ANOTHER UPDATE, FRIDAY MORNING: Yes, as some commenters have noticed, the above image was an AI-edited thing, which we probably should have noticed at the time.

The intent of the editing, we are told, was to bring out the letters on the sign. Unfortunately, it also smashed some of the people’s faces and made them hideous. The original image is below. Did it really need editing?

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UPDATE, THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Well, my goodness. This afternoon, the Outpost received a call from Petrolia store owner Denise Goforth, who told us that she has talked to the people in the community group in the past, but that she has not agreed to sell the store to them. Also, she said the store is not currently on the market, nor has it been, and neither is it struggling.

So it sounds like the group’s dreams of taking over the store are at least a little bit more pie-in-the-sky than what was presented below. We should have more on this soon, but in the meantime: We regret the errors.

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ORIGINAL STORY:

After nearly 160 years of serving the Mattole Valley, the Petrolia General Store may be entering a new era as the Sugarloaf General Store, a community-run cooperative named for the iconic rock formation located just off Cape Mendocino. 

Over the coming months, the newly appointed board of directors plans to expand the store’s grocery offerings to include more locally produced items and other products that aren’t readily available in the far reaches of the Mattole Valley, which is about 35 miles from the nearest chain grocery store. Eventually, the board hopes to set up a small café with an espresso bar, soft-serve ice cream, homemade baked goods and ready-to-eat lunch items to draw in tourists passing through town and provide a “third place” for residents. 

The board is launching a donation campaign to bring their vision to life. 

“We’re really looking to emphasize the store as a place for community,” board member Joshua Lyon told the Outpost. “The store is the only commercial entity we have in town, and there is so much potential there for our community. We envision this store as being a place that encourages people to come and hang out from all over Humboldt County. We’re also hoping to make it a destination for hikers and campers passing through on their way to the Lost Coast.”

The history of the Petrolia General Store dates way back to the 1860s, when white settlers made their way to the remote Mattole Valley in pursuit of oil and vast expanses of land for homesteading. Back then, it was known as the John Rudolph Store, which was torn down in the 1940s and replaced by the Hart & Johnson building, and renamed Petrolia Cash Grocery. The H&J building burned down in April 1992 after three major earthquakes rocked Cape Mendocino, damaging more than 1,100 buildings across the county. 

Petrolia resident Denise Goforth bought the general store after it was rebuilt 30 years ago, but now she’s looking to retire and enjoy some time with her grandkids. Goforth put the store on the market about a decade ago, but she’s had a difficult time finding a buyer.

“Denise is 73 now, and she just doesn’t want the responsibility. … It’s been tough to find somebody who has the energy and the money to purchase it, especially with the change in the industry out here,” Lyon said, referring to the once-thriving cannabis industry. “This is the only commercial entity we have in town.”

In the video linked below, Petrolia residents describe the store as the “beating heart of the community.” And if you’ve ever been — especially if you’ve had a turkey sandwich made by the loving hands of a woman who reminds you of your own grandmother —  you know exactly what they’re talking about. 

“This place kinda holds everything together,” said one resident. “You can come down and see friends always.”

Worried that the store would close without a prospective buyer, community members started looking at other options. The idea to form a member-owned co-op burbled up during community conversations last November, and a core group was formed to get the ball rolling. 

“We started off with, I think, seven steering committee members that were just people in our community who were willing to give up their personal time and skill sets,” said board member Amber Dawn Pickett. “We all have different backgrounds, and it’s just been fantastic to bring together all this talent. It’s been no small effort … to get everybody on the same page in understanding the vision, but it actually feels like it’s possible.”

The articles of incorporation were finalized earlier this month, allowing the co-op to form an official board, establish bylaws and accept donations. The board is still working out a tiered system for its shareholders, Lyon said, but those who purchase a membership will get an annual refund based on their patronage.

“We’re still pretty early on in the process,” Lyon continued. “We have over $50,000 in pledges from our community, and we’re working on a donation campaign to help provide a larger portion of the working capital that we need in order to begin operations or potentially get a business loan.”

The board is hoping to make the official transition to the Sugarloaf General Store this summer. Even though the name and the structure of the organization are changing, Lyon and Pickett offered reassurance that the little store will keep its small-town charm.

“This is a renaissance of this institution,” Lyon said. “The store has so much potential.”

Check out the video below to learn more about the donation campaign. Want to support the cause? You can find the store’s website at this link.

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On April 22, 2026, at approximately 7:00 p.m., officers with the Eureka Police Department (EPD) responded to the area of W. Henderson Street and Albee Street for a report of a disturbance involving a subject who implied he was in possession of a firearm.

