Back in the day, Sarah Leiteritz had it good on Eye Street. One-lane. Narrow. Near the highway, but not always too loud. “NOT A THROUGH STREET,” the sign at the top of the hill near the tennis courts says, and that was true. It went nowhere. 

But when the Hinarr Hu Moulik (HHM) dorms opened several weeks ago, suddenly it went somewhere. Though there’s no direct access to the dorm’s parking lot, it’s simple to park on Eye and step around the bollards separating the street from university grounds. 

Currently, the open building is home to upwards of 500 students, with room for another 400 when the other building opens at the start of spring semester. The parking lot has 328 spaces. One week after the start of the fall semester, residents on Eye are already complaining that they’re feeling squeezed out. 

“There are way more cars here than there used to be,” said Leiteritz, 37, in an interview with the Outpost. She and her husband moved into a house on a short, dead-end street off of Eye in 2021. “There are, like, five times more cars now. They’re parking so close to the mailbox we can’t get up to it. Our neighbors can’t park in front of their own houses. Sometimes they can’t even park on the entire street.”

Arcata’s preferential parking system requires a parking permit for some of Eye, but it ends at the opposite end of the street from the dorms. In an (extremely informal) survey conducted by the Outpost, more than half of the vehicles parked along Eye St. and its side streets had Cal Poly Humboldt parking permit stickers from the 2024-2025 academic year or either the Fall ‘24 or Spring ‘25 semester.

Leiteritz feels fortunate that she and her husband have a driveway and a lawn to use as a parking spot, but the dwindling street parking isn’t just a simple inconvenience for them. Their son is autistic and sometimes requires the help of health care providers. They too have had issues finding places to park near their house, and Leiteritz worries they someday might not be able to park anywhere near.

She’s resorted to putting some traffic cones on the side of the street and putting up some signage claiming it’s “reserved,” which has kept a little space free for her when it’s needed. She doesn’t even want to consider the idea of another 400 students moving in just a quarter of a mile away in a few months. Leiteritz and her husband had been considering buying the house they moved into when it hits the market soon, but now they’re reconsidering it.

“It’s going to be so crazy,” Leiteritz said. “I don’t understand how they’re letting this happen.”

Representatives for Cal Poly Humboldt said in a written statement that they had anticipated this issue and were working on some solutions. They haven’t oversold parking permits for the lot, so students who want to bring a car will know if they’ll be able to consistently secure a space. If not, they can park on Humboldt’s campus proper.

There are plenty of alternative options to get around; a shuttle runs from the dorms to campus every 15 minutes, and they’re within a 20-minute walk of campus. There’s also a locked bicycle storage building with space for hundreds of bicycles on the premises.

“For students who don’t secure a parking permit at HHM, we strongly encourage considering whether bringing a car is necessary — this helps reduce overall parking demand and can also save students money,” the statement reads. “…All of these measures are designed to provide our students with clear information, enabling them to make informed decisions for their individual situations, while encouraging the use of our university-owned parking facilities, which allows us to manage capacity better. We recognize that parking isn’t always ideal, but we’re committed to collaborating with both our campus community and the City of Arcata to find solutions that work for everyone. We thank everyone for their patience as we continue to refine these systems.”

“It’s gotta be frustrating for them too,” Leiteritz said about the students living in the HHM dorms. “I’m sure they’re having to just, like, spend gas driving around up and down streets that aren’t the easiest to drive on trying to fit their car somewhere.”

UPDATE, 2:40 p.m.: The Sheriff’s Office has some additional intel:

On Sept. 2 at about 1:30 p.m., a friend of missing person, Jesse Austin, contacted the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) to report he had given Austin a ride.  The friend stated he picked Austin up from the airport on Aug. 24, 2025, and transported him to the Cedar Flat Rest area on Highway 299. 

According to the friend, Austin stated he was meeting a family member and was last seen sitting at a picnic table.  Austin was in possession of a backpack, possibly gray in color, a blue waterproof bag, a gallon of water and some food.

If you have any information about Jesse or his whereabouts, please contact Investigator Mike Fridley at (707) 441-3024.

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ORIGINAL POST:

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office needs the public’s help to locate missing person Jesse Bill Austin, 80, of McKinleyville. 

