Eureka voters will be asked to decide on Measure F, the pro-parking ballot measure that opponents warn would thwart ongoing plans to build affordable housing downtown. If it passes, what are the consequences. The California Housing Defense Fund, a non-profit that ensures California’s housing laws are follows, recently sent a letter to the City of Eureka warning that should Measure F pass, it could “wreak legal and financial havoc.”

On this week’s show, Dylan Casey and James Lloyd of the California Housing Defense Fund join the show to discuss California housing law and elaborate on their letter to the city.

You’ve heard of Jesse James? Bonnie and Clyde? The Dalton Gang? These were folk heroes of the dust bowl survivors during the Great Depression. The people who came out to the West Coast looking for work did not approve of these gangs, but, in a way, they admired their gutsiness to survive in a situation that was sometimes not survivable.

But have you heard of the Crannell Gang? Not train robbers. Not bank robbers. Not even hoodlums. Just a bunch of loggers’ sons who were a little bit wild. Members of the Crannell Gang participated in school activities at Arcata High School. Ken Gipson was Junior and Senior Class President for one semester each, and Student Body President his senior year. Keith Cole was Senior Class President for one semester. Weston Walch was the recipient of the White Letterman’s Sweater Award for most extra-curricular activities.

The Crannell Gang signed up for choir when the choir instructor, Ruth Carroll, needed more male voices, even though carrying a tune was alien to some of them. They went out for track with Coach Harry Stoddard and played football for Coach Frannie Moore.

Some of them were on the team that beat Eureka High School in football in 1948. In order to stay after school for practice, they missed the school bus going north. Since there was no activities bus, they hitchhiked back up Highway 101 to Crannell, usually in the rain. People in the area knew them, and gave them rides. If they couldn’t hitch a ride they walked the seven miles home.

The Crannell boys treated their girlfriends with respect. They did not sit in a car outside a girl’s house and blow the horn for her to come out. They went up to the porch, knocked on the door, shook hands with the girl’s father and looked him in the eye. They sat on the edge of a chair and made conversation with the parents while they waited for their dates to appear. They were clean, mannerly, hard working, and obeyed their parents, but they were … just a little bit wild.

These children of the Depression knew about hard times. As small children, many of them had gone to bed at night more than once on an empty stomach. Most of them got jobs as soon as they were old enough to work—in the fields weeding and harvesting carrots, or picking strawberries. Ken Gipson got up at 4 a.m. for his newspaper route to deliver papers before 5 a.m. when the men left on the work train for the woods. Then he got ready for school and ran back down the hill to catch the school bus by the Company Store. Summers, while going to high school and college, he worked in the woods.

Like most boys, the Gang wore shrink-to-fit Levi’s turned up at the bottoms to reveal white socks and dark brown or black dress shoes— brogans, wingtips, or loafers. Many rolled a soft pack of cigarettes up in one sleeve of their plain white T- shirts. They worked on old cars and drove them fast. The Crannell Gang was lucky and did not meet with any serious accidents, but more than one boy back then was killed on Highway 101 when he hit a redwood tree. Like most of their peers, the Gang smoked cigarettes and drank beer when they could get it, tossing the empty bottles over the roof of the car into the hedgerows of blackberry briers, as they roared down country lanes and skidded around the sharp right-angle turns that framed farm fields.

One night, they decided to go to San Francisco in Ernie Rohl’s Dodge coupe, a two-door car with one bench seat. They all chipped in what money they had. Ken emptied his pockets and found 41 cents. The others each had a little more. They decided they had enough money for gas and maybe something to eat. Three boys sat in front, and the other two climbed into the trunk, open to the inside of the car and big enough for the mattress Ernie kept back there. They lay down flat, taking turns riding with the boys on the front seat all the way to the San Francisco Bay area, a trip that in 1947 usually took ten hours, but one they made in five and a half hours. They drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. Got out and looked at San Francisco. They each bought a five-cent candy bar, turned the Dodge around, and came back home.

Ken bought a 1934 Buick sedan in mint condition he found sitting in a garage. One day as he drove the Buick around loaded with his friends, he “dug out” and broke the axle. That was the end of the Buick. Then he bought a 1931 Chevrolet and painted it the Arcata High School colors: black and orange. On top of this paint job, he had lettered “PEACHES, HERE’S YOUR CAN,” and “DON’T LAUGH, YOUR DAUGHTER MAY BE RIDING IN HERE.” One day the gang took their wheels to the Crannell baseball diamond that had once been a lumber drying yard, and skidded the cars around, burning rubber and sending up showers of gravel and dust. When they tired of that, they stopped for a smoke. Ken walked over to the Dodge where Ernie sat with the door open. Ken noticed Ernie held a three-inch firecracker down low between his knees. When Ernie touched his cigarette to the fuse. Ken slammed the car door shut. Instead of Ken getting blasted with an exploding firecracker, the firecracker went off on Ernie’s lap.

