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Among Eureka’s five political subdivisions, Ward Three is the only one untouched by Hwy. 101, which gives the district a self-contained, neighborly vibe. Many of the tourists who come through Eureka may never set foot in Ward Three. Conversely, its residents may go days without leaving — that is, until they need to refill the fridge. The Third has corner markets but zero grocery stores.

While Eureka’s main thoroughfares are littered with fast food and chain stores, Ward Three’s commercial district, Henderson Center, consists almost entirely of locally owned businesses nestled seamlessly into the surrounding residential streets.

Eureka High School anchors the north end, which is also home to Carson Park and several handsome churches. Homes in the Third Ward are mostly modest, single-family mid-century structures mixed in with grand old Victorians in various states of repair, many of which have been subdivided into apartments. The southern end of the ward is a different story, though. There you’ll find the Eureka Municipal Golf Course and the still semi-luxe Lundbar Hills, a ’60s-era planned development tucked into the McKay Community Forest.

Two distinctly different people are vying to represent the Third Ward for the next four years. Incumbent G. Mario Fernandez had a childhood marked by frequent moves and housing insecurity, including a couple of brief periods of homelessness. He’s now a labor organizer, an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America, chair of the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee and a self-described anarchist, though his definition of the term may differ from yours. (More on that below.) 

If the opposite of anarchy is law and order, then challenger Janelle Jackson would be Fernandez’s ideological antithesis, at least in one respect: She has spent the last quarter century working in law enforcement, including the past 20 years with the Cal Poly Humboldt (formerly HSU) Police Department, where she’s now a lieutenant. Born and raised in Eureka (as were her mom and grandparents before her), Jackson describes herself as a political moderate who feels the current Eureka City Council has not listened or communicated enough with the public.

And yet, for all of their differences, the two candidates are running on broadly similar platforms —  judging by their campaign websites, anyway — with each highlighting their commitment to community service, public safety, fiscal responsibility and infrastructure maintenance. It’s in their priorities and specifics that the two vary somewhat. In a pair of sit-down interviews conducted nearly a month apart, the Outpost pressed the candidates for specifics and explored a few of the issues that distinguish the two candidates from each other.

Fernandez: ‘Doing Very Well With What We Have’

Fernandez, who goes by “Mario,” no “G,” in casual conversation, said he still enjoys serving on the council. 

“It’s got its good and its bad,” he said, “but I like this work,” particularly the one-on-one troubleshooting he does with constituents. Talking through problems — even ones the city can’t fix — is the most rewarding part of the job, he said. The most grinding part is the time: marathon meetings on the first and third Tuesdays that can stretch well past three hours, plus hours of reading staff reports on his own time.

Fernandez works full-time as a field representative for the California Faculty Association. On the day we spoke he was preparing for a strike at both Cal Poly Humboldt and San Francisco State, the two universities in the district he represents. (The strike didn’t materialize.)

Fernandez said that while Ward Three may be more affluent than other parts of Eureka, he doesn’t see it as having a wholly separate identity. 

“When folks have asked, ‘What are the issues for Ward Three?’ I’m like, they’re the same as the city,” he said, noting that while the ward doesn’t see as many visible impacts as Old Town, residents still feel and react to the citywide crisis of homelessness.

In his official ballot statement, Fernandez notes that, during his time on the council, the city has secured more $30 million in grants, broken ground on 150 housing units with community partners and adopted its Regional Climate Action Plan.

Fernandez strongly defends Eureka’s strategy of building on what staff identified as underutilized parking lots, a major plank in the city’s effort to meet state-mandated housing targets. Critics have argued the parking studies were skewed by COVID-era conditions and that removing parking will harm businesses. Fernandez counters that the studies continued for an additional year and that “people being unhoused … is more inconvenient” than having to walk a couple extra blocks. For those with mobility issues, he said, the more appropriate response is to reevaluate ADA accessibility in Old Town rather than abandon infill housing altogether.

Fernandez links much of his economic vision to public works projects and the creation of union jobs. He points to the planned relocation of the city’s operations complex — currently in the tsunami zone near Costco — as a crucial safety investment. At the same time, he’s more cautious about big-ticket upgrades like the proposed City Hall renovation, arguing the city should weigh modernization against budget deficits and decades of deferred maintenance.

“Could we delay this another year and see where we’re at?” he asked, though he acknowledged that delaying will likely mean higher costs later.

On streets and transportation, Fernandez said he hears the same complaints as everyone else: potholes and rough roadways and the befuddling (to some) bicycle-related redesigns. 

Voters have seen more paving since the 2020 passage of Measure H (a 1.25% sales tax), he said, but rising construction costs threaten to erode those gains. He also defended Eureka’s “complete and green streets” features — bulb-outs, islands and bicycle boulevards — as tools that force drivers to slow down and pay attention. Still, he faulted the city for not doing enough community outreach ahead of the C Street reconfiguration, in particular, saying the city should go beyond the bare legal minimum of notifying residents within a 300-foot radius.

