Press release from the Six River Lightning Complex Management Team:

INCIDENT INFORMATION

Unified Command: Six Rivers National Forest, CAL FIRE, California Highway Patrol, Trinity County Sheriff and Humboldt County Sheriff.

CURRENT CONDITIONS

The Lightning Complex Fire is currently 13,968 acres with 0% containment. There are 1,400 personnel assigned to the incident. USFS, CIIMT 11 and CAL FIRE continue to work together in order to create a single unified operational plan for firefighters to collectively fight fire and support the communities impacted.

Overnight in the area west of the Bremer Fire burning within the Lightning Complex, firefighters performed firing operations off dozer and handlines to remove fuels to protect homes. Crews will continue to monitor and patrol the fire to look for threats to control lines. If the visibility permits, aviation crews will assist ground firefighters with water drops.

On the northwest side of the Waterman Fire burning within the Lightning Complex, crews had a successful firing operations near the Four Road which held overnight without any challenges. To the north of this fire, resources were able to improve the dozer and handlines towards Horse Linto Creek and will continue to work in this area today. There was another firing operation on the far southeast side which was successful in removing fuels. Fire crews will continue to work in this
area. Firefighters will be concentrating on securing the communities near Salyer Loop and Salyer Heights.

On the Campbell Fire burning within the Lightning Complex, resources continue to prep Waterman Road/The Four Road and make a turn towards Zigler Point and toward the community of Trinity. Crews did firing operations in this area that held well without challenges. To the southeastern edge of this fire, dozers put in line above Trinity Village. There were some challenges with spot fires, however fire crews were able to get these spots and bring them back into the main body of the fire. Nightshift crews were able to improve the lines that were made around spot fires and feel confident about those holding up.

On the west side of the Ammon Fire burning within the Lightning Complex, crews are scouting routes for dozer line that will be put in today. In the southeast corner, prep work continues with no current challenges to the line. Along Ammon Ridge prep work was completed yesterday and firefighters will continue to improve the line without any expected challenges in this area.

To the west side of this fire along Friday Ridge Road progress is slow as there are very thick fuels in this area. Dozer and handlines have been started on the northwest side of this fire and firefighters will continue to work in this area to connect to dozer line that has been put in from the northeast.

Overnight humidity recovery was moderate with values from 40-60% which was much drier than previous nights. Gradual warming and drying in the coming days means the fuels will be more susceptible to burning. The fire will be more active as the inversion lifts. Air operations will be limited due to poor visibility from the inversion layer. This will impact northern areas of the Lightning Complex.

Strategic objectives are to keep the fire north of Ammon Ridge Road, south of Lone Pine Ridge Road, east of the FS-1 road and west of the boundary with the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

EVACUATIONS

** NEW ORDER ISSUED FOR HUM-E032-B, northeast of Willow Creek. Zone description: HUM-E032-B north of Forest Route 7n02. South of Horse Linto Creek Road. East of Horse Linto Creek Road. West of Forest Route 7n10.

The fire threatens communities along the Trinity River. Five main fires burn North and South of Highway 299. Primary areas of focus are the communities along the 299 corridor, Waterman Ridge, Friday Ridge Road, and Ammon Ridge. Evacuations continue around Willow Creek, Friday Ridge, Salyer and Trinity Village. Additional fire growth could impact communities and residences along the Route 1 road.

To find the latest evacuation information go to Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services or Trinity County Office of Emergency Services . For an interactive map of evacuation zones visit this link. To sign up for alerts, visit this link.

If you are under an evacuation warning, take the necessary steps to be ready to leave.

EVACUATION CENTER

Trinity Valley Elementary School
730 Highway 96, Willow Creek, CA 95573

ANIMAL EVACUATION CENTER

Hoopa Rodeo Grounds
1767 Pine Creek Rd., Hoopa, CA 95546
Phone: (707) 492-2851

** The Hoopa Rodeo Grounds has several single pens and larger pens for whole herds. Call directly if you need directions or help transporting your large animals. They cannot house sheep, goats, poultry, or small animals, but they can potentially help arrange for temporary foster placement. If you can foster, please reach out regarding your availability and capacity.

ROAD CLOSURES

State Route 299, State Route 96, and Route 1 remain open to through traffic. Residents are encouraged to visit http://quickmap.dot.ca.gov/ to check for state highway closures.