Upon arrival, officers contacted the reporting parties who stated they had been confronted by two males unknown to them. During the encounter, one of the suspects grabbed his waistband and made statements indicating he had a firearm.

An additional officer located both suspects nearby and detained them. One suspect, identified as Freddy Alvarez, an 18-year-old Eureka resident, was detained along with a 17-year-old male. A firearm, later determined to be a BB gun, was recovered from the juvenile.

Alvarez was taken into custody for conspiracy to commit a crime and participation in criminal street gang activity, and was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility. The juvenile was taken into custody for conspiracy to commit a crime, participation in criminal street gang activity, brandishing a BB gun, and violating his probation terms. He was transported and booked at Juvenile Hall.

Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to contact Detective Bailey with the Criminal Investigations Unit at (707) 441-4300.

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PREVIOUSLY

• ‘It’s Just Gone’: GOP Funding Cuts for Public Media Pose Existential Threat to KEET-TV, Station’s GM Says
• California’s NPR and PBS Stations Will Cut Staff and Programs After Funding Slashed
• As the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Winds Itself Down, KEET-TV Cancels its Flagship Local News Program
• NO MORE PBS KIDS: KEET-TV Whittles Itself Down to One Single Broadcast Channel in Effort to Stay Alive

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Humboldt County’s PBS member station, KEET-TV, continues to reel from the Trump administration’s cuts in funding for public broadcasting. Today, the station issued a press release announcing that it will be outsourcing major components of its broadcast and transmission services.

Reached by phone, General Manager Amy Stem-Faulk, who took over the position back in January, said KEET’s staff has been slashed by more than half over the past year, going from 13 to just six employees.

Meanwhile, the equipment that the station has long used to capture and save broadcast signals and then rebroadcast programming to local audiences is getting old.

“Because [that infrastructure] is aging and becoming obsolete, it either needs to be replaced or we had to find a workaround,” Stem-Faulk explained. After investigating the options, KEET’s board of directors realized that it would be less costly in the long run to partner with a pair of companies for those services: Public Media Management (PMM) and Transmission Services Group (TSG).

Stem-Faulk said the station will retain its tower atop the hill in Kneeland, so this transition won’t impact viewers, even those who still get their signal through rabbit-ear antennas. Station management has been communicating with its member base about this possibility for weeks. Now the contracts have been signed and the transition is moving forward.

“This is in response to staff reduction and ridiculously high cost of replacing our infrastructure,” Stern Faulk said.

Here’s a press release with more info:

KEET PBS is undertaking a major transition in how it delivers television service to the North Coast, following the loss of critical Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) funding and rising costs associated with maintaining broadcast infrastructure and PBS programming.

To ensure long-term sustainability, KEET is moving to a new, cloud-based broadcast and transmission model in partnership with Public Media Management (PMM) and Transmission Services Group (TSG). This shift will modernize operations and reduce the burden of maintaining aging, costly equipment.

“This was not a change we made lightly,” said Amy Stem-Faulk, General Manager of KEET PBS. “The loss of federal funding, combined with increasing costs to deliver PBS programming and maintain our technical systems, made it clear that we had to adapt in order to continue serving our community.”

The transition allows KEET PBS to move away from a traditional, equipment-heavy broadcast model to a streamlined system managed by specialized partners. This reduces long-term costs and operational risk while helping ensure reliable service for viewers across the region.

For more than 50 years, KEET PBS has provided trusted educational programming, local content, and emergency information to the North Coast. However, the financial structure supporting public television has changed significantly, placing increased pressure on small, rural stations like KEET.

“Public television has always depended on community support, but that need is more critical now than ever,” Stem-Faulk said. “The reality is that producing and delivering PBS programming is expensive, and recent funding losses have made local support essential to maintaining the service people rely on.”

KEET is encouraging viewers who value PBS programming—from children’s educational shows to documentaries and local productions—to consider making a contribution.

Community members can support KEET PBS by visiting www.keet.org and clicking the “Donate” button.

“This transition is necessary, but it is not without cost,” Stem-Faulk added. “We are doing everything we can to operate efficiently and responsibly, but continued community support is essential to sustaining this service.”

KEET PBS will continue to provide uninterrupted service throughout the transition.

