How was your 2023? 

For this reporter, the year felt like a settling into the post-pandemic status quo. Some things are different than before, sure, but 2023 was recognizably something like normal life. New-normal life, I suppose.

Today, as is tradition, we look back on Humboldt’s year that was through the lens of The Only Metric That Matters™ — traffic to the Lost Coast Outpost website. This time last year we noted with some approval that Humboldt’s tastes had rated slightly higher-brow than in years past; those gains, if gains they can be called, completely reverted to the mean in 2023. Y’all went straight back to the smash-and-grab stories, the ones that tickle some deep reptilian instinct in the brain. Which is fine. We don’t judge.

Kiss this year goodbye! Here they are — the Top 25 Stories of 2023, as chosen by you, the Lost Coast Outpost reader. Let’s count them down!

25. Eureka Police Issue Statement on Dead Woman Found at Samoa Recycling Center

The first big tragedy of the year not earthquake-related was the shocking fact that a woman who had apparently sought shelter in a recycling dumpster was crushed to death when that dumpster was emptied into a garbage truck and driven to the regional recycling plant in Samoa, where her body was discovered.

This was the news of that. Our Isabella Vanderheiden later went back and wrote a heartbreaking story about how that woman, Jestine Green, ended up in that dumpster — the circumstances she faced that day, and throughout her life. Read that story.

24. Two McKinleyville Women Dead After Head-On Collision on State Route 299

A tragedy just west of Lord Ellis in April. The women were 21 and 30 years of age. One was Emerald Grace Bartollota, a Sheriff’s Office employee. The other was Kassidy Bertoldi, who worked for the county’s human resources department.

23. Eureka High on Hard Lockdown as Police Investigate Off-Campus Incident

This wasn’t the worst or most traumatic lockdown of the year — those would be the wave of (apparently fake) threats that washed over Mack High earlier this month — but the big Eureka lockdown freaked a lot of people out. It was prompted by a guy carrying a stupidly realistic BB gun into the greenbelt behind the school.

22. OBITUARY: Kenneth ‘Michael’ Davis, 1997-2023

Michael Davis, by all reports we’ve seen, was a good guy. He tried to help a friend experiencing severe mental health problems and wound up murdered.

21. Two Dead, Including a 16-Year-Old, After Vehicle With 15-Year-Old Driver Hits Embankment Near Willow Creek

Another fatal collision on 299. The teenage victim, William Price, was a student at Hoopa High, and he sounds like the kind of kid you’d want your kid to be friends with.

20. After 50 Years in Eureka, Humboldt County’s Last Denny’s Will Close May 31, Soon to be Replaced by an IHOP

Chain restaurant news is almost always a winner here among the LoCO faithful. Whether out of gluttony or rage, we seem always to want to keep a close eye on what’s coming and what is going.

But leave aside all talk of Little Caeser’s and Wingstop and Habit Burger. The closure of the Eureka Denny’s, a longtime fixture that many of our older readers remember from their days of goth makeup and clove cigarettes, hit a little harder.

On the other hand: IHOP. It took longer than expected, but the IHOP is now up and running in the same location. It’s not open 24 hours a day. Have you gone? Is IHOP a suitable replacement?

19. Sudden Closure of Redwood Harley-Davidson in Eureka Leaves Customers Surprised and Frustrated

Customers and employees alike were mystified at the sudden closure of Redwood Harley-Davidson, the big dealership off Eureka’s Sixth Street that serviced the not inconsiderable North Coast Harley community for two decades. Some were left with warranties that they’ll have to travel to Redding to take advantage of. People were looking for answers, and the Outpost’s Ryan Burns did his best, but the reason for the closure and especially the manner in which it was handled is still something of a mystery.

18. One Man Dead, Another Suffers Major Injuries After Car Plummets 200 Feet Off Embankment on Scenic Drive Near Trinidad

Horrifying.

