###

The development of a floating wind energy installation 21 miles off the Humboldt County coastline could wind up being the most significant industrial project in our region’s history. It’s a key component of the Biden administration’s Energy Earthshots initiative, which seeks to address the climate crisis through a variety of investments and innovations in clean energy production over the coming decade.

But what will it mean for us here in Humboldt County?

That’s the question addressed in the latest episode of “Reimagining Rural,” a podcast series produced by nonprofit public policy think tank the Brookings Institution.

Host Tony Pipa recently visited our shores, and over the course of the nearly hour-long episode he speaks with a cross-section of locals, including Humboldt County supervisors Natalie Arroyo and Rex Bohn, Economic Development Director Scott Adair, Hoopa Valley Public Utilities District General Manager Linnea Jackson, county Planning Commissioner/Cal Poly Humboldt INRSEP+ Coordinator Lonyx Landry and more. 

The episode reflects on our region’s long history of resource extraction and exploitation, and the panel of local sources discusses efforts to ensure that doesn’t happen this time around. Those efforts include the Redwood Region Climate and Community Resilience (CORE) Hub, a coalition of local stakeholders aiming to reach community benefits agreements with the wind energy developers who will soon be our neighbors.

You can listen to the episode via Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Over the next few weeks, Lost Coast Communications — the Outpost’s parent company — will be doing some work in conjunction with the California Department of Health and Human Services’ “Never a Bother” campaign, which exists to help teens and young adults recognize their power to make a difference in the lives of people experiencing crisis. And also to remind those people that they are never a bother.

Radio hosts from our four sister stations — KHUM, KSLG, KWPT and KLGE — will be talking to local people whose work and whose presence in our community exemplifies this mission, and we’ll be sharing those interviews here on the Outpost.

First up: Chuck Rogers of KWPT (“The Point”) recently had the good fortune to sit down with the wonderful Florence Parks, executive director of the local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters and general all-around mover/shaker in Eureka, especially in kid-related matters.

What has Parks learned about being there for kids experiencing suicidal thoughts or other types of mental health crises? What kinds of resources does Big Brothers Big Sisters have to offer?

“Young people, what we’ve learned is they need five positive adults in their lives to thrive,” Parks says. “So that could be a great mom and dad and a grandparent, maybe an auntie or uncle, but maybe that fifth person just isn’t there in tune to what they need. And so a formal program like ours offers that opportunity to families.”

Below: Chuck and Florence. Funding for this project comes in part from the California Department of Health and Human Services.

Everyone seems to agree that Arcata’s population is going to grow. The Arcata School District is wondering if it needs to update its two main campuses to accommodate a future enrollment spike. But at the moment, it doesn’t have the money to do so.

The district could start collecting developer fees, a one-time charge to builders of new homes and commercial buildings located in the school district, paid during the permitting process. That funding would be for updating and expanding schools to accommodate the new students who would be a direct result of new development. So, for instance, if a new subdivision brings a few dozen school-age children into the area, the local elementary school district would be ready to absorb them. 

Most school districts in California collect these funds, including Eureka City Schools and other local districts. Citing upcoming development in Arcata – like the Sorrel Place Project, Gateway Area Plan, and Cal Poly Humboldt expansion – Arcata School District Superintendent Luke Biesecker told the Outpost that the district has been considering collecting these development fees for a while. At the moment, there is no urgent need: In March, Arcata voters passed Measure B, awarding the district $12.5 million in bonds. But the idea did percolate to the surface at a meeting this week.

On Monday, the Arcata School District board considered a resolution to levy a fee of $3.11 per square foot of residential development and $0.50 per square foot of commercial development. If, as predicted, 375 new homes are built in the next five years, these fees would amount to more than a million dollars, according to a justification study the company SchoolWorks completed for the district. 

The few community members and builders who commented at Monday’s meeting said that the district would be asking too much.

“Developers will be forced to pass on the additional cost to homebuyers or tenants, further contributing to housing affordability challenges,” said a representative of Adams Commercial General Contracting. 

Kyle Boughton, owner of North Star Development, suggested that families would be pushed out of the district due to higher living costs, decreasing enrollment rather than increasing it. He also speculated that most new housing in Arcata will be rented to incoming Cal Poly Humboldt students who might not have school-age kids. 

The City of Arcata seems to be of two minds about the fee. “While the City has concerns regarding how this fee will affect much needed housing production, we also understand the need to ensure revenue to support critical programs and education,” Arcata Mayor Meredith Matthews wrote in a letter to the school board.

