Redwood Coast Music Festival release:

The Redwood Coast Music Festival Board of Directors voted this week to postpone this year’s events due to Covid-19 concerns and the rapid spread of the delta variant in Humboldt County.

The 30th RCMF festival had been scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 30 through Sunday, Oct. 3 in eight Eureka venues.

“Our primary concern is for the safety of our audience, musicians, everyone connected to the festival and our local community,” said RCMF Board of Directors President Carol Lorentzen. “We had a great roster of American roots acts booked.  We are working on re-scheduling the festival for Sept. 29 through Oct. 2, 2022.”

“We’re saddened to have to postpone, and our thoughts are with all of you that are impacted,” said Mark Jansen, RCMF board member and the booker of the musical acts.  “They include friends, our community, the hard-working musicians that are struggling once again with cancellations, the sound crews and venues that have been severely impacted throughout this pandemic, our volunteers and sponsors who’ve been so supportive.  Our dedicated RCMF team has been working on this event non-stop and we are all equally disappointed but we also realize that safety is always the most important concern.”

Anyone who has purchased tickets for this year’s festival will automatically have them rolled over for admission to next year’s events. “We appreciate your support and look forward to seeing you in 2022,” Jansen said.    

Ticket holders or anyone with questions can email admin@redwoodjazz.org or accounting@redwoodjazz.org.

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PREVIOUSLY: Orick Man Arrested For Burl Poaching, Meth

Press release from the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office:

Highes

Following 38-year-old Derek Alwin Hughes’ guilty plea to one count of felony vandalism on July 23rd, Judge Christopher Wilson today sentenced Hughes to two years on probation and ordered him to complete 400 hours of community service and to stay out of Redwood National and State Parks. 

The conviction stems from a 2018 investigation by Redwood National and State Parks Law Enforcement Rangers of the removal of old-growth redwood burl from trees in the vicinity of Newton B. Drury Parkway. Investigators used photo monitoring and tire-track evidence to obtain a search warrant for Hughes’ residence, where they found pieces of burl that matched the damaged trees. 

Hughes faced a maximum 3-year jail sentence and $10,000 fine.  In prosecuting the case, Humboldt County Deputy District Attorney Steven Steward argued that the court should impose the maximum fine given the extent of damage to irreplaceable shared natural resources and the importance of deterring such behavior.  Deputy Public Defender Wade Orbelian represented Hughes.

Nine National Forests, including Six Rivers, Mendocino, Klamath and Shasta/Trinity, will be temporarily closed Sunday night due to risky fire conditions. 

Here’s a press release from the USDA Forest Service with more info:

To better provide public and firefighter safety due to extreme fire conditions throughout northern California, and strained firefighting resources throughout the country, the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region is announcing a temporary closure of nine National Forests. This closure will be effective at August 22, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. through September 6, 2021 at 11:59 p.m.

“Fires are running very quickly due to the drought conditions, dry fuels, and winds. This makes initial attack and containment very difficult and is even more challenging with strained resources who are battling more than 100 large fires across the country,” said Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien. “We do not take this decision lightly and understand how this impacts people who enjoy recreating on the National Forests. These temporary closures are necessary to ensure public and firefighter safety, as well as reduce the potential for new fire starts. I want to thank the public for your patience during this challenging situation.”

The closure order can be found at https://go.usa.gov/xF7EM. Affected forests include:

• Klamath National Forest
• Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit
• Lassen National Forest
• Mendocino National Forest
• Modoc National Forest
• Plumas National Forest
• Shasta-Trinity National Forest
• Six Rivers National Forest
• Tahoe National Forest

The following persons are exempt from this Order:

1. Persons with Forest Service Permit No. FS-7700-48 (Permit for Use of Roads, Trails, or Areas Restricted by Regulation or Order), specifically exempting them from this Order
2. Any Federal, State, or local officer, or member of an organized rescue or fire fighting force in the Performance of an official duty.
3. Persons with a Forest Service non-special-use written authorization to conduct non-recreational activities, such as harvesting timber or forest products, or grazing livestock.
4. Owners or lessees of land, to the extent necessary to access their land.
5. Residents, to the extent necessary to access their residences.
6. Persons engaged in a business, trade, or occupation are not exempt from the prohibitions listed above but may use National Forest System roads to the extent necessary to carry out their business, trade, or occupation.

