Has prostitution become a problem on Woodley Island? That’s the claim being made on the campaign trail by Susan Rotwein, the small business owner from McKinleyville who’s challenging incumbent Patrick Higgins for the Fifth Division seat on the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District’s Board of Commissioners.

In debates and radio ads Rotwein has alleged that lax security at the Woodley Island Marina has allowed vandalism and prostitution to set in.

Here she is making that claim during her opening statements at a League of Women Voters debate broadcast on KEET a couple weeks ago:

With Election Day less than two weeks off, we decided to look into this salacious accusation.

In a phone conversation this morning, Rotwein said she learned about the alleged prostitution problem from “first-hand experience — seeing it and talking to guys on the docks. … That’s my advantage,” she said. “I’m a hands-on kind of person. I’m down there; I know what’s going on.”

She and her commercial fisherman husband co-own Cap’n Zach’s Crab House in McKinleyville, and Rotwein said they’ve had a slip on Woodley Island for more than 30 years. Fairly recently, she said, the Harbor District stopped staffing security guards ‘round the clock, instead relying on security cameras, which are easy to dupe. “All you need’s a good hooded sweatshirt,” Rotwein said.

Over the past year, she said, vandalism and prostitution have “ramped up,” with prostitution now happening on “at least one, maybe two” of the dock “fingers,” or rows of slips connected by a central walkway.

For verification, Rotwein suggested we contact Woodley Island Dockmaster Suzie Howser, however staff at the District office said Howser is out until at least Friday. They directed us instead to District CEO Jack Crider, who said the only person he’s heard this allegation from is Rotwein.

Crider said there was “an episode” about a month ago where Howser spotted two people in flagrante in the parking lot. How could she tell if the coupling was borne of prostitution? “She couldn’t tell,” Crider said. “It could have been anybody.”

Crider seemed to find the accusation amusing. “If there was such a prostitution ring around here I’d probably want to get a percentage of the action to pay for some of the cost,” he joked. But regardless, he said, Rotwein is mistaken about the security situation at the marina.

While it’s true that the District ended its contract with a local security company, Crider said those workers were replaced with employees who do maintenance while also serving security guard functions. “I just couldn’t get the security company to do any maintenance,” Crider said. There are still people on site 24 hours a day, but “they’re also picking up garbage and cleaning toilets.”

Crider said Marina tenants have complained recently about the bathrooms being locked. Tenants have been given key cards to open the bathrooms, but Crider said he was getting messages from tenants who’d forgotten their keys. 

“So we unlocked the restroom,” he said. “It was good for a while, until the homeless realized it was unlocked. Then they started coming onto the island, and we had to lock it up again.”

Crider said that every time the Eureka Police Department clears out the homeless encampments at “Devil’s Playground,” people spread out looking for new places to sleep. “The island is no different from the entire city,” Crider said.

The District recently hired environmental maintenance group New Directions, led by local homeless advocate John Shelter, to be on the island four days a week, from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m., when homeless people are looking for a place to sleep. The maintenance workers were feeling intimidated by the homeless, Crider said, and Shelter’s group discourages the homeless from staying on the island.

But what about prostitution?!

Over the past two years, the Eureka Police Department has received 25 calls related to California Penal Code Section 647 (b) — prostitution — according to Public Information Officer Brittany Powell. None of those calls have been from Woodley Island.

Powell also checked with the department’s Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) unit, which receives direct calls regarding long-term issues, thus bypassing the calls-for-service system. A POP investigator said he’s not aware of any prostitution on the island.

“It could be happening,” Powell said. “[It] just has not been reported to us.”

She encouraged people to do just that if they see something: “If anyone has information related to on-going problems such as prostitution, they can call our Problem Oriented Policing Unit (POP) at 441-4373.”