Election time is near, and that means campaign forum season is in full swing! 

On Wednesday night, the League of Women Voters partnered with KEET-TV to host a candidate forum for the Eureka City Council candidates for Eureka’s Third and Fifth Wards. Moderator Anne Hartline asked the four candidates – Mario Fernandez and John Fullerton, who are running in Ward Three, and Nicholas Kohl and Renee Contreras-De Loach, who are running in Ward Five – questions submitted by the public, providing the voters with a better idea of each candidate’s experience, where they stand on local issues and what they’re priorities will be, if elected. 

The questions addressed issues of homelessness, affordable housing needs, public transportation improvements and development of Eureka’s Waterfront. Below is a summary of the candidates’ responses, which have been edited for clarity and length. You can watch a full video of the candidate forum above.

Follow this link for a list of other upcoming candidate forums, check out LoCO Elections – where you can submit your own questions to candidates and view their answers to other community questions – and don’t forget to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 8! 

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What skills or experience make you uniquely qualified to serve on Eureka City Council?

Fernandez 

I have the experience coming from a working class family struggling to make ends meet. However, I also know what it’s like to have friends, neighbors, community members help lift you up to finally come up to a livable, manageable working wage, to live a lifestyle that is getting further and further away from us it feels at times.  I’ve enjoyed voters supporting me for school board four years ago. And I have support from organized labor and our local democrats and current elected officials. I know the value of engendering relationships and making tough decisions. The pandemic has been no easier on any one person. And so I look at this as the ability to steer us through at least another four years in this city. 

Fullerton 

I’m a 40-year resident of Eureka and I represent a lot of experience that is missing on the city council. All my Children were raised in Humboldt County and attended Eureka City public schools. I was a 12-year member of the Eureka School Board and I served on the Eureka Planning commission and I’ve been volunteering in the community for many years. I served on the Eureka Planning Commission and was treasurer of the Redwood Community Action Agency board of directors as well as on the Redwood acres Fairport. I started my business in Old town and my I’ve grown my C. P. A practice to where I now have eight employees. I understand the local business community, I understand what it is that they need to survive and thrive and provide badly needed sales tax revenue for the city and jobs for Eureka. Thank you.

Kohl

I believe my qualifications begin with about 15 years of business ownership in my hometown. I’ve owned and operated a restaurant with up to 19 employees. It really taught me the importance of teamwork and teambuilding in being able to achieve more than any one of us can achieve alone.  I’ve developed relationships both within the city and the county that have helped me really understand what can be achieved and what our expectations can be.  With my participation in the Measure Z Advisory Committee I got to see firsthand how important these partnerships are to support and how important it is to continue to build on past improvements and to continue to improve the quality of life in Eureka. 

Contreras-De Loach

My first time being elected was about 23 years ago, it was in another state where we were attending college and I worked with the city council, with our mayor, with law enforcement, with our school board  and also some state officials to try to work and for some projects. I worked with the Community Development Block Grant Committee that helped bring grant money into low and middle income neighborhoods. I really enjoyed that experience. I was born and raised here. We moved back here to raise our children, and I am very excited about the opportunity to continue serving in Eureka. I’ve been serving behind the scenes. I’ve done business consulting for some of the local businesses here and have been involved in literacy projects and so forth.

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Do you support the clearing of homeless camps, as was recently done by Eureka Police?

Kohl 

I support a multi-agency reaction to homelessness and homeless camps. Public health, as we’ve seen through COVID, is a major concern and allowing camps to operate in conditions that can be dangerous for the people’s health who are there and the community’s health, needs to be addressed. But I also believe we need to continue to work to provide housing and food to people that are in need. We need to be able to fill the needs for people so that they are not at risk during extreme weather and they need to be able to at least have some respect and dignity in how they are treated in the community. 

Fernandez

The short answer is going to be no. Only if they are a proven danger to themselves or the areas surrounding them, should they be cleared. However, I think it’s already been emphasized that we need to clear these homeless camps, but we need to do it through a multi-agency effort. We need to do it with the resources in place. We can’t just do it overnight. We have to do it in a tiered fashion that allows for these people – whether through mental health or substance abuse issues – to receive what is necessary for them to succeed. That would include coordinating with the county, that would include coordinating with nonprofit agencies such as Betty Chinn to make sure that we have [what they need] in place when we ask these people to disperse. 

