Press release from Humboldt State University:

Incarcerated scholars at Pelican Bay State Prison will soon have the opportunity to earn a B.A. in Communication from Cal Poly Humboldt.

It’s the first B.A. program to be taught in person on a Level IV yard (a high-security facility) in California. The program is a partnership between the University, College of the Redwoods, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

“CDCR is proud to partner with Cal Poly Humboldt to greatly expand degree-earning opportunities for incarcerated students and further the Department’s commitment in expanding ‘grade school to grad school’ opportunities,” said CDCR Secretary Jeff Macomber. “Collaborative efforts between CDCR and California’s public higher education system are truly transforming lives.”

“This new B.A. program and our partnership with Cal Poly Humboldt exemplify the power of collaboration,” says Keith Flamer, president of College of the Redwoods. “Together, we’re rewriting the narrative of education within the prison system.”

The first cohort starts in 2024 with 20-25 students who’ve completed their associate’s degrees through CR’s Pelican Bay Scholars Program.

“It is exciting to see a bachelor’s degree option coming to the 130 graduates of our CR Pelican Bay Scholars program at Pelican Bay State Prison,” says Rory Johnson, Dean of the Del Norte Education Center & Pelican Bay Scholars Program. “Working with our partners at Cal Poly Humboldt on this joint initiative has been a pleasure. CR has gained valuable experience in establishing a successful college program in a maximum security prison and we’re happy to collaborate with Cal Poly Humboldt to share our insights from the past eight or nine years to help them avoid reinventing the wheel.”

The program increases access to education while providing students a greater chance of success once released.

“At Cal Poly Humboldt we define ourselves by who we include and not who we exclude,” says Jenn Capps, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Cal Poly Humboldt. “Creating access to education is one of our primary goals and launching the bachelor’s degree at Pelican Bay, the first bachelor’s degree in a Level IV yard in California, does just that—creates access to education and improves outcomes for people who are incarcerated and the communities they return to.”

The program will offer two, then four courses per semester as it scales up. Classes have the same curriculum and resources as those offered on campus. The first cohort is expected to graduate in Spring 2028 with a commencement ceremony in the prison.

Incarcerated students now also have access to federal financial aid to help with tuition costs. For the first time since 1994, the students are now eligible for Pell Grants under the FAFSA Simplification Act. Access to these grants was restored as of July 2023.

Research shows that access to education reduces recidivism.

“Education is one of the greatest rehabilitative programs we can offer,” says Tony Wallin-Sato (Journalism, ‘20), program director of the Humboldt Project Rebound chapter. Project Rebound helps currently and formerly incarcerated individuals enroll in and graduate from California State Universities.

Wallin-Sato is working with the University’s new Transformative & Restorative Education Center (TREC) to jump-start the B.A. program.

“Ninety-five percent of incarcerated individuals are going to come home, and we should create the greatest possible reentry plan for them for success,” Wallin-Sato says. “If a four-year degree from a public university in California costs approximately $32,000, and a single year in prison in California on average costs $100,000, then economically we are throwing away money instead of working towards compassionate-centered work.”

Research from RAND Corporation shows that “every dollar invested in correctional education saves nearly five in reincarceration costs over three years.” Additionally, RAND found, formerly incarcerated people are 43% less likely to reoffend and more likely to be employed when they participate in any type of education program.

Project Rebound is a testament to that. “We have less than a 1% recidivism rate for students who finish their degree with us,” says Wallin-Sato. “Education is medicine for recidivism.”

He helped launch Humboldt’s Project Rebound chapter in 2020. As its director, he provides support for students adjusting to life outside of prison—students with whom he shares a common experience.

When Wallin-Sato arrived in Humboldt from Sacramento to pursue his degree after his own struggle with incarceration and addiction, it felt isolating.

“Being formerly incarcerated with a tattoo on your face, you kind of have these moments where you doubt yourself being on campus if you’re not with your peers who have shared experiences,” he explains. “So I started the first ever formerly incarcerated students club at Humboldt.”

Now he works to extend access to higher education to currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. He’s part of a working group that includes other universities, the CDCR, and Cal Poly Humboldt staff, including Steve Ladwig, director of TREC; Mark Taylor, Project Rebound youth outreach coordinator; and Communication Professor Maxwell Schnurer, that aims to make more B.A. programs available in California prisons.

