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County supervisors, staff and even an outside consultant wanted to make one thing exceedingly clear at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting: The newly created position of Chief Financial Officer will not — repeat, will not — interfere with or supersede the role of Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez. 

Following the recommendations of Human Resources Director Linda Le and the outside consulting firm of Macias Gini O’Connell (MGO), the Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 (with Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson absent) to reorganize of the County Administrative Office, creating two new assistant CAO positions.

One of those positions, the assistant CAO/chief operating officer, will be filled by current Assistant CAO Elishia Hayes. Her new role will look much similar to her current one, focusing on countywide operational management, though with the new title and added responsibilities she’ll receive an extra $5,083 in salary and benefits this fiscal year, according to a staff report. 

The other new position, assistant CAO/chief financial officer, will be responsible for overseeing and coordinating the county’s budgetary process and financial management activities, serving as the principle advisor to the CAO on financial matters. The county will recruit for candidates to fill this new job.

Introducing this agenda item to the board, Le appeared to anticipate objections from members of the public who’ve become protective of Paz Dominguez. Le said that she and the employees of MGO took “great care” to ensure that there will be no duplication of work between the CFO and the auditor-controller.

This reorganization is part of a broader effort to make “transformational changes” in county management, streamlining some operations and adapting to additional responsibilities, according to the staff report. On December 8, the Board of Supervisors agreed to hire MGO to help perform a staffing study and explore the possibility of creating a CFO position. 

Scott Johnson, a partner in the firm, laid out some of the methodology and results of the study in a PowerPoint presentation. The firm looked at 15 “peer county agencies” — meaning counties of similar size and/or complexity to Humboldt — and found that all 15 employ a director of finance or similar classification. And in a poll of all 58 counties in the state, MGO heard back from just over half of them (29), with all respondents reporting that they have a CFO or similar classification, Johnson said.

He, too, took pains to insist that MGO is not proposing a duplication of efforts. Rather, the CFO will oversee financial operations and serve as a liaison to the Auditor-Controller’s Office, he said.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Paz Dominguez told the Outpost that she did reach out to Le ahead of today’s meeting to express some concerns about duplication of efforts, but she was grateful that the board made it clear that duplication shouldn’t happen. 

“I’m remaining hopeful that the will of the voters [to maintain an independently elected Auditor-Controller] will be honored and that at the end of all this the county organization as a whole improves together,” she said.

During the public comment period, just one person called in. She did not give her name but accused Le and MGO of attempting to “take over” responsibilities from Paz Dominguez. “It seems like you’re doing your very best to make her quit,” the unidentified woman said. “It’s gross. It’s really ugly. I’m sorry you guys are this way. I really wish you could help [Paz Dominguez] succeed.”

Board Chair Virginia Bass said there were “a lot of inaccuracies” in the woman’s statements, and Le offered an impassioned defense of her own motives as well as the board’s adherence to a strategic plan. “I strive to do public service with integrity and professionalism,” Le said. “I’m so encouraged with the direction of your board.”

She and her staff are in the midst of conducting four operational studies, including one analyzing staffing needs in the Auditor-Controller’s Office. In the coming months, she said, she hopes to bring an action plan to the board outlining steps for a large-scale “functional realignment” of county staff intended to streamline efforts and “move forward in an efficient, effective manner.”

The annual salary and benefit costs of this reorganization in the CAO’s office are expected to total $232,192, according to the staff report.

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In other business, Karen Meynell, the county’s code enforcement manager, presented the annual report on the Code Enforcement Unit, which tackles un-permitted cannabis grows, junk vehicles and citizen complaints about public nuisances and code violations.

Meynell explained that the Humboldt Environmental Impact Reduction (HEIR) team uses satellite imagery to look for illegal weed grows and to check the progress of operations that are in the abatement process. She also said that staffing shortages in the unit, a subdivision of the Planning and Building Department, are causing it to fall further and further behind.

“With the staff level as it is, we are constantly getting pulled off of one case to work on another,” she said. “That’s the worst possible way to manage these cases. … Our timelines are meaningless.”

The traditional code enforcement team — as distinguished from the HEIR team — currently has nearly 700 open cases with roughly 450 still unassigned to staff, according to the report.

“There is clearly more work than the current staff can address and there continues to be more cases opened each month than closed,” a staff report notes.

