Husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, passed way at home July 17, 2022 in Arcata.

Ernie was born July 4, 1934 in Tilden, he was one of 13 children.

Ernie joined the Navy January 1955 and served until 1959.

He and the love of his life Irene moved to Arcata in 1966 where he went to work at Crown Simpson. He retired from the mill in 1993.

After his retirement he enjoyed gardening, fishing, and spending time with his grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Ernie is preceded in death by his parents George and Ida, son Ernest Owen (Buzz) Real, daughter Barbara Kirkpatrick, and several siblings.

Ernie is survived by his wife Irene, daughter Susan and her husband Tracy Farley (McKinleyville); Grandchildren Michael Kirkpatrick and his wife Jess (McKinleyville); Tracie Farley (Cypress); Jonathan Farley and his wife Jessica (Queen Creek); and great-grandchildren Dean, Jack, Bailey, Talan, Jaxson and Jacie.

Ernie was loved by his family very much and will be missed greatly.

Services will be held for immediate family only.

If anyone wants to donate in his name they can donate to Autism Awareness at this link.

PREVIOUSLY: 

• Buhne and Harrison Fully Blocked Following High-Speed Chase, Reportedly With Shots Fired
• “Scanner Traffic Indicates”

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On July 20, 2022, at about 7:20 p.m., a Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputy on patrol in the area of Fairway Drive in Eureka located a vehicle wanted by the Eureka Police Department following a pursuit within their jurisdiction earlier in the evening. Deputies attempted a traffic stop on the vehicle. The vehicle failed to yield, and a pursuit ensued through the Pine Hill community. 

During this pursuit, an individual inside the suspect vehicle reportedly shot at deputies. The pursuit continued and the suspect reportedly fired additional shots towards law enforcement. At that point, an officer involved shooting occurred. The pursuit concluded at the intersection of Buhne Street and Harrison Avenue when the suspect vehicle was involved in a traffic collision, becoming disabled. Three occupants of the vehicle were detained on scene.

There are no reported injuries as a result of this incident and there is no perceived ongoing threat to the community at this time. 

The Humboldt County Critical Incident Response Team has been activated to investigate this incident. Anyone with information about this case or who may have witnessed any portion of this pursuit or sustained property damages as a result should contact the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251, reference case number 202203774.

More information will be released when available and appropriate. 

UPDATE, 9:27 p.m.: Sheriff’s Office Releases Statement on Tonight’s Wild Chase Through Eureka

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Eureka’s Harrison and Buhne streets are closed at their intersection, after a crash involving a vehicle that had been fleeing from police pursuit around the town that began just before 7:30 p.m.

According to scanner traffic transcribed at the time by Outpost scanner volunteer “Todd,” people in the suspect vehicle and the police are reported to have fired shots during the chase.

The chase ended about 10 minutes after it began, when the suspect vehicle — the white one, in pictures below captured by the Outpost’s Andrew Goff at the scene — crashed into another vehicle at the intersection.

Witnesses on the scene confirm what was reported on the scanner, which is that three people were briefly held at gunpoint before being taken into custody. The driver of the black vehicle appears to be fine.

Around a dozen police cars belonging to the Eureka Police Department, the Sheriff’s Office, and California State Parks Service are on scene, according to Goff.

We’ll certainly have much more on this tomorrow, or possibly later tonight if information becomes available before then.

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Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting was another seven-hour doozy, with much of it spent in closed session, where the board discussed various lawsuits and employee appointments. But the open session covered a broad range of issues, from noisy motorcycle races to micro-aggressions, road maintenance funding, cannabis permitting and more.

Let’s get to it.

Planning consultants > staff?

John Ford

In the morning session, recently not-departed Planning and Building Director John Ford asked the board to renew professional service agreements with three outside consulting firms. Employees from these firms “are completing about 35 percent of the projects moving through the system to approval,” Ford said, “and so they are a very vital part of our overall processing.”

