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Big things are happening in and around the Port of Humboldt Bay. First and foremost, in terms of pure scale, we have the federal government’s multi-hundred-million-dollar plans to develop floating wind energy 20 miles off our coast, which would involve transforming our port into a 21st century heavy-lift marine terminal.

On top of that there’s Nordic Aquafarms’ $650 million fish farm approved for construction on the Samoa Peninsula, plus ongoing trail development and a wide variety of established industries such as fishing, oyster farming, seaweed farming, recreation and more.

It’s a pivotal time for the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, which has permit jurisdiction over the bay’s harbors, ports and surrounding lands. 

And yet with three seats on that agency’s board of commissioners up for re-election this November, only one has multiple candidates: Division 5, which extends from McKinleyville north to the county line and east to Willow Creek, the Hoopa Valley and surrounding areas. (Division 1 incumbent Aaron Newman and Division 2 incumbent Greg Dale are both running unopposed.)

With the retirement of longtime Division 5 Commissioner Patrick Higgins — who told the Outpost that he plans to further commit to his environmental stewardship work on the Eel River — this seat is wide open.

Enter Jack Norton and Wilfred “Wil” Franklin. 

Both residents of McKinleyville, Norton is a former high school and college athlete who spent the weekends and summers of his youth hunting and fishing with family in and around the Hoopa Valley Reservation. He works for the Blue Lake Rancheria.

Franklin, a former professor of biology and plant science, is now director of the North Coast Small Business Development Center. In 2012 he founded Trinity River Vineyards, working as the winemaker and viticulturist before selling the business a decade later.

The Outpost recently sat down with each of them to talk about their respective backgrounds, the opinions on how best to approach offshore wind development and their visions for the future of Humboldt Bay. You can read about those conversations below.

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Jack Norton’s name will be familiar to many locals, especially those living along the Klamath River. Jack Norton Elementary School, in the remote community of Johnsons on the Yurok Reservation, is named after his paternal grandfather, who was the first member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe to earn a college degree.

The third in a line of four Jack Nortons (including his adult son), he, too, is a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. Norton is descended from members of the Hupa, Yurok, Karuk and Cherokee tribes, and since 2002 he’s been employed by the Blue Lake Rancheria, where he currently serves as controller for the casino. [DISCLOSURE: The Blue Lake Rancheria is a minority owner of the Outpost’s parent company, Lost Coast Communications, Inc.] 

Norton said he commutes to work with his wife, who is also a financial controller for the Rancheria, though she works on the tribal government side of its operations. 

He was born and raised in Eureka, attending Grant Elementary, Winship Junior High and Eureka High School, but much of his family lived in Hoopa, where he’d often go on hunting and fishing trips with his brothers and grandfather, who “would tell us all kinds of stories,” Norton said. “It was really neat.”

But his real passion growing up was athletics.

“I was a jock,” Norton said with a smile, and as we sat at a table Ramone’s Bakery and Cafe in Old Town Eureka, he spent the next few minutes recalling some of his exploits as both a football player and a wrestler. He was good, especially at wrestling, which earned him a trip on a three-week cultural exchange program to Japan the summer before his senior year. At one point he was ranked second in the state for his weight class, though he disappointed at the year-end tournament, failing to place.

“I kind of choked, I guess,” he said. 

Still, he was good enough to earn a scholarship to San Jose State University, though initially he didn’t stick around for long. Why? He cites a brief conversation with “probably the worst [career] counselor to ever run into.”

“His advice was, ‘Quit school, go get a job for two years, figure out what you want to do, and then consider coming back,’” Norton recalled. “I quit that day.”

He came back to Humboldt and enrolled at College of the Redwoods, joining both the football and wrestling teams. He placed fifth on the Junior College All-American Team for wrestling and eventually returned to San Jose State, where placed ninth in the nation before blowing out his knee. (He tore his anterior cruciate ligament while “hot-dogging” in practice by jumping over three guys.)

Norton graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s in business administration, minoring in economics, and worked a few different jobs before getting recruited by the Hoopa Valley Tribe to be assistant general manager of their economic development corporation.

“I thought, ‘Yeah, I can do that!’” Norton recalled. His tenure there quickly became contentious.

“I narced out the boss,” Norton recalled. “I caught him doing some fraudulent things.”

