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In anticipation of restrictive federal immunization rules, state health officials issued their own vaccination guidelines on Wednesday, recommending that all Californians 6 months and older who want protection from the COVID-19 virus get this season’s updated vaccine.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials released the recommendations as part of the state’s newly formed health alliance with Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. Leading medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, informed the recommendations, according to the state’s announcement. Simultaneously, Newsom signed Assembly Bill 144, which among several things, requires insurance plans to cover the vaccines the state endorses.

“We are here to protect our communities,” Dr. Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health, told CalMatters. “Many of us have dedicated our lives to doing that. We feel really strongly and want to show our unity” as medical, scientific and public health experts.

Pharmacies across the country started dispensing the vaccine in recent weeks, but anecdotes and news reports reveal a patchwork of access, with some people having no difficulty getting the shot, while others still unable to get it.

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of an updated COVID-19 vaccine but only for seniors and for people ages 5 to 64 who have an underlying condition that puts them at high risk for complications from a COVID-19 infection. This is more restrictive than in previous years, when the federal drug agency approved the vaccine for nearly everyone. Leading medical groups and some states immediately pushed back on the agency’s decision.

California’s guidance comes just two days ahead of a key meeting where a federal vaccine panel will review the updated COVID-19 vaccine. Public health experts anticipate this panel will restrict access to the vaccine.

That’s because U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who is, known for anti-vaccine activism, in June dismissed all 17 members of this panel known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. He replaced them with 12 new members, some of whom are documented vaccine skeptics.

Typically, after the FDA approves a vaccine for use, this federal committee makes recommendations on who should be immunized. In the past, insurers have based their vaccine coverage on the guidelines issued by this group.

Pan said California’s actions are necessary because the committee’s credibility has been “compromised”. Now with the state’s separate guidance, the CDC group’s recommendations will carry no weight for Californians.

“Whatever comes out of [this committee], our new law is independent of that,” Pan said.

Easier access under state rules

The new law accompanying the state’s independent guidance ensures that most Californians will be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine, including young children, pregnant people and those without underlying medical conditions, said Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco and an expert on vaccine law. That’s in part because it allows pharmacists to independently prescribe and administer the shot so long as the state health department recommends it.

Many people rely on pharmacies for seasonal vaccines like the flu shot and COVID-19 booster, Reiss said. Now if somebody who does not meet the more narrow federal guidelines goes to a CVS or Walgreens they won’t need a separate doctor’s prescription.

The law also grants the state health department broad authority over other vaccine policies. Many of the state’s immunization laws, including school vaccine schedules, insurance requirements and prescriber authorization, had also been tied to recommendations made by the CDC advisory committee. The state health department’s recommendations now take precedence.

Under these new policies, the department will be able to respond to future threats to vaccine availability and access, Pan said.

“We do anticipate there may be other issues that we would like to be unified on again,” she added.

It also comes amid reports that Kennedy intends to change the childhood vaccine schedule.

Pan said California and the other states in the alliance will base immunization recommendations on the work done by “trusted medical groups” that have independently assessed vaccine safety for years.

Insurers to cover state-endorsed vaccines

Most Californians have insurance through state-regulated health plans, which now must cover the updated COVID-19 shot without copays. The new law also requires Medi-Cal, the state run insurance program for low-income residents and people with disabilities, to cover the COVID-19 shot and other vaccines recommended by the state health department.

Mary Ellen Grant, a spokesperson for the California Association of Health Plans, said the state’s policy changes “will greatly reduce the amount of confusion” among patients and ensure they have access to vaccinations.

About 5.4 million Californians have insurance that is subject to federal regulations rather than state ones. Generally, these are people who work for large, multi-state or multinational companies. Nationally, insurers have been hesitant to make statements about vaccine coverage ahead of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, leaving coverage for people with federally regulated plans uncertain.

Still, Reiss said, she expects insurers to continue covering vaccines regardless of future changes made by the CDC’s advisory committee. It’s much cheaper for insurers to pay for vaccines than it is for them to pay for treatment of the diseases they prevent.

The state’s partnership with Hawaii, Oregon and Washington also creates market pressure on insurers to continue vaccine coverage, Reiss said.

“They might just say, ‘This is a big chunk of the population. We might as well have the same policy for all the country,’” she added.

Vaccines continue to be key protection

The rollout of this year’s vaccine is coinciding with a moderate surge in COVID-19 infections. Data from the California Department of Public Health show that cases have been ticking up since July. As of Sept. 6, 11.72% of samples sent in for testing were positive, slightly higher than this time last year.

Public health officials say the best way to stay healthy this fall and winter is to get vaccinated.

In addition to the COVID-19 vaccine, California’s immunization guidance also recommends that everyone 6 months and oldAmaya Palestino, 6, receives a COVID-19 vaccine at one of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center mobile health clinics in Los Angeles on March 16, 2022. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters er get a flu shot. The vaccine to protect against Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV, is recommended for all babies younger than 8 months and for babies between 8 months and 19 months if they carry risk factors. The RSV vaccine is also recommended for pregnant women at 32 weeks to 36 weeks of gestation and for all seniors 75 and older, as well as for those ages 50 to 74 with comorbidities.