In 2020, the Code Enforcement Unit issued notices — either a “notice to abate nuisance” or a “notice of violation” — regarding 103 new violations, 65 of which were served with law enforcement. Twenty-one of those property owners entered compliance agreements with the county while another 23 are already abated — or close to it, according to the report.

The Code Enforcement Unit also performed an abatement at a junkyard near Dinsmore, on the banks of the Van Duzen River, removing about 400 junk vehicles, 19 drums of hazardous waste and huge truckloads of tires, junk metal and other debris.

After the report, Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell peppered Meynell with questions about the county’s use of high-definition satellite imagery. What exactly are the images used for? she asked.

Meynell said they’re used to stop un-permitted cultivation and provide aerial views of other sites to make sure they’re in compliance, “saving quite a bit of staff time” by eliminating the need to drive out for in-person inspections. The images are also used to see whether junk on a property has been cleaned up, she said.

Planning and Building Director John Ford added that his department employees often use satellite images in lieu of site inspections for building projects. 

One angry caller, who also did not give a name, complained that nuisance properties in Southern Humboldt, including a hash lab, are going unaddressed. “That report is delusional,” she said. “You guys are really good at giving yourself good grades. I really wish you could spend more time, have boots on the ground and get a reality picture, not a satellite view. … I’m hoping we can get more help down here.”

Ford replied that while he doesn’t want to say too much, considering the confrontational nature of code enforcement, “there are things we’re definitely working towards [in SoHum].”

According to the staff report, the Code Enforcement Unit collected $983,749 in penalties last year with fee assessments in the amount of $10.9 million, though Ford noted that only a fraction of that will ever be collected.

Video above, rough transcript below.

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From the Times-Standard: Have there been any extreme adverse reactions to vaccines in Humboldt County? If so, how many and associated with which vaccine? Please be specific about the exact number of cases and which vaccines they were associated with?

There have not been any that Public Health is aware of.

From the Times-Standard: Have there been any cases of blood clots related to the Johnson and Johnson vaccine in Humboldt County?

No.

From the Times-Standard: The CDC recommends patients be monitored for 15 minutes after vaccines are administered. That does not appear to be happening in some local pharmacies that offer vaccines. Can Dr. Hoffman comment on that?

Public Health has not been made aware of any of those concerns. So I’d definitely direct any of those questions to the clinic or pharmacy in question and take it from there.

From the Times-Standard: Has HSU had any discussions with Public Health about potentially requiring vaccinations for students who live in the dorms and students in athletic programs?

So i am aware of a national and statewide debate on this and their public health would definitely support fully vaccinating as many of the students coming back as possible but i really think overall that question should be directed to HSU administration

From the Times-Standard: With some schools having fewer than 60% of students vaccinated in kindergarten according to CDPH data, does Dr. Hoffman have any concerns about vaccine hesitancy and reaching herd immunity in Humboldt County?

Yes I think all of us have those concerns not just for Humboldt County, but for the state of California, for the country, for the world. This is really our tool to get out of this pandemic, but we recognize there are some people who have valid concerns about vaccination, about this vaccine. I think the most important thing is to hear people’s concerns listen and try to address them the best we can with information and knowledge that’s truthful and factual.

From the North Coast Journal: You and other officials have asked residents to bring a photo identification or a document, like a utility bill, with the person’s name on it when showing up to a vaccination appointment. Some feel that poses a barrier to vaccination, as houseless residents may not have an ID or such documentation and undocumented residents may be apprehensive about presenting such documentation for fear of its immigration consequences. Are there alternatives for people in this situation?

Yeah there’s a lot of different options and we definitely are trying to set the bar low. So this is not an official piece of documentation, it’s really something that can match the name on the appointment with the person who shows up. It could be a membership card to Costco or some other grocery store. Just anything with your name on it, that matches the name on the appointment. So there’s no official requirement. As far as homeless outreach, Open Door is working with us closely to do homeless outreach in the homeless community and those are our really individual efforts, not through the mass faction vaccination clinics. So those would have very different requirements in terms of their documentation status.

From the North Coast Journal: The federal government this morning decided to pause federal administration of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine after six people suffered blood clots potentially linked to the vaccine. Will Humboldt County follow suit and, if so, approximately how many vaccination appointments will that disrupt this week?

