Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Sept. 19, 2022, at about 1:12 a.m., a Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputy on patrol in the Fernbridge area observed a vehicle that had been reported stolen out of Eureka.

The deputy conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle on the 200 block of Fernbridge Drive. The driver of the vehicle, 40-year-old Melvin Dwayne Matthews was taken into custody without incident. A female passenger was detained and released at the scene.   

Matthews was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of possession of a stolen vehicle (PC 496(d)a) and violation of probation (PC 1203.2(a)).

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

The Eureka Police Department is currently investigating gunfire that struck a residence last night on the 300 block of Dollison Street, across the street from St. Bernard’s Academy.

According to EPD spokesperson Brittany Powell, at around 8:45 p.m. yesterday several people in the neighborhood reported hearing numerous shots fired, followed by a vehicle speeding away.

When officers responded, they discovered that shell casings on the ground, and noticed evidence that a house on the 300 block of Dollison had been hit. No one inside the home answered the door, so officers made entry and discovered the building unoccupied, with no evidence of anyone having been wounded.

Powell said that the police department is still actively investigating the incident this morning. Anyone with any additional information is asked to call officer Tanner Duke at 707-441-4060.

‘A last-minute bill that sailed through the Legislature may leave Cal State University on the hook for nearly $900 million in new costs over the next decade — possibly forcing it to raise tuition for only the second time in more than a decade.

That “may” assumes lawmakers allot no new increases in university funding. Gov. Gavin Newsom has actually proposed giving the system more than a billion dollars in extra state support through spring of 2027, but there’s no guarantee that will happen. What would be guaranteed by this bill is the extra expense.

Now Newsom is faced with a choice: sign Senate Bill 410 that would raise the wages of Cal State’s relatively underpaid non-academic staff and ensure the system receives its promised infusion of state cash, or veto it, angering 30,000 unionized employees in a state where labor groups have considerable political sway.

Adding to the intrigue is that Democratic lawmakers approved the legislation knowing Cal State would likely have to cut services or raise tuition barring extra state funding.

“Yes, we don’t want to see students suffer, but what message are we sending to students that you get to come and get this education on the backs of these workers,” said bill author Connie Leyva, an outgoing Senate Democrat from Chino who wrote the bill. “That’s not a good life lesson.”

Cal State opposes the bill, arguing the system needs more money first. The system would need to shutter 6,300 classes — affecting 19,000 students — to afford the first year of the salary increases, said Jolene Koester, Cal State’s interim chancellor, at last week’s Board of Trustees meeting.

“We do not oppose giving staff the salary that they deserve to have,” she said then. “We do oppose being directed to take it from current funds.”

Newsom has until Sept. 30 to decide the bill’s fate.

The bill in detail

Cal State’s staff — the maintenance, office and groundskeeping workers who keep the system’s buildings and operations humming — earn 12% less on average than similar workers at both universities and the broader workforce, according to a 2022 study lawmakers funded.

Leyva’s bill, which higher-education staff unions support, would implement the recommendations of that study and introduce a series of raises over 15 years based on good performance. Employees would earn raises of 5% annually for the first five years, then every two years, and another 5% raise in their fifteenth year of employment.

Cal State is the only state agency in California without salary steps, Leyva told lawmakers. These steps would kick in at the start of 2023; Leyva rejected a suggestion by another lawmaker to delay the start date by a year.

“We don’t want to see students suffer, but what message are we sending to students that you get to come and get this education on the backs of these workers.”
— State Sen. Connie Leyva, Democrat from Chino

Unlike most bills that move through the Legislature over a period of months, Leyva’s salary increase proposal debuted only two weeks before the deadline for bills to pass.

Cal State officials told its Board of Trustees at last week’s meeting that the bill as law would cost $287 million initially and build toward $878 million after 10 years.

After two years of no raises, the largest staff employees got a 7% raise this June, paid for in part by pulling money away from student graduation initiatives, but that’s still short of the recommendations called for in the staff study.