“If we want to make America healthy, rather than treating disease, we want to prevent disease, and well, vaccination is one of the best creations to prevent disease,” said. Dr. Jeffrey Silvers, an infectious disease specialist at Sutter Health. “It’s right up there with clean water in terms of preventing disease.”

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Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

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Over several rivers and through even more woods, flags advocating secession from California flutter above hills dotted with cattle, which outnumber people at least sixfold.

This ranching region with a libertarian streak might have more in common with Texas than the San Francisco Bay Area.

But it’s not Texas. Five hours northeast of Sacramento on an easy day, Modoc County and its roughly 8,500 residents are still — begrudgingly — in California.

And California is dominated by Democrats, who are embroiled in a tit-for-tat redistricting war with the Lone Star State that will likely force conservative Modoc County residents to share a representative in Congress with parts of the Bay Area.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to split up the solidly Republican 1st Congressional District covering 10 rural, inland counties in the North State as part of his plan to create five more Democratic seats to offset a GOP-led effort to gain five red seats in Texas.

That would mean Republican Doug LaMalfa, the Richvale rice farmer who represents the district, would likely lose his seat.

Modoc County and two neighboring red counties would be shifted into a redrawn district that stretches 200 miles west to the Pacific Coast and then south, through redwoods and weed farms, to include some of the state’s wealthiest communities, current Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman’s home in San Rafael and the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, all in uber-liberal Marin County.

“It’s like a smack in the face,” said local rancher Amie Martinez. “How could you put Marin County with Modoc County? It’s just a different perspective.”

Amie Martinez at the Brass Rail Bar & Grill in Alturas on Sept. 3, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

The proposal would even likely force Modoc residents to share a district with the governor, who moved back to Marin County last year and splits his time between there and Sacramento. Modoc County voted 78% in favor of recalling him, and voters asked about redistricting there view it as a publicity stunt for Newsom’s presidential ambitions.

The ballot measure known as Proposition 50, on voters’ ballots Nov. 4, has sparked outrage in the North State. Yet for a region known for its rebellious spirit, residents are also resigned: they know they’re collateral damage in a partisan numbers game.

The map would dilute conservative voting power in one of the state’s traditional Republican strongholds. It would cut short the career growth of politicians from the state’s minority party and make room for the growing cadre of Democrats rising up from state and county seats, jockeying for bigger platforms.

But locals say they’re most concerned it’s a death-knell for rural representation. They worry their agricultural interests and their views on water, wildlife and forest management would be overshadowed in a district that includes Bay Area communities that have long championed environmental protection.

“They’ve taken every rural district and made it an urban district,” said Nadine Bailey, a former staffer for a Republican state senator who now advocates for agricultural water users and the rural North State. “It just feels like an assault on rural California.”

Though Modoc County supervisors have declared their opposition to Prop. 50, there’s little else locals can do. Registered Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats statewide nearly two-to-one. Rural residents represent an even smaller share of the state’s electorate.

“It’ll be very hard to fight back,” said Tim Babcock, owner of a general store in Lassen County, a similar and neighboring community that’s proposed to be drawn into a different liberal-leaning congressional district. “Unless we split the state. And that’s never going to happen.”

An isolated county

Far-flung but tight-knit, the high desert of Modoc County has been an agricultural community for generations.

In the west, cattle graze through a series of meadows and valleys into the hills of the Warner Mountains. Hundreds of them are sold weekly at an auction yard Martinez’s family runs on the outskirts of Alturas. The 3,000-person county seat consists of a cluster of government buildings, a high school and empty storefronts. In the east, migratory birds soar over vegetable farms on the drained Tule Lake bed that the U.S. granted to World War II veteran homesteaders by picking names out of a pickle jar. Not far away sit the remains of an internment camp where the government imprisoned nearly 19,000 Japanese Americans.

The sheer remoteness and harsh natural beauty are a point of pride and a source of difficulty. Residents live with the regular threat of wildfires. A fifth of the county’s residents live below the poverty line. There’s no WalMart and no maternity ward, and there are few jobs outside of agriculture. Like other forested counties, local schools are facing a fiscal cliff after Congress failed to renew a source of federal funding reserved for areas with declining timber revenues.

Cattle graze on farmland in Modoc County on Sept. 4, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

First: Businesses in downtown Alturas, on Sept. 4, 2025. Alturas, in Modoc County, is one of the communities that would be affected by the current redistricting efforts led by state Democrats. Last: Historical structures at the Tule Lake Relocation Center in Newell on Sept. 4, 2025. The Tule Lake Relocation Center was a concentration camp established during World War II by the U.S. government for the incarceration of Japanese Americans. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

It’s so sparsely populated that local Republican Assemblymember Heather Hadwick, who lives in Modoc County, represents 10 neighboring counties besides her own. She puts in hundreds of miles on the road holding town halls between Sacramento and home, and struggles to imagine a congressmember reaching her county, with winding roads and the Klamath Mountains between Modoc and the coast.

“It’s just not good governance,” she said.

Modoc County went for Trump by over 70% last fall. Its sheriff, Tex Dowdy, proudly refuses to fly the California flag over his station out of grievance with the state’s liberal governance. In 2013, Modoc made headlines for declaring its intent to secede from California and form the “State of Jefferson” with neighboring counties in the North State and southwest Oregon.

