Describing California’s homelessness crisis as “inhumane” and “unhealthy,” on Tuesday Senate GOP leader Brian Jones of San Diego and Democratic Sen. Catherine Blakespear of Encinitas announced a bipartisan bill to ban homeless encampments near “sensitive community areas” statewide.

Modeled after San Diego’s “Unsafe Camping Ordinance,” Senate Bill 1011 prohibits encampments within 500 feet of schools, open spaces and major transit stops. It also bans camping on sidewalks if shelter space is available; requires cities or counties to give an unhoused person 72-hour notice before clearing an encampment; and mandates “enforcement personnel” to provide information about homeless shelters in the area.

• Jones: “California has spent $22 billion in the past six years on homelessness and what do we have to show for it? Nearly a 40% increase in homeless population…. Clearly California’s current approach to homelessness is failing and California’s are tired of it.”

The most recent count found more than 181,000 unhoused Californians last year, 28% of the national total.

Adding that it was “not our goal to criminalize homelessness,” Jones said that the state’s homelessness issue was a nonpartisan issue. He touted the bill’s 18 other co-authors of both parties, including Blakespear, who said that San Diego’s camping ordinance has moved about 60% of people off its downtown streets since going into effect in July.

Though both legislators emphasized clearing encampments “compassionately,” advocates for unhoused people argue that displacing homeless people from their dwellings is traumatizing and dangerous to their health. And despite the state’s current $750 million, multi-year initiative to clear homeless encampments, it remains uncertain whether a significant number of the displaced homeless individuals will find permanent housing.

If the bill is passed, it’s also unclear how it will shake out with a highly-anticipated U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In January, the high court agreed to hear a case that has the potential to either grant California cities and counties more authority to clear homeless encampments and penalize those who sleep on streets — or continue to restrict them from enforcing camping bans.There is also bipartisan support for giving local governments more power. Gov. Gavin Newsom, in particular, has railed against court rulings that have tied local officials’ hands.

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

O’Rourk A. Swinney was a loving brother, husband, stepfather and grandfather known as “Popsie” to his family. He was born in Twin Falls, Idaho in 1951 to cattle ranchers Mark Swinney and Louise Thorpe Swinney. He was married to Linda Filippini in 1991, who he would remain married to until her passing just four months prior to him. He lived a rich and full life with a love for hunting treasures at flea markets and estate sales. He is survived by his only brother Ryan Swinney and Ryan’s wife Audrey, his stepdaughter Sarah Garrity-Schiek and her husband Paul Schiek, and his granddaughter Rose, as well as his sister- and brother-in-law, Esther and Neil Gilchrist.

O’Rourk was a fraternal member of DeMolay (Family of Masons), Key Club, 4-H, Cub Scouts, and the YMCA. Additionally, he was honored with a lifetime appointment to the California Scholastic Federation (CSF) as well as lettering in varsity tennis and wrestling. He was a certified scuba diver and enjoyed annual hunting trips to Idaho with his father. In 1969 he would attend UCLA. There, he would discover a love for rowing. In the early 1970s he transferred to UC Berkeley and again in the mid-70s to Humboldt State University, where he would receive his California Teaching Credential in Industrial Arts. Noting that HSU didn’t have a crew team, he founded the rowing programs for both men and women.

In 1977 he would purchase what is now known as the “Crew House” in Arcata. Named for housing much of the HSU Crew team, it has since been renovated and is still used as housing for local HSU students today.

His love for art and architecture led him to collecting and becoming a self-taught historian, spending hours at museums and scouring flea markets, once famously purchasing an original Granville Redmond painting and later selling it through Christie’s auction house for substantially more than the $25 purchase price.

His love of travel took him to places such as Bali, Indonesia, New Zealand, Italy, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe.

His spirit animal, the blue hippopotamus, was said to have visited him in a dream during open heart surgery. He later would mark this encounter with a blue hippo tattoo over his heart and was always happy to show anyone who inquired about it. Later in life he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease which would lead him to join the Humboldt Parkinson’s Support Group as well as Rock Steady Boxing. Both organizations were near to his heart and led him to many new beloved friendships.

Exemplifying his commitment to his community, O’Rourk was a regular on the local PBS (KEET-TV) station’s annual membership drives. He possessed a unique ability to see the good in people and their potential, something that he nurtured in his chosen community of Arcata and its residents.

