Eureka City Councilmember Kati Moulton points to a map of the Jacobs Campus at a community town hall earlier this year. Photo: Andrew Goff


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Since she arrived here in Humboldt County nearly 20 years ago, Kati Moulton has devoted her time and energy to the arts and community service, working as the artistic director of the Ink People Center for the Arts and as a mentor and program manager for at-risk youth. Four years ago, Moulton decided to take her passion for community service to the next level and run to represent Ward 2 on the Eureka City Council. 

“When I was elected, I realized how much good I can do,” she told the Outpost. “You know, I’m not here helping one or two people at a time … [on the city council] I have this chance to directly help all of the folks in my ward, and to also steer Eureka in a direction that’s going to help our entire community.”

The Outpost met Moulton in Old Town earlier this week to learn more about her reelection campaign and some of the most pressing issues facing Eureka voters in this year’s election. To no one’s surprise, much of our conversation centered around Measure F and the future of the Jacobs Middle School campus. 

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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LoCO: Thank you for taking the time to talk with the Outpost about your reelection campaign. Can you start off by introducing yourself to the folks who don’t know you or aren’t familiar with Eureka politics?

Moulton: Hi! My name is Katie Moulton, I’m a Eureka City Council representative of Second Ward and I am running for reelection. I’m a non-profit administrator and I run a small business here in Old Town. I moved here in my early adulthood when I was 23 and I’ve been serving this community ever since I landed. I started off with youth outreach and working with at-risk teenagers. I’ve also worked in small business development and different nonprofits to serve our community.

LoCO: Before we get into your reelection campaign, can you tell me what inspired you to run for the Eureka City Council back in 2020?

Moulton: Oh, what a great question! [Before I ran], I had absolutely no interest at all in local politics and didn’t know much about it. Three days before the first shelter-in-place order was issued, I basically took my dream job at Scrap Humboldt, a creative reuse company, and I was immediately put on furlough. The Portland office asked me to shut it down and just strip it to the bones. So, I was at the end of that process when my friend and colleague, Leslie Castellano, who represents Ward 1 on the city council, asked me if I had ever considered going into politics and I said no. You know, earlier that week I had yelled at a lady in the co-op for being really rude to the clerk, so maybe not a good idea, right? But then she showed me the candidate declaration from the person who was running to represent my ward …

LoCO: Which candidate?

Moulton: Dot Jager-Wentworth, and I didn’t like the way she was talking about our neighbors. I’ve been serving this community – these kids and these families, through different programs – for decades. I have a lot of respect for the strength that comes from diversity and variety, and I felt like she was talking about my neighbors like they were the problem. So, feeling defensive about these people who I like and respect, and having just gotten my dream job and lost it, I was in a vulnerable moment and I decided to go ahead and try.

It’s been an interesting ride and a fast education with a steep learning curve. When I was elected, I realized how much good I can do. You know, I’m not here helping one or two people at a time … [on the city council] I have this chance to directly help all of the folks in my ward and to also steer Eureka in a direction that’s going to help our entire community.

LoCO: Can you talk about some of the obstacles and major issues you encountered in your first term on the city council? And what were some of your major accomplishments?

Image: City of Eureka

Moulton: Well, at first – because I didn’t really know the big picture – it was all about helping people directly. You know, somebody would call me because I’m the human they know how to get a hold of and I would help them solve the problem. For example, we were getting property owners to clean up problem houses in the neighborhood, we were finding and towing abandoned vehicles, we were getting city money to pay for lighting a parking lot – a lot of little, specific things. … Then, as I started getting into the bigger picture, I started to see more systemic challenges. 

Eureka has gone through a big shift in the last decade. There was a big turn in Eureka’s government just a few years before I came aboard. We’re moving toward building our economy from the ground up and we’re moving away from the days when the good ol’ boys were in charge, just helping out their friends instead of the whole community. I don’t know if I would have been able to join a council that was going in a direction I didn’t believe in, especially without political experience. 

As far as specific challenges, you know, sometimes there’s stuff going on that you just can’t help. There are problems that the city can’t touch or can’t help. There might be an issue where the root of the problem is with county or state law. Maybe we can mitigate the effects, but then you’re treating symptoms and not the disease. That’s probably the biggest challenge – wanting to use the power and communal work of government to help people but there’s nothing in that situation we can actually help. 

Do you want to hear about some happy stuff, too?

LoCO: Please, tell me about some accomplishments of your first term.

