###

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday listened to nearly two and a half hours of testimony from financially desperate cannabis growers beseeching them to lift the burden of Measure S cultivation taxes. But as the all-day meeting stretched past the dinner hour, the board struggled to agree on a level and formula for tax relief and postponed its decision to a special meeting to be held sometime next week.

The highly anticipated hearing got off to a surprising start when Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, whose Second District contains a majority of licensed cannabis operations in the county, announced that she would be recusing herself from the matter entirely.

She didn’t fully explain her reasoning until hours later, following the board’s decision to table the matter for a later date. At that point, Bushnell explained that she recently obtained a state license for her own cannabis company, Boot Leg Farm, LLC, and after consulting with her legal counsel and reaching out to the Fair Political Practices Commission, she decided it would be best to recuse herself so that she didn’t jeopardize the proceedings with her potential conflict of interest.

Many of the more than 60 public speakers had voiced frustration with Bushnell’s absence. She said she was disappointed, too, and acknowledged that she could have handled the situation better. “I really love my community and I’m very supportive of it — especially the cannabis community,” she said. 

The decision at hand was whether to establish a program that would reduce, suspend or waive the 2021 and 2022 tax bills from Measure S, the county’s voter-approved cultivation tax, which charges growers between $1.08 and $3.26 per square foot of licensed cultivation area. 

In the staff report, recently appointed Assistant County Administrative Officer/Chief Financial Officer Tabatha Miller said the local cannabis industry is struggling amid “unsustainably low market pricing.” She presented a list of 10 possible approaches to reducing the county tax burden with a range of revenue impacts:

The recommendation from County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes was to suspend one year’s worth of taxes for growers whose farms are 10,000 square feet or smaller, a proposal that would cost — or at least postpone — an estimated $3 million in revenues to the county’s general fund.

Miller noted that the financial issues buffeting local growers extend well beyond the county borders. Consumers tend to prefer indoor-grown flower, while the majority of Humboldt’s crop is outdoor. State taxes are much higher than Measure S taxes. And counties to our south are permitting industrial-scale operations that add to the state’s oversupply of cannabis.

Regardless, public commenters repeatedly identified the county’s tax bills as the make-or-break for them personally if not the renowned local industry altogether.

“The industry is facing a complete market crash [and] our local community is facing a mass extinction event,” said Sara Bullock, owner of a 22,000-square-foot farm near Kneeland. She has cut expenses drastically in an effort to stay afloat, she added. “I mortgaged my house to continue to live here. I have no more expenses to cut. We are an industry in crisis. We would love to pay Measure S taxes but, simply stated, the money is not there. We cannot pay.”

Samantha Phillips said her company, Mojo Mountain, employed nearly 50 people but has been forced to lay off most of its workforce. “As a mother it is heartbreaking to tell people with families that we can no longer afford to keep them,” she said. “The current tax structure at the state and county level is crippling our ability to survive and navigate this new market we are now in.”

Others made more grandiose proclamations. One man, for example, characterized the tax as “extortion” and accused the board of committing “cultural and economic genocide.”

One of the speakers to take issue with Bushnell’s absence was Craig Johnson, owner of Alpenglow Farms, who said her recusal on this agenda item effectively subjected 80 percent of the county’s farms to “taxation without representation.” (Planning and Building Director John Ford later told the Outpost that the 80 percent figure sounds a bit high, though he didn’t have an exact figure at hand.)

“I’m really rattled by Supervisor Bushnell not being able to be part of this conversation,” Johnson said. “We’re gonna have to get to the bottom of this and find out why our supervisor can’t represent us.”

Ross Gordon, policy director with the Humboldt County Growers Alliance (HCGA), said taxes such as Measure S are predicated on the assumption that cannabis is “wildly profitable” when the reality is that growers are burdened by costs and challenges faced by no other type of agricultural producers.

“And I think the message that we want to bring you today is that that paradigm is over,” he said. “It’s not there anymore. It simply can’t work to continue levying these fees.”

HCGA Executive Director Natalynne DeLapp said already deferred tax bills from October and March need to be forgiven and waived entirely “lest the county deliver a deathblow to an untold number of our cannabis operators.” 

The calls stretched into the evening, even though Board Chair and Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass had limited each speaker to two minutes apiece. Caller after caller relayed details of their financial woes and called on the county to suspend or waive their tax bills and develop a new taxation model.

Licensed cannabis farmer Thomas Mulder, who is Bushnell’s appointee to the Humboldt County Planning Commission, said the current market collapse was an unforeseeable catastrophe, albeit one he expects to be short-term. 

Mulder’s young son called later in the meeting and said, “Please don’t make families have to work so hard that they cannot spend time with their kids.”

###

After a brief break, the supervisors reconvened, and in their initial comments they threw some cold water on the onslaught of lamentations they’d just listened to. 

