On Tuesday June 11, 2024 at about 1:25 P.M. Fortuna Police Department received a report of an attempted
kidnapping that had just occurred in the 2000 block of Redwood Way in Fortuna. Two female juveniles
reported that while walking in the 2000 block of Redwood Way an unknown subject drove up to them and told
them to get into the vehicle. The scared juveniles refused and the unknown subject/driver pulled the vehicle
onto the curb blocking their path. The unknown subject exited the vehicle and the two juvenile turned and ran to
a local business.
The unknown subject reportedly chased the juveniles briefly on foot and then returned to his
vehicle and was last seen driving away eastbound on Redwood Way.
The unknown subject was not known to the juveniles and responding officers were unable to locate the subject
or the reported vehicle during a check of the area.
The juveniles are safe and the unknown subject and vehicle are described as follows.
Unknown Subject: Reported as a white male adult believed to be in his mid to late sixties with shoulder length
gray hair, last seen wearing a green colored shirt and brown or tan cargo pants.
Vehicle: Reported as a brown and tan colored older extended cab truck, unknown exact make and model.
This is an ongoing investigation and updates will be provided to the public as investigative leads are developed.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact the department at (707)725-7550.
Press release from the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury:
The Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury has released the fourth report of their 2023-2024 term,
entitled Eureka City Schools – Board of Trustees: Deal or No Deal.
On December 14, 2023, the five-member Eureka City Schools Board of Trustees approved a real-
estate transaction exchanging property at the site of the former George C. Jacobs Junior High School
for a small residential property plus a multi-million-dollar financial consideration. This report does
not address whether the transaction is a good or bad idea for the district. It is about the Eureka City
Schools Trustees decision-making process in this matter.
After months of protracted negotiations, a deal between Eureka City Schools and the California
Department of General Services, on behalf of the California Highway Patrol, seemed likely to
conclude at a purchase price of $4 million.
On December 14, 2023, the Eureka City Schools Trustees were suddenly presented with a proposed
Resolution and Agreement for a unique real-estate deal – exchanging the Jacobs property for a small
residential property at 3553 I Street in Eureka plus a multi-million-dollar financial consideration –
with an entity named AMG Communities-Jacobs, LLC. The proposed property exchange would
bypass California Education Code requirements for the sale of exempt surplus property.
Within the span of three hours the Trustees met in closed session to discuss the real estate deal,
reportedly for the first time, and then voted in open session to approve that deal. The public only had
access to the details for about an hour and a half before the vote.
The Brown Act was enacted in 1953 to provide for public participation in governmental decision-
making. It applies to all legislative bodies, standing committees of local government agencies, and
governing bodies of non-profit corporations formed by a public agency. In essence, with few
exceptions, all governmental decisions must occur in open meetings that allow meaningful public
participation in the decision-making process. California residents have a right to both observe and
participate in official decisions before those decisions are made.
A secretive, last-minute, quick-judgment, behind closed doors decision, in an intentionally
compressed time-period, and without public knowledge, is exactly the kind of decision-making the
Brown Act intended to avoid. In selling the Jacobs property, there was no effective opportunity for the public to know about, consider, and participate in an important decision regarding selling a
valuable public asset, even if the result of the decision is perceived to be in the near-term best
interests of students.
The Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury concludes that the Eureka City Schools Trustees acted
hastily and without sufficient due diligence. While apparently literally complying with the technical
requirements of the California Government Code (Brown Act) with respect to a real-estate
transaction, the Trustees violated the law’s general intent for public participation and transparency in
decision-making.
If you want to serve your community in a unique way that could improve local government this is
your opportunity. Applications to serve on the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury can be found at
https://humboldtgov.org/510/Civil-Grand-Jury. Additional information provided by the Civil Grand
Jurors Association of California can be found at https://cgja.org/.
Junie Speier passed away peacefully in her sleep on June 9, 2024. She was 100 years old. She was born
June Ann Balsiger in Los Angeles, California on Feb. 8, 1924. She graduated from Los Angeles High School
in 1942 and attended Santa Monica Jr. College, majoring in Art & Physical Education.