Moulton: A big thing that I was able to start when I joined the city council was initiating the process of creating a real citizen oversight board for the Eureka Police Department after the texting scandal. I wanted to find out what an oversight board thought about it [and whether] it was a systemic problem or just one group of people, or a couple of people, who were really bad actors.

LoCO: Before you continue, can you describe the level of oversight at EPD before the Community Oversight on Police Practices (COPP) board came into play?

Moulton: That’s the thing – I wanted to see what our citizen oversight board thought about it and found out that there wasn’t one. We had our Chief’s Advisory Board, which was basically a messaging group chosen by the chief of police that helped communicate what the police were doing out to the community, but they didn’t have oversight. They didn’t review anybody. They were just there to help translate between police officers and regular citizens. 

When I started the process, I called on the staff to create an ordinance and a proposal for how it might work. We looked at some cities similar in size and scale to Eureka to learn more about their successes and failures, and they came back with some really good ideas. We worked through it and, eventually, we have what is now called the COPP board. It is an independent board made up of citizens and one former police officer who’s there to provide a professional perspective from law enforcement. Not only are they looking at complaints, but they are reviewing practices. You know, digging through the rule books and digging through how EPD does things. They are also mandated to meet regularly with community groups that represent people in our community who are often underserved – or occasionally disserved – by law enforcement, such as Black Humboldt, Queer Humboldt, or tribal governments. I think it’s been really effective.

I engaged with the COPP board most recently after the occupation at the university. EPD ended up on the front line of that situation and as I watched the whole thing live on the internet, what I saw was a dangerous situation where EPD went head to head in a confined space where they couldn’t get out and the protesters couldn’t get out. … I saw the serious potential there for someone – for multiple people – to get hurt. I asked the COPP board to review the footage and engage with the city’s Independent Police Auditor and they wrote up a big report on it and made some serious recommendations. One of those recommendations determined that EPD was the most trained unit on the scene … and, ultimately, the recommendation then was for EPD to start doing trainings with other local law enforcement agencies. …

LoCO: As you know, one of the most pressing issues facing Eureka voters – especially folks in the Ward 2 – in this year’s election is Measure F, the “Eureka Housing for All and Downtown Vitality” initiative, which seeks to block the city’s current plans to build new housing on 21 city-owned parking lots and rezone the former Jacobs Middle School campus for “hundreds of units of housing for working- and middle-income families.” You have been very outspoken about your opposition to Measure F. Can you explain why?

Moulton: The Jacobs Campus has been a problem in the neighborhood for years. I think the folks around there are sick of being treated like pawns in this bigger political game. There are a lot of possibilities and a lot of desires for what [the neighborhood] would like to see there, and then there’s the developers, the school district, the California Highway Patrol – all these different interests. I think the people of the Second Ward just want a spot at the table, and I feel like it’s my job to keep them at the table.

… One of the reasons I oppose Measure F is because it says it’s going to build housing by zoning part of [the Jacobs Campus] for high-density housing. What it really does is it rezones the site for a laundry list of things and removes the public part of that process. If somebody wants to go in and buy eight acres of land in the middle of a neighborhood, they have to come to [the city council] and ask. They have to bring us a plan. They have to say, “Here’s what we want to do, what do you think about it?” and then they have to listen to us. That’s part of what local government does to maintain the character of a neighborhood and to maintain public health. And by putting a zoning overlay over Jacobs – as stipulated in Measure F – cuts that part of the process out and makes it so anybody who owns that property can do a huge variety of things there, and they don’t have to ask for [the city’s] permission.

LoCO: You touched on this a moment ago, but can you talk a little bit more about the neighborhood’s priorities? What do the people who actually live in the Second Ward want to see happen at the Jacobs Campus?

Moulton: The answer to that question has shifted over the last four years. When I was first elected, I met with the South Eureka Neighborhood Alliance (SENA), the group that really advocated for the building to come down because it was this huge blight in the neighborhood. You know, a lot of calls for service, it was being lit on fire all the time – people saw it as a huge problem. So, when the [SENA] went out and did a survey [in 2019] to find out what people wanted to see there. When they said, “Would you like to see the CHP come in?” a lot of people were like, “God, yes! Bring us some cops.” 

