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• (PHOTOS) Early Morning Fire Erupts in Vacant Eureka House

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Press release from Humboldt Bay Fire:

At 0647 Wednesday morning, January 4, 2023, Humboldt Bay Fire units including 3 engines, a ladder truck, and two duty chiefs, were dispatched to a structure fire in a residential structure at 2135 California Street in Eureka.

The first arriving unit was quickly on scene and reported a working fire in a single-story vacant residence with earthquake damage from 2010. Due to the extensive existing damage to the building, the decision was made to conduct a defensive firefighting operation. The fire was quickly elevated to a second alarm. Fire control was achieved in 1 hour.

After approximately 5 hours, the fire was completely extinguished. In order to complete extinguishment and remove any remaining hazard presented by the residence, the building was torn down. The fire originated in the back section of the residence, and the cause of the fire is under investigation at this time.

Damage was estimated at $200,000. There were no injuries to fire personnel on scene. Humboldt Bay Fire would like to thank its allied partners for their assistance during this incident. Samoa Fire District, Arcata Fire District, and Fortuna Fire Department helped to ensure the safety of the HBF community while our resources were committed.

Additionally, we would like to thank PG&E, City of Eureka Code Enforcement, and City Ambulance.

UPDATE, Jan. 5, 9:15 a.m.:

From the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

Robert Samek has been located safe in the City of Eureka. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the community and the Eureka Police Department for their assistance with this investigation.

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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 at-risk missing person Robert Wayne Samek, age 66, of Myrtletown, Eureka. 

Samek was reported missing on Dec.30, 2022 by his DHHS case manager. He was last seen December 27 in Eureka.

Samek is described as a white male, approximately 6 feet 2 inches tall and 164 pounds, with blue eyes, short grey hair and a beard. Samek suffers from medical conditions which may put him at increased risk.  

Anyone with information for the Sheriff’s Office regarding Samek’s possible whereabouts should call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251.

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This week, the roughly 76,000 members of Coast Central Credit Union will receive board member election ballots for the first time in nine years.

That’s how long it’s been since the local not-for-profit financial institution held a contested election for seats on its nine-member board of directors. Openings on the board are rare because, even though board members volunteer their time, they tend to serve for many years — even decades.

In 2019, for example, Robert Gearheart retired after nearly 40 years on the board. However, because he retired in the middle of a three-year term, there was no election to fill his spot. Instead, a subcommittee of the board appointed his replacement. When board member Joyce Jury retired in 2020 after nearly 30 years on the board, a replacement was again appointed by the board subcommittee.

Technically, Coast Central holds an election every January for three of the nine seats on the board, but over the past decade there hasn’t been much competition. In fact, for nine years straight the number of seats available was equal to the number of candidates, meaning the incumbents won re-election more or less by default.

But now, a group of first-time candidates, who’ve dubbed themselves the “members voice slate,” has secured spots on the ballot through a signature-gathering effort, and they’re aiming to unseat a pair of incumbents by advocating for increased member involvement and wider-ranging community investments.

There are also two additional new candidates — Kassidy Banducci and Dane Valadao — who qualified through Coast Central’s standard nominating process, which requires submitting a six-page application and meeting the minimum requirements. The nominating committee — a subset of the board — then nominates “at least one member for each position available,” according to the official procedures.

Two incumbents, John Gladding and Kelly Walsh, are running for reelection while the third, Robin Bailie, has bowed out. 

That means that after nine years with zero election drama, Coast Central now has seven candidates pursuing just three open seats on its board of directors. 

The competition comes at a high point in the institution’s success. Established in 1979 through the merger of two older credit unions, Coast Central has grown into the region’s largest member-owned financial institution, employing more than 300 people across its 11 branches, including locations in Crescent City, Hoopa and Weaverville. Each year, Coast Central gives away more than $200,000 to local nonprofits, and in April of 2021 it surpassed $2 billion in assets.

The “members voice” candidates

The “members voice” slate of candidates believes Coast Central can accomplish more with such assets. The slate consists of Rees Hughes, James Kloor and Maricela Aceves Wexler, all of whom recently sat down at a local coffee house to discuss their candidacies and their ideas for how to improve Coast Central.

