An Outpost reader sent us the following screenshot last week, shortly after a New York jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felonies he committed as part of a “hush money” scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election:

That’s kind of odd, right? For a local TV news station to “Love” react to such a blatantly religious and partisan post? (The Del Norte Republicans Facebook page has since deleted the post after commenters objected to the Christ-Trump comparison, but the Outpost confirmed that North Coast News “Loved” that thing.)

As it turns out, whomever is managing the station’s social media account has a history of “Love” tapping right-wing religious content, including anti-LGBTQ posts from one particularly divisive Ferndale pastor.

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Perhaps it’s a bit less surprising once you learn that North Coast News, the local ABC affiliate broadcasting as KAEF in Eureka, is among the whopping 193 TV news stations owned or operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media conglomerate known for its overtly conservative political tilt. 

KAEF’s Redding-based sister station KRCR, aka “the Northstate’s News,” is also Sinclair-owned. The local affiliates have produced some award-winning reporters and popular TV news personalities over the years, including Nazy Javid, who’s now an anchor over in Redding. 

But as PBS NewsHour reported a few years back, Sinclair often mandates that every single one of its stations run its “clearly conservative editorials and features” verbatim.

North Coast News did not respond to emails seeking comment on its social media activity. We’ll update this post if we hear back. 

In the meantime, here’s a 2018 montage displaying the kind of lockstep messaging broadcast by Sinclair-owned stations across the country.

Press release from Friends of the Eel:

PG&E announced on Friday, May 31 late last week that it will request a 7-month extension from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in decommissioning the Eel River dams. Stakeholders were expecting the utility to file its Draft Surrender Application plan with FERC this month, with a final version due in January 2025. PG&E now says it will file the draft plan in January 2025 and the final version in June 2025.

In announcing the delay, PG&E expresses support for the still vague proposal for the New Eel-Russian Facility. This proposal would see a dam-free diversion from the Eel River to the Russian River constructed and managed by the newly formed Eel Russian Joint Powers Authority. PG&E is working with the proponents of the New Eel-Russian Facility (Sonoma County Water Agency, Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Humboldt County, Round Valley Indian Tribes, California Trout, Trout Unlimited, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife) to develop a surrender application MOU “that aligns with PG&E’s Surrender Application and Decommissioning Plan.”

It would appear that PG&E hopes a short delay now will prevent a longer delay later. We are wary, however, that PG&E appears to be giving ground on their previous position that arrangements for a potential continued diversion will not delay Eel River dam removal. The Eel River’s native fish don’t have time to spare, and Eel River residents have waited long enough to see the justice that is dam removal.

Meanwhile, residents of Humboldt County continue to demand a free-flowing Eel River as soon as possible. Last month a group of nearly 60 dam removal enthusiasts floated the river from McCann to Dyerville, waving banners of support for freeing the Eel River.

Learn more or support local organizations working to Free the Eel at eelriver org, or tribresearch.org.

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Humboldt County First District Supervisor Rex Bohn may have been half kidding when referred to yesterday’s special meeting of the Board of Supervisors as “doomsday,” but County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes wasn’t amused.

“That wasn’t exactly the connotation I’d like to start off with but yes, Supervisor Bohn,” she said before introducing the reason for the gathering: With the county government staring down the barrel of its second consecutive annual budget deficit in excess of $10 million, the board was being asked to consider a dozen potential money-saving measures.

The 12 options varied in significance and complexity, and over the course of the meeting’s four-hour runtime they generated varying degrees of angst and support from department heads. 

In preparation for the day’s hearing, staff from the County Administrative Office had conducted an employee survey and met with department heads to get a sense of each one’s priorities and to gauge potential institutional resistance.

“I do just want to acknowledge that this is a stressful topic for staff, for your board [and] for department heads … ,” Hayes said. “[T]here are a lot of feelings around these topics.”

For example, Assistant CAO and Chief Operating Officer Karen Clower said department heads voiced strong opposition to the prospect of mandatory employee furloughs, but a majority of them would support closing offices to the public on Fridays to allow employees to focus on their workloads.

Other options being explored include various ways to centralize services, which Clower said would serve to increase resiliency, lead to better succession planning and allow for more collaboration.