County Supervisor Geri Byrne said she knew it was a longshot — but thought, “when’s the last time The New York Times called someone in Modoc County?”

Byrne, who is also chair of the Rural County Representatives of California and of the upcoming National Sheepdog Finals, said the secession resolution was about sending a message.

“It wasn’t conservative-liberal,” she said. “It was the urban-rural divide, and that’s what this whole Prop. 50 is about.”

Even a Democratic resident running a produce pickup center in Alturas observed that her neighbors are “not that Trumpy.” Instead, there’s a pervasive general distrust of politics on any side of the aisle.

In particular, residents who live by swaths of national forests bemoan how successive federal administrations of both parties have flip-flopped on how to manage public lands, which they say have worsened the risk of wildfire and prioritized conservation over their livelihoods.

Flourishing wolves are a problem

At the moment, all anyone can talk about is the wolves.

The apex predator returned to California more than a decade ago, a celebrated conservation success story after they were hunted to near-extinction in the western U.S. Now they’re flourishing in the North State — and feeding on cattle, throwing ranching communities on edge. Federally, they’re still listed as an endangered species under the landmark conservation law signed by President Richard Nixon.

Under California rules, ranchers can only use nonlethal methods to deter the wolves, like electrifying fencing or hiring ranch hands to guard their herds at night.

First: Signs related to wolves hang on a trailer in Lassen County, near Nubieber, on Sept. 3, 2025. The gray wolf population has grown in Northern California, causing tension between local residents and animal protection advocates. Last: Teri Brown, owner of Modoc Farm Supply, at her store in Alturas, on Sept. 4, 2025. Alturas, in Modoc County, is one of the communities that would be affected by the current redistricting efforts led by Democrats. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

“That whole issue is softened by the organizations that mean well for the animals, but this is our absolute existence here,” said Teri Brown, owner of a local feed store, who said she’s had cows go missing that she suspects were killed by wolves.

It’s one of the rural issues Brown, a registered Republican, said voters closer to the Bay Area wouldn’t understand. She said she doesn’t support gerrymandering anywhere — in Texas or California.

In town to visit his bookkeeper, rancher Ray Anklin scrolled through his phone to show videos of wolves trotting through his property and grisly photos of calf kills. He said last year, wildlife killed 19 of his cattle — a loss of over $3,000 per head. He’s set up a booth at a nearby fair, hoping to get public support for delisting wolves as an endangered species, and wants any representative in Congress to take the issue seriously.

As California’s battlegrounds increasingly take shape in exurban and suburban districts, rural North State conservatives at times feel almost as out of touch with their fellow Republicans as they do with Democrats.

Few Republicans in the state and nation understand “public lands districts,” said Modoc County Supervisor Shane Starr, a Republican who used to work in LaMalfa’s office. “Doug’s the closest thing we’ve got.”

Modoc County Supervisor Shane Starr at the Hotel Niles in Alturas on Sept. 4, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

“This whole thing with DEI and ‘woke culture’ and stuff,” he said, referring to the diversity and inclusion efforts under attack from the right, “it’s like, yeah, we had a kid who goes to the high school who dyed his hair a certain color. Cool, we don’t care. All of these things going on at the national stage are not based in our reality whatsoever.”

At a cattlemen’s dinner in Alturas one recent evening, Martinez said she once ran into LaMalfa at a local barbecue fundraiser for firefighters and approached him about a proposal to designate parts of northwestern Nevada as protected federal wilderness. Her 700-person town of Cedarville in east Modoc County is 10 minutes from the state line.

Martinez worried about rules that prohibit driving motorized vehicles in wilderness, which she said would discourage the hunters who pass through during deer season and book lodging in town. Even though the proposal was in Nevada, LaMalfa sent staff, including Starr, to meetings to raise objections on behalf of the small town, she said.

“I know we won’t get that kind of representation from Marin County,” she said.

Reached by phone, Huffman defended his qualifications to represent the region.

Adding Siskiyou, Shasta and Modoc counties would mean many more hours of travel to meet constituents, but Huffman pointed out his district is already huge, covering 350 miles of the North Coast. And it includes many conservative-leaning, forested areas in Trinity and Del Norte counties. A former attorney for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, he’s the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, where LaMalfa also sits.

Emma Harris holds a belt buckle she was awarded as a prize for winning a branding competition, at the Brass Rail Bar & Grill on Sept. 3, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

First: A mural depicts a cowboy riding Red Rock the famous bucking bull in Alturas, on Sept. 4, 2025. Last: Ranchers chat during a cattlemen’s meeting at the Brass Rail Bar & Grill in Alturas on Sept. 3, 2025. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

Huffman said he would run for re-election in the district if voters approve its redrawing, and “would work my tail off to give them great representation.”

As for the wolves, he doesn’t support delisting their endangered status and said he only supports nonlethal methods of managing the population.

“There are plenty of win-win solutions,” he said of conflict between ranchers and environmentalists. “I’m not an absolutist. I’m a problem solver.”

For Democrats, ‘I don’t think there’s any option’

On the other side of the aisle, North State Democrats are gearing up to support Prop. 50, even as parts of it make them uneasy.