The following roads into evacuation zones have been closed. Residents may still use these roads to travel out of evacuation order zones:

• Horse Linto Creek Road at Saddle Lane
• Country Club Road at Kimtu Bridge
• Friday Ridge Road at Hwy 299

SMOKE

Heavy smoke and strong inversions continue to affect the health of those who are not yet evacuated. Please check https://www.ncuaqmd.org for air quality resources.

Six Rivers Lightning Complex Fire Information
707-356-9442
Monday-Sunday 8:00am-8:00pm

Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services release: 

People at high risk of monkeypox will have the opportunity to start getting vaccinated right away after the Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) Public Health Branch received 100 doses of the Jynneos vaccine earlier this week. 

Prior to this allotment, Public Health received 20 monkeypox vaccines earlier in the month, with a quarter of them earmarked for staff in Humboldt and Del Norte counties who will be in charge of vaccinating community members.

Due to the shortage of vaccines, on Tuesday the Federal Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization which allows health care providers to administer one-fifth of a dose of the Jynneos vaccine intradermally under the top layer of a person’s skin rather than into the subcutaneous tissue, which is the deepest layer of the skin, as it has been done previously. In studies, using a smaller dose intradermally has been shown to give protection that is very close to what you get from a larger, subcutaneous dose. This decision effectively multiplies the county’s allotment. 

Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Candy Stockton said this is great news. “With this new guidance, Humboldt County went from having just over 100 doses of monkeypox vaccine available to having more than 500. This means we can make the vaccine available to the members in our community who are at highest risk instead of waiting and responding only to outbreaks.” 

Dr. Stockton said Public Health is working with local health care providers to help identify patients who fall into the highest risk category and scheduling them to be vaccinated. Community members who fall into the highest risk category can also reach out to their providers to get a vaccine scheduled.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies people who fall into the highest risk category as gay, bisexual and other men (including cisgender and transgender men) who have sex with men or transgender women, who meet at least one of the following criteria: 

Have been diagnosed with a bacterial sexually transmitted disease (e.g., chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis) in the past three months, or 

Have engaged in chemsex (using specific drugs before or during sex) or group sex with other men in the past seven days, or

Have had sex in the past seven days with anonymous male partners, or

Have attended sex-on-premises venues (e.g., saunas, bathhouses, sex clubs) in the past seven days, or

Have engaged in survival and/or transactional sex in the past three months. 

Additionally, people among the above-mentioned groups who are living with HIV or other conditions that cause them to be immunocompromised should be prioritized for vaccination. 
Currently, there has been one confirmed case of monkeypox in Humboldt County. 

Monkeypox is a viral infection which is spread through close personal contact, including skin-to-skin contact, kissing and sex. Symptoms of monkeypox include:

• Fever 
• Headache 
• Muscle aches and backaches 
• Swollen lymph nodes 
• Chills 
• Exhaustion 
• Sore throat, nasal congestion or cough. 

It may also include a rash located on or near the genitals or anus, as well as other areas such as the hands, feet, chest, face or mouth. The rash can look like pimples or blisters and may be painful or itchy. The rash will typically go through several stages including scabs before healing, according to the CDC. 

Testing for monkeypox must be ordered by a health care provider and includes taking a sample from an existing lesion.  

Monkeypox is a rare zoonotic infection caused by the monkeypox virus, which is in the same family as smallpox but less severe. The monkeypox virus is spread to humans from infected humans, animals and materials contaminated with the virus. The current outbreak has impacted mostly gay and bisexual men and men who have sex with men. Although the risk to the general U.S. population is low, the following tips can help keep you safe:

• Practice good hand hygiene
• Always talk to your intimate partner/s about recent illness, and be aware of new or unexplained sores or rashes on your body or your partner’s body, including on the mouth, genitals, anus and hands
• Avoid intimate contact, including sex, with people who have symptoms like sores or rashes
• Avoid contact with infected animals and materials containing the virus
• Use appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) like a mask, gown and gloves when caring for people with symptoms
• Infected people should isolate until their symptoms, including rash, have gone away completely.
  

In addition to the vaccines, Public Health has more than 400 doses of an antiviral medication which would be made available for people with severe complications.

Additionally, people at high risk for severe monkeypox who are immunocompromised, 8 years old or younger, pregnant or breastfeeding or have a history of skin disease may also be eligible for the medication. 