The Communication degree is advantageous for Pelican Bay scholars because it is offered at other lower security prisons in California. So if a student transfers facilities, they can continue their degree, Wallin-Sato explains. If a currently incarcerated scholar is released before they finish the program, they can continue their studies at Humboldt or elsewhere.

Studying communication prepares graduates for a wide range of career options. The job market for this and similar fields is expected to grow over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Employers desire effective communication, according to research from platforms including Indeed. Studying it strengthens critical listening, public speaking, and advocacy skills.

Communication is the only B.A. currently offered through the program. In the future, project partners hope to expand degree options.

Wallin-Sato hopes that the program allows its students a greater chance at reintegration so they can make a positive impact on their communities and society as a whole.

“Just because they are incarcerated doesn’t mean they aren’t a part of our community,” he adds. “The majority of people incarcerated need support and resources, not isolation and exile.”

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Cheryl Dillingham doesn’t particularly like the spotlight. She decided to run for the county’s demanding auditor-controller position last year despite being intensely camera-shy, averse to public speaking and reluctant to clash with the embattled incumbent, Karen Paz Dominguez, whom she respects.

However, once you get Dillingman talking about numbers, systems and spreadsheets — and the progress her office has made in catching up on the huge backlog of delinquent fiscal reporting she inherited — her eyes start to light up. 

“Everybody’s working really well together,” she said during an interview at her office on Tuesday. “Everybody’s working really hard. … I’m working to develop a team that gets the work done and can keep getting the work done. And [other county] departments have been very cooperative and helpful.”

Dillingham stepped into the role of auditor-controller on July 1 of last year, a few weeks after her landslide election victory but fully six months before she was scheduled to take office. She started early because county administrators had reached a separation agreement with Paz Dominguez, whose abbreviated term was characterized by bitter, often public conflicts with county staff, department heads and supervisors. She was the subject of third-party investigations, a censure from the Board of Supervisors, several votes of “no confidence” and a scathing report from the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury. 

Before she left office, though, the State of California sued the county and Paz Dominguez, in both her personal and professional capacities, for failure to comply with government-mandated financial reporting requirements. 

That lawsuit has now been resolved. Per the terms of a settlement agreement reached last August, the county, which covered Paz Dominguez’s attorney fees, submitted a detailed action plan for filing its overdue budgets and reports and agreed to pay $12,000 in fines (or “forfeitures”) to the California Department of Justice. Dillingham told the Outpost that the DOJ confirmed receipt of the county’s $12,000 check on Monday. The attorney representing the state confirmed to the Times-Standard Monday that the county has met its obligations and the case has been resolved.

Now more than a year into her first term, Dillingham said her office has made good progress toward catching up on overdue fiscal reporting. 

“When I ran and when I got elected, I felt like the general consensus on priorities was to get the audits done, to get things reconciled [and] to get mandated reports done, and so those have been my priorities,” she said.

According to the County Administrative Office, Dillingham implemented a corrective action plan to get the county caught up on its mandated financial reporting, and her office is now caught up on submitting financial transaction reports and budgets. 

The A-C’s Office has also caught up on journal entries and bank reconciliations, and delays and errors with payroll have decreased significantly, according to the CAO’s Office.

Mary Ann Hansen, director of the nonprofit First 5 Humboldt, said her dealings the Auditor-Controller’s Office have vastly improved.

“Things have been smooth and transparent, and communication has been clear this past fiscal year,” she told the Outpost via text. “When we recently asked the ACO for the documents that we needed for our annual independent audit, we received them immediately, paving the way for our audit to be completed on time this year! It’s not only been a relief, but we’ve had to commit less staff time to repeated communications.”

Dillingham acknowledged that her staff isn’t completely caught up yet. When she took over last summer, the office was more than two years behind in closing its monthly budget reporting — the process by which the general ledger gets reconciled with the Treasurer-Tax Collector to ensure that records match what’s actually in the county’s coffers. Dillingham and her staff have reduced that two-year backlog by more than half.

The county is also still behind on submitting its annual single audits, though Dillingham said progress has been made on that front, too. Her office wrapped up the overdue audit for the 2020-21 fiscal year, and she said the 2021-22 audit is nearly ready to go.

“We’re basically closed and queued up and ready to start the next audit, whereas that was not the case this time last year,” she said.