Nancy Richardson, an office manager at the free weekly paper in Modoc County (coverage of high school sports remains steady, along with a police blotter announcing a woman’s booking for eavesdropping), said she doesn’t like that it will cost the state as much as $280 million to run the statewide election on redistricting.

But she thinks it has to be done.

“I don’t like that Texas is causing this problem,” she said.

In Siskiyou County’s liberal enclave of Mt. Shasta, Greg Dinger said he supports the redistricting plan because he wants to fight back against the Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants, erosion of democratic norms and a federal budget that is estimated to cut $28 billion from health care in California over the next 10 years.

The effects are expected to be particularly acute in struggling rural hospitals, which disproportionately rely on Medicare and Medicaid funding. LaMalfa voted for the budget bill.

Dinger, who owns a web development company, said normally he would only support bipartisan redistricting. But he was swayed by the fact that Trump had called for Republicans to draw more GOP seats in Texas.

“Under the circumstances, I don’t think there’s any option,” he said. “There’s the phrase that came from Michelle Obama, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ Well, that doesn’t work anymore.”

In an interview, LaMalfa said the impacts to rural hospitals were exaggerated. He blamed impending Medicaid cuts instead on California’s health care system being billions of dollars over budget this year, in part because of rising pharmaceutical costs and higher-than-expected enrollment of undocumented immigrants who recently became eligible. (California doesn’t use federal dollars to pay for undocumented immigrants’ coverage.)

“Basically what it boils down to is they want illegal immigrants to be getting these benefits,” he said in response to criticism of the spending bill. “Are the other 49 states supposed to pay for that?”

LaMalfa has criticized Prop. 50 and said no state should engage in partisan redistricting in the middle of the decade. But he stopped short of endorsing his Republican colleague Rep. Kevin Kiley’s bill in Congress to ban it nationwide, saying states should still retain their rights to run their own elections systems.

The proposed new maps would make Kiley’s Republican-leaning district blue. They would turn LaMalfa’s 1st District into a dramatically more liberal one that stretches into Santa Rosa.

But LaMalfa said he’s leaning toward running for re-election even if the maps pass, though he’s focused for now on campaigning against the proposition.

“I intend to give it my all no matter what the district is,” he said.

He would likely face Audrey Denney, a Chico State professor and two-time prior Democratic challenger who has already said she’d run again if the maps pass. Outgoing state Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Healdsburg Democrat who was instrumental in coming up with the proposed new maps, is also reportedly interested in the seat; McGuire’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

In her renovated Queen Anne cottage in downtown Chico, Denney buzzed with excitement describing how the proposition has galvanized rural Democrats.

She emphasized her own family’s roots as ranchers in the Central Coast region, and said she has bipartisan relationships across the North State.

Audrey Denney at her home in Chico on Sept. 3, 2025. Denney is considering running as a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in Calfornia’s 1st District if voters approve the new congressional maps. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

“I have credibility in those spaces, growing up in rural America and spending my career advocating for rural America and real, actual, practical solutions for people,” she said.

Denney’s former campaign staffer Rylee Pedotti, a Democrat in Modoc County, shares her optimism — to an extent. A communications professional whose family also owns a ranch, she said she’s not worried Huffman couldn’t represent Modoc.

“More often than not we actually do experience some of the same issues,” Pedotti said: water and irrigation concerns, the loss of home insurance, the rising costs of health care.

Yet she’s deeply conflicted about the proposal: on the one hand cheering Democrats for being “finally ready to play hardball as the Republicans have done so well for decades in consolidating power;” on the other fearful of the escalating partisan rancor and the disenfranchisement of her neighbors. She’s considering sitting out the election.

“We’ll still be heard,” she said, if the new maps pass. “But I understand the concerns of folks who are on the other side of the aisle. It feels like their voice is being taken away.”

John Charles Macinata, born June 26, 1956, passed peacefully on September 2, 2025 at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital, in Eureka, at the age of 69. Born in Arcata to Charles and Marie Macinata, John spent most of his life in Humboldt County, attending kindergarten through 12th grade in Arcata. At the time of his passing, John was a resident of McKinleyville, where he lived for nearly fifty years.

John’s career was in the automotive industry and began with training in Arizona, post high school graduation. Upon his return to Arcata, he worked for over thirty years servicing the Humboldt community as a valued employee/manager at Sequoia Auto, Arcata Auto and Napa Auto Parts in Eureka. John earned his reputation as a great parts man. It was not uncommon for John to receive calls from folks across the country seeking his help to locate a particular car part; a challenge he greatly loved and welcomed.

To say that John cherished time with his friends is an understatement. He loved music and enjoyed attending concerts; he knew every person in every band, including the lead singer. To settle a bet, friends would call John in the middle of the night, knowing that he could identify the singer in a specific song. In addition, John had a passion for racing; he frequented Redwood Acres, driving that #10 Pinto car, riding in the bomber car with Marc (even when it flipped), and flying to Nascar races with Jim and all the guys. He recently bought a red 1966 Honda Dream and soon upgraded to a Yamaha trike.His dear friend Randy, helped John get and keep them in top shape. John was thrilled to ride, he also enjoyed cruising in his Chrysler Crossfire.Fun times spent with treasured friends filled his life and gave him joy: jamming with Denise,Steve and friends.Salmon fishing with his buddies, going to baseball games and sprint car races, barbecuing and sitting around the fire with Louie and the gang.Many good times and friends were made at the Moose Lodge in McKinleyville, including returning home one evening with a shaved head! John loved them all.

