Eureka Police Department press release:

On August 18, 2024, the Eureka Police Department commenced an investigation into a report of sexual battery that occurred at a massage parlor in the 300 block of F Street in Eureka. During the investigation it was learned that the owner of the business, Jianzhao Dong, 58 years old from Eureka, was performing a massage on the victim when he sexually assaulted them.

On August 22, 2024, the Investigating Officer obtained a Ramey warrant for Dong’s arrest. On August 23, 2024 at approximately 1230 hours, Dong was arrested without incident at his business. Dong was transported and booked at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility for violations of PC 289 (a)(1)(a), Penetration with a foreign object and PC 243.4(a) – Sexual Battery.

At the time of his arrest, Dong was served a notice from EPD Chief of Police advising him that his permits to operate the business were going to be revoked, as well as all Certificates of Registrations held by Dong or any of his employees. The Certificates of Registrations must be surrendered to the Police Chief within five days of this notice.

This is an ongoing and active investigation and EPD is asking anyone that may have information about this business or similar illegal activities at local massage parlors to contact them at 707-441-4300.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Aug. 22, 2024 at about 1 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were on routine patrol in Loleta when they located a suspicious vehicle parked in the 600 block of Main Street. The deputy subsequently contacted a male subject inside the car.

The subject was identified as Jackson Parrott, age 44 of Scotia, Calif. Parrot had an outstanding felony arrest warrant for violating the terms of Post Release Community Supervision (PC 3455). The deputies took him into custody without incident. Upon searching the suspect, a firearm, ammunition, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia and were located.

Along with an outstanding felony warrant, Parrott was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on the following charges:

• Felon in possession of a firearm (PC 209800(a)(1))
• Felon in possession of ammunition (PC 30305(a)(1))
• Carrying a loaded firearm (PC 25850(c)(6))
• Possession of methamphetamine (H&S 11377(a))
• Violation of probation (PC 1203.2)

This case is still under investigation. Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

###

From SoHum Health:

SoHum Health and the Ratcliff Architect team are pleased to share the draft architectural designs for a new, modern two-story healthcare facility to serve Southern Humboldt and surrounding communities.

Our facility will be split into two distinct parts—a hospital and a primary care clinic— located at 286 Sprowel Creek Road in Garberville, CA. The facility will replace our current Garberville Hospital and Clinic, which is unable to meet pending seismic requirements. The Redwood Playhouse building will remain intact, and house additional health services and meeting rooms.

Hospital | roughly 30,000 square feet

• Emergency Department with 8 beds
• Radiology services: X-Ray, CT, Ultrasound, Mobile MRI
• Full-service Laboratory
• Dining options with outdoor seating area
• 2nd floor inpatient nursing unit with ten beds
• Helistop for expedited patient transfers

Community Clinic | roughly 15,000 square feet

• Full-service primary care facility
• Two specialty treatment rooms and twelve exam rooms
• Mammography suite
• Bone density scanning
• 2nd Floor outpatient surgery suite
• Meditation Park: peaceful outdoor space for patients and families

SoHum Health is committed to ensuring that this new facility will significantly improve healthcare services for the Southern Humboldt community and neighboring areas. By integrating modern medical technology and a patient-centered design, the new hospital and clinic aim to enhance the overall health and well-being of the community.

Costs and Community Involvement

The total cost of the project has increased with rising building costs, inflation, and challenges finding qualified contractors in rural Humboldt County. The cost is presently estimated at $75,000,000. SoHum Health Foundation continues to seek additional grant funding, as well as donations from local individuals, businesses, and organizations to offset the costs of this project and reduce the long-term debt burden for the Healthcare District. The remaining balance will be financed by a 40-year USDA loan.

SoHum Health Foundation urges you to be a part of this community endeavor! Please consider making a contribution today to help us save more lives and improve the health of our community.

Donation Website: sohumhealthfoundation.org
Contact: foundation@shchd.org | (707) 923-3921 x1241

Project Timeline

Ratcliff Architects will continue to hold meetings with our local Steering Committee and key staff to fine-tune the designs and ensure they meet the needs of our patients and staff, as well as State and County regulations. In mid-2025, the designs will be submitted to the State for permitting. Upon acquiring the proper permits and financing, the project will be put out to bid. Groundbreaking is projected to occur in 2026, with construction completion in late 2028.

This was going to be the year that the Eureka electorate finally got the new election system that it voted for in 2020. Ranked-choice voting, proponents of that year’s Measure C had argued, would eliminate the “spoiler” factor in races for local city council seats and better measure the electorate’s mood in races with three or more candidates.

The city and the county elections office spend a few years hammering out the details and acquiring the necessary gear, and was finally all ready to go for the 2024 general election, in which two seats on the council were up for a vote.

Then what happened? Only two candidates registered to run in each of those races. When there are only two candidates on the ballot, there is an easier and more familiar way for a voter to rank her preference: Vote for one and not the other.

