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Press release from the Fortuna Seventh-day Adventist Church:

The Fortuna Community Garden Is Moving

The Fortuna Community Garden is moving to a new location. Rhonda Lewis, director of the Community garden says, “The move will give us an opportunity to expand our present garden to better serve the community. The community garden began nine years ago when Steve Palecki contacted the Seventh-day Adventist Community Services, located at 2331 Rohnerville Road and presented the idea to them. The Fortuna Catholic Church under Father Ramon Pons at that time volunteered the property on Newburg Road to host the garden. Through hard work, many sacrifices, and the support of the community, the garden expanded. It provides for not only the families who participate in it, but also provides food for the St. Joseph’s Catholic Food Pantry and the Seventh-day Adventist Community Service’s food pantry.

The Community Garden’s new location will be 1200 Ross Hill Road, on the campus of Fortuna Junior Academy, with Sean Todd heading it up. Sean was a student of Steve Palecki at College of the Redwoods garden. Steve Palecki brought Sean onboard at the Fortuna Garden. Sean mentored under Steve for well over a year. In addition, he continues to work at the College of the Redwoods garden and the Open Door clinic garden. Sean has a heart for these gardens and those it serves. Jamie Burzo, principal of Fortuna Junior Academy said, “Having the Community Garden on campus will be a great opportunity for our students to learn about science, their environment and God as well as helping our community.”

Pastor Dan Freedman from the Fortuna Seventh-day Adventist Church thanked St Joseph’s Parish and the Catholic Church for their nine years hosting the garden on their property. Father Eddie and Pastor Dan look forward to working together on more projects to help their community.

Moving the garden began in late December. By next spring the garden will be ready to re-open and serve the community. The Community Garden wants to thank everyone for their support and looks forward to its best year ever in 2021. For information e-mail Sean Todd at stodd@fortunaacs.com . We also want to take this time to thank Steve Palecki for his numerous years of managing the garden and building it up to where it is today. We wish him and his wife blessings and success in their move to Oregon.

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California has spent $41 million over the past four years fighting the Trump administration over its regulations and rollbacks involving climate change, immigration, consumer rights and more.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed lawsuit after lawsuit, challenging the various federal agencies that set new national policies.

The costs are “almost entirely” personnel hours, which include work by Justice Department attorneys, legal secretaries, paralegal analysts and special agents, a Department of Justice spokesperson said. Also included were costs of printing, travel and facilities. It’s unclear if there were any outside consultant or expert witness costs, too.

“From Day 1, our team at CA DOJ has protected our public lands, natural resources and environment from four years of attack from the White House,” Becerra said in a statement the day before Trump left office. “It will take time to unwind the havoc the Trump Administration has wrought.”

California filed 110 lawsuits against the Trump administration. The attorney general’s office won 23 and lost five. Six are on hold, and 76 are pending. So far, that’s an 82%-18% win-loss rate over the Trump policies that state officials contested.

The cost of the litigation is a little more than 1% of the Justice Department’s total budget for the four years. Since the lawsuits are ongoing, the expenses will continue to add up. Compared with fiscal year 2016-17, the $3.7 million spent by the attorney general’s office tripled to $11.3 million in 2017-18 and nearly $12 million in 2018-19. By fiscal year 2019-2020, it reached $16 million.

The justice department calls it money well-spent. In a case won against the Department of Energy for delaying four energy efficiency standards, state officials say the victory will generate $8 billion in energy savings for consumers over the next 30 years.

“It’s not just a lawsuit for the sake of filing a lawsuit,” said Paul Nolette, a political science professor at Marquette University in Wisconsin and an expert on U.S. attorneys general. “There are some really important policies that are linked to them and policies that hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars are at stake.”

In 2017, shortly after the Trump administration put immigration enforcement conditions on certain law enforcement grants, Becerra responded with a lawsuit. The administration “cannot manipulate federal grant fund requirements to pressure states, counties or municipalities to enforce federal immigration laws,” he said.