Kloor, who is employed as the director of finance at the Humboldt Area Foundation and Wild Rivers Community Foundation, said he and his fellow candidates learned a lot during their signature-gathering campaign, which involved standing outside with pens, clipboards and petitions at places like the North Coast Co-op, Arts Alive and famers markets, where they engaged with Coast Central members.

“We collected over 650 signatures, which was exciting,” Kloor said, “and the thing that we heard most often from folks was, ‘I didn’t even realize that I could vote for the board of directors!’”

“Or, ‘When is there ever an election? I don’t remember an election,’” said Hughes, a former administrator at Humboldt State University and writer of local hiking guides. 

Wexler, an independent project manager, said there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the institution and its membership.

“I didn’t realize when I became a member that I was a member-owner,” she said. “It wasn’t clear to me what that means and what is then possible for engagement. I think there are missed opportunities to communicate with membership, and I’d really like to serve in a way that gives people the opportunity, if they choose, to participate more fully.”

Kloor agrees. He has long been involved with the North Coast Co-op, including a stint on its board of directors. He has participated in many Co-op board meetings, which can be spirited, well-attended events, as well as its annual membership meeting. 

As a member of Coast Central, he wanted to see what its annual membership meeting looked like. He hoped to attend the 2021 gathering but couldn’t find information about it online until after the date had passed. For last year’s meeting he had a scheduling conflict, but he sent a group of friends who reported back to him.

“And they were the only members — other than the board and some staff — who showed up,” Kloor said. “And the annual meeting was only five minutes long! When [my friends] came back and told me that I was like, ‘That is absolutely wild.’”

Kloor said that if he’s elected, he’d like to reshape what the annual meeting looks like — “because it should be the meeting for the members, right? It should be a big thing. It should be broadcast far and wide. Folks should come; there should be member comment periods. So yeah, that’s my personal drive.”

Wexler has engaged with various nonprofit boards — including the board of Dell’Arte International — through her organizational development and fundraising work, and she said she has seen how meaningful change can be effected at that level.

Shortly after longtime Dell’Arte board member Peter Pennekamp joined the Coast Central board in 2019, he approached Wexler to see if she was interested in joining the board. At the time, she didn’t have the capacity given her other obligations, but when he checked back again recently she took a closer look and after interviewing current board members and doing some research she decided to run.

“There’s so many opportunities here that I think are missed,” she said. “The more that I learned about what could be possible in terms of Coast Central playing a role in local economic equity or housing equity, it really perked my interest because I was like, ‘Oh, there’s some opportunity here that I think I would like to give my energy and time to.’”

As a state-chartered 501(c)(14) credit union, Coast Central is tax exempt and operates on a not-for-profit basis for the mutual benefit of its membership. Since 2008, Coast Central has awarded more than $2 million in grants to local organizations through its Community Investment Program. Just this past fall it gave tens of thousands of dollars to local organizations including local senior centers, volunteer fire districts, the Eureka Rescue Mission and Crescent City’s Lighthouse Repertory Theatre. 

The “members voice” slate believes there’s room to do more. Kloor looked up Coast Central’s recent tax filings online and saw that it had awarded about $245,000 in grants per year.

“For an organization that has a net asset value of $2 billion, that is a really small percentage,” Kloor said. “So I personally would like to see more go towards those community grants and scholarships, to kind of support businesses in that way. And I would also like to just see more reinvestment into some of our more far-reaching areas.”

As an example he noted that Coast Central removed ATMs that were located inside the Crescent City Safeway, and some members now feel unsafe using the drive-up ATMs when they need to withdraw cash after normal business hours. He’d like to see new ones installed in a safer-feeling indoor location.

Hughes has been a Coast Central member for 34 years and he said it’s been exciting to watch it grow.

“I feel like [that growth] comes with some responsibility to be an active part of the community,” he said. He also believes that a certain amount of responsibility comes from Coast Central’s status as a nonprofit in the financial world. “My sense is that as it has grown, it has the chance to do more than it’s done, and I’d like to see that realized,” he said.