17. ARCATA HOMICIDE: 36-Year-Old Fortuna Man Shot and Killed; APD Seeking Suspect

A transient man, Joshua Gephart, previously of Fortuna, was shot and killed in Valley West in the middle of the night on July 2. A suspect — Gregory Nelson Mattox of McKinleyville— was later identified and arrested in the Bald Hills area.

16. CITIZENS’ ARREST: Wabash Avenue Closed in Eureka After Reports of Gunfire; Motorist Flees and Crashes Into Parked Car

This post, you will remember, is the one that had the fun video of the citizens’ arrest performed on a guy who, after crashing into a parked vehicle and attempting to escape on foot, proceeded to have an even worse day than that.

I’d like to think he’s doing better now.

The gunshots were determined to be real, though they didn’t injure anyone, The hit-and-run incident, the aftermath of which is depicted above, occurred after the fellow in question drove by officers investigating the shooting, yelling at them. He was held on charges of driving under the influence.

15. Cal Poly Humboldt is Exploring the Idea of Housing Students on a Huge-Ass Barge in Humboldt Bay

The barge never came to be, not least because Cal Poly’s enrollment numbers were, uh, not so hot as had been anticipated … but man, this was a story.

This was a story! Funnest story of the year, probably. Calmatters reporter Alexei Koseff happened to be visiting LoCO around the time this story came out, and he asked us “So, what’s the news up here these days?” And we said: Oh ho ho, have we got a story for you! His eyes probably didn’t actually bug three inches out his head the way I want to remember them doing, but the Calmatters barge story did arrive tout de suite.

A lot of Cal Poly students said they didn’t care for the idea of living on a barge parked in the bay behind the Vista del Mar. Those students are insane. If I were still a student I would have traded my whole stash of bong resin for a chance to sling my hammock on the S.S. Dormroom!

Let’s bring the barge back in 2024.

14. OBITUARY: David Dahl, 1965-2022

David was widely mourned.

13. ‘We’re in Crisis Mode’: Collapsing Cannabis Industry Guts Garberville Businesses; Local Leaders Look to Tourism as a Saving Grace

Our Isabella Vanderheiden formerly worked at KMUD News just a couple of years ago, at a time when the Southern Humboldt economy was much more lively than it is now. This was her deep-dive return to Garberville, and our attempt to get our hands around the implications of the cannabis bust for the people of SoHum.

12. Bookkeeper May Have Embezzled Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars from Humboldt County Fair Association, GM Says

The fair apparently went off without a hitch yet again this year — well, one hitch, maybe (see below) — but behind the scenes there was a fair amount of chaos. This was the biggest part of it: The news that a former bookkeeper, Nina Tafarella, had allegedly squirreled away over $400,000 of the Fair Board’s funds using the names of fake employees on the books.

Tafarella was later indicted following an FBI investigation.

11. Smith River Complex Sparks More Evacuations; No Estimated Time For Reopening U.S. 199, Caltrans Says

There were some fires to watch in Humboldt County — the South Fork Complex down in the south, the Lone Pine fire near Hoopa,  a complex of blazes up near Orleans— but our neighbors to the north in Del Norte took the brunt of fire season this year. Highway 199 was closed down for weeks, and there were mandatory evacuations all along that vital corridor. Power was out in almost the whole county for five days, until Pacific Power was able to get portable generators in.

Our Jessica Andrews covered it all; this was just her most trafficked post.

10. The 2023 Kinetic Grand Championship!

The glory returneth!

Some sculptures won prizes; others, I suppose, didn’t. Our Andrew Goff gave Outpost readers a visual primer on the 42 teams that competed in this year’s enactment of the traditional Arcata-to-Ferndale Memorial Day art race, as he does. The photos are still there if you want to relive it.