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, for example, urged the speakers to track down this story from CalMatters, which quotes Nicole Elliott, director of the California Department of Cannabis Control: “It is an oversimplification to say that tax reduction will solve all of the industry’s problems. It’s just a vast oversimplification of the number of variables that impact the health of the legal market and that support or foster illegal activity. It is not tax alone.”

“That scares the hell out of me,” Bohn said, adding that the county’s tax is a minor factor in the grand scheme of things. 

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson agreed. “I don’t think that [the] Measure S tax created the situation that we’re in,” he said. The main factor in the local market collapse is out-of-county competitors who are “growing a plant in a more efficient and less costly way and delivering it to the market at a much lower price than the methodology that was created in Humboldt to grow cannabis under prohibition.”

And yet both Bohn and Wilson went on to say they’re open to offering tax relief, as did fellow supervisors Bass and Steve Madrone.

Bohn said he was looking at a variety of options, including a 50 percent reduction across the board — meaning for indoor, outdoor and mixed-light growers of all sizes — or maybe full suspension of taxes for grows under 10,000 square feet.

“I’ve also got another [idea] float to the top now — it’s suspend everything for a year and come back and look at it, because this problem came on us in six months,” he said. As recently as July, he said, cannabis growers were telling him how good things were, “and by August 15 it had proverbially hit the fan.”

Wilson said he thinks some “significant reductions [in tax liability] are warranted based on the market.” There’s been little in the way of hard data, he said, but he surmised that over the past two years the market price for a pound of outdoor has gone from around $1,200 to around $400. He suggested that the county might respond by offering a corresponding two-thirds reduction of taxes across the board.

A number of speakers had lamented the perceived injustice of a tax lien encumbering their property should they become delinquent in their tax bills, but Ford explained that while each permit is connected to a specified property, chronic nonpayment would simply result in revocation of the permit, not a lien against sale of the property.

There was some discussion about setting up payment plans for tax bills, but Treasurer-Tax Collector John Bartholomew said county code dictates that cannabis taxes must be collected in the same, or similar, method as all other taxes. 

“And so I am opposed to creating installment plans structures specific for cannabis tax collections,” he said. Bartholomew also reminded the board that the county taxes growers in arrears, meaning the tax bills sent out in 2021 covered taxes due for the 2020 calendar year, and so on.

Several speakers called on the board to forgive tax bills sent out last year. Bartholomew objected to that idea.

“I think it’s unfair to all the cannabis cultivators that did pay their 2020 taxes in the 2021 year for the board to be considering waiving any excise taxes from that period,” he said, noting that 80 percent of small growers have already paid those bills. “We have to treat everybody the same with regard to taxation. I am adamant about that.”

When Madrone was offered a chance to speak, he did so at length, discussing the unique challenges facing the cannabis industry, the precedents for government assistance to industries, the folly of the county’s Measure S flat-tax structure, the influx of illegal product from Oregon and more.

Eventually he said would support a tax break because he believes Measure S revenues for last year and this will drop dramatically either way — whether through a cut from the county side or attrition due to business failures.

Madrone said he absolutely would support working with the industry and going back to the voters with an all-new taxation measure to replace Measure S. He also proposed the possibility of tax credits for solar energy or water storage installation. 

It was getting late in the evening, and Bass said she didn’t think the board would reach a decision that night. The four participating supervisors each offered proposals for types of tax breaks.

Wilson proposed offering growers in tier one (meaning outdoor sun-grown weed) a 50 percent reduction on 2021 taxes with growers in tier 2 (mixed light) getting a 25 percent break and zero break for the small fraction of legal indoor growers.

Bohn’s idea was to forgive next year’s Measure S tax bills entirely and then reassess the following year, a proposal that Wilson was “not all that excited about.”

Madrone had a variety of his own ideas but said he’d be supportive of Wilson’s tier-based proposal.

It was after 6:30 p.m. when the board agreed to table the discussion and continue it at a special meeting next week. (Probably Monday, Hayes said.)

###

One observation about the day’s long proceedings: It looks like Bushnell’s decision to recuse herself may have lasting repercussions with her core constituency of cannabis professionals. 

In the middle of the meeting, the Humboldt County Growers Alliance posted a statement to its Facebook page reiterating the argument that “80% of Humboldt’s Cannabis Farmers Just Lost Their Representative.”

On Wednesday morning, Bushnell fired back, calling it “absolutely ridiculous” to assume “that four other Humboldt county supervisors don’t represent the entirety of the Humboldt County cannabis culture.”

###

Though it was a long, long deliberation, the Measure S matter wasn’t the only item on yesterday’s agenda. We’ll rewind a bit, here, to the beginning. 

After the routine passing of the consent calendar, the day’s first agenda item was the latest “required monthly report” from embattled Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez. She was again asked to provide an update regarding the ongoing mess of county payroll services, a task that was transferred back to her department last August despite employee concerns.

It’s hard to escape the impression, in these updates, that the two sides are talking past each other. Paz Dominguez once again delivered a lengthy and scrupulously detailed PowerPoint presentation replete with lists, spreadsheets, a flowchart and painstaking explanations of the county’s byzantine fiscal procedures.