How short is tough to calculate because “it’s not like every person is exactly 12% below” the market rate, said Andrew Heller, research analyst at the 15,000-member California State University Employees Union, during an interview in July. The April study found that the Cal State system paid some employee groups 20% below the market median pay; other groups were on par with what other workers earned.

Can Cal State afford this?

Newsom’s funding compact with Cal State promises annual 5% increases in state support through 2026-27, totaling more than $1 billion in new state support. That’s more money coming in than what Leyva’s bill will cost Cal State after five years.

By one measure, the system should be able to absorb the bill’s costs and still have funds left over for other commitments, such as more dollars for faculty salaries. The bill would cost the system roughly $50 million annually on top of the $287 in initial costs, according to Ryan Storm, assistant vice chancellor for budget at Cal State. The system is preparing a similar study on faculty, who are also underpaid, said Jack McGrory, a Cal State trustee.

But a promise isn’t a guarantee, said Storm in an interview. “While there’s a commitment by the governor to propose additional funding that’s in excess of a billion dollars, there’s no guarantee of it either, but there would be a guarantee of costs if this bill would pass.”

If Newsom signs the staff salary bill, the Cal State system must pay workers the higher wages with existing funds. It’s a fixed cost no matter the system’s fiscal situation or the condition of the state’s economy.

Past higher-education compacts in California have fallen short of their goals, the Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote this year. “Former governors rarely (have) been able to sustain their compacts over time,” the analyst’s office report said. “In some cases, changing economic and fiscal conditions in the state have led governors to suspend their compacts.”

“While there’s a commitment by the governor to propose additional funding … there’s no guarantee of it either, but there would be a guarantee of costs if this bill would pass.”
— Ryan Storm, assistant vice chancellor for budget at California State University

Indeed, fears of a recession are an increasing worry in Sacramento and nationally. A slowdown in the economy would mean less revenue for the state’s coffers — and likely less support for Cal State. Early in the pandemic, Cal State endured a cut of $299 million just a few months after Newsom signaled it would receive a boost of $199 million dollars — a promise of 5% growth that never was.

The system funds its education mission with $4.6 billion from state support and $3.1 billion from tuition. Both lawmakers and the governor need to approve how much the state sends the university.

An August bill analysis by legislative staff warned that “it is likely that (Cal State) could increase tuition” to cover the costs of this bill. If that were to happen, most low-income students wouldn’t pay more because the state’s Cal Grant that waives tuition fees would automatically cover the increase. Middle-class students would see a tuition spike, but a new state grant would likely soften the blow and in some cases cover the difference.

Historic underfunding

Before voting to pass the staff salary bill at a committee hearing last month, Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel of Van Nuys said blame should go to lawmakers, “who have chronically underfunded public higher education in the state of California.”

While state support for Cal State has been growing, the share of state general fund dollars flowing to higher education has been shrinking. In the late 1970s about 18% of the state general fund paid for higher education; more recently, just about a tenth of the general fund covers higher education.

“We’ve forced the university into difficult decisions where it’s seeking to balance its budget on the backs of workers, which is totally inappropriate,” Gabriel added.

Cal State’s Board of Trustees hopes Gabriel can rally his peers to marshal more dollars for the system. Last week the trustees voted to approve a budget request of $530 million in new ongoing funding — well above the $227 million Newsom will ask lawmakers to green light next year.

However the budgeting math shakes out, Cal State’s 500,000 students are urging the people in charge to not forget about them.

“Raising tuition or cutting essential student support services is an unacceptable way to fund” Leyva’s bill, the Cal State Student Association wrote to lawmakers. The students asked Cal State, unions and lawmakers to “identify a funding stream that will do no harm.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

UPDATE: Mr. Boisvert has been found, and is safe, the EPD says.

