Two contractors and a Caltrans employee were injured today when a tree fell during removal and slide prevention work at Last Chance Grade on U.S. 101 near Crescent City. The workers were transported to a local hospital.
Motorists were not driving in the construction zone when this incident occurred, and Caltrans traffic spotters and flaggers will continue to conduct 24-hour surveillance of the area until work is completed.
The health and safety of the traveling public, department employees, and its contracting partners remains Caltrans’ top priority, and Caltrans is cooperating fully with Cal/OSHA on its investigation.
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Yurok Tribal Police Department:
Yurok Tribal Police Department officers were first on scene to reports of an injury accident due to a falling tree at Last Chance Grade at approximately 12:20 p.m.
YTPD officers assisted with securing the scene and caring for the victims while waiting for ambulance services to transport them to Crescent City for medical care. We hope and pray for the health and well being of those injured in this incident.
The Yurok Tribal Police Department is proud to be a part of the collaborative network of agencies that help keep our region safe. We would like to thank all those agencies and individuals who responded this afternoon, including CHP - Crescent City Crescent City Fire and Rescue Caltrans District 1, The Klamath Volunteer Fire Department, Redwood National and State Parks (NPS) Del Norte Ambulance.
We take our mission to serve all residents and visitors to Yurok Country seriously, and are prepared to serve you in your time of need as well.
Photo of the recent slide area at Last Chance Grade. | Caltrans
Screenshots from Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting (clockwise from top left): First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson, Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass, a U.S. flag from a YouTube video played during the Pledge of Allegiance and Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone.
Manners played a significant role in Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. While things have sometimes gotten testy between the board and Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez, most everyone seemed to be on their best behavior Tuesday as the board agreed to the structure of a county audit committee, which will serve an advisory role on financial matters.
Earlier in the meeting, an applicant for a controversial 10,000-square-foot cannabis grow just outside Blue Lake accused her neighbors of bad manners, saying their mean-spirited and dishonest testimony slandered her family and convinced the county Planning Commission to deny the project.
Let’s start there, shall we? Rocci and Laura Costa had applied for a zoning clearance certificate under the county’s Commercial Medical Marijuana Land Use Ordinance, (aka Ordinance 1.0). They planned an open-air cannabis farm on Warren Creek Road, outside Blue Lake city limits but within its Community Planning Area. However, because of that proximity to the city, the Costas were made to comply with the county’s Commercial Cannabis Land Use Ordinance (aka Ordinance 2.0), and that complicated the process.
After spending years planning the project, they now needed a conditional use permit, and the public hearings — before both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors — were acrimonious, with support from fellow small-scale growers but vociferous opposition from neighboring residents on Warren Creek Road.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Planning and Building Director John Ford explained that a rather unusual solution had been reached at a neighborhood meeting that he’d facilitated in an effort to mediate the conflict. The Costas had agreed to move their planned grow to an unspecified site in Honeydew, he said.
However, when Costa spoke via Zoom, she was upset. She said the negotiated agreement was contingent upon a written apology clearing her family name, and since the neighbors had failed to provide that written apology she considered the deal null and void.
“The community failed to take responsibility for the negative depiction of myself and our project,” she said. “The community slandered us.”
There was some confusion among the board members about how to proceed. Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell made a motion to continue the meeting to a later date since the proposal on the table wasn’t what Costa actually wanted. Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson, on the other hand, said he was reluctant to extend what has been “a fairly painful process” and made a motion to approve the agreement despite Costa’s hesitation. Neither of those motions received a second.
Ultimately, a compromise was reached. County staff agreed to make a genuine effort to find an alternate location for the project. one that’s a lot closer to Blue Lake than Honeydew is. Staff also agreed to assign a senior planner to the project, replacing the planner who’s been working on it. In exchange, Costa agreed to accept the relocation agreement, saying the proposal to help her find a closer spot was “a great olive branch” from the county.
The board, with apparent relief, approved this accord unanimously.