Yes we’re definitely following suit with both CDC and CDPH. The total number of appointments, not exactly sure county-wide because we don’t control all of those. I know for public health it is several hundred appointments.

From the North Coast Journal: Why did Humboldt County’s vaccine allocation increase so dramatically this week and do you expect allocations will continue at this level — or even increase further — in the coming weeks?

We have been expressing a need for more vaccine for months now in Humboldt County and the state was finally able to meet that need and give us doses to help us get to our goals. I am not confident that we will continue to get that level of vaccine, especially given what’s going on with Johnson & Johnson pause. With the administrative error in a plant that was manufacturing Johnson & Johnson and with a small decrease that’s coming to California over the next couple weeks. I really want to encourage everyone to take this opportunity to use these vaccines that are here. We have them now. We want to get them into arms as quickly as possible because we don’t know for sure that we’ll have this much in the future.

From KMUD News: Europe has delayed the roll out of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, meanwhile the United States is seeking to pause it’s administration due to a potential link to a rare blood clot disease. Will Humboldt County continue to use the J&J shot? Do you have any concerns?

We’re not going to continue it until it’s cleared by CDC and CDPH. The concerns are that we - yes we are concerned. That’s why we’re pausing it. The entities who oversee this ACIP the Western States Conference are going to look into this and when and if they clear it we feel confident that we will be able to give the vaccine again, just as we did after the Moderna pause. And now we’ve given millions and millions of doses after that without any problems.

From KMUD News: Are enough Humboldt County residents signing up for vaccines? Has the county sent extra doses to other neighboring counties?

The clinics are filling up. We definitely want to continue to encourage everyone to fill those up. We haven’t had any trouble yet. I think we wanted to get the word out quickly that we had this large amount and that we opened up MyTurn which did allow for people to directly book into the appointments which was a change from before. So I think that word is out now and the clinics are filling up and so far we have not directed any of our vaccine to any other counties.

From KMUD News: Our area seems to have a high ratio of vaccine skeptics. Are their concerns valid or are they putting our community further at risk?

Everyone’s concerns are valid. I mean we definitely don’t want to be dismissive of people who are critically thinking about the vaccines. We recognize these are new vaccines. People are certainly having reactions. There are things like what’s going on today. So yes. We want to hear everyone’s concerns, but we want to remind everyone that these are also safe and effective vaccines and even given what we’re dealing with right now, we always are measuring the potential rare side effects from a vaccine versus the much more common and often deadly consequences of getting the diseases we’re trying to prevent. So we want to continue to hear everyone’s concerns and we hope that we can be open to that and move the vaccine effort forward by listening and hopefully getting more and more of our population to get vaccinated.

From KMUD News: With a record number of vaccines being administered, is California’s ‘full reopening’ going to be safe for all residents, or are we still at risk of another ‘wave’?

It’s a great question. I hope that the more vaccine we can get out there, the more we’ll feel confident and reopening.

From the Redwood News: Humboldt County Public Health announced earlier this morning that it will follow CDC and FDA recommendations and pause the use of J&J vaccines. Can you explain why the County is doing this and what this means for the 650 doses of J&J the County was set to receive this week? How will this impact local vaccination clinics planned for this week or next? Should local residents who have gotten the J&J vaccine be concerned at all?

The reason we’re doing this is for safety. I cannot stress enough how important it is that we maintain a safety record for all of these vaccines that is to the highest standard. So that’s what we’re seeing right now. When and if this is cleared, we will feel confident moving forward and we will open up that vaccine just as we have in the past with pauses. I don’t think this is really going to have any effect on our vaccination effort. We have plenty of other doses in the county currently to make up for this. So we were luckily in a really good place given the large number of doses we got this week. So if this pause is short, it absolutely will have no effect. If it lasts for even a week, I think we’ll still be okay. If it’s lasting longer than that it could have some impact to the number of vaccines getting out into our community, but time will tell we need to wait and see what the ACIP and the Western State Conference says tomorrow.

From the Redwood News: Last week, Public Health was advertising there were hundreds of vaccine appointments available for this last weekend, but they seemed to have filled up relatively quickly. What’s the current supply and demand of Covid-19 vaccines locally? Is local demand for the vaccine meeting or exceeding the supply of vaccine the County is being allocated? Are all vaccine doses still being used each week by the County like in the past?

