A Humboldt resident has defied the odds and lived to tell the harrowing tale of his recent near-tragic experience solo hiking in Hawaii. 

Ian Snyder, a 34-year-old father of three from Ferndale, somehow managed to survive a 1,000 foot fall from a hiking trail in Oahu’s Koʻolau mountain range. Sporting a broken arm, a swollen eye and numerous scrapes and bruises, Snyder told Hawaiian media yesterday that he’d spent three near-immobile days stranded near the bottom of a waterfall, drinking stream water to survive. Despite his uncertain fate, Snyder said he never lost hope.

“I had made my peace with God,” Snyder told reporters. “I will be OK whether I live or whether I die.” 

Eventually search and rescue crews were able to locate Snyder thanks, in part, to posts that the hiker made on social media. On Dec. 7, a helicopter crew spotted him waving his good arm at them. 

View. Day 2. pic.twitter.com/bFpxJVjloq

— Ian Snyder (@FamilyFlysFree) December 4, 2023

Snyder said he’s learned his lesson and will never again hike alone. Hear more of his story in the news clip above. 

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After delivering his re-election campaign speech on the spiral ramp of Eureka’s Old Town gazebo this afternoon, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Gregory J. Kreis told the Outpost that a high-profile lawsuit filed against him in 2020 by former Deputy Public Defender Rory Kalin has been settled out of court.

“It is going to be dismissed with prejudice because there’s, frankly, there was no evidence that I ever said what he said I said,” Kreis told the Outpost.

Kalin’s suit, which is being adjudicated by a Mendocino County judge, accused Kreis of verbally and physically assaulting him during a Memorial Day celebration at Shasta Lake in 2019. Specifically, Kalin alleged that during an attorney-filled houseboat party, a drunken Kreis repeatedly called Kalin “Jew-boy” before throwing him overboard.

Kalin also filed suit against the County of Humboldt, former Public Defender Marek Reavis and current Public Defender Luke Brownfield, alleging that he faced retaliation, demotion and ultimately termination from the office for speaking out about what allegedly happened.

The case against Kreis has dragged on for the better part of four years, and as recently as last week the opposing attorneys in the case were arguing over whether a jury trial was warranted, according to a Dec. 8 story from Times-Standard reporter Jackson Guilfoil.

“It’s been a long road,” Kreis said. “[Kalin] made false allegations against me as far as the antisemitic stuff. So I think the insurance companies decided it will be done, and they offered him — I don’t know what what the final settlement was. … And in the future, here, I will be releasing all the witness statements that say [the alleged events] never happened.”

A message left for Kalin’s L.A.-based attorney, Johnny Rundell, was not immediately returned.

Appointed to the bench in 2017 by former Gov. Jerry Brown, Kreis is facing his first challenge at the ballot box this election season as attorney April Van Dyke, a former deputy public defender in both Humboldt and San Joaquin counties, seeks to unseat him. 

Asked what makes him a better choice to wear the judge’s robes, Kreis cited his six years’ experience on the bench, practicing “in every area” of law, his familiarity with the community and the respect he’s earned among attorneys.

Prior to his appointment, he said, he submitted more than 100 references to the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) and the feedback was 100 percent positive. 

“My JNE commissioners that I worked with told me that that’s very rare,” Kreis said. “Usually you get a couple people that are like, ‘I hate that guy’ for whatever reason. … That just shows that I would never say the things that Rory Kalin said [I did]. If I did, somebody would have said, ‘This guy’s trouble.’”

Below is a lightly edited video of Kreis’s campaign speech. If there are any questions you’d like to pose to Kreis, Van Dyke or any other Humboldt County candidates in contested races this primary election, head on over to our LoCO Elections page, where you can submit your queries directly.

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At the end of a lengthy public hearing on Tuesday, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a conditional use permit for Big River Farm, a controversial 22,000-square-foot cannabis cultivation operation in the remote Southern Humboldt community of Ettersburg.