O’Rourk will always be remembered as a lifelong friend, a kind, generous, and caring man that never forgot where he came from and always strived to improve the lives of the people and the community around him.

His deep love of life, friends and family, and his granddaughter will be remembered by his passionate way of finding wonder in it all.

The family would like to extend a thank you to the amazing team of caregivers who provided immeasurable amounts of love and compassion through the past years to both O’Rourk and his wife Linda, as well as a very special acknowledgement to both Kathy Seror and Dave Hall for their friendship and guidance through this trying time.

A memorial will be held at D Street Neighborhood Center located at 1301 D St, in Arcata on Sunday, March 10 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. All are welcome.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of O’Rourk A. Swinney’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

Arcata Police Department press release: 

On Tuesday, February 6, 2024, at 5:20 a.m., the Arcata Police Department responded to a burglary in progress at a residence in the 600 block of G Street.  A male suspect had broken down the front door of the occupied home, forcing all occupants to flee. The suspect was behaving erratically, was breaking windows, and barricaded himself in an empty bedroom after responding officers made entry into the home.

With assistance from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office crisis negotiators and Eureka Police Department mental health clinician, we were able to bring the incident to a peaceful resolution at 11:12 a.m., when the suspect surrendered to APD officers inside the home.

38-year-old San Jose resident Blair Anderson Wortham was booked and lodged at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on the following felony charges:

• PC 459-Burglary
• PC 422-Criminal Threats
• PC 594-Vandalism

The Arcata Police Department extends their appreciation to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, the Eureka Police Department and Cal Poly Humboldt Police for their assistance with this incident.    

Arcata Police Department press release:

On Friday February 2, 2024, the Arcata Police Department responded to Mad River Community Hospital for a complaint of an anti-Semitic poster in a bathroom. The message consisted of “Butcher Zionist Pigs” and depicted a hooded executioner holding an axe next to a pig wearing a tuxedo.

APD is investigating this incident as a hate crime as the messaging calls for violence against national origin, which is a legally protected status. It placed people in our community in fear and was seemingly intended to be threatening in nature.

APD is looking into the potential for surveillance footage from within the hospital to try to identify and hold the perpetrator or perpetrators accountable. 

The Arcata Police Department takes this and all hate incidents very seriously as they can have a significant impact on our community. We are requesting anyone with information to contact the Arcata Police Department’s Investigations Unit at 707-822-2424, or our Anonymous Tip-Line at 707-825-2588.

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In case you’re among the lucky/wise locals who don’t spend much time on Facebook, here’s what you’re missing locally: Virtually everyone, it seems, is talking about Sushi Spot.

The popular local restaurant, which offers sashimi, sushi and other Japanese cuisine in Arcata, McKinleyville and Eureka, recently announced that it will no longer accept gratuities – aka tips – at any of its locations, starting this week.

Instead, as the restaurant explained on its website and on printed handbills placed at each table, a service fee, or “employee equity charge,” will be automatically added to all orders at a fixed rate: 18 percent for dine-in customers, 10 percent for take-out. 

Reached by the Outpost on Monday, owner Eric Stark said that he and his managers have been considering this change for a long time. The goal of this new system is to improve pay equity among employees, eliminating the gap between servers and chefs while making the business more sustainable in the long run.

“We’ve been thinking about doing this since COVID,” Stark said. During the months-long shutdown of the pandemic, when restaurants were only offering food to go, Sushi Spot pooled its tips and distributed them among the staff equally – though, of course, servers weren’t waiting tables. Once restaurants reopened for table service, though, Sushi Spot went back to the old system, in which customers typically tip waitstaff but not sushi chefs or other kitchen workers – at least, not directly. 

To Stark and many of his employees, this just felt wrong. “We have a lot of really experienced chefs, and there needs to be fair treatment,” he said. “We view those [positions], server and chef, as equally qualified, but because of tips they can’t make the same.” 

Sushi Spot is by no means the first restaurant to implement such a system. In fact, the online Chef’s Store, which markets to restaurants across the country, wrote about “the no-tipping movement” back in 2022, and the San Francisco Chronicle recently covered the growing popularity of “gratuity-free models” in the Bay Area, where newly opened establishments have adopted the practice alongside some long-established eateries and Michelin-starred fine-dining restaurants.