And yet, despite the sheer volume of information relayed in these reports, supervisors and department heads inevitably return to a handful of questions that have come up again and again over the past year or so: What’s the status of outstanding journals from previous years? Why haven’t the books for those years been closed yet? What’s the holdup on calculating interest apportionment for the last fiscal year? 

###

Paz Dominguez began by outlining some areas in which progress has been made on the payroll function, including the development of written policies for a variety of computational tasks, improved compliance through “innovative reporting mechanisms” and the accumulation of staff expertise in the county’s payroll software. 

She went on to list some ongoing challenges with payroll, including continued short-staffing due to vacancies, network reliability issues, miscommunication about timelines and processes and “board actions that require immediate or quick implementation.”

Regarding the latter, Paz Dominguez said, “This is a challenge to payroll, but it is not an accusation that you’re doing anything wrong. Please don’t take it that way.” Still, a seemingly simple request from the board can require a bevy of retroactive adjustments. “[I]t is one of the challenges that we’re facing right now,” she said. “Can we get better? Absolutely.”

Addressing opportunities for growth, Paz Dominguez said she often hears that people want faster responses to questions about payroll. “They want to be able to talk to someone on the phone right away, and we have very limited staff who have access to the payroll module,” she said. Her idea, which she said she’ll likely bring before the board soon, is to reclassify staff in her office to “management and confidential” status, meaning they’d be elevated above the rank-and-file union members that comprise the vast majority of the county’s workforce.

She also said there are inefficiencies and duplication of work across county departments, so she suggested that these monthly payroll reports be broadened to include others, not just her.

The presentation was occasionally interrupted to address board questions, and while the exchanges never got overtly hostile, the underlying frustration was clear. Bohn, for example, peppered Paz Dominguez with questions about why the help being offered by outside accounting agency MGO hasn’t been sufficient. Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell had questions about bank reconciliations, the process of matching the county books to bank statements. 

Paz Dominguez repeated an allegation she had made previously, that until recently bank reconciliations were not being done. It’s a claim that Bartholomew has disputed, but she was adamant.

“I would swear that under oath,” she said. “Come over the the office and I can show you what documentation is here.”

Bartholomew again took issue. 

“I personally know that our controller staff used to go over every bank statement that we received monthly, compare that to the treasurer daily [report], and then make sure everything was accurately reflected in the general ledger,” he said.

“We don’t have to agree,” Paz Dominguez said. “I already know that we don’t have any bank reconciliations. The formula for bank reconciliation is a simple formula and none of the documentation we have even resembles it.”

The board and staff had a variety of other questions for her. Bohn questioned her proposal to make staffers in her department “management/confidential,” Wilson questioned the timeliness of invoice payments and Bartholomew asked about a recurring glitch in calculating employee retirement savings accounts.

Paz Dominguez said many of the ongoing issues are systemic, with responsibility lying across multiple departments. 

During the public comment period, an employee in the county’s social services branch, Neil Bost, called in to say that payroll errors caused him to get paid “next to nothing” for two consecutive pay periods, leaving him unable to pay his bills. 

“The process of receiving my corrected payments required numerous phone calls and emails to various departments within the county, in which I was given incorrect timeframes for when I would be paid on multiple occasions,” Bost said. “This experience has made me seriously consider ending my employment with Humboldt County, and it has certainly prevented me from recommending working for Humboldt County to anyone that I know.”

Paz Dominguez said she couldn’t discuss specific employee information but added that employee confusion and frustration is often created because there is no central point of contact for resolving such issues.

Toward the end of this hearing, Wilson remarked on the volume of information Paz Dominguez had presented, saying, “I think there are some real ways that we can summarize that” and distill it down to something more digestible, “because there’s no way we can consume this much information every month. … We’re gonna have to figure out a better way.”

###

PREVIOUSLY: 

• TONIGHT in EUREKA CITY COUNCIL: City Looks to Free Up a Bunch of Properties to Develop More Housing, Including Two Parking Lots Behind Lost Coast Brewery That Will Be Converted Into ‘EaRTH Center’

###

Following a long discussion and hearing from more than a dozen community members on Tuesday night, the Eureka City Council voted unanimously to declare 10 city-owned properties – including four downtown parking lots – as exempt surplus property, an action necessary to allow the sites to eventually be developed into housing.

The complete list of properties includes four parking lots – one at Sixth and L Streets, one at Fifth and G Streets and two on Third Street between G and H Streets (directly behind the Lost Coast Brewery – plus a vacant lot at 1808 Sixth Street, another lot on West Harris and four parcels on Fairmont between Harris and Henderson, which were recently acquired by the City in a land swap agreement with the Pierson Company. 

During the public comment period many community members were – not surprisingly – opposed to the city’s plans to have housing built on the downtown parking lots, saying that it would have a negative impact on both employees and customers who rely on those parking spaces.

