(AUDIO) Sgt. LaFrance is Holding Up

On this week’s edition of Humboldt Holding Up — LoCO‘s lo-fi, COVID-flavored podcast — we speak with Eureka Police Department Sergeant Leonard LaFrance about being a cop in 2021. A 14-year veteran of EPD, these days LaFrance heads up the Community Safety Engagement Team (CSET) which concentrates on the city’s Old Town and waterfront areas and handles many of the calls associated with homelessness and mental health emergencies.

Sgt. LaFrance with longtime partner Vex | LoCO file photo

It’s been a grueling couple of years for those tasked with keeping Old Town safe for everyone. With the situation in Eureka already dire, LaFrance tells us that his team has had to constantly adapt to the ever-changing conditions thrown at them by COVID and its effects on how the community functions.

“Things really took a turn,” LaFrance says about conditions in Eureka at the onset of the pandemic. “We saw a lot of resources leave the streets and completely pull back their services. And here we are, because we’re law enforcement we don’t back off. We have to move forward and serve the community.”

Topics on this week’s episode include:

• LaFrance’s journey from growing up in upstate New York, to attending college in Nebraska, to working with the US Forest Service in Mad River to finding his way to EPD in 2007
• The role of CSET and the challenges to serving the homeless community during a pandemic
• Law enforcement staffing shortages, both locally and nationally, and current public perceptions of police
• The loss of Sgt. LaFrance’s longtime furry partner in crimefighting, K9 Unit Vex
• More

Click the audio player above (or subscribe on Apple Podcasts here) to listen to LaFrance’s chat with the Outpost‘s Andrew Goff and Stephanie McGeary and/or scroll through past Humboldt Holding Up guests below.

PREVIOUS HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP GUESTS:

• #71 Eureka Artist Duane Flatmo
• #70 Arcata City Councilmember Sarah Schaefer
• #69 Humboldt Hot Air Director Neroli Devaney
• #68 St. Joes’ James Ladika and Austin Allison
• #67 Eureka Artist Richard Evans
• #66 NCRT’s Calder Johnson
• #65 TV Newsman Dave Silverbrand 
• #63 Housing Policy Specialist Brian Heaton
• #62 Muralists Blake Reagan and Lucas Thornton
• #61 Arcata City Councilmember Emily Goldstein
• #60 Kayak Guide Eric Stockwell
• #59 Eureka City Councilmember Natalie Arroyo
• #58 Wiyot Cultural Center Manager Marnie Atkins
• #57 Humboldt County Growers’ Alliance’s Natalynne DeLapp
• #56 RREDC Executive Director Gregg Foster
• #55 Dell’Arte’s Michael Fields
• #54 Llama Wrangler Keagan Trischum
• #53 Crabs President David Sharp
• #52 Ferndale Organic Dairy Farmers Kristina Radelfinger and Dorice Miranda
• #51 Former Arcata Mayor Alex Stillman
• #50 Cooperation Humboldt’s David Cobb
• #49 Ink People Center for the Arts’ Libby Maynard
• #48 Humboldt Bay Social Co-Owner Amy Cirincione O’Connor
• #47 Musician Lyndsey Battle
• #46 Mad River Brewing CEO Linda Cooley
• #45 LoCO Editor Hank Sims
• #44 Humboldt Republic’s Jason Brandi
• #43 Table Bluff Farmer Hannah Eisloeffel
• #42 Logger Bar Owner Kate Martin
• #41 Teacher/Rapper Zach “Zigzilla” Lehner
• #40 Madaket Captain “Zippo” Libby Tonning
• #39 Event Planner Alegria Sita
• #38 Food For People’s Anne Holcomb
• #37 AHHA President Nezzie Wade
• #36 Performance Artist Noël August/Tucker Noir
• #35 Eureka Mayor Susan Seaman
• #34 Eagle House Owner Jennifer Metz
• #33 Absynth Quartet Drummer Mike “Tofu” Schwartz
• #32 HACHR Executive Director Lasara Firefox Allen
• #31 Alchemy Distiller Owner Amy Bohner
• #30 Eureka City Councilmember Kati Moulton
• #29 Eureka City Councilmember Scott Bauer
• #28 Ungraceful Ager Barry Evans
• #27 Arcata City Councilmember Sofia Pereira
• #26 HumBrews Music Booker Laurel Weston
• #25 Eureka City Councilmember Kim Bergel
• #24 Film Commission’s Cassandra Hesseltine and Nate Adams
• #23 Marble Maker Topher Reynolds
• #22 Arcata Playhouse Director Jacqueline Dandeneau
• #21 Humboldt Political Junkie Eric Kirk
• #20 Rio Dell Mayor Debra Garnes
• #19 Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell
• #18 Arcata Food Aficionado Jada Calypso Brotman
• #17 Body Piercer Jackie Silva
• #16 Dick Taylor Chocolate’s Adam Dick
• #15 FUHS Teachers Mark Thom and Inma Thompson
• #14 Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery
• #13 Savage Henry Co-Founder Chris Durant
• #12 Eureka Street Art Festival Organizer Jenna Catsos
• #11 SCRAP Humboldt Founder Tibora Bea
• #10 Gym Owner Tyler Parr
• #9 Six Rivers Brewery Co-Owner Meredith Maier
• #8 Multicultural Skincare Therapist Levia Love
• #7 Annie’s Cambodian Server and Social Worker Joshua Coppock
• #6 Eureka City Councilmember Austin Allison
• #5 HSU Professor Deidre Pike 
• #4 Pastor Bethany Cseh
• #3 Singer/Songwriter Chris Parreira
• #2 Eureka City Councilmember Leslie Castellano
• #1 Arcata City Councilmember Paul Pitino