Because of the county’s recent history of delinquent fiscal reporting, it has had outside accounting firm Clifton Larsen Allen perform two so-called “national reviews,” examining the county’s audits to make sure they  meet minimum standards and that everything required to be tested gets tested.

“It’s getting a lot of scrutiny,” Dillingham said, “which I believe perhaps would not be the case if we were more current and didn’t have quite so many challenges.”

While payroll problems have decreased, employees in some county departments, including the Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Health and Human Services, are still using paper timecards, despite the fact that both county supervisors and the CAO’s Office have urged a transition to fully electronic timekeeping systems.  

Dillingham said the county has been reviewing various software systems in hopes of finding one that can accommodate the complex needs of various its departments, some of which operate on a 24/7 basis, and its distinct labor bargaining units, which each have their own memorandum of understanding governing wages and benefits. 

“Paper timecards may not be ideal, but we’ve used them for hundreds of years and they do work,” Dillingham remarked. “And sometimes the priority is to fix the things that don’t work.”

The Auditor-Controller’s Office now has 16 of its 19 allocated positions filled — up from 12 of 19 a year ago — and Dillingham said she has been working on getting those employees trained on as many tasks as possible. For example, she had some staffers complete the reports necessary to get the state’s lawsuit dismissed.

“Part of the reason I had staff do it is because I didn’t want to be the only person in the world that knew how to do something,” Dillingham said, “because I think that’s a little bit of what got us into trouble in the first place.”

She noted that shortly before Paz Dominguez took office, quite a few long-term employees from both the Auditor-Controller’s Office and other departments had left the county’s employ, resulting in a mass exodus of institutional knowledge and not much of a succession plan. 

“It was very hard, and I can only imagine the struggles of trying to figure all that out,” Dillingham said. 

She’s been having her staff take online courses from the Government Finance Officers Association and encouraging them to network with employees of other counties at property tax conferences and the like. She’s already working to develop a succession plan for her own eventual departure, whenever that may be.

California recently awarded $91 million in grants to local organizations that help prevent hate crimes or support survivors, part of an unprecedented effort to combat hate in a state that saw a 20% increase in such crimes in 2022.

Despite its progressive reputation, California last year reported steep increases in hate crimes against transgender people (up 55%), Muslims (up 39%) and Black people (up 27%), according to the Attorney General’s office.

That growth outpaced similar hate growth trends in 42 major cities, according to a soon to be released study by Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

The state’s latest Stop the Hate grants bring its non-law enforcement anti-hate spending to more than $200 million since 2021, more than any other state, advocates say.

The grants will go to more than 170 community groups at a time when the state is experiencing a steady clip in high-profile hate incidents — from the August murder of a Southern California store owner who flew a rainbow flag, and the recent evacuation of an Oakland elementary school after a racist bomb threat, to the fiery debates over rights of transgender students at various school boards.

California in the past year created a commission to study the state of hate and set up a hotline for people to report incidents to its Civil Rights Department. The state also put together a team of mediators to address conflicts in communities.

‘Swap meet of hate’

Both Sacramento and Los Angeles saw record levels of hate crimes in 2022, according to the study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, which independently analyzes data from local law enforcement agencies.

Researchers say that while the state’s reported hate crime numbers appear to be dipping slightly in 2023, the upcoming presidential election is likely to turn up the temperature even more.

“We are very concerned about an increase next year,” said Brian Levin, a study author and member of the 9-month-old Commission on the State of Hate. He told fellow commissioners last month: “Mainstream politics has gotten not only more tribal, but also more bigoted.”

Levin said in an interview with CalMatters that hate crimes historically rise in response to political speech and current events. But in recent years such spikes have lasted longer, such as when anti-Black crimes remained elevated months after 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.

Social media provides “a 24-7 swap meet of hate,” he said. “We’re having a significant increase in hate crimes, and hate crimes are getting more violent. But we’re also having more reporting, particularly in certain areas.”

Hate crimes are notoriously difficult to track. Survivors often don’t report them, and local law enforcement agencies vary in how well they monitor them and how much they report to state and federal authorities.

California’s grants aim to help reduce or respond to hate crimes, and to incidents that may not rise to the level of a crime but nevertheless take a toll on an individual or community.

Anti-transgender hate

Terra Russell-Slavin, chief impact officer at the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center, said that center is receiving more hate mail than in the past and recently experienced a credible bomb threat.