It’s calmer now that the building has been demolished, and I think people can look at this blank space and imagine what they would like to see there. When I talk to people now, people want housing. Even the weirdly tilted Measure F survey asked people and they said they want housing. I believe that’s what people want because it’s in the middle of the neighborhood. Maybe some neighborhood commercial, like a little coffee shop or some retail stuff, but they want to see things that fit in between a row of single-family homes and an elementary school. … Ultimately, Eureka City Schools owns the property, and they both want and need to sell it. I meet with the school district regularly to coordinate efforts for facilities sharing with the city and stuff like that, but the Jacobs Campus always comes up. They want to sell to the CHP. Well, they want to do something and they need the money. They don’t want to continue holding this blighted property that’s causing problems in the neighborhood.

LoCO: The City of Eureka and the CHP were first in line to express interest in the property. The city dropped out of negotiations two years ago, right?

Moulton: Yeah. And when I first joined the city council, I was in favor of the city [buying the property] even though it would have been a corp yard, which is way more industrial. At least then it would be a public thing and we would have had some control over what it would look like. The City of Eureka has to listen to the citizens, right? The CHP does not have to listen to the citizenry. I’ve met with them though and they say they want to fit in with the community and that they want to be a benefit for the neighborhood that they’re in. They don’t want to cause problems and they say they will meet with us to figure out ways to mitigate traffic and aesthetic impacts to the extent possible.

… So, the city dropped out and CHP has continued on. Then, “AMG Communities - Jacobs” was invented out of thin air and came in with a miraculous [$5.35 million] offer to buy the property. Understandably, the school board was quite dazzled by this amount of money that they could use to benefit students because they needed the money. However, when AMG kept asking to have the escrow kicked out further and further and further … the school board was like, “Come on, we really close a deal here,” and they decided to stop kicking the can down the road and went back to the CHP. …

LoCO: So what happens to the Jacobs Campus if Measure F passes? What happens if negotiations are ongoing and the school district still owns the property? What happens if the school district decides to go with CHP?

Moulton: If Measure F is passed … a city-level zoning overlay would have no effect on the CHP’s plans or the school district plans for the [Jacobs Campus]. No effect at all. The only thing that Measure F can do at Jacobs is upzone [the site] to create massive possibilities without public input. So, if a private developer were to go and buy it in the future, they would have a blank check for whatever they wanted to do.

LoCO: If Measure F passes, what will that mean for the City of Eureka? Would it affect the city’s “pro-housing” designation? Could the state intervene or prevent the ballot measure from being implemented?

Moulton: Well, I am not a legal expert, but we do have one on staff. What would happen if Measure F passes? First, everybody and their sister would sue [the city] because we would be out of compliance with state law. There are certain requirements in Measure F that specifically contradict all of these California laws that are there to encourage affordable housing.

LoCO: Can you specify which aspects of Measure F contradict state law?

Moulton: Measure F mandates that if something is going to be built on one of those public pieces of land where there is currently a parking lot, it can only be either parking or high-density residential housing that maintains the same level of parking. In perpetuity, or up until someone else comes along with more than a million dollars to put up a ballot initiative that can’t be undone. 

… Under Measure F, you have to create additional parking for the people who would live in these buildings. … Say, you have a lot that has 27 parking spaces on it. Now you’re going to put a building there and you’re going to [maintain those] 27 parking spaces and you’re going to build more parking for the people that live there. Now you’re looking at a building that has a two-story parking garage at the bottom, adding millions to construction costs that the developer can never recoup. Essentially, it’s a way to make sure that building can’t possibly go through.

Going back to the state law, there are density bonuses and parking requirements that are in place that [the city] can’t get out of. If somebody is going to build and it’s going to have a certain amount of affordable or low-income housing, then we can’t reject it. We can’t use subjective standards. We can’t require over a certain amount of parking. If we if something is “affordable” or if it’s directed at a certain income level, we can’t say “You have to build parking with that.” Just that piece of Measure F is against state law. The state could come after us and the California [Department of Housing and Community Development] come after us. I’m not sure exactly how all that would play out, but I would imagine the city would be subject to fines.

Eureka is in good standing [with the state] right now. We are creatively and effectively coming up with ways to fit more housing into our built-out little city. The Housing Element of our General Plan got us a “pro-housing” designation, and there aren’t a lot of those throughout the state. We would lose that designation, which would lose us access to millions of dollars of grants. We would have to stop projects that are already in process, money that the city has already won we would have to give back. And that’s not just money for affordable housing, it’s money to improve public transportation. Every one of these potential developments comes with money for public transportation because most of these developments come with less parking.