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After a lunch break, the board embarked on the somewhat touchy matter of forming a county audit committee — “touchy” because it concerns the ongoing power struggle between the board and the County Administrative Office, on the one hand, and Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez on the other.
A report prepared by CAO staff takes pains to articulate the board’s authority to require county officials — “including elected officials” — to participate in county functions.
However, in an email sent to four of the five county supervisors (with First District Supervisor Rex Bohn omitted), Paz Dominguez argued that the proposed committee, as outlined in the staff report, could potentially overreach her own office’s authority. She also took issue with the proposed composition of the committee.
Speaking to the board via Zoom, Paz Dominguez clarified that while she has concerns, she is “fully supportive” of the committee. Foremost among her concerns was that all parties understand that the committee serves an advisory function and “won’t impact the statutory authority of the independently elected Auditor-Controller.”
The board set about workshopping some of the language, with Wilson taking the lead. He suggested that the two supervisors assigned as voting members to the committee should be the chair and vice-chair, positions that rotate annually. The committee will also include County Administrative Officer Amy Nilsen, Treasure-Tax Collector John Bartholomew and appointed community members, all in non-voting roles.
On Tuesday afternoon, Lasara Firefox Allen, executive director of the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction since 2019, announced that they will be leaving their role as head of the often-controversial community health organization.
Read their statement in full below:
Lasara Firefox Allen
Dear Community,
When I joined The Center in 2019 I never could have imagined what the last year would bring for all of us here in Humboldt County and across the world. And through it all, The Center has won major victories in preserving the health, safety, and dignity of the unhoused, those who use drugs, and those who trade sex, including:
* Adding a new program to provide linkage to low-barrier medication assisted treatment, one that has successfully enrolled nearly 100 individuals and is being heralded as a model to be replicated by community groups across the state.
* Adapting human resources and direct service protocols to be COVID-19-safe for participants and community members.
* Growing our budget, and adding three new positions via the California Harm Reduction Initiative (CHRI) grant through the National Harm Reduction Coalition.
* Engaging with hundreds of local politicians, state and local civil servants, and citizens to ensure that the Center was acting as a good neighbor in its community.
* Working with public health experts across the country as well as national policy leaders to bring priceless education on evidence-based service provision to local meetings.
* Expanding our partnership with Humboldt State University in order to train Social Work students in harm reduction.
* Expanding and instigating strategic partnerships locally and nationally.
* Adding decriminalization of sex work to HACHR’s strategic plan. I am immensely grateful for the time I have spent as Executive Director at Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction, and am so proud of all we have accomplished together, for our participants, and for the community in which we live.
I am excited to reveal Jasmine Guerra, our Assistant Director, as the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction’s new Executive Director. Jasmine has been involved with HACHR since January 2020, serving first as a volunteer, then as SSP Coordinator, and then as Assistant Director. During her time with us, Jasmine has managed HACHR’s Syringe Service Program, developed funding opportunities, mentored a team of interns, and worked to strengthen relationships with community members and stakeholders. She has over seven years of team management, administrative, and crisis intervention experience. Participants, staff members, and partner organizations all know Jasmine as timely, organized, and able to work around difficulties with ease and patience, while keeping the sense of humanity in her work with any population she is serving. This leadership choice is a strategic step in supporting the growth of the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction and our vision of a community with access to healthcare, housing, opportunities, and respect for every single one of us.
I cannot thank you–our community of participants, staff, interns, supporters, allies, friends, and neighbors–enough for your partnership. I look forward to continuing to work with you all as a member of the Board of Directors, and am excited to see the organization continue to grow under Jasmine’s capable leadership.
In solidarity, and with love,
-Lasara Firefox Allen Executive Director Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office needs the public’s assistance to identify and locate the suspect of ongoing diesel theft from an Alton business.
A suspect was recently observed on surveillance footage unlawfully entering the property of a construction business on the 1000 block of Fowler Lane, near Alton. The surveillance footage depicts a male suspect stealing diesel from a concrete truck. According to the business, the theft is believed to have been ongoing for approximately two weeks prior to capturing the suspect on video. The suspect is believed to have stolen over 200 gallons of diesel during that time.