John leaves behind his wife, Debbie, of forty years, friend and brother, Mike, who stayed by his side from the beginning of his disability to the very end of his life, sister Marianne (Amy), nieces Sarah and Cassie, Aunt Bernadine, and his cherished, close friends: Randy, Leonard, Ron, Dennis, and John and all who knew him well. He loved each one of you dearly.

Deep gratitude is extended to a group of wonderful medical professionals who provided years of support and outstanding care for John. These include Doctor Ha, Doctor Shaundra, and Doctor Fischbein at Stanford Medical Center. Thank you to Doctor Matthew, an incredible nephrologist, for being a great friend to John and keeping him going all these years. Lastly, special thanks to all the dialysis nurses at Fesenius Kidney Care in McKinleyville for providing John with years of exceptional care, especially Dusty, Danielle, Pam and Ann.

A celebration of John’s life will be determined.

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Ella May Sanders McNeill Craig, age 96, passed away on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 in Eureka. Born on January 6, 1929, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she was the only child of Dr. Samuel Thomas Sanders and Wilma Bacon Sanders.

Ella attended high school in Lafayette, Louisiana and Vermont College for Women in Montpelier, Vermont. She met her first husband, John Duncan McNeill, while they were both students at Columbia Bible College in Columbia, SC. She was a lifelong learner and along the way, she collected masters degrees in education, history, and later, social work.

John and Ella had four children, Sarah, Tim, Jim, and Sam. Ella instilled her love of music in each of them. We all enjoyed singing and harmonizing together as a family, both at home and on camping trips. Sarah and Sam had careers in music.

The family lived for a number of years in Greensboro, N.C. After Ella and John separated, she moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to be near her aunt and uncle. There she met and married Douglas Craig in 1967. Together, they moved to California where they spent the rest of their lives. Doug passed away in 2017.

She taught elementary school for a number years before changing careers to become a social worker. Her greatest love after the Lord and her children was her music. She was a prolific composer of choral music and was a certified Sweet Adelines arranger. She also enjoyed singing in various church choirs and community choral ensembles.

In her retirement, she focused on music writing, volunteer work at the local food bank, supporting environmental and public interest causes, and socializing with her kitties. Ella and her son Sam McNeill performed many concerts at various assisted living facilities and nursing homes, always bringing joy to residents there.

A recent highlight for Mom was attending the 70th reunion of her graduating class of Columbia Bible College of Columbia, S.C. in 2019. The college choir performed one of Ella’s compositions at the Alumni Convocation. From her class of 1949, five members were in attendance..

Ella is survived by her four children, Sarah McNeill Spradley (Bruce) of Savannah Georgia; Tim McNeill (Sandra) of Lewisville, North Carolina; Jim McNeill of Cape Charles, Virginia; and Sam McNeill (Suerie), of Arcata, California. Also, her grandchildren: Alex Stratton (Johnny), Emily Spradley Graham (Mat), Mark Spradley (Kristi), Kristen McNeill Perry (Michael), Angela McNeill, Jennifer McNeill, Carmen McNeill, Ian McNeill, and Kale McNeill. Ella also had three great grandchildren.

Ella’s children are grateful to their brother Sam and his wife, Suerie, for always being there for our mom.

A memorial service and celebration of life will be held for Ella at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 20, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church of Arcata. 670 11th Street, Arcata.

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Say goodbye to 15-cent hourly parking in Old Town, everybody! The City of Eureka is looking to bring its metered system into the 21st Century by shifting to an app-based pay-to-park platform with expanded monitoring and a new rate of $1.10 per hour, which includes a 75-cent hourly fee and a 35-cent transaction fee. The program is expected to roll out in the coming months.

At last night’s Eureka City Council meeting, Public Works Project Manager Jay Wortelboer presented staff’s plans to contract with Passport Parking, a North Carolina-based digital parking compliance platform, to “improve efficiency and utilization” of city-owned parking lots in Old Town and downtown Eureka. 

“Public parking in Old Town and downtown Eureka has seen little change over the last several decades,” Wortelboer explained. “This lack of progress has led to ongoing issues with lot maintenance, inconsistent enforcement, and outdated regulations. The city has received feedback from business owners expressing concerns about long-term parking limits negatively impacting local businesses, as well as a lack of enforcement throughout both Old Town and our downtown parking districts.”

The new system will implement an hourly fee in metered parking zones, depicted in orange in the map below, between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, excluding national holidays. While the current fee is set at $1.10, the city’s fee schedule would allow staff to increase the hourly rate to $3. The increased rates would not apply to Old Town/downtown residents and employees who’ve purchased a parking permit from the city.

If you’ve visited any major city in recent years, you’ve surely come across one of these “smart” mobile parking systems that prompt users to either scan a QR code or download an app to pay for parking. In this case, users have to create an account on the Passport Parking app — conveniently linked here if you’re feeling proactive — locate the designated parking zone, enter their payment information, license plate number and anticipated length of stay. 