“There definitely is increased fear among the community,” she said, adding that the rise in reported hate crimes against transgender people, while troubling, is not surprising.

“This is part of a nationally coordinated attack against our community, and it’s very much targeted at transgender people and particularly trans youth issues,” she said, adding that anti-transgender rhetoric by elected officials “has been field-tested, and frankly it feels like attacking the transgender community is helping rally their base.”

Equality California, an LGBTQ civil rights organization, received a wave of phone calls at the start of pride festival season from people organizing such events in small towns wondering if it was safe, said program director Erin Arendse.

Equality California is using its $630,000 state grant to create a rapid response network that can send staff and resources to local communities when issues arise – such as when a school board is deciding on policies that would out transgender students or ban rainbow flags in classrooms.

“We want to make sure they understand these policies,” Arendse said, “both in terms of how it impacts an individual student and how it turns up the temperature of anti transgender and LGBTQ sentiment and indicates that it’s OK to discriminate against this group of people.”

Black Californians most often affected

In California and nationwide, Black people and communities are the most frequent target of reported hate crimes, data show.

Black people represented 6% of California’s population but about 30% of its reported hate crime victims in 2022, according to the Attorney General’s office. Yet organizations focused on the Black community appear to be receiving a fraction of the grants the state is disbursing.

One group, the Black Youth Leadership Project in Elk Grove, a Sacramento suburb, will use its Stop the Hate funds to provide mental health services — from art therapy to support groups — to Black children who experience racism in school, said Lorreen Pryor, its president.

Lorreen Pryor, president of the Black Youth Leadership Project, said her group was the only Black-led organization on a conference call about the state’s anti-hate hotline. She attended a festival in Elk Grove on Sept. 9, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters

The organization often mediates between schools and outraged parents, advocating for administrators to take parents’ concerns seriously. School bias can range from a teacher using the N-word in class to a Black student being disciplined for behavior that is tolerated from other students, she said.

She added she was surprised to discover that hers was the only Black-led group on a conference call of organizations consulting on the state’s hate hotline.

“We have to focus on the group that is most impacted, and that happens to be Black people,” Pryor said. “And until they do that, it’s all for naught.”

Early focus on anti-Asian hate

California originally created the Stop the Hate grants in response to a surge in anti-Asian hate incidents reported during the Covid-19 pandemic. The coalition Stop AAPI Hate has documented more than 11,000 such incidents nationwide since 2020.

Gov. Newsom signed the Asian Pacific Islander Equity budget in 2021 funding the grants at the urging of the state’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus. Early grants primarily went to organizations serving that community.

The state broadened its most recent round of grants to fund organizations that reflectCalifornia’s diversity, said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, the lead organization distributing grants in the Los Angeles region. (The California Department of Social Services awards the grants.)

California’s declining Black population may have depressed the number of Black-led organizations applying for and receiving funding, Kulkarni said.

Some grants will address workplace hate. The NAACP’s California Hawaii State Conference is sponsoring legal consultations for people experiencing discrimination on the job or in housing. And San Francisco-based PRC, which helps Black transgender women reenter the workforce, is using its grant to make a film about its clients’ quest to overcome stigma and find jobs.

Another documentary, produced by teen filmmakers, will chronicle the impact of hate crimes on immigrant and refugee communities in San Diego. Somali Family Service, the non-profit spearheading the project, said it could empower other refugee communities and inspire policymakers to think about solutions.

Most Middle Eastern and North African teenagers the organization serves have experienced or witnessed hate incidents, said Rachel Evans, the group’s youth program manager. Many tell her they stay home from school on September 11, hoping to avoid the racist and anti-Muslim taunts that have come from students, teachers and administrators on that day.

“Many of these youth were not even born when 9/11 happened and they’re experiencing this unjust, ridiculous blame,” said Evans. “They don’t feel welcome in the country based on something that has nothing to do with them.”

Inspiring victims to report hate

California’s hotline offers people who have experienced hate incidents an opportunity to report them, whether or not the incidents were crimes. From its launch in May through the end of August, it has received 361 calls, said the Civil Rights Department, which runs it.

One goal is to reach Californians who are reluctant to contact police or who live in remote areas with few community groups to turn to, department officials said. Callers can learn about the reporting process, file a civil rights complaint, and access counseling, legal services and other support.