With two senior planners retiring this year, Ford said his department is hoping to use consultants to complete some of the more complicated planning work. At this point, the consultants have more experience and expertise than most county planners.

Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell asked why the department is leaning so heavily on outside consultants. Ford said the county doesn’t pay well enough to retain qualified planners on staff.

“We are able to recruit very good young staff and they get trained, and unfortunately … they get to a point of competence and they, frankly, get recruited or hired to go to other places for higher-paying jobs. And so we keep people about 18 months.”

Some have left for jobs with Caltrans; some took gigs with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife; others found positions in SoCal. The cost of living here in Humboldt County has been a major factor, according to Ford.

“I haven’t verified this recently, but not long ago we had for Planner Ones [entry-level planners] who were working second jobs and living with other people because they they can’t afford to live here on what we pay them,” he said.

According to the county’s current compensation schedule, entry-level planners make between $22.74 and $29.19 per hour, plus benefits. 

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn said using consultants has its advantages, “because they don’t call in sick from COVID, there’s no state comp [insurance compensation], there’s no retirement.”

Ford agreed. “One of the advantages with a consultant is that they only get paid for the work that they do,” he said. “So when we start getting to a point where the workload decreases, we can terminate the contract or stop giving them work.”

The board unanimously approved the item, allowing Ford to amend the agreements, thereby increasing the maximum payable amounts of the contracts from $1.8 million to $2.6 million through the end of 2023.

Responses to Grand Jury report

Cati Gallardo

Cati Gallardo, the public information specialist in the County Administrative Office, presented recommended responses to a recent Civil Grand Jury report on the county’s cannabis permitting process, called “Permitted Eventually.”

The report recommended a number of improvements to the county’s weed permitting processes, including software upgrades, better communication with applicants and more accountability in verifying roadway conditions. It requested responses from the Public Works Department, the Planning and Building Department and the board.

Gallardo said staff was recommending that some but not all of the Grand Jury’s recommendations be implemented. The county will upgrade its systems to allow for online payments, as suggested, but a recommendation to create a new public-facing portal to the county’s planning software, Accela, will not be implemented, she said, because such a portal already exists.

Nor will the county acquiesce to a recommendation that staff act on all interim permits as soon as they get notice of approval or denial from the state. That’s because local permitting happens before state licensure, Gallardo explained.

The county also won’t act on the recommendation to have Public Works employees personally verify county road conditions, rather than allowing self-certification from applicants, because the department “has limited staff and does not have capacity to verify all roads,” Gallardo said. “In addition, if issues arise there, [the public] may come before the Planning Commission to address them.”

Gallardo said the board could choose to change any of those recommended responses, if they desired. Bohn said some of the issues people have had with the Accela software come down to user error from county staff.

“You can upgrade it all you want, but if they don’t use it right it doesn’t matter,” he said. 

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson thanked the Civil Grand Jury for its work and said he approves of the draft responses from Public Works and Planning and Building. 

“[T]he discussion that they put forth and explanations and proposals for action seem reasonable and cogent, and I just appreciate you guys doing doing the work,” Wilson said.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

A diversity framework seal adopted by the county

An extended closed-session hearing occupied the remainder of the morning session, and when the board returned after lunch they launched into a discussion about matters of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Two years ago the board asked staff in the Human Resources Department to develop a “diversity roadmap” as a means of “harness[ing] the benefits of diversity and inclusion to achieve organizational excellence.”

Interim HR Director Zachery O’Hanen said that Tuesday’s presentation, which followed a lengthy internal evaluation, represents “a really, really good first step” towards taking action.

Dr. Jeremy Clark, a project manager in the Human Resources Department, and Neftali Miller-Rubio, the racial equity manager for the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), presented some highlights from their analysis of a staff survey on matters of diversity, equity and inclusion (abbreviated as “DEI”). They recommended some “foundational actions” for the board’s consideration.

Women and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) employees reported “disparate” experiences working for the county, and staff members don’t necessarily trust senior leadership, Clark said. In the staff survey, about 38 percent responded positively to the question of whether senior leadership encourages diversity.