He has a few ideas of his own, such as exploring the possibility of term limits on the board, but he said he doesn’t want to get too specific with his own preconceived ideas.

“I feel like if we’re going to make it a member organization [it’s important] that we don’t come in with a lot of prescriptions about how the retained earnings get spent,” he said. “Most of it is about member involvement and member education and understanding at some level what it means to be a member of a credit union. But also a chance to do some things that are more member-driven rather than staff-driven or strictly board-driven.”

Kloor suggested that membership meetings could be rotated among branch locations, giving members at more far-flung branches like Hoopa and Weaverville a more direct connection to the institution.

“As a financial institution, I think they do a really good job, right?” Kloor said. “Customer satisfaction is super high. The way that they treat all their members in the branches is really highly regarded. There’s just more of these member interaction things — the things that differentiate a credit union from a bank — that I think they could lean into a little bit more.”

“And similarly, when someone become a member, how are you welcoming people into a member-ownership role?” Wexler said. She suggested that Coast Central could give new members a more comprehensive welcome packet. “But that’s also going to take a discussion of okay, well, what does it mean? What when we say you’re a member-owner, what does Coast Central mean by that?”

Kloor said he was happy to see that two other challengers are pursuing seats on the board, and he believes his slate’s canvassing efforts already helped to boost member engagement and awareness.

“The member education piece of this has been really exciting,” he said. “And if by the three of us running we encouraged two other folks to run, that’s super exciting. Like, that doesn’t even feel like competition. To me that just feels like community.”

Hughes agreed, saying, “The bottom line of what we’re trying to achieve is to have regular elections with community engagement.”

“Yeah,” Wexler chimed in. “It doesn’t have to be us, but the membership can choose and have the opportunity to choose their board.”

“We’d like it to be us,” Hughes quickly added, “but I think we’re happy that there’s an election.”

The other challengers

Banducci | Submitted

Born in Fortuna and raised in Eureka, licensed architect Kassidy Banducci pursued her higher education at University of Oregon before returning to Humboldt County, where she worked at various local architecture firms before landing her current job as director of planning, design and construction at Cal Poly Humboldt. 

Banducci serves on various local boards, mostly related to youth sports, such as the nonprofit Humboldt Youth Soccer League. 

She also serves on her church congregation council and has been a member of the City of Eureka’s Design Review Committee for more than a decade.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Banducci said that as a member of Coast Central, she got interested in running for the board while thinking about its potential for growth into the future.

”What excited me is things change over time,” she said. “Growth happens, and the community about to expand with all this growth and development.” Here she was referring to the expansion of Cal Poly Humboldt as well as the development of offshore wind energy facilities.

“I felt could bring a unique perspective when it comes to development and community growth,” she said. “A lot of my work is in capital projects. I would imagine that as the community grows. the credit union would expand as well.”

She echoed some of the sentiments from the “members voice” slate about bridging the divide between the credit union and its members. “Expanded mission and outreach to the community is going be important as we have people moving in from outside [the county],” she said. 

In her official candidate statement, Banducci says she considers her greatest accomplishments to be her two children and getting to raise them with her husband in this beautiful community.

“Whether I am leading a team or designing, I am hands-on and involved with the ability to solve complex problems,” the statement says. “My eye for detail will bring a unique perspective to the board and the credit union.”

Valadao | Submitted

Dane Valadao is a partner and chief operating officer for local mortgage lender ReProp Financial. Reached by phone on Tuesday, Valadao said he’s a longtime member of Coast Central.

“They’ve done a lot for me and my family, banking-wise and financing wise,” he said.

Asked about his background and reasons for running, Valadao volunteered to send along his candidate statement, which outlines his higher education, from a soccer scholarship to Humboldt State University through a transfer to Louisiana State University, where he earned his undergraduate degree in business and later an MBA with an emphasis on financing.

“I have a background in real estate and development and profound understanding in financing those activities,” his statement says. “I live in McKinleyville with my wife and three children (soon to be four). I have volunteered on boards, coaching youth sports, and am currently in my second term on the Board of Directors for the Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce and the current Treasurer.”