Hong Lee knows from experience how important such support can be. Three years ago, while standing in line at a restaurant, Lee turned down a man’s offer of a lunch date and he began yelling anti-Asian and sexist slurs at her. Lee captured the incident on video but a responding police officer called it “normal” and refused to take a report, she said.

A month later Lee realized she was experiencing post-traumatic stress.

“I wasn’t sleeping at night, just staring up at the ceiling,” she said. “I was in complete denial that I needed help at first.”

A friend connected her with LA vs Hate, a Los Angeles-based precursor of the state’s hotline.

It helped her get mental health counseling.

Now Lee works with other hate incident survivors and has started a nonprofit organization, Seniors Fight Back, that provides self-defense classes to elderly Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Her group is not getting a state grant.

Somali Family Service, one of the groups receiving state anti-hate money, hosted immigrant families, refugees and asylum seekers at a resource fair in San Diego on Sept. 9, 2023. Photo by Kristian Carreon for CalMatters

Often people at her classes share that they’ve been physically assaulted, she said, and Lee encourages them to report it, saying that in her case, several other victims recognized the man in her video and he ultimately faced hate crime charges from another incident.

Still, she said, many are reluctant to report. One woman in a self-defense class said she had been assaulted on public transit.

“She had bruises all over her body, but she didn’t want to tell anybody about it,” Lee said. “Two years later, she’s still inside her apartment, because she’s afraid to go outside.”

The Attorney General’s report said anti-Asian hate crimes fell in California by 43% in 2022 but they’re still far above pre-pandemic levels.

While scapegoating Asian Americans for the pandemic has receded nationally, anxiety about the economy and the U.S. relationship with China are driving other forms of anti-Asian racism, Kulkarni said. She cited Florida’s new law that bars Chinese citizens from owning property in much of that state.

Microaggressions still are a common experience among Los Angeles’ Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, Kulkarni said, citing a state-funded study her group is conducting, but people are reporting declines in trauma symptoms when they speak out about their experiences. The AAPI Equity Alliance plans to use the study’s findings to launch support groups for Korean, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino and Japanese Americans in January.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice is using a state grant to build alliances among various ethnic communities to tackle issues that affect all of them, such as safety on public transit and within public housing complexes. Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a coalition member, said they’re asking public housing residents such questions as “Would you like to have escorts when you’re running errands? Would you like more opportunities to get to know your neighbors?”

“Safety is a concern for all communities, and it’s the one rallying point for residents and neighbors to come together around,” Choi said. “If we don’t tend to people’s basic needs being met, we are going to continue to see harm happen, whether it’s racially motivated or due to other factors.”

Community conflict resolutions

To help with that progress, the state’s new strike team of trained mediators will provide “immediate, on-the-ground intervention to avoid violence and to reduce tension in something that is live, something that is happening,” said Kevin Kish, director of the Civil Rights Department.

That could mean stepping in after a hate incident to help community members and law enforcement respond or it could mean helping a city council or school board prepare for a contentious meeting, he said.

“Nobody takes a class on how to deal with difficult public meetings,” he said. “People don’t know what to do and sometimes they make mistakes. Part of the value of this program is talking to folks in advance to make a plan for what might happen and how they’re going to respond.”

The mediators are trained in both civil rights and government. They began working together in October, officials said, declining to discuss details of specific cases.

Meanwhile the state’s Commission on the State of Hate is monitoring hate activity and hosting public forums. Consisting of activists, researchers, community leaders and law enforcement representatives appointed by the governor and Legislature, it’s required to issue annual reports and to recommend solutions.

Will all this effort actually reduce hate in California? Researchers say that just as bigoted comments by public officials can fuel crimes, when government leaders take strong stands against hate, such incidents decrease.

The Stop the Hate funding to community groups is part of a three-year plan, however it’s unclear whether lawmakers will choose to renew it. The law establishing the Commission on the State of Hate requires it to sunset in 2027.

“The question is, can we make sure the state continues to sustain this level of investment?” Choi asked.

Lee said a key will be more state outreach to grassroots organizations like her self-defense group. “We have the one-on-one connections to people.”

Added Levin, from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism: “This is not something that’s going to be solved by so-called experts and advocates. It’s going to be solved by soccer coaches, principals, community leaders, journalists. We need a whole-community response.”