Junie met the love of her life, Ted Speier, in 1943 in front of the Brown Derby in Los Angeles, while he was
on leave in the Army. They were married in 1944 & it lasted almost 75 years. They had three children &
raised them in Eureka, California. Junie enjoyed fishing and waterskiing at Big Lagoon in her earlier years and later enjoyed swimming, gardening, and hunting for agates and driftwood, plus spending time with her
children at their Big Lagoon cabin. She was very artistic and made a lot of driftwood people and painted rocks
to give as gifts.
Junie was an American Red Cross lifeguard and swimming instructor in Los Angeles and then, after moving to
Eureka, she taught all the fourth through sixth graders how to swim. She also taught social dancing and etiquette to fifth through seventh graders when she started the Frolic Club in Eureka. Junie will be
remembered for her outgoing personality, infectious smile and wonderful sense of humor. She was an
inspiration to us all.
From 1950-1981, she taught exercise & swimming for the Eureka Adult Education classes. She was an
American Red Cross volunteer for sixty two years & received their Lifetime Achievement Award in June
2004 at the age of eighty.
Junie was preceded in death by her husband Ted, her parents, Henry and Anna Balsiger and her brother, Hank
Balsiger. She is survived by her children, Teddie Bell and husband Ken from Spokane, Washington, Spencer
Speier from Midway, Utah and Shannon Speier from Hawi, Hawaii: her grandchildren Makani Speier-Brito,
Brisa Speier-Brito and numerous nieces and nephews.
Because she had over ninety people who attended her 100th birthday party in February, we ask you to
remember her the way you last saw her, since we won’t be having a memorial service. We will have a
private gathering in December with the family members, sharing their fondest memories of Junie.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in honor of Junie Speier to: Hospice of
Humboldt, 3327 Timber Fall Court, Eureka, CA, 95503 or American Red Cross (Humboldt County Gift Processing), 1565 Exposition Blvd., Suite 100, Sacramento, California, 95815.
Please send cards to the Speier family, 2560 D Street, Eureka, CA, 95501.
###
The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Junie Speier’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.
Gordon Jerry Nitsch, a longtime resident of Coalinga, died at his home on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. He was 89 years old.
Gordon was born in Boelus, Nebraska to Rudolph and Eunice Young Nitsch. In 1937, the family moved to California and settled in Cutten. From the age of four he told everyone he wanted to be a truck driver.
He attended the local grade and high school where he was active in the band program playing a trombone. It was at Eureka High School where he met the love of his life, Janet Still. Gordon and Janet sat next to each other in band. When there was a test involved, Gordon would play her part. They both held up their trombones at the same time, Gordon would play, and Janet would just pretend to play.
He graduated from high school in 1952 and in 1954 Janet and he were married. They moved into a small house in Cutten that Gordon and his father had built.
His first job was for Precision Lumber Company as a truck driver, but in 1958, he was drafted and entered the US Army. After basic training, he was sent by ship to serve in Germany. Speaking of ships, he disliked the voyage so much that he very rarely ever set foot on a small boat, let alone a large ship , for the rest of his life. Janet followed him soon after to Germany. He spent his entire enlistment in Germany, and he and Janet traveled the continent when Gordon could take time off from his duties.
After they return from Germany and his release from the Army , he began working for Precision Lumber Company in Eureka again. Soon after the birth of their first son in 1960,
(Gerald ) Jerry, he was given the opportunity to move to Coalinga, California to oversee the companies trucking interest of hauling asbestos ore from the local mines to the mills in the nearby mountains. Their second son (Ronald ), Ron was born in 1964 in Coalinga.
After the mining closed in the early 1980s, and after 33 years with Precision Lumber Company, he went to work for a local oil contractor, Bud’s Equipment as a truck driver.
In 1989 he lost Janet to cancer.
He worked at Bud’s until his retirement.
In retirement, he enjoyed working in his yard, visiting with close neighbors, and spending time with his family. He was always willing to listen to any person‘s problems and give them some advice if he thought it would help. Gordon was a fun person to be around, and he had a loud, wonderful laugh. When he told stories of the past, there was always a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eyes .