The incumbents

Walsh | Submitted

Kelly Walsh, an attorney with the Eureka firm of Matthews, Kluck, Walsh, Wykle and Latt, has been a Coast Central member for 30 years and a member of its board of directors for the past 13.

In a brief phone interview and follow-up emails, Walsh took issue with some of the statements being made in this campaign by the “members voice” slate. In particular, he objected to the statement on their website that elections have not been happening at Coast Central.

The website goes on to say, “This January’s election will be the first in nine years and is only happening now because Rees, James and Maricela forced the issue by petitioning the membership directly to get on the ballot.”

“That is completely and utterly false,” Walsh said in a phone conversation late last week. “There’s an election of the board of directors every single year.”

He attributed the relative dearth of challengers over the past decade to “good board policies and very good management and staff,” adding that his time on the board has been enjoyable and he’s grateful for such a dedicated staff and board.

“Experience matters,” he said. “During the time I’ve been on the board Coast Central went from about $900 million in assets to over $2 billion in assets.”

He later noted in an email that for 2022, the board of directors approved $436,000 in grants to local projects, scholarships to local high school graduates and sponsorships of various local organizations.

“For 2023, the Board has approved $650,000 for such charitable causes, much of the increase resulting from the Board’s approval of a new Charitable Donations Account which is intended as the underpinning of a charitable foundation fund,” he continued. “Coast Central also funds many local projects, such as the Gene Lucas Community Center and McLean Campus in Fortuna.”

In our interview he said the board has a duty to keep the credit union financially sound. 

“From the revenues we generate, we use that money to fund higher savings rates for our members [compared to] the competition,” he said. “During the recent historically low period for interest rates, our savings rates were significantly higher than other institutions.” Because Coast Central is not profit driven, he said, assets can be returned to members in the form of better rates. 

In his follow-up email, Walsh again took aim at some of the messaging from the “members voice” slate.

“Contrary to some contentions by others,” he wrote, “Coast Central does have a specific job description for the Board of Directors, funds numerous community projects and we actively maintain numerous methods for members to communicate their praise or concerns, including twice-a-year member surveys, comment cards, correspondence, contact information on our website, via phone and via our mobile banking app. It is not by happenstance that member satisfaction is over 94%.” 

He also noted that the current board established a pilot program that provides safe and regulated banking services for 276 members involved in the cannabis businesses. Banking has been a major challenge for people involved in the nascent legal industry, forcing many to risk carrying large sums of cash.

His email touted Coast Central’s accomplishments during his tenure on the board, noting that the credit union successfully navigated through the Great Recession and the COVID pandemic.

“This success has allowed Coast Central to provide our members excellent savings rates (ours are triple the national average) and loan rates (our mortgage rates are the lowest in our market), fund numerous local projects, business ventures, home and auto loans, and make generous charitable contributions every year (during my tenure on the board, charitable contributions to the community have tripled). 

Fellow incumbent John Gladding did not respond to a request for comment. His ballot statement notes that he’s a veteran of the U.S. Navy and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and his MBA from Humboldt State University.

Gladding has worked as an accountant and business loan officer, and for nine years he was the executive director of the Humboldt County chapter of the American Red Cross, where he still volunteers.

“I have always been impressed by the high level of service from all Coast Central Credit Union employees and by its steady and responsible growth,” he says in his statement. “As a reelected board member, I will ensure that the credit union will continue its success and be efficiently run so we can keep loan rates as low as possible and savings rates as high as possible.”

Gladding says he has the training and experience necessary to help accomplish those goals, and he attributes Coast Central’s “stable growth and high standing with regulators” to the success of its management teams.

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Many Coast Central members have already received their ballots. They have until the end of the month to fill them out by voting for their three chosen candidates and mail them back to the Minnesota-based accounting firm of CliftonLarsonAllen. To be counted, ballots must be received by Tuesday, Jan. 31.

Election results will be announced at the next annual member meeting, which is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. at Coast Central’s Harrison Avenue branch in Eureka.

Live power outage map.