The fraud involved bonus checks based on inflated figures (gross receipts rather than net profits), and while the tribe took Norton to court over the matter, he prevailed. He also tried to implement more internal fiscal controls for the tribe’s bingo operations, which rubbed some people the wrong way, and eventually, following some reorganization and the election of new tribal council members, Norton was let go.

He decided to view it as an opportunity and enrolled in Humboldt State University, where he earned his master’s degree in business administration. After graduation, he got rehired by the Hoopa Valley Tribe as a grant writer.

“I was a decent little grant writer,” he said, noting that he brought in $1.5 million for a couple of years. He was later promoted to executive director of the tribe’s Office of Research & Development, and in 1994 he was elected to the board of the Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School District.

After being recruited to work at the Blue Lake Casino and Hotel, Norton served several years at the human resources manager and health plan director before becoming controller in 2018.

Asked what motivated him to run for the Harbor District’s board of commissioners, Norton said it was the economic opportunities presented by offshore wind development. He mentioned the so-called “brain drain” that sees young people grow up and move away due to a lack of good career opportunities — a trend followed by his own son, who works in chemical engineering for a suburb of San Jose.

“On a personal level, it would be nice to have be able to have a position where my son could come back home and apply chemical engineering and make his livelihood here,” Norton said.

As for the macro level, he cited the recent economic downturn with the decline of the cannabis industry. 

“And I think the entire county and all businesses in every sector are feeling that,” he said. “So I think that renewable energy, I’m all for it, yeah. One hundred percent.”

The key, he said, is doing it “the right way.”  Norton attended the offshore wind energy summit convened by the Yurok Tribe earlier this year and said he relates to their concerns. 

“I did meet with them, and they’ve endorsed me for the position,” he said.

I expressed surprise at this, considering the Yurok Tribe’s formal opposition to floating offshore wind energy development on the North Coast. 

Norton said he thinks he sees eye-to-eye with the tribe on the issue. “I re-read some of the stuff they published about the offshore summit, and [Tribal Vice Chairman] Frankie Myers himself … his things was, ‘So long as it’s done right,’” Norton said. (A spokesperson for the tribe confirmed their endorsement of Norton.)

He supports the Harbor District’s 2013 acquisition of the Redwood Marine Terminal II property (former site of the Evergreen Pulp Mill), noting the subsequent EPA-led cleanup of the toxic site, and he believes that the Nordic Aquafarms project is a positive thing.

“We often don’t know where the fish we buy in grocery stores comes from,” Norton said, whereas he noted that this land-based fish farm will be certified safe. 

Speaking more generally, Norton said he would bring a Native perspective to the Harbor District by incorporating “generational thinking” and the concept of world renewal. That includes renewing the local fishery while also working on green port development through public-private-tribal partnerships.

He’s interested in exploring the potential of local “green hydrogen” development, citing the potential to use the fuel in tugboats and other heavy-load transportation vehicles.

“Technology advances in recent years have increased the efficiency dramatically in hydrogen production as well as the safety in the distribution  systems,” he told the Outpost in a follow-up email.

Norton also sees opportunity in federal programs such as New Market Tax Credits, which support remediation and redevelopment of brownfields and blighted industrial property, and the Inflation Reduction Act, “which has made the offshore wind project possible” while incentivizing investment in disadvantaged areas, he said. 

Asked why people should vote for him rather than his opponent, Norton cited his generational thinking, Native perspective and “strong business analytical background … looking at financial statements and seeing where things are working well or not working very well, efficiency-wise.”

Norton remains an athlete (his campaign website notes that he enjoys fishing, hunting, biking and exercise), and he’s excited by the trail development going on around the bay. 

“I’d much rather ride a bike and jog or do something on horseback than ride a little train, you know?” he said. But he had an idea to improve the trails: “Maybe they’ll put some exercise things out every so often, right? I really like those, where you jog for 400 yards or whatever and you go do some sit-ups, some push-ups, other exercise things.”

He smiles again. “I still like to exercise and retain my health. … I think part of world renewal begins with yourself. You gotta be mentally fit, know who you are [and] what do you want to do, and be physically fit as well.”

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We may be in the midst of the most polarized election season in modern American history, but you won’t find any acrimony in this race. In fact, Franklin said he seems agrees with his opponent on most major issues facing the district and would probably even vote for Norton if he wasn’t running for the position himself.