Sit in silence for more than a couple of minutes and the mind (mine, I’m pretty sure yours) will go to strange, unexpected places. When faced with a group of inmates at our local jail who were interested in “meditation” (for want of a better word — I just define it as ‘sitting in silence’ without any mental add-ons), I’d usually preface our quiet time with, “It’s always an adventure.” (They liked that!)

So it was yesterday, in the ancient cloisters of the new Convent of Santa Clara in Coimbro, Portugal. “New” is relative: the old convent, founded in 1330 by Queen Isabel, sits down by the river. It was abandoned after persistent flooding, hence the new 1677 convent, with its graceful cloisters, quiet as quiet can be, where the silence roared. (Thanks, Manfred Mann.) Sitting there, I found myself reflecting on the story we’d just been told, the “Miracle of the Roses,” which goes something like this:

Queen Isabel was a good soul, always giving food and money to the poor, much to which her husband the king’s disgust. One winter’s day she was heading out of the castle with a basket full of bread covered with a cloth when her husband caught her. “What are you carrying?” mean old King Denis asked. “Roses, my liege,” she replied. “Roses in January? Impossible!” he said, whipping off the cloth — and there was a basketful of roses. (Google “Miracle of the Roses” and you’ll find umpteen other versions of the story.) Because of this and her general virtue, she was canonized: Saint Elizabeth of Portugal (1271–1336).

Here’s where my mind went off on its own joyride, triggered by that name, Isabel:

Now Queen Isabella, she gave heed, Said go buy the ships you need
Take my jewels but travel slow, ‘Cos you might fall down to the world below.

That comes from the very first record I owned, a birthday gift from my sister when I turned eight, a 10-inch 78. (Remember 78s? Walk around Old Town if you don’t, you’ll see plenty outside our several “treasures from the past” shops.) It was the 1950 song Christopher Columbus, written by Terry Gilkyson, sung by the Justin Timberlake of his day, Guy Mitchell.

Of course, that Isabella, Isabella I of Castile who sponsored the genocidal Columbus, wasn’t the same as the “Miracle of the Roses” Isabel of Portugal, who was long gone by 1492 and whose ornate stone tomb is in the new convent’s baroque church. In fact, Isabel/Isabella seems to be a popular name for royalty, in one of its many varieties (which include Beth, Betsy, Bettina, Betty, Elisabeth, Elise, Eliza, Elsa, Isabel, Isabella, Isabelle, Lettie, Lisa, Lisbeth, Liza, Liz, Lizzie). Elizabeths I and II are the most obvious if you’re into British royals. The name, as is the case with most perpetually popular names in the West, comes from the Bible: Elisheva, Moses sister-in-law, meaning “abundance in God.”

Which is where I went off on all the Beth’s, Lisa’s and Betsy’s I’ve known. Mostly fondly, some with a twinge of embarrassment, but all with that underlying awareness of the miracle that goes with human life: memory. That we can summon up — probably imperfectly, but still — people and events from our past, effortlessly. Never mind roses: memory, now that’s a miracle!

UPDATE, 4:55 p.m.: It’s finally happening. The felling of Sugar Bear is underway. Thank you for sacrificing yourself, Sugar.

###

UPDATE, 2:35 p.m.: At about 1:30 p.m. the U.S. Forest Service moved forward with the ceremony portion of today’s event, a video of which is posted above.

Multiple people spoke during the ceremony, including Del Norte fifth-grader Michael Maveris — selected as this year’s youth tree lighter — who read the essay that won him the trip to D.C to be a part of this year’s tree lighting. Cheryl Moon of the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria closed out the ceremony with a blessing.