Vic Dobrec owned a Model T Roadster, a car with three pedals on the floor for shifting gears. One night, Vic and some of the boys drove the Model T up to Redwood Park in Arcata, weaving in and out and around the huge redwood trees. Vic accidentally ran into a tree, bending the yoke that held the wheels. He hooked one end of a chain to the yoke and the other end to a tree and backed up fast. When they reached the end of the chain, the yoke straightened out, and Vic could drive his car again.

The wheels on Henry Ford’s Model T automobiles were made with wooden spokes. On another occasion, Vic had a load of kids in his car and made a sharp turn in front of the home of the Arcata High School music teacher, Ruth Carroll. The pressure collapsed one wheel and scattered wooden spokes all over the street.

Tony Hyatt did not have a car, but his father let him drive his 1941 Buick 4-door sedan.

However, Reggie Davis was driving the Buick the day the car turned over on the way to Blue Lake. Reggie cut a corner too sharp and rolled the Buick upside down out in a field. Nobody was badly hurt, but they all decided to pretend to be dead when people in cars passing by stopped to help. Gas leaked out of the tank. Fumes filled the air. Luckily, no one decided to light a cigarette. To the great relief of the rescuers, the boys all got up, turned the car back on its wheels and continued on their way.

Freshwater Pool held diving competitions in those days. Admission was charged to see the show. Ernie would stuff as many boys as he could into the back of the Dodge on top of the mattress. Then he and one boy in the passenger seat would pay to get into the pool grounds. The rest got in free.

Ernie Rohl married Madge McKenzie. Weston Walch came home from the College of the Pacific to marry JoAnn McNabb. Keith Cole married Betty Nelson. These boys went to work in the woods, and moved their brides to houses in Crannell. Some of them went on to other things. Wes went to work in Chile and Indonesia for the Simpson Timber Company. Keith Cole narrowly escaped death in the woods one day when a log slipped out of its choker as it was being hauled up hill. The log barreled back down toward Keith who either was far enough out of its path to escape being hit, or maybe was able to throw himself into a slight depression so the log passed over him. He quit working in the woods that day and instead went to work driving a bread truck.

Ken Gipson went steady with Pat Bray through high school, but ended up marrying me when he graduated from Humboldt State College.

Tony Hyatt, son of Hammond Lumber Company woods manager Waldron Hyatt, whose mother, Audrey Hyatt, had been a schoolteacher, was maybe a little bit wilder than the rest, and he became sort of a leader in the Crannell Gang. Perhaps he needed to prove to himself that he was no different than the others, even though his father was the boss over their fathers. All the girls at Arcata High School seemed to like Tony Hyatt, but he went away to college and married a girl named Pat.

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The story above is from the Spring 2011 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.

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NOTE, Sept. 16: This post has been updated to clarify the FPPC process.

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Former Humboldt County Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez, whose turbulent tenure in elected office was characterized by interpersonal turmoil and overdue fiscal reporting, is now facing $61,500 in proposed penalties from the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) for failure to file campaign finance disclosure forms on time.

The proposed fines stem from violations of the Political Reform Act during both her successful run for office in 2018 and her unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2022, according to an agenda for next week’s FPPC meeting.

Specifically, the violations by Paz Dominguez and/or her campaign committee include:

• failure to timely file seven semi-annual campaign statements and two 24-Hour Reports during the 2018 campaign
• failure to timely file one pre-election campaign statement and three semiannual campaign statements in 2022
• failure to timely file the required Assuming Office form
• failure to timely file Annual forms in 2019 and 2021, and
• failure to timely file a Leaving Office Statement of Economic Interest Form

The Political Reform Act requires local candidate and their committees to file a Form 497 within 24 hours of receiving contributions of $1,000 or more within the 90 days before an election.

Reached by phone, FPPC Communications Director Jay Wierenga told the Outpost that he could not discuss specifics about this or any other case before the commission, but he pointed out that the proposed fines against Paz Dominguez fall under the “pre-notice” portion of the agenda, which means the commission won’t take any action at its meeting next Thursday.