“I think the Fifth District has no bad options this time,” Franklin said in our recent interview. “I think you have two very reasonable, sensible people. …  I think I am a little more positioned than him to have influence because of the different connections I have.”

Those connections, including contacts in government, labor unions and the private sector, have largely been forged via Franklin’s position as director of the North Coast SBDC, though he also cites his experience as an entrepreneur and college professor.

Like Norton, Franklin was born in Eureka and attended Eureka public schools before transferring to Jacoby Creek Elementary, then Arcata High School. He briefly attended U.C. Santa Cruz before returning to Humboldt County.

“I was a pretty classic Humboldt State student who took seven years to graduate,” he said.

He majored in botany with an eye toward environmental engineering and teaching. (“I really love teaching,” he said.) He went on to earn his master’s degree in mycology — specifically, ectomycorrhizal fungi and the symbiotic relationships of living organisms in conifer forests.

After working for a couple of years in San Luis Obispo’s wine industry, Franklin and his then-girlfriend/now-wife moved to Pennsylvania, where she was from, so she could pursue her master’s in education. Franklin got a job teaching botany and plant science at Bryn Mawr College, and the couple had two children.

“It took us a good 11 years to get back to Humboldt,” Franklin said, noting that they wanted to raise their kids here. (Their eldest is now enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College and their son is a high school sophomore.)

His wife quickly landed a job teaching at St. Bernard’s, but Franklin had trouble finding a college teaching gig. Instead, he decided to take another approach.

“I basically built a business so I could do something,” he said. That “something” was wine-making, employing his experience in San Luis Obispo and his knowledge of horticulture and plant biology. Franklin found a landowner near Willow Creek who had “the oldest vines in Humboldt County,” he said.

The company he formed, Trinity River Vineyards, was based entirely in Humboldt County, using dry-farmed vineyards in the Willow Creek American Viticultural Area, the county’s only AVA.

“I was able to navigate how to become an entrepreneur, how to build a brand. I was the workhorse, the brains, the winemaker and the viticulturist behind Trinity River,” Franklin said, though he was not an owner.  He decided he’d rather earn a salary than have the albatross of debt hanging over him. He helped grow the business for about a decade. Trinity River Vineyard was sold in 2022 to a partner in Mendocino.

In his current role at the SBDC, Franklin said, “I’m now combining my love to teach with this entrepreneurial stuff in small business. And now I basically teach and advise small businesses. I will bring that kind of local knowledge and local respect and understanding for conservation and economics Humboldt Bay.”

Franklin said his stances on many issues facing Humboldt Bay are complex, not easily relayed as soundbites. 

“I’m pro union in general, except … the reality of Humboldt County is that’s not how the economics of our workforce work here,” he said. “You would actually have unintended consequences if you push [for union jobs exclusively] when the labor force is not here.”

He was referring in large part to the jobs that will come with the Nordic Aquafarms project and offshore wind energy development. A labor agreement for the latter proved controversial, but Franklin said he’d work to balance business interests with his stance as an environmental conservationist. (He’s on the board of the nonprofit Friends of the Dunes.)

“I’ve seen the forests get raped and filled the rivers with silt, right? It makes me cry,” he said. “You know, this is who I am, at heart. I ran a business here and understand that those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. … We can protect Humboldt Bay — which is an absolute gem and a common-wealth resource — and have some smart development.

Like Norton, Franklin addressed the “brain drain” that’s been fed by departing young people as well as a trend of disinvestment in rural America.

“Our population has peaked; our jobs peaked before that,” he said. “It’s bigger than just in Humboldt, and if we’re not careful, it’s a positive feedback loop — you get smaller and smaller. And that’s fine, but I have kids here, and I want them to maybe come back. … How do you change the trajectory of that disinvestment cycle and give Humboldt County a new identity, a new brand around renewable resources, around maybe offshore wind and aquaculture around our bay?”

That bay, he said, is our “unfair advantage” in competing for outside investment. 

“We can’t be Silicon Valley. We can’t be Sacramento or Redding. But we have something that they don’t have,” he said. “So I feel compelled to try to change that trajectory of disinvestment. … If we can do it right, I’m for new businesses coming here [with] sustainable, living-wage jobs.”

Again, this echoes what Norton said. The key is doing it “right.” But what does that mean?

Franklin said that, in principle, he’s not in favor of giant, global corporations coming in and extracting wealth from our region, and he’s hesitant to go against the stated position of local “tribal and indigenous knowledge.” (In addition to the Yurok Tribe, the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation have also come out in opposition to offshore wind on the North Coast.)