This case is still under investigation.
Anyone with information regarding this suspect’s identity or location is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539, and reference case number 202101317.
The next step in returning triple-murder suspect Mauricio Sanchez-Johnson from Utah to Humboldt County will be California Gov. Gavin Newsom agreeing to sign a warrant.
“California has told me they’ve made a request for a governor’s warrant,” attorney Brad Schofield, representing Sanchez-Johnson, told Third District Judge Dianna Gibson this afternoon. Sanchez-Johnson has been in jail in Tooele County, Utah, since Feb. 11, the day after he allegedly shot three people to death in a home on the Bear River Rancheria.
Sanchez-Johnson.
Sanchez-Johnson appeared briefly today before Gibson, who set his next hearing for April 6. He is fighting extradition to Humboldt County.
The 19-year-old Loleta man is accused of murdering Nikki Dion Metcalf, Margarett Lee Moon and Shelly Mae Autumn Moon after Metcalf discovered him in bed with 16-year-old Shelly Moon. Sanchez-Johnson told a witness he first shot Metcalf and Margarett Moon, both 40, before also killing Shelly so she couldn’t be a witness.
Sanchez-Johnson was pulled over and arrested the next day while driving east on Interstate 80 in Utah. His passenger, 46-year-old Von Eric Keener, was also arrested but waived extradition and is in Humboldt County Correctional Facility.
Sanchez-Johnson’s local attorney, Andrea Sullivan, had told District Attorney Maggie Fleming that Sanchez-Johnson would sign extradition papers if the capital charge against him was dismissed. Fleming refused.
In addition to murder and firearms allegations, Sanchez-Johnson faces the special-circumstance charge of having multiple victims, meaning if convicted he could face the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole.
All three victims were shot in the head, with Metcalf and Shelly Moon dying instantly and Margarett Moon dying shortly after. They were found by Margarett Moon’s 13-year-old daughter. She and an 11-year-old boy were in the home when the shootings occurred.
An employee sanitizes shopping carts outside of the North Coast Co-op in Arcata | Stephanie McGeary
Grocery store employees have been helping customers, stocking shelves and wiping down carts on the frontlines of the pandemic for a year now, which is why the United Food and Commercial Workers union is fighting for grocery stores to pay their workers a little bit more.
At its Wednesday night meeting, the Arcata City Council will consider drafting an ordinance that would require large grocery stores to provide “hazard pay” for their employees, a request that was brought forward by the local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers, UFCW Local 5.
“We want to level the playing field for all grocery workers,” Local 5 North Coast Director John Frahm told the Outpost in a phone interview Tuesday. “Grocery workers have continued to show up for the public and put themselves and their families at risk.”
Several California cities have recently passed hazard pay ordinances, including San Francisco, Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles. The amount of the pay increase, duration of the ordinance and what types of businesses are subject varies a bit across the state. While some cities have based the hazard pay requirement solely on the businesses’ number of employees, Oakland’s ordinance, for example, applies to grocery stores larger than 15,000 square feet.
Locally, the UFCW has requested that the ordinance apply to “any large retailer that sells a minimum of 10 percent food,” Frahm said. Grocery stores with 15 or more employees locally or 500 or more employees nationwide would be required to pay an additional $4 per hour, and stores with more than 25 but less than 500 employees locally would pay workers an additional $3 an hour. The request is for the ordinance to last for at least 90 days, or until the county moves into the yellow tier.
If the council chooses to move forward, however, it would decide the exact parameters of the ordinance, including the duration, the amount of pay increase and how to determine which businesses would be subject.
The ordinance would not be meant to impact small businesses that may be struggling, Frahm said, but to target the large companies that have seen an increase in profits since the onset of the pandemic. Brookings Institution reported that the 13 largest retail and grocery store companies in the United States earned $17.7 billion more in the first three quarters of 2020 than they did in 2019. And though many larger grocery stores were offering “hero pay” to their employees earlier in the pandemic, most discontinued the pay last summer.