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

The Eureka Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in locating 59-year- old missing male, Pierre Boisvert. Pierre wandered out of his hotel room located on the 1900 block of 4th Street in Eureka on September 17, 2022 sometime after 10:30 p.m. Pierre is a dependent adult and has multiple conditions that require medication and assistance from others.

Pierre is a white male, 59 years old, 5’7”, 220 lbs, brown eyes, and brownish gray shoulder length hair possibly in a pony tail. He was last seen wearing a blue sweatshirt and blue sweatpants.

The Eureka Police Department, Humboldt Bay Fire, Coast Guard, and hotel staff spent the night searching but have been unable to locate Pierre. A Silver Alert has been issued and the Eureka Police Department and Humboldt Bay Fire will be coordinating further search efforts. Anyone with information regarding Pierre’s possible whereabouts is asked to contact the Eureka Police Department at (707) 441-4044.

In last week’s rant (hydrogen vs. methane vs. kerosene for rocket fuel), I ended asking, Why go to the moon, anyway? This week: why we shouldn’t (although we are…). First, a couple of numbers:

Between 1969 and 1972, starting more or less from scratch, NASA put 12 men, in six separate missions, on the moon for about $300 billion in today’s dollars. Fifty years on, the Artemis program will likely have cost around $100 billion by the time two more people (including, gasp!, a woman) on the moon in 2026. Or 2027. Or… That’s using technology, materials and systems developed during and since Apollo, including four actual RS-25 rocket motors once used on the space shuttle. (FWIW: Estimated cost of eliminating malaria worldwide thru 2020: $9 billion.)

And for what? We’ve been there, done that, all that’s new is NASA’s novel rationalizations for going back. In the 1960s, it was all about beating the Russians — the space race was reason enough to pour money and resources into the Apollo program, which Nixon ended prematurely to help finance the war in Vietnam. Like the space shuttle and the International Space Station, our return to the moon is a means in search of an end.

The new “official” rationalizations are:

1. to extract water from permanently-shadowed craters at the moon’s poles, electrolyzing it into oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel and for energy production from fuel cells;
2. to mine for rare-earth minerals as resources run out here on Earth;
3. to explore the moon for the knowledge it will give scientists about the formation of Earth and the rest of the solar system;
4. to test and develop techniques and equipment to go farther, in particular, to Mars;
5. to justify the billions already spent on heavy-lift rockets at taxpayers’ expense

Regarding (1), the resources required to extract water from rock on the moon (at minus 230 degrees Celsius), and to build a vast solar array to process it into H2 and O2 (which will require elaborate storage facilities) are nearly beyond imagination, certainly something decades and billions of dollars away. Ditto (2) — you don’t just send Caterpillars and extraction plants to the moon and wait for deliveries of cobalt and iridium and nickel to magically appear from the skies. (3) Can be done, is being done, remotely. (4) The moon is a poor analogy for Mars. Actually, Earth—its sister planet three billion years ago—is a better analogy. And technologies developed and refined on the ISS (space station) are much more applicable to journeying to Mars than anything that could be achieved on the lunar surface. (5) Sunk cost fallacy.

The real reasons are:

1. to satisfy politicians and constituents who benefit from NASA’s contracts, in particular those in Florida, Texas and Alabama;
2. to keep one step head of China’s ambitions for the moon. China recently landed three robotic missions on the moon and, quoting NASA administrator Bill Nelson, “We have to be concerned that they would say, ‘This is our exclusive zone.’”

Here’s the ever-passionate Bob Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, on the topic.

Meanwhile, it’s easy to come up with reasons not to go back to the moon, including:

1. Microgravity: 18% that of Earth (vs. Mars’ 38%);
2. Radiation — a separate column in itself. Trust me, this is a big deal;
3. Dust.

You don’t hear much about moon dust, but it’s probably the biggest problem we’re going to encounter there. Here’s Gene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, the last moon mission: “…dust is probably one of our greatest inhibitors to a nominal operation on the moon. I think we can overcome other physiological or physical or mechanical problems except dust.”

