At least four popular Arcata restaurants chose to shut down last week after their employees either tested positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to someone who tested positive for the virus.

Plaza Grill, Salt Fish House, Campground and Wildflower Cafe and Bakery each announced temporary closures on their respective social media accounts last week.

“We have received the unfortunate news that one of our employees tested positive for Covid-19,” Plaza Grill stated on Facebook. “We are stopping all services effective immediately. This includes our Thanksgiving to go boxes. We are moving forward with extreme safety and caution. We will be having all our employees tested and performing a deep clean of our entire restaurant. We will post an update when we have reopening information. We sincerely apologize for these unfortunate circumstances and hope everyone stays safe and healthy during the holiday season!”

As of today, all but one of the businesses remain closed. The Wildflower Cafe announced yesterday that it would reopen today after it was determined that none of its employees contracted the virus.

“We want to thank everyone so much for all the patience, support and kind words this week as we dealt with this challenge,” Wildflower Cafe wrote on Facebook. “After receiving negative test results, we are pleased to say that all of our staff is healthy and ready to work. We will resume our normal hours.”

The closed restaurants have stated that they will announce their reopening plans on social media.

Additionally, Arcata’s Pub at the Creamery has reportedly closed its doors for precautionary reasons as local coronavirus cases continue to spike.

“With the rising COVID-19 cases in our community, we feel it is in the best interest of our staff, business, and community to close our doors until further notice,” the pub stated on Facebook. “We apologize for any inconvenience and confusion.”

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Humboldt County’s government is at serious risk of losing millions of dollars in reimbursement from state and federal agencies because of delays in the Auditor-Controller’s office, according to the staff report for what promises to be a contentious meeting on Monday.

The report is a doozy — seven pages sounding the alarm over “operational gaps” in the office of Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez. These gaps, which include delayed payments, overdue transfers and late posting of financial transactions, could have “massive implications, including service reductions, staff furloughs and/or lay-offs,” the report states.

Paz Dominguez, meanwhile, says she and her employees are simply being meticulous and responsible in managing public funds, refusing to “rubber stamp” and cut corners despite serious understaffing in her office.

Monday’s special meeting of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors was initiated by First District Supervisor Rex Bohn and Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass. The two of them have fiscal oversight responsibilities as the board’s Budget Ad Hoc Committee.

In a statement emailed to the Outpost on Saturday, Bass said, “We find ourselves in a situation that has been brewing for a bit of time that has the potential to be very devastating for our county, both our employees and the citizens who live here.”

Bass said the situation is not adversarial — not the Board of Supervisors versus Paz Dominguez. Rather, the meeting is an attempt “to get all the information out on the table so that we can make informed decisions on how to best move forward … .”

Bohn said the delayed payments are having serious impacts. 

“My main focus is the numerous calls I’m getting from local vendors who aren’t getting paid in a timely manner,” he told the Outpost via phone on Saturday. “Especially in COVID times … if they don’t get paid in a timely manner, they don’t have enough cash to float.”

Paz Dominguez, for her part, emailed a lengthy statement saying that, since her election in 2018, she has been focused on making institutional changes in order to increase scrutiny and maintain fidelity to the letter of the law. She framed the situation as a matter of integrity.

“The challenge we face is that the County as an organization has not fully adapted to working with our department in its new form,” her statement says. “There are still several key players that still yearn for the ‘rubber stamp’ days and are hoping that by placing increased pressure on us to cave, we will do so.”

The details of the dispute are awash in wonky accounting jargon, but much of it concerns a budgetary planning document called a cost allocation plan (CAP). This plan is something that each county must submit annually to the State Controller’s Office (SCO) for review and approval. Once the plan has been approved, counties are eligible to get reimbursed from state and federal agencies for carrying out programs that are mandated by the State of California and the United States government.

However, in order for the county to get that money, the Auditor-Controller must post the qualifying charges in a timely manner. Paz Dominguez hasn’t been doing so, according to the staff report.

“As of this writing, the Auditor-Controller has not posted all of the SCO-approved CAP charges for FY 2019-20,” it says. “Approximately $12.67 million in internal service fund and $4.6 million in central service charges have not been posted.”

As a result, the county hasn’t been getting reimbursed, and with deadlines approaching it may lose its opportunity to recoup $14.2 million for 2019-20 fiscal year. That could set off “a domino effect,” leading to negative balances in multiple county funds.