The Outpost asked Fernandez about his recent decision to vote against a garbage rate increase sought by Recology, despite a warning from the city attorney that such a move could expose the city to financial and legal risk. 

He described his “no” vote as essentially a protest vote, taken after concluding the increase would pass regardless. Citing nearly 20 percent in rate hikes over the past four years, he said he is skeptical of passing more costs onto households — especially larger families — while the private hauler’s finances remain opaque. He framed the vote as a signal that he wants to renegotiate the city’s long-standing franchise agreement when it comes up in 2029, or sooner if both parties are willing.

On homelessness, we asked Fernandez whether the city was doing, a) everything it can and, b) the right things to address the issue.

“I want to say ‘yes’ to both,” he replied. He said the existence of programs such as Uplift Eureka, the Community Safety Engagement Team (CSET) and the Community Access Project for Eureka (CAPE) are remarkable for a city of this size.

“I mean, we’ve been a model for other cities,” Fernandez said. “I think we’re doing everything that we can within our means. If we had more means, we could do more. But I think we’re doing very well with what we have.”

As for the “anarchist” label, a small but vocal group of critics have suggested that his identification with that philosophy implies that he’s out to dismantle the government from within. 

“How good of a job have I done in four years if we’re still functioning as a city?” Fernandez asked with a chuckle.

He doesn’t shy away from the label but defines it in terms of personal autonomy and agency, rather than chaos. “I’m the expert in my life of understanding what I need and its fulfillment,” he said, adding that this political outlook does not mean disregarding others’ rights or obligations. 

He noted that he’s also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and chair of the local Democratic Party, a combination he says, half-jokingly, might imply that he’s trending toward the political center.

He said his political views are rooted in a childhood marked by housing insecurity, including stints in shelters and motels and eventual stability through a Section 8 voucher. His mom was barely 18 when he was born, and they spent time living with his grandmother in the Bay Area before moving with his new stepfather down to Southern California. 

“We were homeless there for the first few days, living out of a car until my stepdad was able to get a job at a dry cleaner’s,” he said.

His family continued moving around the state during his childhood. They were homeless again for about two weeks while waiting for a housing voucher back in the Bay Area. Fernandez later moved to Lake County before attending Napa Community College and then San Francisco State University, graduating in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in his own custom major: psychology of the political process.

Fernandez said his professional path, which has run through home health care, labor organizing and union staff work, informs his focus on housing, workers’ rights and the mechanics of public spending. He’s now asking voters for another term to keep doing that work.

For more info on Fernandez and his campaign, check out his campaign website and Facebook page and visit LoCO Elections, where he has answered two of seven questions put to him thus far.

Jackson: ‘People Shouldn’t Feel Like That Here’

While sipping a matcha latte in Old Town, Jackson described her family’s multi-generational lineage here in Eureka. It stretches back to her great-grandfather, Sicilian-born immigrant Giuseppe “Joseph” Perrone, a Prohibition-era bootlegger whose spirit, some say, haunts the historic Eagle House to this day.

Jackson still lives in the house her maternal grandparents bought two generations back, a Henderson Center home where both she and her mom were raised. She feels that both the neighborhood and the larger city have gone downhill.

“It’s actually one of the things that sort of drove me to run: being so disappointed with the transient population and how it’s grown,” she said. “My grandmother could not live in her house today with all of the things that I’ve experienced in that house with transients and things being stolen.”

Jackson said she has experienced repeated problems with people camping near her home, including garbage, discarded needles, people looking through her fence and an incident in which someone threatened to kill her. She said those experiences have made her concerned not only for herself but for her elderly mother and for visitors to Eureka.

“I love Eureka. I love Old Town,” Jackson said. “People shouldn’t feel like that here at all.”

She decided to enter the race less than six months ago after becoming increasingly frustrated with what she sees as the city’s mishandling of homelessness, public safety, development and communication with residents.

Jackson argued that the city needs to take a more active approach to enforcing laws against camping in public places, trespassing, loitering and other conduct when appropriate. She criticized the City Council’s 3-2 decision last year to scrap an ordinance that would have increased penalties for some people living in unauthorized homeless encampments, and upgraded certain crimes from infractions to misdemeanors. (Fernandez was in the majority.)

“There’s only concern for the homeless … but at the expense of everyone else,” Jackson said.

She argued that police should have enforcement available as a tool when someone refuses repeated requests to leave private property or is engaging in illegal behavior. Jackson said her 25 years as a police officer have taught her that personal relationships with unhoused people can help when it comes to enforcement.

She also argued that Eureka needs more mental-health, drug and alcohol treatment services, noting that mental-health crises are increasingly being handled in hospital emergency rooms, which she described as an inadequate setting for people who need longer-term treatment.

As for tackling homelessness, Jackson said, “Housing First is great, but you also have to have long-term planning that goes along with that if you really want people to be successful.” Specifically, she said, said housing programs should be accompanied by ongoing support, including life skills, job training and other services. Simply providing someone with a home, she said, does not necessarily give them the tools to maintain it.

On city government, Jackson repeatedly returned to the themes of transparency and public participation. She said residents often become angry with government decisions because they do not understand why those decisions were made.