The felling of Sugar Bear, however, has been pushed back again. Samantha Reho of the U.S. Forest Service said during the video that weather conditions have worsened and the tree will now be felled “in the next few hours or so.”

###

ORIGINAL POST:

It is time! Well, it’s almost time, actually.

Today is the the day that Sugar Bear — the majestic 84-foot-tall white fir from the Six Rivers National Forest — will be sawed down and strapped to a big rig to travel across the country and fulfill its destiny of serving as this year’s U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree.

Originally scheduled to be live streamed today at noon, the cutting of Sugar Bear is now scheduled to happen sometime within the next couple of hours, due to wet weather and muddy conditions, the U.S. Forest Service reports.

“The weather has not been ideal here in Eureka for felling a Christmas tree” Samantha Reho, spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service said in a video posted to the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Facebook Page at about noon today. “We want to do it safely and in conjunction with all the right protocols to make sure our personnel are safe. So we will be starting the ceremony for the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree sometime within the next two hours.”

The Outpost will keep checking and post updates here as they become available.

###

One of Humboldt’s favorite homegrown celebs, Sara Bareilles, posted a video to her social media last night sharing her excitement for the fact that Sugar Bear — the 84-foot white fir selected to be this year’s U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree — is from our neck of the woods. 

“I am convinced that Humboldt County is one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth and that’s why I am excited to share the news that Six Rivers National Forest (that’s us baby!) was selected to represent the US Forest Service by providing the 2021 US Capitol Christmas Tree!” Bareilles wrote in the post accompanying a video of herself amid the redwoods in Eureka’s Sequoia Park.

Sugar Bear will be sawed down today (Saturday, Oct. 24) at noon and you can watch the whole thing live on the Six Rivers National Forest U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Facebook Page and, of course, the Outpost will be sharing the momentous event to our page too. After the tree is cut it will be loaded onto a big rig that will haul it all the way to D.C., making stops in more than 20 towns along the way.

As Bareilles also points out in her video, you can follow the tree’s journey on capitoltreetracker.com. Sugar Bear’s first stop will be in Crescent City on Friday Oct. 29 from 9 a.m. to noon and it will then journey down to the Eureka later that day to be viewed at the Madaket Plaza from 4 to 6 p.m.

“A huge shout out to the Forest Service Members who have fought tirelessly to keep our communities safe and deal with devastating effects of forest fires and climate change and we are all so grateful to you for your service,” Bareilles says at the end of her video, adding “And check out these trees! Come on!”

PREVIOUSLY:

• CENSUS RESULTS! The Northern Part of the County Has Boomed, and It’s Going to Make Local Redistricting a Little Tricky
• Redistricting Surprise? The County’s Advisory Committee is Looking Seriously at a Plan That Would Move a Distant Quarter of Eureka Into Arcata’s Supervisorial District
• (UPDATED WITH BETTER MAPS) The County’s Draft Redistricting Maps Have Been Released, and a Couple of Them Are Real Doozies

###

As is its wont, the county released the new versions of its draft redistricting maps for the new Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting after 5 p.m. on a Friday.

As is also the county’s wont, those zoomable maps don’t work for many users, including most particularly people with Android phones. And the county continues to decline to release the geographic data that powers these maps to the general public. So many people are out of luck.

Until now! We’ll have more on this soon, but for the time being we just wanted to let you know that the Outpost has done the dirty work of straight-up pirating that data from the county’s own maps — not a particularly easy job, and not a pleasant way to spend one’s theoretical weekend — so that the general public might have a chance to spend some time with them before the next meeting of the county’s Redistricting Advisory Committee. That’s scheduled for Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the moment, but in the past they’ve changed that around so who knows.

Here’s the county’s redistricting website, with links to a survey on the following two maps. Personally, I would caution people against relying on thoughts entered into that survey being heard by the Redistricting Advisory Committee — in the last go-around, at the last RAC meeting, with the last set of maps and the last survey, citizen feedback registered via that method was barely discussed at all.

OK. As promised, more later. Here are those new maps, which will be discussed at the next RAC meeting, with one or both forwarded to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors for a hearing on Nov. 2.

Draft Map A2

Draft Map C2

For the past six months, forest defenders have protested ongoing logging at the state-owned Jackson Demonstration State Forest. Their concern: logging the mature redwood forests is bad for climate, water and wildlife. In recent weeks, loggers have threatened physical violence against forest defenders in a manner reminiscent of some of the worst times of the Timber Wars.

On this week’s show, “Alder,” a forest defender at Jackson, and J.P. O’Brien, a climate scientist, share with Gang Green why they are concerned with ongoing logging operations and how the state of California is complacent in allowing threats of violence to occur.