While monkeypox is endemic to many Central and West African countries, there have been recent cases of monkeypox reported in non-endemic countries, including the U.S., Canada and the U.K., as well as other parts of Europe and Australia. 

To date, there are more than 10,750 cases of monkeypox in the country, including nearly 1,900 cases in California. If you are experiencing symptoms, have been in contact with an individual who has tested positive for monkeypox or fall into the high-risk category, please contact your health care provider. If you do not have a provider, call Public Health at 707-445-6201. 

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On most days, California lawmakers deliberate, debate and decide bills out in public for every Californian to see.

Yesterday was not one of those days.

In simultaneous marathon hearings, the appropriations committees in the Assembly and Senate rattled through hundreds of bills in a single discharge of rapid-fire legislating. Many proposals lived to see another day. Among them: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal for new courts to compel more homeless individuals to seek mental health and substance abuse treatment, and bills to strictly limit the use of solitary confinement in California jails and prisons, allow for the composting of human remains and increase family leave payments for lower-wage workers, though it wouldn’t take effect until 2024.

But many other closely-watched bills came to an unceremonious end, killed in one of Sacramento’s most opaque lawmaking processes. They included a Republican-backed bill that would have capped copays for insulin, a California Medical Association-backed proposal making it easier for doctors to approve procedures and prescriptions without first getting permission from an insurance company, and a bill to allow prosecutors to go after social media companies for knowingly addicting children.

It’s called the suspense file. For months, the appropriations committees, tasked with assessing the fiscal impact of any bill outside the annual budget, gather any legislation with more than a negligible price tag and put it to the side. Then twice a year, after legislative leaders decide which bills live and which die behind closed doors, they announce the results in a single hearing. In most cases, no public votes are taken and no debates are held.

In theory, this arcane procedure allows lawmakers to quickly run through the hundreds of fiscal bills they need to consider by the end of the legislative session, which arrives at the end of this month. Today, the two committees ran through more than 820 bills.

In practice, it’s also a good way for Democratic lawmakers, who hold super-majority power, to kill legislation without having to take a public, and potentially politically difficult, stand. The stakes were especially high today. The legislative session ends this month and many lawmakers will either retire or be replaced before the next one begins, making this the last opportunity for some legislators to leave their mark on state policy. Politically, it’s also a tense time: the November general election is less than three months away.

Thus, bills requiring gun owners to buy liability insurance and forcing law enforcement agencies to let the public listen to police radio transmissions were also quietly killed. Who pulled the trigger? The public often has no way to know for sure. We can only count the legislation that succumbed.

In this case, more than 200 were killed, while nearly 600 stayed alive.

Here are some of the other bills that were culled — and the advocacy and interest groups that lobbied on them:

No help for diabetics

Dead for the session: A bill by Sen. Pat Bates, a San Clemente Republican, that would have capped insulin copays at $35 per prescription per month for diabetics. With insulin list prices increasing on average 15% to 17% per year since 2012, some state and federal leaders have been pressing for action with little success. A similar effort for privately insured patients was also recently abandoned in the U.S. Senate; Congress is, however, moving forward with a $35-a-month cap for Medicare patients.

“The decision by Assembly Democratic leadership to hold the bill blocked meaningful relief for millions of California residents struggling to pay for the rising cost of insulin. This was a missed opportunity for the California State Legislature to accomplish what Washington D.C. failed to do,” Bates said in a statement.

Her bill was opposed by the health insurance lobby that has long argued that copay caps do nothing to bring down the actual list price of the drug and would only shift the cost in the form of higher premiums.

Supporters said such a bill could have provided more immediate relief to patients. California has plans to manufacture and distribute its own, more affordable insulin, but that could take years. As of last week, the governor’s office said it has started a “request for information” process with drug manufacturers interested in partnering with the state. In California, 3.2 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes and many of them rely on insulin to survive.

— Ana B. Ibarra

A mixed bag for tech regulation

Amid fervent opposition from the tech industry, lawmakers killed a nationally watched bill co-authored by Republican Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham of San Luis Obispo and Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks of Oakland that would have permitted public prosecutors, such as the state attorney general and county district attorneys, to bring civil lawsuits against social media companies for deploying products or features they know will addict kids. The bill had already been amended to remove a clause that would have also allowed parents to file civil lawsuits, but that evidently wasn’t enough to overcome pushback from powerful industry players — some of whom gathered last week with influential lawmakers at a swanky Napa Valley resort.