Additionally, the Eldorado National Forest is currently closed due to the Caldor Fire until Sept. 30 and has a separate list of exemptions. You can find more info here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/eldorado.

More than 6,500 wildfires have burned 1.2 million acres across all jurisdictions in California, and the Northern California Geographic Area has been at Preparedness Level 5 since Aug. 5, 2021 – indicating the highest level of wildland fire activity. The Forest Service thanks our partners and the public for their cooperation and understanding of this extreme fire threat. Citizens with specific questions within their area should consult their local forest website or social media pages for more information.

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#McCashFire Daily Update for 8/20/21 More info @ https://t.co/JBPvR91jFY
11,171 ac; 0% contained; 360 resources; Lightning Caused; Weather and Dry Fuels Keep Fire Active@Klamath_NF pic.twitter.com/t2NuMV1OFP

— Six Rivers NF (@SixRiversNF) August 20, 2021

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“The Sage from South Central.” “Even more extreme than Trump.” The recall candidate to beat.

Larry Elder goes by a lot of labels these days. If he’s tough to pin down, that’s because he’s such an unlikely character: A Black man who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, went to an Ivy League college and became a conservative provocateur.

In a state dominated by Democrats for 15 years, he’d make an even more unlikely governor. As millions of Californains suss out what they’re supposed to think about him as they vote in the Sept. 14 recall election, Elder sat down with CalMatters reporters and editors for an hour-long interview.

This conversation took place before Politico reported Thursday on allegations from Elder’s ex-fiancee that he brandished a gun at her while high on marijuana. Elder denied that he waved a weapon, but did not respond to other allegations: “I am not going to dignify this with a response — it’s beneath me.”

CalMatters has invited Gov. Gavin Newsom and his major challengers to sit down and chat. Here are five highlights from the discussion with Elder:

‘I don’t have horns. I don’t have a tail.’

Elder is especially clear on this point: He thinks he’s gotten a raw deal from the “left-wing media” since he announced his campaign last month.

“I don’t have a tail, I don’t have horns,” he said, before noting that he also doesn’t “club baby seals and eat their heads.” While his views on labor policy, gender equality and race have been characterized by the Newsom camp and even some fellow Republicans as extreme, Elder says they’re rooted in common sense and Economics 101.

In the latest in a string of stories unearthing past controversial comments, both CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle published articles Thursday documenting what he has said about women.

He also mentioned that he’s written books and made documentaries. Despite their commercial success, he claims, they’ve been skimmed over by the arbiters of merit and taste — newspaper book reviewers and the Oscars.

“It’s just surprising that I’ve been shut out like this,” he said. “I’m from the ‘hood. I ought to be a success story.”

Not that depicting himself as a media target and picking fights with fault-finding reporters doesn’t have its political upside. Just ask Donald Trump. For Elder’s supporters and many recall voters, the disapproval of the chattering classes may serve as its own endorsement.

Video produced by Byrhonda Lyons, CalMatters. Slide your cursor across the play bay to locate chapters by topic: politics, environment, education, justice, housing and more.

‘I am a small-L libertarian’

That’s the term Elder uses to describe his policy platform. It’s a consistent line and one that he’s been repeating for as long as he’s been a public figure.

“The biggest challenge in California in general is the intrusiveness of government,” he said. “I believe that a government that governs less governs best.”

Hence his views on the minimum wage (there shouldn’t be one), pregnancy discrimination prohibitions in the workplace (leave it to the market), public welfare programs (it encourages “women to marry the government”), public schools (he prefers school vouchers), state-funded health insurance programs (“you need to have competition”) and recreational drugs (he supports legalization).

‘The only person I want to debate is Gavin Newsom’

Longtime conservative talk radio listeners and Fox News aficionados will know Elder by his more than 20 years of public opinionating. But for many California voters, he remains relatively unknown.

That’s in part Elder’s doing. He’s skipped three campaign debates so far, a strategy that’s frustrated some GOP insiders. Elder insists it’s because he’s “not running against the Republican rivals,” but against Newsom.

But debating also runs the risk of making a gaffe or coming under sustained attack — a risk that Elder apparently doesn’t believe he needs to make.