“That’s not a bad number,” Clark said, “but ideally we would like that number to be in the seventies or eighties.” The neutral responses — those who said they neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement that senior leadership encourages diversity — were “quite high” at 41 percent, “so we’ve got some work to do in this area,” Clark said. 

He also highlighted “a really bright spot” from the survey: Asked whether their immediate supervisor supports diversity, equity and inclusion, roughly 76 percent of survey respondents said they agree or strongly agree, with only about five percent disagreeing. 

“So that immediate supervisor will definitely be a resource we’ll want to leverage as we move forward with these DEI initiatives,” Clark said.

Miller said it’s important to meet people where they are in order to create “a baseline understanding of the concepts and the terms” involved in this initiative. Those terms include such concepts as micro-aggressions and implicit bias.

A staff report says that a mandatory training course called “Exploring Racial Equity: Common Terms,” already in use in DHHS, will ensure the county’s workforce performs its tasks “while continuing to work toward building an inclusive organizational culture.” Miller said self-directed training and a public-facing webpage will also expand employee learning and accountability.

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone said these efforts will help employee recruitment and retention. “It would be really neat if the county was the place to work, right?” he said. “… This is such a crucial piece to that.”

He suggested that references to “the gold standard” could amount to a micro-aggression because “gold was exactly what brought the people here to kill off [native] tribes and their people.” He said he encourages people to instead refer to “the salmon standard, which is a totem species for the native tribes.”

Wilson made the motion to adopt staff’s recommendations and said the initiative has been “both eye-opening and encouraging.”

“And as one of my favorite people in the world — Dolly Parton — once said, ‘When you know better, you do better,’” he added.

The motion was approved unanimously

Motorcycle noise

Flat-track motorcyclists. | Image from public presentation to the board

Later in the afternoon, the board heard a pair of appeals regarding motorcycle racing events at the Humboldt County Fairgrounds in Ferndale. Back in May, the Planning Commission unanimously approved a modification to the Humboldt County Fair Association’s conditional use permit. The change would raise the noise limit from 90 decibels to 99 decibels, as measured 20 inches from a motorcycle’s exhaust pipe.

The 90-decibel limit originally included in the permit was the result of a staff error — “an incorrect assumption and flawed interpretation of the applicants’ noise study,” according to a staff report. This lower noise limit has prevented the fair association from attracting any racing events because the actual races are louder than that. 

Two appellants — Arne Peterson and a group called Friends of Ferndale for a Livable Community — sought to overturn the Planning Commission’s decision, but Ford explained that the fair association and the Friends of Ferndale had reached an agreement that would allow for a one-time event to be held. This racing event would be monitored for noise, and the results would be discussed later at a community meeting. 

“Basically what this does … it gives the fair board, the community [and] the county empirical information on what the real noise impacts are,” Ford said. Staff would then be able to conduct further environmental analysis, if necessary. 

“It could be something that is really loud, and I think that’s the fear,” Ford said. “It could be something that basically meets the the information that’s been presented [in the conditional use permit]. But this is a workable solution, [a] compromise that the two sides have come to.”

Senior Planner Steve Lazar told the board that even if the event exceeds 99 decibels, it wouldn’t run afoul of the noise guidelines in the county’s general plan because that plan includes explicit exemptions for scenarios where the loudness is temporary and infrequent.

In its appeal, Friends of Ferndale presented its own noise analysis, and Ford noted, “They believe that it’s going to be much louder than what has been disclosed so far.”

While that organization has reached an agreement with the Fair Association, fellow appellant Arne Peterson retained his grievances. In a presentation to the the board he said, “I strongly believe the effort has been to circumvent CEQA,” referring to the California Environmental Quality Act. He questioned the findings of the fair association’s noise study, conducted by Whitchurch Engineering, calling the results “bogus” and later alleging that “there has absolutely been some deception and fraud.” 