Cunningham, who called the bill the most important of his career, pitched it as a response to a youth mental health crisis exacerbated by social media companies conducting “an unfettered social experiment on children.”

Cunningham said he was “extremely disappointed” that Senate Appropriations Committee Chairperson Anthony Portantino, a Glendale Democrat, made “the unilateral decision” to hold the bill and warned that “the bill’s death means that a handful of social media companies will be able to continue their experiment on millions of California kids, causing generational harm.”

“I believe that this idea would be overwhelmingly supported if presented directly to the voters, as it would be prohibitively expensive for social media companies to take every California voter on a Tech Caucus junket in Napa,” Cunningham added in a statement.

But tech companies countered there were better ways to address kids’ mental health than impinging on online platforms’ First Amendment rights.

“As we’ve said from the start, protecting children online is a priority but must be done responsibly and effectively,” Dylan Hoffman, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest, said in a statement. TechNet, an industry group that represents such companies as Meta (the parent of Facebook and Instagram), Apple and Google, lobbied aggressively against the bill. “We’re glad to see that this bill won’t move forward in its current form. If it had, companies would’ve been punished for simply having a platform that kids can access. It would’ve done little to improve child safety.”

Also dead: Another Cunningham bill that would have authorized a study into whether using blockchain technology could help California’s beleaguered unemployment department verify applicant identities and prevent fraud — two things it’s struggled to do amid the pandemic.

However, other closely watched bills to regulate the tech industry advanced with amendments. They would expand kids’ privacy rights online, force social media companies to be more transparent about their terms of service, allow people targeted by violent posts online to seek an order requiring social media companies to remove them, and increase oversight of the budding cryptocurrency industry.

— Emily Hoeven

Pay transparency, kind of

Lawmakers in the Assembly Appropriations Committee advanced a pay transparency bill intended to root out discrimination and pay disparities — but only after stripping out its most significant provision: To require the state to post for public view businesses’ pay data, broken down by position, race and gender.

That proposal by Sen. Monique Limón a Santa Barbara Democrat, landed SB 1162 on the California Chamber of Commerce’s “job killer” list, a designation policy advocate Ashley Hoffman said the Chamber is now prepared to remove.

Businesses with 100 or more employees are required to report the data to the state under a 2020 law, but the reports are not available for the public. The bill would have required the reports be published online for businesses with 1,000 employees or more by 2025 and 250 employees or more by 2027. The Chamber and other employer groups pushed back hard against the public reporting provision, arguing the reports are too broad to show discrimination but would be “held out to the public, whether it’s a media headline or a lawsuit … as representing something it’s not.”

Other parts of the bill, which proponents say will still help narrow the wage gap, survived. The bill would still require the companies also to report the pay data of their contractors, and require all employers with more than 15 workers to post the pay ranges for open positions and add state enforcement authority for businesses not reporting the data.

In a statement, Limón said that she was “deeply disappointed” in the amendments.

“One day California will lead on pay equity and our actions will match our aspirations,” she said. “That day is just not today.”

— Jeanne Kuang

No leeway for doctors

The doctor’s lobby took an “L” on one of its priority bills for the year. Senate Bill 250 by Sen. Richard Pan, a Sacramento Democrat, sought to ease administrative hurdles for physicians. More specifically, the bill would have required health insurance plans to exempt certain medical providers from prior authorization rules.

Prior authorization is seen as a cost-control tool that keeps doctors from providing and charging for unnecessary care. Health insurance plans must deem certain medication and procedures as “medically necessary” before a doctor can prescribe or render services.

The California Medical Association argued that reducing red tape would allow doctors to spend more time on patient care and less on paperwork — most importantly, it would help patients access the care and medications they need more quickly. A timely example: one Orange County pediatrician shared on Twitter this morning that one of his premature baby patients can’t access “life-saving medication” because he can’t get a hold of the patient’s insurer.

Health insurance plans, in opposition of the bill, argued that SB 250 could instead lead to over-prescribing and inefficient care, ultimately raising costs.

— Ana B. Ibarra

Student housing money in limbo

If lawmakers have a plan to spend $1.8 billion in loans to public colleges and universities to build student housing, the public doesn’t know about it. Held on the suspense file today was a bill that would have set the rules for a revolving loan to build student housing. It’s a strange development for a spending plan that lawmakers and the governor already approved in the state budget this year. Basically, the money is there, but the rules for spending the money are not.