The two lots on Third and G and Third and H – which the City and Humboldt Transit Authority are proposing to convert into a large multimodal transit center, called the EaRTH Center – were the most controversial sites, with several commenters saying those parking lots get a lot of use currently.

Image of transit center plans from the City of Eureka

Greg Pierson said that he has been concerned all along about the city’s plans to use the lots for housing because of the loss of parking. He is especially concerned about the lots on Third and G and Third and H because it will be used as a transportation hub and “not primarily used for housing.” (The plans include the creation of 31 housing units.) Pierson questioned if a parking study has been done and suggested that the city conduct a parking study by closing off the parking lots for thirty days and seeing what kind of feedback it receives from the community.

Others echoed Pierson’s parking concerns, including property owner Cindy Olsen, who said that businesses in the area are already struggling due to the impacts of COVID-19 and issues brought by the homeless people who stay in the area.

“And now you want to put the final nail in the coffin of the business community by taking away their parking,” Olsen said during the virtual meeting.

Though several council members said that they understood the community members’ concerns about the parking, they still felt it was necessary to allow these properties to be developed into housing, not only because we need the housing to accommodate population growth in Humboldt County, but also because it is necessary for the city to reach its Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) mandated by the state.

Kristen Goetz, principal planner for the City of Eureka, said that the city’s RHNA requires the creation of 952 additional units. City Manger Miles Slattery explained during the meeting that if the City does not have an attainable plan in place to reach that number, then the state will step in and create a plan for us. Not meeting the state RHNA can also result in Eureka losing state grant funding.

In addition to the need for more housing units, several council members pointed out, the City also should be discouraging driving and encouraging other forms of transportation. After discussing their reasons, the council voted unanimously (4-0, with Councilmember Kim Bergel absent) to declare the properties exempt surplus land, allowing the city to continue to move forward with its plans to create more housing through infill.

“I think having more people and more customers in town is going to ultimately be good for businesses,” Councilmember Kati Moulton said during the meeting. “And having solutions – even if we have to force ourselves to come up with them – around responsible transportation is what Eureka needs to do moving forward.”

There will be a public meeting special city council meeting on the EaRTH Center project — which will include a pharmacy, a food truck pod, day care facilities and a regional transit hub — on Wednesday, Feb. 9 at 6 p.m. in council chambers and over Zoom. See a flyer for the project and the event here, and see the agenda for that council meeting at this link.

A Eureka-native man connected to the far-right, anti-government “Boogaloo Boys” extremist movement was sentenced to four years in prison by the Manhattan Supreme Court this week for compiling a trove of illegal ghost guns and ammunition at a rental apartment in New York City.

According to the New York Post, 40-year-old Kurt Therkelsen was arrested in December of 2020 by a joint FBI-NYPD terrorism task force who raided the Airbnb he was staying in on First Avenue in Manhattan. He would ultimately plead guilty to third-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

New York law enforcement claim that Therkelsen was in possession of weapons assembled from component metal and polymer parts purchased on eBay, including two 9-mm pistols, 11 high-capacity magazines and other gun parts. Police also say he was in possession of Kevlar body armor and a t-shirt that read “Kill Cops.” An analysis of text messages on Therkelsen’s phone turned up evidence of his support for the Boogaloo Boys.

More from the Post:

Therkelsen, who prosecutors said has a rap sheet in the Golden State, apparently maintained that he’d done nothing wrong, telling cops at the 13th Precinct: “What am I being charged with? I didn’t have any complete firearms,” court documents allege.

But in court Tuesday, he answered “yes” when Assistant District Attorney Eun-Ha Kim asked if he understood he’d be pleading guilty in the case.

Therkelsen mostly stayed mum for the remainder of the hearing, telling Justice Felicia Mennin he didn’t have anything further to say before she handed down the promised sentence of four years in state prison followed by two years of post-release supervision.

Therkelsen was part of Eureka High School’s class of 2000, according to Classmates.com. He was arrested in Humboldt for driving under the influence by Garberville-based California Highway Patrol in October of 2012.

Read more at the New York Post here.

Three former associates of double-murder suspect Ulisses Rodriguez testified Tuesday that they were either there when Rodriguez moved the bodies or were told soon afterward that Rodriguez killed Jeremy Kuemmel and Tiffany Ellebrecht.

Rodriguez.

All three men worked on a marijuana grow that was up the hill from the site where Rodriguez was growing. One of them, “Chano” Sanchez, was down at Rodriguez’s grow when he heard gunshots and then a frantic Rodriguez drove up to the spot where he and worker John Doe were moving some soil.

Chano, under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Trent Timm, said Rodriguez told him and Doe “I killed them” and they needed to come and help him.

Although Chano testified to the basic story that Doe told when he testified — the bodies were chained and then pulled into the back of Kuemmel’s Ford Expedition — his version was much kinder to Rodriguez.

