From the Humboldt County Druge Task Force:

On December 15th, 2020, special agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF), with the assistance of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department (HCSO), served a search warrant on Dale “Davey” Baldridge (43 years old from Eureka). Baldridge was currently out of custody on bail from a November 24th, 2020 arrest by the Eureka Police Department POP team for drug sales. Baldridge is also on Humboldt County probation for felon in possession of a firearm. HCDTF agents had information that Baldridge was again selling drugs.

Agents had Baldridge stopped by an HCSO Deputy after he drove away from his residence in the 6000 block of Noe Drive in Eureka. A search of Baldridge was conducted, and agents located the following evidence in his pockets:

• 5 bags of heroin totaling 12.2 grams
• 3 bags of methamphetamine totaling 13.5 grams
• $6,500 in US currency
• 2 rounds of .22 caliber ammunition

Agents responded back to Baldridge’s residence and served the search warrant on the house. Agents located a digital scale with heroin residue on the scale. No other evidence was located.

Baldridge was booked at the Humboldt County Jail for the following

• H&S 11351 Possession of heroin for sale

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

• H&S 11378 Possession of methamphetamine for sale

• H&S 11379(a) Transportation of methamphetamine for sale

• PC 12022.1 Committing a felony while out on bail

• PC 30305(a) Felon in possession of ammunition

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.

When Jeff Kondos saw Jason Todd Garrett a few hours before his grisly death, he warned Garrett to “get the hell out of here” before Ryan Tanner saw him in the area.

Garrett was standing next to a truck with four flat tires, Kondos testified Tuesday during Tanner’s preliminary hearing. Kondos said he warned Garrett to get the tires fixed and leave, because Ryan Tanner didn’t want anybody in the neighborhood and would “flip out.”

Tanner.

Garrett wasn’t concerned, saying “I’ve known Ryan all my life.”

“He’s a different guy than you might remember,” Kondos told Garrett, “and he’s going to flip out if he sees this truck here.”

Within hours, an enraged Tanner allegedly set the van on fire, kidnapped Garrett, cut his throat and finally shot him to death with an assault rifle.

When Kondos had the conversation with Garrett, he was on his way from Briceland to Eureka to report his longtime neighbor Tanner to the Sheriff’s Office. According to Kondos he’d had enough of Tanner’s erratic behavior and death threats.

Kondos, under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Jessica Acosta, testified about two incidents that left him fearing for his life. Both occurred within a couple of weeks of Garrett’s killing on Feb. 12.

On one night, Kondos recalled, he was amazed to see a motorcyclist race by on his rural dead-end road, with the California Highway Patrol in close pursuit. He waited and watched until the CHP car returned, with motorcyclist “LeRoy” in the back seat under arrest. The CHP asked Kondos to go pick up the motorcycle and store it. He and his friend Larry “Shaggy” Kirk took off to get the bike, which was about a mile away.

Unfortunately, he and Kirk weren’t the only neighbors disturbed by the police pursuit. As Kirk was loading up the motorcycle, Kondos said, Tanner pulled up in his truck and blocked them in. He seemed to think Kondos and Kirk were somehow at fault.

“He got out of his truck and started screaming,” Kondos recalled. Tanner demanded to know what was going on and what they were doing.

“He asked me if I wanted to live, and I said ‘Yes, I want to live.’ “

Tanner then took and assault rifle from his truck and pointed it at Kondos and Kirk, ranting and raving all the while. He told them he was “collecting souls for the ghetto.”

“He looked over his shoulder and said ‘Yeah, I should kill them both right now.’ He was talking to nobody.”

Kondos said Tanner told him that when the motorcyclist got out of jail, Kondos was to put a note on the man’s gate because “I’m going to kill the guy.”

After about 90 minutes of screaming, Kondos said, Tanner finally let them leave. But he issued a warning: “He told me if I talked to police he’d kill me.”

That incident convinced Kondos to go to law enforcement. But there had been another confrontation about a week earlier at Kondos’s home. Tanner showed up and started “going off” on Kondos because he’d heard “in town” that Kondos thought he was the person who had burned up one of Kondos’s vehicles.

In fact, Kondos did believe Tanner was the one who set the fire.

Tanner was wearing a bandana over his face, Kondos recalled, and he kept his hands in his coat pockets. He entered Kondos’s house and started walking around.

“I told him he was not welcome,” Kondos said. “I told him to get out.”