Two years later, after the Ninth District Court of Appeals upheld an injunction in the case, the federal government had to award California $57 million.

“We have paid for all the work that we’ve done in essentially one action — defending these … grants,” Becerra said.

California also stopped the 2020 U.S. Census from including a question about immigration status.

One of the state’s biggest victories was saving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program, which protects more than 640,000 immigrants brought to America as children from deportation.

Several lawsuits were filed to block the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end DACA. California, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota argued that the administration did not offer a sufficiently detailed justification for ending it. The cases were folded into one, led by the Regents of the University of California, and the Supreme Court concluded that the attempt to rescind DACA was “arbitrary and capricious.”

California also forced the government to reverse course on some environmental rules. Courts forced the EPA to eliminate exemptions for asbestos reporting and stopped the administration from delaying a fuel efficiency rule. Other major lawsuits related to climate change, wetlands, endangered species and air pollution are still pending.

In just four years, U.S. states filed more multi-state lawsuits against the Trump administration than the 16 years of the Obama and George W. Bush administrations combined, according to the State Litigation and AG Activity Database maintained by Nolette.

Making regulatory changes is often time-consuming, and federal agencies have to follow specific rules and have clear reasons for making those changes. The Trump administration was hastily changing rules and had a difficult time defending them in court.

“The first year and a half or so, they were not mounting good defenses,” Nolette said. “They were vulnerable because, in part, they were trying to do things quickly. That leaves you completely vulnerable when you try to turn on a dime and say, everything that the previous guy did, we’re just going to completely overturn, and we’re going to do it quickly.”

California filed nine environmental lawsuits against the Trump administration in a single day — the day before President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Suing an administration a day before a new president is sworn into office may seem pointless since Biden was just hours away from taking over. But it’s part of California’s strategy. Changing regulations can be a long process for the federal government, involving public notices and periods of public comment, so sometimes lawsuits speed up that process.

The Biden administration, in some cases, may simply choose to not defend the federal government.

“(Lawsuits) don’t automatically go away when there’s a change in administration because the EPA is still there, the Department of Education is still there,” Nolette said. “It just makes it much easier when you can kind of get a clean slate and be able to build your policy without having to worry about the Trump regulations.”

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

Scott Sattler, MD dedicated his life to following his “path with heart”. He was a loving brother, husband, father and “Opa”; a care provider, educator and patient advocate; a spiritual leader and choir director in the local and global Universal Sufi community; a private pilot, writer and citizen of the world. In both his personal and professional lives, Scott was a force of life, energy and wisdom and a human of great compassion and curiosity. Profoundly open-hearted and kind, he had the ability to connect with people effortlessly. He loved to make others laugh through sharing puns, stories and jokes.

Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania on September 27, 1946, Scott grew up as the youngest of three sons on a farm in Tiffin, Ohio. He attended Columbian High School and spent the summer of 1963 in Turkey as an AFS exchange student. Following high school, he studied at Ohio Wesleyan University where he triple-majored in German, pre-med and chemistry, with honors. His passion for human relationships and service and deep awe of human physiology ultimately led him to pursue a career as a physician and he moved to California in 1968 to attend the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Scott frequently hitchhiked across California and the United States during medical school and his internship at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, telling friends and family that it was something he “just needed to do from time to time”. He would leave the Bay Area with only a few dollars, his parlor magic skills and his insatiable appetite for exploration, wondering where the universe would take him. In the spring of 1973 he caught a ride from a local man, Jerry McManus, on Highway 96. A few magic tricks earned him an invitation to stay the night with Jerry’s family, a tour of the local hospital, and a one-week job offer that became an eight-year position at the Humboldt Medical Center-Hoopa. He served the Hoopa community as the Chief of Staff and Director of the Emergency Room. The combination of an isolated rural practice setting and access to specialists “in town” on the rotary phone launched Scott’s career as a full-spectrum family doctor. He learned to care for patients who were in all stages of life - from birth through death. He did so with attunement to each individual’s physical, emotional and spiritual health and needs. He delivered babies, managed diabetes, treated depression, resuscitated people after traumatic accidents and eventually felt capable of triaging and stabilizing most anyone who came through the door of the clinic or Emergency Room (ER). During his tenure he also designed and taught the first EMT class in Humboldt County and created and distributed an ER protocol manual for rural hospital ERs in Northern California. Scott brought his girlfriend and Registered Nurse, Kathy Schettino, along with him to Hoopa to help and they spent the rest of their careers working alongside each other. They built and got married at their geodesic dome house in 1979, nestled up on a hill overlooking the Hoopa Valley.