Chano saw something in Rodriguez’s hand but wasn’t sure it was a gun. Rodriguez never pointed a gun at anyone or threatened to kill them, Chano said. Doe had testified that Rodriguez held a gun to his head and forced him to chain the bodies.

When they left the property after the killings, Chano said, Rodriguez did not threaten to harm them if they didn’t come back.

When they left, Chano and Doe drove to the upper grow and spoke with Jose Sanchez, who is Chano’s nephew. Doe told Jose about the shootings.

“What did he tell you?” Timm asked Jose when he testified later.

“That Ulisses had killed Jeremy and Tiffany.”

“When John Doe told you that Ulisses Rodriguez had killed Jeremy and Tiffany, what did you say?”

“Well, to not go back there. To go somewhere else, like a hotel.”

Like other witnesses, Jose said he is still frightened to this day, more than three years after the killings.

Jose’s cousin Alonzo Sanchez, who worked at Jose’s grow, testified Doe called him the day the couple were killed. Alonzo said he was driving back from Oregon when he got the call.

“’He fucked them. He totally fucked them,’” Alonzo recalled Doe telling him. “‘He killed them. Ulisses shot Jeremy and the white girl.’“

Alonzo said Rodriguez also called him that day and told him not to come to the property, that he would see him in town (Redway) the next day.

At one point Rodriguez also texted Alonzo, saying “See if you can give me 25 tomorrow so I can leave.”

Alonzo said he wasn’t sure why Rodriguez texted him, and he didn’t know what the message meant.

Chano, Alonzo and Jose all identified Rodriguez in the courtroom.

All three also testified through Spanish interpreters who did their best, but the language barrier became a problem a couple of times. For example, it’s previously been clear in trial testimony that Alonzo and Chano worked for Jose, while Doe, Jeremy and Tiffany worked for Rodriguez.

On Tuesday, however, Jose said some of the plants on his grow belonged to Doe, who was his “partner.” It was never clarified exactly what he meant by partner.

Also, there was great confusion around the Spanish verb chingar. It can have many meanings, with one of them being “fucked.” So when Doe told Alonzo that Rodriguez had “fucked” Ellebrecht and Kuemmel, he said “Ulisses los chingon.” Unfortunately, one of the police reports changed the verb conjugation, stating that Doe said he had done the deed. That was eventually cleared up.

While testifying all three witnesses said they didn’t go to law enforcement immediately because they were frightened. One of the reasons for that fear, Chano said, was that he was working illegally and was concerned about citizenship.

At the end of the day, Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis told jurors they didn’t need to return to court until Friday morning. Today and Thursday attorneys will be dealing with witness-scheduling issues.

###

Clara Irene (Humphreys) Schneider was born on March 15, 1921 in Lane County, Oregon, grew up in Cottage Grove, Oregon as a member of the Church of Christ, and passed away January 9, 2022 at the age of 100 in Humboldt County.

Irene met her husband, Stuart, caring for his sister Pauline in Lorane, Oregon. She earned a degree at a business school in Portland before marrying Stuart in 1942 in Boise. They were married for 66 years until he passed away in 2008. They moved to Humboldt County about four years after they were married and lived in Maple Creek, Orick, and Trinidad before settling into Blue Lake where they lived most of their lives together. He and Irene had four children, Ellen, Edie, Eddie, & Kathy. Irene had sweet nicknames for each of them: Little Nell, Weedie, Hambone, and Kitten. Her kids have fond memories of her reading to them in front of a warm fireplace. Edie loved it when Irene took them to the beach after school in Orick to play and make s’mores or to Maple Creek to search for wild lady slipper orchids. Ellen recalls building a fort in the willows by the swamp in Orick and her mom letting her go to the fort to read when it rained. Kathy fondly remembers her mom taking her to all of the Disney movies each time a new one was released in the theaters.

While raising her family, Irene had many talents, hobbies, and leadership roles in the community. Irene worked as the bookkeeper for her husband’s company, the Stuart Schneider Logging Company, and she loved the time she spent working at the Simpson Nursery in Korbel. She was a Cub Scout Leader, a Girl Scout Leader, and a Room Parent. Irene and Stuart enjoyed taking the family to Reno where they would give silver dollars to their kids whenever they got a jackpot. She loved gardening, canning, cooking, sharing her recipes, trout fishing, clamming, bird watching, chocolate milkshakes, See’s candy, and she was a champion bowler. Irene’s specialty was delicious boysenberry jam that she made with the fresh boysenberries from her backyard. She played the piano by ear and was a talented yodeler. Everybody knew when the Schneider children needed to come home because Irene’s high-pitched yodeling could be heard for blocks. She enjoyed Yahtzee, mystery novels, reading the newspaper, playing card games, and was unbeatable at Scrabble. Pinochle was the lively card game of choice at large family gatherings. Irene enjoyed watching and reading about her favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants. In an occasional letter to her daughter Kathy, Irene would include what she called a “love pat” and give her $10 to get herself some flowers. She enjoyed animals and had many pets over her life including ducks, mynah birds, cats, dogs, and chickens. Her much-loved cat Groucho passed away just days before she did. Children were always eager to visit Irene because she would keep a full candy jar or Oreo cookies for all to enjoy. Irene lit up with a big welcoming smile whenever one of her cherished family members paid her a visit. Stuart called her “Grinner”.