… If you concentrate more folks downtown and in Old Town where they are living and working and buying a grocery and going to parties, then there’s less need for them to have a car. That way, people who don’t want a car can survive. … We’re trying to make it possible for people who want to ride a bike or walk around town to be able to do that and have equal access to public spaces. If you want to drive a car, drive a car. …

LoCO: I think we could talk about the finer points of Measure F and parking all day, but I’d also like to ask you about another focal point of your platform: decreasing crime and poverty in Eureka. What are some of the things the city is currently doing to address these issues in our community and how would you further those efforts in your second term?

Moulton: Let’s start with the state and nationwide epidemic of homelessness, people who are suffering on the streets for a huge variety of reasons and are likely dealing with incredibly complex problems. These are people who have been displaced from other places. These are teenagers who’ve been kicked out of their hometown for being gay. These are families who were one paycheck away from losing their rental. There are also people who are hard to house because they’re suffering from addiction. The city is approaching that issue in as many different ways as it can and coming at it from a lot of different sides. I can’t take credit for a lot of the creative solutions the city has come up with, but I can say “Yes, let’s keep doing that.” And, fortunately, I am one of the people that gets to vote on the budget and determine how some of that money is spent.

EPD has the [Community Safety Engagement Team] CSET, whose job is to go and talk to the houseless population and they know them by name. I recently had somebody fall down on the sidewalk in front of my business, and I called CSET and they knew this person. They knew why they were resistant to housing and resistant to treatment. They knew that they went into treatment and then relapsed because relapse is part of recovery. … CSET will also help arrange transportation for people to get to another state. If you’ve got a family in Arkansas that’s going to support you, [they can] figure out a way to get you back there. We’re not just sticking people on a bus and sending them somewhere, we make a connection first to make sure they have somewhere to go and someone to help take care of them. We also have Uplift Eureka and the Pathway to Payday program that links people with potential employers who want to hire people who really need a hand. … The city’s supporting and helping to coordinate all of those efforts, and I’m very happy to keep helping. …

LoCO: We’ve talked at length about the Jacobs Campus. Are there any other ward-specific issues you’d like to bring to the council in your second term?

Moulton: I think the problems in Ward 2 are problems everywhere. Ward 2 is the most diverse part of the community. We have the most kids in elementary school, the most working families and the most first-time homebuyers, so we need protections from gentrification. We need more homebuyers. We need more affordable housing for renters. We need more protections for renters, and that will come with more affordable housing.

LoCO: The Eureka City Council deals with its fair share of hostile and belligerent public commenters. I gotta ask, do you regret calling one of those individuals an asshole while on the dais?

Moulton: *Sighs* Not my proudest moment. I do want to say, though, that I didn’t call him a name because he was being belligerent. When people come in and they want to shout at power, they want to express their discontent with the general state of things, in a way, I feel like that’s part of us being useful. We can provide that pressure release or that outlet for someone so that they can say what they need to say. … I hesitate to explain why I said what I said because I don’t want to excuse that. My job is to add perspective to the conversation and to increase the amount of information and conversation that is happening … to help other people make informed decisions. Calling someone a name does not help that. It lowers the discourse. 

… At that moment, I was frustrated because [the city council] had just received a presentation about all the various ways that the ethics of city government are ensured, all of the different ways that accountability and transparency are enshrined in law and all the different ways that citizens and journalists are able to see that transparency and hold us accountable. … So, this commenter came up, claiming to be a journalist… with a predetermined opinion about what was going on, completely ignoring the half an hour of conversation and rich information that had just been presented to him … and he asked the rhetorical question: “Who will keep leaders accountable?” And I said, “You, a-hole.” You’re acting like a journalist, it’s your job. … And it wasn’t that I was insulted on my behalf, I was offended that he would pretend to be a journalist – which is so incredibly valuable – and pretending to do that while doing the opposite of that job.

Still, my response was not OK and I apologized immediately, and again as soon as it was my turn to talk. I’m not proud of it.

LoCO: Is there anything else you’d like to add regarding your re-election campaign? Closing thoughts?

Moulton: Well, we’ve covered quite a number of topics here. … I guess I would just say, I’m a working mom, I love my neighborhood, I have deep roots in this community and I have done nothing but serve this community since the day I got here. I would like to keep doing that on the Eureka City Council.

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You can learn more about Moulton’s campaign at this link. Check out the links below if you’d like to learn more about the other candidates running for Eureka City Council. And keep an eye out for our interview with Ward 2 candidate Kenny Carswell next week.

Election Day is Nov. 5, folks.

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