One such option would create a “one-stop” permitting shop by locating Planning and Building, Public Works Land Use and Environmental Health in one location. Another would involve switching to a system with a county executive office, wherein a CEO would oversee the county’s appointed department heads and their respective departments. (Under the current system, department heads report directly to the Board of Supervisors.)

Clower went through each of the dozen proposals one by one, detailing department head feedback and the costs of pursuing each of them. As outlined in a report prepared for the meeting, staff recommended pursuing some options, further analyzing others and rejecting the remainder.

Her presentation took about an hour, and by the end of it Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson was a bit overwhelmed.

“This list is too big for normal humans to analyze and digest and make, you know, robust decisions on [during a single session],” he said. Instead, Wilson recommended making a few preliminary decisions at this meeting and pursuing others through a more systematic “iterative process.” He went on to offer his initial thoughts on the various proposals before the board.

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone addressed the subject of a recent report from the Civil Grand Jury, saying it’s “foolish” to be leasing property when there are opportunities to purchase buildings and consolidate services into under-used facilities.

“You’ve got to start making some shifts in order to make anything happen,” Madrone said. The county is getting ready to set its 2024-25 fiscal year budget, and if all budget requests get approved it would result in a roughly $13 million deficit, he noted. 

“And then that leaves us 10 million in our reserves, and what next year?” Madrone asked. “We’re out of money. We’re done. We have no options whatsoever but to start laying everybody off and all kinds of crazy decisions that would have to be made.”

He suggested temporarily moving the Planning and Building Department out of the dilapidated old hospital building it shares with the Sempervirens Psychiatric Health Facility (on Wood Street in Eureka) and constructing a large multi-story structure in its place with parking on the ground floor. 

One quick aside about that: As if to illustrate the dire conditions of that building, a waterlogged ceiling tile fell onto Planning and Building Director John Ford’s desk over the weekend. 

“Obviously, the roof above is leaking,” Ford said when reached via email. “The mess has been cleaned up, and there is a trash can sitting on my desk to collect the dripping water.  I understand Building Maintenance will come back tomorrow to put sealant on the roof to stop the leak and replace 3 ceiling tiles.”

Here are photos of the damage, submitted by Ford:

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“This does not seem to be structural, and so the cost [of repairs] is [limited to] the staff time, sealant, and ceiling tiles,” he told us via email.

Regarding other potential cost-cutting possibilities, Bohn said he recently read that artificial intelligence will soon enable grant applications to be filled out in half a day, where previously it took mere humans as long as five days. Bohn also spoke in favor of losing staff through attrition but not via layoffs. 

When it came time for department heads to address the board, Connie Beck, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services, said she was opposed to the idea of creating new administrative costs in the form of a county executive office. 

“To me, this feels like a revenue grab on the backs of our most vulnerable people in our community,” Beck said. “I’m not opposed to a different reporting structure. I’m really opposed to adding additional costs to our budgets right now.”

Other department heads encouraged the board to be careful and meticulous in its decision-making processes. Some voiced concerns about consolidating services such as human resources, public information officers and information technology. Others expressed frustration with the limited range of answers available in the survey that had been distributed. 

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo said she’s interested in exploring the CEO model and supportive of the proposal to close county offices to the public on Fridays. Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell made a multi-part motion, including these components:

• proceed with the plan to close certain offices (those that “are able”) to the public on Fridays with “ample” public messaging about that change
• evaluate the consolidation of IT security
• revisit other centralization plans whenever “better budget times” allow
• review the “one stop” permitting plan
• review the potential combination of Public Works’ Facilities Management unit with the County Administrative Office’ compliance team for the Americans With Disabilities Act, and
• hold further discussions about the CEO model with individual board members and department heads

Bohn suggested that on weeks with holidays, county offices should remain open to the public on Fridays. Otherwise, on weeks with Monday holidays, those county offices would be closed to the public for four days straight.

Bushnell said she’d worry about how confusing that might be in terms of messaging to the public. Bohn let the matter drop. Wilson expressed appreciation for the department heads on behalf of the board, and the motion passed unanimously.