Among advocacy groups, the lone registered foe of the bill is the all-powerful State Building and Construction Trades Council. The construction union knocked the bill in June for what it said were “watered down” provisions to ensure that workers who build the campus housing are part of an apprenticeship program. But other unions whose workers are key to housing development backed the bill, including the California State Association of Electrical Workers and California State Pipe Trades Council.

The bill sought $5 billion for a revolving loan fund to build campus housing for students and staff. The budget deal approved over the summer would commit a smaller amount, $1.8 billion, for that purpose starting in the 2023-24 fiscal year. Either way, the idea is that the state lends campuses money to build housing, and as they pay back the loans over time, the state replenishes its campus housing reserves to lend out additional dollars. The loan fund would add to the several billion dollars in grants lawmakers have already committed to building student housing.

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, a Democrat from Sacramento, said “we still need some further clarification on how it’s actually implemented in next year’s budget.”

What that language will look like is unknown. Portantino’s office and the leadership of the Senate and Assembly didn’t respond to emails from CalMatters seeking comment.

— Mikhail Zinshteyn

Police radios can stay silent to the public

If they’re willing to wade through the crackly radio and police patois, reporters assigned to the newsroom scanner will hear about unexplained booms, cats lost, lawn equipment missing, kitchens smoking and shots fired.

That is, unless they’re in parts of the Bay Area and Inland Empire, where some police departments and sheriff’s offices encrypt radio communications.

Sen. Josh Becker, a San Mateo Democrat, and First Amendment advocates tried to change that this year, but Senate Bill 1000 today failed to clear Assembly Appropriations.

At issue: a state Justice Department memo mandating that California police agencies submit a plan to keep identifying information such as people’s driver’s license numbers and criminal histories off police airwaves by December 2020. Some police departments ran with it, encrypting all of their communications. Others, including the California Highway Patrol, relay personal info on special channels while keeping most communications public.

The bill, while requiring unencrypted radio traffic, would have created exceptions: Officers would be urged to communicate identifying information through something other than a radio, and tactical or undercover operations communications could be encrypted.

Asked why the bill died, Becker said “I think there’s some misinformation on the cost side. This is not a cost issue. This bill would have saved money.”

The California State Sheriffs’ Association argued it would force police agencies that have already encrypted their radios to revert to their original, unencrypted transmission “at tremendous expense” — and that alternatives such as cell phones or laptops would not work in places where there’s no signal.

“We think it’s really critical for our reporters to cover not only breaking news, but also how police respond to those situations as they occur,” said Brittney Barsotti, general counsel for the California News Publishers Association, which backed the bill. (CalMatters is a member of the association.)

— Nigel Duara

A cut for carbon sequestration

Today’s suspense file saw the death of Assemblymember Cristina Garcia’s bill that calls for sequestering at least 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in California’s wildlands, parks, forests and farmland by the end of 2030 — and more by the end of 2035.

The Democrat from Downey faced steep opposition from agricultural interests, who agreed that farmland can soak up and store carbon but questioned whether the targets were feasible. Critics also questioned whether the bill might alter the state’s forest management strategies to maximize carbon storage.

Despite support from environmental groups, the bill failed to clear the suspense file. “This summer is a stern reminder that bold action is needed now, and we must use all the tools available to us, it’s literally a matter of life and death,” Garcia said in a statement.

The move could be a setback for Gov. Newsom’s climate agenda for the final days of the legislative session, which called for state policy to “support sequestering carbon through natural carbon sequestration.”

Or it could signal that there may be life yet for natural carbon sequestration in another form. There’s less than three weeks left to find out.

— Rachel Becker

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

A hundred years from now, a Cal Poly Humboldt grad student will sit down and write the history of the Lost Coast Outpost. At some point, after spending several weeks in communion with the archives, as she pulls off her vape pen and curses her choice of career, she will come to a realization.

She will realize that few decisions in LoCO history were so momentous as that time in June 2015, when the Outpost’s founding generation pulled an ambitious greenhorn straight off the scrappy streets of Burbank and set him up with an internet connection. The lightbulb will flash atop our grad student’s metaversical head. She has found her thesis topic.