De Loche 

No, I don’t think that they should be cleared. I understand that there are safety issues and there can also be health issues and health concerns. But those are two separate issues that were going on. The reality is that unless we have solutions for people, we’re essentially criminalizing homelessness, or houslessness. So I think I’m really giving that support so that there can be a robust response by multiple agencies in the community, so that we can work to resolve that. I think looking out for one another and certainly looking out for those most vulnerable among us is very important.

Fullerton 

Well, unfortunately, my short answer has to be yes. These illegal camps are dangerous to the environment and dangerous to the illegal campers themselves.  Homelessness is a serious problem in Eureka, and we need more low income housing that will help solve part of the problem. But some of the campers are not capable of living indoors and we need to make something else available other than illegal camps. And we need to look at other solutions and do right by the community and do right by the homeless people themselves.

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What would you do to improve transportation options currently available in Eureka?

Contreras-De Loach 

They have they’re working on a number of different things and trying to  make our transit more available, to have more stops, to have more available buses and so forth. I think that we definitely need to pursue that.  My husband road transit for a number of years while he was running the department College of the Redwoods and it wasn’t terribly convenient and so I think finding ways to increase that is going to be critical, because not everybody can just be on foot. And we’re trying to move away from having a lot of cars and there are a lot of people who can’t afford to get around right now, so gas [prices are] very high. So I think really expanding that is going to be key in making sure that we’re looking after that.

Kohl 

My first priority in improving transportation would be very much directed towards bicycle traffic. I would like to see our bike lanes decoupled from the main avenues of vehicle traffic, so that [bicycles are] not really at risk of sharing space with our peak vehicle transit. I’d like to see the opportunity to utilize side streets and neighborhood areas to funnel this traffic so that bikers are not only able to get from one end of town to the other without having to put themselves at risk.

Fullerton 

So, during the recent controversy surrounding Washington School and the zoo, I heard one city planner say that congestion traffic congestion is a good thing because it forces people out of their cars and onto bicycles, and that is the exact opposite of what we need to do. City planners have always looked into helping traffic flow efficiently. We need to make sure that we keep our public parking lots to give people a place to park. Sure, make more bike lanes available and better marked, for those that want to bicycle. But remember that for most people, cars are how we get around and it will always be that way. So we need to make traffic flow more efficiently. 

Fernandez 

We are a very car-centric culture and it’s very difficult to overcome that, especially in a region that’s as remote and rural as we are here. One of the things that we have to do properly is to survey not only the riders of current transit lines, but also our residents to find out what their needs are. We need to look into how folks would respond to rapid lines. We have to look to alternative methods in order to reduce the climate effects. I agree, bike lanes are certainly one way to go. Shuttle services in Old Town are definitely another. But we have to get past the old idea that everything needs to serve the automobiles.

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What steps does the city need to take to prepare for sea level rise?

Fullerton 

Seems like it’s going to be a coming thing and we need to prepare for some flooding around the waterfront and we need to make sure that we have proper dikes and support to keep the water at bay. We should also take a second look at any construction that is in a flood zone so that any new construction would be pushed out of that flood zone. It’s gonna be something that will have to live with, something that’s going to be coming in the next 30 to 50 years. And we need to be prepared.

Contreres-De Loach

The state of California is earmarking a certain amount of money to help shore up you know local cities and there’s a variety of different methods that are being looked at. They’re all incredibly expensive. They’re all time consuming as well, but they’re critical and they’re necessary and they need to start right now. Because it’s not just a matter of that rise, we also have a subsidence thing. It’s also how far in that water is moving underneath the ground and it will cause failure of septic and other things. So a lot of that needs to start now. It should have already started. So we need to get scooting on it.

Fernandez 

I think it’s already been said that this is something that we needed to look into a long time ago. There’s not gonna be any singular solution that’s going to solve the sea level rise, but there are ways that we can reduce the impact and one of those is going to be moving away from the coast, building away and constructing higher. We already see how that’s going to impact 101. We’ve all read the reports, we’ve all read the news about that. And so there’s just no singular solution that I can offer. But I am open to ideas. I’m open to working with colleagues. It’s good to know that there’s money coming from the state that’s going to help us reduce the impact of these stressors. 