However, as Chef’s Store cautions, not everyone in the public likes or understands this system: “Tipping culture in the U.S. is second nature, so some consumers might find the switch confusing,” the publication says. “Plus, patrons are accustomed to tipping based on merit, so requiring them to pay a predetermined percentage might feel uncomfortable.”

As it turns out, many Humboldt County residents feel more than just confusion and discomfort. On Sunday afternoon, someone posted a photo of Sushi Spot’s “equity charge” announcement to an opinionated Facebook forum called Humboldt County on Alert, and the response has been robust.

In the first 24 hours the post racked up more than 1,000 comments, most of them negative, with the majority falling somewhere between indignant and outraged. 

“Have fun going out of business,” one user remarked.

“Yeah you lost my business … ,” another agreed, adding, “It’s in our culture to tip.”

One comment garnered more than 250 likes with this interpretation: “Lemme translate: ‘We don’t want to have to pay our employees a livable wage so we’re just going to make the customer do it.’”

Stark said the social media response caught him a bit off guard. “We knew there’d be people who are not happy, but we didn’t think it would be like that,” he said.

In an effort to quell the uprising, Sushi Spot posted a follow-up statement to the Humboldt County on Alert page yesterday, offering a more thorough explanation of the reasoning behind the change. In speaking with the Outpost on Monday, Stark said a lot of factors played into the decision.

For one thing, he said, inflation, distribution woes and rising labor costs are making an already challenging industry even more precarious. Restaurants here in Humboldt County have been going out of business left and right, and nationally, few businesses have been hit as hard by the economic headwinds as sushi restaurants. 

“It’s been a whole mess,” Stark said. The Bay Area trucking company that Sushi Spot used for distribution for the past 20 years recently went out of business. Meanwhile, record-breaking inflation in Japan has drastically raised costs for many items the restaurant imports. (One Sushi Spot employee said red tuna from Japan that cost $11 per pound before the pandemic now runs $21 per pound.) And California’s minimum wage increases mean that even the entry-level servers get paid $5 more per hour than they did just five years ago.

Why not just pay the kitchen staff higher wages, as many Facebook commenters have suggested? Stark said it’s not that simple. While tips are generally viewed as a reward for exceptional service, the fact is that nearly every customer who dines at Sushi Spot leaves a gratuity, and Stark said a tip to the server alone fails to account for the chain of labor that makes good service possible – a chain that includes chefs, prep cooks, hosts, dishwashers, bussers and bartenders.

“Without everyone working as a team, the tips for great service would not be possible,” he said. “In a sushi restaurant it is even more important to account for everyone in the chain of service because it takes more labor and staff to operate than other types of restaurants.”

David Bush is a lead server at the McKinleyville Sushi Spot who was recently promoted to a management position. He admitted to having mixed feelings about the new system, especially since it will inevitably mean less money in his pocket.

“This is a big pay cut for the servers,” he said. “It’s a bit stressful for us. We understand the public doesn’t want to pay an 18 percent price increase, and to be the ones breaking that [news] and get pay cut as well has been hard to swallow.”

Bush said that about one in every 10 customers who called or came in to the restaurant yesterday and learned about the new “equity charge” decided not to eat there. 

“So it’s been quite a big hit already,” he said.

But he does see pros to the new system. While Sushi Spot employees have historically tipped out the kitchen staff, giving them a 40 percent cut of their take on any given night, Bush said back-of-the-house workers still got a raw deal. While the server would pocket 60 percent of any given tip, the rest of that money would be divvied up among several people working in the back, including multiple chefs, prep cooks, dishwashers, etc. On a busy night, a server might take home $250 or $300 in tips while kitchen workers pocketed just $40 or $50 apiece.

Under the new system, he explained, employees will split the 18 percent gratuity (or 10 percent for take-out orders) based on a tiered formula, with new employees getting half as much as their Level 2 colleagues, who, in turn, get half as much as workers in Level 3, a tier reserved for the most experienced sushi chefs and longest-employed servers.

Bush said this system rewards loyalty from sushi chefs in particular, which is important when you consider that it can take a decade or more to become truly proficient at the art.

“We want to keep them in Humboldt County, because otherwise they might move to San Francisco or go to fast food since they pay a $20 minimum wage at this point,” Bush said.