He will be missed.
Gordon survived by his brother Doug and sister-in-law, Doris, and sons Jerry and Ron; daughter -in-law Andrea, and grandchildren, Lauren, and Andrew . He is also survived by nieces, Barbara Valdriz and Sue Bradbury.
Graveside services will be held in Eureka at Ocean View Cemetery on June 11, 2024 at 1:30 p.m.
###
The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Gordon Nitsch’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.
On Saturday, June 8, 2024, Eureka Police Dept. Patrol Officers conducted a traffic
enforcement stop on the 4000 block of Broadway.
As a result of the stop, 36-year-old
Edward Brinson was placed under arrest for a felony warrant and a search warrant was
authored for his vehicle. The search resulted in locating nine firearms and various stolen
property including vintage US Currency Notes and Coins. The property is valued at
approximately $5,000.
Brinson was booked for his felony warrant, a felon being in possession of a firearm(s),
and for possessing stolen property.
If anyone has information regarding missing firearms or vintage currency please contact
Eureka Police Department Criminal Investigation Unit at (707) 441-4300.
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard oral
arguments in the case of Kyle Zoellner v. City of Arcata, in
which Kyle Zoellner’s attorney alleged that Arcata Police
Department detective Eric Losey fabricated evidence that led to her
client’s arrest as the primary suspect in the stabbing death of
David Josiah Lawson in 2017.
The
appeals case was filed after a U.S. District Court overturned
the decision of a federal jury that sided
with Zoellner against Losey and the City of Arcata,
both of which happened in October 2022. If the jury’s verdict had
stood, the City and Losey would have been ordered to award Zoellner
more than $750,000 for “malicious prosecution.”
Whether
or not the District Court’s decision to overturn was made in error
is the question now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit.
Arguments
made on both sides in Monday’s hearing centered around questions of
“qualified immunity” – which protects government officials
in cases of lawsuit if the official acted “in
a reasonable but mistaken way” – and probable
cause.
“A
reasonable officer with Mr. Losey’s knowledge would believe there
was a fair probability that Mr. Zoellner stabbed Mr. Lawson,” U.S.
District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley wrote in the October
2022 ruling
that overturned the jury’s verdict.
Judge
Scott Corley’s identification of probable cause became a point of
note as the appellate judges – Jacqueline
Nguyen, Ryan D. Nelson and Daniel Bress – assessed
exactly what the case required of them.
“We’re
being asked here whether the district court erred in making a
probable cause finding as to Losey, correct?” Judge Nelson asked from
the bench. “We cannot just decide and say, ‘Hey, there’s
qualified immunity for those counts?’ We actually have to reach the
probable cause determination?”
Nelson answered his own question shortly thereafter, noting that
the court’s finding of either probable cause or qualified immunity
would “get you to the same place” (that place being: support for
the District Court decision to overturn Zoellner’s victory).
Opening
the appeal, Zoellner’s attorney, Elizabeth Zareh, argued that because
“no additional facts” had been presented since the jury’s
initial decision siding with Mr. Zoellner, probable cause “should
not be relitigated.”
“If
it is being relitigated, there should be a strong presumption that
there is no probable cause and the burden [of proof] should shift on
the other side to show whether there was sufficient evidence,” she
said, referring to the Judge Dale Reinholtsen’s decision
to release Zoellner in 2017 and the 2019 Humboldt
County Grand Jury decision which declined
to indict Zoellner, or any other person, in the
stabbing death of Lawson.
Zareh
also argued that qualified immunity “would not come into play when
there is a fabrication of evidence by the police officers,”
reiterating claims that Losey fabricated evidence against Zoellner in
a police report detailing the eyewitness testimony of Jason Martinez,
which was subsequently repeated in the charging summary submitted to
the Humboldt County District Attorney’s office by Arcata Police
detective Todd Dokweiler in April 2017.
In
the report, Losey wrote that Martinez had identified Zoellner as the
person who stabbed Lawson.
“He
[Martinez] made a statement to Detective Losey that he was at the
party, and he was walking from a distance, and he saw someone stop
Mr. Lawson,” Zareh said, adding that Martinez neither named nor
“described the physical appearance” of the person he saw with
Lawson.