“Going negative is like over-drafting the checking account,” the staff report explains. “The only way to bring it positive is to transfer money from somewhere else, like a savings account.” The county could transfer money from its General Fund, the report states, but this would be “highly unusual and terribly unsustainable.”

“In effect, Humboldt County would be subsidizing the state and federal governments, and losing out on $14.2 million for local needs if this came to pass,” the report says. “A transfer this large would all but wipe out the General Fund and the county would rely on its meager reserves for any future revenue shortfalls and/or emergencies.”

The staff report goes on to enumerate several other “gaps” in the Auditor-Controller’s operations: Her office is several months late in closing the books on fiscal year 2019-20; she’s more than a year behind reconciling the county’s cash and investment accounts; and she’s late counting the money in the county treasury, which means revenue from interest-bearing accounts isn’t getting distributed to schools, special districts or the county’s own General Fund.

In her emailed statement, Paz Dominguez recounts the history of the Auditor-Controller’s Office from the time she was hired as the assistant auditor-controller in 2017. Under Joseph Mellett, she says, the office lacked sufficient training and staff morale was low. After she took over the top job she decided, “I would need to make some institutional changes, starting with ending the ‘rubber stamp, get it done’ way of operating.”

The problem was that she didn’t have enough people. Indeed, Paz Dominguez first came to the public’s attention three years ago, when she took the microphone at a Board of Supervisors meeting and said severe understaffing in her office was leaving the door open to “unethical and fraudulent financial activity.”

Staffing in has been increased by 25 percent — the equivalent of three full-time employees — since Paz Dominguez took office, according to county staff. However, she says her entreaties for help have been rejected.

“[D]ue to the continued denial of our requests for additional staffing, we are having to revert back to that survival mode I walked into 3 years ago,” her statement reads. “The difference now is that we refuse to let go of our commitment to protecting public funds by ensuring that all transactions are accurate, appropriate, and authorized.”

She also says she’s relieved that Monday’s meeting has been called because it will allow the matters to be discussed in a public forum.

Paz Dominguez also forwarded an email she sent to Bass and Bohn last Monday, in which she explains that certain delays are the result of her scrupulous adherence to the rules.

“The Federal government is explicit about charges needing to be justified and provable by actual level of effort. Unfortunately, this County is basing charges upon estimates and projections, not actual costs or expenses,” her email stated. “The County is already being questioned about such charges and I certainly don’t want to add fuel to the fire by just posting them for the sake of ‘this is how we’ve always done it,’”

The staff report, on the other hand, says the county’s charging methods have been approved by both the State Controller’s Office and by an independent third-party review by “a reputable consulting firm.”

Paz Dominguez has support from employees in her office. Seven of them wrote a statement in her defense and sent it to the Board of Supervisors. They also forwarded it to the Outpost. It accuses supervisors, administrators and department managers of “scapegoating” Paz Dominguez while “seemingly undermining” the efforts of the hardworking public servants in her office, who suffer from burnout due to their “incredible workload.” You can read the full statement here.

Tensions between Paz Dominguez and other county officials seem to be boiling over with increased frequency this year, with tomorrow’s Board of Supervisors meeting being just the latest example.

“It is highly unusual to bring fiscal operational issues into a Board meeting,” the staff reports at the outset. “However, we are faced with highly unusual circumstances.”

The virtual meeting will begin at 9 a.m. A link to the county stream will be available via this county webpage starting shortly before that time. 

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PREVIOUSLY

• Lack of Experience and Insufficient Training Are What’s Wrong at Auditor-Controller’s Office, Outside Analyst Finds
• Grand Jury Finds County Has ‘High Risk of Fraud,’ Poor Communication and Insufficient Accounting Training
  
• Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez Challenges County’s Planned Responses to Civil Grand Jury Report
• Elected Officials Still Can’t Agree on Whether the Risk of Fraud in County Government is High or, Like, Normal
• As the County Looks to Outsource Payroll, Sheriff’s Deputies Say Their Paychecks Are Riddled With Mistakes
• The Auditor-Controller’s Ongoing Beef With Other County Departments is Getting Ugly
  
• Defiant Auditor-Controller Gives Board of Supes List of Conditions for Her Help With County Payroll Project

The first round of Cosce’s UFC 255 bout.

Arcata-based MMA fighter Louis Cosce suffered his first professional loss on Saturday in his UFC debut against Sasha Palatnikov at UFC 255 in Las Vegas.