Instead, Tanner demanded that Kondos give him $5,000 because he was running low on fuel.

“He said ‘Open up your safe and give me all the money in it.’”

“I told him ‘I don’t have any money.’”

Tanner finally left, warning Kondos “that if I didn’t have the money in two days he’d kill me.”

Kondos was expected to return to the witness stand this morning. His testimony followed nearly two days of testimony from Vanessa Womack, who was Tanner’s girlfriend at the time Garrett was killed. Womack detailed several incidents of domestic violence, including a time that Tanner choked her until she passed out.

Womack also said Tanner threatened to kill her, and he had threatened to kill her son “more times than I can remember.”

Tanner was arrested on Feb. 18, six days after the murder, but Womack didn’t break off the relationship until October. During either a jail visit or a jail phone call, Tanner told Womack he was “very angry” about something that had happened between his father and her father when “we were basically kids.”

“He said he hated me and my son,” Womack said.

Despite that, “I love Ryan.”

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George Warren Whitchurch, Sr.
Born: September 2, 1939
Died: December 14, 2020

George was a native Californian, born in Marysville. He lived in many different areas of the state during his growing-up years. His family settled in Humboldt County in the late 1950’s. George married Susan Carol Bird on December 23, 1962 in Fortuna, California. Together, they had four children, Laurel (1964), George Jr. (1966), Heather (1968), and Michael (1969).

George was an active member of the Fortuna Seventh-Day Adventist Church and was well known in the community for his fruit-selling business on the main boulevard in Fortuna. George’s business allowed him to make friends everywhere he traveled to sell fruit including Garberville, Portland, and Happy Camp. He loved to travel and made life-long friends wherever he went, including Australia, the Philippines, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Canada, and all over the United States. In addition, George will be remembered for his willingness to always lend a hand to anyone in the community who came to him for help or advice.

George passed away from respiratory failure on Monday, December 14, 2020 at Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna. He is survived by his loving wife of nearly 58 years, Susan; his children, Laurel & Brian Baker, George & Lorinda Whitchurch, Heather Whitchurch, Mick Whitchurch & Renie Hellyer; thirteen grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren (with two more on the way). He is also survived by his siblings, Ed Whitchurch, Jr., David Whitchurch, Willie Whitchurch, Mardy Whitchurch, Tricia Valentine, and Tim Whitchurch. A private family service will be planned for the coming spring.

Eternal rest grant unto George, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

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Accolades and expressions of gratitude rained down on Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell during her final meeting as a member of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, but those positive vibes didn’t extend long into the afternoon as the supes embarked on a tense debate over one of the community’s most contentious issues: namely, Caltrans’ Richardson Grove Improvement Project.

After hours of discussion and some passionate feedback from public callers and Zoomers, the board voted 3-2 to include a statement of support for the project in the county’s 2021 state and federal legislation platform. 

At Fennell’s suggestion, the board added a sentence to the document clarifying that the county’s support for the project is contingent upon no harm being done — directly or indirectly — to any old growth redwood trees. Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone and Fourth Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson voted in opposition to the motion.

The project, which has been tied up for more than a decade by litigation from environmental groups, proposes minor realignment and widening of Hwy. 101 along a 1.1-mile stretch through the iconic state park.

It’s not clear that today’s decision will have any impact whatsoever on the controversial project. The whole debate concerned what the county should say in its state and federal legislative platform, which is simply a document — updated annually — that spells out Humboldt County’s official positions and priorities for state and federal lawmakers. As several speakers pointed out during the public comment period, the Caltrans project isn’t a matter before the state or federal legislatures. 

Nevertheless, the towering redwoods of Richardson Grove are powerfully symbolic for many local residents. One commenter today, for example, described the road through it as “the gateway in the redwood curtain,” which he said “protects Humboldt County and our way of life.” Hence the passion of today’s deliberations over the county’s stance.

Madrone, who pulled this and two other matters from the document for discussion at last week’s meeting, argued that the project is unnecessary and could dramatically increase the volume of large semi trucks — those that comply with the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA) of 1982 — along Hwy. 101.

These longer vehicles (typically a 25-foot truck pulling a 53-foot trailer) are currently prohibited from passing through the park. County staff noted in its report that local businesses and even some nonprofits, such as the Northern California Community Blood Bank, deal with increased costs and lost opportunities due to this restriction. But Madrone said that of the 150-200 letters the county received on the matter since last week, only one was in support of the Caltrans project.