Press release from the County of Humboldt:

The Humboldt County Department of Aviation will hold a full-scale emergency simulation training exercise on Wednesday, June 5, between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon. It will take place at and around the area of the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport (ACV), located at 3561 Boeing Ave. in McKinleyville.

The exercise will be loud and includes participation by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay, Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services, several local fire departments, ambulance providers, the American Red Cross, airline personnel and many others.

During the exercise, those in the vicinity of ACV should expect to hear sirens and see emergency lights and participants with mock injuries crying for help. Airport visitors should also expect to see law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services personnel responding to a simulated emergency. First responders will be using emergency radios, and traffic flow may be temporarily affected near the airport. Please plan accordingly.

There are no planned street closures and airport operations will not be impacted as a result of this training exercise.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires all certified commercial airports perform a full scale mass casualty training exercise every three years. The purpose of the exercise is to train airport staff and local first responders on how to respond to an emergency at ACV. The emergency simulation is intended to provide a real-time, realistic experience of a mass casualty incident and allow airport partners and first responders from several partnering agencies to practice together, assess their emergency response procedures and solidify strong operational relationships.

The training area will be closed to the media. Media inquiries regarding this exercise should be directed to cgallardo@co.humboldt.ca.us.

For more information on the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport, please visit FlyACV.com.

As Dr. Rishi Patel’s street medicine van bounces over dirt roads and empty fields in rural Kern County, he’s looking for a particular patient he knows is overdue for her shot.

The woman, who has schizophrenia and has been living outside for five years, has several goals for herself: Start thinking more clearly, stop using meth and get an ID so she can visit her son in jail. Patel hopes the shot — a long-acting antipsychotic — will help her meet all of them.

Patel, medical director of Akido Street Medicine, is one of many street doctors throughout California using these injections as an increasingly common tool to help combat the state’s intertwined homelessness and mental health crises. Typically administered into a patient’s shoulder muscle, the medication slowly releases into the bloodstream over time, providing relief from symptoms of psychosis for a month or longer. The shots replace a patient’s oral medication — no more taking a pill every day. For people who are homeless and routinely have their pills stolen, can’t make it to a pharmacy for a refill or simply forget to take them, the shots can mean the difference between staying on their medication, or not.

The Akido street medicine team look for unhoused people in a vineyard to provide medical assistance in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

“They’ve been an absolute game-changer,” Patel said.

Street medicine teams bring the shots directly to their patients wherever they are — whether it’s in a tent along Skid Row in Los Angeles, in a dugout in the middle of a field in the Central Valley, or along the bank of a stream in Shasta County. Doctors can diagnose someone, prescribe the medication, get their consent and give the shot within a matter of days — or sometimes even more quickly — and with minimal paperwork and red tape. They don’t need a psychiatrist’s sign-off.

It’s estimated that California is home to more than 180,000 homeless residents. How to help the sickest of them — people with severe, untreated psychosis who might wander into traffic or otherwise put themselves in danger — has become a hot-button issue, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers creating new and sometimes controversial ways to get people into treatment. In a recent UCSF survey of homeless Californians, 12% reported experiencing hallucinations in the past 30 days, and more than a quarter said they’d ever been hospitalized for a mental health condition.

Doctors say the goal of giving an antipsychotic shot to someone living in an encampment is to get them thinking clearly, so that they can start engaging with social workers, sign up for benefits and get on housing waitlists. While Newsom’s new CARE Court allows judges to order people into mental health treatment, and other recent legislation makes it easier to put people with a serious mental illness into conservatorships, doctors administering street injections take a different approach. The treatment is voluntary, and people can get help where they are, instead of in a locked facility.

Some success stories are dramatic. Doctors talk about patients who one day are babbling incoherently, and a week after a shot, are having conversations.

“It’s been pretty common that that’s the initiation of, ‘We’re going indoors,’” said Dr. Coley King, director of homeless health care for the Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles. He said he’s seen dozens of patients get off the street after taking these shots.

As with any medication, the shots can have side effects. And while a patient can stop taking a pill and generally put a stop to a negative reaction, once they’ve been given a shot, they have no choice but to wait a month for the drug to wear off.