Losey
alerted the DA’s office to the erroneous claim in the report – which Lori Sebransky, the attorney representing Losey and the City of
Arcata, referred to in Monday’s hearing as a “mistake” – before the May 1, 2017 preliminary hearing in the murder case brought by the District Attorney.
The
hearing was followed by a Humboldt County Superior Court decision that the DA did not
have sufficient evidence to hold Zoellner to answer for the crime, which was followed by his
release and subsequent suit against the City of Arcata and select Arcata
Police Department personnel for malicious prosecution, unlawful
arrest, defamation and other violations of rights. Losey was the
only individual defendant named in the 2022 trial after a U.S.
District Court judge threw out part of Zoellner’s case earlier that
year.
Despite
Zareh’s initial stand against relitigating probable cause, the
longest statements in the hearing from either side recounted the
scene officers arrived to on April 15, 2017, the date of the
stabbing, with Sebransky arguing that probable cause was reached and
Zareh highlighting what she said were “significant issues” with
the evidence.
Zareh
went first, arguing that no witness had reported seeing Zoellner with
a knife and that the knife found at the scene lacked DNA or forensic
evidence tying it to Zoellner. She also focused on what she said were
discrepancies between eyewitness accounts of the fight between Lawson
and Zoellner and the blood patterns found on the scene and on
Zoellner’s clothes – saying that his shoes and hands were
clean, and the blood on his clothing was never forensically linked to
Lawson.
“There’s
testimony that Mr. Zoellner suffers from severe blood issues relating
to his nose, bleeding from his nose,” she said, adding that
Zoellner’s father had previously testified that even as a child,
“every time there was any kind of minor impact, he was bleeding
very heavily.”
Sebransky,
on the other hand, called the evidence for probable cause “quite
strong” and pointed out that it was “undisputed” by the
plaintiff in trial before beginning her review of the evidence.
She
began by saying that witnesses pointed the first officer on the scene
to Zoellner, and that he found Zoellner “covered in blood” before
learning that Zoellner and Lawson had fought because “he [Zoellner]
was questioning whether somebody stole the girlfriend’s phone.”
She
described the testimony of an eyewitness, Paris Wright, who had seen
Lawson after the fight. “He is not stabbed,” Sebransky said. “Everything is
fine.”
“A
few minutes later, Paris Wright hears a scream, looks up the hill,
sees Mr. Zoellner in a [second] fight with Mr. Lawson,” she continued. “When Mr. Wright pulls them apart, he sees that now Mr.
Lawson is stabbed.”
Sebransky also argued that the discovery of a kitchen knife at the scene, which
she called “unusual” in a stabbing “outside of a kitchen,”
and the fact that Zoellner was a chef and kept knives in a bag in his
car contributed to probable cause.
“No
one else that night had been in a fight with Mr. Lawson,” she
concluded, “And no one else that the officers could discover had
any kind of a motive to kill him.”
A
judge then questioned Sebransky about Zareh’s argument that the
blood pattern officers encountered at the scene was in a different
area than eyewitnesses reported to be the site of the second fight
between Zoellner and Lawson, to which she responded that Wright said
that he had seen Lawson crawl after being stabbed.
The
judges’ final question for Sebransky centered on the plaintiff’s
claim of fabricated evidence, and she reiterated that while Losey’s
report was made in error, there was “no fabrication.”
“If
the only thing we had was a fabricated statement, this guy did it,
and that turned out to be false, then no qualified immunity,”
Sebransky continued on to say, “But whereas here we have all of
this other evidence supporting qualified immunity, then qualified
immunity would still apply if the court chose to go down that road
instead of just making a decision on the constitutionality of the
arrest based on the probable cause itself.”
The
hearing concluded with a brief rebuttal from Zareh, which clarified
the plaintiff’s claims of fabricated evidence and was cut short for
time, before the Court called recess for the day without making clear
when its decision on the appeal can be expected.
###
CORRECTION: This post initially misspelled the name of Lori Sebransky. The Outpost regrets the error.