“Most of our cases are settled” before the fines are assessed, Wierenga said. 

Typically, he explained, a a case is initiated when complaint comes in. This triggers an investigation, and if the investigation finds violations of the Political Reform Act then the FPPC will attempt to settle the matter, often by proposing a penalty and negotiating an agreement.

When that process fails to resolve the matter — say, if the person does not respond at all or quits responding and walks away — then the case may progress toward default. When things reach that stage, the FPPC will typically propose the maximum penalty for each violation of government code. Part of the rationale for this, Wierenga explained, is to get people’s attention and motivate them to come to the table and negotiate.

“Generally they work out a settlement that’s less than the maximum,” he said.

When alleged violators don’t work out a deal, the FPPC holds a hearing and decides on an a penalty amount to assess. 

“If people want to fight [that decision], they can,” Wierenga said. “It then goes before administrative law judge, who makes a recommendation to commissioners. If the person still doesn’t like the outcome, they can take [the matter] to superior court.”

At any point in this process, people can choose to negotiate with the commission and reach a settlement. Wierenga said that doing so at the outset is quicker. It amount to a public admission of the violation(s) and the issuing of a check for the agreed-upon penalty amount. That money then goes into the state’s general fund.

In the rare cases when the alleged violator never comes forward and the assessed penalties go into default, the FPPC can place a lien on the person’s earnings and garnish money from tax refunds or lottery winnings.

If Paz Dominguez doesn’t reach a settlement with the FPPC before next month’s meeting agenda is published, her proposed fines will listed as a default proceeding.

Reached via text, Paz Dominguez declined to comment on the record.

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Thanks to an open firehose of financing from the Rob Arkley-founded real estate servicing firm Security National, Measure F has become the most expensive ballot initiative ever put to voters in the City of Eureka.

According to the latest financial disclosure forms submitted to the city clerk, Security National has now spent $1,155,944.72 to promote the so-called “Housing for All” initiative. Residents’ mailboxes have been fed a steady diet of glossy 8 1/2-by-11 campaign mailers, and ads have been distributed across social media, billboards and yard signs.

The “No on F” campaign, meanwhile, had raised a relatively modest sum of $9,004.38, with the majority of that coming via donations of $100 or less.

Dubbed the “Housing for All” initiative by its backers, Measure F seeks to halt half a dozen planned or in-progress affordable housing developments on four city-owned parking lots downtown. Two development projects proposed by the Wiyot Tribe Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust — slated to be built on the city-owned lots at 5th & D and 6th & L — are exempted from the measure.

If passed by voters on November 5, it would amend the city’s General Plan to create development restrictions on 21 public parking lots owned by the City of Eureka. These restrictions would require any future residential development on the lots to preserve all existing parking spots and add more for new residents.

Measure F would also change the zoning at the former Jacobs Middle School campus, 14.1 vacant acres at 674 Allard Avenue, on south end of city limits. The idea, frequently espoused in campaign literature, was to put high-density housing on that parcel, rather than downtown. If passed, Measure F would authorize a wide variety of new uses on the Jacobs property, including high-density residential for at least 40 percent of the ground area, plus various public, quasi-public and commercial uses.

Supporters say the measure would preserve the vitality of Eureka’s downtown by saving municipal parking spots while encouraging housing development in a more appropriate part of the city.

Critics and nonpartisan outsiders, such as the California Housing Defense Fund, say Measure F could have dire unintended consequences for the city, forcing developers to forfeit millions of dollars in grant funds and potentially rendering Eureka’s Housing Element non-compliant with state law, which would open the door to the “builder’s remedy,” whereby the city would be forced to approve any and all proposed housing projects that include at least 20 percent affordable units.

Measure F does not include any proposals to actually build any housing, though its backers predict that developers will “eagerly line up” to build at the Jacobs site once the measure passes.

However, the Jacobs property owner, Eureka City Schools, put a wrinkle in those plans last month when its Board of Trustees voted not to extend an already eight-month-old purchase agreement with AMG Communities - Jacobs, LLC, a shadowy corporation formed explicitly for this transaction. It offered nearly $6 million for the blighted property last December and requested a series of escrow extensions. The latest request — the one the Eureka City Schools board denied — would have postponed the close of the deal until after Election Day.

Now that this deal has fallen through, Eureka City Schools has resumed negotiations with the previous high bidder, the California Highway Patrol, which has offered $4 million in hopes of building a new regional headquarters on the site.