The winds are rising, and they’re gonna be with us for at least the next couple of days. The second wave of the great turn-of-the-year atmospheric river is upon us, and by all accounts it looks to be even more impactful than last week’s. (Though apparently the Bay Area is getting the worst of it.)

As of this writing, power is out in much of McKinleyville, Fieldbrook and Orick in the north; in Orleans and Hoopa and Willow Creek and Salyer in the east; and in Ferndale, Hydesville and Myers Flat/Weott in the south. Also, of course, in numerous other places around the county. Eureka, Arcata and Fortuna seem to be holding on as of this writing.

Follow PG&E updates at this link.

Road conditions are likewise chaotic. Our CHPWatch dispatch tracker has racked up an an astounding 28 incidents in the past hour, including a tree across the roadway on McKinleyville’s Central Avenue near the intersection with Bella Vista. The road’s closed at this moment. 

Follow CHP updates at this link.

The good news is that the highways seem to be still open at this moment, but goddamn — please avoid driving anywhere if you can at all avoid it. This is real batten-down-the-hatches time. These biggest of the big winds are expected last until tomorrow morning, at which point it should ease up a little bit, according to the National Weather Service forecast.

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A dozen years after the 6.5 magnitude earthquake of 2010 knocked it off its foundation, a vacant house on the 2100 block of Eureka’s California Street erupted in flames shortly before dawn Wednesday.

As neighbors gathered to watch, Humboldt Bay Fire responded and managed to extinguish the blaze before it burned down the whole structure or spread to neighboring homes. 

Officials on the scene said the cause of the fire is not yet known. We’ll update this post as more information comes in.

Our dad, Richard (Dick) Marlin Jackson, joined his ancestors on the other side on December 13, 2022, at home. He was born on June 23, 1937 at the Klamath Agency Indian Health Service Hospital. He was the first born and only son of Jeanette Clara Jackson and Walter Luther Bailey of Blue Lake. Jeanette passed away much too young when he was three, the year after having Jeanette and Walter’s second child Sonya Dearest.

Richard and his sister Sonya were raised by their grandparents (“Mom” and “Dad”) Clara Maude (Bussell) Jackson and Boyd Julius Jackson, Sr. with their big family, near Blue Lake. He was a member of the Klamath Tribes and proud of his Modoc and Hupa (Tsungwe/Whilkut) ancestry, attending tribal gatherings when he was able to. As a child and young adult, he spent summers on the Klamath reservation, in Oregon. He attended Glendale School and Arcata High School. In 7th and 8th grades sometimes Richard would be called on to serve as the bus driver when the teacher at Glendale School was too nervous to drive some Humboldt County roads.

Dad met his sweetheart, and the mother of his children, Sharon Kay Coffelt, in Arcata in 1959. The two married in 1960 and began their family the next year, having their first-born son Richard Marlon in 1961. Then two more sons were born two years apart — Kevin Leroy and Damon Garrett. Ten years after their first, they had their daughter, Elizabeth Jeanette.

Dad had an amazing, full and colorful life. While he was a working man, beginning his career in the timber industry as a teenager and working as a Logging Truck Driver until he was 79, he also found time to bowl semi-professionally, race cars at Redwood Acres, and race motorcycles with his boys at various tracks around the area. He was an avid runner in his 40s and 50s, often running long distances and racing in numerous local races. He also took flying lessons for a short time and practiced the martial art of Aikido in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Dad lived his entire life in Humboldt County, but was so happy when he built his home on the land he was raised on near Blue Lake and lived the last 20 years of his life there, close to family.

Richard was preceded in death by his parents Jeanette Clara Jackson and Walter Luther Bailey, grandparents Clara Maude Jackson and Boyd Julius Jackson, Sr., their children who were his brothers and sisters, and his wife Sharon Kay (Coffelt) Jackson. He is survived by his sister Sonya Dearest Lipscomb, his children Richard Marlon Jackson (Sonnie), Kevin Leroy Jackson (Sharon), Damon Garrett Jackson (Yvonne), and Elizabeth Jeanette Jackson and his grandchildren Jamayca May Jackson, Devin Walter Herrera, and Tsasgips (Tas) Loujean Herrera, as well as many cousins, nieces, and nephews.