He anticipated that as much as 20 percent of Sushi Spot’s waitstaff would quit once the new system was implemented, but so far he said only three servers have left. He’s not sure what to expect over the coming weeks.

“We just started this system,” he said, adding that the public rollout could probably have been handled better.

“I guess we kind of regret how we worded [the announcement],” Bush said. “What this really is, when we get rid of semantics, is an 18 percent increase in price to the customer,” albeit with the elimination of tipping. “I think a lot of servers make a 20 percent tip on average, so this is a bit of a decrease. But we decided to call it an ‘employee equity’ charge so the community knows that 100 percent goes to paying staff. It doesn’t go to the owner.”

Bush said that when customers balk at being charged a “mandatory tip,” he tries to reframe the fee as a means of paying staff a higher wage. 

Fellow Sushi Spot employee Jaime Osorio, who rolls sushi at both the Arcata and McKinleyville Sushi Spot locations and waits tables when needed, said this model is not unheard of.

“It’s something that’s happening across the country, though it’s somewhat new in Humboldt County,” he said. Like Bush, he thinks the new method will improve loyalty and job satisfaction – not to mention pay – for people working in the kitchens.

”There are nights where we get absolutely murdered in the back,” he said, referring to the busiest evenings. “At end of the shift you think, ‘Yeah, we made it as a team,’ but then you see the server hand out tips,” with kitchen workers who’ve been there for 20 years getting a small fraction of the $300-$400 that servers collect.

He believes those employees should be treated as equals, and he thinks people who work in the service industry work hard because they value their job and enjoy serving people, not to convince customers to tip them.

Stark said he think working for tips can actually be demeaning, taking away from what he called the “dignity of service.”

“We want our staff to feel good about serving our community without expecting a tip afterwards,” he told the Outpost. “That is why we feel it is better to include the charge and account for the whole team rather than accept tips that go mostly to one person.”

He added that customers who tip won’t wind up paying any more than they did before – in fact, those who tip 20 percent or more will wind up paying less. And since all service charges are taxable income, Sushi Spot will pay more in payroll taxes toward Social Security, Medicare and disability.

Stark said he hopes Sushi Spot can set a good example of changes in the restaurant industry that are long overdue.

Bush agrees.

“I still think this is a great place to work,” he said, “so I hope customers will still come to Sushi Spot to support a company that wants to go away from America’s tipping culture a bit.”

Business at Sushi Spot’s three locations over the next month or so should reveal whether or not this experiment in employee equity will work here in Humboldt County.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On 2/6/2024, at about 1:59 am, Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the 1300 block of Fernwood Drive in McKinleyville for the report of an attempted residential burglary.

Ronald Payton

Deputies arrived on scene and contacted the homeowner. Deputies were informed a male subject attempted to break into the residence by kicking in the front door. The suspect left in a vehicle prior to the deputies’ arrival. Deputies were provided a description of the male suspect and the vehicle he was driving. Deputies searched the area and located the suspect vehicle driving near Murray Road and US Hwy 101. The vehicle fled from deputies when they attempted an enforcement stop. The suspect vehicle turned southbound on Hwy 101 and accelerated away at a high rate of speed. Deputies pursued the vehicle and observed it drive off the roadway near Hwy 101 and School Road. The vehicle became stuck in a muddy area and the driver was taken into custody without further incident. The driver of the vehicle was identified as 29-year-old Ronald Payton. Payton was identified as the suspect who attempted to break into the residence and was also determined to be driving under the influence of alcohol.

Payton was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility and charged with attempted burglary (PC 664/459), felony evading (CVC 2800.2(A)), and DUI (CVC 23152(A)).

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.

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When the last remaining pulp mill on the Samoa Peninsula shuttered in 2010, the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD) lost its entire industrial customer base, resulting in an 80 percent drop in water consumption across the district. 

To make up for the dramatic reduction in water use, the district launched a water resource planning initiative to look for ways to increase industrial use to maintain its existing water rights, which are slated for review by the State Water Resources Control Board in 2029. If the district can’t find a way to increase its water use in the next five years, it could stand to lose nearly 50 percent of its water rights under the state’s “use it or lose it” system.  