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

Sebren Green Sr. our beloved father, grandfather and great-grandfather passed away on August 31 at the age of 83 in his Fortuna home.

His pride and joy was his family. He loved each and every one of us. He was especially proud of his five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His friends and neighbors were regularly updated about their activities and accomplishments. He devoted himself to caring for his family and was always interested in what was happening in their lives. His great grandchildren loved to visit him and were often served special treats from the freezer.

Poppa Green’s second love was the US Navy. After over thirty years of faithful and honorable service in the US Navy, he retired, having achieved the rank of a Boatswain’s Mate, First Class. He served on the USS Salish, USS Bidelow, USS Forrestal, USS Tallahatchie and USS Lang and he was stationed in Northern Ireland, Virginia, Morocco, Naples and finally Centerville Beach in Ferndale in the 1970s. This last posting brought him and his boys: Sebren and Christopher to the town of Fortuna where he lived the rest of his life. He loved his time in the Navy. In every phone conversation or visit, Navy stories would be shared and the “invitation” to become a sailor was often shared with his grandchildren. The sea was never far from his heart. He was constantly looking for sailing vessels and discussed sailing around the world with his family.

An explorer at heart, he learned to drive trucks after retirement and spent several years traveling around the country as a big rig driver until his health no longer permitted it. One of his dreams in his later years was to travel the country, to visit family members in Chicago, Texas and California in his travel camper. While he did not physically get there, he kept in constant contact with family near and far via phone and video chat.

He was also a lifelong learner. He received his Associate Arts degree from College of the Redwoods after retiring. He loved history and the History Channel was a constant sound playing on his television. He also loved architecture. He had many books on architecture and had drafted ideas for his dream home. He had a passion for design in general and he spoke often of different designs he had for carts and bikes he wanted to create for the family.

Sebren had the gift for conversation. He could tell stories with anyone and everyone he met. With a big smile and a twinkle in his eye, he would expound upon any topic presented. Over the past 40 years, Sebren could be found all over Fortuna visiting and chatting with his friends and neighbors. He was a regular presence on the roads of Fortuna, riding his bicycle and often towing a grandchild behind him. He also had his beloved dog, Pipsqueak, hidden in his jacket or touring the town from a high seat in his truck.

His devotion to the Catholic Church was an important part of his life. He served as a Deacon at St. Joseph’s in Fortuna. In addition, he was a member of the Knights of Columbus. He attended mass weekly as long as his health permitted and he has many friends from his congregation that loved and admired him. He lived his faith by serving others. He had a warm and generous heart and he was often helping others despite his own needs.

Sebren is survived by family near and far. And for Sebren, family meant more than genealogical connections. His arms were wide open and he embraced many as family. Words cannot express how much he will be missed. We thank family and friends and the community of Fortuna for your love and support. Please join us for a celebration of his life. All who knew him are welcome to attend any or all of the scheduled events.

Sebren’s ashes will be scattered in Humboldt Bay at a time to be determined.

The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Sebren Green’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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Fifth District Supervisor and Board Chair Steve Madrone began today’s Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting by reading a brief statement into the record.

“The Board of Supervisors values the Constitution and a person’s First Amendment right to free speech,” Madrone stated. “In order to facilitate an orderly meeting, the board chair will ensure that the citizen’s right to speak does not infringe on the rights and the protections of others. Any person who addresses this board shall refrain from threats of violence or statements that elicit a violent response.”

“We say this just to try and keep an orderly meeting and a respectful meeting,” he added.

Although he did not explicitly state the reason behind the declaration, the statement was in reference to comments made during the board’s last meeting on Aug. 22.

During that meeting, frequent public commenter Charles Wilson alleged that by flying the Pride flag outside the courthouse in June, the county was expressing support for “child mutilation and elimination of women’s right to privacy and security.” At the tail end of his rambling comments, Wilson pivoted and said, “When I volunteered for the Army, I was told by the government that I had to shoot people that the government didn’t like.”

Madrone immediately cut Wilson off, noting that his commenters were “crossing over into hate speech.” 

In a follow-up email, County Administrative Officer (CAO) Elishia Hayes told the Outpost that Wilson was cut off because his comments were perceived as a threat of violence. “[T]he commenter talked favorably about being able to shoot people who were disliked by the majority, and taken in context with the other comments he made, I perceived that to be a statement that could elicit a violent response towards certain populations within our own community … ,” Hayes wrote.