Despite some street doctors’ rave reviews, injectable antipsychotics still aren’t reaching everyone who experts say they could help. Street medicine teams report having just a handful of patients on these medications at any one time (King’s team in Los Angeles has about two dozen). Some patients don’t want the shots, balking at the idea of having a drug in their system for an entire month, especially if they have feelings of paranoia related to health care.

And street doctors complain that hospitals still seem to prefer discharging patients from temporary psychiatric holds with a bottle of pills they may or may not take – instead of giving them a long-acting shot.

Losing track of patients

One of the biggest challenges street doctors face in administering these shots is following up with patients.

In Kern County, Patel hasn’t seen the woman he’s looking for since his team gave her first antipsychotic shot almost two months ago. Now she’s past due for another dose.

It’s worrying, Patel said, “because I don’t know how she did on it.”

The last place they saw her was at an encampment known as “The Sump” in the Central Valley farming community of Lamont, where she lived in a plywood shack along a muddy ditch behind a farm. But code enforcement recently cleared everyone out of that area, and Patel’s team doesn’t have a phone number or any other way to contact her.

First: The Akido street medicine team exits their van with their equipment. Last: The Akido Street Medicine team checks on a homeless encampment in a dirt field in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Photos by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

The Akido street medicine team checks for a patient they are looking for in a homeless encampment in a dirt field in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

The first place they look is another encampment known as “the Shrine,” because it once held a shrine to Santa Muerte, a Mexican saint of death often prayed to by drug dealers. The team drives the van through an empty field of dead, yellow grass. Several people are living in room-sized pits they’ve dug into the dirt and covered with tarps and sheets of metal. Next to the vacant land is a vineyard, with rows of vines dotted with small, green grapes.

She’s not there, so the team hands out sack lunches and bottles of water, then gets back in the van and leaves.

“We’ve seen results,” said Kirk McGowan, a street medicine nurse with Akido. “But we’ve seen more failures than successes. That’s just kind of the nature of the situation.”

Who should prescribe antipsychotic injections?

In most cases, the people prescribing and administering antipsychotic shots in homeless encampments are general practice doctors — not specially trained psychiatrists. That’s because despite the growing prevalence of street medicine, street psychiatrists are still rare, according to a recent USC report.

“You look over your shoulder and there’s not a psychiatrist there helping you out,” King said. “And we want to meet the need. We want to take care of these patients. They’re really, really ill, they’re really disorganized, and suffering and dying on the streets.”

There are no legal restrictions preventing a general practice doctor from administering these injections. But some practitioners think the responsibility should be reserved for psychiatric providers.

“These medications are in there for an extended period of time,” said Keri Weinstock, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who practices street medicine in Shasta County. “They do come with risks. There are specialty things that come along with some of these specialty meds, and it’s a lot to learn when you have to know everything else, too.”

Some street doctors who give these shots seek out additional psychiatric training, while others learn on the job — often with a psychiatrist on speed dial, just in case.

“I don’t think it’s rocket science to diagnose schizophrenia, as long as we’ve done it with some thoughtfulness,” King said.

Dr. Rishi Patel from the Akido street medicine team checks on an unhoused person living in a vineyard in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

In-the-field diagnoses aren’t always clear-cut, Patel said. Sometimes, people do such a good job of hiding their symptoms that it’s hard to tell they’re dealing with psychosis. Or, instead of experiencing obvious hallucinations or other symptoms commonly associated with schizophrenia, patients experience “negative symptoms,” such as extreme social withdrawal.

When those types of cases arise, Patel calls a psychologist for a second opinion.

While these drugs are generally considered safe, they do come with a risk of side effects that can include dizziness, sedation, stiffness and decreased mobility. Those symptoms might be no big deal for someone living in a house, but for someone on the street, could be catastrophic, said Dr. Shayan Rab, a street psychiatrist with Los Angeles County’s Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement team. It could make someone more vulnerable to being attacked or robbed, or prevent them from accessing food or shelter.

“It’s a very serious kind of action that’s being taken and a lot of time needs to be spent before you say, ‘Hey, this individual is safe for a long-acting injection,’” he said.

To make sure a patient doesn’t have an adverse reaction, doctors typically give them an oral dose of the same medication for a few days before administering the shot.

