It is with sadness that we announce the passing of a remarkable lady. Linn was surrounded by family at the Ida Emmerson Hospice House of Humboldt on December 19, 2024.

She was born on January 6, 1943 in Redding, to Werner Holmquist and Norene Cave, Humboldt pioneers. As a child, Linn spent lots of time visiting her Grandpa Richard and Grandma Grace Cave in Eureka on L Street and her Auntie Emogene and Uncle Larry Wing. They’d pick wild blackberries and make jelly and pie.

Linn graduated from UC Davis in education, and began teaching at a DOD school in Kuwait. Upon return to the US, she taught elementary school in San Jose. Linn retired from teaching, and later worked as a travel agent and executive secretary.

She married Richard Duske in 1975, and became stepmother to his three children. Linn and Dick moved about a bit, but finally settled into retirement in Florence, Oregon.

In 2023, Linn moved to Frye’s memory care unit in Eureka. She loved Frye’s rose garden, having her wheelchair pushed through Murphy’s Market, and taking driving tours around town.

She celebrated her 81st birthday with a burger and hot fudge sundae at Fresh Freeze in Henderson Center with her 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cousins: Dennis and Elizabeth Wing; Carrie, Erich, Will, Ben, and Grace Allen; Tiffany, Matt, Luke, and Gigi Grinstaff; Jenni, Tim, Anna, Sophia, and Gabbi Grimmett.

Above all, Linn was loved by her family. She is survived by cousins, Dennis and Elizabeth Wing and children, stepchildren: Peggy, June, Marc; step grandchildren: Alicia, Becky, Ryan; and dear friends, Dee and Bert.

She is preceded in death by her husband Richard Duske. Linn will share the Duske niche with her husband at Sunset Memorial Park in Eureka. She will be missed, and her memory cherished.

Funeral services will be handled by Humboldt Cremation and Funeral Services, 3975 Broadway St, Eureka. A memorial service will be arranged at a future date.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Linn Duske’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

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The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors received a “dismal” mid-year budget update at today’s meeting, with staff reporting that the county’s General Fund remains on track to run out of money by the end of the 2025-26 fiscal year.

County finances have been following this concerning trajectory for more than a year, with a $15.1 million deficit built into the current year’s budget, but Deputy County Administrative Officer Jessica Maciel had more bad news to share today. She reported that tax revenues are lower than expected, and many of the county’s “major” funds are deep in the red, “which is concerning and problematic for us,” she said.

Funds with big negative balances include those for the Department of Health and Human Services (at minus $8.6 million), Roads (minus $7.2 million) and Aviation (minus $2.8 million). 

At the start of the current fiscal year the General Fund had a balance of roughly $43.2 million, with an operating budget of just over $600 million. By the end of this fiscal year, on June 30, the balance is expected to be less than half of that amount, at roughly $21.1 million.

With tax revenues flagging while the cost of salaries, benefits (especially health insurance) and pensions only rise, the outlook is bleak. Looking ahead to next year’s budget, Maciel said, “It’s really difficult to make recommendations that balance the fiscal needs of the organization but allow departments to maintain operations.”

County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes recommended that the board deny any requests for un-budgeted General Fund expenses, but Sheriff Billy Honsal asked for them to leave some wiggle room.

“I would love to have the opportunity to present new ideas to this board, and even if you have a limited amount of funds I think it should be up to the board … to prioritize how you want to spend your General Fund money,” Honsal said. He later added that every single county department is “cut to its core.”

However, Hayes said that with “real challenges” looming in the 2026-27 fiscal year, it’s important to tighten the purse strings now.

“It would be incredibly irresponsible of me to hand you a checkbook when you don’t have money in your checking account, and that’s what the data is telling us right now,” she said. “You’re not going to have money in your checking account at the end of next fiscal year, based off of a status quo budget as it is.”

With Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson absent (he had to leave the meeting early), the remaining board members unanimously approved staff a recommendation directing Hayes to prepare the 2025-26 budget with a number of cost-saving provisions, including the de-allocation of unfunded positions and setting the General Fund allocations at a “status quo” level.