Frahm says that the UFCW hopes to ensure those stores’ profits are passed on to the employees, who are risking exposure to COVID-19 and many of whom have been continuing to show up to work while juggling family obligations.
“Employers have reaped the profits without sharing them with those who have put themselves at risk,” Frahm said. “With our jobs, you can’t work from home. We’ve been there on the frontlines.”
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In other business, the council will receive an update on the city’s Rental Inspection Program.
“The purpose of the Residential Rental Inspection Program is to address the issue of substandard long-term rental properties, promote greater compliance with health and safety standards and preserve the quality of Arcata’s neighborhoods and available housing,” the staff report states. “The program achieves compliance of health, safety and welfare code violations in/on residential rental properties that are a threat to the occupant’s safety, structural integrity of the building, and a negative impact on the surrounding neighborhoods.”
The Arcata City Council meets over Zoom on Wednesday, March 17 at 6:00 p.m.
You can view the full agenda and directions on how to participate here.
On the other: No, Redwood News reporter, he will not answer your question.
But Hoffman does have more to say about the county’s relationship with state public health officials, youth and adult sports, vaccinating food workers and much more — OK, some more — in today’s media availability on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Video above, rough transcript below.
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From the Redwood News: According to the weekly data that breaks down the age groups, it appears
that 52 cases that were originally assigned to the groups 0-9 and 10 to 19 combined have been
reassigned to older age groups. Specifically, there were 13 cases reassigned from the 0-9 age
group, and 39 cases reassigned from the 10- to 19-year-old age group in the last week.
Otherwise, combined the other age groups would have a total of 114 cases reported
in the last week. Can you explain this change? Is last week’s data inaccurate?
There does appear that there could be an anomaly there
and we’re looking into it. We’ll get back to you when we know more about that.
From the Redwood News: You mentioned last week that the first vaccination clinics for
food and agriculture workers will be held this week. How many local employees are included in
this group? How long does the County expect it will take to vaccinate this entire group?
How can people a part of this group go about getting a vaccination appointment? Can you
also provide some more information on the clinics being held this week for this group,
specifically the mobile clinic that will be the first of its kind in the County.
So food and agriculture, we’re estimating, is around 10,000 people in Humboldt County. So
it’s quite a large group. And just to put into perspective, this is in addition to many other
groups that are recently open by CDPH guidelines, the state guidelines. So we know that the eligible
pool of people to receive vaccine is much greater than the amount of vaccine that we have.
So we are working with groups to target higher risk folks and we’re working towards making more
availability in the future as we get more vaccine. So right now really the best way for people in
any eligible group is to get on the interest form and so we really encourage the media and
everyone to get that information out there about the interest form on the Humboldt County website.
From the Redwood News: There have been reports of more than 50 Humboldt County Superior Court
employees that were able to get a vaccine despite not meeting eligibility requirements.
Can Public Health confirm that this did happen? And if it did, can you provide any explanation as
to how this could happen? Also, what is Public Health’s stance or opinion on the situation?
There was an article last week covering this. I think that
did an adequate job and don’t really have anything else to add at this time.
From the North Coast News: A new study found 1/5 of COVID patients show
signs of heart damage in blood tests. Since there is more time to see some
long-term effects of this disease — what are some of the most disturbing long-term effects
seen in Humboldt County? We know disease affects certain age groups differently,
how are age groups impacted differently by long-term effects, if at all?
I think the studies are still ongoing and I can’t really speak to
the immediate impacts. Those studies will continue over time
and we’ll see them as they unfold in the coming months and years, really.
From the North Coast News: At the Board of Supervisors meeting last Tuesday,
you said that the county would petition the CDPH to stay in the red tier if it was announced we
moved to the purple tier later that day. Has the county always had the ability to
do this? Why is now the appropriate time to use this petition process?
We always have the ability to ask for adjudication in a tier process. There are very specific reasons
for adjudication, in this case we felt that the data that potentially could have put us
into the purple tier was inaccurate, by just a little bit and we had discussions with CDPH
leading up to that point, but it turned out that we didn’t have to go down that route
because the case counts were just below the threshold of seven on the day of the report.
