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Last week the Eureka City Schools board of trustees made what many people consider a pretty big decision, when it unanimously voted to exchange the long-disused Jacobs Campus to a private developer for another small property, plus $5.35 million. 

Why is this decision significant? Well, the Jacobs Campus – located at 674 Allard Avenue, in Eureka’s Highland Park neighborhood – has been a source of contention for years. More than a decade after the school’s closure, the abandoned building on the site had become a public nuisance and some residents of the neighborhood formed the South Eureka Neighborhood Alliance (SENA) to pressure the school district to do something with the long-blighted property. About four and a half years ago the school board voted to sell the campus, and, though the dilapidated buildings have since been demolished, the campus has continued to sit unused. 

There have been a few parties interested in the property. The City of Eureka made an offer of $2.8 million, which the school board declined. The California Highway Patrol made a much more tantalizing offer of $4 million for the site, hoping to build its new headquarters there. On top of that, the property has also been at the center of Eureka housing and parking disputes, with a citizens group pushing the “Housing for All and Downtown Vitality” initiative, which asks the City to designate the Jacobs Campus for housing in the attempt to prevent the City from developing housing on downtown parking lots. 

Prior to last week, the last the public had heard the school district was in negotiations with the CHP. And many people in the neighborhood seemed pretty excited about the prospect of CHP being there. So, many were surprised when the school board put out the agenda for last week’s meeting with two items that pertained to the Jacobs Campus – a closed session item entitled “Conference with Real Property Negotiator Superintendent Van Vleck Regarding Jacobs Building Property Concerning Price and/or Terms of Payment (GC § 54956.8) (Negotiating Parties: California Highway Patrol and AMG Communities-Jacobs, LLC)” and a discussion/action item that asked the board to adopt a resolution approving a “property exchange” of the Jacobs Campus for another property. 

“Did the school board’s closed session discussion connected to Resolution 23-24-023 go beyond ‘price and terms of payment’?” Snyder said. “It’s not clear based on what I know. But if so, there is a good argument that the discussion should not have been held outside public view.”

Just in time for Christmas, the Newsom administration is preparing to dole out more than $500 million to build affordable housing, playing Santa to projects that promise to shelter low-wage school employees, veterans, farmworkers, people living on the street and other poor and middle-income Californians.

Like sleepless children on Christmas Eve, nonprofit developers across California are impatiently waiting to find out who will receive a cut. But everyone already knows that most will be left with empty stockings.

This is the second year the state’s housing department has bundled the applications for four of its low-cost loan or grant programs for affordable housing development into a “one-stop shop” application process culminating in a single nine-digit funding blast around the New Year.

Competition is even more fierce this year. In July, more than 100 developers backing 240 projects with a total of more than 20,000 proposed units applied to the Housing and Community Development department’s second annual Multifamily Finance Super Notice of Funding Availability — more commonly known by its cutesy shorthand, the “Super NOFA.”

The total amount requested by these near-ready projects: More than $3.5 billion. The state only has $576 million to award.

The funding mismatch is even more severe for the state’s premier loan program for affordable rental construction and rehabilitation and the biggest pot of cash up for grab in this funding cycle. For every dollar available from the Multifamily Housing Program more than eleven have been requested.

For nearly half a decade, the crux of the housing debate in California has centered on whether and how to remove barriers to the construction of new homes. This year state lawmakers churned out dozens of bills reining in “not in my backyard” activists, environmental litigants, local government regulations and other barriers to development in the face of a chronic housing shortage. Affordable housing development has been a particular beneficiary of that streamlining campaign.

Developers and housing advocates say the chasm between state funding available and the sums being requested point to a crucial fact about affordable housing: It’s expensive to build, it doesn’t pay for itself and that financial gap has to be plugged somehow. This fact is likely to shape the housing debate around California’s capitol in 2024.

“You cannot streamline your way out of this crisis,” said Ben Winters, vice president at Linc Housing in Long Beach. Linc applied for more than $75 million in low-cost loans for four projects, of which three are still under consideration, according to pre-qualification letters the housing department sent them.