The Planning Commission narrowly denied the project in a 4-3 vote back in September, in part due to community concern about an alleged history of dangerous criminal activity and gun violence on the property, including an alleged gunfight in 2018 and a foiled kidnapping plot in 2019.

The staff report refers to the criminal allegations against the applicant, Ivan Illiev, as “hearsay,” asserting that “speculation rather than substantial evidence was the basis of the [Planning Commission’s] decision to deny the project.” The staff report maintains that “there is no connection between the perpetrators of the alleged kidnapping plan and the applicant,” emphasizing that Illiev was the victim, not the perpetrator, of the robbery plot.

Michael Holtermann, a planner with the county’s Planning and Building, said staff had contacted the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office multiple times for additional information about criminal activity on the property but maintained that “no pertinent information was received.”

“As was pointed out by the appellant in their justification, there have been no charges filed, warrants for arrest, or convictions for the alleged gunfight or any other criminal activity associated with the cannabis operation,” Holtermann said during Tuesday’s meeting. “There does not appear to be any evidence that the alleged gunfight was connected to the applicant or the cannabis operation.”

The Planning Commission also took issue with the applicant’s history of noncompliance and illegal grading on the property. The appellant admitted that the grading occurred in 2015 before the county created a legal pathway for cannabis cultivation. The appellant maintained that the property “has not been the subject of any other violations that would indicate a past practice of non-compliance” since the county issued an interim permit for cannabis cultivation in 2018.

The Planning Commission also expressed concern that the project could impact an adjacent property owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is listed as a “potential habitat” for the Northern Spotted Owl. The appellant stated that he had met with BLM and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) staff to develop acceptable mitigation measures to protect Northern Spotted Owl nesting near the property.

The staff report notes that the project “is consistent” with the CDFW’s regulations for generator noise “in areas of ‘habitat’ or ‘potential habitat’ for the Marbled Murrelet or the Northern Spotted Owl.” 

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo asked why staff’s recommendation included a special condition that would allow a 170-foot, rather than 600-foot, setback to the adjacent BLM property.

Planning and Building Director John Ford explained that existing county regulations do not establish “that everything has to be 600 feet” away from public lands. 

Ford

“If you’re within 600 feet, you’re required to get a special permit which allows discretion to consider the circumstances associated with public property on the adjacent property,” he said. “[T]he application has been modified from the preexisting condition to move things away from the property [line] to replant, to regrade, to go from mixed-light to outdoor and to minimize the potential disturbance to potential habitat associated with Northern Spotted Owl … [although] no owls had been identified within that holding.”

Fifth District Supervisor and Board Chair Steve Madrone’s questions centered around water use on the property, which is sourced from a groundwater well and supplemented by rain catchment. The project is expected to use about 219,000 gallons of water annually, with approximately 86,600 gallons of water stored in hard tanks. The staff report notes that the applicant has plans to install another 50,000-gallon storage tank on the property.

Madrone noted that the hydrologist’s original report, a lengthy 1,500-page document dated June 30, 2022, was inaccurate because the study was conducted on the wrong well.

“In July 2023, there was an addendum [added] that says all of that information in that report is wrong,” Madrone said. “The agenda report is only a page and a half, barely. In the original report, it says there’s a low likelihood of being hydrologically connected. It doesn’t mean it isn’t connected. … These kinds of discrepancies make it very difficult for us – for myself as a hydrologist – to actually try to understand what’s going on, especially when it was the wrong well where all the detail was [included]. In the correct well [report] there isn’t all that detail.”

Ford noted that both wells are on the same property. “The subsequent report, as Chair Madrone mentioned, was initially directed to an existing well that was not the well to be utilized for this [project],” he explained. “He subsequently prepared that updated report for the well that is to be utilized, [which] is approximately 785 feet west-northwest of the well site location described in the previous report.”

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn suggested that the applicant install a second water storage tank or a pond to address potential water issues on the property. “Ponds are great for a lot of reasons, wildlife and everything else,” he said. “Maybe a small pond to offset what is needed and we’ll be at 100 percent [for water storage]. Right now we’re at 65 percent.”