On 08-24-25, a concerned citizen contacted the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) to report a friend, Jesse Bill Austin, had left a concerning note at their residence. The note stated Austin had left his Silver/Gold 2001 GMC van at the airport in McKinleyville. Deputies responded to the airport and located Austin’s van parked in long term parking. Deputies viewed the airport security video where Austin parked the van and walked towards the terminal. He entered an area which was not recorded and was not seen leaving. At about the same time a silver sedan, possibly Toyota, is seen leaving from the same location. 

During the initial investigation, deputies checked with the airlines and rental car companies which had no record of Austin making a purchase. Austin’s cell phone information provided his most recent activity was near Railroad Dr. in McKinleyville. The reporting party also stated that Austin had been a white-water rafting guide. 

At this point in the investigation, it is unclear where Austin went after airport. It is possible that a citizen gave Austin a ride from the airport. He is described as an 80-year-old white male, gray hair, blue eyes, 5’9”, and about 180 pounds and is known to walk with a cane.

Anyone with information on Austin’s whereabouts is asked to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or Investigator Mike Fridley at (707) 441-3024.

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Press release from Pacific Gas & Electric Company: 

SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is hosting an interactive virtual town hall for customers in the North Coast Region on Thursday, September 4, from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. to share more about what we are doing to reduce wildfire risk and make our system safer.

During the meeting, we’ll provide the latest updates on local wildfire safety work and safety resources available to customers. This is also an opportunity for participants to ask questions, share feedback and connect with their local PG&E leaders, including North Coast Regional Vice President Dave Canny.
 
The event can be accessed via the below link, by phone or through PG&E’s website, pge.com/webinars.   
 
Counties: Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma and Trinity
Date: Thursday, September 4, 2025
Time: 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Link: https://bit.ly/4nzVg36
Dial-In: +1 888-810-3952
Conference ID: 1345040#       
 
American Sign Language interpretation will be available, along with dial-in numbers for those who aren’t able to join online. For the full virtual events schedule, additional information on how to join and recordings and presentation materials from past events, visit pge.com/webinars. 
 
Customers can find opportunities to engage with PG&E representatives in the area by visiting: pge.com/openlines » 
 
More information and resources to help you and your family prepare for and stay safe in the event of an emergency can be found at safetyactioncenter.pge.com.    

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Press release from the Six Rivers National Forest: 

Dillon Fire: 7,706 acres; 7% containment

Email: 2025.Dillon@firenet.gov

Personnel: 1,016

Online Fire Information: www.linktr.ee/srffirepio

Red Flag Warning Today

Extreme fire activity is expected today with hot, dry, unstable weather, and possible dry lightning forecast for this afternoon. Temperatures are expected to be above 100 degrees. Relative humidity will be in the mid-teens, and wind gusts up to 30 miles an hour with the potential for higher gusts from thunder cells creating outflow winds are possible. Predicted weather increases the potential for spot fires throughout the day.

Air operations conducted water drops yesterday and hand crews dug handline to tie the spot fire northeast of Dillon Creek Campground into the Klamath River. Structures northeast of the spot fire have been prepped by the structure defense group with hose lays and sprinklers in place, operations will continue today. Six fire crews, supported by helicopters, conducted operations between Forest Roads 14N21 and 13N13. Handlines and hose lays will be completed in the area today. Firefighters are working closely with resource advisors and cultural resource specialists to ensure natural and cultural resources are protected.

Firefighting resources continue to arrive daily. With additional resources mobilizing in the area, traffic will increase on Highway 96. There is limited one-way traffic control on Highway 96 at various locations from 10.7 miles west to 2.2 miles west of Cottage Grove due to fire operations. Debris is rolling into the roadway, and visibility remains low during early morning hours. Drive with caution.

Air quality can change quickly. Know your smoke risk and plan ahead: www.airnow.gov/wildfires.

Evacuations and Closures: Highway 96 is closed from 3.2 mi west to 5.3 mi east of Seiad Valley (Siskiyou County) due to wildfire activity. Motorists are advised to use an alternate route.

The Six Rivers National Forest has issued a closure order in the vicinity of the Dillon Fire.

All the structures in the Ti-Bar have been placed in a level 3-GO status, Somes Bar, Calif.

Below are the current evacuation order and warning zones for the Dillon Fire.

• Evacuation ORDERS: SIS-1405, SIS-1402-A, SIS-1503-A, SIS-1509-B and SIS-1506.
• Evacuation WARNINGS: SIS-1402-B, SIS-1509-A, SIS-1604, SIS-1503-B, SIS-1300, SIS-1301 and SIS-1408.

The latest evacuation information can be found at https://protect.genasys.com. For shelter information and resources related to the fire evacuations, please call (530) 340–3539.