“The City requests that prior to your final consideration to enact a developer fee that you attend and share the District’s vision for this fee with the community at a City Council meeting. This opportunity would allow the District to explain why this fee is preferable to a bond/parcel tax measure, the necessity for the funds, the process that you will use to calculate and collect the fees and how you propose to communicate these transactions with the City to best serve the developers in our City.”

Sarah Kollman, a lawyer whose firm represents the North Coast Home Builders Association, suggested on Monday that the district’s intended use for the funds might be unlawful. This interpretation may be based on the five-year parameter of the SchoolWorks study, which identified the need to modernize existing facilities to accommodate a predicted 5-year increase of 55 students, rather than build new buildings. Kollman said that her understanding of the law was that development fees cannot be used for maintenance.

“The law around the imposition of developer fees is very clear, that developer fees cannot be used to address deferred maintenance and long-term maintenance items,” Kollman said. “For a school district, they have to be directly tied to increased student capacity and an additional level of service.”

Biesecker later told the Outpost that despite the SchoolWorks study’s time frame, the district is looking beyond the next five years. “Looking long-term, our concern has been mostly with the potential need for new facilities,” he said. 

On Monday, the board decided to table the item for now, with plans to consult legal counsel next month and attend a city council meeting in the meantime. School districts don’t legally need city or county approval to levy developer fees.

If the Arcata School District does ultimately charge a fee, it might enter an agreement with the Northern Humboldt Union High School District to split funds. If they did, builders would probably pay $5.17 per square foot of residential development and $0.84 per square foot commercial development, which is the maximum amount districts can currently charge for developer fees (this number adjusts every two years to reflect inflation).  

For now, no action. But that could change soon. 

“At some point I think the board’s serious about this,” Biesecker said on Monday. “But there’s a timing element, and knowing that it’s the right time for students and the community I think is important.”

The first $3.3 billion of bonds approved by voters in March to build and rehab housing and treatment beds for people with mental illness will be available to counties months ahead of schedule, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday.

And counties, he emphasized repeatedly, had better get to work.

“You’re either part of the problem or you’re not. Period,” he said at a press conference in front of Cordilleras Mental Health Center, in Redwood City.

“Let’s move out of the way. Let’s do the right thing. And let’s have the sense of urgency that people in the state of California demand.”

The funding, slated to come online July 1, is more than half of the $6.4 billion in bond money promised under Proposition 1, one of Newsom’s signature mental health initiatives. Prop. 1 also requires that counties spend more of their existing mental health funds on people who are chronically homeless. Despite early expectations that it would sail through, Prop. 1 barely squeaked by.

The announcement comes at a politically tricky moment for Newsom, who last week announced more than $30 billion in one-time and ongoing cuts as he seeks to close a sizable state budget deficit.

Newsom noted Tuesday that his administration is rolling out the money much faster than has been the case with past bonds, including a similar measure known as No Place Like Home. The process of distributing the funds for that $2 billion 2018 housing bond took years, and has yielded much less housing than voters were promised.

Prop. 1 comes coupled with several other major mental health initiatives, including conservatorship reform and CARE Court.

The announcement was part victory lap for Newsom and part frustrated exhortation of the counties to move faster.

“It’s time to do your job. It’s time to get things done. You asked for these reforms. We’ve provided them. Now it’s time to deliver,” he said.

###

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.

Two state bills would allow public colleges and universities to hire undocumented students, which is currently barred by federal law. The proposals are based on a legal theory that the law doesn’t apply to state agencies. colle

In January, the University of California Board of Regents broke the hearts of undocumented students by halting a proposal to allow them to work on campus. A few days later, David Alvarez had a plan.

The Democratic assemblymember from Chula Vista huddled with student organizers and decided to draft a bill to compel the UC, as well as the community colleges and California State University, to do what the UC regents would not.

Federal law prohibits employers from hiring anyone who is undocumented, but Alvarez’s Assembly Bill 2586 says California’s public colleges and universities should be exempt and allowed to hire undocumented students for on-campus jobs. The approach rests on an untested legal theory backed by law scholars at UCLA and 27 other prominent academics. It’s based on the argument that a pivotal federal employment law from 1986 doesn’t apply to state agencies, including public colleges and universities.

Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes, a Corona Democrat and chair of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, has introduced a similar bill addressing just the UC that, if passed, would be taken to CA voters in the form of a ballot measure.

Both bills are priorities of the Latino Caucus.