The demand has definitely outstripped the supply. We are finally to a place where we have a very large supply and I think that that also coincided with us starting on MyTurn and people getting used to that. So once we got the word out that those clinics filled up very quickly and we’re seeing the rest of the clinics that we open - up to 1300 doses in a day - are filling up rather quickly. So I think the demand is still very high and we hope that we can continue to meet that demand with this increased supply. We have always used up our vaccine within seven days and we plan to continue to do so as long as the demand is there.

From the Redwood News: With everyone 16 and older now eligible for a vaccine, can you quickly recap some of the most common side effects that people may experience after receiving a vaccination? For Pfizer and Moderna, are side effects more severe or common after the second dose versus first dose? What are some ways people can relieve common side effects?

Side effects are common with every vaccine. With these vaccines they are - all three are really the same. The most common would be some soreness in the arm. Maybe some redness or swelling around the side of the vaccination. Other people have experienced chills, body aches, headaches, fever. Again all things that are common with the immune response to the vaccine really telling us that it’s working. That your body is making an immune response. The things that people can do to alleviate symptoms are if anyone’s looking for more information you can always go to the CDC website. They have a great handout on how to alleviate these symptoms, but some of the things that we recommend locally are putting cold compress on the area if it’s hurting or swollen. Taking something like tylenol or ibuprofen if you need to for fever, headache, and body aches. And definitely if you’re having more severe symptoms or you have questions about your symptoms, calling your doctor to follow up or if you’re feeling really ill getting emergency services help.

From the North Coast News: Will the J&J pause have a significant effect on overall vaccine supply locally?

Hard to say. I think that we know that the J&J factory issue is going to affect nationwide supplies and the state of California have been talking about how that is going to contribute to a decrease in vaccine over the next couple of weeks. The pause probably won’t have a significant impact if it’s lifted in the next few days or week considering that locally we have plenty of vaccine on hand to make up for that.

From the North Coast News: What advice do you have for people who may have just gotten the J&J vaccine? What should people be aware of with their symptoms, and for how long (two weeks?)

I would encourage everyone who’s getting or who’s already gotten the vaccine to sign up for the CDC app called V-Safe. It’s a place that you can put in your information about any side effects you’re having, even if they’re mild. Even if it’s fever or chills or aches, it can also help the CDC track these much more rare conditions. Anyone who’s gotten it, it’s still a safe vaccine; these are extremely rare events; six people out of nearly seven million is extraordinarily rare. So I don’t think anyone should be worried. If you’re having severe symptoms you should definitely seek medical attention and two to three weeks seems to be about the time frame that this particular condition might develop in someone if they were to have it.

From the North Coast News: Do you think the announcement of this pause will increase or decrease hesitancy?

I can’t make any predictions. I hope it would not sway anyone from getting the vaccine. Any of the vaccines we know that there are rare complications with vaccines for all of them. So if this is cleared for safety, I would encourage everyone to continue to get it. Our state health officers got the J&J and they definitely stated today that they feel great and they would do it again and they’re not worried or concerned at all.

From the North Coast News: Do we have enough Moderna and Pfizer supply to vaccine all Americans who want to by May 31?

That’s what we’re hearing from the federal government and I hope that’s true, but I definitely would encourage a reporter to go seek out federal sources for that information.

From the North Coast News: What is the county doing to reschedule J&J appointments?

Anyone who had a J&J appointment cancelled should go to MyTurn and you should be able to reschedule that for a different kind of vaccine.

From the North Coast News: Are you at all concerned about the safety and effectiveness of the J&J vaccine moving forward?

Leaving it up to the experts at ACIP and the Western States Conference and I feel confident if they can clear this on safety that we will confidently go forward in using J&J here in Humboldt County.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: Are you aware of any local programs for providing testing to people in congregate groups? Have any local schools implemented a regular testing strategy among students in order to monitor the level of COVID-19 on campus? Would this type of testing among a group of community members be useful in keeping an eye on potential community transmission?

Yeah many of the schools and youth sports groups have implemented testing programs to monitor for COVID-19 and they’ve done that in conjunction with both the state and local health resources. Yeah this type of testing is definitely useful and would encourage it for anyone who has a business or a group that wants to come together. A lot of the new guidelines from CDPH around reopening are allowing for increased capacity if you’re doing either proof of vaccination or testing so I think that clearly going forward that more testing is going to help us feel confident and more reopening as we are in this in-between period where we have a portion of our population vaccinated but it’s not yet enough to feel confident that we’re safe, that we can all go out and and co-mingle in society, that we need to still keep some of those checks and balances and one of the most important ones would be testing.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: Have any relatively new variants of concern been identified in Humboldt recently?