Siskiyou County Office of Emergency Services for fire-related resources and general safety information.

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This story — by reporters Marisa Kendall, Jocelyn Wiener and Erica Yee — was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped up to a lectern on a March day three years ago and proposed a new solution to one of the state’s most difficult problems: How to help the thousands of Californians sleeping on the streets while suffering from severe mental illness.

After all, he said, everything the state has done before has failed. One of the state’s prior attempts — a treatment referral program called Laura’s Law – helped just 218 people during the 2018-19 fiscal year, he said.

“That certainly is not demonstrable progress,” Newsom said. His new program would be different.

But in the nearly two years since Newsom launched CARE Court, it has reached only a few hundred people. That’s barely more than the law he criticized, and certainly not the thousands he promised.

CalMatters requested CARE Court data from every county in California and conducted more than 30 interviews to compile the first detailed, statewide look at the program. Up and down California, the data show low numbers, a slow rollout and predictions that wildly outpaced reality.

The program was designed to allow family members, first responders, doctors and others to petition the courts on behalf of someone with severe psychosis who can’t take care of themselves. If the petition is accepted, that person can then agree to voluntary treatment, which can include counseling, medication, housing and more.

If they refuse, a judge can order them to participate in a treatment plan.

CalMatters received responses from all but four of the state’s 58 counties. Here’s what the data shows:

• While Newsom’s administration estimated between 7,000 and 12,000 Californians would qualify for CARE Court, just 2,421 petitions have been filed through July, according to the Judicial Council of California. Only 528 of those have resulted in treatment agreements or plans.
• San Diego County anticipated receiving 1,000 petitions in the first year and establishing court-ordered treatment plans for 250 people. But in nearly two years, the county instead has received just 384 petitions and established 134 voluntary agreements.
• Los Angeles County saw 511 petitions filed – the most in the state. Of those, 112 resulted in care agreements or plans. In 2023, officials predicted to news organizations the county could enroll 4,500 people in the first year.
• Courts across California are dismissing a significant percentage of CARE Court petitions – about 45% statewide, although that number includes the handful of cases in which someone has successfully “graduated” from the program. The rate is even higher in some counties, such as San Francisco, where nearly two-thirds of petitions are thrown out.
• The allure of CARE Court for many supporters was the promise of court-ordered treatment plans that would encourage sick people to accept the help they’d been resisting. But the courts have ordered just 14 treatment plans so far, according to the Judicial Council. Instead, most counties are solely offering voluntary treatment “agreements,” which sick people are free to ignore.
• Very few people have successfully completed CARE Court. Despite the fact that it has the most petitions, Los Angeles County has had no graduations. Nine counties have been operating CARE Court long enough to have graduations (the program takes at least a year to complete).

“It’s going much more slowly than we thought it would,” said Lisa U’Ren, a former member of the board of directors at the Solano County branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, who helped roll out the program in her county.

The stakes are high for Newsom, who has tied his legacy in part to big promises that he would address California’s twin problems of homelessness and inadequate mental health services. The establishment of CARE Court was followed by a 2023 law intended to make it easier for a judge to order someone into involuntary treatment. A successful 2024 ballot measure issued $6.4 billion in debt to pay for new mental health housing.

How CARE Court works

Once someone files a CARE Court petition on behalf of a person experiencing psychosis, the county investigates that person’s diagnosis and then the court determines if they are eligible for the program. If they are, they have regular meetings with a case worker, as well as regular court hearings, with the goal of agreeing to a treatment protocol called a “CARE agreement.”

If a voluntary agreement can’t be reached, the court can order the person to follow a CARE plan. After one year, the client can either complete the program and graduate, or extend for up to one more year.

State officials say CARE Court needs more time to hit the goals initially set by the Newsom administration. Already some counties are doing an “incredible job,” said Stephanie Welch, deputy secretary of behavioral health for the state Health and Human Services Agency. She pointed to Alameda County, which has racked up 125 petitions — among the most in the state – since December.

“I think this has been a complicated program to implement,” Welch said, “and that’s something that we recognize and we’ve been doing our best to support the counties to be able to expand this program.”

A spokesperson for Newsom’s office said the administration is pleased with what the program has accomplished so far.

“Thanks to the CARE Act, thousands of people are engaging in critical behavioral health treatment through stabilizing medications, community-based care, and — if needed — housing,” Elana Ross said in an emailed statement.