Immigration Enforcement Concerns

Earlier, during the morning session of the meeting, the board chamber was filled with members of the local immigrant community and their supporters, who were looking for reassurance that the Sheriff’s Office and other county officials won’t paricipate in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which has included shipping migrant detainees to Guantanamo Bay, removing legal protections for political refugees and redirecting military resources to help enact mass deportations.

Ever since 2018, when local voters passed Measure K (the “Humboldt County Sanctuary Ordinance”), Sheriff Honsal has delivered semi-annual public reports to the Board of Supervisors to disclose any and all information that his office has provided to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), if any. 

Of course, Measure K — like statewide legislation such as Senate Bill 54 — prevents local law enforcement agencies from using their resources to assist federal immigration enforcement agencies, so Honsal’s reports have been fairly minimal. And today he reiterated his commitment to report to ICE only what he’s legally obligated to.

He explained that whenever someone’s booked into the county jail, their fingerprints are processed and automatically sent to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. The latter agency may send a “hold request” to the county, asking jail staff to maintain custody of someone who’s been flagged as being undocumented, but Honsal said, “We do not honor those holds” as a general policy.

Captain Duane Christian, who’s in charge of the county correctional facility, said there can be exceptions when an undocumented person has been convicted of a “qualifying offense” under California Government Code 7282.5. In those cases, the detainees are eligible to be turned over to ICE. But Christian said that hasn’t happened over the past year. 

He ran down the stats. Out of roughly 6,500 people booked into the jail last year, ICE sent back 33 administrative detainers, asking the county to hold onto those inmates. “We do not honor those detainers,” Christian reiterated. He said there were four individuals who, in theory, the Sheriff’s Office could have transferred to ICE upon their release from jail.

“But we cannot hold them in custody past the release date for ICE to come pick them up or anything like that,” he said. “Of those [four] people, none of them were released to ICE.”

During the public comment period, people expressed heightened anxiety in the current political climate. A woman who called in and described herself as a 32-year county resident asked county officials to help ensure that “public places such as schools and hospitals … will continue to be places that we shouldn’t have to worry about going out of fear.”

A woman speaking on behalf of the local immigrant rights group Centro del Pueblo came to the lectern flanked by supporters holding a “Know your rights” banner behind her. She presented a letter asking the board to “reiterate and contextualize the end of any type of collaboration with ICE” and to implement a zero-tolerance policy for anti-immigrant discrimination in policing.

A group of senior women known as the Raging Grannies sang a song of support for immigrants and their contributions to the community, to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine.”

Speaker after speaker voiced support for the immigrants in our community, past and present. One woman noted how many headstones in the Ferndale Cemetery proudly list the deceased’s country of origin and said, “Ferndale wouldn’t be our Victorian town without immigrants.”

A young Latina and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient asked everyone watching the meeting, “Please look at me.” 

She continued, “I am the people who this organized [federal] government does not want to help or protect. I am the person that every time negative remarks are made about sanctuary law, who you are limiting their rights to. I am one of many youth members asking you to please expand sanctuary law into Eureka and allow us to feel the same safety I felt when I first arrived here in 2018 to get my education.”

(Supervisor Wilson later clarified that the county has no jurisdiction over actions by the City of Eureka.)

Mary Ann Hytken, program leader for the nonprofit English Express, which offers English language lessons, citizenship classes and more to local immigrants, said, “This is the backbone of Humboldt County. This is our economy. Immigrants are here working, building, caring and contributing in ways too numerous to share here today.”

Wilson followed up on that argument, saying, “The data is very clear that crime and incarceration rates for immigrant populations is significantly less, and in some cases half as much as [the] incarceration and crime rates for people born in the United States.” He added that immigrant communities contribute more than $1.5 trillion to the nation’s economy.

Later in the meeting, Jim Glover of the county’s Human Rights Commission presented the board with a draft letter [pdf here] expressing support for “all Humboldt County community members” and asked the board to sign it. After some minor wordsmithing — and the addition of a provision asking Sheriff Honsal and District Attorney Stacey Eads to add their signatures — the board unanimously agreed to do so. 