From the North Coast News: It seems like the county’s attitude towards CDPH guidelines has
shifted in recent weeks, being very open about potentially disagreeing with the state’s rules.
For example, in reference to the guidance on spectator limits at youth sporting events,
Public Health Director Michelle Stevens said in a press release recently, “Humboldt County
remains fully supportive of common sense rules and regulations that prevent the spread of
COVID-19 but will not endorse a statewide approach that doesn’t truly take into account our local
conditions and further harms small businesses that are the backbone of our community.”
It sounds like public health is willing to defy CDPH guidance if necessary.
Would you agree that public health is becoming more critical of the CDPH, and if so why?
I think we’ve always had a discussion with CDPH and whenever we have new guidelines that are
coming out sometimes they’re not specific or they could be left up for interpretation and in this
case specifically the age-appropriate supervision was a big debate across the whole state - what
does that really mean? We went back and forth with CDPH, we never really landed on a number
so we just said let’s use common sense about what we know about COVID, about protecting ourselves,
about distancing and masking and trying to limit the size of gatherings. So that’s what we
discussed in those regulations. We still fully support CDPH and all of the regulations, but
sometimes we might be looking for more clarification.
From the North Coast News: In terms of “fully supporting common sense rules and regulations,”
that was mentioned previously, what do you say to business owners that may feel like some
past restrictions were not “common sense rules and regulations”
and feel that public health didn’t do enough previously to fight such restrictions?
I think that the rules that we’ve been following for the last year have been very common sense.
This is a new novel coronavirus that we knew nothing about a year ago going into this and
we’ve learned a lot along the way. I think when we first started this and people were talking about
masking and some people said ‘no’ some people said ‘yes’, but we finally figured that out.
Now that’s obviously a very common sense thing. So there’s always discussion back and forth about
what we’re going to put into place and now there’s discussion about what we can take away and what
sort of process we’re going to have to unwind this whole thing. We’re having those discussions with
people in our county, people across the state, our local elected officials, with business leaders,
leaders of the hospital and the medical community. So we’re going to continue that
and I think that’s really what we mean when we’re talking about using ‘common sense’
to move forward throughout this process.
From Reporter Daniel Mintz: During your last update to the Board of Supervisors
you said there’s been a palpable change in the course of the pandemic. But last month,
you warned that the biggest surge yet could happen. Is that warning still relevant?
Yeah I think this is about balance here - cautious optimism with a little bit of skepticism.
We definitely feel a change. We’re getting vaccine out there, we’re seeing the case counts go down
however they haven’t continued to go down we’ve plateaued. So we want to be cautious. We
definitely want to recognize that we need to get back to some semblance of normal. Youth sports,
new guidelines around live performances, every day CDPH and the local health jurisdictions
are working together to figure out ways we can open up more safely, but it’s a balanced process
so we need to be patient and we’re going to constantly watch and vigilantly watch
for any re-emergence of the disease the new variants that could also cause a surge.
From the Times-Standard: Did the county cooperate with the Humboldt-Del Norte
League on developing the rules for spectators at outdoor prep
sports events (only four members of a participant’s household may attend,
socially distance, no food in stands, etc…) or were these suggestions from the state?
The state and Humboldt County Public Health have not put any number limits,
so we are sticking with age-appropriate supervision and leaving that up to the facilities
and the teams to decide what makes sense for them.
There is also the live performance guidance that goes into effect April 1st which could be applied
to many of these youth sports situations as well. So we encourage anyone who’s in a venue like that
to use that sort of performance guidance to guide how they might have spectators at the events.
From the Times-Standard: Is the county working with adult sports organizations
(Humboldt Crabs, HSU) on possibly welcoming spectators to their outdoor stands?
Yes, the live performance guidance has been shared with those folks and I encourage them to see
what’s feasible given those guidelines and hope that we continue to improve with case counts and
get into less restrictive tiers that will allow for more reopening.