During today’s meeting, Wilson argued that his comments were misinterpreted and demanded that the board allow him to finish what he was going to say. Madrone granted his request even though he was speaking during public comment on the board’s consent calendar, not non-agenda public comment.

“I would have continued … I didn’t like the idea, just like now with a government promoting child mutilation, eliminating woman’s right of privacy and security, and forcing dangerous government medication in order to make money for pharmaceuticals,” Wilson said, in part. “[CAO Hayes] … cited my name specifically and said I talked favorably about being able to shoot people who are not disliked [sic] by the majority. I did not say I wanted to shoot people or any group.”

Wilson went on to demand a written apology from the Board of Supervisors and Hayes, “as well as actions taken publicly to correct the county’s … malinformation [sic] which defamed the character of me and my wife, which has put us in peril.”

Madrone allowed Wilson to use slightly more time than the allotted three minutes for public comment since he was cut off at the previous meeting. He also offered an apology.

Madrone

“Charles, I apologize to you for cutting you off early last time,” Madrone said. “I jumped to it before you made your final comment. … But in the future, we would have a warning first if the person is going into that area, and then they would be allowed to continue their comments as long as they don’t go into that area of eliciting a violent response, or threats of violence towards individuals or groups.”

A few others criticized Madrone’s response during non-agenda public comment, including Wilson’s wife. The board did not take any further action on the matter.

Grand Jury Responses

The board also reviewed three recent reports from the 2022-2023 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury regarding emergency preparedness, inspections of county facilities and the state of the county’s Child Abuse Services Team, or CAST. 

Public Information Specialist Cati Gallardo went over the recommendations listed in each report and explained staff’s recommendation to adopt some, but not all, of the Grand Jury’s suggestions. 

For example, the Grand Jury’s report – “Humboldt County Emergency Preparedness: Ready or Not?” – asks the Board of Supervisors to “to write and print for release an easily-understood emergency preparedness handbook, including emergency evacuation routes and destination maps to all county residents and visitors by no later than March 31, 2024.” Gallardo said the board cannot implement the recommendation “because it is not reasonable for your board to implement.”

Another recommendation asked the Board of Supervisors to direct the Humboldt County Disaster Council, in coordination with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services (OES), to submit an updated Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) by the end of next year. Gallardo stated that the recommendation “is already in the process of being implemented.”

“It is anticipated that the revised draft EOP will be ready to be submitted for review by CalOES in late 2024,” Gallardo said. “However, the adoption of the plan will likely occur in 2025 after the review process can be completed.”

Ryan Derby, manager of Humboldt OES, said his office could share a template of the document with the Board of Supervisors by the end of the month.

“The [EOS] is really kind of a guiding document that establishes the framework of our emergency response,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily serve as a playbook, right? I think what you’re looking for is something much simpler that we could probably have to you before the end of the month.”

After a bit of discussion, the board thanked the Grand Jury for its service and unanimously approved staff’s recommendations. You can find a detailed list of the Grand Jury’s recommendations and staff’s responses at this link.

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Other notable bits from today’s meeting:

• The board was set to hear an appeal of a recently approved conditional use permit for We Are Up, a 50-unit housing development for seniors and people with Autism and other intellectual disabilities, but the meeting was postponed. Planning and Building Director John Ford said “there is some hope that things can be worked out and so we are hoping to let that play out.” He said the public hearing would be continued at a date uncertain if the applicant and appellant cannot come to an agreement on the matter.
• The board approved the formation of an ad hoc working group to review the County of Humboldt Facilities Master Plan, which was adopted in 2020. The board agreed to appoint Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson and Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo to the ad hoc committee.
• The board also approved the appointment of Tesia Beauchene to the Shelter Cove Resort Improvement District’s board of directors. The appointment will extend through December 6, 2024.

PREVIOUSLY:

• (UPDATING) Eureka High on Hard Lockdown as Police Investigate Off-Campus Incident

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On September 12, 2023, at about 10:15 a.m., a City of Eureka employee witnessed a male enter the greenbelt near 15th and M Streets with a rifle on his back. Due to the proximity to the campus, Eureka High School was put on a lockdown out of an abundance of precaution while officers investigated.