Richard was a kind and generous spirit and will be missed by all who had the good fortune to know him. The family apologizes for anyone who was left out, as Dad had many good friends and relatives who were all very special to him.

A celebration of life will be held in the spring. Contact the family for more information.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Richard Jackson’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Phillip Earl Leavitt
Nov. 19, 1946 - Dec. 29, 2022

Phillip Earl Leavitt was born on November 19, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois to Nathan and Gertrude Leavitt. His family eventually moved to Gardena, Calif., where he attended grade school, Gardena High School and furthered his education at UCLA, where he majored inmMathematics. He was an outstanding scholar and was a member of the Mensa Society. He had a love and passion for math and science.

Over the years here he had many jobs but the one he enjoyed the most was working for a patent lawyer, where he would study and analyze patents day in and day out. Phil moved to Laguna Beach in the early 1970s, and this is where he met his soon-to-be wife Gail. They decided to move to an area less populated and both fell in love with beautiful Northern California. Carlotta became their home for over 40 years. He left for a short period of time to further his education at UC Berkeley in topology.

After coming back to Carlotta, Phillip and Gail wanted to start a family. This was Phillip’s biggest dream. In November of 1988 his first dream finally came true and they welcomed a baby boy, Nathan Samuel Lloyd Leavitt. Phillip was the best father a son could ever have. They played basketball, hiked, picked four-leaf clovers, went to hundreds of Sacramento Kings games together and went on many vacations together. His absolute favorite vacation was going to Trinity Lake every year and renting a houseboat.

In 2002 Phil and Gail opened a family business in Fortuna — Eel River Hydroponics — and Phil also started a fertilizer manufacturing company, Emerald Triangle/Humboldt County’s Own Products. The manufacturing company was where he got to put his love for math and science mixed with his patent research experience together to create some of the most unique liquid fertilizers the world has ever seen.

Phillip was also an active member in the Carlotta community. He served as the Chairman of the Community Service Board from 1998 to 2005. He played an instrumental role in the reform and reorganization of the Carlotta Volunteer Fire Department. His efforts helped turn the Carlotta Volunteer Fire Department into one of the very best volunteer fire departments in the dtate. He was also an active member in the Eureka Elks Lodge as well as the Ingomar Club.

A deep friendship enabled a peaceful divorce for Phillip in 2011. He met his partner Dawnda in 2016. They went on to have a relationship of countless fun times and endless laughter. They loved traveling the US and checking out new places together. Dawnda and Phil loved the idea of a big park-like garden so they could watch hummingbirds and other animals come visit. After countless hours of hard work that vision came to life at their home in Fortuna. They were looking forward to their future together and were dreaming of growing old together.

Phil always wished to have a big piece of property next to his son so that his grandkids could run over to visit him whenever they wanted to, and in early 2019 that wish came true and Phil and Nathan purchased their dream property together. The bond between father and son continued on to this day. Where they enjoyed drinking rare whiskies, watching Kings games, hanging out on the houseboat and running their business together. In September of 2020 Phil’s final family dream came true when his granddaughter Raylee Jane Leavitt was born. His heart absolutely melted the first time he got to hold her and you could see the love he had for her instantly. Phil would say time and time again how proud he was of his son and how perfect his little family was.

Phillip is survived by his partner Dawnda Berry, previous wife and mother of his son, Gail Leavitt; his beloved son, Nathan; his wife Jessica Leavitt (Castanos); granddaughter Raylee; siblings Richard Leavitt, Scott Leavitt (wife Janet), and Jennifer Tarling (husband Arnold); niece Alexis Fedor (Leavitt) and family.

He is preceded in death by his father, Nathan Leavitt, mother, Gertrude Leavitt and nephew, Travis Leavitt.

Phil’s celebration of life will be held on Saturday January 7, 2023 at the Fortuna Veterans Memorial Building at 2 p.m. Please come in casual attire or your best “Phil Casual” Tommy Bahama shirt!

In remembrance or in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Smile Train in the honor of Phillip Earl Leavitt.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Phillip Leavitt’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.