There’s also a risk that after a street doctor gives someone a shot, that patient could later get sent to the hospital on a temporary psychiatric hold. Doctors there might not know the patient already has a long-acting dose of antipsychotic medication in their body, and might give them another dose.

Before giving someone a shot, Dr. Aislinn Bird wants to be 100% sure their symptoms are actually caused by psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia, and not complex PTSD, major depressive disorder, methamphetamine use, or something else. Overdiagnosis of psychotic disorders is rampant, especially in the African American community, Bird said.

“You have to be sure you really know the correct diagnosis,” said Bird, who serves as director of Integrated Care at Health Care for the Homeless in Alameda County.

But Dr. Susan Partovi, who practices street medicine on Skid Row in Los Angeles, said that’s an “antiquated way of thinking.” When someone is experiencing psychosis, it’s an emergency that needs to be treated as soon as possible, no matter the cause, she said. Her preference is to treat the symptoms first, and then see if the patient wants to work on other issues, such as substance use.

An Abilify Maintena shot being prepared by the Akido street medicine team at their main office in Bakersfield on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Antipsychotic injectables, such as Abilify and Invega, tend to be most prevalent in street medicine practices. But street doctors also administer long-acting injectable HIV medication, as well as medication for addiction such as Vivitrol — an injectable, long-acting medication that can help reduce cravings for opioids and alcohol, and protect against overdose.

Silencing the voices in his head

Ricardo Fonseca Jr., who goes by “Ricky,” has been homeless for two years, living in a tent behind a Dollar Tree, then in a park in rural Kern County. The 31-year-old said he was working as a welder until he had a sudden mental breakdown and started hearing voices.

The voices said horrible things to him. Sometimes they yelled, and he yelled back, scaring those around him. He used methamphetamine to cope.

“It was getting to the point where I just felt like killing myself,” Fonseca said.

Two months ago, Fonseca started taking a monthly shot of the antipsychotic drug Abilify. Since then, “everything’s changed,” he said.

Now, Fonseca is staying at a friend’s house and considering going to school. He says he’s stopped using meth.

“I can finally hear the birds and the crickets,” he said. “I couldn’t hear them before.”

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The CalMatters Ideas Festival takes place June 5-6! Find out more and get your tickets at this link.

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

Every tax season hundreds of thousands of Californians are hit with an unexpected bill: They owe hundreds of dollars or more to the IRS because they accepted more money in subsidies for health insurance than they were allowed.

The chargeback can sting. Collectively, 415,000 California households owed the IRS close to $690 million in 2021 in charges related to the health care subsidies, according to agency data from the most recent year available. That is roughly $1,662 per person or family. Many people who end up owing money live in lower-income households.

This repayment rule is connected to the federal Affordable Care Act and the state-based health insurance plans it encouraged. Covered California, the state’s insurance marketplace, offers generous premium subsidies to those who qualify based on their income, but people can unknowingly receive too much aid if they underestimate how much they’ll earn the following year or if they lose a dependent and do not report that change.

The federal government collects any “excess” aid when people file their taxes. The government calls this process “reconciliation.”

Ten years after the rollout of the insurance marketplace, many Californians continue to be caught off guard come tax filing time. Often the charges come as a shock.

“They feel like they’re following the rules, they’re getting their coverage. And, they just kind of feel like they’re getting in trouble for doing everything right,” said Audrey Casillas, assistant director of community economic development services at Koreatown Youth and Community Center. Her nonprofit helps local low-income residents prepare their taxes at no cost as part of a Los Angeles County tax assistance program.

The people who receive excess aid are not wealthy. About half of the households who owed the IRS for excess premium subsidies in tax year 2021 earned less than $50,000, according to data from the agency.

Alex Hernandez, an insurance broker in Merced, said most people can avoid this clawback by reporting any changes in income and dependents to Covered California as soon as possible. This way the agency will adjust the amount of premium subsidies a person or family is receiving, and they’ll avoid an unpleasant surprise come tax filing time.

Hernandez tells clients to report all taxable income to the agency — that includes any extras, such as a bonus or significant winnings from a lucky night at the casino.

“Some members who are doing the enrollment themselves think that they need to go by last year’s income, and that’s not always the case,” Hernandez said. People should instead estimate income based on their current situation, he explained.