“There’s a lot of opportunities out there for me to build affordable housing — a lot — because of all these new bills,” he said. “They’ll never get built if we don’t have the funding to back them.”

A calendar on the housing department’s website has the payout scheduled for December 2023 and January 2024. A department spokesperson said they did not have a more specific date.

‘Hoping to win the lottery’

If a developer wants to have any chance of winning the end-of-year funding bonanza, their project has to be pretty far along in the development. In most cases, according to housing developers with projects in the running who spoke to CalMatters, the land has already been secured, zoning issues have been ironed out and the building designs and much of the financing have been assembled. State funding is one of the final pieces of a lengthy and expensive puzzle.

“They’re just waiting to go, they just don’t have the resources,” said Mark Stivers, a lobbyist with the nonprofit California Housing Partnership, which advocates for affordable housing.

State low-cost loans and grants play an especially important role since securing some of that public support vastly improves a project’s chances of securing another: The Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the federal government’s workhorse affordable housing program.

Projects that don’t make the cut in this year’s funding round may be able to turn to other state or federal programs, but there aren’t many of those and all of them are also intensely competitive. In most cases, a project that misses out this round will have to be put on hold.

“You mothball it…you’re gonna wait until next year,” said Linda Mandolini, president of Eden Housing, an affordable housing development nonprofit that applied for $135 million to support ten projects.

That wait comes with a price tag — another year of payroll costs, of watching cost estimates tick up and of making interest payments on existing loans. It also gives other funders more time and more reason to reconsider their investment and pull out, delaying the project further.

“I like to say that my business model is that I hope to win the lottery. And I have to pay like a million and a half dollars for the ticket.”
— Rebecca Louie, president, Wakeland Housing and Development Corp

“We end up with maybe 9, 10 or 11 different sources of funding that we’ve patched together over the course of anywhere from three to nine years,” said Rebecca Louie, president of San Diego-based Wakeland Housing and Development Corp, which requested nearly $45 million for five projects, though only two are still in the running.

A project only pencils out if every one of those funding sources come together at the right time, Louie explained. That’s what makes the state funding so important, even if it doesn’t always make up a huge share of a single project’s funding.

“I like to say that my business model is that I hope to win the lottery,” said Louie. “And I have to pay like a million and a half dollars for the ticket.”

Delay also means waiting another year before an otherwise ready-to-go home for priced-out Californians can break ground.

More funding incoming?

The prospect of missing out on the state funding award is particularly concerning for affordable developers this year. California is facing a cash crunch, meaning housing programs won’t be able to rely as much on budget windfalls as they have in prior years. Though bond measures are likely headed for the ballot in November, the political prospects of voter-sanctioned borrowing are far from certain.

This will-they-won’t-they approach to funding is no way to tackle twin housing and homelessness crises that California survey respondents regularly name as a top priority, said Louie with Wakeland Housing. “It should be considered infrastructure and a really important part of a healthy economy and we treat it each year as if it’s a surprise that we still need it,” she said.

Since 2012, when state lawmakers and the courts nixed California’s “redevelopment” agencies, locally-funded entities tasked with funding infrastructure, public spending on affordable housing has come in fits and starts, one state bond measure or flush budget season at a time.

The last time the cause of affordable housing went before state voters was in 2018. Nearly half of the $4 billion in borrowing authorized by Proposition 1 went to the Multifamily Housing Program. That fund is now running low, which prompted state lawmakers last year to begin mulling a new bond for 2024.

That discussion was left on hold when the legislative session ended in September, but is sure to pick back up in January. Meanwhile, housing advocates in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego are planning to launch their own regional borrowing efforts, while a statewide measure is likely to make it easier to pass such campaigns.

The other side of the equation: Cost

Spending more public money on affordable housing is one way to produce more units. Another is to make it cheaper to build them in the first place. Lee Ohanian, a UCLA economics professor and right-of-center policy commentator, said the state isn’t focusing nearly enough on the second option.