###
Ed note: Gillen Tener Martin is working for the Outpost this summer. She’s on an internship from her journalism program at Paris’ prestigious Sciences Po. Disclosure: she previously worked for the City of Arcata, beginning in 2019.
She was uninvolved in the case this article covers.
Screenshot of Tuesday’s Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting.
###
Despite ongoing staffing constraints, Humboldt County’s Code Enforcement Unit (CEU) has made significant progress in recent years resolving longstanding issues on nuisance properties across the county.
At today’s Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting, Code Enforcement Manager Dean Beck presented the CEU’s annual report for 2023. Beck pointed out a “steady decline” in unassigned code enforcement cases, which have decreased from 450 in 2020 to just 88 this year, thanks to “improved processes and procedures” within the unit. All told, the CEU closed 176 percent more cases in 2023 than were opened, he said.
“One of the things that we looked at was [how] cases were being assigned,” Beck explained. “Late in 2023, [we] did an assessment of open [code enforcement] cases by APN [assessor parcel number] to identify how many open cases there were, to whom they were assigned, and to provide a method of assigning new cases. This is a similar method to how building inspections are assigned to inspectors. … Using the new process, the CEU should be more efficient when doing inspections and can visit several properties in a certain area in one outing. This will save both time and fuel.”
However, staffing has proven to be challenging, Beck said. The CEU lost nearly 40 percent its staff in 2023. “All of these contributed to an increased workload by the remaining team members,” he said. “The number of staff has been reduced from 13 to 8. With this reduction in staff, work must be prioritized and the volume of cases that can be addressed simultaneously has been reduced.”
In 2023, the CEU set up a multi-agency task with the Sheriff’s Office, the Environmental Services Division of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Planning and Building Department, Public Works and County Counsel to address some of the county’s most “difficult” properties.
Seven properties required county abatement in 2023, including the Green Valley Motel and nearby gas station along Highway 101 in Orick. In 2021, the county deemed the motel uninhabitable due to extremely poor living conditions. The deteriorating condition of the motel made it a candidate for abatement, Beck said, but a pending real estate transaction postponed the process. In January 2022, a fire erupted at the adjacent gas station, destroying both buildings. The abatement process, completed in May 2023, cost the county $475,052.
Before | Screenshot
After | Screenshot
The CEU abated five other nuisance properties, including the old Judy’s Market on Highway 36 in Carlotta, a property on Lupin Road in Arcata, an uninhabitable mobile home on Weiler Road in Eureka, two garbage-strewn properties in Fields Landing, and a property with numerous abandoned vehicles and solid waste issues on Salmon Creek Road in Miranda, as seen in the breakdown below.
Screenshot
The county has at least two multi-agency cases coming up, Beck said, including one in Stafford and another at Yee Haw, a longstanding communal living property on Quarry Road near Trinidad. “Both of these cases are from 2012,” he continued. “It should be noted that a proposed amendment to the [tiny home] ordinance that would benefit the owners of the Quarry Road [property] has been in the works.”
Switching focus to cannabis enforcement, Beck noted that illegal outdoor grow operations have become nearly non-existent due to significant advancements in aerial imagery technology. “The success of the cannabis abatement program cannot be overstated,” he said. “The volume of outdoor cannabis cases continues to decline.”
In 2023, the CEU’s cannabis team opened 41 new cases and closed 136, 121 of which were from previous years, Beck said. In conjunction with the Sheriff’s Office and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the CEU issued 29 warrants resulting in 29 new cases.
The board’s comments generally revolved around the need for more proactive enforcement of nuisance properties. First District Supervisor and Board Chair Rex Bohn urged staff to use their enforcement tools to address minor issues early on, preventing them from escalating into prolonged abatement problems.
“If they’re not going to clean it up in 12 months and they’re not going to pay any the fees in 12 months, they’ve pretty much committed to not paying for the next two years,” he said. “[Y]ou should make one trip, give then them the warning second trip, and if they’re not going to do it, then we start the [legal] process. But numerous trips of telling them to clean up, and they say they’re going to clean up but they never do.”
Similarly, Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson expressed concern for the time and money being spent on abatement and suggested property owners recoup some of the cost.