“I have a substantial lead over my Republican rivals, that’s one of the reasons why they want to debate me,” he said. “If I were sitting at 2% in the polls, I’d want to debate me as well.”

‘The term is illegal alien’

Elder’s years in the media world have given him a knack for talking politics in a way to draw an audience, but also sometimes to inflame.

So, yes, he opposes the California’s recent expansion of Medi-Cal, the public health insurance program for low-income people, to undocumented immigrants. And no, he’s not going to use the term “undocumented immigrant.”

Likewise, climate change activists and conservationists are “environmental extremists,” the reformist district attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco are “soft on crime” and safety net programs pushed by Democrats represent “an attack on the nuclear family.”

‘Somebody like Clarence Thomas’

One of a governor’s most powerful policy levers is his ability to appoint — to the judicial bench, to vacated constitutional offices and to the state’s many regulatory commissions.

While Elder doesn’t have a short list of names for any of those possible appointments, he takes inspiration from Washington, D.C. When selecting a judge or justice, he would model his selection on self-described originalists like Thomas and the late-Antonin Scalia.

And for the state Board of Education? “Somebody who has the same philosophy as the former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos,” he said.

But there was one former D.C. bigwig Elder was not inclined to talk about: Stephen Miller, the former Trump advisor, whose early start as a right-wing provocateur began on Elder’s show.

“Why would you bring up Stephen Miller?” Elder asked, repeatedly. “I’m just wondering what the agenda here is. What’s the point? Am I somehow — what — a Nazi? A fascist?”

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

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Hospitals in six rural California counties — all in remote, northern parts of the state — are now treating more COVID-19 patients than ever, breaking records by exceeding their winter surges.

Driven by sharp spikes in infections and low vaccination rates, COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Del Norte, Tuolumne, Lake, Humboldt, Nevada and Mendocino counties have more than tripled in the past five weeks, according to a CalMatters analysis of state data.

“We are full…Over the last two weeks we have seen the peak of our hospitalized patients since the beginning of the pandemic.”
— Alexander Heard, Adventist Health Sonora

All six are experiencing record highs — more hospitalizations than at any other time since the pandemic began. Another three counties — Amador, Placer and Shasta — have similar numbers of hospitalized COVID patients compared to their winter surge.

These sparsely populated counties have limited hospital beds and staffing for intensive care units. Del Norte and Lake counties had zero ICU beds available as of Wednesday, according to the state data. State public health officials on Monday issued an order requiring hospitals statewide to accept transfer patients from facilities with limited ICU capacity.

Adventist Health Sonora, the only hospital serving Tuolumne County’s 54,000 residents, has already run out of room for its most severely sick patients.

“We are full. Our ICU is full. Our step-down unit is full,” Dr. Alexander Heard, the hospital’s medical officer told the board of supervisors on Tuesday. “Over the last two weeks we have seen the peak of our hospitalized patients since the beginning of the pandemic.”

Hospital officials in the remote counties say the surge is driven by unvaccinated people and the more contagious Delta variant. Four of the six counties with record hospital surges have a substantially lower vaccination rate than the state average.

At the same time, some of these hard-hit northern counties, including Lake, Mendocino and Shasta, are experiencing fast-growing wildfires and dangerous smoke that leaves its residents vulnerable to respiratory illnesses and heart attacks.

In Crescent City, Sutter Coast Hospital — the only hospital in Del Norte, California’s most northwestern county — has activated its surge plan: Non-emergency surgeries have been cancelled, visitors are restricted and additional staffing has been requested from the state Emergency Management Services Agency.

Hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Del Norte County increased from zero to 15 in the past month.

“Current case levels are driving some of the highest surge levels to date, requiring emergency response efforts,” Sutter Coast hospital CEO Mitch Hanna said at a Del Norte County Board of Supervisors meeting last week.

Driven by reopening, lack of vaccinations

Some local health officials said the state’s June 15 reopening, which lifted most pandemic restrictions, including mask mandates and bans on large gatherings, came too soon for areas where vaccination rates remain relatively low.

“We followed the recommendation from the state going back to full services, and our community was maybe not quite ready,” said Melody Cannon-Cutts, Del Norte County’s public health program manager. “We were not as vaccinated as we should have been.”