Irene treasured her life-long friendship with Stuart’s sister, Kay Brundage. Irene and Stuart always made sure they lived close to Bill and Kay and their children Eric and Tom. The families spent a lot of time together and Irene and Stuart even shared a 50th wedding anniversary celebration with Bill and Kay. The Schneider and Brundage cousins continue to remain close.

Irene was a great lady, warm, smart, faithful, and kind. She left a substantial void in the lives of a large family when she passed from this life into the next one. She is dearly missed.

Irene is survived by her beloved daughters Anita Ellen (Schneider) Gaethle, Kathryn Eloise (Schneider) Wysong, and Edith Luise (Schneider) Wohland, her son-in-law Klaus Wohland, and daughter-in-law Arlene (Larson) Schneider. She was preceded in death by her mother Grace Harlow in 1997, her son Stuart Edwin Schneider in 2003, her husband Stuart George Schneider in 2008, and her son-in-law Frank Gaethle in 2021.

She loved all her eleven grandchildren and their partners including Heather & Jason Beam, Nicole & Troy Block, Greg Gaethle & Monique, Kevin & Julie Gaethle, Rick & Rachida Gaethle, Cara Wysong Orusso & Jesse Orusso, Michele Schneider, Lynde & Mark Windbigler, Genevieve Wohland, Sean & Amanda Wohland, and Michael Wysong.

She adored all her twenty-six great-grandchildren including Alexis, Whysper, Jakob, Ivan, Jaxon, Addie, and Molly Beam; Trey and Taylor Block; Jessica Gaethle; Shelby, Trent, and Uriah Gaethle; Zachery & Joshua Gaethle; Bear, Roman, & Ava Orusso; Samuel, Havalah, Eliza Jane, Aidah, and Nitzah Windbigler; Zane, Sydney & Hunter Wohland.

Additionally, she had treasured nephews, nieces, cousins, great-great-grandchildren, caretakers, and friends that were all very dear to her heart. A special thank you goes out to Ellen Gaethle who made it possible for Irene to live out her final years at home with the amazing help and support of her daughter-in-law Julie Gaethle.

A celebration of Irene’s life will be held Saturday, March 12, 2022 at Ocean View Cemetery in Eureka at 11 a.m., followed by a reception at Ellen Gaethle’s home in McKinleyville.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to the Northern California Division of Sierra Pacific Furbabies in honor of Irene’s love for animals. Thank you. (707) 441-9502 or this link.

###

Ellen Dawkins, the third of Bill and Martha’s three children, born in Ashland on September 8, 1953, passed away in Eureka on January 6, 2022.

From an early age, she was a gifted and determined athlete, first filling her bedroom with medals and trophies from swim meets around the state of Oregon, despite only being able to train five months each year.

Born into a skiing family with multiple trips to a variety of ski areas, she found a sport in which she excelled. When she was ten years of age, she started racing with the Rogue Snowmen (Mt. Ashland Racing Association [MARA]), where she and her teammate Kathy Keiser dominated their age divisions in meets throughout the West. She along with Kathy and Mitch Danielson became the first MARA skiers to obtain skiing’s highest classification of Junior expert in 1966.

As a sophomore and member of Ashland High School’s first varsity ski team in 1969, she became the first Ashland skier to win the state title. After moving to Gresham, she skied for Reynolds High School’s boys’ team since they didn’t have a girls’ team. After placing third at the metro district meet, an opposing coach thought it unfair to allow a girl on the boys team – this caused her to miss competing in the 1970 state championships the next weekend. Reynolds fielded a girls team the next year and Mt. Ashland hosted state that year. Ellen won her second state title, by 6.3 seconds on her home mountain in 1971.

Chosen to ski with the junior national ski team as a downhill and Giant Slalom specialist in 1969, by the end of her senior year, she felt that while the Olympics was doable, she was not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to fulfill that dream.

She enrolled at Mt. Hood Junior College and she earned a BA from OSU in 1974.

While at MHCC she became the first female to coach the Mt. Hood Race team, as well as coaching for the prestigious Timberline International Summer Racing School.

She then went to Seattle to obtain a certificate in Respiratory Therapy. After interning at hospitals in Seattle and Denver, she became head of Respiratory Therapy department at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs, Colorado in 1979.

Ellie served as Vice-chairman of the American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region and was active in the Colorado Society for Respiratory Care (CSRC). She held nearly every state office, including West Slope Region president and in 1989, was elected president of CSRC.

In 1994, Ellie and two nurses from Valley View Hospital did a medical aid mission to Vietnam, representing a group called “Friendship Bridge.”