PREVIOUSLY:

• POTTER VALLEY DAM UPDATE: The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Says That a Municipal Water District in Riverside County is Interested in Taking Over the Project
• Statements From PG&E and Friends of the Eel on SoCal Agency’s Potter Valley Dam Bid
• That SoCal Water Agency Says It’s Just in the Very Initial, Exploratory Phase of its Potential Bid to Take Over the Eel River Dams

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U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman this morning came out swinging in response to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins’ recent announcement that a Southern California water district has expressed interest in taking over PG&E’s defunct hydroelectric dams near the headwaters of the Eel River:

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Here’s what he had to say in a newsletter to constituents:

I want to alert you to some very disturbing breaking news about a scheme to export Eel River water from my North Coast district to southern California — why I oppose it, and what I’m doing to stop it. We’ve learned from media reports and statements by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins that the Trump administration is trying to federalize the Potter Valley Project — to make it part of the Bureau of Reclamation, ostensibly as a way to block PG&E from removing two obsolete hydropower dams on the Eel River.

Just a couple days ago, Secretary Rollins tweeted that she has “found a buyer” for the project: the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District in Riverside County. The district confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle that they are interested in buying it in order to secure new water supplies from the Eel River.

Here’s why that’s a problem. Right now, PG&E and our local water managers, tribes, and environmental partners have an agreement to secure local control of PG&E’s water rights for the first time in a century — and to build a new reliable water supply and fish‑friendly diversion so PG&E can remove its dams while maintaining water deliveries for Mendocino County and the North Bay. This two‑basin solution is supported by state agencies, Governor Newsom, elected officials across the North Coast, the fishing and environmental community, and local tribes. It restores salmon, creates jobs, and protects our water supplies.

The only holdup is the Trump administration — and now we are seeing the outlines of their plans for our water. Secretary Rollins is leading the effort to federalize the PVP, to fold it into the Bureau of Reclamation, and she wants PG&E’s to sell its water rights and infrastructure to this southern California water district as part of that takeover.

Big Central Valley water interests have targeted Eel River water for decades. They once pushed to add it to the State Water Project, and the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a massive dam that would have flooded Round Valley. Governor Ronald Reagan rejected that plan after fierce local and tribal opposition. But these zombie water‑export schemes have a way of coming back.

There are red flags all over this shady water grab. I’m going to fight against it – to protect our Eel and Russian River water supplies from being federalized and taken over as part of this scheme. I urge everyone who cares about North Coast water, rivers, and fisheries to take this threat seriously — because it’s coming directly from Secretary Rollins and the highest levels of the Trump administration.

I’m demanding answers from Secretary Rollins, Secretary Burghum, the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, and anyone else involved in this southern California water‑export scheme. We need to stand together to ensure that not one drop of our water is exported to southern California or the Central Valley.

To keep up with the work I am doing as your representative, please subscribe to my newsletter, and follow me on Bluesky, Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and Threads.   

Thank you, and stay well,

Jared Huffman
Member of Congress

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

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A federal appeals court on Wednesday struck down California’s requirement that masked federal agents identify themselves, a blow to the state’s ongoing resistance to the Trump administration’s deportation program.

A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel handed down a ruling prohibiting California from enforcing a section of the 2025 mask law that mandates federal law enforcement officers visibly display identification while carrying out their duties.

The law was destined to face critical scrutiny from the federal judiciary. An 1890 Supreme Court case provides that a state cannot prosecute federal law enforcement officers acting in the course of their duties.

The law also ran headlong into the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which holds that states may not regulate the operations of the federal government.

The Trump administration sued to challenge the law soon after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it. On Feb. 19, a federal judge issued an injunction against the mask law. The new ruling by a 3-0 decision makes that injunction permanent, pending appeal.

“If a state law directly regulates the conduct of the United States, it is void irrespective of whether the regulated activities are essential to federal functions or operations, and irrespective of the degree to which the state law interferes with federal functions or operations,” wrote judge Mark J. Bennett.

California’s lawyers argued that, even if the mask law does violate the Supremacy Clause, the court should have also considered the state government’s concerns about federal immigration enforcement’s effect on public safety.

“We decline to do so,” Bennett wrote. “Because the United States has shown a likelihood that the Act violates the Supremacy Clause, it has also shown that both the public interest and balance of the equities tip ‘decisively in…favor’ of a preliminary injunction.”

Democrats passed the mask ban to rein in the anonymous federal agents carrying out the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement program.

Lawmakers this year are advancing more bills targeting the administration’s immigration agents, including proposals that would bar them from employment in California law enforcement agencies and a measure that would make it easier for people to sue federal agents over civil rights violations.

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

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There will be 61 names of would-be governors on the June 2 primary election ballot, but the top two finishers will — as certainly as anything can be in politics — come from the six who participated Wednesday evening in the first statewide televised debate.

Former Congressman Eric Swalwell’s scandal-ridden departure this month shook up the field and seemingly lifted former Attorney General (and ex-Biden cabinet member) Xavier Becerra into contention after months in the low single digits.