Kohl 

I would like to see  continued pressure on communication with Caltrans about what their plans are going to be for both [highway] 101 and 255, because I believe those plans will directly impact how we’re going to need to address those as municipalities, so we can then spend our money in the best possible way for the best results. I also would like to see continued improvement in development of our wetlands areas so that there is the opportunity to handle more water flow. I feel that’s the beginning, I think the real impact of this is going to be over time and I would love to see cal poly be included in a solution where they’re able to actually participate on the waterfront and utilize their resources to evaluate the information as it changes over the years.

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Would you support turning unused or closed businesses into affordable housing? If yes, please explain how this could be done.  

Kohl 

I feel that there’s a great opportunity to repurpose commercial offices for affordable housing opportunities. I feel the infrastructure within those units is there and easily transferable to that use. I would love to see that in combination with maintaining both service and retail in those areas, because I’m concerned about neighborhoods being developed without the proper resources nearby to supply quality of life – for example, pharmacies, grocery stores, daycare centers. I feel those are wonderful spaces to maintain,  so that families and individuals have an opportunity to have quality.

Fernandez

So again, the short answer is yes, I would enthusiastically approve that, but it goes into the more niche parts of it, depending on the space and the time that it’s spent vacant. The last thing we wanna do is rob any, any owner, any property owner of the time that they’ve invested into that. But if we have the opportunity to create mixed-use residential commercial space, which I think we’re all aware of economically as you spend more locally, we see more in return That right there for me, is certainly a return on the investment. I know that there are concerns with it. But again, the short answer is yes, but moving forward, it’s looking into how that’s going to impact us and how that might resolve a lot of the homeless situation that we’re facing.

Fullerton 

While this can be done on a limited basis, it’s not going to be any big panacea to our problem. These vacant storefronts are owned by private individuals and you cannot just seize them, you’re gonna have to buy them and it’s going to be expensive, maybe more expensive than actually building low income housing. Then you have to look at the code of the area – where can you, with our present planning codes,  mix residential in a commercial district? So there’s a lot of things that will make this a complicated issue and I don’t think it’s going to be any big answer to our homeless problem.

Contreras-De Loach

The issue is that we don’t have enough homes in California and also here locally, and Eureka is having difficulty because we only have so far we can build out where geographically we just don’t have a lot of space. I was really happy to see that the governor put this forward, I think that it’s gonna take a multifaceted approach, It’s going to be accessory dwelling units, it’ll be large housing units, developments, perhaps parking lots as well. And I think it’s a great idea. I love the possibility of people having businesses on their ground floor and then having housing above. 

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With the waterfront development in a pre-planning phase, what priorities would you like to see in such a development?

Contreras-De Loach

I would like to see us moving forward with some of those mixed-use developments that we were talking about. I know that there’s also already a lot of consideration around the placement of buildings and where things are going to be able to be developed. I’d like to see a variety. I think our greatest resource is asking people what is helpful, what’s effective. I think that with anything that we pursue for development that it’s best to talk to everybody that’s involved and to really ask people what are they looking for what kind of supports people are looking for.

Fernandez

I certainly love the idea of mixed-use development, especially on the front like that. We also need to do more and better, proper dredging of  the ramps in the outlying area. It’s not really my forte to be speaking about seafaring in that capacity. But I also know that we have to make our public ramps more ADA compliant. And,  I think it’s already been highlighted, we need to talk to our community down there, particularly the businesses as well as the, as well as the fishermen themselves to find out what they would like to see worked on down there as well.

Kohl 

 I’m really, I’m really excited about this potential.  I feel like Old Town has been incomplete for years, with there being a prominence of gravel lots on our waterfront. There’s several things I would love to see happen. And right now I love it because everything is possible. There is private space along the waterfront that I believe we should support the development of that space to the landowners use, as they have plans. For the public space, I really believe that we need to include enrichment. We need to include access to our community members that live here now, and to our kids that are gonna be here in the future so that there’s participation in family space — playgrounds, educational space – potentially through involvement or partnership with Cal Poly. I would really love to include the Wiyot Tribe in the conversation about how we want to use that space.  