No new ones, we have had several of the West Coast variants but no other variants of concern have been found in Humboldt County.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: If a person has been vaccinated, would they test positive for COVID-19 antibodies because of having had a vaccine shot? Is this answer the same for all three Pfizer, Moderna and the J&J?

So all of the vaccines are creating an antibody to the spike protein or the S protein, so any antibody test that’s testing for the S protein would show positive, whether you had infection or if you had the vaccine. There’s a different antibody test called the N or the nucleocapsid protein antibody that would only be specific to infection because the vaccines do not produce that antibody.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: Is a natural exposure to COVID-19 as likely to prevent repeated infection from it, as a vaccine dose would be? In the same way that chicken-pox parties purposely expose people to chicken-pox, would inadvertent or purposeful exposure to COVID-19 have the same effect? What do you think about concerns expressed by people hesitant to take the vaccine, who say they would prefer to achieve “natural immunity”?

So the evidence today definitely strongly supports that the vaccine is strong, is a better immune response than natural immunity. We have seen waning of the natural immunity within 90 days and that does not appear to be the case and so some of the thought of that is that the S protein or the the type of antibody that is being produced from the vaccine is more specific and stronger to the COVID-19 virus.

From the Redheaded Blackbelt: Also, what are the local changes now that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has been temporarily suspended?

I don’t think it’s going to change anything locally.

From Reporter Daniel Mintz: At your last supervisors update you said there’s been a one-per-day stream of COVID hospitalizations but in the last few weeks the dashboard hasn’t shown that and there’s been only one new one on there in the last week. Is there an explanation for this?

The hospitalization rate has been going down. It hasn’t been going down quite as fast as I think would be reflected in the case rate and we continue to have ICU admissions that would not be reflective of the current case rate, so that’s concerning, but over the last week and a half or so it has improved dramatically so hopefully we have turned a corner on that and we’ll continue to monitor that as we always have with hospitalizations and ICU admissions.

From Reporter Daniel Mintz: There’s been some contradictory messaging lately, not long ago we were warned of another big surge and now the expectation is a much more open summer. There were 10 new cases confirmed on Friday and 35 more since. Considering the continued rise in cases and the apparent uncertainty, is it still too early to be making predictions about what will happen next?

It’s always hard to make predictions in this pandemic. I think i would point to Michigan right now, and we hope that would never happen here in California, but it is a cautionary tale and I think we all need to watch that, and that’s the reason that we’ve been very cautiously reopening California and in that cautiously reopening Humboldt County. This is a race between the vaccine effort, the variants of concern, specifically the UK variant which we have not had here in Humboldt yet, although it is in California and our reopening effort which we want to try to keep all those match so that we can get to that place where we have enough vaccine out there, that we feel more confident doing more opening and so that’s what we’re working towards and if it looks like things are going in the wrong direction we would certainly have to consider closing things back down again. I think that is something that only time would tell but hopefully will not happen if we continue to follow the current guidelines of masking, distancing, avoiding gatherings and following the rules that are being put out there to try to allow us to get some normalcy without going fully back to normal until we have a lot more vaccination.

If you’ve been near Eureka’s public restrooms in Old Town or under the Samoa Bridge lately, you may have noticed a new addition — a locked, metal box, marked “sharps disposal only.” The City of Eureka recently installed sharps containers at these two locations, in the hopes that they will help decrease the number of syringes discarded on the ground.

The installation was, at least in part, prompted by a suggestion from Eureka City Councilmember Kati Moulton. “I asked the City Manager if perhaps needle litter could be reduced in the same way we reduce other litter: by providing appropriate receptacles,” Moulton posted on her Facebook page. “He’s a science guy, so he said, ‘Let’s try it.’”

Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery told the Outpost that city staff installed the two sharps containers a couple of weeks ago and that it already seems like they are getting some use. City maintenance staff has been checking the bins daily, emptying them at least once a week and keeping track of the number of needles collected, Slattery said. If the bins continue to get regular use and aren’t vandalized, the city will consider installing more. “We’re thinking about parks potentially,” he said.