“You can receive alerts before your meter expires, extend time and view all your parking history [on the mobile app],” Wortelboer said. “Passport allows multiple payment methods, [including] Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. Additionally, we are in the process of setting up a cash pay option here at City Hall for prepay or anybody who likes to pay [with] cash.”

City staff will monitor payment and parking permit status in “digitally chalked zones” by scanning license plates. Citations can be paid or disputed through the app or to the city directly.

Cal Poly Humboldt is one of more than 800 cities and institutions that use Passport Parking for mobile meter enforcement, Wortelboer said, adding that the university charges $1.50 per hour for on-campus parking.

Following staff’s presentation, Councilmember Scott Bauer asked how much revenue the new metering system is expected to generate and how the funds will be spent. 

City Engineer Jesse Willor said most of the funds will go toward parking lot upkeep and deferred maintenance. “As you can tell, going from $0.15 an hour for years and years and years … that program wasn’t making money,” he continued. “I mean, you can see [the parking lots and signs] haven’t changed a lot in a long time.”

The funds would also cover the cost of a full-time parking enforcement employee, Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery added.

The new parking system is expected to roll out “in a few months,” Willor said. Once the program is implemented, staff will shift focus to on-street parking.

“We’re a little hesitant to jump right into the on-street stuff, given that we need to take care of our [parking] lots … to make sure that [the] next phase is rolled out in an efficient way that [is] beneficial to the community,” he said. “I do think that we want to be very quick on that turnover, because all of a sudden you’re going to see … these increases in the cost of parking in the parking lots and … free on-street parking. It’s going to shift parking around the city.”

The council agreed to receive the report but did not take any formal action on the item.

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Growing up in Los Angeles, Tisha Sloan always dreamed of acting in film. She got involved in theater at age 12 and went on to earn her Associate of Arts degree from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, a Method-focused school where instructors encourage students to pull from their own life experiences.

Sloan realized that she was a bit short on those and, yearning to get out of L.A., she decided to move to Humboldt County, where she earned two more degrees in theater from Humboldt State University. She and the family she’d begun settled in to the slower rural lifestyle. 

“I wanted to raise my kids here with rivers and trees and cows instead of concrete, how I grew up,” Sloan told the Outpost in a recent interview.

But she stayed involved in acting, working as a company member and production manager for Dell’Arte for in the early 2000s and landing roles in the occasional community theater production or local TV commercial. (You might recognize her as the long-suffering housewife in a series of spots for Barry Smith Construction.)

So it wasn’t too surprising when, a couple of years ago, Sloan was contacted by Cassandra Hesseltine, the film commissioner for Humboldt and Del Norte counties, saying a film would soon be shooting in our region and the crew was looking to cast some locals. Hesseltine told the Outpost that she was directing a play at the time, and the production’s casting director reached out to ask whether she knew anyone who’d be right for a specific role. Sloan was Hesseltine’s understudy in the play.

“She was the only one I thought of, and then she nailed it, you know?” Hesseltine said. “I was like, ‘No way. That’s amazing.’”

Sloan still didn’t know what she was in for. “[Hesseltine] had me send my headshot and resume to the casting director, who then got back to me and sent me a couple pages of script,” Sloan said. “And we did a Zoom reading, and she really liked it.”

That casting director, Hollywood veteran Cassandra Kulukundis, then forwarded Sloan’s recorded audition to “the director,” who turned out to be renowned auteur and 11-time Oscar nominee Paul Thomas Anderson, though Sloan wasn’t aware of that fact at the time. 

As film commissioner, Hesseltine did know who was behind the production, of course, and when the two women bumped into each other at an event and Sloan mentioned that she’d soon be “doing a read” with the film’s lead actor, Hesseltine couldn’t hide her excitement.

“She started freaking out,” Sloan said. “So that was my first clue that this was actually something pretty big.”

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The film, of course, would wind up being One Battle After Another, Anderson’s star-studded, ~$150 million action comedy, scheduled for nationwide release a week from Friday. Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, the movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall. Rave reviews are rolling in, with several critics hailing it as a masterpiece.

Hesseltine said her first meeting for the film was way back in April of 2019. Anderson, director of such films as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood, had already made several trips to Humboldt County, searching for locations and using what he saw to help him write the script, she said. 

The production, like so many others, was delayed by the pandemic. But in early 2024, the crew spent 11 days here in Humboldt County, filming at a variety of locations, including the Cutten Murphy’s Market, the streets of Trinidad and Arcata and the campus of Eureka High School, before going on to shoot scenes in Sacramento, El Paso, Texas, and Pinewood Studios in the United Kingtom.

Eureka resident Carlos McFarland was a Eureka High senior in 2023 when he heard through the school’s theater club that there was an online casting call for bit parts and background actors. 

“I had to reach out to the casting agent and ask if I could have an audition,” McFarland said in a recent phone interview. “I got emailed a little script and a few months later I got to audition.”

Like Sloan, he auditioned via Zoom, reading lines with the casting director. Also like Sloan, he initially had no idea how big this project would be or who was behind it. He wasn’t even sure he’d been cast until it was nearly go time.

“I heard back the week that they were in town, in Eureka,” he said. “I got a text from the casting agent to be at base camp by six in the morning.” 