However, no one has achieved support anything close to what would be needed to claim one of the top two finishes, probably in the mid-20% range, and a spot on the November ballot.

The debate, staged by the NextStar string television stations in San Francisco, was a chance for them to shine.

None did — if shining means presenting a compelling case that he or she is what California needs to confront the existential issues that will determine whether the state can once again be a unique place where people can see their ambitions become reality.

Those issues include housing shortages, rampant homelessness, the nation’s highest levels of unemployment and poverty, uncertain water supplies, soaring utility costs, shamefully low academic achievement in public schools and a state budget in chronic deficit.

The topics posed by the debate moderators touched on only a couple of those issues, and then too briefly to be significant. Otherwise, the questions dealt with, at best, peripheral matters that may be trendy on social media but have little or nothing to do with governing the nation’s most populous and complex state.

Really folks, do we yearn to know what streaming program the candidates have most recently watched?

The potential for voters to learn more about what the candidates would do as governor was also undermined because only the first hour of the debate was broadcast on old-fashioned television. Viewers had to switch to their computers to see the last half hour.

Given all of that, what could one have gleaned from watching?

For one thing, the four Democrats are not inclined to criticize outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom on one of the truly relevant issues, having the nation’s highest numbers of homeless people.

Asked to give Newsom letter grades on homelessness, none offered anything lower than a B, even though the problem is at last as severe as it was when Newsom took office in 2019. The two Republicans, of course, gave him Fs.

We got only brief sound bites on what the six would do themselves to reduce homelessness.

The related issue of housing, both supply and cost, got a little more attention, but mostly it boiled down to six promises of making it easier for developers to build, which has been Newsom’s approach but has not noticeably affected either housing production or cost.

That was about it on the big issues. There was nothing on water, one brief response to one viewer-generated question about academic achievement and some sound bites about the costs and availability of home insurance.

We did, however, get relatively lengthy responses about gas taxes, charging fees on zero emission vehicles, whether truck drivers should be able to read English and whether young children should be barred from using social media — again, trendy issues but not the serious ones that will face the next governor.

From a purely political standpoint, none of the sextet scored some point that will reverberate enough to change the dynamics of the campaign. Nor did anyone commit an injurious gaffe.

Maybe the next televised debate, scheduled for next Tuesday, will be meatier and more illuminating. It could hardly be less so.

It is with the heaviest of hearts we report the passing of Laurena K. (Matteucci) Nevers. Laurena passed peacefully surrounded by the loving hearts of Lancey, Lila and Lisa on April 18. Laurena was just 24 days from her 81st birthday.

Laurena was born on May 12, 1945, to Laurence “Ceno” and Annabelle Virginia (Bay) ”Sue” Matteucci, in Astoria, Oregon. She was the first of three girls. Laurena attended school in Astoria.

After moving to Eureka she met the love of her life, Fred Nevers, Jr. They married on July 20, 1962. They were married for 60 ½ years until Fred’s passing on January 19, 2023. They had one daughter, Tammy Sue, who passed as an infant at one month of age. Laurena and Fred were a furry family mom and dad devoted to Pup, George and Winston. They lived most of their married life in Eureka, only living in Las Vegas shortly after retirement. They moved back to Eureka in 2006.

Laurena worked for 40 plus years in the medical field, including St. Joseph Hospital until her retirement in 2003.

Laurena was predeceased by her dad “Ceno,” mom “Sue,” precious infant daughter Tammy Sue, her husband Fred Nevers Jr., nephew Jon Fejdasz and sister Catherine “Cathy” Carillo.

She is survived by her friend and “Bonus Daughter” Lancey Johnston of Eureka, and Lancey’s cousin Lisa Ross of Bend, Oregon, who she shared many laughs with. Her sister Carol (David) Cooley, niece Michele (Chad) Poplawski, nephew Christopher (Laura) Cooley, Grand-niece Taylor Riddle, San Diego, grand-nephew Caden Riddle, Sacramento, grand-nephew Christopher D Cooley, and her mini-me grand-nephew Cameron Cooley, Dixon, Calif. Her cousin Lila Ann Bollmann of Eureka.

Laurena was blessed to have many friends and especially her two neighbors Karen Carr and Ann Dedrick, who watched over Laurena every day. She will be deeply missed by all that knew her and loved her. God bless your journey, you are with the ones you loved the most dearest sister.

Additionally, we would like to thank Sherry Bates Piazza for care she provided to Laurena during the last week of her life. And Hospice House for the care and support of her and her family, especially John Kell, RN, who showed compassion for Laurena, Lancey, Lila, Lisa and Sherry.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Laurena Nevers’ family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.