The new sharps contianers at public restrooms under the Samoa Bridge (left) and in Old Town (right) | Photos from the City of Eureka, provided by Councilmember Kati Moulton

With needle litter being such a frequently discussed topic in Eureka, one might wonder why the City hasn’t tried this solution sooner. Well, Slattery said that the Old Town bathrooms did previously have a sharps container, but the City removed it after it was repeatedly vandalized and severely damaged. These new containers are fabricated from quarter-inch stainless steel, Slattery said, and are designed to be much sturdier than the last one.

Though needle litter is a product of a much more complex issue, Councilmember Moulton hopes that this small change will help address some of the environmental and safety concerns of the public.

“Whenever the subject of  needle exchange comes up, it seems like there’s this dichotomy between addressing the public health issue and addressing the environmental concerns,” Moulton told the Outpost. “So I thought just addressing the environmental issue separately might help.”

Humboldt County Joint Information Center press release: 

Humboldt County Public Health will follow recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and immediately pause use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

In a joint statement today, the two federal agencies recommended the pause after six women between the ages of 18 and 48 developed an extremely rare but dangerous type of blood clot called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis within six to 13 days of receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

With more than 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine administered in the United States, the decision to pause was made out of what health officials called “an abundance of caution” and will continue until these cases can be reviewed and investigated. The joint statement read, “Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare. COVID-19 vaccine safety is a top priority for the federal government, and we take all reports of health problems following COVID-19 vaccination very seriously.” 

Anyone experiencing severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath within three weeks of getting the Johnson & Johnson specific vaccine should contact their health care provider. 

Humboldt County Public Health has contacted approved vaccinators and other local health care providers to alert them of the pause. CDC will convene the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Wednesday to review these cases, but the duration of the pause is unknown at this time. Anyone whose Johnson & Johnson vaccine appointment is cancelled can call the Humboldt County Joint Information Center at 707-441-5000 for assistance or go to My Turn (https://myturn.ca.gov/) to reschedule for a different vaccine. 

To read the CDC and FDA joint statement, go to cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0413-JJ-vaccine.html. 

For the most recent COVID-19 information, visit cdc.gov or cdph.ca.gov. Local information is available at humboldtgov.org or by contacting covidinfo@co.humboldt.ca.us or calling 707-441-5000. 

Sign up for COVID-19 vaccination: MyTurn.ca.gov Local COVID-19 vaccine information: humboldtgov.org/VaccineInfo Humboldt County COVID-19 Data Dashboard: humboldtgov.org/Dashboard Follow us on

Facebook: @HumCoCOVID19 Instagram: @HumCoCOVID19

Twitter: @HumCoCOVID19 Humboldt Health

Alert: humboldtgov.org/HumboldtHealthAlert  

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From the Humboldt County Drug Task Force:

On April 12th, 2021 agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF), with the assistance of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) made a traffic stop on a vehicle on northbound Highway 101 in Loleta. Agents had been investigating the driver, George Malamphy (68 years old from San Francisco), for trafficking Fentanyl into Humboldt County. Agents had previously obtained a search warrant for Malamphy and his vehicle.

During the service of the search warrant agents located 1.5 ounces of Fentanyl, 2.5 ounces of heroin, 1 ounce of powder cocaine, 2 grams of rock cocaine, MDMA pills, and 2 grams of methamphetamine in the vehicle. Agents also located a digital scale and packaging materials. Malamphy was arrested and booked at the Humboldt County Jail for the following charges:

• H&S 11352(a) Transportation of controlled substances for sale

• H&S 11352(b) Transportation of controlled substances across non-contiguous counties

• H&S 11351 Possession of controlled substance for sale

Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes are encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-267-9976.

A former candidate for county supervisor was placed on two years probation today for assaulting his neighbor with a machete during a property dispute in April 2020.

French.

Richard “Rick” French was expected to be released today from Humboldt County Correctional Facility, where he has spent nearly a year. Judge Christopher Wilson said probation is appropriate for French, who is 76 years old and has “mental health difficulties.”

The incident with French’s former Hydesville neighbor Bryan Richter was “a situation that is hopefully unusual,” the judge said.

French was placed on formal, supervised probation and must receive mental health treatment. Instead of the usual 100-yard stay-away order, French must stay 500 yards away from Richter and his residence.