Airplane Hangar Rates to Increase

The cost of storing your plane at a Humboldt County airport will so go up, much to the frustration of local general aviation pilots, who say the county needs to improve the condition of its facilities before jacking up rents.

The county has been without an aviation director since the unexpected and still-unexplained departure of Cody Roggatz in September, so today’s report was left to Karen Clower, assistant county administrative officer and acting aviation director. She recounted the events leading to these rate increases, including a negotiated agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration, which previously sued the county and slapped it with a notice of deficiency for being out of compliance with federal regulations.

Per that agreement the county agreed to incrementally increase aeronautical tenant hangar rates by 18% each year for five years until hanger rates reach the rates approved by both the FAA and the Aviation Management Consulting Group (AMCG), a firm retained by the county to conduct a rate study. The county is now entering Year Five of that period, and so the board was asked to approve the rate increase — possibly with an additional amount connected to the consumer price index.

Clower warned that if the board decided not to increase rates in compliance with that agreement, the county would risk losing up to $1.2 million in entitlements and grant funding.

As in previous meetings where this issue has been discussed, a succession of local pilots voiced their objections to the proposed rate hikes, with many questioning the methodology of the AMCG rate study. They said steep rate increases would harm the economy and impact their livelihoods.

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn acknowledged that delayed maintenance at the airports has been “a constant issue” in his 13 years on the board. Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone said this was not an easy decision to make, saying the county needs to improve its aviation facilities but also needs revenues to do so. 

Ultimately the board voted 4-1, with Bohn dissenting, to have staff return with an ordinance increasing hangar fees to the FAA-approved level, though without an additional CPI increase. The motion included a General Fund contribution of $55,876 to compensate for the resulting lost revenue.

Clower said it is staff’s intention to use those funds for hangar improvements. 

Here we go! The Eureka arm of the National Weather Service tells us that projected snow levels are dropping rapidly, so much so that it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that the Humboldt coast could get a dusting this afternoon and beyond.

More from NWS:

A Winter Weather Advisory has been issued for much of Humboldt County. Snow levels are dropping fast this afternoon, with a mix of rain and snow is possible along the coast and an inch of accumulation is possible above 500 ft.

High mountain passes of Humboldt and Del Norte could see an additional 6-12 inches.

(AUDIO) Dave Holper on KHUM

Over 23 years as an English professor at College of the Redwoods, Dave Holper poured his passion for poetry, literature and language into his students. Since his retirement from that role a few years back, he’s enjoyed the freedom to pour himself into his writing and has managed to churn out four books.  

His latest output, The Church of the Very Last Chance, is a “satirical commentary on our materialistic global society and the collective madness we endure at its hands.” On Tuesday morning, Holper stopped by KHUM radio to chat with morning DJ Toby Tullis about his latest work and to promote his appearance as the featured writer at A Reason to Listen’s next event, taking place at the Septentrio Barrel Room on Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. Tune in above! 

Press release from the Arcata Police Department:

On February 3, 2025, around 11:15 P.M. units from the Arcata Fire District, Blue Lake Fire Department, Humboldt Bay Fire, Samoa Fire Department, and Cal Fire were dispatched to a reported structure fire at a multi-family residential complex in the 2500 Block of Chestnut Place in Arcata. The initial dispatch reported that there was a possibility of subjects trapped in a multi-unit apartment building.

Arcata Fire and Arcata Police units arrived on scene to find heavy fire throughout a two-story duplex townhouse type building.

Crews immediately secured a water supply began attacking the fire and searching for victims.

Fire personnel had the fire controlled in about 30 minutes. Upon achieving fire control, fire personnel searched the apartment involved where three deceased victims were located.

On scene Arcata Police officers were advised of the situation. Arcata Police assumed control of the scene and initiated investigation protocols.

Arcata Fire requested response from the Humboldt County Fire-Arson Investigation Unit. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, however, it does not appear suspicious at this time.

Arcata Fire would also like to thank the Fieldbrook Fire Department and Westhaven Fire Department for covering the Arcata Fire District during the incident.