But Friends of Ferndale President Stephen Avis said a pilot event will allow sound engineers to gather relevant data that the community can use to make a decision.

Humboldt County Fair Association Board Director Johanna Rodoni defended the proposed motorcycle event, saying the fairgrounds have a “premier racetrack and grandstands” and that twice-yearly syndicated races would be “a family-friendly, fun event.”

Wilson voiced support for the “pilot study” idea and made a motion to adopt staff’s recommendations and Madrone seconded it. 

Bushnell asked whether a new environmental document will need to be completed if it turns out that the Whitchurch study was accurate. Ford said the answer is no, but in order to hold more races beyond the pilot event, the permit will either need to be modified again, or a new permit will need to be issued. In either case, either the Planning Commission or the Board of Supervisors would need to approve it.

Bushnell suggested skipping the Planning Commission process next time around and having the matter come directly back to the board, should any amendments to the permit be required.

The board unanimously voted to approve the measure, clearing the way for a one-time race event.

[SIDE NOTE: Sticklers for public process may quibble over the roll-call vote. Rather than saying yes or no, Bohn voted “Ten-four,” as he has done numerous times before. Madrone, possibly riffing on his colleague’s informal trucker lingo, proceeded to vote “Roger that.” Of course, neither of those responses means “yes,” exactly, but the clerk didn’t ask for clarification, nor did the interim county counsel or anyone else. Copy that. Over and out, good buddy.]

‘Roads just falling apart’

Madrone

The final agenda item of the day, brought forward by Madrone, concerned the sorry state of the county’s roads. 

“I doubt there’s any disagreement that we all see the need for dedicated funding for roads,” he said. “Our roads are just falling apart.” He cited an estimate from Public Works Director Tom Mattson, that needed county road improvements are $225 million in arrears, the result of two decades years of deferred maintenance. 

Under California’s Senate Bill 1 (2017), counties that administer their own road tax, called “self-help counties,” are eligible to leverage significantly more state funds than counties without such a tax.

Bohn said Humboldt already has a road tax, referring to Measure Z, the half-percent sales tax dedicated to maintaining and enhancing public safety and services. However, Madrone said Measure Z doesn’t meet the state’s “self help” requirements. He suggested moving toward putting a road tax on a future election ballot, probably in 2024 since getting it on this November’s ballot would be a major time crunch.

In the meantime, he said, the county could hire a new staff person in Public Works to pursue grant funding for roads, trails, parks and other services. The state has available money to finance roadside vegetation maintenance, for example, he said. Madrone also suggested tinkering with Measure Z allocations, possibly giving more to road maintenance projects.

Addressing the board, Mattson said his department has long needed another $10 million per year if the county hopes to maintain or improve the conditions of its roads. 

“We are over the cliff’s edge, basically, on the cost to repair our roads because they’ve deteriorated so far … ,” he said. “The money we need is for day-to-day maintenance.”

Wilson said it will be important to conduct public outreach and polling to build and measure support for a road tax. He also said data shows that sometimes when roads are “improved” simply by making the asphalt smoother, people may drive faster, which doesn’t necessarily make them safer. The community should also consider “road diets,” potentially relinquishing some stretches of pavement if they’re not necessary, he said. 

“I know that can be controversial, but nonetheless it’s something that I think is important,” he said.

Bohn asked Wilson if he’d share the data he has showing that “good roads cause accidents.”

“It’s about speed,” Wilson replied. He then suggested that Bohn was attempting to “twist what I’m trying to say.” Bohn denied it, but Wilson was exasperated. “Yes, you are,” he said. “C’mon, man. Jesus.”

During the public comment period, Colin Fiske, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities, said the county’s road maintenance deficit coincides with a public safety crisis.

“The State Office of Traffic Safety currently ranks Humboldt as the second most dangerous for pedestrians out of all 58 counties in California,” he said. “We’re also ranked among the most dangerous counties for bicyclists.”

Fiske said the county should address this safety crisis and seek more funding for public transportation improvements. 