Juan Pablo Cervantes, the county’s Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters, told the Outpost this morning that after a few conversations with city government and some of leaders of 2020’s ranked-choice push, everyone consensed on the idea that the city would be better off waiting until 2026, when three city councilmembers and the mayor will be up for election, until foisting this new system off on the public.

“Any change is going to cause confusion,” Cervantes said. “It’s just the nature of change that things are different, and given that there are only two contestants, there’s not going to be any meaningful benefit.”

Theoretically, the elections office could have gone with a ranked-choice ballot this year, for those two city council races that would have qualified for it: Voters would be asked to rank their preferred candidate first and their non-preferred candidate second. But there the ballot would end. So why bother?

So, it’ll be another two years until some Humboldters get to take part in the ranked-choice revolution. Officially, at least! In the meanwhile, the Outpost will continue to throw an occasional Ranked Choice Poll into the pollzstream so that you might continue to become accustomed to the process.

Kamala Harris pledged to unite Americans in her acceptance speech tonight, saying she’d chart “a new way forward” and build a more inclusive economy to boost the middle class.

But presidents often are only as good as Congress allows them to be.

That’s why California delegates at the Democratic National Convention here this week got the same message — again and again: Harris’ success as a president rests in their hands.

While the vice president is all but guaranteed to win California, the state has as many as six competitive U.S. House seats that could shift control of the chamber to Democrats — which would help a Democratic president enact their agenda.

“On a championship team you have an MVP, you have a coach. But you don’t have a championship team unless you have some really damn good role players,” Jaime Harrison, chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, told the state’s delegates at this morning’s breakfast. “We, my friends, are the role players.”

Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, told delegates that while it was important to go to key battleground states to help Harris win in November, it’s also important to mobilize voters for the in-state congressional races.

“For our next president, for Kamala Harris to be effective and to be able to get things done, she needs Congress, and we know that,” Gonzalez told CalMatters, describing the current Congress as unproductive.“Not being productive doesn’t help the American people and definitely doesn’t help workers. So for us, those congressional races are really important.”

Harris and home-state delegates

Harris didn’t make some of the usual appearances to a nominee’s home-state delegates: She didn’t attend any of the California delegation breakfasts this week, and she skipped the California Democratic Party’s bash Wednesday night at the House of Blues.

But Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff did speak to the crowd, sharing conversations he has with Harris: Every time he praises Harris for her campaign, she stops him and says: “We haven’t won anything yet.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who also missed the delegation breakfasts, attended the party, along with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

California Democrats applaud U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg during the California Democratic Party delegation breakfast in Chicago on Aug. 21, 2024. Photo by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters

But Harris’ absence didn’t dampen many delegates’ enthusiasm for her.

Shikha Hamilton, vice president of organizing at Brady: United Against Gun Violence, said she has been an ardent supporter of Harris’ since her time as San Francisco’s district attorney and has volunteered in every election Harris has run in since.

Hamilton, who described herself as an original member of the K-Hive — the political equivalent of Swifties, but for Harris — hoped the vice president would come to the breakfast, but she wasn’t too disappointed.

“As activists we understand she’s got a job to do,” Hamilton said. “Let her do her job.”

Necola Adams, a 60-year old Merced resident, agreed: Knowing Harris was from California — “from our hood, our state” — was enough.

“Being at the DNC at this moment in time, this historic moment in time is like any and everything you could wish for,” she said. “If you could have been with Dr. King at the March on Washington, or if you could have been with them in Selma, right? Or you could have been at any one of those other moments in time in history that impacted our country in such a significant way. This is one of those moments.”

The California factor

Where Harris spends her time might be strategic, according to Christian Grose, politics professor at USC.

“She needs to be spending time in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona delegations and similar,” he said. “The more she’s photographed with California Democrats, the less she’s engaging with the swing states.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks at the California Democratic Party delegation breakfast in Chicago on Aug. 22, 2024. Photo by Manuel Orbegozo for CalMatters

In addition to balancing her time, Harris also must balance her California identity with a broader appeal — especially as former President Donald Trump and other Republicans try to paint her as a “San Francisco liberal.” No California Democrat has ever been elected president.

Harris seems to have become more savvy on that balancing act, shifting some of her stances after dropping out of the 2019 presidential race because she failed to raise enough money. She no longer brands herself as a “progressive prosecutor,” for example, and backed away from support of a fracking ban or a single-payer health care system.

“I think Harris needs to highlight her experience in California as a prosecutor and talk about her work that could come off as compassionate but tough,” Grose said. “She should celebrate California as it is one big part of our diverse country, but also needs to tip her hat to the idea that she’ll be driven by a national constituency.”

Harris sought to walk that fine line in her acceptance speech tonight — recalling her Oakland upbringing and charting her career, while vowing to unite the entire nation.

“With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past — a chance to chart a New Way Forward, not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans,” she said. “I promise to be a president for all Americans.”

The line-up of speakers during the programming each evening seemed to reflect that balance, with a broad swath from all over the country, along with some high-profile Californians in the mix, including Sen. Laphonza Butler, Rep. Maxine Waters, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr.