Scott and Kathy moved “to town” in 1982 when Scott accepted a position at Eureka Family Practice (1982-2004). He was a quintessential family doc who was guided by his personal mantra: “the secret to caring for patients is caring for patients”. His calming presence and thoughtful, selfless care brought comfort and improved the health and wellbeing of countless members of our community. During this time, among other distinctions, he was on the Board of Directors at The General Hospital in Eureka (1983-85), founded the Bioethics Committee at St. Joseph Hospital (1984), was certified as an Aviation Medical Examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration (1987-2004), and served as Chief of Staff at St. Joseph Hospital (1989-91). Scott created and hosted a local cable television show called “Doc-in-the-Box,” a medical information program where he invited guests to present various topics and answered medical questions on-air for the general public (1995-2004). Passionate about reproductive rights, he was a volunteer member on the Six Rivers Planned Parenthood Clergy for Choice Committee from 2006 until he passed. After retirement, Scott and Kathy volunteered at Hospitalito Atitlan in Guatemala (2006 and 2007) and worked at the student health clinic at Humboldt State University (2009-14). Starting in 2014, they coordinated a rural primary care program for Stanford medical students on their family medicine core clerkship and enjoyed hosting and mentoring dozens of students in their home.

Scott’s love of Humboldt County’s natural beauty and community was one of his favorite sources of inspiration. Scott served as a volunteer with a number of local entities throughout his 47 years in Humboldt County, including Planned Parenthood and the Area 1 Agency on Aging. He was a regular contributor to the editorial section of the monthly Humboldt-Del Norte Medical Society newsletter both while practicing and in retirement. He was a Paul Harris Fellow with the Rotary Club of Eureka (1985-2003). Being an avid punster, he helped revive the infamous Humboldt County pun-off as a fundraiser for Humboldt Connections and other local non-profits. He was the reigning champion for several years. Scott also enjoyed dressing up as Santa Claus for the annual “Lunch with Santa” gathering for local children at the Eureka Inn.

Soon after he and Kathy moved to Eureka they had their first daughter, Amelia (1982). A few years later they welcomed their second daughter, Shanti (1985). Adamant that his girls also see themselves as citizens of the world, they took many trips across the country and internationally as a family - including a few in his Cessna 182. They also hosted many travelers, including welcoming Irem Almac, their “Turkish daughter”, into their home for a year in 1992 and into their lives forever.

One of Scott’s core beliefs was that he was a spiritual being on a human path. He was a Universal Sufi practitioner, holding the title of Murshid, meaning “spiritual guide”, the highest level of teacher in the lineage. Scott traveled, taught and sang around the world, and was especially known and loved for his work directing Sufi choirs. His students and companions have shared many stories of life-changing healings and transformation.

Scott passed away peacefully from complications of his advancing cancer at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka on the morning of Wednesday, January 13th surrounded by love and song. He is sorely missed. His family wishes to thank Drs. John Albertini, Kusum Stokes, Caroline Connor and the staff at St. Joseph Hospital for their compassionate care and loving kindness. There will be a virtual memorial held in honor of Scott later this year.