“There’s only so many units, we can build at a million dollars a unit,” he said. “Just dumping more subsidies into a grossly inefficient system is just going to lead to more waste of tax dollars.”

Particularly budget-busting affordable housing projects often make headlines, but industry-wide cost data is hard to come by. That makes it difficult to diagnose where developers and policymakers should focus their cost-trimming efforts.

In 2020, the UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation analyzed project applications to one of the state’s main subsidy programs. The key takeaway: Between 2008 and 2019, total costs increased 55% per square unit. The biggest cost drivers, labor and material costs, weren’t specific to affordable housing construction, but costs that affect the entire building industry.

Things have likely only gotten worse in the years since. The industry has been hammered with supply chain snarls and resulting material price hikes, soaring insurance premiums and, most recently, sharply higher interest rates.

Ohanian said more data gathering is needed, but the state can and should still focus on “​​low- hanging fruit regulatory reforms.” Those include continuing to make it harder for project opponents to use environmental laws and historic preservation designations to obstruct new construction.

Easier said than done, said Rob Wiener, executive director of the California Coalition for Rural Housing. The “bells and whistles” that add to the cost of building affordable housing in California — be it higher construction wages, enhanced energy efficiency requirements or fees to local governments — all benefit someone. Many of those beneficiaries have lobbyists on their payroll.

“There isn’t one interest group that wants to give up its share,” he said. “So who’s gonna take a haircut?”

Affordable developers can soon dispense with many of these regulatory concerns. Among the bills that state lawmakers passed this year and which are set to go into effect on Jan. 1 is one that would shield many urban projects set aside for lower-income housing from environmental challenge. Another would make it easier for courts to toss such legal challenges out of court. A third re-upped a prior state law that clears the way for all manner of new construction in parts of the state that haven’t kept up with their housing goals set by the Newsom administration’s housing department.

Those will all add to a broad trend that has made it easier for housing — especially affordable housing — to move forward across California in recent years.

“The good news is that we have been pushing all of the local jurisdictions to identify and move projects forward and that’s actually happening,” said Mandolini with Eden Housing. “Now we just have to figure out how to pay for them all.”

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

Mike was born September 12, 1947 to Ernest and Louada Cobine. He passed away at home surrounded by the love of his family on December 17, 2023.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy; his children, Stacy, Sarah, Brian and Amanda Cobine; granddaughters Sonja and Allexandra Clark and Riley and Taylor Cobine; three great-grandchildren, Orion Wollman and Charlley and Shelby Clark.

He leaves behind his brothers, Bob (Carole) Koehne and Steve (Kim) Cobine and their families; and one cousin, Karen (Clark) Griffin and family.

Additionally he is survived by his large, loving in-law family: mother-in-law Charlotte Yarbrough; and Alan and Becky Yarbrough, Cathy and David DeNoma, Peggy and Joe Gossi and Birl and Bobbi Yarbrough. Curtis Clifford, Karen and Steven Slotten, Kelly and Nancy Clifford, Kathy and Jen Clifford and Carol and Ron Wargo and families; as well as many, many special nieces and nephews and lifelong friends Terry Griswold, Paul Nicholson and David Rybarczyk and families.

Mike had fond memories of growing up in Los Angeles before it became too crowded. His family camped all over the west until finding Eureka to call their forever home in 1965, after Mike graduated from high school. After a stint in the Navy, Mike returned to Eureka and began working for the City of Eureka. He worked in many positions for the city for nearly 20 years. He went on to work for Cox Communications for 17 years until retiring in 2006.

Mike had many interests in his life — photography, cars, motorcycles, movies and baseball just to name a few. The highlight of his life was riding his motorcycle across the country with his brothers-in-law for the annual Run for the Wall/POW celebration in 2008. We enjoyed RV camping and the slower pace of life at the beaches in Oregon. Most of all, he enjoyed time with his family watching his children and grandchildren grow.