Friends: The Outpost’s John Ross Ferrara, who has delighted you in these pages for the last seven years, is off to bigger and if not better then at least more lucrative things. For seven years he has reflected his light and wit back at Humboldt County, alternately amused and terrified by the things he surveyed here, and now he heads off to a cushy news gig in a very tall building in Portland, Oregon. Today is his last day.

There’s all the boring nuts and bolts stuff Ferrara has done, which we know about but you probably don’t. He single-handedly built the Outpost’s Instagram into a 32.8k-follower behemoth. He most often manned the desk on weekends, and he sieved Facebook and other garbage social media platforms for small nuggets of the human condition that would later blossom into full-flown stories. 

But the real magic of Ferrara has always been the way in which he transformed this dross into gold. His features, especially, were knowing and real and moving and funny and humane, without ever succumbing to either cheap internet cynicism on the one hand or saccharine bullshit on the other. 

You liked it too. Look at any of our end-of-the-year posts, and I bet you’ll find that at least five of the top 10 LoCO stories of the year were his. The Ferrara style will be forever be part of our DNA.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane! Scan your eyes down the headlines below. If we hire again sometime in the future — and it looks like we will! — these are the shoes you will have to fill. Good luck.

And good luck to Portland.

FERRARA’S BIGGEST OUTPOST HITS:

• Cat Miraculously Survives Fork Complex Fire, is Reunited With Owners
• Aggressive Dog Allegedly Owned by Chris Brown Found Loose in Humboldt County, Euthanized on Christmas Eve After Serious Biting Incident at Singer’s LA Home
• Hometown Heckler Who Called LeBron James a ‘Pussy-Ass Bitch’ Feels He Should be More Humble
• (UPDATING) WINDAGEDDON: Intense Winds are Causing Outages and Disorder Across the County
• Eureka Man Reportedly Attacked By 18-Foot Shark While Kayaking in Shelter Cove; Local Fishermen Rescue Him From Icy Water
• (VIDEO) Woman Tells Arcata Cashier She Looks Like an ‘Illegal Immigrant’ After She’s Asked to Cover Her Face While Inside the Store
• Guy Fieri Encounters Furries at County Fair
• Video of Redway Computer Repairman Spraying Customer in Face With Bear Mace Goes Viral
• Humboldt Gets a Shoutout in Poster for New SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Featuring Keanu Reeves
• (VIDEO) Comedian Joe Rogan Gives Humboldt a ‘Holla,’ Praises Sheriff Honsal for Refusing to Enforce Proposed Beaches Closures in Latest Podcast

BONUS DIRECTOR’S CUT DVD EXTRAS:

Ferrara tells us that the stories below are also among his favorites, in addition to the ones above. — Ed.

• Respect for the Game: A Coach’s Journey From the Arena Football Hall of Fame to Redwood Bowl
• Kortney Olson, International Entrepreneur and Humboldt Native, Bounces Back From Addiction on the Strength of Her Watermelon-Crushing Thighs
• METH, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE: How Hidden Cameras and Crooked Policing Botched One of the Biggest Busts in Del Norte History
• QUARANTINE CASTAWAY: Vacationing McKinleyville Woman Stuck in the Philippines for Months Due to COVID-19 Hopes to Fly Home Next Week
• Firefighters Wash Five-Block-Long Trail of Blood From Old Town Eureka’s Sidewalk
• TRAVEL-BANNED: One Iranian HSU Student’s Crazy Odyssey to Get Back to the States and Finish the School Year
• New Student Housing and Education Buildings, Two Parking Structures and Major Demolition Work Ahead: A Look at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Five-Year Infrastructure Plan
• Humboldt Debuts at Sundance Film Festival as a ‘Shithole Town in the Middle of Nowhere’
• (VIDEO) Artificial Intelligence Image Generator Funded By Elon Musk Transforms Eureka’s ‘Pink Lady’ Victorian Into a Work of Modern Architecture
  
• (VIDEO) They Buried That Dead Whale and Now Smelly Humpback Juice is Gurgling Up From Samoa Beach

PREVIOUSLY: (VIDEO) Fire in Duplex on Old Town’s Second Street Prompting Large Response

###

Press release from Humboldt Bay Fire:

On 8/11/2022 at 1:44 P.M. Humboldt Bay Fire was dispatched to a reported structure fire on the 800 Block of Second Street in Eureka. Three engines, a ladder truck, and Battalion Chief responded to the incident. The first arriving Humboldt Bay Fire unit found heavy fire coming from the rear porch area of a duplex apartment building.