Fellow Eureka resident Colton Gantt, now 24, saw the casting call for this mysterious 2024 production posted on Facebook. He had previously worked as a background actor for the 2022 coming-of-age movie The Sky Is Everywhere, which also filmed in Humboldt County, and figured he’d try to do it again.

Colton Gantt at a cast and crew screening in Hollywood last weekend.

“I had applied for just a background [role], and then later on they asked for a picture of me,” Gantt said. After sending one in he was told that he might be good for a small speaking part, and after auditioning via Zoom with the casting director, he landed the role. 

As with McFarland, he was kept in the dark until the production crew arrived here in Humboldt.

“They basically told me that it was a Warner Bros. production,” Gantt said. “They didn’t really tell me much at first, but once I got onto set they were like, ‘Oh, we’re going to introduce you to somebody.’ And that ended up being Leo.”

When we spoke, neither Gantt nor McFarland were sure how much they were allowed to say about their roles or the plot. But we know that DiCaprio plays a paranoid and washed-up revolutionary named Bob; newcomer Chase Infiniti plays Bob’s daughter; and McFarland and Gantt play the daughter’s close friends. You can see them both in this TV spot for One Battle After Another:

That’s Gantt behind the wheel (and front door) of his grandma’s red Toyota Yaris at the start of the clip, and McFarland being manhandled by DiCaprio. 

McFarland recalled eating a catered breakfast at the production basecamp on his first day and then being driven out to location near Freshwater. That’s when he found out who he’d be acting with.

“I realized when we pulled up to the set ‘cause I saw Leo there, which was really cool,” he said. “I did not know it was going to be with him.”

McFarland admitted to being only a “mild” Leo fan and said he wasn’t nervous about performing alongside DiCaprio.

“He was super nice. At one point he said I was doing a good job,” McFarland recalled. “I honestly just wanted to do my best and remember my lines.”

Gantt, on the other hand, was a fan.

“It was really incredible to work with [DiCaprio],” he said. “He’s somebody that I’ve admired for a long time, and to share a set with him was surreal.”

Sloan, meanwhile, deduced the identity of her screen partner from the very excited Hesseltine, who couldn’t resist offering hints once she learned that Sloan would be reading scenes with him.

“She said, ‘You’re going to be acting with someone of Titanic proportion,” Sloan recalled. She’d been following industry buzz and quickly figured out that this was a Paul Thomas Anderson production, “which I was really excited about,” she said. “He’s one of my favorites. … I really couldn’t believe it was happening.”

Sloan spent the two weeks ahead of her Leo read-through watching as many of his films as she could find — “just to, like, get used to his face,” she said. “And it kind of worked!”

When she found herself performing opposite one of the world’s biggest movie stars, Sloan felt dissociated from herself. “It was all so unreal,” she said. But she found the crew to be exceedingly generous. “They were really kind and calm and very accommodating. I think they were well aware of how overwhelming this whole thing could be to someone new to it.”

About a week after the reading, Sloan got a call from Kulukundis, the casting director, who started talking to her about costume fittings.

“And I said, ‘Whoa, wait. Does that mean I got it?’” Sloan recalled. “And she said, ‘Oh, they didn’t tell you?’”

Like her young local costars, Sloan had nothing but praise for her time with DiCaprio.

“He was so very kind and welcoming at the audition in person that I felt pretty okay going in [to the film set], honestly,” she said. “And I have been acting since I was 12, so I understood the concept of getting into character and being in character and being professional in the scene.”

DiCaprio was also “a bit in character” when she arrived onset for her day of shooting at a Eureka High location. Sloan didn’t offer too many details about that day or the scene they filmed, but she said her character interacts with DiCaprio’s. Filming the scene took a long time, she said, with Anderson trying multiple camera angles and lenses across multiple takes. 

“After we’d been doing it for a while — a couple hours at that point — I think I felt comfortable enough to actually take a look around the room, because I was being so focused on who I was and where I was and what was supposed to be happening,” Sloan said. 

So she looked around, taking in the set and finally noticing all of the surrounding people with their lights and camera equipment. 

“And when I came back to facing Leo, he was looking right at me,” Sloan said. “And he said, ‘Stay in it,’ like a warning almost. Like, you know, ‘Stay ready.’ And the best part, though, is I, so, okay.” Sloan paused, excited as she remembered this moment. “I looked down, I got myself back into character, and I looked back up at him, and he kind of nodded, like, he could see it — that I got back into character. And that meant more than anything.”

###

Both Sloan and Gantt were invited to attend a cast and crew screening last weekend on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Hollywood. 

“I jumped on the opportunity to go do that,” Sloan said. “And that’s the best part, honestly.” Her childhood dreams of being a movie actor had finally come true. “Getting onto the Warner Bros. studio lot, getting through that guard station with my ID, and [hearing], “Yes, your name’s on a list. Come on in.’ That was huge.”

Gantt said it was great seeing members of the cast and crew that he’d last seen up here in Humboldt, including Anderson. After seeing himself on the (very) big VistaVision screen, he said he’s still wrapping his head around the whole experience. 

“It was really surreal being a part of it, being surrounded by so many big names in the industry,” he said. “[There were] just a lot of people that I grew up watching, and to share a set with them was actually really cool.”

One Battle After Another opens Friday, Sept. 26, nationwide, including at Eureka’s Broadway Cinema, and it’s coming soon to The Minor Theatre in Arcata.