Scott was predeceased by his parents Bea and Charles Sattler and his oldest brother Charles “Sam” Sattler. He is survived by his wife Kathy Sattler of Eureka, his older brother Steve Sattler of Delaware, Ohio, his daughters Amelia and Shanti Sattler, their husbands Chris Kundinger and Gabriel Talavera, and his grandchildren Elliot, Naia, Amina and Lucía.

Memorial contributions may be made to The Humboldt County Library, Food For People: The Food Bank for Humboldt County, Planned Parenthood - Eureka Health Center.

A Prayer Beyond

I am Truth beyond Reason, I am Knowing beyond Thought.
I am Grace beyond Effort, I am Strength beyond Force.
I am Love beyond All Expectation.
I am Peace beyond Time, I am Love in Motion.
I am Life Divine.

— Daniel Rhiger

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

Tommie Gene Reagan, our beloved mom, grandma, sister, aunt and friend, passed away on November 30, 2020 in Fortuna. She was born in Baskin, Louisiana on March 22, 1926. She was preceded in death by her husband of over 70 years, Louis Virgil Reagan.

Tommie was the eldest of three children. She moved with her family at the age of 19 to California and married Louis on September 30, 1945. They made their home in Kerman for 26 years then relocated to Fortuna in 1971. There, she enjoyed working as a teacher’s aide at South Fortuna Elementary School.

She shared many camping trips with her family and loved hunting and fishing. She was quite happy to catch a bigger fish than Louis! They loved cooking fish and potato fries for neighbors in their backyard.

Tommie was quite an artist when it came to needlepoint. She won many ribbons at the local fair for her beautiful work. She also loved to tend to her flower garden and grew many beautiful varieties. Tommie loved to read and enjoyed attending her church.

Tommie was a hard worker and also loved to cook and bake. She spent many hours in the kitchen always making sure everyone had enough. She was known for the dozens of cookies she would routinely bake. For her it was an all-day affair, which made everyone happy. She loved her friends and their company and enjoyed giving them her cookies.

What Tommie enjoyed most was her family. She was a faithful giver and a woman of integrity. She loved her daughter and grandkids and enjoyed spending time with them. She had many nieces and nephews and was loved by all. She was close to her sister and they would talk often.

She is now reunited in Heaven with her beloved husband and her Savior. She was loved so very much and will be missed more than one can imagine.

Tommie is survived by her daughter, Rebecca Reagan Nelson (Bruce), grandchildren: Daniel Harrison, Nicholas Reagan Harrison, Shiloh Karshima (William);  great grandchildren: Alabama Harrison, Seember and Tersoo Karshima; her sister Bobbie Palsgaard and numerous beloved nieces and nephews.

Our family wishes to send our thanks and appreciation to Dr Tamara Dennis, her staff and Sequoia Springs Memory Care. They have our deepest gratitude for the care, kindness and love given to mom and us. We appreciate her friends for shared visits with her. You all mattered.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the family will have a private celebration of life.

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

 

Sharon Nelson, 71, of McKinleyville, passed away on December 31, 2020, surrounded by loved ones.

Sharon was born on July 4, 1949, to Ronald and Melva Benton in Baltimore, Maryland. Later Sharon and her family moved to Glendora, California. Sharon graduated from Glendora High School in 1967. After high school, she graduated from Cal Poly Pomona, with a business degree.

Sharon worked in office management for various industries over her forty-year career. She ended her career working as an office manager for Randy Jones Trucking company. Sharon loved this job. She most enjoyed helping the truckers to make sure that their trips ran safe and smooth.

In 1972, she married Theodore (Ted) Nelson in Baltimore, Maryland. Ted and Sharon raised four children together, Velvet Nelson, Ronald (Ronnie) Benton-Sgroi, Sher Graziano, and Theodore Nelson Jr.