Cosce nearly knocked out his opponent numerous times in the first round, but Palatnikov was able to withstand the punishment and forced Cosce into the first multi-round fight of his career.

“I pretty much blew my wad trying to finish him that first round and paid the ultimate price,” Cosce told the Outpost. “Lesson learned.”

UFC sportscaster Joe Rogan noted during the fight that Cosce was able remain competitive into the third round despite tiring himself out in round one.

Round two.

“He’s tough as nails, there’s no doubt about that,” Rogan said. “He’s guttin’ it through.”

Palatnikov ultimately knocked Cosce down with a punch in the third round and forced the referee to stop the fight with a flurry of follow-up punches.

Round three.

While the bout was so early on in the night that it preceded the prelims, UFC President Dana White still deemed the match the best fight of the event. As a result, both Cosce and Palatnikov earned $50,000 bonuses for their “Fight of the Night” performance.

Dana White awards Cosce $50,000.

Cosce’s brother Orion Cosce, who was also scheduled to fight at UFC 255 but was scratched due to a neck injury, praised his brother after the match.

“I am super proud of my brother Louis Cosce,” Orion Cosce shared on Facebook. “He has done what no one else has done from Humboldt. I’m proud of him and thought he should have won, but fights go on and it is what it is. We will come back stronger in the future and he will be a champion for the organization. Thank you for your support.”

With his first UFC contest in the books, Louis Cosce said that he plans to improve his endurance for his next fight.

“Gonna start running like a madman,” he said.

Louis Cosce now has a professional record of 7-1.

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PREVIOUSLY: 

• MMA Bros From Weitchpec Invited to Compete in ‘Dana White’s Contender Series’ for Shot at UFC Contracts
• (VIDEO) UFC President Dana White Hypes Humboldt’s Louis Cosce on Social Media in Anticipation of Tonight’s ‘Contender Series’ Matchups
• (VIDEO) Cosce Brothers Awarded UFC Contracts By Dana White After TKOing Opponents, Remain Undefeated
• Local UFC Fighter Louis Cosce Looks to Defend Perfect Record Tomorrow at UFC 255; Brother Orion Scratched From Contest Due to Injury

PREVIOUSLY:

• Eureka Police Arrest Arcata Man for Attempted Murder After Investigation Connects Him to September Stabbing
• Law Enforcement Looking For Suspect in Eureka Stabbing, Who Had Been Released From Jail

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Attempted-murder suspect Tory Tasi Parker Mamea, who was released from jail before charges were filed, is back in custody after being arrested on a warrant.

Tory Tasi Parker Mamea

Humboldt County Correctional Facility records show the Eureka Police Department arrested Mamea, 27, at 6:27 a.m. Friday. The warrant for his arrest was issued Tuesday afternoon.

Mamea, an Arcata resident, is suspected of a Sept. 24 attack on a 50-year-old man who was sleeping on the ground near West Third and Commercial streets in Eureka.

The man was stabbed multiple times but is recovering. Eureka police arrested Mamea on Nov. 4 for suspected attempted murder, but he was released from jail Nov.12 because no charges had been filed.

The complaint was filed five days later. It alleges premeditated attempted murder, inflicting great bodily injury during the commission of a felony and using a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony.

According to jail records, Mamea is a “must go” for arraignment on Nov. 24. Premeditated attempted murder carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Inflicting great bodily injury adds three consecutive years, and use of a deadly weapon adds one consecutive year to the sentence. Mamea also has two unrelated criminal cases pending. Both were filed this year.

(AUDIO) Scott Bauer is Holding Up

Subscribe to Humboldt Holding Up on iTunes!

With nearly all of Humboldt’s votes now having been tallied, Scott Bauer leads his closest competitor by more than 20 percentage points in the race to be the next Eureka City Councilmember from the Fourth Ward. Stick a fork in this thing. Scott wins.

Scott Bauer, officially a politician

With Bauer’s impressive victory now a lock, LoCO reached out to the senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and political newcomer to ask what it’s like to campaign during pandemic, why he chose to run and what he sees as the biggest issues facing Eureka going forward. Click the audio player above to hear Bauer speak with the Outpost’s Stephanie McGeary and Andrew Goff on those topics and more, including: 

• Being inspired by his kids’ grasp of politics
• Why he believes its important to love the place you live
• Missing going to punk rock shows
• Being attacked by a constituent feline on the campaign trail

Again, get to know Scott by listening above, or scroll through our list of previous guests below. Note: Next week we are scheduled to speak with Eureka’s other new councilmember, Kati Moulton. 