There are so many things I will miss about you. Your gentle, compassionate soul and calming guidance. Your bad dad jokes and silly limericks. Rest easy in heaven my love. Until we meet again…

Please join us for a celebration of Mike’s life at the Eureka Woman’s Club 1531 J St, Saturday January 6, 2024 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. RSVP to ncobine@yahoo.com.

Special thanks to the kind and compassionate people of Hospice of Humboldt. Contributions in Mike’s memory can be made to Hospice if you wish.

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George Nathaniel Ponnay passed away peacefully at the age of 89 in his home in Eureka with his wife, Patricia Ponnay, by his side on December 8, 2023. Born on August 15, 1934, in Los Angeles, California, he was the son of George and Lillian Ponnay. He and Patricia (Berg) Ponnay were united on July 15, 1969, and shared 54 years of devotion before his passing. The couple raised their family in Eureka.

George started his career in real estate, which he continued for many years. Then, he worked at the Academy of Magical Arts (Magic Castle) in Hollywood, where he first met Patricia.

Outside of work, George expressed himself through many creative outlets; Bonsai, woodworking, and cooking were his main interests. Under the guidance of Mr. Shigeru Nagatoshi, George honed his skills as a Bonsai master, creating miniature works of living art. His passion for Bonsai extended beyond personal pursuits; he was an active member of the Bonsai club, generously sharing his knowledge by teaching Bonsai classes. George was a talented woodworker, finding joy in crafting intricate half-hull ship models. He loved to cook for his family, delighting in creating delicious meals that brought everyone together. Spaghetti was his favorite.

George also took great joy in attending the Jed Smith Mountain Men Tall Trees Rendezvous with his family. They dressed in clothing his wife made inspired by the American Northwest fur-trading era and participated in friendly competitions during the event. The family created cherished memories at this annual event.

George is survived by his loving wife Patricia Ponnay, and his children: George Ponnay III, Brion (Jaynette) Ponnay, Toby Ponnay, Kimberly (Kevin) Albonico, Elizabeth (Jason) Schallon, and Anthony (Triniti) Ponnay. He is also survived by hisgrandchildren: Mitchell Ponnay, Becky (Al) Lacey, Helena Ponnay, Lilly Albonico, Jamie Albonico, Callie Albonico, Emily Schallon, Daniel Schallon, Ierly Ponnay, Brailey Ponnay, and Grayson Ponnay.

George was preceded in death by his parents, George and Lillian Ponnay, and sister Charlotte (George) Dickerson.

A private family celebration of life will be held at a later date.

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On December 20, 2023, at approximately 8:56 P.M., officers from the Eureka Police Department responded to the report of a shooting that had occurred near Myrtle and 8th Street in Eureka. The reporting party was located in the 2000 block of 5th Street suffering from multiple gunshot injuries. Medical aid was summoned to this location and the victim was transported to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

Based on the initial investigation, it appears a group of juveniles and young adults were at Coopers Gulch park area. While at the park, one person in this group got into a physical altercation with a female. After the altercation, the female left the scene. This same female returned a short time later with several other individuals, all inside of a vehicle. When they encountered the group of juveniles and young adults from the altercation, who were now walking near Myrtle and 8th Streets, the right front passenger produced a firearm and shot several rounds at the group. The vehicle then fled the area in an unknown direction.

During the investigation we have also learned a second person in the group suffered a non-life-threatening injury as a result of a gunshot wound. This individual was also treated at a local hospital.

The shooter’s identity is unknown at this time.

This appears to be an isolated incident and there no known direct threats to the community. If you have any information about this incident, please contact Detective Joseph Couch at (707) 798-0191.

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Following more than six months of unsuccessful labor negotiations with California State University’s (CSU) leadership, the California Faculty Association (CFA) Board of Directors unanimously voted this week to call for a system-wide five-day strike, in partnership with Teamsters Local 2010 members, at the start of the Spring 2024 semester.