Sharon and Ted raised their family in Covina, California. Sharon enjoyed coaching softball with her family and was active in the local bowling league. In 1991 they made the decision moved north to McKinleyville.

Sharon was predeceased by her parents, her paternal grandmother (Dee-Dee), her son Ronnie, and her best friend Sheila Bonner. She is survived by her husband, children, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, and her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Sharon was born on the 4th of July and she passed away on New Year’s Eve. It is safe to say that she had a thing for fireworks and holidays. When her family and friends see fireworks, they will always be a reminder of Sharon’s fiery personality. Considering Covid-19, a celebration of life will be held later this year.

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

Today, Dr. Ian Hoffman, Humboldt County health officer, took questions from local reporters on the county’s response to the pandemic — particularly, today, about the vaccination effort.

Video above, rough transcript below.

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Good afternoon. We’re here with Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman for the January 21st media availability. Thank you for being here with us.

Thank you.

The North Coast Journal asks: “We’re receiving reports that both Safeway on Harris St. and Mad River Community Hospital have either posted sign ups for vaccine appointments or held vaccine clinics reportedly available to residents who don’t yet meet the stated eligibility criteria of being a healthcare worker or over the age of 75. Can you please explain how these offerings do or don’t fit into the county’s vaccination plan?”

Sure, yeah. We’ve been working with both of these entities to vaccinate our population. Safeway has been authorized to send invites to people who are healthcare workers we send those lists to them and then they invite them. That’s all the only group that they are vaccinating currently. Mad River has continued to work with our staff to vaccinate their own hospital employees and clinic employees and has worked with us over the past month to vaccinate other folks in the community who are health care workers outside of Mad River and just recently did start to open some clinics to those who are 75 years and older.

I don’t know of any of these who are offering outside of the guidance of what we’ve put forward and if we do find discrepancies, we reach out to those folks and alert them and try to problem solve around that. 

The North Coast Journal asks: “You have asked local residents over the age of 75 to wait to be contacted by their primary healthcare providers to schedule a vaccine. Is that still your advice?”

Yes it is. We have been working with a lot of healthcare providers around the county on trying to get the message right. One thing that we’re going to do to really try to help folks who are not part of the larger groups that are vaccinated right now, group practices that are vaccinated right now, is we’re going to be releasing an interest form that people would access on our website and that will allow people to go there, get their information and then we’ll collect that and make sure that those folks are reached out to in a timely manner to get them scheduled for an appointment. So that’s coming, it should be coming out in the next few days.

The North Coast Journal asks: “Some counties — including San Francisco — have launched vaccine registries that allow everyone to sign up in a single place to be notified when it’s their turn to schedule a vaccination appointment. Has Humboldt considered creating such a registry and what are the logistical challenges to doing so?”

Yes definitely. We’re working on that on a small scale for a smaller county. We’re starting - we started with surveys that we sent out to the groups in Phase 1A to find out what their interest was and start to organize clinics for them and that’s been ongoing since we got vaccine in December. We’ve also been working with other groups to you know like teachers and law enforcement and first responders to gauge their interest and start to work towards that next stage of planning.

And then there’s this interest form that’s going to be coming out and we realize that’s a small scale of what’s going on in some places but it is a big logistical challenge to get these things going. I’ll just note as well the state is working on a state-based platform for this exact kind of thing and we are definitely anticipating that we’ll be ready in the coming future and I think that will solve some of these concerns when people can go to that state-based platform and sign up. 

The North Coast Journal asks: “To your knowledge, have any vaccine doses expired locally and what direction have you given local providers in the event they have doses at imminent risk of expiring?”

I have not heard of any local doses expiring. In our planning with the providers who do COVID vaccination, we emphasize very strongly that we plan for the number of doses so you don’t end up with expiring doses at the end of a clinic. It happens, sometimes people don’t show up for their appointment. There are occasional things that happen so when there are expiring doses, a plan is in place with those folks to have a list of people they could call up and always - if there’s really truly an emergency and a dose is expiring I would encourage them to to reach out to the health officer to find a plan immediately.