The identity of investors in AMG Communities - Jacobs, LLC, have never been revealed, though the company shares an attorney, spokesperson and other hired hands with Security National. 

As a state agency, the CHP would not be bound by municipal zoning restrictions, even those included in Measure F, should it pass. While the CHP has no intention of building housing on the Jacobs campus, Measure F’s backers insist that the collapse of the AMG deal will have no impact on the initiative or on future housing development plans.

Security National’s spending on this campaign dwarfs that of any previous ballot measure in city history. In 1999, Walmart and its local allies spent $271,528.38 on Measure J, which asked voters to approve a zoning change for the “balloon track” property, a 43-acre former rail yard located south of Old Town that was then owned by Union Pacific Railroad. 

That measure failed, but just over a decade later, in 2010, Arkley, who had purchased the “balloon track” property in the intervening years, brought forward another ballot measure, Measure N. The measure again asked voters to rezone the property, this time to make way for Marina Center, a proposed mixed-use development that was slated to include a Home Depot plus office, residential and retail space.

That measure passed, though Arkley has never gotten clearance from the California Coastal Commission to build anything on the “balloon track” property, which remains vacant and undeveloped. Eureka Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Pam Powell told the Outpost via email that total spending on Measure N was “significantly less” than even Measure J.

To read more on Measure F, including the official arguments for and against as well as the Eureka city attorney’s impartial analysis, click here.

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PREVIOUSLY

Humboldt County Administrative Office release:

Early this summer, the Humboldt County Department of Aviation began conducting a long-overdue major rehabilitation project of the paid parking lots at the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport (ACV) in McKinleyville.

Parking will continue to be impacted during construction, which is expected to last through mid-November.

Once this project is completed, parking at ACV will provide modern, quick and user-friendly services for passengers. Improvements will include new parking lot surfaces, an increased number of ADA-accessible spaces, electric vehicle (EV) charging availability, quicker parking lot entry and exit and 40% more parking spaces than were previously available.

Construction of the first two phases of this project is nearly complete and work on Phase III is anticipated to start in mid-October. Completion of Phase III is expected by mid-November.

At this time, the majority of the main paid parking area at ACV remains closed to the public. However, limited paid parking is available in overflow parking lots. It is expected that most of the main paid parking lot will be open for public use beginning Monday, Oct. 14. Overflow parking lots will also be available as needed while Phase III is completed.

Tips for Passengers

While work for this project continues, the Department of Aviation encourages passengers to arrange for a ride to be dropped off and picked up for their flights to and from ACV. This will help reduce traffic at the airport and demand on the limited temporary paid parking lots during construction.  Ride services available include:

Lane closures in the vicinity of the ACV Terminal and associated construction traffic may cause congestion at times. Passengers should allow for extra time to get to and from the ACV Terminal. It is recommended to arrive one and half hours prior to departure for domestic flights and two hours before departure for international flight itineraries.

The Department of Aviation appreciates everyone driving safely and slowly at ACV while these improvements are made.

For more information on the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport, please visit FlyACV.com.

PREVIOUSLY:

• River Access in Valley West?! With Help From Recent $690K Grant, City of Arcata One Step Closer to Transforming Carlson Park into a Riverfront Destination
• BIG MONTH FOR ARCATA PARKS AND TRAILS: Construction to Begin on Final Leg of Ridge Trail; Shay Park Getting ‘Ninja Warrior’ Fitness Equipment; Large Grant Awarded for Carlson Park Improvements

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Boating! Pickleball! Skating? It’s all coming to one place today, when Arcata’s Carlson Park opens. 

Located off of Valley West, the 19-acre Carlson Park was deeded to Arcata by CalTrans in 2017. Progress was briefly halted by the COVID pandemic, as well as the difficulties in securing $2.4 million in grants to build it. Formerly a gravel quarry, it now boasts new pickleball courts, riverside trails, and a playground. Later additions will include skating features and electric vehicle charging stations. 

Most tantalizing is the access to the Mad River — the only public access within city limits. Non-motorized boating infrastructure was built, as well as a trail system that links to the river. 

“Really, we saw the opportunities for this to be the only parcel in our city limits to touch the Mad River, to provide public access to the Mad River,” Emily Sinkhorn, the Environmental Services Director for Arcata, told the Outpost yesterday. “We also saw it as an opportunity for further expanding recreation amenities within the Valley West neighborhood…We saw the unique potential for Carlson Park, of being right in the neighborhood, with a unique riparian habitat next to the Mad River.”

The ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held today at 5:30 p.m.

John Vaesau was counting on the $200 he was entitled to by law upon leaving Folsom State Prison in June 2023, after 33 years. He was surprised when he received none of it.

“They just threw me out like a piece of garbage,” Vaesau said. “Like after all that time, it was nothing to them.”

Now, Vaesau and another formerly incarcerated person are suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, alleging the state agency has illegally docked fees from the so-called “gate money” that former prisoners receive to help them cover basic necessities in their initial days of freedom.

The class action lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court estimates the corrections department has shortchanged over a million people since 1994. According to its regulations, the agency deducts money from release allowances if someone does not have dress-out clothes or arrangements for transportation.

Some, such as Vaesau, didn’t receive any money and they weren’t told why.

“I want to fight against this kind of system,” Vaesau, 49, said. “I’m hoping everybody can get what they got coming and for future people to not go through the same ordeal that I’ve gone through.”

Every year, more than 30,000 people are released from California state prisons. In recent years, the corrections department has spent about $5 million a year in gate money allowances, according to records obtained by CalMatters.

The department declined to answer questions about the funding for this story.

The lawsuit centers on a policy former Gov. Ronald Reagan signed into law 51 years ago. It states that, with some exceptions, “each prisoner upon his release shall be paid the sum of $200.”

Despite inflation, that amount has never been adjusted. In 2022, former Sen. Sydney Kamlager-Dove carried a bill to raise the gate money amount to $1,300, adjusted annually by inflation. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure, citing its potential cost. Legislative analyses from the time estimated it would cost at least $35 million to increase the allowances.

“The gate money statute has remained essentially unchanged for half a century,” Chesa Boudin and Yaman Salahi, attorneys for the plaintiffs, wrote in court filings. “Yet rather than provide each eligible person with the $200 to which they are entitled, CDCR routinely withholds some or all of the funds based on eligibility criteria of its own making, criteria that violate the plain language of the law.”

The lawsuit, led by UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center and Edelson PC, seeks retroactive payments for people who were denied their gate money and an end to the department’s withholding of allowances.

The lawsuit describes the release funds as a “critical lifeline” and “small but vital aid.” According to a 2008 report by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, the first 72 hours after someone is released from prison are paramount to the success of their long-term reentry.

“Reagan understood that the first days after release are critical to public safety so that people aren’t sleeping on the street and potentially exposing themselves to victimization, that people aren’t put in a desperate situation that might lead some to commit a crime in order to eat or to get clothes or to have a safe place to sleep,” Boudin, the former San Francisco district attorney, said in an interview with CalMatters. “When people don’t have those things, public safety suffers.”

It’s not the first time that the agency’s gate money regulations have come under fire. In 2008, the 4th District Court of Appeal held that the agency had unlawfully withheld gate money to a formerly incarcerated person under its regulations.

According to the court ruling, the regulations were “not authorized by or consistent with the terms” of the law.

But according to the new lawsuit, the 2008 ruling had little effect on others.

California lawmakers this year acknowledged that the corrections department has been making deductions from gate money allowances and approved a spending bill that would provide an additional $1.8 million for clothing and transportation.

The measure is sitting in Newsom’s desk as a part of a larger government funding bill.

Sen. Josh Becker, the Democrat from Menlo Park, who submitted their request, said he was upset when he heard about the deductions.

“This is about righting a wrong – making it clear that deductions are not to be taken out,” Becker said in an interview with CalMatters. “We feel good that with this additional money, people will get what they’re supposed to get.”

A group of advocates for formerly incarcerated people brought the funding request to Becker’s attention earlier this year. They wrote in a March 8 letter to lawmakers, “This practice has created economic harm and disadvantages among newly released individuals, leaving returning citizens significantly more vulnerable and highly susceptible to homelessness and recidivism due to unmet needs.”

The advocacy groups Root & Rebound, Initiate Justice, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, All of Us or None and the Michelson Center for Public Policy surveyed over 70 incarcerated people returning home. They found that the corrections department deducted gate money from approximately one in three of them.

“The people who got gate money deducted were still struggling years later,” said Claudia Gonzalez, policy associate at Root & Rebound, a legal services organization in Oakland. “We have a history in California of being extremely punitive towards impoverished communities, especially indigent folks. Yet, we expect them to be successful, when in reality we’re setting them up for failure.”

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Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.