Madrone made a motion to direct staff to come back in future meetings with more details and some specific proposals to pursue more short- and long-term funding sources, as well as creating a grant-writing management position and approving an ad hoc committee to further the efforts. 

The motion was approved unanimously.

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During tonight’s meeting, the Arcata City Council will consider moving $50,000 in COVID relief grant funding from local non-profit Arcata House Partnership’s (AHP) homelessness services budget to fund the city’s COVID Safe Outdoor Events budget, overseen by non-profit Playhouse Arts. 

The funding comes from a state Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) awarded in 2020 to help communities respond to COVID-19 through economic development, housing programs and public improvements. With approval from the city council, Arcata House Partnership Homeless Services was given $629,410 and the COVID Safe Outdoor Event Program was awarded $114,380 to help safely bring back outdoor events. 

According to the city staff report, Arcata House will not be able to implement some of the services that the funding had been allocated for – specifically, removal and disposal of syringes and some additional staffing. So Arcata House wants to release some of that funding to another local non-profit. From the staff report:

City staff was approached by the Executive Directors of both Arcata House Partnership and Playhouse Arts, the subrecipients running the Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus Response Act 2 Round 2 and 3 programs, expressing their desire to reallocate funding from the Arcata House Partnership Homeless Services budget to the COVID Safe Outdoor Event program budget. Both non-profit organizations work together to provide services to the City’s unhoused populations and there were some items in the original budget for Arcata House Partnership Homeless Services that they were not going to be able to implement, specifically the containers and ongoing disposal of sharps as well as some staffing costs. 

The $50,000 will mostly go toward funding additional staffing for the Safe Outdoor Event Program, with a small portion ($1,500) going toward event equipment, such as tents, stages, signage and ticketing software. 

The Outpost’s attempts to reach Jacqueline Dandeneau, executive director of Playhouse Arts, and Darleen Spoor, executive director of Arcata House Partnership,  were unsuccessful by the time of publication. Hey, they’re busy folks! 

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In other business, the council will consider supporting a statement against antisemitic messages and hate-speech, in response to the recent distribution of shocking antisemitic materials around Humboldt County. 

“As a defender of free-speech, Arcata has always supported people’s rights under the first amendment,” the draft statement reads. “But let’s be clear - the Arcata City Council and our community soundly reject and condemn ANY hate filled messages and any inference to discrimination of any kind to any person or group.

Copy of the flyer that will be available at tonight’s meeting | From agenda

“To our Jewish residents and neighbors, be assured that as a community, Arcata will stand up together to reject antisemitic messages and all forms of hate speech. The Arcata City Council stands united in our zero-tolerance position against all forms of hate speech in our City.”

The City also plans to have signs reading “Arcata stands united against hate” available at the meeting, for community members to display in the windows of their home or business. 

The Arcata City Council meets tonight (Wednesday, July 20) at 6 p.m. at Arcata City Hall – 731 F Street. You can view the full agenda and instructions on how to participate in-person or online here. 

Premiums for health insurance plans sold through the state marketplace will increase an average of 6% next year, Covered California officials announced yesterday.

This rate hike is the largest California has seen since 2019. In the last three years, insurers had kept average increases under 2%.

Rate changes vary by region — from an 11.7% increase in Imperial, Inyo and Mono counties to zero change in Fresno, Kings, and Madera counties.

When premiums increase, an individual’s financial aid usually does, too. Aid is based on household income, so subsidies may offset some of the increase. But people who don’t qualify for subsidies will bear the full cost of the rate hike.“Premiums are a capturing of what health care costs are, how they vary across geographies and communities, how health care costs are growing over time, which we know in this country are already too high and rising,” said Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California.

She noted that California’s rate hike is still lower than it is in other states. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found a 10% average premium increase proposed by 72 insurers in 13 other states.

The rate increase, Altman said, is largely attributed to people resuming doctor visits and procedures that they postponed during peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also the cost of general inflation.