In her free time, she modeled for Aspen based Obermeyer skiwear and skied in the weekly Aspen league ski races as the only female on the perennial champions team.

Outgoing and with a vivacious personality, she was a popular figure in the Roaring Fork Valley.

After two marriages, she met the love of her life, Mike Minert in 1995.

Valley View Hospital went through a reorganization in 1996, and Ellie’s position was eliminated. With an offer of a position in Eureka, California, she and Mike, her equal on skis, entered a new chapter in their lives. They bought a house in Eureka with fruit trees and berry bushes, and found a new community of friends. She loved her garden and almost every day, rain or shine, you could find her working outdoors, weeding, creating flower arrangements and harvesting berries in the garden.

She continued her RT practice, establishing a Respiratory Care Program for the five skilled-nursing facilities in Eureka and Fortuna. This resulted in a much lower incidence of acute hospital admissions for the residents of the facilities. After Medicare changed its rules in 1999, she became one of the few respiratory care practitioners in the entire country to work full-time in long-term care. Due to health issues, she retired six months before she passed.

However, she continued playing poker with a group centered around her and her effusive personality up until two weeks before her death. She was a fearsome poker player always using the refrain, “I’m the luckiest girl.”

Ellie lost a kidney in 1995, and with her remaining one failing, she received the gift of one from her brother Chris in 2008. Meeting with her family the day she entered hospice, she was in good spirits considering the circumstances, proud of the life she lived, with her only regret being leaving Mike alone. He was holding her hand three days later when she passed.

She leaves behind Mike and his family, her brothers Michael of Ashland, and Chris (Michelle) and their children Stephanie and Joe and a grand-niece and grand-nephew of Hood River, Oregon. A celebration of her life will be held at Mt. Ashland this summer.

If you’d like to make a donation in her name, please donate to Hospice of Humboldt.

###

Our amazing and loving mother, Debie Yates-Edeline, left this earth far too soon surrounded by her loving family on August 30, 2021. She leaves behind a legacy of love, family and memories that will be cherished forever.

Mom was born in Bend, Oregon on February 6, 1953. Debie moved to Eureka with her family at a young age, where she grew up and raised three beautiful children — Kelley, Triniti and Amy — and granddaughter Ashley. Debie dedicated her life to being the most amazing mother, grandmother, sister, auntie, wife and friend. She excelled at supporting the people that she loved the most through the many passions and difficulties in their lives. Whether that was supporting her daughters and granddaughter through the birth and raising of their children or forging a special bond with her friends, she made it her mission to improve the lives of everyone she met. Her greatest joy in life was her family — family time was treasured. My mother was one of the strongest women to ever walk this Earth and our family was blessed to have her as our matriarch.

Debie lived her life for her family and adventure. She absolutely adored spending time at Ruth Lake kayaking around and being the lake Gramma. She lived her life for her family and friends. One of our fondest memories of her is from her favorite place, Ruth Lake. She would go up to the cabin the night before and get everything ready for our arrival. The next evening, as we pulled down the road we could see the cabin all lit up with Gramma on the deck waving and welcoming our arrival. She always had dinner prepared for us and everything in order so we could enjoy a wonderful weekend together. She shared her love of adventure and the outdoors with her kids, grandkids and any other stray children that took interest. She taught her grandkids to kayak at a very young age and shared her love of the lake with them any opportunity that arose. She was the lake Gramma for all of the families that enjoyed the lake, oftentimes playing mother hen to the adults and kids alike.

One of Debie’s favorite pastimes was finding a good rummage sale, she was just shy of a dumpster diver and always loved a good deal. She took pride in looking for unique items that she could refinish and repurpose and use throughout her home or gift to others. One piece that still adorns her granddaughter Ierly’s room is a corner hutch that she found just a few months before she passed. She took Ierly to pick up the piece and as they were loading it into the back of her car they realized that it would not fit. Gramma Deb rigged up a system that held the hatch partially closed while Ierly held the corner hutch from the back so it wouldn’t fall out into the road. Gramma Deb restored the hutch to its original glory in her garage over the next few weeks. Before she passed she made sure to make her wishes known that the corner hutch was for Ierly and she wanted it to go in her room.

Gramma loved the holidays and kids’ birthday celebrations, pumpkin carving parties, or really any get together that involved all of the kids and sharing each other’s company. You could often find Gramma Deb working behind the scenes at all family and friends gatherings to insure that a great time was had by all. No one will ever forget her red ipad that she held up to take thousands of photos over the years. At the time, we did not appreciate those photos, but she did not care and she took them anyway in typical Debie fashion, often corralling adults and kids alike for the perfect shot. Many of these photos currently hang in our homes to this day and are some of our absolute favorite photos of our families and friends.