For billions of years, the moon has been bombarded by micrometeorites, resulting in a three-foot thick layer (the regolith) of fine-grained particles, invisible to the human eye. Lacking natural weathering, these sharp and jagged particles penetrated Apollo astronauts’ three-layer spacesuits, scratched their visors and got into the LEM’s computers and mechanical mechanisms — that was in just three days. Lunar dust is 50% silicon dioxide, the same stuff that causes silicosis in the lungs of miners and stonemasons.

(For a competing — read, wrong — POV, read this.)

So yeah, dust. Skip the moon. If we’re going to go anywhere, let’s go to Mars.

Depending on where you are in Humboldt, you might have already had some drizzle this Saturday afternoon and the wet weather is predicted to continue  for the rest of the weekend, possibly through Tuesday. 

“Are you ready for rain this weekend?” The National Weather Service tweeted on Saturday morning. “Rainfall totals from Saturday afternoon thru Tuesday morning are forecast to range from around a tenth of an inch in N Del Norte County to nearly 2” in Lake County. Ukiah is over 17” below normal for the year!”

So basically the wetness level will vary, depending on where you are and generally will increase the farther south you go. Currently Eureka is predicted to see about .44 inches, Fortuna will see around .68 inches and Garberville is looking at 1.04 inches over the next couple of days. 

This is good news for a dry year. So bundle up and enjoy it!

Are you ready for rain this weekend? Rainfall totals from Saturday afternoon thru Tuesday morning are forecast to range from around a tenth of an inch in N Del Norte County to nearly 2” in Lake County. Ukiah is over 17” below normal for the year! #CAwx pic.twitter.com/SLqAmbOvml

— NWS Eureka (@NWSEureka) September 17, 2022

Gregory Frank Acorn (Greg, Corndog, Corn, Acorn) of Blue Lake, passed away September 4, 2022 after yet another courageous battle 30 years after his original spinal cord injury.

Born and raised in Blue Lake, Greg spent 20+ years in Steamboat Springs, Colo. before moving back to California, where he spent the last 25 years.

Greg’s love of being outdoors began at a young age fishing in Blue Lake with his grandfather Ira Acorn and shooting and hunting with Lee Iorg, a lifelong friend, and playing, swimming and water skiing in the rivers and lakes. His love of being active and outside continued in football and hang gliding. In Colorado he pursued snow skiing (downhill and telemark), snow boarding, rafting, jet skiing, camping, hunting both rifle and bow (deer and elk mostly), playing rugby and flying an ultralight. But when Greg found rugby he found a game he both enjoyed playing and watching and lifelong friends he loved and cherished.

Even when Greg could no longer participate in any of these sports his favorite place was always outdoors. Since he had elk and deer that frequent the property he was able to watch them and listen in the fall to the elk bugling and herding the girls around. He loved to see the bulls battle. He loved going to old car shows and the local casinos with his cousin Kevin. Most often he could be found in his garage puttering around on his ‘51 Chevy truck. Of course he had to watch the San Francisco Giants and 49ers. Anyone who knew Greg knew his love of dogs. He always had a dog(s).

Anyone who was privileged to be Greg’s friend knew they had a friend for life. He loved people and as he would say when he would call, ‘just bugging you. Brother Bill would say of Greg ‘he never met a stranger. Even in the hospital he was still making friends. As we know all of us had an extra 30 years with Greg on this earth.

Greg was proceeded in death by parents Eleanor and Robert, brother Raymond and cousin Bill. Survived by wife Audrey (and dog Ira); brother Bill (Lori); Nieces Raelyn and Dawn (Scott) and their children and grandchildren; Nephews Robert (Sarah) and Michael (Courtney) and their children; Aunts Sister Rosemarie, Lyn (Bob) and Nedra (Marty) and their children and grandchildren; Uncle Lonnie (Bonnie) and their children and grandchildren; cousins Bill’s wife Kathy, Jeannie, Ronie (Blue), Louie and Kevin (Toni) and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.