9. ‘He is Going to Have to Deal With This the Rest of His Life’: Mother of Arcata Stabbing Victim Shares Status of Her Son’s Recovery

Our Stephanie McGeary chronicled how the family of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed outside the Arcata Theater Lounge were working their way, as best they can, to his recovery. It’s a story about post-traumatic stress, senseless violence and gaps in the criminal justice system, the brokenness of our healthcare system and the stress of being a parent in the 21st century.

8. Hundreds, Perhaps Thousands of Humboldt County Residents Won’t Have Their Power Restored for Another Two Weeks, According to an Estimate From PG&E

There were some bad winter storms this year, and they hit hardest along the semi-populated, tree-infested stretch of land north of Trinidad, much of which was knocked off the grid for more than a week. 

Small comfort to them, but this is the thing that extended Humboldt’s income tax deadline all the way until October 15.

7. Ground Has Been Broken on Klamath River Restoration, the World’s Largest-Ever Dam-Removal Project

Now we’re talking.

And by “now we’re talking,” I mean now we’re done talking.

Twenty-one years after the great Klamath Fish Kill, and after decades of meetings, negotiations, federal flip-flopping and so much more heartache, the Klamath hydropower dams, four of the principal causes of degraded conditions along that mighty river, started actually, physically coming down this year. The smallest of them, Copco #2, is gone — wiped off the face of the Earth. Copco #1, Iron Gate and J.C. Boyle are soon to follow.

6. Ferndale’s Foggy Bottoms Boys Say Local Business Owner Lobbed Anti-Gay Slurs at Their Employees, Destroyed Property During Chili Cook-Off at Humboldt County Fair

At minimum, a story about alcohol and the things that come out of some people’s mouths when they drink it.

5. Mendocino Law Enforcement Share Grisly Details of Discovery of Missing Eureka Woman’s Body; Son of Deceased in Custody

A Eureka woman who had been reported missing was found dead in a van after her son crashed that van on the outskirts of Willits. The body had apparently been hidden in the van; the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office had to get a search warrant to locate it there, a day after the crash.

Foul play is not suspected in the case, but the son, Root Birimisa, was taken into custody.

4. Three People Found Dead in McKinleyville Residence in Apparent Murder/Suicide; HCSO Investigating

It’s believed that one of the deceased — an 81-year-old man — shot the middle-aged couple before turning the gun on himself. The older man had been dating the younger man’s mother before she passed.

3. Eureka Woman Dies at Moonstone Beach One Day After Graduating From Nursing School

Just the saddest story. Twenty-five-year-old Martina Scarfia of Eureka was surfing at Moonstone with her sister when she suffered some sort of medical emergency. The Coast Guard attempted a rescue, but couldn’t get there in time.

Scarfia had just graduated from the College of the Redwoods nursing program

2. Security Footage Shows Physical Encounter Between Wildberries Manager and Teen Shoplifter

It’s pretty shocking, in this day and age, to see footage of a grown man physically — very physically — restraining an underage girl. That’s what this was: Internal security camera footage from Wildberries Marketplace, which showed store manager Aaron Gottschalk physically holding, throwing around and tackling a 16-year-old high school student who had shoplifted from the Arcata store.

In speaking with the Outpost’s Ryan Burns, the girl’s mother admitted that the girl had shoplifted, but maintained that this could scarcely justify the employee “putting hands” on her daughter to the degree that he did. But though there were calls around Arcata for a boycott of the popular supermarket, Gottschalk apparently acted within the law: The so-called “shopkeeper’s privilege” gives store employees latitude to physically detain suspected shoplifters, and the Arcata Police declined to investigate the matter further.

1. Earthquake! 5.4M Earthquake 15 Kilometers Southeast of Rio Dell

January 1st, 2023 — this wasn’t the craziest earthquake anyone ever felt, but we were all still on edge from the middle-of-the-night Dec. 20, 2022 rock-and-roller, which was, if you remember correctly, insane, and for many traumatic still to this day. When this one hit at around 10:30 a.m., you all rushed for your phones.

It all went downhill from there.