AUDIO:

“The EcoNews Report,” Oct. 23, 2021.

REQUIRED READING:

• ”JDSF Update: Protestors Threatened,” EPIC, Oct. 19, 2021.
• ”How a California state forest became a battleground for logging redwoods on public land,” SFGate, Oct. 14, 2021.

Mavis McCovey passed away peacefully on October 20, 2021 at her home in Orleans. She was born June 4, 1933 in Hoopa to William Smither and Beatrice Violet Ferris. She was a proud member of the Karuk Tribe and was the first non-Hupa tribal member to be born at the Hoopa Valley Hospital.

Mavis was an honored elder of the Karuk Tribe who cared deeply for her family and her community. Mavis went to live with her aunt Caroline Ferris, with the death of her parents, at the age of six. As a teenager, she met her husband Darrell while walking along the road in Hoopa. They were married and she gave birth to five children. She used to say, “I am an orphan and an only child but somehow I came up with 453 nieces and nephews.” Mavis’ home was always open to those who needed it. In the summertime, it was common for her home to have as many as 14 extra children. She volunteered countless hours driving and picking up her children and others for school activities. When her aunt Caroline fell ill, Mavis took care of her. Her home was open to many others throughout the years.

Community involvement was a way of life for Mavis. She worked tirelessly to get a medical clinic in Orleans. Age was only a number to her and not a deterrent. At age 54, she graduated with Honors from the College of the Redwoods Nursing Program. She worked as an LVN/CHR for the Karuk Tribe for many years. As a senior she worked as a Cook Aide for the Karuk Senior lunch program. In 2009, at the age of 76, she published a book titled “Medicine Trails; A life in Many Worlds,” a look at her journey in life.

When she finally retired, she enjoyed having her children take her to visit her family and friends. Doors were always open to Auntie Mavis.

Mavis was preceded in death by; her parents, William Shirley Smither and Beatrice Violet Ferris; her husband of 56 years, Darrell Delme McCovey; her sons, Darrell Dean and Daryl Delle (Day-Pay) McCovey; her daughter, Carol Lynne McCovey; her grandchildren, Misty Amber Dawn Alvarado, Skye Alexander Huddleston, and great-grandson Brenan Otis Waukel McCovey.

Mavis is survived by her children; BeaVi McCovey, Loren (Long Gone) McCovey, Robert (Chucker) McCovey, Terrance McCovey, and Robert (Bobby Pete) Erickson. Her grandchildren; Gabriel (Cogy) McCovey, Curtis (Kit) McCovey, Bianca Alvarado, Nolan Colegrove McCovey, Lauren Alvarado, Telena McCovey, Robert (Cash) McCovey, Daryl (Tuck) McCovey, LaVone McCovey, Howard (Howie) McCovey, Julian (Juju) McCovey, Lila McCovey, Violet Taylor. Her Great-Grandchildren; Jonathan (Buster) Gastongay, Mardi Attebury, Dolli McCovey, Issac Scott, Sarah Scott, Carol McCovey, Alison Osceola, Vivian McCovey, Melvin McCovey, Callista Colegrove, Ashlyn Alameda, Hayley Peters, Darrell McCovey, Wilhelmina McCovey Wilson, Eugene Goodwin, Issac McCovey, Brock McCovey, Leroy Pearson, Tillie McCovey, Cherish McCovey, Dean McCovey, Anthony McCovey, Kaylee McCovey, Madison McCovey. Great-Great Grandchildren; Aria McCovey, Dean Davis, June Davis, and Stella McCovey. Also included; Hundreds and hundreds of nieces, nephews, cousins, and dear friends.

Pallbearers; Gabriel (Cogy) McCovey, Curtis (Kit) McCovey, Nolan (Noles) Colegrove McCovey (standing in Darrell McCovey), Robert McCovey II(Kash), Daryl McCovey (Tuck), Howard McCovey (Howie), Julian McCovey (Juju).

Honorary Pallbearers; Charles Alfred McCovey IV, Ronald Reed, Lenny (Butch) Reed, James McCovey, Richard Moon Sr, Greg Trimble, Kelly Bryns, Bradley (Bro) Amos (standing in Eric Amos), Rick Roubidoux, Kenneth Roubidoux, Marion McCovey, Gordon McCovey, Michael McCovey, David Reece, Greg Readen, Kelly King Fletcher, Dan King, and Ray King.

Services will be Saturday, October 23, 2021 at the Karuk Tribe Natural Resource Building (DNR) in Orleans at 1 p.m., with burial following at Old Orleans Cemetery. Dinner will follow at the DNR.

Please follow COVID-19 measures. The family is encouraging distancing and face masks.

###

The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Mavis McCovey’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.