“We wouldn’t have to do this if the federal government actually did their job and passed immigration reform,” said Alvarez in an interview with CalMatters.

Instead of working on-campus jobs like their peers, undocumented students must seek employment as independent contractors or find under-the-table jobs, where some students say labor exploitation is rampant. If Alvarez’s bill prevails, an estimated 60,000 undocumented students could benefit.

Last May, the UC Board of Regents promised to study the plan to allow undocumented students to work. In January, the regents reversed course, voting 10 to 6 to delay any implementation by a year. The decision gutted student advocates, who sobbed in the public meeting space, castigated the regents and reverted to an agonizing square one in which they lacked the legal right to work.

Assemblymember David Alvarez on the floor during the end session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Sept. 14, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters

Alvarez’s bill cleared its first hurdle in April, but it faces a bigger test tomorrow during an opaque legislative process known as the suspense file, in which members of the appropriations committee decide in relative secrecy whether bills with a price tag advance or die.

A committee analysis says the bill could cost California a few million dollars to implement these hiring changes and to handle the legal fees, should someone decide to sue a college or university for hiring undocumented students. Those costs could become a large obstacle as the state battles multi-year budget deficits in the tens of billions of dollars.

How much of an impact the bill would have on undocumented students is an open question: Most students — regardless of their immigration status — work off campus. Federal law is clear that private employers must follow the employment ban. The bills by Alvarez and Cervantes do not extend to the many other state agencies where undocumented students could work after graduation and earn competitive wages.

‘It is not fair’

For Alvarez, the bill is a continuation of California’s commitment to make college affordable for undocumented students. Already the state extends tuition waivers, grants and loans to these students, but they’re barred from receiving federal dollars. A campus job would allow them to cover the difference when financial aid falls short; it would help them with major expenses like housing, transportation and food.

“I’m out here fighting for the right to be given the opportunity to apply to a job on campus,” said Karely Amaya Rios in April to a panel of lawmakers. The 23-year-old is a graduate student at UCLA and has a pending job offer from a professor to help him write a book and teach his immigrant rights courses. Though she’s lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, she’s undocumented and ineligible for the job. “It is not fair,” she said.

Rios previously told CalMatters that she cobbles together enough money to cover rent and food costs by babysitting and selling clothes at a swap meet with her mother. She also receives some scholarships and stipends.

“I fear that all of you do not understand how disappointing and gut-wrenching it feels to be denied my humanity and my right to access the same opportunities as my peers,” added Fatima Zeferino, an undocumented Cal State Long Beach student, at the April hearing.

Cervantes’ proposed constitutional amendment would target just the UC, a potentially necessary move because the UC is constitutionally independent. The Legislature’s bills can rarely force the system to do something.

Still, Alvarez’s office believes the UC “would be bound” by his bill, his district director, Lisa Schmidt, wrote in an email. She added that “even if it were not formally bound it would comply with the law once the Cal State and (community colleges) were doing so.”

Why public colleges are worried

The UC isn’t formally opposed to the bill, but its government relations office wrote a letter to lawmakers warning the bill could expose UC hiring managers to civil and criminal prosecution and jeopardize the billions of dollars in federal research grants the university receives. Alvarez bristled at one objection the UC raised: that the bill as law could expose “undocumented students and their families to the possibility of criminal prosecution or deportation.” He called that “borderline offensive to students” who already have to navigate the legal complexities of their immigration status outside of school.

Alvarez cited his own experience as a child born in the U.S. living in fear of what would happen to his undocumented parents. They were eventually granted legal status through the same 1986 federal law that now bars undocumented residents from working.

Hovering in plain sight is the concern that a potential Trump White House would wage an aggressive legal attack on the university. It would potentially repeat a judicial system showdown that saw the university successfully sue to block Trump’s attempts to end job protections for undocumented workers who came to the country when they were young. That previous legal saga involved the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but federal courts have since halted the federal government’s ability to accept new applications.

“I fear that all of you do not understand how disappointing and gut-wrenching it feels to be denied my humanity and my right to access the same opportunities as my peers.”
— Fatima Zeferino, undocumented Cal State Long Beach student

The UC Office of the President never appeared persuaded by the legal argument put forward by the UCLA scholars. It sought outside legal opinion, and the conclusion was that the plan wouldn’t be “legally viable,” a regent told CalMatters in January.

UC’s April letter to legislators underscored that worry: “However, after receiving advice from both inside and outside legal counsel, we concluded that there were considerable risks for the University and the students we aim to support.”

Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the two UCLA legal scholars behind the theory that state agencies are exempt from the federal rule barring undocumented residents from working, sought to assure lawmakers in April that no hiring manager could be prosecuted if universities began hiring undocumented students.

“The risk that people would actually be criminally prosecuted for following state law is, in my view, vanishingly small,” he said then. “And we’re not aware of any example where people have been criminally prosecuted by the federal government for following a law that they were required to follow as a matter of the state.”

“After receiving advice from both inside and outside legal counsel, we concluded that there were considerable risks for the University and the students we aim to support.”
— Letter of the University of California to the Legislature on April 2024

More likely is that the state would be sued and the matter would play out in courts, Arulanantham said. “If the universities lost that lawsuit and they still kept trying to hire people, of course that would present a different question.”

The state’s attorney general would defend the campuses in those suits, Alvarez said. The press office of the attorney general wouldn’t comment on Arulanantham’s legal argument or whether the attorney general would defend the campuses in a possible suit.

Cal State has issued no position, though it reiterated another point the UC made: The bill “could have consequences on the federal aid the CSU and our students receive,” wrote Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson for Cal State. The fear isn’t unfounded. When the UC system weighed the issue, Republican Congressman Darell Issa wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking that he “please inform Congress how the system intends to refund its current federal funding, as well as provide a detailed estimate of the fiscal impact to students by foregoing future federal assistance.”

Can community college students benefit?

While the legal risk of the bill looms large, the impact of the legislation on undocumented students may be limited in scope. That’s because the majority of undocumented students attend community college. The Cal State system has fewer undocumented students, and the UC campuses have the least, according to estimates from each system.

Yet community college students are the least likely to work on-campus jobs. When they do work, only 7% of them have a campus job, according to an analysis provided by California Student Aid Commission. The rates are higher at Cal State and UC campuses, where 16% of working students at Cal State and about half of working students at the UC are employed on campus.

Many community college students work full time in the private sector, whereas campus jobs typically restrict students to no more than 20 hours a week. The hourly limit comes from research that says working more hurts students’ grades.

Over the past six years, Jerry Reyes has studied at Reedley College, just south of Fresno, though he left at various points. He’s undocumented and ineligible for DACA, which offers temporary work permits for undocumented youth.

He worked anyway, taking a job at an agricultural packaging house, where he made around $15 an hour. They “didn’t really ask” about his immigration status, he said.

Better jobs are hard to find, he said. “I just ignore potential opportunities because I know they’re just going to turn me away because of my status.”

After a brief stint at San Francisco State, he returned to Reedley College, where he’s pursuing a new major in business administration and serving as a trustee on the community college district’s board. The position is supposed to pay $375 per month, but he said the district won’t compensate him because of his immigration status.

“It’s frustrating,” Reyes said, to watch others get paid for student jobs when he does the same amount of work. He supports Alvarez’s bill but he wants a broader solution too. “A lot of these (undocumented) students don’t work campus jobs,” he said, “and even the jobs they take don’t pay as well.”

Alvarez said he’d consider future legislation to open job opportunities in other sectors too, but not before passing this legislation. “Look, this is already a heavy lift,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.

###

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.

Chalk it up to California dreaming: Not even three years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom promised California’s public universities five years of annual growth in state support totalling more than $2 billion.

But the governor’s updated budget plan for next year instead aims to cut the University of California and California State University by a combined $200 million in response to the state’s project multi-billion-dollar budget deficit.

The five-year compact is at risk of turning into a humbler two-year vow, underscoring the difficulty of projecting multiple years of support for California’s top generators of bachelor’s degree recipients — a state particularly at the mercy of large revenue swings.The UC would see a $125 million base funding cut in 2024-25, with plans to restore that dip in 2025-26. For Cal State, the governor’s May budget revision includes a $75 million cut that’ll be restored in 2025-26.

The numbers were shared with CalMatters after it sought more detail from the California Department of Finance about its higher-education plans that are part of the annual May Revise process. It’s an update to the governor’s initial January proposal and sets the stage for intense budget negotiations with the Legislature to finalize a state budget by late June. The 2024-25 budget year begins July 1.

The fiscal outlook gets modestly rosier later for the two systems, which combined run 33 universities that enroll around 750,000 students.

Each system would receive a modest bump of 2.05% in 2025-26 — a far cry from the 10% the governor projected in his January budget proposal. That 10% itself was a compromise. Each system was supposed to see a 5% bump in 2024-25 and the same in 2025-26. But in January, Newsom called for no bump in year one and to double-up in year two as a way to manage the state deficit.