Fullerton 

During my time on the Eureka Planning Commission, we spent a lot of time on zoning issues and planning issues for the waterfront area. And we have a real jewel here that’s been underutilized and has been for decades. We need to build more businesses and especially on the boardwalk that will attract tourists and shoppers to our town with mixed use development – apartments on the upper floors and businesses on the ground floor. We could all benefit, but we need to work with our business community because sales tax revenue is so important to the city of Eureka’s budget.

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What actions will you take to support growth in living-wage jobs in Eureka?

Fullerton

Living-wage jobs come out with a healthy economy. When there is a downturn in the economy and there’s an employee surplus, that drives wages down. So what we need to do is support our business community. And I would suggest as a council member, I would push for a task force before where all these city projects that have an effect on businesses locally, that they have a maybe a commission of a number of local business owners that will work with city staff in the early development of these ideas so that everybody benefits and planners who don’t have that business experience can take advantage of the experience of business owners.

Contreras-De Loach

First of all, laws that are coming down about transportation and other things and what we’re trying to do with the environment and so forth, are going to require a lot of green energy and a lot of different adaptations that need to be made. We have a number of different things that are being considered now for the county and I think what I would like to see is – we have this wonderful local community college that has some wonderful training program, some of those or for solar panels and other things. I would like to see a more robust offering so that we can, if people want to stay here, if they want to come and make a life here, that they can have good jobs working in that field because we know that’s the direction California is gonna take us and we know that for a community that’s where we’re headed. I would like to see us have good union jobs, good paying jobs in these different areas. We need to have a nice blend. Not everybody is going to be suited or everybody’s gonna want to pursue traditional education through like a bachelor’s degree etcetera. They need to be able to have trade options and other things that are interesting to them that pay well.

Kohl 

That’s a lot to try to achieve from the position of the city, but I do think that there’s ways that it can be successful  and I think for me the biggest impact would be to really develop and continue to support the Small Business Development Center in a way that allows small grant funding for small business startups and existing small businesses to adapt, and to have the flexibility of either funding or educational resources to help pivot their businesses. There is no stagnant model anymore. So supporting business through those types of programs would be the best thing that we can get an impact from.

Fernandez

A lot of good has been said about this, and I’m enthused to hear that we have a lot of candidates here tonight that support living wage jobs. But we also need to figure out what those living wage jobs are going to be. We need to at least do a survey, do some sort of research. We need to partner with the Small Business Development Center. We need to work more closely with the Workforce Development Board. We can partner with Cal Poly Humboldt and CR to figure out how to develop these training programs or education around the jobs that are going to be needed here as we go into the future. We’re looking at climate change severely impacting us, and with the fiber optic coming in from the transpacific there, were going to be looking at a different workforce moving forward.

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Do you think the city should purchase the former Jacob’s Junior High school campus site? If so, how should it be used by the city? 

Fernandez

Have to be a little cautious with that because we’re still in close session negotiations. So I would like to see some sort of development go on there. I would absolutely love the City to be able to purchase that piece of property. There has been a number that’s been floated out there and I can tell you that every dollar that we’re asking for is a school district. So that way we can backfill and we can properly build, we need to for the students. I would absolutely love to see something at that site developed and worked on by local contractors, by local labor. We also need to survey the community there if and when it does go to the city for the purpose of what they want to see in their neighborhood,

Fullerton 

I’m happy to see that the City of Eureka’s plans for the property would be to save the soccer fields and maybe some kind of a community center there. But one thing that Eureka is short of is housing – low income housing, moderate income housing. We’re short of housing and we need more and I would like to see that most of that property developed for housing purposes.

Kohl 

The short answer is yes. I know that’s going to depend on negotiations and on available funding. But without digging into that, just as a community member, ‘yes.’ I got to go there as a student. I got to participate in those soccer fields. Having that as a resource for our community in a way that is either shifted towards low income housing or mixed use, or just available to be active and participating with the community members nearby, would bring new life into the area. That said, the community members that lived directly nearby should be able to make their opinions heard by both the city staff and council. 

Conteras-De Loach

We’re short on housing and I think it would be nice to see something that was mixed. Any kind of development is going to be an improvement over this property that’s looked very shabby for a long time. I think some sort of mixed [development] – still  having still access to those fields, maybe a small community, then maybe some housing too. It’s one way that we could address housing. We could have a nice park there, soccer fields – things that are multi-use. 

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Do you support a managed camping campground while housing issues are addressed?