But disability rights organizations say the low numbers are evidence that the program was a waste of money, a reactionary political gambit by a governor with presidential aspirations. And many families who initially threw their support behind CARE Court also say it has come up short.

Anita Fisher advocated for the program when Newsom proposed it, speaking on 60 Minutes about her family’s story and meeting with the governor himself, she said. When the program was piloted in San Diego County, where she lives, she felt hopeful about its promise to treat people with serious mental illness, like her son.

“I’ve watched my son suffer too many times: jail, prison, homeless,” she said. “And I said, ‘so if this can stop that?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m all for it.’”

But now?

“I look at it as a total failure.”

A petition could be rejected because the person doesn’t meet the narrow eligibility criteria (only people with schizophrenia and other limited psychotic disorders qualify). When the subject of a petition is homeless, outreach workers sometimes have trouble finding them on the street. Other times, the client simply refuses services – and, CARE Court has little teeth to force them to accept, even after a judge’s order.

Making more people eligible for CARE Court

A bill making its way through the Legislature could boost CARE Court numbers by making more people eligible. If Sen. Thomas Umberg’s Senate Bill 27 becomes law, people who experience psychotic symptoms as a result of bipolar disorder would qualify for the program.

The program as it stands is not broken, the senator said, it’s a “work in progress” that needs some tweaking to reach its full potential.

“To some degree, expectations were raised, some that were accurate, some that were not accurate, that this was going to be a panacea,” Umberg said. “And I never thought of it that way.”

But it’s unclear how many more people could enter into CARE Court as a result of Umberg’s bill. His office has no estimate, and other guesses vary widely. San Diego County says the bill could increase its numbers by anywhere from 3.5% to 48.1%.

Many disability rights organizations strongly oppose the bill, saying it will significantly expand an ineffective program, doing nothing to solve underlying issues of housing shortages and inadequate mental health services

“They’re not trying to fix a problem, they’re trying to deliver political optics, and that’s all this ever was,” said Lex Steppling, a founding member of All People’s Health Collective.

Eve Garrow, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said that, “given what I consider to be the failure of CARE Court so far,” she expects Umberg’s bill is primarily an effort to increase the number of petitions.

“A court order doesn’t make resources appear out of thin air,” she said.

The jury box in a double-jury courtroom at San Diego Superior Court in downtown San Diego on Aug. 12, 2025. Jurors in these courtrooms participate in joint trials with multiple defendants. Photo by Adriana Heldiz for CalMatters

The state spent $88.3 million on CARE Court in the 2022-23 fiscal year, and $71.3 million in 2023-24, according to a Legislative Analyst’s Office analysis. With fewer than 550 people receiving services through the program so far, critics accuse CARE Court of wasting state money.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee’s July analysis of SB 27 described CARE Court as a “very expensive” way to coordinate services.

But California counties say the low numbers of CARE agreements don’t capture the entirety of the program’s impact. Even petitions that don’t lead to official agreements have afforded counties the chance to connect with and offer services to people they hadn’t previously known.

“I would say that I think the whole idea of looking at the numbers, it sort of misses the point,” said Michelle Doty Cabrera, executive director of the California Behavioral Health Directors Association. “With anything coercive, the goal is to try to engage people out of their own free will into services.”

One of CARE Court’s successes, she said, has been in spreading the word about county services to people who might need them. If those people then express interest without the need for any coercion, “that’s a success and so far that has not been quantified,” she said.

The state has attempted to quantify that elusive number: As of December, people were diverted away from CARE Court and into other county services 1,358 times, according to a recent report from the Health and Human Services Agency.

Counties administering CARE Court also said it’s one of the few state programs that funds outreach. It can require a lot of attempts before outreach workers can coax certain people into services, they said, and this provides a mechanism to pay for those efforts.

A flood of petitions that never materialized

Eight California counties rolled out CARE Court at the end of 2023, as part of a pilot group. The rest of the state had the program up and running by December 2024.

As San Diego County counted down to the launch, officials worried they would be flooded with petitions immediately, said Amber Irvine, the county’s behavioral health program coordinator.

The county hired nearly two-dozen people, including 10 clinicians, two psychologists and support staff to meet the expected demand. The money for those new positions came from county funds, not from the state.

That flood of petitions never materialized.

Irvine thinks the process of filing a petition was harder than expected. Her team thought first responders, hospitals and behavioral health workers would jump at the chance to refer people into the program. But that didn’t happen. The petitioner has to attend at least the first court hearing, which is something many overworked first responders and clinicians can’t do, Irvine said.