About one percent of the increase, however, is attributed to the potential loss of enhanced subsidies from the federal government, which are set to expire at the end of this year. Without the additional aid, people will pay more for their premiums, likely pushing young, healthy people to drop their coverage. And when healthy people leave the marketplace, premiums go up for everyone.

The federal government’s American Rescue Plan last year provided California with around $3 billion designated for two years of additional financial aid through Covered California. The new law helped further reduce what people paid for their monthly premiums, driving more people to sign up for health insurance. It also expanded who was eligible for savings to include middle-income individuals.

Currently 1.7 million Californians buy their coverage through the state marketplace. Covered California has estimated that if Congress does not renew the American Rescue Plan subsidies, about 1 million people will see their premiums double and about 220,000 would likely drop their coverage.

“(The rate increase) for the subsidized population is almost divorced from what they pay out of pocket. What’s more important is what happens with the (American Rescue Plan) subsidies,” said Christine Eibner, a senior economist for the RAND Corporation, a think tank.

Altman said the sooner Congress acts the better the chance of avoiding consumer confusion in the fall. Covered California usually sends renewal notices to enrollees beginning in October, ahead of the sign-up period, and having clarity for people by then is key.

“There have been references both ways — ‘Will it be permanent? Will it be temporary? Will it stay in the current form?…Or will there be some adjustments to it?’ — and we really don’t know,” Altman said about the conversations happening in Washington, D.C.

California’s 2022-23 budget includes $304 million for middle-class marketplace enrollees that would kick in if Congress does not renew the aid. While helpful, it would not fill the hole the annual $1.7 billion federal aid would leave, Altman said.

Covered California also announced that another insurer, Aetna CVS Health, will join the state marketplace and be an option for people in El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties. Meanwhile, Anthem Blue Cross will expand into San Diego County.

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

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Trial has been scheduled in late February for a Eureka defense attorney accused of dealing drugs out of his home and law office on Cedar Street.

This morning visiting Judge Marilyn Miles set a Feb. 27, 2023 trial date for Michael Phillip Acosta and his partner Sarah Marie Carroll, arrested during a 2020 raid and charged with drug possession and maintaining a drug house. Trial confirmation is set for Feb. 5.

The trial is expected to take 10 days.

Acosta, 51, was in court this morning with his attorney Zack Curtis. Carroll’s lawyer Andrea Sullivan attended the hearing via Zoom but did not appear on camera.

“I have tested Covid positive and am not feeling well,” Sullivan said. She practices in Lake County but also handles a number of criminal cases in Humboldt. Curtis was reluctant to set a trial date, saying he still has not seen all evidence from the prosecution.

“It doesn’t hurt to set a date,” Miles said. “You have plenty of time.” She noted the case began in 2020 and “it’s time to get this going.”

Should the case resolve, Miles said, the trial will be removed from the February calendar.

If the trial is indeed held in February, it will be held more than three years after Acosta and Carroll, 39, were arrested during a multi-agency raid on their home. The house also serves as a law office for Acosta, a graduate of Stanford University Law School.

At the time of the arrests the Humboldt County Drug Task Force said Acosta had been under investigation for about a year because of citizen complaints about the number of people coming and going from the Cedar Street residence.

Earlier this year, Acosta ran for the office of district attorney, placing a distant last in a three-way race.

This morning Deputy District Attorney Emily Norgaard was in court for the prosecution.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Eureka Attorney Arrested and Charged in Connection With Illegal Narcotics and Firearms Trafficking, Drug Task Force Says
• Trial of Eureka Man Accused of Sex Trafficking Delayed Due to His Lawyer Being Arrested for Alleged Drugs and Weapons Trafficking
• Eureka Attorney Arrested and Accused of Maintaining a Drug House Gets Arraignment Delay While He Challenges Charges
• TODAY in COURT: Sex Trafficking Suspect Gets to Keep Lawyer, Who Faces His Own Criminal Charges; Eureka, Rio Dell Killings Also on Docket