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson suggested removing the statement about the project from the legislative platform entirely and maybe bringing it back for discussion next year. “I would like the legislative platform to reflect things we don’t fight about so much,” he said.

But First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, in particular, held firm to his position that this is a relatively minor and much-needed bit of roadwork. He said that “almost 143” of the letters they’d received mentioned destruction of the old growth redwoods, which isn’t part of the project, and he scoffed at the suggestion that it would turn Hwy. 101 into a major shipping through-way between the Bay Area and points north beyond Humboldt County.

“This is probably the most misunderstood project I’ve ever seen,” Bohn said.

Several Caltrans employees were on hand to answer questions and present information about the project. Brandon Larsen, a senior environmental planner with the agency, described it as “slight adjustments” along a 1.1-mile stretch. The disturbed soil area would be 0.67 acres, which pales in comparison to the more than 100 acres disturbed by the recent Willits bypass project and the nearly 50 acres for the planned safety corridor improvement project between Arcata and Eureka, Larsen said.

Project Manager Kim Floyd said that of the 38 trees slated to be removed, 21 are in the state park. According to Larsen, those trees would include one redwood that’s between 18 inches and 24 inches in diameter, another that’s between 12 inches and 18 inches in diameter and four in the range of four inches to eight inches wide. None would be old growth. “So the impacts to redwoods are very minimal, he said.

“This is a very minor project,” Floyd said, and in a PowerPoint presentation she presented two before-and-after comparisons of the main project locations (with the after images created via computer). The first pair of images, below, is from a spot just south of the park:

The second is near the Singing Trees Recovery Center.

Madrone was unconvinced. He said it was clear that nobody has studied the implications for inter-regional and inter-state travel. “From my perspective, we could just slow down going through there and solve most of the problems for safety,” he said, and he suggested removing the statement of support entirely.

Bohn, with equal commitment, insisted that it should stay. Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass said she considered the notion of removing it but during sleepless moments the previous night decided that wouldn’t be right.

“I think to take it out now would send a bad message to the business community,” she said.

The vast majority of the nearly 20 public commenters who spoke on this matter urged the board to side with Madrone. Tom Wheeler, executive director of the local environmental group EPIC (which is a litigant in the ongoing legal battles), was among those who questioned why the discussion was even happening in this context since this topic is not inherently legislative, and he suggested that there may be creative solutions to allow STAA-sized trucks access without the construction project.

Several other commenters spoke emotionally about the “pricelessness” of the grove and the value of Humboldt County’s small-scale community. Humboldt-Del Norte Cattlemen’s Association President Sterling McWhorter and O&M Industries President Rob McBeth spoke in favor of the project on economic and safety grounds.

Following a brief afternoon break, the board resumed the debate, which included a good deal of procedural confusion as Madrone sought to pass the legislative platform without the Richardson Grove statement so the board could continue debating it separately. Eventually, the board did just that, with Bohn dissenting because he didn’t want the Richardson Grove support removed “even for a minute.”

The board then resumed its grove talk, and eventually Fennell proposed adding language clarifying that the county’s support hinged on no harm coming to old growth redwoods. Bohn quickly made a motion to that effect. A Caltrans employee weighed in, saying the agency had hired an independent certified arborist who concluded that the project’s limited root disturbance would be inconsequential to the stability, appearance and health of old growth redwoods.

Madrone cited his qualifications as a hydrologist and said he disagrees with that assessment. He argued that multiple projects have a cumulative effect on a “very fragile ecosystem,” including redwood trees’ ability to absorb moisture.

But throughout the debate, no one’s mind appeared to change. Fennell said there’s a widespread lack of understanding of the facts of the project, and Wilson agreed that there’s a lot of misinformation out there. 

At any rate, as noted above, the motion to include support for the project passed 3-2.

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Here’s a quick rundown of other business from Tuesday’s meeting

Goodbyes 

Fennell was fêted by State Assemblymember Jim Wood, State Senator Mike McGuire, each of her colleagues and numerous members of the community for her eight years on the board. McGuire said he and Wood will be presenting her with a Gold Resolution honoring her decades of service.

“I will miss you, Irish,” Bohn told Fennell. Her colleagues commended Fennell’s hard work, patience and fairness, among other qualities. Michelle Bushnell, who defeated Fennell in the recent election, was among the well-wishers.

There were also thanks given to Dr. Teresa Frankovich, who recently retired from her position as the county health officer (though she will remain on staff in a less visible role) and to Steve Werner, a longtime county planner who’s set to retire.