“We have to figure out how to maintain our local water rights because, in the state of California, water rights are owned by the state,” district General Manager John Friedenbach told the Outpost. “The water board could say, ‘Well, you’re not using the water that you used to use for the pulp mills, so we’re going to take that water back and you can only lease what you’re using for municipal customers.’ That would have, in our opinion, a dramatic detrimental effect on the aquatic life in the Mad River.”

So the water district is applying to permanently dedicate a portion of its rights to the Mad River for instream flows for environmental benefit. The proposal would incorporate the district’s current water releases from Ruth Lake Reservoir, which mimic natural seasonal flows on the Mad River, into its water right, allowing the district to retain as much of its water right as possible while also ensuring enhanced summer flows that benefit salmonids and other special status species for the foreseeable future.

The proposal would not change the water district’s current instream flow allocation, which accounts for roughly 25 percent, or 20-25 million gallons per day (MGD), of the district’s proposed water rights allocation, as seen in the pie chart below. “It’s not going to increase the rate of outflow from Ruth Lake,” Friedenbach said. “We’re just trying to preserve the status quo.”

The water district received a $693,000 grant from the state Wildlife Conservation Board in 2018 to fund the various studies needed to amend its water rights and “all of the components that were necessary to get us in a position to file this petition for change,” Friedenbach said. 

“We have a draft petition that we’ve sent to the water board staff for their draft review, and they’ve provided feedback to us,” he continued. “Our next step is to talk to the public about this petition for change and receive feedback. I want to reiterate that [this proposal] would not impact customers.”

The water district will host an informational workshop at the Wharfinger Building in Eureka on Feb. 12. (More information below.) If the state water board grants the instream flow petition, that would keep approximately 27 percent of the district’s existing water rights intact. 

“Of the remaining 55 MGD (35 MGD transport [and] 20 MGD local sales), the district could stand to lose the 35 MGD transport, or about 47 percent, in 2029 when our water rights are up for renewal,” Friedenbach said. (In this case, “transport” refers to water sales outside the district’s existing boundaries. ) “That said, the district will put forth an argument to the water board that we continue to seek beneficial users of those 35 MGD through our transport option in our Water Resource Planning effort.”

The water district has explored the possibility of piping water to municipalities and public agencies outside of the district to boost water sales but, surprisingly, there hasn’t been much interest from neighboring counties. 

“We did a high-level engineering study to kind of flesh out the concept of building a pipeline from Humboldt County south through Mendocino and most likely to Sonoma County because of the high population down there,” Friedenbach said. “Our board marketed the idea during the recent drought years, I think between 2014 and 2017, but none of the agencies we went to in Northern California said, ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea! Sign me up!’”

Selling water outside of the area would provide additional protection for the district’s water rights, but doing so could also put the district in a vulnerable legal position. For example, customers could become dependent on our water supply and “litigate or legislate for terms beyond contractual agreements,” according to a 2010 Water Resouce Planning Report.

The district has also looked into the possibility of increasing local sales in recent years. Three years ago, the water district agreed to conduct a feasibility study to investigate the possibility of extending water service from McKinleyville up to the Trinidad Rancheria to supply water for the proposed multi-story Hyatt hotel at the Cher-Ae Heights Casino. The district is also working on a Mainline Extension Agreement with the Blue Lake Rancheria. 

The district was hoping to bolster industrial sales by supplying the water needed for Nordic Aquafarms’ onshore fish farm, but those plans fell through when Nordic decided to raise yellowtail kingfish at the facility rather than Atlantic Salmon.

“Nordic was going to take about three [MGD] of industrial water, which isn’t a lot compared to the 65 [MGD] the two pulp mills used when they were in operation,” Friedenbach said. “[The Department of] Fish and Wildlife didn’t approve their permit for a salmon species, so Nordic had to change their fish species to a saltwater fish. They don’t require industrial water, but they’re going to take domestic water for their fish cleaning process. It’s disappointing, but nonetheless, they will be a retail customer.” 

The district is also working with the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District to look into the possibility of supplying industrial water to the Humboldt Offshore Wind Terminal Project.

But for the time being, the district is focused on incorporating its instream allocations into its water rights, Friedenbach said.

If you have thoughts on the matter you’ll want to attend the workshop on Monday, Feb. 12 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Wharfinger Building at 1 Marina Way in Eureka. More information can be found in the flyer below.