Steven Luu, an independent consultant representing the applicant, said Illiev has worked diligently to add additional water storage to the property, but if the board wanted him to add more “the applicant would be comfortable with additional conditions.”

Luu

Luu went back to the allegations of criminal activity on the property and reiterated that his client had never been indicted or arrested. “My client was the potential victim of a crime,” he said.

However, if it came down to it, Luu said the applicant would be willing to sell the property and the permit to someone else if that meant the project would finally be approved. “If the board has concerns about the character or disposition of the applicant, I’ve spoken with him, and … he’s comfortable making [a] condition of the approval for him to sell the property or sell the permit if that is truly the concern that the board has with the operator,” he said.

Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell was confused by the statement and said, “We don’t permit people, we’re permitting a project.”

A few neighbors reiterated their concerns with the project during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting. Rod Silva and Mark Hilovsky, co-owners of a property near the project site, claimed that their tenants witnessed the alleged gunfight that occurred in 2018 and urged the board to deny the project.

“They heard a lot of gunfire, went outside, walked up their driveway to [Wilder Ridge] Road and saw cars in the applicant’s driveway and the opposite side of the road shooting at one another,” Hilovsky said. “Despite the rosy character his agent portrays of the applicant, we are more concerned about the character of the people he deals with, of which we have no control.”

Hilovsky claimed that the applicant had looked into moving his operation to Honeydew because of pushback from his neighbors in Ettersburg. “Unfortunately, due to the neighborhood opposition that never happened,” he said. “They didn’t want him either.”

A little later in the meeting, Bohn said he was on-site with county staff and the applicant when the subject of moving the operation to Honeydew came up. “Piles of cash, that never came up,” Bohn said. “What it came up to was the proliferation of grows in downtown Honeydew and the location where [it] was going to go, where they were going to move it to.”

Bohn echoed Bushnell’s sentiment that it is up to the board to approve projects, not people. “Everybody has equal rights and everything else,” he said.

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo agreed, adding that the board has to “use the facts that have been proven to make our findings.”

“I can really empathize with a concern about having neighbor conflicts and the fears that are being expressed here,” Arroyo continued. “As I said, we really have to use the proven facts to make our determinations, and I do believe we need to apply our existing ordinance as fairly and consistently as possible. … I hope folks can appreciate that we need to apply our regulations as evenly and consistently as possible and use facts to make those determinations.”

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson said he generally disagreed with the Planning Commission’s findings for denial, echoing previous statements that the board should treat applicants equally. 

Following two hours of deliberation, Bohn made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation and approve the appeal, with the added conditions that the applicant must increase water storage to 100 percent in the next two years and conduct another water study.

“I guess I could [add] be a good neighbor, but I’m not gonna throw that in there,” he said.

Bushnell said she would second the motion if Bohn included a condition to require an additional inspection of the property for the next three years. Bohn agreed.

Madrone reiterated his frustration with the water study and asked Bohn to add a condition that would implement a forbearance period during the dry months, during which the applicant would not draw from his well, between July 1 and Nov. 15. He also felt the setback issue “was very problematic” but said, “If the BLM doesn’t want to push the issue, I’m not going to push it.”

Bohn said he would be willing to include a forbearance period from July 1 to Oct. 1 but Madrone said he wouldn’t vote in favor of the project unless Bohn agreed to extend the forbearance to Nov. 15. After a bit of quibbling Bohn eventually agreed.

The motion passed in a 5-0.

Board Travel Expenses

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, the board considered a request, brought forth by Madrone, to review the board’s travel expense policy. As it stands, each member of the board is allocated $10,300 each fiscal year to cover expenses for interdistrict travel and other work-related trips.

Before getting into the discussion, Madrone said his intention in bringing the item forward was not to “micromanage” the board’s travel decisions but to “provide structure to our travel budget.”

Madrone

“I think we all do a great job of trying to figure out how to best spend that money within our district for travel and/or attendance to conferences or whatever it might be,” he said. “What this is about is setting some policies around these issues.”