The first unit was assigned to search the structure and rescue any remaining victims. There were multiple people who had entered the structure and had to be removed by fire personnel. Within minutes everyone was confirmed out of the structure.

While the first unit searched for victims additional units arrived, attacked the fire and ventilated the structure. The main body of fire was primarily exterior but had spread to the interior and attic areas. Fire crews had the fire controlled in 15 minutes. Crews transitioned to mop-up and investigation duties.

The investigation of the fire on Second Street was determined to be arson. The Eureka Police Department was contacted and responded to assist Humboldt Bay Fire with the fire investigation. No civilians or firefighters were injured in the fire. Damages were estimated at $25,000.

During the structure fire, a Humboldt Bay Fire unit was dispatched to an alarm sounding and report of smoke in the area on the 1300 Block of I Street. The HBF unit discovered and extinguished a cooking fire in an apartment. Humboldt Bay Fire would like to thank the Arcata Fire Protection District and Samoa Fire Protection District who responded to assist with coverage of Humboldt Bay Fire’s area. They responded to multiple medical aids while covering.

After discussing elements of the Gateway Area Plan for the better part of a year, Arcata’s Planning Commission and City Council are ready to get into the nitty-gritty. 

If you haven’t kept up with our somewhat incessant coverage of the Gateway Area Plan in the last couple of weeks, here’s a rundown: The Gateway Area Plan is a housing initiative by the City of Arcata to rezone 138 acres of underutilized land in and around the Creamery District to accommodate high-density housing in the years and decades to come. The plan will streamline future development efforts and serve as an outline of what Arcatans do and do not want built within the Gateway Plan Area.

The Arcata Planning Commission met this week to consider Responsible Growth Arcata’s request to form a Gateway Area Plan advisory group. One of the group’s members, Scott McBain, emphasized that Responsible Growth Arcata’s intent is “to help the city produce a balanced, high-quality Gateway Plan that we can be proud of in 20 years and beyond.”

McBain | Screenshot

“This advisory committee [would] mirror previous City of Arcata task forces…that have successfully improved large-scale infrastructure and planning efforts,” McBain told commissioners. “Part of the vision here is to do that again and to build community support towards a better outcome, which is why we’re all here.”

The advisory committee would be composed of seven to nine council-appointed members. The committee would work to bridge the gap between local government bodies and the public and, ideally, allow staff to focus on the city’s General Plan update.

McBain acknowledged the city’s extensive public outreach efforts surrounding the Gateway Area Plan but felt as though public feedback “is going into a black hole.”

“We would like to see more collaboration and partnership with the public in identifying solutions so we can spend our time trying to solve problems instead of coming here for every meeting [to speak] for two minutes. The net result of this is to build community trust,” he said. “The next objective is to address and recommend solutions to priority issues that have been raised.”

Commissioner Daniel Tangney said he was concerned about the potential for bias within the advisory committee, noting that many of Responsible Growth Arcata’s members already have strong views surrounding the Gateway Area Plan.

“There’s some angle already exposed here,” he said. “If Responsible Growth Arcata is crafting this in any way I feel like we’re heading towards a train wreck because some of these things that you’ve outlined [in your letter] are totally antithetical…to what the Gateway Area Plan presently proposes.”

He acknowledged that the committee “sounded really great for developing community input and trust and everything else” but maintained that there was already “a deck stacked against what has already been proposed.”

Vice-Chair Scott Davies worried that the advisory committee would be redundant.

“There are any number of committees already in the City of Arcata…all involving city volunteers, all of whom have spent time interacting with city staff already…and I’m curious, why do you feel that those individual groups reviewing the Gateway Plan are not able to bring the same process to bear that the committee you’re proposing does?” Davies asked. “How is this not going to be redundant to efforts that have already been made by all these citizens of Arcata in all of these already existing committees?”

McBain maintained that a Gateway-specific committee would allow its members to really delve into the particulars of the project and “roll up our sleeves and try to figure out how to do this.”

Commissioner Kimberley White spoke in favor of the advisory committee and said it had the potential to get more community members involved.

“Some people feel as though this is just going to slow down the process. I think rather than slowing it down, it’s actually going to speed it up,” she said. “This [plan] is going to affect Arcata forever. …If we don’t do the process correctly and we don’t have all the voices heard, we’re not going to have housing anytime in the near future. I think this is the way to move forward and a way to include all of the voices.”