The North Coast Journal asks: “From what you understand of contact investigations, what’s currently driving local case counts? Have the impacts of holiday travel and gatherings peaked yet?”

Yeah, it continues to be mostly through contact with a known someone that you know. That would include travel to visit family and friends and also gatherings. So we’re still seeing that. We are also not out of the holiday travel period yet; it really takes a good four to six weeks to see the true peak of those travel related events.

Redwood News asks: “The State announced late Wednesday that providers could resume the use of Moderna vaccines from lot 41L20A. Are you able to talk about any of the findings from the investigation into the vaccine and its adverse effects? What would your message to the community be for those that may be skeptical of the vaccine due to the pause?”

Yeah, I’m very happy to hear that the vaccine was released from the pause. It was having big effects on our vaccination effort locally. The findings of the investigation were basically that they could not conclude with any scientific evidence that there was a problem with this entire batch, it was located in one small area. In a meeting with the health officers from the western states along with experts in immunology and allergy, it was decided that it was safe to move on. I think it’s the right decision.

That lot has continued to be used both here, in other states that had the same lot and before the pause it had been given across the whole state of California. Hundreds of doses here in Humboldt County, thousands in some counties without any other notice of a problem so we feel confident that this was a localized issue, that it had nothing to do with the entire lot and that we we will continue to use it and I definitely don’t think there should be any concern for that lot going forward. 

Redwood News asks: “Now that the County is able to resume using the Moderna vaccines and replacements are no longer needed, are you able to talk about how the pause affected vaccinations this week? Also, what this pause means for the vaccination plan moving forward? Are any future phases/roll outs going to be delayed or pushed back due to the pause this week?”

Yeah, I can speak to some of the delays for sure. Within public health we had planned to expand our public health appointments just over a thousand this week and those were affected by the pause we were not able to to schedule those appointments, so they’ve been pushed off for the week.

There were other mass vaccination events that had been in the workings for this week as well that also had to be put on pause I don’t know the specific numbers for those because they’re going on outside of our public health department, but certainly they were eager and anxious to get them going and and had to put them on hold, but now that we have the release we’ll be able to get those back up and running. And how is that going to delay future phases and roll outs, hopefully no more than a week’s delay.

We were planning to get through this week’s doses and so now we’ll push those to next week and I think that we’ll be caught up by the end of next week. Then it’ll just depend on how much vaccine we get each week going forward after that. 

Redwood News asks: “Public Health announced a resident in their 50’s died with Covid-19 yesterday. Can you remind the community how Covid-19 deaths are reported? How quickly that is included in the County dashboard? Can you also speak to the fact that this is our youngest Covid-19 death since the start of the pandemic?”

Yes, so when someone dies with COVID-19 it can take sometimes days to get through the system of data that gets it to our local public health department. If that happens locally, many times we might know about it sooner, sometimes it might be happening outside of our county in which case it has to make its way through a state-based system to get to us. So that’s one of the reasons that sometimes things might seem delayed from the reporting side, but as soon as we know of that we get it into our system and report it on the dashboard immediately.

So the youngest COVID-19 death since the start of the pandemic certainly hits very hard on us here in our community. I think that we also have to remember and recognize that this has affected so many communities across California, across the world and this is exactly the kind of thing that we’re trying to prevent with all of the measures. There have been many more who’ve died that age and younger all across our nation. So we want to remember all of them and take the steps that we can to prevent the spread so this doesn’t happen to anyone else in our community. 

The Redheaded Blackbelt asks: “At this time, how many, if any, COVID-19 patients from out of the area have been transferred into Humboldt County hospitals due to the surge throughout the state? Are those cases being treated in the ICU?”

I do not know of any. 

The Redheaded Blackbelt asks: “After the pause on the Moderna vaccine batch the county was relying on to provide much of its vaccinations, does the county expect to be receiving additional shipments of the Moderna vaccine this month?”