With the assistance of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and a Fortuna Police Department drone, officers located and detained the male in the greenbelt around 12:30 p.m. A BB gun that resembled a rifle was located and seized.

The male was ultimately questioned and released from the scene, as no threats had been made. The Eureka Police Department would like to thank the observant City employee, assisting agencies and Eureka City Schools for their swift action.

Lockdowns are oftentimes scary situations for everyone involved. In the event of future lockdowns:

• Avoid calling the school or police
• Do not rush to the scene
• Check official social media pages for updates
• Avoid spreading information that has not been confirmed by an official source
• Educate yourself on school procedures
• Keep your contact information current with your school

Just after 9 a.m. this morning, the historic Hawaiian vessel Hōkūleʻa pulled within view of the small crowd of onlookers at Eureka’s F Street dock. Being in inshore waters, she was under tow from her motorized consort, the Kōlea. There was a moment of confusion as the two boats passed by the dock altogether and floated into the channel separating Woodley Island from the mainland. Were they heading up to the Bonnie Gool dock instead?

But a moment later the Kōlea lazed into sharp U-turn mid-channel and the Hōkūleʻa, dozens of feet behind, followed suit, with much of the crew of the double canoe rushing astern to work her giant steering oar, flipping her head around to the west. They pulled up at F Street, and advance scout and ground crew member Mike Cunningham, a Honolulu resident, rushed down to assist in making her fast to the dock.

The Hōkūleʻa is a double-canoe sailing ship modeled after Polynesian seafaring boats of antiquity, and is a source of pride for native Hawai’i. It was conceived of and built in the mid-1970s, with the goal of recreating the great Polynesian voyages during the settlement and of that immense region of the Pacific Ocean, leaving behind a culture that stretched from the Hawaiian Island of Ni’ihau in the north, to New Zealand in the southwest, to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the southeast.

The people behind the Hōkūleʻa project wanted to recreate and revive the old ways of long-distance navigating – without compasses or GPS devices or anything of that sort, using only knowledge of the stars, the winds and the currents. One of them, a young man named Nainoa Thompson, studied navigation with the only person they could find who still knew the old ways of wayfinding, a man from a small Micronesian island named Pius Piailug. After years of study, in 1980 they and a crew successfully sailed the Hōkūleʻa from Maui to Tahiti and back without modern tools – a distance of about 5,500 miles, round-trip.

The Hōkūleʻa has undertaken many missions since then, around the Polynesian Triangle and around the world, and when the boat pulled into Eureka for a stop on its current mission — “Moananuiākea: A Voyage for Earth,” a trip around the Pacific Ocean that began in Juneau, Alaska at the beginning of this summer – Thompson himself came to the side of the boat to tell visitors about the purpose of their current work.

“The evolution of this voyage is because we see the ocean changing,” Thompson said. “It’s our fundamental belief that the greatest environmental challenge of the 21st century is to protect the ocean. Because it protects life as we know it.”

Thompson said the crew of the Hōkūleʻa is serving as the “conduit” for a team they have built to advocate for ocean protection, against risks like acidification and the subsequent loss of plankton – the biggest producer of oxygen on the planet.

The size and scope of the mission has taken the Hōkūleʻa out of her normal waters, and Thompson spent some time marveling at the size of the Pacific Northwest’s swell and the fog. The boat wasn’t built for this kind of weather, but so far she’s been holding up.

But it does look like changing weather is going to keep the Hōkūleʻa in port for a couple of days, so you’ll be able to take a walk down to the F Street dock, and, if you’re lucky, catch a few words with the friendly crew. This morning, Thompson was last seen embracing Wiyot Tribal Chair Ted Hernandez, who welcomed them to town. It seemed as though some sightseeing had been ordered up for the crew.

According to Mike Cunningham, the expedition’s advance man, it looks as though the round-the-Pacific trip might be postponed a little bit. After the catastrophic fires on Maui, the crew feels a need to get this symbol of native Hawaiian ingenuity and accomplishment and back home.

“We know that the presence of Hōkūleʻa back in Hawai’i is going to give the people strength,” Cunningham said.

Read more about the Hōkūleʻa at the project’s website.

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UPDATE, 9/13: Just in! The Hawaiian vessel Hōkūleʻa, currently docked in Humboldt Bay, has announced they will offer public tours today (Wednesday) from 2 to 5 p.m. at F Street Dock.