Absent from that line-up: Newsom, though he did the honors of delivering California’s delegate tally and closing the ceremonial roll call Tuesday night.

“California is playing an outsized role,” said Nathan Click, his spokesperson. “He’s been deployed by the Harris team for surrogate work on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and networks of local tv affiliates across the country — in addition to meeting and events with delegates.”

###

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

Longtime resident of Ferndale Monica Wells Anderson died May 25 after a long illness. She was 62 years old.

Monica was born January 9, 1962, in Frankfurt, Germany to Dave and Margot Wells. As the daughter of a career Army officer, Monica lived in four different states across the country growing up before the family settled in Ferndale in 1971. Monica attended Ferndale High School and was a member of the Class of 1980. She was an excellent tennis player, ranked number one in Humboldt County as a freshman. She met and married her husband Tim Richter and settled in Fortuna, where they welcomed their daughter, Celeste Marie, in 1983. They returned to Ferndale to live until their relationship ended in 1986. In 1987, Monica met and married Kevin Anderson, growing her family with the addition of two sons, Jesse and Michael.

She worked various jobs during her 20s, including a stint at a local lumber mill, before getting her GED from Ferndale High School and then going on to obtain her histology technician and phlebotomist certifications. Many Humboldt County residents benefited from her work over the course of her career at Mad River and Redwood Memorial Hospitals until complications from an injury forced her retirement.

Monica was actively involved in the community, serving as a Boy Scout leader, regularly volunteering at Ferndale Elementary in her children’s classrooms and at Ferndale High supporting extra-curricular activities, such as coaching the FHS Cheerleaders. She worked for many years at the Humboldt County Fair Grounds during the annual County Fair. She had a passion for music of all kinds, gardening and was a lifelong, rabid Oregon Duck fan and Green Bay “Packer Backer.”

Survivors include her daughter, Celeste Richter, sons Jesse Anderson (Larissa) and Michael Anderson, estranged husband, Kevin Anderson, her aunt Andrea Casanova; sister, Colette McClung (Mark) and niece, Whitney Stanglewicz (Patrick), nephews David and Carter McClung, cousin, Caroline Kahn (Aaron); her granddaughter Clara; and two great-nephews Sawyer and Cormac Stanglewicz. She is also survived by her dear friends, David Killingworth, Debora Paige, Liz Webber and Layla DiSteano. Monica was preceded in death by her parents, Dave and Margot Wells, brother John “Mike” Wells, cousin, Alexandra Zapp, aunt, Judy Wells, and ex-husband Tim Richter. Although Monica wasn’t a native of Ferndale, she embraced and supported this community she loved.

A celebration of life will be held August 24 at 10:30 a.m. at the Humboldt County Fairgrounds VIP Lawn in Ferndale. Friends and family are invited to attend, share music and stories of Monica’s life.

###

We would like to share the journey of Steven Neel Pettit, a true cowboy at heart and an avid horseman.

Steven was a kind, caring, and loving man, always ready with a big smile for everyone he met. He earned the trust, respect, and admiration of all who knew him. Steve was often the last person to leave an party, as he loved sharing stories with friends and family.

Raised on a ranch in Bayside by his wonderful parents, Neel and Neoma Pettit, Steven lived a colorful life. He spent his days riding horses, competing in horse shows, gymkhanas, and rodeos. He rode bucking broncs and bulls, trained and shod horses, and passed on his knowledge to younger riders. Steven was also a proud member of a horse drill team, The Pegasus Patrol.

In addition to his love for horses, Steven had a passion for racing dirt bikes and street motorcycles. He also enjoyed making all kinds of wine from fruit. Later in life, alongside his loving companion of 29 years, Teresa “Mo” Wold, who has since passed, Steven rode two Harleys, embracing the freedom of the open road. They rode like the wind!

Steven was a member of The Fog Dogs club, where he and Teresa enjoyed many memorable rides.

He leaves behind a legacy through his children: son Samuel Sprague, daughter Coressa Eriksen, and grandchildren, Chase and Erin. He is also survived by his loving stepdaughter, Rachel Bommgarden, her husband Chris, and their children, Haey and Emilie, as well as a stepson, Jason Wold. Steven’s loving sister, Judy Walker, and brother, Darren Pettit, mourn his passing. He shared a close bond with his nephew, Jeffrey Walker, and loving nieces, Leslie Walker Wespremi, Laurie Walker Hill, and Shayla Pettit.

Steven was preceded in death by his parents, his little brother Brian, sister Allison, and beloved Teresa Wold.

Steven served in the Navy during the Vietnam War aboard the USS Hancock. He wrote scores of letters to his family back home, not about himself, but about his family’s well-being. He asked about how Dad’s truck was doing, Brian’s bike racing, and Mom’s garden. These letters, which we still have, reflect his deep love for family and friends, whom he valued above all else.

Steven will truly be missed, now and forever. Until we meet again.

A celebration of life will be held on Sept. 28 at Perigot Park, 301 Chartin Rd., Blue Lake, at 1 p.m.

###