“I think that we need to figure out ways to have some of those property owners be more financially responsible for all the efforts that we’re using,” Wilson said. “We need to be equitable in the way that we provide these services across the county. … If we’re doing abatements that cost more than the property’s worth, we were never going to recoup that money and [it’s] just footed by the public.”
Planning and Building Director John Ford said the CEU is working to change its overall approach in dealing with enforcement. “To be blunt, we’re finding that constant pressure on property owners is the way that things get done,” he said. “You can’t just send them a letter and hope that they’re going to deal with it if you’re not talking to them almost every day, in their face. It sounds kind of blunt, but that’s where the change gets made.”
Bohn asked if the enforcement process was entirely complaint-driven or if CEU staff have the authority to open a case on a property. “Are you able to drive by a house and go, ‘Oh my god, I’m glad that’s not my neighborhood!’ and put it on the books or open the case?” he asked. “Or do you have to get a call from a neighbor?”
Ford said he could look into it, but emphasized that “there is a fine line with enforcement.” If there is not a complaint on record, the county could be accused of discriminating against an individual,” he said. “It’s far easier for the county to defend a position that is complaint-based [because] it’s not something that anybody in the department or any individual had against somebody else and just decided to get revenge or something.”
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone also brought up the issue of enforcement at homeless encampments and the possibility of a sanctioned encampment, noting that there has been a surge in camps around the McKinleyville area since Devil’s Playground was dispersed in 2016.
“I know Eureka tried hard to try and figure that whole puzzle out and it was not easy,” Madrone said. “Frankly, it probably would have been better just to bring services and sanitation [on site] because what we’ve done now is dispersed [people] all over the place. Pretty much any wooded area in McKinleyville has homeless camps, and I get calls constantly from the neighbors very upset about it. [They are] very concerned for the safety of their children and the perception of danger, and in real cases, some cases real danger from folks doing drugs and other kinds of things. Not that all homeless people are because many of them are just down on their luck.”
Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo, who sat on the Eureka City Council at the time of the Palco Marsh evictions, said she didn’t “want to go too far down the rabbit hole,” but acknowledged that it was a “very difficult time for all of our communities.”
“[The eviction] was necessary to relocate people so that the Humboldt Bay Trail could be constructed there,” she said. “Not only did folks relocate elsewhere in Eureka, but they relocated to the Samoa Peninsula and a number of other places. I’ve seen the impacts of that, but I’ll just say from my perspective – because it does intersect with code enforcement and sanctioned camps – we did have … a number of sanctioned camps that were rotating between different sites … . But they were, I would say, by and large not a success.”
Arroyo said she would support “something like that in the future” if the county was able to identify a robust funding stream to support it.”
After a bit of additional discussion Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell made a motion to approve the report, which was seconded by Wilson. The motion was approved 5-0.
The Planning and Building Department will be closed on Fridays for the foreseeable future. The board unanimously approved staff’s recommendation to reduce the department’s public counter hours to Monday through Thursday, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. to give staff more time to focus on their workload. “Managing the public-facing counter and working on online projects simultaneously has proven challenging due to erratic flow of customers at the counter,” according to the staff report. “Dedicating staff time to these activities will allow staff to concentrate and reduce project turnaround time.” The item was unanimously approved along with the rest of the consent calendar.
The board also received an annual report from the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission. Cassandra Hesseltine, the executive director of the commission, touted the organization’s success in bringing several big motion pictures to the region in recent years. Hesseltine said film productions have brought in $12.4 million “direct dollars” to the region since 2011. The board did not take any action on he item but agreed to accept the report.
The board also approved staff’s request to revoke conditional use permits for two connected Redway businesses – the Country Club dispensary and Grass Roots Distribution – at 3525 Redwood Drive. “This is not controversial,” Ford told the board, noting that the permit holder hasn’t been in touch with staff since last year and is rumored to have skipped town. He recommended that the board revoke the permit to allow another applicant to take over the space. The motion was unanimously approved 5-0.
And if that’s not enough local government for ya, you’ll want to check out the Outpost’s coverage of Monday’s special budget hearing here.