Don’t wait for open enrollment

Covered California in an emailed response to questions from CalMatters said it sends a notice reminding enrollees to report any changes, such as income and household size, before they sign up for or renew coverage.

“Consumers are reminded throughout the notice to ensure their information is accurate, and states what the tax implications are if information is incorrect,” Jagdip Dhillon, a Covered California spokesperson, said in an email.

Of course, people shouldn’t wait until open enrollment to declare changes. Enrollees can report changes at any point, either with the help of an enrollment counselor or by calling Covered California directly.

“People may need mid-year reminders, if you’re only getting this (notice) once a year it can be kind of late,” said Cynthia Cox, director of the program on the Affordable Care Act at KFF, a health policy organization that conducts polling and research. “Open enrollment is in November and tax season is April. It might be a good idea to think about it in July.”

The reconciliation rule also works the other way around. People who overestimate their income and receive less subsidies than they’re eligible for could get money back. And for those who make less than 400% of the federal poverty level, there are limits to how much they’d have to repay the IRS if they were to owe.

At the time of learning they’ll owe the IRS, some people question whether they should keep their health insurance, Casillas said. But people may also owe if they go without insurance. That’s because California is one of five states that requires residents to have health insurance. Those who go without it may face penalties.

Many save money with Covered California

Some people who have encountered this issue in the past see it as a tradeoff, Casillas said. They pay very little for their health insurance every month, but pay hundreds or a couple thousand dollars when they file their taxes. For many people, what they end up owing the IRS is still less than what they’d pay for a health plan at full price or what they’d pay for a hospital visit, Casillas said.

“We just tell them, ‘Hey, you know what, these things can be unpredictable. You want to have some savings,’” she said.

Correctly estimating next year’s earnings can be especially difficult for people who freelance or job hop, causing their estimates to be less precise, experts say.

“A lot of people on the ACA marketplace do have incomes that can be very volatile. They might be piecing together part-time jobs or are self-employed or small business owners,” Cox said.

Hernandez said he advises people enrolled in a Covered California plan to find an agent of their own and check in with them every so often. Because agents get commissions from insurance companies, this service is often free to the public. This is the best way to be informed and avoid unexpected charges, he said.

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Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

The CalMatters Ideas Festival takes place June 5-6! Find out more and get your tickets at this link.

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

Meredith Erin Vance
October 2, 1982 - April 23, 2024

Meredith passed away peacefully at home on April 23 at the age of 41. She was a warrior, and she fought a fierce and long fight with leukemia before passing. She was a beloved wife, mom, daughter, sister, auntie, niece and friend.

Meredith will be lovingly remembered by her husband of 20 years, Joey; her son Caden; her parents Debra and Stan, Michael and Rebecca; her sisters Emily, Annie and April; her brother Tieran; as well as numerous other relatives and friends.

Meredith was born in Fortuna in 1982. She was universally known as beautiful, kind and brilliant. She excelled in school, loved art and was an amazing artist. She graduated from Humboldt State with a degree in Graphic Design. She excelled at every job she had, including graphic designer, to later store manager at Target. Her employees remember her as the kindest and best boss.

Meredith was a strong beautiful woman who loved her boys more than anything. She was the best mom, never missed any of Caden’s baseball or basketball games, and just loved being with Joey and Caden. Most people can’t say they’ve been with the love of their life since 16, and Mer and Joey can, and made the best of it, and have the coolest son to show for it.

Mer enjoyed being at the beach, or being out on the ocean. Mer loved going out with Joey on his boat. He would fish and she would read for hours. She loved to travel, play games and do puzzles (especially The NY Times crossword).

Mer was truly an angel here on earth. She always made the best of a situation, saw the best in other people and took joy in the little things. She saw beauty everywhere and she brought the best out in others. Her family and friends will miss her every moment; every day, but take great comfort knowing that she is at peace and no longer in pain. She spent her last days surrounded by her loved ones, talking about how she would get to read through heaven’s library, explore heaven’s best beaches and check out the best fishing spots for Joey.

A celebration of life will be held on June 15, 2024 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Old Growth Cellars at 1945 Hillfiker Lane in Eureka. Please join us.

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