Todd Fulton. | Image via Facebook.

SoHum is about to get a new representative on the Humboldt County Planning Commission, and he’s the kind of man who’d look right at home sauntering through a pair of swinging saloon doors.

Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, whose Second District encompasses the county’s rugged southeasterly region — from Fortuna to Bridgeville, Alderpoint to Shelter Cove — is set to appoint the magnificently mustachioed Todd Fulton to the commission at tomorrow’s Board of Supervisors meeting. 

Fulton, a longtime Humboldt County sheriff’s deputy and investigator, will succeed SoHum cannabis farmer Thomas Mulder, who spent the past (nearly) five years as Bushnell’s appointee.

Now working as a security/safety coordinator for Green Diamond Resource Company, Fulton serves on the board of directors for both the Northcoast Regional Land Trust and the Fortuna Rodeo. He’s a member of the Humboldt County Fair Association Junior Livestock Auction Committee and a director for the Humboldt Del Norte Cattlemen’s Association.

According to his bio on the Land Trust website, Fulton and his family operate a small cow-calf operation in Kneeland. He’s a fourth-generation Fortuna man who spent 17 years employed by the Pacific Lumber Company, working in just about every facet of the logging industry.

If you’ll indulge this reporter in a brief personal note, the only time I met Fulton (as far as I recall) was one of the most remarkable and memorable experiences of my life. It was a few winters ago. My wife and I had just finished a beautiful snowy walk along Kneeland Road when we spotted Fulton out in a field among a herd of cattle, trying with all his might to pull a stillborn calf from a cow’s birth canal. 

He’d cinched a nylon strap around the calf’s legs and was tugging and heaving, to no avail. We hopped the fence and, after a few minutes of collective labor, we managed to dislodge the unfortunate creature. The exhausted mama cow survived, thankfully. Fulton — disappointed, a bit winded yet thoroughly friendly — shook our hands in thanks and chatted with us a bit about his operation before we parted ways.

Anywho, Fulton was nearly appointed to an at-large position on the Planning Commission in March of 2024 but narrowly lost the seat to Caltrans environmental scientist Lorna McFarlane.

Speaking to the Outpost by phone this afternoon, Bushnell expressed her appreciation for Mulder, saying he represented District 2 really well.

“I really appreciate his time and commitment, especially coming from Southern Humboldt, which is quite a trek,” she said.

In his resignation letter, Mulder says he plans to spend more time with his family and watch more of his sons’ sporting events. 

Describing himself as “a voice of reason and understanding” on the commission, Mulder says, “The opportunity and experience will forever be something I remember.”

Fulton, for his part, keeps it taciturn, in true cowboy style, on his application to join the commission, saying only, “I want to be more involved with our county’s growth and development.”