That 10% for the two systems would have meant $1 billion combined in 2025-26, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. A mere 2% increase would total roughly $200 million.

The analyst’s office basically presaged the change of fortune for the universities. When Newsom unveiled his compact plan in 2022, a promise of increased spending in exchange for improvements in student academics, the office wrote: “We caution the Legislature against putting too much stake in the Governor’s outyear commitments to the universities.” Previous governors have rarely “been able to sustain their compacts over time,” the office noted.

One reason? “In some cases, changing economic and fiscal conditions in the state have led governors to suspend their compacts,” the office wrote then.

Whether lawmakers fight to restore these cuts is an open question. More money for campuses means they can pay to hire more faculty and offer more classes students need to graduate. The additional state support is also a particular lifeline for Cal State, which agreed to 5% raises for its roughly 60,000 unionized workers, including the nearly 30,000 faculty who went on strike late last year and early this year demanding wage and benefits gains.

But a dollar spent one place means it’s not spent elsewhere, and the governor is also proposing to swing his budgetary scythe at student financial aid. Under his May revision, the Middle Class Scholarship would shrink by more than $500 million to $100 million each of the next two years.

The UC would see a $125 million cut in 2024-25. For Cal State, the May budget revision includes a $75 million cut.

Around 300,000 students received that award this year, with average amounts between $2,000 and $3,000. If the governor’s plan becomes law, those amounts could shrink by 80%, on average.

One higher-education watchdog worries the cuts and limited growth will affect low-income students most.

“With this funding being cut, I think it’s going to require a real concerted effort over multiple years to make sure that those students are brought back into higher education and have the supports that they need over multiple years to actually make it to graduation,” said Joshua Hagen, director of policy and advocacy at the Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit advocacy group.

###

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.

Jamie Lionel Wax 
June 29, 1968 – March 18, 2024

The volunteer bluff supervisor was finally called home March 18, 2024, by his loving wife Fiona, whom he missed so much every day. While most folks in Trinidad saw Jamie as a watcher of life going by, in the office with the most beautiful view on the West Coast, he was so much more.

Born to Dianne Wilson on June 29, 1968, and adopted the next day by Richard and Laurie Wax, Jamie spent his younger years in Southern California, moving to Humboldt County in 1988 to attend College of the Redwoods to study photography. His most recent pursuit landed him as the Trinidad “town therapist,” as well as keeping an eye out on the crab fleet. Jamie always had time to listen to his many “walk-up clients,” as well as working the phone for his longtime friends and “patients.” Some people mistakenly thought Jamie was homeless, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. He owned a beautiful home just outside of town with a park-like yard that he had always kept up for Fiona.

Jamie grew up in Malibu with his sister Jessica. At 6 feet 5 inches tall to Jessica’s 5-foot, 1-inch frame, Jamie was quick to point out that he was adopted. But in typical Jamie fashion he used this to his advantage, often teasing Jessica that he was the chosen one while she was merely an accident. It was in Malibu that Jamie made his first life-long friend, Tony, who coincidentally was also adopted. Together they pursued fishing, surfing, motorcycle riding and all other late ‘70s Southern California beach fun.

In the late ‘80s, when Jamie was documenting the beaches and surfing with his black and white film career, he met his future brother-in-law, Dave. They both lived in Greenwood Heights in Kneeland, and a 35-year friendship was born. To be on Jamie’s call list was an honor most of the time, unless he wanted to mess with you and start the calls before 5 a.m. I was always up early, so a pre-6 a.m. call was a staple for the next 30 years. “Hey, what’s happening?” A listen to the weather radio in the early morning was the key to which activity would be attempted that day. Surfing anywhere from Point Arena to Port Orford, mushroom hunting, fishing, or firewood cutting out east were all options.

Being 6 feet, 5 and an accomplished surfer, Jamie had no problem meeting lifelong surf buddies, such as Jack, Paul, Berto and Caputo, just to name a very few. He also had a lot of fun riding motorcycles with his younger neighbor Steve and his cerebral friend Karl, as well as Warren and Ron, after he moved to Blue Lake.