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PREVIOUSLY

• Film Set to Shoot in Eureka is From Renowned Director Paul Thomas Anderson, With Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Regina Hall, According to Industry Reports
• (PHOTOS) Hollywood Magic Transforms Cutten Plaza Into a Mexican Mini-Mall for DiCaprio Movie Production
• Northtown Arcata Will Be Swarming With Movie Folk Tomorrow, As Bigtime Production ‘BC Project’ Films in the Neighborhood
• (WATCH) First Look at Leonardo DiCaprio In Character for New Paul Thomas Anderson Film Currently Filming in Humboldt
• MOVIE DAY! My Diary of Hanging Around Waiting For The Stars to Show Up In Northtown, and the Things I Saw There
• Buh-Bye, Leo! Local Production on Paul Thomas Anderson’s New DiCaprio Movie Has Wrapped
• Alas, We Have to Wait Until Summer 2025 to See Leo Dicaprio’s Locally Filmed Paul Thomas Anderson Movie
• (VIDEO) Teaser Trailer Just Dropped for the New DiCaprio Movie Partly Filmed in Humboldt and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
• (VIDEO) There’s More Humboldt in This Full-Length Trailer for DiCaprio’s ‘One Battle After Another’

Five staff members of the Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC) announced Monday in a letter to the executive board of the NEC that they had unionized and were striking until their demands were met, claiming that their “private Free Speech rights” were “infringed upon” by the board, and also that they were generally being treated unfairly.

The signees included all of the members of the NEC’s staff except for Public Lands Director Larry Glass, who is also a secretary on the NEC’s board. 

Three of the staff (Moxie Alvarnaz, Carlrey Arroyo, and an unidentified third member) were at meetings of the Arcata City Council last month where public commenters, attempting to persuade the city to change its approach to cleaning up and moving homeless people from a private property in Arcata, shut down proceedings by shouting over meeting participants, frequently berating and personally insulting them. 

City employees, including a former NEC employee and Mayor Alex Stillman, reached out to the NEC board to complain about how the staff members acted at the meetings; the board decided to reach out to meet with two of the staff to work something out, but the staff decided to unionize and strike instead.

As of publication, none of the staff members have returned a request for comment.

Alvarnaz speaks at the Aug. 6 Arcata City Council meeting

Glass said in a phone interview with the Outpost yesterday that the staff members’ actions at the city council meetings damaged the NEC’s reputation immensely. More than 20 people have unsubscribed from NEC’s EcoNews publication, and former employees and members have said they don’t want to be associated with the NEC. Member groups like the Audubon Society, the Native Plant Society, and the Sierra Club called the NEC to ask them to explain what was happening, Glass said; a board member that represents the Sierra Club almost quit. 

This month’s EcoNews will not be published. Their offices are closed, and the NEC won’t be able to conduct any business. The board will meet soon to discuss how to handle the situation.

“It showed the organization in a very unprofessional light,” Glass said. “…It’s very serious. This whole thing has been a complete disaster for us.”

In the letter, the strikers bristle at what they see as a suppression of their right to free speech, citing the First Amendment in their letter as a guarantor that they can “[voice] outrage at anti-homeless sweeps, police violence, and continued gentrification in their City of residence.” (The First Amendment only protects citizens against government suppression of free speech. Third parties, like social media companies or employers, aren’t covered.) 

Because they didn’t identify themselves as employees of the NEC at the city council meetings, the staff believe they should not be disciplined. The NEC disagrees, as does their lawyer, because plenty of people at the meetings knew who they were and their employers. 

Glass denied that they were “targeting” anyone — all they wanted to do, according to him, was discipline two of their employees for representing them unprofessionally, and couldn’t manage even that. 

“I feel betrayed personally,” Glass said. “These people were employees, and, I thought, friends. I was hoping we could resolve the issue, and we wouldn’t have any further events like that in the future. That’s what I was hoping for: a resolution. I certainly didn’t expect it to escalate the way it has.”

The strikers also complain that their workplace has become “hostile” after board members attempted to meet with them to evaluate their work performances. 

Board members also wanted to judge how well they had done at managing the NEC. Instead of having an executive director, the staff split the director’s responsibilities for a six month trial period, which started in November of 2024. The trial ended long ago, and NEC leaders still haven’t been able to set up a meeting with the staff to break down how they did.

Board member Margaret Gainer criticized the letter announcing the strike, and said she was disappointed that they had been so hard to contact and work with.

“Their announcement was, A: difficult to understand, and B: riddled with things that aren’t factual,” she said in an interview with the Outpost. “What was not explained was the typical process for employees, how to help them be their best, and all of the things that are nonprofit best management practices. None of that is explained in the announcement.”

There’s a line in public protest, she said, between what’s acceptable and what’s not. A heads-up to the NEC’s upper management that they were planning on protesting would have made a big difference. 

“I’m just so disappointed that there’s been this long history of really effective, strategic, thoughtful, well informed, well researched impact on environmental issues in our region, and strong protests that made a difference, and that they have chosen to go this route,” Gainer said. “It’s too bad. That history of strong, effective, strategic, clear, purposeful protest is a part of what we’re proud of the NEC. And this is certainly a different way.”