Information related to the identity of the victims is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

This incident is a tragedy for the family involved. Arcata Fire and the Arcata Police Department encourages the community to keep the family in their thoughts.

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The California Highway Patrol has issued a Feather Alert due to the disappearance of 22-year-old Marian Robinson. 

More info from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office below:

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office needs the public’s help to locate missing person Marian Robinson, 22, of Scotia. Marian is believed to be missing under unknown circumstances.

Marian was reported missing by a family member on Feb. 3 at about 6:20 p.m. after she failed to return from Loleta. She was last seen on Jan. 29 by an employee at the Humboldt Bay Inn, who contacted the Eureka Police Department for a welfare check on her, but Marian left the area northbound on foot before law enforcement arrived. 

A Feather Alert was requested by HCSO and approved by the California Highway Patrol. Marian is described as a native American female, 5’ 2”, weighing 110 lbs., with brown hair and brown eyes. She is known by family to often wear a hoodie and leggings. She is an affiliated tribal member with the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria. 

Anyone with information for the Sheriff’s Office regarding Marian Robinson’s possible whereabouts should call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251.

As communities up and down California ban homeless encampments, one Bay Area city is trying to go a step further.

The East Bay city of Fremont is set to vote on a new ordinance that would make it illegal to camp on any street or sidewalk, in any park or on any other public property. But, in an apparent California first, it also would make anyone “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing” an illegal encampment guilty of a misdemeanor – and possibly subject to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

That unusual prohibition — the latest in a series of crackdowns by communities following a Supreme Court decision last summer — has alarmed activists who worry it could be used against aid workers who provide services to people living in encampments. While Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan told CalMatters that police won’t target outreach workers handing out food and clothing, the ordinance doesn’t specify what qualifies as “aiding, abetting or concealing.”

Experts say the city could enforce the same ordinance against ordinary citizens in contact with what the ordinance defines as an illegal homeless encampment.

The broad language has left Vivian Wan, CEO of Abode Services, “very fearful,” she said. As the city’s primary nonprofit homeless services provider, Abode regularly sends outreach workers into encampments to help people sign up for housing and shelter, pass out information about food pantries and other services, hand out coats during cold spells, and more.

“The job’s hard enough,” Wan said. “I can’t imagine doing the hard work that’s both physically and emotionally draining and then also have to be worried about your own legal liability. It’s incredibly frustrating.”

Fremont’s proposed ordinance, which passed an initial city council vote 4-2 and is set for a final vote on Feb. 11, is part of a recent statewide trend toward more punitive anti-homelessness measures. Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court in Grants Pass v. Johnson ruled cities can ban camping on all public property, even if they have no shelter beds available. Since then, more than two dozen California cities and counties have passed new measures banning camps or limiting where people can camp, brought back previously unenforced ordinances, or updated existing camping ordinances to make them more punitive.

In December, during the first meeting of Fremont’s newly elected City Council, more than a dozen people spoke out against the proposed camping ban during a lengthy public comment period, saying it would be immoral to criminalize people for having no home. Just three people spoke in favor of the ordinance, urging council members to take residents’ safety into consideration and respect the rights of taxpayers who expect to be able to use the public spaces they pay for.

Councilmember Raymond Liu expressed a similar opinion before voting in favor of the ordinance.

“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and tell me that they don’t feel safe using our parks or our libraries because of the amount of encampments nearby,” he said.

In some parts of California, enforcement is going beyond the people who live within an encampment. In September, local journalist Yesica Prado was arrested in Oakland while documenting the city’s removal of a homeless encampment. The year before, Oakland made it a misdemeanor for someone to fail to leave a designated “safe work zone,” which can include the area around an encampment cleanup.

Civil rights watchdogs – and even the feds – have pushed back when they’ve felt cities have gone too far.

Los Angeles’ ordinance banning the storage of private property in a public area, which is often used to cite unhoused people, also makes it a misdemeanor to “willfully resist, delay or obstruct” a city employee from taking down a tent or removing other property. Last fall, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California sent a letter to the Los Angeles Police Department accusing their officers of wrongfully threatening L.A. Taco reporter Lexis-Olivier Ray with arrest under that ordinance as he documented encampment removals.