About 41.7% of Del Norte residents were fully vaccinated and 7.4% partially vaccinated as of Tuesday, compared to the statewide average of 64% full and 10% partial vaccination rates. Lake County, which has nearly three times the COVID-19 case rate of the state, has a 49.6% full and 8% partial vaccination rate. But of the two counties with record hospital surges, Mendocino and Humboldt, have vaccination rates close to the state average.

Counties with high numbers of vaccinated residents are faring better. Marin and Santa Clara counties, where more than 80% of the population is fully vaccinated, have only moderate increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations; their vaccination rates are the highest in the state.

Cannon-Cutts said recent events like the county fair are likely to have spread the virus among the unvaccinated in Del Norte County. But she said there is an upside to the worsening surge: More residents who had previously been vaccine-hesitant are visiting clinics to get their shots.

One of the counties experiencing the highest number of COVID-19 patients since the pandemic began is moving to reinstate some pandemic restrictions. Nevada County Public Health Officer Dr. Scott Kellermann issued an order Wednesday requiring people to wear masks in indoor public settings and businesses regardless of vaccination status, joining 10 other counties requiring indoor masking, including Los Angeles, Sacramento and most of the Bay Area.

Nevada County has seen an eleven-fold increase in positive coronavirus cases since June 15, and hospitalizations increased four-fold in the past month, peaking at 30.

In Grass Valley, Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, the largest hospital in Nevada County, has transferred two patients to other hospitals due to limited capacity and has requested six crisis nurses from the state, hospital President Dr. Brian Evans said.

However, hospitals in several remote, far-north counties — including Tehama, Modoc and Lassen — are not experiencing surges as severe as their neighbors’. (Alpine, Sierra, Sutter and Trinity do not have hospitals, so they send patients to facilities in neighboring counties.)

“We followed the (reopening) recommendation…and our community was maybe not quite ready. We were not as vaccinated as we should have been.”
— Melody Cannon-Cutts, Del Norte County public health

Compounding the uptick of COVID hospitalizations is the return of patients that delayed care early in the pandemic, Evans said. These dual forces have stretched resources and pushed hospitals to capacity both in the ICU and all other patient areas.

At Adventist Health Sonora, the new surge has resulted in the cancellation of some elective procedures and strict visitor limitations.

“At this point we are not allowing any visitors except for birth or imminent death,” Heard said. “We regret that decision. We regret we have to get there.”

Health officials continue to advocate for vaccinations as the most effective way to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death.

Jaquelyn Lugg, a spokesperson for Adventist Health Sonora, said 86% of patients admitted between Aug. 1 and Aug. 14 were unvaccinated, as were all patients requiring ventilators or ICU treatment.

While the proportion of younger patients has been increasing statewide due to higher immunization rates among older populations, Lugg told CalMatters that her hospital has seen a variety of age groups and patients with no underlying health conditions.

“The one thing almost all of them have in common is not being vaccinated,” Lugg said.

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CalMatters COVID-19 coverage, translation and distribution is supported by generous grants from the Blue Shield of California Foundation, the Penner Family Foundation and the California Health Care Foundation.

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

A local business owner from Arcata was arrested yesterday on alleged kidnapping and child molestation charges.

Kevin Wesley William Dikes, a 35-year-old food industry worker and owner of Egghead — a fast food business that operates out of Arcata’s Northtown Coffee —was booked into the Humboldt County Jail on three felony charges.

Arcata Police Department Lt. Todd Dokweiler told the Outpost that Dikes was arrested at his home for two counts of committing lewd acts with a child under the age of 14 and one count of kidnapping.

Dikes is being held on $1 million bail.

Some refugees from the large fires to our east — the Dixie Fire, the Monunent Fire, the McFarland Fire and others — are making their way to the coast.

The American Red Cross writes to let us know that they’ve set up an overnight shelter for people escaping these fires at Fortuna’s Fireman’s Pavilion, in the city’s Rohner Park. If you’re escaping the fires and you have nowhere else to be, this is where you want to go.

Displaced from the fires, but not in Humboldt County? The California Office of Emergency Services is keeping a current list of evacuation shelters around the state at this link.