The CFA represents nearly 600 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches at Cal Poly Humboldt, and more than 29,000 faculty across CSU’s 23 campuses. If the union can’t reach an agreement with CSU in the coming weeks, the vast majority of its members will cancel classes from Jan. 22 to Jan. 26.

“We really hope that CSU’s leadership comes to their senses and agrees to our reasonable demands because nobody wants this disruption. Nobody wants to go on strike,” local CFA field representative Maureen Loughran told the Outpost in a recent phone interview. “We don’t understand why they’re causing this harm to the students. The ball is in their court. They can stop this anytime, and we hope that they do.”

At the beginning of this month, CFA members shut down the CSU campuses in Los Angeles, Pomona, Sacramento and San Francisco to call for an immediate 12 percent salary increase to catch up with inflation.

The current negotiation process is a “reopener,” Loughran said, meaning CFA’s bargaining team is still fighting for pay increases for the current academic year. 

“We’re negotiating over a contract that is already in place because we weren’t able to agree when we settled that contract on the last year’s pay increases and a few other items,” Loughran said. “We’re reopening [negotiations] on salary, workload, benefits, health and safety. Since May, the CSU hasn’t moved much from their initial offer.”

The CSU has offered all faculty a 15 percent general salary increase, which would increase in five percent increments over three years. CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith noted that the proposed increases in 2024 and 2025 would “depend only on the state honoring the financial commitments that it made in its current multi-year compact with the CSU.”

Some faculty would receive 20.3 percent increases over a three-year period under the proposed agreement. CSU’s leadership has also offered a post-promotion increase of 2.65 percent in fiscal year 2024-25 and a 2.65 percent service salary increase in fiscal year 2025-26.

“The CSU has also proposed supporting recommendations put forth by the independent factfinder that was brought in as part of the bargaining process,” Bentley-Smith wrote in an email to the Outpost. “That included an increase to paid parental leave from the current six weeks to eight weeks and increasing paid workload reduction from 40 percent to 60 percent for one semester (in lieu of the eight weeks).”

The CFA is also asking for a $10,0000 wage increase for the lowest-paid faculty. “Our [lecturers] who don’t have a PhD are paid $54,000 a year for full-time work. We’re asking for that minimum to be raised to $64,000 annually,” she said. “The minimum pay for lecturers with a PhD is $64,000. We’re asking to raise their annual salary to $69,000. We don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

There’s still time for a resolution. The CFA bargaining team will meet with CSU management during the second week of January. “We’re planning for the worst but hoping for the best,” Loughran said.

“It’s my greatest hope that the CSU does what’s right and averts the strike by meeting our demands,” she said. “But we will shut it down system-wide as a CSU if they don’t settle with us. It’s going to be a ghost town. It’s not going to feel like a university. We hope that [the threat of a strike] puts pressure on the CSU to do the right thing.”

Bentley-Smith said the CSU is also eager to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

“[W]e are prepared to negotiate with CFA at any time to reach an agreement to increase faculty salaries,” she said. “On other issues, CSU is prepared to agree to nearly all of the recommendations of the independent fact finder to reach a resolution. If strikes do occur in January, we hope to minimize any disruptions to our students.” 

Reached for additional comment on the matter, Cal Poly Humboldt spokesperson Grant Scott-Goforth offered the following statement: “As a university community, we share a commitment to providing a positive educational experience for our students, and Cal Poly Humboldt values the important work our employees do every day to make this possible.”

The following opinion column was submitted by Lonyx Landry, a Humboldt County planning commissioner and a leader of CORE Hub. —Ed.

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Offshore wind development in Humboldt County has the potential to revolutionize our economy and materially improve the well-being of our communities. But it’s not that simple. As a member of the Nor Rel Muk Wintu Nation, a Cal Poly Humboldt educator, and a leader in the Redwood Region Climate and Community Resilience Hub (CORE Hub)’s Offshore Wind Community Benefits Network, I believe that Northern California renewable energy development must go hand in hand with investments in Tribal communities and industries such as aquaculture and mariculture; and that it requires strong community benefits like workforce development, education, healthcare and housing.