PREVIOUSLY ON HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP:

• Ungraceful Ager Barry Evans
• Arcata City Councilmember Sofia Pereira
• HumBrews Music Booker Laurel Weston
• Eureka City Councilmember Kim Bergel
• Film Commission’s Cassandra Hesseltine and Nate Adams
• Marble Maker Topher Reynolds
• Arcata Playhouse Director Jacqueline Dandeneau
• Humboldt Political Junkie Eric Kirk
• Rio Dell Mayor Debra Garnes
• Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell
• Arcata Food Aficionado Jada Calypso Brotman
• Body Piercer Jackie Silva
• Dick Taylor Chocolate’s Adam Dick
• FUHS Teachers Mark Thom and Inma Thompson
• Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery
• Savage Henry Co-Founder Chris Durant
• Eureka Street Art Festival Organizer Jenna Catsos
• SCRAP Humboldt Founder Tibora Bea
• Gym Owner Tyler Parr
• Six Rivers Brewery Co-Owner Meredith Maier
• Multicultural Skincare Therapist Levia Love
• Annie’s Cambodian Server and Social Worker Joshua Coppock
• Eureka City Councilmember Austin Allison
• HSU Professor Deidre Pike 
• Pastor Bethany Cseh
• Singer/Songwriter Chris Parreira
• Eureka City Councilmember Leslie Castellano
• Arcata City Councilmember Paul Pitino

Subscribe to Humboldt Holding Up on iTunes!

Time to stop worrying about Covid, the election, rising sea level, murder hornets, the end of the world, etc. etc. Time instead to focus on the immediate problem, i.e. why we’re not using dollar coins? Every other country (well, Canada, Britain and the European Union) has their basic unit coins. Canada: Canadian dollar or “loonie;” Britain: twelve-sided pound; EU: the euro.

A dollar coin makes fiscal sense, since dollar bills cost four cents to make, and they last on average 18 months; dollar coins cost 8 cents to make, but last 30 years. Over those 30 years, eliminating dollar bills in favor of coins would save the country nearly six billion dollars.

So why don’t we use dollar coins? Several answers present themselves, including:

• They’re unfamiliar. Ever tried paying for something with a Susan B. Anthony coin? This SBA dollar coin was minted from 1979 to 1981, when production ceased due to poor public acceptance (probably because it looks and feels very much like a quarter). The mint tried again in 1999. Since then, we’ve had the Sacagawea dollar and several so-called Presidential and Native American dollars, but none of these is in common use today.
• The vending machine lobby. After reading about the opposition it has put up whenever the “replace bills with coins” issue surfaced, I wondered if perhaps they had their own constitutional amendment to protect their investments.
• Cash tills don’t have compartments for dollar coins. So if your dollar coin is accepted by, say, your local coffee shop, it’s going to be stuck at the back of the drawer and will go in the daily cash bag to the bank…to sit there.
• There’s no two-dollar coin. Note that Canada, Britain and the European Union all have two-somethings (the toonie, the £2, the €2). Which makes getting change for, say, five, that much easier.
• They’re heavier than bills! They don’t fit in a wallet (without a coin compartment)!
• There are a lot of dollar bills: nearly 12 billion of them (about 36 for every woman, man and child in this country). Strength comes in numbers!

Me, I love coins. They’re tangible—I like their heft, their shininess, the way they jingle. But acceptance will never happen, not in my lifetime. But here’s how to do it in case I’m wrong and Americans all wake up one morning shouting, “I want dollar coins and I want them now!”

• Mint both dollar and two-dollar coins. Make them totally different from each other and from existing coins. If you were blind, could you easily tell them by touch alone?
• Have a big advertising campaign so people are familiar with them before they actually go into circulation. (Check how the UK government prepared the population for the switch to decimal currency in 1971.) (I still miss the shilling and half-crown.)
• Support the vending machine industry by subsiding the design and manufacture of coin identification modules that can be switched with existing note trays.
• Phase out dollar bills fast—24 months maximum. After that, you have to go to a bank to cash them in.
• And while we’re at it: dump the penny, like Canada did in 2012. Here it costs 2.41cents to manufacture a 1-cent coin!