Public comment was split as well. About half of the commenters agreed with White and felt a Gateway advisory committee could enhance public outreach efforts. Others felt the committee would just slow down the planning process.

The commission ultimately decided not to make a recommendation for or against the formation of an advisory committee, leaving the decision to the City Council. The City Council will likely discuss the matter during its regular Aug. 17 meeting.

Delo Freitas, senior planner for the City of Arcata, asked commissioners to mull over a few questions that will be discussed during the upcoming study session with the Arcata City Council. The study session will focus on building height, amenities and the timeline and process for the review of the draft Gateway Area Plan.

Freitas asked commissioners the following questions:

• Do we want to recommend limiting the maximum building height
• Do we want to recommend limiting the maximum building height in certain districts?
• Which amenities, if any or all, do we consider actual amenities and which, if any, do we consider “standard requirements”?
• Should we require setbacks from the sidewalk or shall we allow structures to be built right up to the sidewalk?
• Do we want to recommend maximum residential density caps?

After a bit of deliberation, Freitas reminded commissioners that the primary purpose of the discussion was to get everybody on the same page ahead of the joint study session. “Our goal is to try and understand, you know, what are the main sources of concern and areas where [staff] needs to go back and find more information to be prepared for that session.”

The commission agreed to move forward without taking a vote or offering any firm recommendations to staff. 

What’s next? Arcata’s Community Development Department will host another informational webinar surrounding the next steps in developing form-based code for the Arcata Gateway Area on Tuesday, Aug. 16 at 6 p.m. (Here’s a link to the previous webinar.) The big joint study session will take place at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 23.

Do you have strong feelings (or really any feeling at all) about the Gateway Area Plan? Tell commissioners! Tell the council! Tell Community Development Director David Loya! You can find all those email addresses at this link.

PREVIOUSLY:

• ARCATA’S GATEWAY PLAN: City Releases Draft Plan For Developing Housing in the 138-Acre ‘Gateway Area’ of Town, and Wants Your Input
• Arcata City Council Approves Plan to Convert Valley West Hotels to Homeless Housing, Reviews ‘Gateway Area Plan’ to Create High-Density Housing in Town
• GUEST OPINION: Gateway Plan Does Housing the Right Way
• ARCATA’S GATEWAY PLAN: Planners Propose Converting K and L to One-Way Streets; Transportation and Safety Committee Will Review Plan This Evening
• Confused About Arcata’s Gateway Area Plan? There are Still Opportunities to Learn More and Provide Feedback About How You Want the City to Create More Housing
• Arcata Mayor Atkins-Salazar Can’t Participate in Gateway Plan Work, Says State’s Fair Political Practice Commission in Response to City’s Request for Guidance
• (UPDATE) Arcata’s Mayor Can’t Participate in the City-Defining Gateway Area Plan; These Two Current Candidates for City Council Probably Can’t Either, for the Same Reason
• HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP: Catching Up on the Arcata Gateway Plan With Senior Planner Delo Freitas
• Want to Learn More About Arcata’s Gateway Plan? City Holding Public Meeting on Wednesday to Answer Your Questions
• A Big Week for the Arcata Gateway Area Plan: Planning Commission, Historical Landmarks Committee to Look at the Area’s Past and Future 
• A Big Public Meetings on Nordic Aquafarms and Arcata’s Gateway Area Plan Tonight
• ARCATA’S GATEWAY PLAN: Big Meetings Coming! Planning Commission to Consider New Public Engagement Approach Ahead of Big Study Session Later This Month

Photos/video: Andrew Goff

UPDATE, 2:06 p.m.: Several witnesses at the scene tell the Outpost’s Andrew Goff that the fire was preceded by an explosion of some kind. “Our entire building shook like crazy,” said one neighbor.

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Just a few minutes ago, an outbuilding attached to a Second Street duplex just a couple of blocks from the library went up in flames.

The first call came into Humboldt Bay Fire’s dispatch center at about 1:45 p.m. Witnesses reported seeing flames and black smoke coming from the building, between I and J streets. Dispatch ordered a large response.

The first units at the scene discovered that the fire was an an outbuilding attached to the rear of the duplex. Firefighters are attacking the blaze now. Arcata Fire is responding to cover calls for Humboldt Bay while the local agency is tied up at the scene.

Second Street and J street are both closed at that intersection. We’ll update.