In 2024, developers like Crowley and local and state governments will be working together to solidify multi-million dollar offshore wind deals and projects, and will need to ensure that communities are not left out of the conversation.

Nurturing a just future in Humboldt County means that those who seek to profit from offshore wind development need to codify their promises to our community in legally binding agreements. In Humboldt, we have a history of extractive industries taking advantage of our rich supply of natural resources. In the 1800s and 1900s, our county served as an epicenter for the Gold Rush and logging, the negative effects of which can still be seen today. Former mill sites continue to threaten the drinking water of our 88,000 Humboldt County residents. We consistently rank as one of the five poorest counties in California, and our region has one of the highest rates of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) in the nation.

Tribal communities in Humboldt, especially, have endured the brunt of environmental degradation, resource exploitation, and social inequity. Our lands have been taken and our natural resources destroyed, our culture outlawed, and our voices marginalized.

Offshore wind development in Humboldt needs to flip the script by ensuring that our local communities reap the benefits of clean energy and economic development, without causing more harm. A Community Benefits Agreement is one accountable way to ensure a truly equitable clean energy transition.

An established community agreement can ensure workplace training and educational opportunities tailored to our communities’ unique needs, creating good jobs that are accessible to Indigenous people as well as students and young people, and families living on low incomes and in rural, disconnected parts of Humboldt. Training and employment programs that prioritize historically oppressed communities, fair wages and safe working conditions, can help bridge economic disparities. Beyond construction and engineering jobs at the wind farms and the port in Humboldt Bay, there are also a wealth of possibilities for good-paying, career-path jobs in environmental science, air and water quality, and other fields. Offshore wind companies should design internships, research collaborations, and entry-level jobs to provide training and skills to local students and workers who have been historically excluded from these opportunities.

Legally-binding community agreements can also ensure that offshore wind projects respect the sacred sites and cultural heritage of Indigenous communities, including preserving and avoiding impacts to Tuluwat Island, which has been restored to the Wiyot Tribe after an egregiously painful history. Consulting with Native American people and respecting our input is a crucial step towards investing in our economic future in a way that protects our natural resources and respects our stewardship of the land. We need offshore wind companies to provide startup funding and to make space for dialogue and shared decision-making with Tribal and local communities, centering local science, lived experience and traditional ecological knowledge.

For the past two years, more than two dozen community advocates and stakeholders involved in the CORE Hub have developed community benefits terms including these workforce training and Indigenous stewardship proposals. We have also specified our needs for commitments and funding for our local fisheries, mariculture, and aquaculture industries, as well as services like public transportation, outdoor recreation, childcare, and electrification and zero-emissions infrastructure. We’ve also detailed our need for safeguards to prevent MMIP, human trafficking, and sexual violence. The CORE Hub has discussed these community protective measures in depth with Crowley, Humboldt Harbor Commissioners and district staff, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, and state government agencies.

If offshore wind projects are to move forward in 2024, vague promises and verbal commitments to “help the community” are no longer enough. We need transparency and accountability from our government and corporate America. Community benefits can realistically protect Humboldt communities’ rich and diverse cultural, natural, and human resources, as we host the first-ever offshore wind farms on the Pacific coast. In this new year, we will continue to fight for economic development that puts people, flora, and fauna before profits.

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Lonyx B. Landry is a STEM advisor at Cal Poly Humboldt in the Indian Natural Resources, Science, and Engineering Program (INRSEP), a member of the Nor Rel Muk Wintu Nation, and leader and supporter of the Redwood Region Climate and Community Resilience Hub (CORE Hub). He is also Council Member to the Northern California Indian Development Council (NCIDC). Lonyx was born and raised in Eureka and has extensive experience working at the intersections of biology, higher education, and natural resource protection in Northern California.