Jamie’s next stop in the county was up Brannon Mountain, Willow Creek. This is where he picked up his best dog, Pepsi, and funny associate Rue. Jamie, girlfriend Exene, Pepsi and Rue all lived together at an epic house with an inground pool and a flawless garden around the pool. Jamie made lifelong friends on Brannon Mountain, the likes of which included Lionel Lee and Bill and Suzie McKelvey, as well as the McKelvey’s boys, Luke, Travis, and Jake. (Jake also spent many days on the bluff with Jamie, as well as being on the call list.) It was Jamie’s break up with Exene that led him to start smoking cigarettes, which was shocking to all his friends and at 25 years old was a hard habit to start after being so fervently anti-cigarette before.

The Brannon Mountain days were the most adventurous for Jamie, with day-long 3-wheeler rides and barbecues out in the upper Three Creeks and Buck Buttes areas. A lot more firewood cutting and fishing ensued. Canoeing on the river replaced surfing and many overnighters on the South Fork of the Trinity River were had. Trips out to the Pit River and Eagle Lake in the winter scored him some epic fish. Like the bluff in Trinidad, the Big Rock area along the Trinity became his daily hangout to catch up on stories and give advice.

Jamie had been on Brannon Mountain for some time when an opportunity came up to work at his dad’s place in St. Helena. This is where he met his comrade, Tommy. Jamie and Tommy became fast friends and were responsible for maintaining the 23 acres around the massive St. Helena estate. After several months of landscaping Jamie started attending helicopter pilot school. According to Jamie, flying a helicopter was the best roller coaster ride of your life, with you controlling the intensity. Through a series of unique circumstances, Jamie found himself moving to several different cities in Southern California, where his occupation changed to nursery warehouse delivery driver. He rented a room from a cousin and spent most of his off-time perch fishing near Ventura. This is where he met the love of his life, Fiona. Pre-cell phone, we still had the daily call, usually before 5:45 a.m. with the first quart of coffee, and an evening call around 7 p.m. This continued until the fortunate day he was able to move himself and Fiona to his beloved Humboldt County.

Back in Arcata, Jamie was able to introduce Fiona to his nephews, Pierce and Behren, and a multitude of friends. Jamie and Fiona were married in Dave and Jessica’s yard in Westhaven. This new happiness consisted of construction work in Willow Creek as well as getting back into the local industry. Building decks, greenhouses, and teaching Fiona how to trim, they both were able to work together for several years. Hina, Fiona’s niece, visited from Hong Kong about this time, learning English from Uncle Jamie. One of Jamie’s most lasting impressions on his nephew Pierce was his consumption of “nasty ice.” Three-year-old Pierce insisted on carrying a full “nasty ice” can everywhere he went. Unfortunately, the aluminum can would weaken over time, and Jessica had to clean up many blown-out natty ice cans at play groups, day cares, preschools, and markets. This was at the same time life turned dark when Fiona was diagnosed with a severe illness.

Over the course of seven years Jamie was there for Fiona as she navigated the harsh reality of our healthcare system. During this time Jamie’s mom Laurie was also fighting a chronic disease. Like a one-two punch Jamie lost his mom and then his wife. After this Jamie told me he “lost his spark and passion for life.” I, along with his buddies Joey and Kyle, got him out fishing and had wonderful days of limits on all species. But slowly Jamie even lost his passion for fishing. This is when Jamie decided to take on the responsibility of bluff supervisor. Early morning calls worked better from the bluff than the empty front porch at home. Now his official office, the early morning calls starting with “Hey, what’s happening?” almost always started the day with me or “Deli John” competing to be first in line. What I wouldn’t give for one more “Hey, what’s happening?”

On the bluff he garnered an ever-increasing audience for some beneficial therapy. He was a giant of a man with a heart that matched, dispensing advice, sometimes uncomfortable, delivered from the front seat of his black Toyota with the American flag on the antennae. Looked out for by so many in the community: Dorothy and Danny, Ed, Tyler, Jimmy, “Deputy Diane,” Mark and Lori Chester, as well as half the town.

You left us too soon and suddenly, Jamie. I know I’ll see you on the other side when I hear “Hey, what’s happening?” followed by the cloud and swell report.

Some 200 people gathered at the Trinidad bluff on March 23 to pay tribute to Jamie. Another memorial service will be held sometime this summer.

Jamie was preceded in death by his mother Laurie, wife Fiona, Grandpa Morty, as well as Pepsi, Rue and Rue #2.

He is survived by his father Richard (Hildegard) Wax, sister Jessica Slamkowski, brother-in-law David Slamkowski, nephews Pierce and Behren, niece Hina, birth mother Diane Wilson, two aunts and several cousins on the East Coast.

Arrangements through Ayers Family Cremation.

###

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