Gramma Deb was spontaneous by nature. She loved taking people on their first adventures. There are many stories of Debie impulsively changing her destinations and the itinerary multiple times throughout the duration of the trip. One memory in particular was when she and her brother Mike helped move their sister to Oklahoma. On the way back, she randomly decided to veer hundreds of miles off course to take Mike sightseeing to a few places that he had not yet explored. She often made these unexpected decisions just minutes prior to the exit that would lead them off course by hundreds of miles.

Debie also had two granddaughters (Taylor and Rayne) that she would visit whenever she made her way South on one of her expeditions. They would always get their nails done together, take the dog to play at the beach and shared with them their first time on a train and on a fairy that carried them over to Coronado Island.

On another occasion, Debie convinced her 85 year old mother to board a plane for the very first time in her life and head to Mexico. Somehow, they ended up on a tequila booze cruise by accident, but as it turned out they had the very best time. (Neither of them drank) Gramma Deb would often just show up at her daughter Triniti’s house with a wild idea to go do something crazy with all of the kids. She never planned it, she just showed up, told Triniti her idea and set off with kids in tow to make memories. Most people with children know that some sort of planning is usually required, but not for Gramma Deb, she would get an idea for an adventure and set it in motion. This spontaneous spirit paralleled her will to live life to the fullest and to not let it pass her by.

Her adventures with Chet were some of her most memorable trips. She and Chet would travel around the country with the Matteolis adventuring around the beautiful outdoors. They visited many beautiful places ranging from Yosemite, Boulder Dam, Scottsdale, Sedona, Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Sun River, Lake Wallula, Glacier National, Montana, Jackson Hole Wyoming, to name just a few. She often went white water kayaking and made many trips to the Klamath River, Trinity River, the Hell Hole South Fork of Trinity, and Van Duzen to name a few. Her friends described her as having no fear. Some of her all time favorite trips were to Hawaii with her kids and grandchildren listening to somewhere over the rainbow with the top down, warm air blowing through her hair and a touch of salt water in the air, the scent of plumeria in the tropical breeze. On the very first trip to Hawaii that Debie and Triniti took together they both got tattoos to commemorate it. She loved Hawaii, she would play “Somewhere over the rainbow” and reminisce about all the fond memories made on vacation there. On the rare occasion that Debie was not out adventuring or making memories with her family she could often be found quietly reading her newest book.

Debie made friends very easily. She was always welcoming to everyone and made people feel like part of the family right away. When she and Chet moved to Shelter Cover she made many great friends with the locals and they quickly became her cove family. She enjoyed teaching family and friends how to boogie board and had a wetsuit for anyone who wanted to partake.

Many people who knew Debie knew that she had a can-do attitude, she never shied away from any situation, she took life on with no hesitation. Debie never showed weakness, not even in her darkest moments. More recently, even with her health deteriorating, she was a spitfire and her words were candid and witty just like she had always been. She lived life to the fullest every single day and would always say “Don’t sit idly by or life will pass you by.” One of her last imparting phrases of wisdom were to her family and friends, she stated that when she was gone she didn’t want people to sit around and be sad. She wanted her loved ones to go out and enjoy life and remember her by doing that instead.

People were drawn to Debie’s liveliness, humor, and tenacity, and she picked up lifelong friends everywhere she went. She is remembered by many in their own special way. Mom made a point to connect with a lot of people, she went out of her way to forge special, deep and unique bonds with people over shared life experiences. She offered unwavering support to people in her life and connected with them in a way that I could not. My friends became her friends through these connections. Her confidence, her compassion, and her love helped many through some of the hardest times of their lives. She touched and changed many lives over the course of her lifetime.

Debie’s baby brother Mike held a special place in her heart. When she fell ill he gave up everything he had, picked up and moved to Eureka to care for her. They took countless trips the last few years and he supported her every step of the way. Over the years they shared many adventures, one of them being their trip to Yellowstone and also many trips as youngsters camping at the Dinsmore Bridge. They always shared a very special bond with each other. Cindy, Debie’s older sister, also shared a close bond with Debie. She helped care for her driving and attended countless appointments and hospital stays. She too picked up and moved back across the country to provide love and support to her little sister. Some of her fondest memories were shopping, riding cable cars and singing Christmas carols in San Francisco. She had the very best support system with her family being so close.

Debie was preceded in death by her mother Eva Ulibarri, her father Gordan Haggin, her daughter Kelley Dawn Eyerly, and her first husband Butch Yates.

Debie is survived by Triniti and Anthony Ponnay, Ierly, Brailey and Grayson Ponnay. Amy Daniels, Damien, Bella and Josiah. Ashley & Matt Matheney, Cadence, Kennedy and Chance, Laura Ann, Rosie Eyerly and her husband, Chet Edeline. Her siblings Sharon, Cindy, Bob, Lark, Don, Mike, Terri (who recently passed).

Family and friends are invited to come celebrate a life well lived on February 6, 2022 at 2 p.m. at the Jacoby Storehouse, 791 Eighth St., Arcata. It is located on the 2nd floor in front of the Plaza Grill. Please bring your favorite memory and your sense of humor.