Vacation rentals

On the heels of Trinidad passing a moratorium on short-term vacation rentals, Madrone brought forward an item suggesting the county do the same, though he said his intention was actually to propose a ban on all short-term lodging, including hotels, with an exception for essential workers. He argued that such restrictions are needed at this point in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It just seems a little bit crazy to be inviting lots of people from outside our community into the region,” he said.

Bohn questioned who would enforce such a measure, noting that Sheriff Billy Honsal wasn’t on hand to weigh in on the proposition. Wilson said he agrees with Madrone’s concerns but expressed concern about unintended consequences, noting that if hotel stays are banned people planning to come here for the holidays might wind up staying in homes with family members, thereby increasing transmission risk. 

Madrone’s proposal eventually fizzled out, though a policy committee plans to discuss the matter on Wednesday.

Auditor-Controller’s attorney request

The board also resumed its consideration of Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez’s request to be supplied with an outside attorney in response to an internal county inquiry. Former Eureka City Attorney Cyndy Day-Wilson had submitted a letter asking to be appointed to represent Paz Dominguez, who sought legal representation after an interview request as part of an investigation into delays in payments, money transfers and reconciliations of accounts.

The board discussed some aspect of this matter during a 45-minute closed-session hearing in the morning and resumed with a public discussion later in the meeting.

County Counsel Jefferson Billingsley said that since his office declared a potential conflict of interest in representing both the county itself and Paz Dominguez, the board may want to approve Paz Dominguez’s request for outside counsel. However, he suggested that they may also want to pick someone besides Day-Wilson, who previously sued the county on behalf of former County Counsel Jeffrey Blanck.

After some discussion and public comment, the board agreed to appoint outside counsel to represent Paz Dominguez. They will choose from a list of “two or three competent attorneys” assembled by Billingsley, who noted that “an investigation is not an adversarial proceeding.”

Humboldt County Department Health & Human Services press release:

Three staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 at Sempervirens, Humboldt County Department Health & Human Services’ (DHHS) 16-bed in-patient psychiatric hospital located in Eureka.  

Following confirmation that a staff person tested positive Sunday, an additional 63 staff and patients were tested, with one close contact of the first testing positive. A staff member who had previously undergone routine testing at OptumServe, received results on Tuesday that they were also positive. Another round of testing has been scheduled for later this week. 

DHHS Director Connie Beck said although no patients have tested positive, a secure isolation unit has been established in a separate part of the building and can be utilized as needed. She said DHHS continues to take precautions toward safety. “As case counts continue to rise throughout the county, we are constantly re-evaluating how we can provide services while taking safety precautions to protect staff, our clients and the community.” 

As is necessary when there is an outbreak in a congregate living facility, all appropriate reports and notifications have been made as required.  

It’s happening. On Tuesday Humboldt health care workers were among the first people in the county to receive doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine. To commemorate the momentous occasion, the Humboldt County Joint Information Center sent along some footage of Yolanda Stevens, Occupational Health Supervisor at Mad River Community Hospital, becoming Humboldt’s first vaccine recipient. Watch above.

JIC’s statement on the occasion below: 

Today at Mad River Community Hospital, Yolanda Stevens, Occupational Health Supervisor, received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, delivered by Tina Wood, Nurse Manager of Critical Care Services. Broader distribution of the Pfizer vaccine to Humboldt County hospitals will begin Wednesday, Dec. 16.

For more information about how early doses of the vaccine will be allocated in California, please view the state guidelines here: https://tinyurl.com/y4tpcfy2.

PREVIOUSLY: The Vaccine Has Arrived in Humboldt, and Here’s What’s Being Done With It

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Dec. 14, 2020, at about 12:30 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to State Highway 299, just west of Willow Creek, to assist the California Highway Patrol with a traffic stop.

Upon arrival, deputies learned that the female driver was on probation with a search clause. Additionally, a passenger of the vehicle, 59-year-old David Curtis Hostler, was found to have an active warrant for his arrest.

During a search of the vehicle, deputies located materials consistent with packaging and sales of a controlled substance. During a search of Hostler incident to arrest, deputies located approximately 37 grams of heroin packaged for sales.

Hostler was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on his warrant for person prohibited in possession of ammunition (PC 30305(A)), in addition to fresh charges of possession of a controlled substance for sales (HS 11351) and transportation/sale of a controlled substance (HS 11352(a)).

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity 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.