“The job’s hard enough. I can’t imagine doing the hard work that’s both physically and emotionally draining and then also have to be worried about your own legal liability. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
— Vivian Wan, CEO, Abode services

The religious organization Micah’s Way sued in 2023 after the city of Santa Ana banned it from serving food to unhoused people. The federal Justice Department weighed in on behalf of Micah’s Way, saying distributing food could be a protected religious exercise under federal civil rights laws. The case then settled, and the city agreed to allow Micah’s Way to continue serving food.

Would the aiding-and-abetting clause in Fremont’s ordinance stand up in court?

“It’s really going to depend on how it’s applied,” said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. The First Amendment right to freedom of expression doesn’t guarantee someone a right to camp in a public place, nor does it guarantee a person a right to “aid and abet” an illegal camp. But it all comes down to how the police decide what qualifies as aiding and abetting, Loy said.

Mayor Salwan told CalMatters that the city would use the aiding-and-abetting clause against people who help build illegal structures at encampments.

“Some individuals come kind of like vigilanties,” he said. “They want to start building these structures for the unhoused that are unsafe. Then this provision would come in.”

Police wouldn’t arrest someone under the new ordinance merely for giving an unhoused person a tent, Salwan said.

But what if that activist helps that person pitch the tent?

“That’s a good question,” Salwan said. “I think we may have to seek clarification from the city attorney.”

CalMatters posed that question to the city attorney’s office. The office responded, via spokesperson Justin Berton, that a person who helps someone set up a tent could be subject to enforcement.

To Wan and other activists, Salwan’s words are hardly reassuring. They fear that no matter what the mayor says, the language in the ordinance is so broad that it will give police the ability to come down on activists and aid workers at their discretion.

The legal definition of aiding and abetting is far-reaching, and can apply to anyone who knowingly helps facilitate a crime. That means it will be up to Fremont police to decide whether an individual outreach worker at a camp should be cited or arrested, said Andrea Henson, an attorney who serves as executive director and legal counsel for Berkeley nonprofit Where do we Go?

Henson and other experts interviewed by CalMatters had never before come across an aiding-and-abetting clause in a California ordinance regulating or banning homeless encampments.

“I think a lot of attorneys who assist and defend the unhoused are watching this,” Henson said. “No one’s seen this.”

Salwan said he’s open to making the proposed aiding-and-abetting clause more specific.

“I’m willing to consider tweaks in our language to make sure we address the concerns,” he said.

Among Wan’s biggest concerns is that police will use the proposed ordinance to try to pressure her outreach workers into disclosing where encampments are located. The last thing her team wants to do is help police displace, cite or arrest their clients, Wan said. But if their clients believe that’s a possibility, they may stop trusting them and accepting their help, she said.

“Absolutely not,” Salwan said when asked if that could happen. “We’ve had a great relationship with all of our nonprofits. We’re not trying to get into all that.”

If the ordinance passes, Wan hopes to form an agreement with the city that exempts her staff from the aiding-and-abetting clause.

“I think a lot of attorneys who assist and defend the unhoused are watching this. No one’s seen this.”
— Andrea Henson, executive director, Where do We Go?

If they can’t, she would consider cutting back on outreach. Wan also worries the ordinance would make it harder to recruit new outreach workers – something Abode and other nonprofits throughout the state already struggle with, thanks to the low pay and the grueling and often frustrating work.

Eve Garrow, a senior policy analyst and advocate for the ACLU of Southern California, worries the aiding-and-abetting clause will make it even harder for unhoused people to get help.

“I think it will, if it passes, put a chill on any type of humanitarian aid or help that local residents would otherwise be providing to people who are unhoused and unsheltered,” said Garrow, who was alarmed when she heard about the proposed ordinance from a Fremont resident.

Sister Elaine Sanchez of the Fremont-based Sisters of the Holy Family is adamant that the proposed ordinance won’t stop her from helping her homeless neighbors.

“I figure if I’m going to be arrested for something,” she said, “it’s going to be for doing something that I feel is helping people in need.”

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