The staff report includes an accounting of each board member’s travel expenses to date, which can be found here. As one would expect, the county’s rural representatives (Bohn, Bushnell and Madrone) have used more money in the last year than their urban counterparts (Arroyo and Wilson). Since July, Madrone has used more money for travel than his fellow board members, leaving him with less than $3,000.

Madrone suggested that the board implement a few rules to ensure they don’t exceed their annual allotment, including a requirement for a board majority vote for additional funds and a quarterly review of the fund. He also suggested that outgoing board members should only be allowed to use 50 percent of their annual allotment to ensure there’s funding left for the incoming board member. 

Bushnell said she relied on Kathy Hayes, the clerk of the board, to help her keep track of her travel expenses but didn’t feel the board needed additional oversight. “I’m not really understanding what you’re wanting out of this,” she said to Madrone. “It sounds like micromanaging to me.”

He reiterated that his intent was not to micromanage the board. “Perhaps what I’ve done here is project into problems that haven’t existed,” he said. 

Arroyo said she would be happy to give her funding allocation to another board member if they needed it, adding that she assumed the extra funds were just absorbed into the General Fund.

After a bit of discussion, Madrone backed down and suggested the board revisit the subject during its annual budget review in a few months. The board agreed and voted 5-0 to not take any action on the matter.

Helllloooooo, voter!

Are you hyped up for the return of the political season in Humboldt County? Maybe you’re not. But whether or no, we’re doing this thing and that means it’s time for the relaunch of LoCO Elections, your Lost Coast Outpost sub-site in which you may put questions to the candidates for office and read all about their latest accomplishments and such.

LoCO Elections has been really popular almost every year we’ve done it, especially during and after the pandemic, and candidates who have availed themselves of it have generally found it worth their while. If this is your first time around or you need a refresher, the how-to’s of LoCO Elections can be found at this link. Basically, candidates – or some of them, anyway – are standing by waiting for questions from you, the Lost Coast Outpost readership.

Are you curious about what a judge does, or what makes one person more qualified to be a judge than another person? Both candidates for the District One chair – incumbent Gregory Kreis and challenger April Van Dyke – are signed up and would love to hear from you. You more interested in the Board of Supervisors races? All the candidates for the Fortuna/SoHum Second District are registered – Michelle Bushnell, Jeana McClendon and Brian Roberts — as is First District Challenger Gordon Clatworthy. (If you’re a candidate who is not signed up yet, shoot me an email — hank@lostcoastoutpost.com — and I’ll set you up with an account.)

What’s next for LoCO Elections, apart from those candidates’ press releases and their answers to your questions? We’re going to try to sign up people to take the pro- and anti- positions on Measure A, the Cannabis Reform Initiative, so that you can put your questions about that as well. We’ll also stick debate schedules and such on the LoCO Elections main page when those are finalized. And once candidates start providing answers to questions, we’ll stick a selection of them on the Outpost home page every morning to help you keep track.

OK! Get going! Ask your questions of the candidates … on LoCO Elections!

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Should one of Humboldt County’s most scenic trails be renamed after the late California Senator Dianne Feinstein?

That’s what would happen with the passage of new bill introduced today by Rep. Jared Huffman and Rep. Mike Thompson.

The Senator Dianne Feinstein Memorial Trail Act aims to rechristen the Elk River Trail in the Headwaters Forest Reserve after Feinstein, the state’s first female U.S. Senator, who served nearly six terms in Congress before her death in September at the age of 90.

Feinstein was among the key brokers of the 1999 deal in which the U.S. government purchased 7,472 acres of pristine redwood forest from the Pacific Lumber Co., then owned by the rapacious Maxxam Corp.

“Dianne Feinstein leaves a profound and enduring legacy – from gun violence prevention to reproductive and human rights, to protecting treasured lands,” Huffman said in a press release issued by Thompson’s office. “The breadth of her contributions to our state is unmatched, and among them is Northern California’s Headwaters Forest Reserve. Our bill will commemorate her through a memorial trail in the headwaters, which thanks to her will be preserved for future generations.”