Police and firefighters filed petitions when the program first started, but they were often dismissed – which made the first responders reluctant to file more, said Crystal Robbins, who manages a treatment referral program for San Diego Fire-Rescue.

“We quickly found out that it wasn’t a useful tool for the people that we see,” she said.

The process also is tough for families petitioning on behalf of loved ones, Irvine said. It requires them to prove their loved one has a qualifying mental health condition, but federal privacy laws can make that a big hurdle.

The county is trying to make the process less cumbersome, Irvine said. It is letting family members and some other petitioners attend court hearings virtually, for example. And in some cases, the court is allowing petitions to move on to the next step even if they don’t have all the required paperwork.

So far, San Diego County Superior Court has received the second-largest number of petitions in the state — 384, with 35% leading to CARE agreements.

But that’s still far behind initial projections.

The slow start could be a “happy accident,” Irvine said, because the low case load allows clinicians to spend more time with each CARE Court client.

But Anita Fisher isn’t the only family member who feels discouraged about the program’s roll out in San Diego.

Tanya Fedak said she has twice filed petitions in the county on behalf of her son, who continues to cycle between homelessness and jail despite being accepted into CARE Court.

“These are our loved ones,” she said. “It’s our taxpayers’ money. There’s no accountability. And it’s frustrating to see it go down, because my son is going to end up dead.”

Orange County, which was part of the initial CARE Court cohort, expected to receive 1,400 petitions and establish between 400 and 600 treatment plans its first year. Two years later, it has received at least 176 petitions , reached 14 CARE agreements and ordered one CARE plan, according to the county’s behavioral health department. That doesn’t include additional petitions that could have been dismissed by the court before reaching the county.

Orange County was the only superior court in the state with a significant number of petitions that did not disclose its data to CalMatters.

Veronica Kelley, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, said she never expected to reach as many people as the original estimate. She attributed that in part to the county already reaching many people with schizophrenia spectrum disorder through its existing assisted outpatient treatment program (the program created by the law Newsom criticized at the 2023 press conference), which provides similar services to CARE Court.

Kelley believes expanding the older program would have been a better use of the resources now going to CARE Court. In part, she said, that’s because Orange County’s assisted outpatient program makes it easy for people to ask the county for help, whereas filing a CARE petition is “a laborious process” that requires significant work from the petitioner.

Other people blame the low CARE Court numbers on a lack of awareness.

After CARE Court rolled out in Solano County, the local branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness hosted town halls to teach the community about the program. An in-person town hall drew about 10 people, said NAMI Solano County Executive Director Deb Demello. Two Zoom meetings drew about four people each. And they didn’t see people from the main group they were trying to reach: family members of people with a severe mental illness.

“We had very little turn out,” Demello said.

CARE Court use varies widely county by county, with some smaller counties appearing to struggle with the resources to implement the program. Colusa County, with a population of fewer than 22,000 people on the edge of the Mendocino National Forest, told the state last year that its courts weren’t prioritizing CARE Court because of court vacancies. The county has received just one petition.

Eight small counties, including Mendocino and San Benito, said they’ve had no petitions filed.

Some county courts refused to disclose their data to CalMatters because the numbers were too small, citing the California Rules of Court, which allow courts to withhold data if the sample size is so small that people could be identified.

Courts are required to report limited CARE Court data to the California Judicial Council, including the number of petitions submitted, number of agreements and plans, and number of dismissals. But the council would give only statewide totals to CalMatters, not a county-by-county breakdown.

Will expanding CARE Court help more people?

Even if someone becomes one of the few Californians represented in a CARE Court petition, it doesn’t mean they’ll get help.

In San Francisco, the majority of petitions filed end up getting dismissed – 49 of the 75 – or 65% – of those filed. That’s one of the highest dismissal rates in the state.

Some counties, including San Francisco, told CalMatters that people may still receive services even if their CARE Court petition is dismissed. But a state report released in July found that of the 160 people whose petitions were dismissed during the first nine months of CARE Court, 90 did not receive county behavioral health services.

Of the 130 petitions dismissed in Los Angeles County between December 2023 and February of this year, 43 were dismissed because the person was already receiving “adequate mental health services,” according to a report by the county’s department of mental health. It’s the most common reason for a dismissal in that county.