Yes, we continue to get Moderna vaccine each week as allocated from the state and now with the freeing up of that paused Moderna lot we should be able to hold all of our clinics next week. 

The Redheaded Blackbelt asks: “To assist with the vaccination efforts locally, how many volunteers are being recruited, what is the potential number that could be enlisted? Are those volunteers going to be needed if the current rate of vaccination continues?”

Absolutely. So currently we have about 40 volunteers who have been sworn in. We have many more ready to be sworn in and they’re absolutely needed because this vaccination effort is only going to get bigger and bigger as time goes by, especially as we get more vaccine in the future. 

North Coast News asks: “Since the pause on the administration of the batch of the Moderna vaccine, can you quantify in numbers how many people weren’t able to get their second or first dose of the vaccine this week?”

Yeah so I think I mentioned some of the loss of clinics that we had for first doses, second doses again it’s these are estimates, but I estimate about 2500 of those were second doses that would have been on hold this week, but now they can proceed and we’ve let everyone know who is holding those doses, that they should proceed to vaccinate their second doses with that batch. 

North Coast News asks: “Today marks one year since the announcement of the first patient with Covid-19 in the United States. What do you think Humboldt has excelled at in the management of the COVID-19 vaccine and what has been the biggest blunder thus far? After the vaccine is administered to more people — when will the virus become an annual nuisance instead of an existential threat? How long do you think we will be wearing masks and limiting gatherings?”

Yeah it is a big landmark. It’s been a long, bumpy journey to get to here. I think Humboldt is doing really well overall with the vaccine. Of course, we will not say it was not without challenges and we’re all learning as we go along and building it as we go. I think that there is hope on the horizon for more support for this vaccine effort which certainly gives us a lot of hope that this will get better before it gets worse and the the vaccine will be the thing to end the pandemic.

But that’s still likely to take a while likely if we can get the amounts of vaccine that are needed to vaccinate the number of people weekly to get to a large portion of our population vaccinated by the end of the summer, we will be able to hopefully get back to a better place where we will feel more confident about reversing some of the measures like distancing, gatherings. In terms of mask-wearing I think that that’s something that is really difficult to address at this time. If we look back at the history of coronavirus and how it affected other societies in the past decade, there were many places where people were wearing masks over the last decade nearly every winter. So I think that we’ll see where this takes us.

It is a new tool that was not available with the vaccine in the past for corona - other coronaviruses. So time will tell, but I am hopeful that once we can get through a large portion of the vaccination effort throughout the rest of this year that we’ll be poised to roll back some of those measures.

If you’re one of Humboldt’s many trail enthusiasts, then you will be excited to know that the City of Eureka is hosting a public meeting tonight to provide the community with an update on the status of the proposed Bay to Zoo Trail!

Map of the proposed Bay to Zoo Trail Route | From the City of Eureka’s website

Like the name suggests, the over two-mile long trail would connect the Waterfront Trail near the Humboldt Bay to the Sequoia Park Zoo. Eventually, the City hopes to connect this trail to network of trials running through the entire city of Eureka. Neat!

The other cool thing about the proposed trail is that it would connect to Zane Middle School and Washington Elementary, providing students with a safe route for walking to school. The trail would provide an alternative route for accessing St. Joseph’s Hospital.

“The Bay to Zoo Trail closes a gap in the transportation network of Eureka,” The City of Eureka states on its website. “The City lacks safe routes to school options and safe routes for residents to access essential community destinations.  The Bay to Zoo Trail will construct over two miles of Class I bike path and non-motorized facilities in Eureka, connecting low income residential areas to schools, community services, the largest employer in Eureka, an existing bike path, and to County bike routes out of the area.”

For more information on the project, check out the public meeting — held via Zoom — tonight at 6:00 p.m. You can access the meeting link here.