As I say, it’ll never happen. But a guy can dream…

If you caught LoCO’s Thursday night post sharing a photo of an adorable, fluffy, baby flamingo, then you know that we stopped by the Zoo this week. But the real purpose of our visit was to provide our readers with a look inside the highly anticipated and nearly complete Redwood Sky Walk. (But the flamingo chick was a nice bonus and if you haven’t looked at it yet, do that now. Then come back and read about the Sky Walk.)

Interim Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery was kind enough to invite the Outpost to tag along on a Thursday morning tour of the Sky Walk to get a closer look at the progress that has been made and experience the thrill of exploring the redwood canopy from a dizzying 100 feet above the forest floor.

OK, so the tour only took the Outpost more like 30 feet above the forest floor — the height reached by the initial “launch deck.” The more adventurous portions of the walkway, which will be up to 100 feet high, are not yet ready for the public to walk on. But the construction crew is hard at work, doing its damnedest to finish by the end of the year.

Construction has been a team effort between Oregon-based company Synergo, which has been in charge of the aerial portions of the walkway, and local company Greenway Partners, which is in charge of construction of the entrance ramps and launch deck and oversight of the full project. 

“It’s totally custom, totally unique,” Matt Grosjean, vice president of construction for Greenway told the Outpost, as he guided the group through the work site. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll do another one someday. But it’s certainly been a one-of-a-kind [project] for me so far.”

Once complete, the Sky Walk will be roughly a quarter of mile in length and consist of a series of platforms and bridges installed on and around Sequoia Park’s massive trees. The 100-foot-high portion is a catenary-style bridge swinging over the park’s ravine, a part of the “adventure leg.” The walk also includes a more stable, ADA-accessible leg.

The project is a part of Phase II of the Zoo Master Plan, which will also include the installation of a Native Predators Exhibit that will hold bears and coyotes. Construction on the exhibit is expected to begin early next year, Slattery said, and will allow people to see the animals from above as they enter the walkway.

The zoo also has plans to install a Redwood Interpretive Center at the base of the Sky Walk and will begin seeking grant funding next year to move forward with that project, Slattery said. Interpretive signs will also be installed throughout the walkway, to provide visitors with an educational experience.

When asked about how this project will affect the health of the trees, Grosjean and Slattery said that the impact is minimal, with a very small number of trees being cut or delimbed for safety purposes. Slattery said that most of those trees were hollowed out to be kept as animal habitats. Grosjean added that years of extensive studies were done with arborists, ecologists and biologists to determine how to maintain the best health of the redwoods.

“The point of the project is to have this redwood experience,” Grosjean said. “So anything that would be detrimental to the health of the redwoods would be counterproductive to the mission of the job.”

One of the highest platforms, part of the “adventure leg”

Grosjean and Slattery wanted to acknowledge the many individuals and groups that helped make this project possible. In addition to the engineers, crew, Zoo and city staff, the project would not have been possible without the generous support of the Eureka, Arcata and Humboldt Lodging Alliances, which together contributed a whopping $2.3 million toward the Sky Walk.

Gary Stone of the Humboldt Lodging Alliance, who was also on the tour,  reminded the Outpost that the Sky Walk was not initially planned to be as high and that the Alliance was responsible for the conception of the more adventurous design, which includes the 100-foot-high swinging bridge.

When asked if he was happy with the project and whether he felt the money was being put to good use, Stone chuckled a little and, placing his hand on this reporter’s shoulder in the middle of a pandemic, suggested that was a conversation better had over “a bottle of wine.”

As far as the timeline for officially opening the Sky Walk, Slattery said that is still up in the air (no pun intended), but the construction is expected to be finished by the end of December, with the initial opening taking place sometime in January. 

A group of 100 people who were selected in a raffle will be the first visitors admitted (not at the same time), followed by Sequoia Park Zoo members. The invitation will then be extended to all local residents and eventually an official grand opening can take place and the attraction can be open to tourists. Increasing tourism was, after all, one of the reasons the lodging alliances agreed to kick in over $2 million for the project.

Of course, there are several factors that will affect the timeline, like the pandemic and the weather, Slattery said. He also wanted to mention that  some oblivious individuals have been walking through the construction site in Sequoia Park, also causing delays and the city had to hire volunteers to man the perimeter of the site.

“Please respect the signage and the volunteers asking you not to go there,” Slattery asked of the public. “It’s a part of your own safety and we’re trying to protect people from anything falling.”

Scroll down for more photos from the tour.

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