State Sen. Tom Umberg in the Senate chambers of the state Capitol on Dec. 5, 2022. Photo by Martin do Nascimento, CalMatters

Umberg wants to address that with his bill. Currently, someone can’t qualify for CARE Court if they are already “clinically stabilized” in another treatment program. Umberg’s bill would clarify that just being enrolled in an outside treatment program doesn’t mean someone is stable. He hopes that will cut down on the number of people whose petitions are dismissed even though their mental illness is not under control.

His bill would also make it easier for the criminal justice system to funnel people into CARE Court, by allowing a judge to refer someone directly into the program if they are charged with a misdemeanor and deemed incompetent to stand trial.

Irvine, San Diego County’s behavioral health program coordinator, is not thrilled about Umberg’s plan to expand CARE Court. The California Behavioral Health Directors Association also opposes the bill.

Irvine takes pride in the amount of time and energy her staff put into each CARE Court client. She says they spend weeks or even months getting to know them, bringing them their favorite foods, and helping with minor tasks, such as getting a new phone, before finally convincing them to participate in the program. In at least one case, that process took as long as five months, she said.

By some accounts, San Diego County’s approach is working. It has had 10 graduations so far, the most of any county that reported that metric to CalMatters.

Adding a lot more people into the program would give clinicians less time to spend with each client, Irvine said. And Umberg’s bill doesn’t come with money to hire more staff.

About the data

The county data in this story is based on public record requests to California county courts and behavioral health departments about CARE Court usage. See full methodology and download the data.

Lesley Ann Larson was born November 21, 1950 to Nan and Lloyd Larson and passed away June 21, 2025 in the presence of family.

Lesley had an adventurous spirit and enjoyed traveling. As a child she traveled cross country seeing the sights with her family and gathering many stories that she told and retold for years. She enjoyed a good road trip and took many others throughout her life with family and friends. Lesley also enjoyed the great outdoors: picnicking, camping, hiking, fishing and spending time at our local rivers and beaches. She often would come back with a few special rocks or shells to add to her collection.

Lesley never met an animal she didn’t like. She treated pets like family and often had wildlife wander into her yard as they seemed to consider it a safe space. It would make life interesting if the visitor left behind a “strong odor” or made a mess of her garbage; however, she just added these experiences to her list of stories to tell.

Lesley enjoyed spending time with people and caring for others. When her pursuit of a nursing career was interrupted by a personal injury, she spent time caring for others, including family as the need arose. She also explored her artistic talents and interests by volunteering at the local jazz festivals and taking classes in stained glass creations. She made several original works and was even commissioned to create a few custom pieces. Lesley was especially proud of the window she created for Cher-Ae Heights Casino.

Of Lesley’s many talents, probably the most prominent was her gift of gab. She loved spending time with others, meeting new people and telling stories of her life’s adventures. Instead of saying good-bye, she would part ways with a “See you later alligator” or “after a while crocodile,” and for loved ones, “Love you more!” Lesley was a big personality and will be missed.

Lesley is preceded in death by her parents, grandparents, brother-in-law, and many aunts and uncles. She is survived by her siblings Arlene Schneider, Keith (Kathy) Larson, and Lane (LeighAnn) Larson. She is also survived by many nieces and nephews: Michele Schneider, Heather (Jason) Beam and family, Lynde (Mark) Windbigler and family, Matthew (Libby) Larson, Hannah Larson, Isaac (Stacie) Larson and family, Ben (May) Larson and family, Joshua Larson, Ethan (Melissa) Larson and family.

Friends and family are invited to celebrate Lesley’s life in the Ocean View Mausoleum at Ocean View Cemetery on Saturday September 20, 2025 at 2 p.m.

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Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On August 31, 2025, at approximately 1:50 a.m., deputies from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) responded to a report of shots fired at a residence in the 300 block of Big Hill Road, Hoopa. Upon arrival, deputies determined that an altercation involving multiple residents had occurred. The investigation revealed that Joshua Sky Teal, 46, allegedly discharged several rounds from a rifle into the air. Teal, who is on active felony probation with search and seizure conditions, was detained at the scene.

A subsequent search of Teal’s residence resulted in the recovery of a .22 caliber rifle equipped with a high-capacity magazine and an illegal suppressor. Teal was arrested and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on the following charges:

• PC 29800(a)(1): Felon in possession of a firearm
• PC 30305(a)(1): Felon in possession of ammunition
• PC 33410: Possession of a suppressor
• PC 246.3(a): Negligent discharge of a firearm
• PC 1203.2(a): Violation of probation

Anyone with information about this case can call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445- 7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.