Richter had asked that French be banned from Hydesville for life, and also prohibited from ever filing a lawsuit. Wilson said he could not legally impose those conditions.

French was originally charged with attempted murder, but that allegation was dismissed when French agreed in March to plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. He also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating a court order. He entered the pleas with the understanding that he would be placed on probation.

Deputy District Attorney Roger Rees, the prosecutor in the case, said today that Richter would feel safer if French was in prison.

“The victim is clear in his letter (to the judge),” Rees said. “The victim would be most satisfied if Mr. French received a two-year prison sentence.”

Rees also asked that French be ordered to stay 1,000 yards away from the victim. Wilson said he would “split the difference” by imposing a 500-yard limit.

On April 30, 2020, French placed planted pots on a piece of property that both men claimed to own. When Richter arrived in an excavator to begin tearing up the plants, French came at him swinging a machete. Witnesses told law enforcement French hit the excavator with the weapon and swung it within 3 inches of Richter’s face.

At that point Richter got out of the excavator and pulled out a gun, and French threw the machete at him.

Another person at the scene then shot French with a Taser. He was lying on the ground when officers arrived.

The sentencing today was nearly postponed because some of the conditions of probation were unclear. But Deputy Public Defender Ben McLaughlin, representing French, said he wanted to proceed today.

“I would be loath to put this over,” McLaughlin told Judge Wilson. “Mr. French needs to be released and get back to his family.”

French, looking much healthier than he did in his booking mugshot, appeared by videocamera today from the jail courtroom. He answered all of the judge’s questions with “Yes, Your Honor.”

Back in 2019, French told The Outpost that his longtime property dispute motivated him to run for Second District supervisor. He was one of four primary challengers to incumbent Estelle Fennell. French received about 4 percent of the vote.

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Reacting to a CalMatters investigation, state lawmakers said they’re concerned about defendants’ long waits behind bars before trials and substantial backlogs in California’s courts. And they’re touting their bills as steps toward fixing the problem.

Included are proposed laws that would release defendants with zero bail, limit fees on bail bonds and eliminate peremptory challenges that can slow down jury selection, among other measures.

At least 1,300 unsentenced criminal defendants have been locked in county jails for longer than three years, including about 330 people incarcerated for longer than five years, according to the CalMatters report Waiting for Justice. The majority are Black or Latino.

In one Fresno County case, a man accused of murder has been held in jail for nearly 12 years without going to trial. The long waits for justice take a toll on defendants — and the victims of crimes.

State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Democrat from Santa Ana, and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called CalMatters’ findings “surprising and embarrassing.”

“I am very concerned about the backlog in the courts. I’m very concerned about justice being delayed, maybe justice being denied,” he said.

Support for the proposals among legislators, however, is unclear. Some of these issues have come up frequently in the past, so it remains to be seen how much the bills will change since they are still early in the legislative process.

Revisions to cash bail, in particular, have been messy in California in recent years. Voters last year rejected Prop. 25, which would have ended cash bail, by a vote of 56% to 44%.

Influential police and sheriffs’ unions often push back at more progressive criminal justice measures. And lawmakers are limited in what they can do with the courts, which are a separate, equal branch of government.

“I’m very concerned about justice being delayed, maybe justice being denied.”
— State Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana)

California’s criminal courts have struggled to dispose of cases in a timely manner — even before the pandemic — for myriad reasons, including defense attorneys seeking extra time to prepare cases, prosecutors pursuing stiff sentences that lead to extra hearings and judges failing to manage their crowded calendars.

Some influential Democrats said CalMatters’ findings provide more proof of the need for changes in the bail system, an issue progressive lawmakers have been championing for several years.

“A lot of people…are held in jail just because they’ve got no money, not because they’re a flight risk or a public safety risk,” said state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, a Los Angeles Democrat who also sits on the judiciary committee.

The California Supreme Court recently ruled that defendants can’t be held in jail solely because they can’t afford to make bail. However, the ruling leaves a number of questions unanswered.

“They didn’t tell us how to solve the problem. They just said that here is the problem,” said Hertzberg, who is co-sponsor of a bill that would set bail at zero dollars for most nonviolent crimes. “There’s still more that needs to be done.”

Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer, a South Los Angeles Democrat and chair of the Public Safety Committee, is also pushing for more bail reform.