Thompson added, “Senator Feinstein was directly responsible for the agreement that led to the United States purchasing the land from Pacific Lumber that became the Headwaters Forest Reserve. Throughout her time in public office, she was a steadfast advocate for protecting our beautiful state, and this bill is a testament to her outstanding efforts to ensure that future Californians will be able to share in the beauty.”

Press release from the City of Eureka:

The City of Eureka’s contractor is continuing street paving work down I street. Beginning Thursday, December 14th, I Street will be paved through the intersection of 6th and 7th streets. These two intersections will be closed with detour routes around. This work will be performed between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

I street is a heavily-traveled route within the City and the safety of construction workers is important. Please use alternate routes if possible, slow down, and be careful. The patience and cooperation of motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians in the vicinity of the work zone is greatly appreciated. Due to the high level of noise and vibration from equipment, night paving was not an option for this area.

Food insecurity in California ticked upward over the past year, bringing the share of hardship back up to levels early in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released by the California Association of Food Banks on Tuesday.

“Families are buying less food,” said May Lynn Tan, the association’s director of research and strategic initiatives, who conducted a survey of food aid recipients this summer. “They’re running out of food, not being able to afford nutritious meals, and worrying more about food.”

Advocates credited a pandemic-era federal aid program that gave food assistance recipients more money for groceries for pulling food insecurity below 20% of California households between 2021 and 2022. The additional aid, Tan said, helped recipients buy healthier food and become more financially stable.

As prices soared last year, food insecurity spiked. Then, the boost in federal aid ended in April. By October, more than 1 in 5 California families — more than 3.1 million households, including 1.1 million with children — were steadily reporting uncertain access to food, according to Census data analyzed by the association.

While hunger overall is disproportionately borne by people of color, Black families in particular reported sharp increases this year. In April, 30% of Black households in California were food insecure. Six months later, the figure was 40% — and nearly half of Black families with children.

Anti-poverty advocates had feared a rise in hunger after the end of the aid boost this year, which affected the nearly 3 million California households that receive CalFresh, the federally-funded food stamps program. For three years the program had given all families receiving CalFresh the highest possible amount of food assistance for their family size each month, with $95 on top for those already receiving the maximum.

When the program reverted to ordinary aid levels, the decrease was anywhere from 32% to 40%, depending on the recipient, according to the food banks association. In a survey the association conducted over the summer, more than two-thirds of the state’s food banks reported increases in the number of clients seeking meals and groceries.

The uptick in food insecurity also follows an increase in poverty last year, triggered by the end of a different pandemic-era policy. A one-time, yearlong expansion of a tax credit program in 2021 sent thousands of dollars to most families with children and pulled child poverty levels down to historic lows; after it ended, poverty spiked again.

Both trends are likely to be the basis of advocates’ calls next year for California to expand safety net spending, even as the state faces a projected $68 billion deficit in the 2024-25 fiscal year. That’s double the budget hole California plugged this year.

Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano volunteers and staff load groceries into cars in Vallejo on June 7, 2023. Photo by Shelby Knowles for CalMatters.

The food insecurity data was outlined by the food banks association Tuesday as it gears up to lobby for the expansion of assistance programs next year, including increasing funding for food banks to buy California produce to distribute to clients and supplementing the federally-funded CalFresh (food stamps) program with state dollars.

“It does look like a tough budget year next year but I don’t think that changes our strategy,” said Becky Silva, the association’s director of government relations.

It’ll be a tough sell.

California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom avoided major program cuts when they closed the deficit this year, but it did bring to a halt several years of social services expansions.

Still, at a separate Tuesday web conference for anti-poverty advocates and lobbyists hosted by the liberal California Budget and Policy Center, Jessica Bartholow, chief of staff to state Senate Budget chairperson Nancy Skinner, an Oakland Democrat, urged advocates to continue seeking funding or program expansions.

“Don’t ask for less,” she said.

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CalMatters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu contributed to this story.

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