“I mean, we’re living through the biggest example of colonial capitalism, not listening [to indigenous people] when we built dams on the Klamath,” he said. “At the same time, we have broken our environment, and it’s very urgent that we get off of fossil fuels.”

With sea-level rise, Tuluwat Island, considered by the Wiyot to be the center of the universe, will be underwater if climate change is not addressed quickly and meaningfully, he said.

“It’s gonna take immediate, massive effort to change what we’re doing to the plane,” he said. “I think that urgency actually trumps everything else at the moment. … We have to find a way forward.”

Supporting small, local businesses may be the ideal, but that’s not the economic model of the energy sector, he noted. Still, he thinks local businesses stand to benefit from the industry through robust community benefit agreements and the development of ancillary activities in the supply chain.

“If we can get the project labor agreements that also take into account our local workforce that’s non-union, we can do this and have it be a win-win, and not a detriment to the bay,” Franklin said. “It sucks that there might be weird turbines that are in our viewshed. At the same time, it could be something that we’re proud of.”

Earlier this year, Franklin traveled with a local cohort of government, nonprofit and private sector leaders to New Bedford, Mass., where they toured Vineyard Wind 1, the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States. New Bedford, an old fishing town, has been “completely rehabilitated as a [wind energy] staging ground” with education/safety training systems and auxiliary services, he said. 

Franklin believes the same is possible here in Humboldt County, though he said he’d like to see “a lot more studies” about the industry’s potential impacts to the local salmon fishery and other environmental resources.

Through his role at the SBDC, Franklin is also involved in the region’s WindLINK Initiative, a collaborative effort between Humboldt County’s Economic Development Division, the Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce, Northern California SBDC and Norcal Apex Accelerator. [ADDENDUM: The effort also includes the Redwood Coast Chamber Foundation (an affiliate of the Greater Eureka Chamber) and the Redwood Region Economic Development Commission (RREDC).]

“The four of us are are in the process of developing a consortium that is focused around maximizing … the opportunity for our local workforce,” Franklin said.

He’s also currently enrolled in the third and final semester of a graduate-level certificate program on offshore wind development and economics through the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with tuition covered via a stipend from the county.

“There’s one class on the engineering of turbines, and, you know, the physical aspects of engineering turbine development and energy production. There’s another semester on permitting and licensing, all the EPA and [California Environmental Quality Act] steps, and another one on community engagement and community benefits,” he said. “So it’s the whole cycle of everything we know about offshore wind development.”

With that education under his belt, Franklin believes he can turn around and teach local business owners how to make the most of the coming opportunities.

“We’re really well positioned to teach a lot of this here … to take what I [learned] from the year-long course and put it into hour-long sessions, all-day sessions, you know, seminars — to really start working with key businesses to ramp up their capacity to really be part of this.”

Franklin argued that the knowledge he’s gained about the offshore wind industry combined with his scientific knowledge, business connections and entrepreneurial efforts make him the best candidate for this available seat on the Harbor District’s board of commissioners.

“I honestly think my background in science, understanding the ecology of the bay, understanding the business of the bay  … overlaps really well the Humboldt Bay Harbor Commission, to influence the decision-making there to maximize benefits for our local businesses,” he said. “We have to do something right and take responsibility for the asset we have, which is the bay and this wind.”

Community benefit agreements could ensure that Humboldt County gets to keep a portion of the energy being generated, and cheap, abundant energy could, in turn, allow the county to attract new businesses such as data centers, battery centers and more, Franklin argued. However, it might require the local community to think a bit differently than it has historically.

“We’re pretty anti growth up here, and for good reason,” he said, “particularly since we’re one of the last places that’s truly beautiful and safe [with] clean air coming off the Pacific Ocean.” But he thinks economic growth is possible without despoiling those assets.

In an emailed follow-up to our interview, Franklin said he wanted to make sure that he’d articulated the clear difference between himself and Norton.

“[W]hat I was trying to demonstrate is [that] my highly connected network and established relationships will allow me to influence the narratives,” he wrote. “I’m just fortunate to be in a position to have the ear of the movers in both Humboldt economic development and environmental conservation.”

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For more information on each candidate, you can check out their campaign websites. Here’s Norton’s and here’s Franklin’s.