Kohl 

If we’re going to be proactive about where campgrounds are happening and how those campgrounds are being used, I feel that is going to be a tool that’s gonna need to either be discussed or implemented. My preference is that housing is the real solution, but I also recognize that between now and the completion of these projects, we have to figure out how to engage the [homeless] community and to build trust and to build dignity within the community. I’m open to solutions that aren’t as singularly focused. And so I would have to say ‘yes.’

Fernandez

The short answer is ‘yes.’ We don’t have the infrastructure in place yet for housing all of these unhoused people.  And there are those folks that do genuinely live this way, that choose to live this way. But for those that don’t, the resources need to be in place. And while we build towards those resources, while we get them connected to those resources, they can at least have some place that they’re familiar with, some place that they’re comfortable with. 

Contreras-De Loach

Housing is probably at the top of my list, and in talking with people in Ward Five, their concern is affordable housing. And that trickles down and disseminates into our homeless population. So, while we don’t have places for people to be housed, then we have to have safe places for people to be. What essentially has happened is that we have kind of criminalized homelessness. There isn’t anywhere for them to legally be. And I think that the best answer is that people need to have support and we need to get them into housing. But in the meantime, I think that there needs to be someplace. Something that everybody talked about with the encampment that was cleared out this past week was providing toilets, providing a place for them. It’s very tricky for Eureka. We don’t really have any large areas where they can be. But I think that’s necessary in the meantime.

Fullerton

So the answer is yes, we need some sort of a managed campground. I came out in favor of this more than six years ago in front of a city council meeting and I got a lot of people upset. They said if you build the campground, we’ll have more homeless. And I tell them that we already have homeless campgrounds and they’re all over the city. The city’s policies seem to be ‘out of sight out of mind.’ If somebody doesn’t complain, they don’t do anything. And the result is we have the messes that you saw last week with that campground sweep. So we need more low-income housing and that will solve part of the problem. But also a lot of people aren’t capable of living indoors and managed campgrounds with some sort of minimum rules is the only answer to clean up our streets.

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Closing Statements 

Contreras-De Loach

I look forward to working with Ward Five and with the City Council. If you elect me, I will happily work with anyone to accomplish things that we need to accomplish. I really believe very strongly in talking to all of the parties that are involved in any kind of decision making and really looking to the people, the boots on the ground, the people that are really working in these different areas to really lead the charge on telling us where different kinds of policy need to go… And won’t quit. I will work very hard  and be relentless in my pursuit of making sure that we’re elevated that we’re being listened to, that our state and local officials are listening to us and that we get the kind of funding and help that we need for our city so that we can really move these projects forward. Thank you.

Kohl 

I really appreciate the opportunity to participate. It is in this process that I’ve really found that there has been a tremendous amount of progress that’s happened in the last few years and I really see a transition in leadership now, with  two new members coming onto the city council and a change in the mayor, I really want to contribute and participate by continuing to make progress on these existing programs and by making sure that we can continue to develop our area as a place that holds quality of life for everyone. I hope that I can work for you and with you, to find out what specifically is important as we go through time and as we go through the issues. Thank you.

Fullerton 

Well, for the last 52 minutes, we’ve been answering questions from the people. Now, I would like to turn the tables and ask a question of you. What kind of city council members do you want to see sit on the city council? I’m hoping that you’ll want city council members who support our Eureka Police Department and will adamantly oppose defunding the police, city council members who do not organize anti-police rallies on the courthouse steps. I’m hoping that you’ll want to have city council members who have a moderate point of view and that has been missing on the city council for a long time. Also, city council members with extensive experience – not only on various boards and commissions like the Eureka Planning Commission, but also in the private sector. I understand what the business community needs. 

Fernandez

Thank you to the League of Women Voters and thank you to the folks watching this program. I’ve worked and led as a school board member, a diverse population of our community. In 2018, I ran for the school board on the platform of ‘think, positive and plan ahead.’  Moving from the school board to city council, I plan to tackle issues involving our housing and the use of our surplus public lands to the needs around climate change. We do need to consider public safety in the terms of law enforcement. We also need to consider public safety in terms of our infrastructure. I see Eureka as a dynamic and diverse community. That is the hub of our North Coast community. Our evolution here at the local level will have a transformative impact throughout Humboldt County that will require proven elected leadership.