“We’ve created a system which imprisons people of color into this prison industrial system,” said Jones-Sawyer, who’s sponsoring a bill that would eliminate some bail fees. “If you can’t pay bail, you’re stuck in jail for a long period of time. And we pay that cost. Taxpayers pay that cost.”

Courts can’t handle volume

Jones-Sawyer said the inequities in the system, including lengthy pretrial detention, aren’t surprising to poor people or many Black and Latino residents. The key now is that “we don’t close our eyes again and go back to sleep and not take care of it.”

Assemblymember Kevin Kiley, a Republican from Rocklin and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the issue isn’t necessarily bail — it’s that the courts can’t handle the volume of cases.

“The inadequate capacity of our justice system has been well understood for some time. And it’s not just in criminal cases, by the way, and it’s not just the trial court level…You have cases that are civil, before the court of appeals, that are waiting years for a hearing,” Kiley said.

“What we need to do is have a criminal justice system and overall justice system that is designed to produce fair outcomes in a timely manner.”

But reforming the courts to pick up the pace is difficult because of their independent function.

“I don’t think there’s much the legislature can do to force them to move cases more quickly,” said Natasha Minsker, a Sacramento attorney and consultant on criminal justice issues. It’s why disparate criminal justice reform bills might be the best hope of tackling elements of the backlog.

She said efforts to get more low-level defendants into diversion programs and to limit the use of sentencing enhancements might also help.

“I do think ultimately sentencing reform is part of the solution,” Minsker said.

So too is money, some lawmakers said.

“The reality is our courts are under-resourced and people are suffering because of it.”
— Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose), member of the Judiciary Committee

“The courts are a separate, independent branch of government and, understandably, they want to be responsible — and they should be responsible — for their own administration. Our primary function with respect to the courts is a resource function,” said Umberg, who is a former federal prosecutor.

Courts for years have submitted reports to the Legislature showing a need for more judges to handle the workload.

“The reality is our courts are under-resourced and people are suffering because of it,” said Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee. More resources for overloaded public defenders would also help the problem, he added.

Last year’s budget cut $200 million in state general fund money for the judicial branch.

At a joint hearing of the Senate and Assembly judiciary committees in late February, lawmakers grilled judicial branch officials for more information on the size of the backlog and what’s needed to clear it.

“I know you want full restoration. That’s been an ongoing subject. However, there are a lot of questions that need to be addressed so that we can ensure that the levels of access to justice in every single county is available,” said Assemblymember Mark Stone, a Monterey Bay Democrat and chair of the Judiciary Committee.

CalMatters’ investigation revealed that the state doesn’t actually know how bad its backlogs are and how long cases are taking to resolve. Many courts are incapable of providing accurate data.

Courts want funding restored

For its part, judicial branch leaders are hopeful they will get funding restored in the current budget proposal. But they say the courts need more than money to clear the backlog.

The Judicial Council, which is the judiciary’s policymaking body, is using the budget process to push for an expansion of an early disposition program to speed up some lower-level criminal cases. The theory is by getting rid of large numbers of cases quickly, the courts will have more resources to handle the more time-consuming felonies and civil proceedings.

The council also is working on a proposed budget trailer bill that would allow the courts to continue holding some civil proceedings remotely even after the pandemic ends. Court leadership was able to authorize such time-saving technology with emergency orders, but it will need a legislative fix to make it permanent. A council advisory committee is soliciting comments on a similar proposal to sponsor legislation allowing remote appearances in criminal proceedings.

“The courts have pretty limited options when it comes to making significant changes to court procedure,” said Cory Jasperson, the Judicial Council’s director of government affairs. Much of it is set by statute and needs to be changed by lawmakers, he added.

CalMatters found that lawmakers have rejected a number of changes the judicial branch backed in recent years that purportedly would have made court operations more efficient. That includes measures to allow non-judges to handle some proceedings, limit the types of cases where court reporters are necessary and speed up jury selection in some cases.

It’s unclear how much support the judicial branch’s proposals have. Labor groups have been among the critics of increasing the use of remote proceedings.

Jones-Sawyer, the Assembly’s public safety chair, is hopeful.

The emergency changes made during the pandemic including the use of remote hearing technology “shed some light on ways we could do things better and giving people an opportunity to not have to come down to court,” he said. “We have to work in partnership with the judicial branch.”

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