She pointed to the C Street Bike Boulevard and the planned sequel on G Street as examples. Jackson said she encountered sharply divided opinions while going door-to-door for her campaign, but found that a common complaint was that neighbors did not feel adequately informed or consulted.

Jackson suggested that the city could make greater use of volunteers and direct outreach to explain proposed projects and solicit feedback before making decisions.

“If you’re going to make a decision about their lives and how it affects them and their neighborhood, they should have a voice,” she said.

Jackson similarly questioned the city’s strategy of converting downtown parking lots into housing. She said some of the lots — particularly the one behind Lost Coast Brewery, where the EaRTH Center is being developed — are heavily used and questioned whether putting lower-income housing in an area that lacks an affordable grocery store and other basic services would necessarily produce the economic benefits city officials have cited.

“I know that they think having housing down here is going to help the businesses,” she said, but most of the stores in Old Town are more boutique and upscale. “If you have a demographic down here that doesn’t have the money to help the businesses that are down here, I mean, to me that doesn’t make any sense.”

She said Eureka should look at other properties, including vacant or underused sites elsewhere in the city, while also considering opportunities for tourism and economic development. Jackson said she would like to see more activity along Eureka’s waterfront and suggested Old Town could accommodate more boutique hotels.

She also opposes paid parking in Eureka, saying parking fees and smartphone-based payment systems discourage people from coming downtown. 

“if you’re asking people to come and spend money here, you should be making that easier for them to do, not making it harder,” she said.

She also suggested a dedicated food-truck space in Old Town: “People love our food trucks, and if it was a permanent space, I think a ton of people would go.”

Jackson said she doesn’t understand how the city wound up with a $3.7 million budget deficit. In fact, she went a step further: “I don’t understand the budget for the city,” she said. “I have no idea how it works, where money goes, and how the deficit occurred and how to fix that. So that’s something that I would have to learn as I go.”

She’s confident she can do that. A self-described workaholic, Jackson is completing a master’s program in clinical mental-health counseling. She said she eventually hopes to work alongside police as a mental-health professional.

Jackson said her law enforcement background would inform her approach to public safety, including her support for giving the Eureka Police Department greater ability to enforce existing laws. 

Asked to describe her politics, Jackson said her experience in law enforcement has reinforced the importance of neutrality and protecting people’s rights regardless of their political views. “My friends on the right would tell you that I am moderate-left, and my friends on the left would tell you that I’m moderate-right,” she said. (A call to the Humboldt County Elections Office revealed that Jackson was registered “no party preference” until 2016, when she changed it to Republican.)

In the LoCO Elections forum, a reader asked Jackson about her involvement in breaking up the 2024 Cal Poly Humboldt campus occupation by pro-Palestine demonstrators, alleging that she had arrested KRCR TV news reporter Adelmi Ruiz. (The anonymous reader appears to have mixed up the facts somewhat: Ruiz was detained, not arrested, and it was not by Jackson but rather officers with California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, according to KRCR’s own reporting.)

Jackson’s reply to the question was curt: “Please submit a question that is relevant to my candidacy for the Eureka City Council, Ward 3 or the City of Eureka,” she wrote. “Thank you so much.”

Jackson was a key figure in law enforcement’s initial response to the student demonstration on April 22, 2024, as documented in a minute-by-minute recounting of the day’s events by former North Coast Journal News Editor Thadeus Greenson. She developed an operation plan for the forced removal of protesters from Siemens Hall and at several points advocated for an aggressive response, including a request for more batons from the armory.

Eureka Police Chief Brian Stephens at one point disagreed with her tactics. When he arrived on scene shortly before 8 p.m., Stephens connected with Jackson and asked what the goal was.

“She said something to the effect of, ‘We need to clear all these people off the quad,’” Stephens told the NCJ. “I was like, ‘You can’t and that’s not going to work. They’re lawfully assembled.’”

Asked about this exchange, Jackson said that while some people were lawfully assembled, other protesters had resorted to violence, including spitting, pushing and throwing water bottles and unopened cans of food at officers. 

“Those people should have been arrested,” she said.

Asked if she thought law enforcement should have done anything differently that day, Jackson said officers should never have allowed student protesters to occupy and barricade Siemens Hall.

“We didn’t know at the time that students that had key cards were actually part of it,” she said. “It was very well thought-out and planned.”

Jackson defended law enforcement’s response, generally, and said that while she respects peaceful demonstrations and believes people should be able to protest, that right does not extend to destroying property or physically interfering with officers.

“I think there are a lot of misconceptions about, like, the level of violence that the crowd had towards the officers,” she said.

For now, she said she sees a potential City Council role as an extension of her approach to public service: listening to residents, explaining government decisions and relying on experts when confronting issues outside her own experience.

“I’m very big on staying in my lane when it comes to being an expert on something,” she said. “If I want to know more about something, I’m going to reach out to the people who are experts in that field and have them educate me.”

To learn more about Jackson, visit her campaign website and Facebook page, and check LoCO Elections, where she has answered four of the nine questions put to her thus far.