipment or cover early working capital — so the taquería, the child care business, the trucking startup may never open in the first place,” Deans said.

Bianca Blomquist, California director for Small Business Majority, also is concerned about small business owners turning to unscrupulous lenders. She said her group found out recently that an owner of a child care business in downtown L.A. took out a $10,000 loan at what she thought was 13% interest. It was actually closer to 250%.

Other advocates are hoping philanthropy and impact investors will step up and make more capital available to small lenders.

“Women, entrepreneurs, immigrants and communities of color always have had to think outside the typical paths,” said Leticia Landa, executive director of La Cocina, a small business incubator in San Francisco. “I do hope, especially in California, that we’re going to come up with something.”