On Sunday, January 22, 2023, Leroy Rakestraw, loving husband, father, and papa of many passed away at the age of 86.

Leroy was born May 18,1936 in Eureka to Harry and Dorothy Rakestraw. He graduated from Eureka High School in Eureka. He had many passions in life. After he joined the Air Force and served his time in Arizona he got married to Betty Scott and they had a child, Pamela.

While he worked as a logger for most of his life, he pursued a college education graduating from Humboldt State College. He taught school for a while, then went back to logging. In 1974 he married his second wife, Cynthia. He then became a stepdad to four children. He then pursued the mission of becoming a Presbyterian minister and he obtained that, ministering at the Presbyterian Church in Orick.

After the children were raised they took up foster parenting. They became foster parents to many children. The ones that held the closest part in their heart were Albert and Barbara Mills, who they cared for as their own children. He also played a big part in the raising of his granddaughter Lacey. He had many hobbies, running and cycling, he participated in various marathons. He was cycling up until his last year of life. His other skills were woodworking, a mechanic and music.

Leroy was preceded in death by his wife Cynthia, his brother Herbert Brooks, his parents Harry and Dorothy Rakestaw, his granddaughter Shannon Ordonez, and his grandson Nicholas Sellars.

Leroy is survived by his brother Bob Rakestraw (Barbara), his sister in law Joanne Lewis (Richard),his brother in law John Panter, and numerous nieces and nephews. Leroy is survived by his daughter Pamela Rakestraw, His stepchildren, Lura Dickey (Stanley), Debbie Williams, Bobbie Williams (Allen)and Patrick Williams.

Leroy had many grandchildren: Rolland and Audrey, Ryan and Michaela, Eric and Kelly Dickey, Roseanne and Jessie Ordonez, Christine and Angela Williams, John, Jeff and Chloe Williams, Shelby and Chris, Lacey Readen, Brannon Hennings, Annabelle Mills, Aiden and Allen Chilcott, and Claudio Mills.

Lots of great grandchildren: Juan, Jasmine, Deborah, and Robert Esconbido, Theresia, Lucas, Natalie, Alexis, Karter,America, Kennedy, Corinne Dickey, Rylynn and Colton Lane, Kai and Kobe Yang,Koen Wolf, Thalia,Cyndi, Alicia, Tino and Cattleya Ordonez, Zachery Crain and Ariana Martinez.

Great-Great-Grandchildren: Camelia, Cartier and Kylo. He was known as Papa by all of his grandchildren.

We will be having a Celebration of Life on May 20, 2023 at Moonstone Beach House, Westhaven,12-3 p.m.

The family would like to extend a very special thank you to Wier’s Mortuary.

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Press release from Security National:

The Citizens for a Better Eureka coalition filed a second lawsuit against the City of Eureka today. Like the initial suit filed April 6, 2023, in California Superior Court, the petitioners are asking the court to stop the city from further actions on the public parking lot located at 5th and D, in Eureka. The city approved moving forward with seeking proposals from interested companies to develop the public parking lot into low- and very-low-income apartments at their meeting April 4. 2023.

The more than 50 members of the coalition claim the city failed to meet the requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to properly assess the environmental impacts of the housing development proposed for the site. It is the city’s responsibility to comply with CEQA and analyze appropriately the impacts on pedestrian and public safety, air quality, neighborhood compatibility, and traffic.

The City of Eureka is planning to eliminate about 640 public parking spaces from the downtown area and put in low- and very-low-income housing. There is no plan to provide parking for visitors, tourists, shoppers, and downtown workers. In addition, the new housing developments will not provide parking for the residents of the apartment buildings.

The Citizens for a Better Eureka support the development of housing but not at the expense of local businesses and the waterfront. Taking away more than 600 parking spaces will limit access to downtown shops, restaurants, and businesses – the very heart of the downtown culture and environment. These parking lots are critical to keeping customers, tourists, and employees coming downtown. Alternative sites, such as the former Jacobs Middle School property, are much better suited for community housing, the coalition believes.

The Citizens for a Better Eureka is a coalition of concerned residents and business owners seeking to have the City of Eureka step back from turning downtown parking lots into low- and very-low-income housing developments. CBE is asking the city officials to work collaboratively with business owners, special interest groups, and residents on a sustainable downtown redevelopment plan and consider other viable options for housing developments.

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DOCUMENT: Petition and Complaint, Citizens for a Better Eureka v. City of Eureka

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Arkley Threatens Lawsuits, Referendum, Recall Drive Over City of Eureka’s Plans to Convert Parking Lots to Housing
• ‘Furious’ Rob Arkley Says He’s Moving Security National HQ Out of Eureka After Clashing With City Staff About Development Priorities
• New Group — ‘Citizens for a Better Eureka’ — Says It Will Sue Eureka Over Downtown Housing Development
• Eureka City Council Approves Surplus Designation for Vacant Lots by the Boardwalk Despite Lawsuit Threats, Paving the Way for Affordable Housing and Mixed-Use Development Along the Waterfront
• Here is the Housing Development/Parking Lot Lawsuit Served on the City of Eureka Today
• Local Environmental Groups Call ‘Bullshit’ on Lawsuit Seeking to Stop Development on Eureka Parking Lots

HUMBOLDT TODAY: A disabled Cal Poly Humboldt student has filed a class action lawsuit against CSU; the City of Eureka needs you to choose between a squid, a harbor seal, and a pelican; plus, another local sea creature was rescued by some do-gooders this week. Those stories and more in today’s online newscast with John Kennedy O’Connor.

FURTHER READING: 

• What’s YOUR Vision for Eureka? Community Members Are Invited to Attend an Upcoming Strategic Visioning Workshop
• Disabled Cal Poly Humboldt Student Files Class Action Suit Against University and Entire CSU System Over Accessibility Issues
• Grace Marton Memorial Park is Getting a Waterfront-Themed Playground in the Coming Months and the City of Eureka Wants to Hear Your Thoughts on Its Design
• Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation Commemorate Missing and Murdered Indigenous Day With Awareness Walk
• Crescent City Councilors Urge Staff to Get Input From Business Owners On TRL Ordinance; One Member Calls Discussion A ‘Waste of Time’

HUMBOLDT TODAY can be viewed on LoCO’s homepage each night starting at 6 p.m.

Want to LISTEN to HUMBOLDT TODAY? Subscribe to the podcast version here.

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Do you live in Eureka and have thoughts on the city’s goals and priorities? Or perhaps you have a vision for a project that would benefit Eureka residents? Do you have opinions? Comments? Concerns?

You’ll have a chance to share your thoughts with Mayor Kim Bergel, members of the Eureka City Council and city staff during two upcoming workshops focused on setting and implementing the city’s goals for the next few years.

The city develops a Strategic Visioning Plan every two or three years to assist the city in addressing future challenges and to give the public an opportunity to provide feedback on the city’s priorities, said City Manager Miles Slattery.

“Basically, we’ll be exploring what the community sees as priorities for the next two to five years,” Slattery told the Outpost. “We’re working with Berké Brown, one of the consultants who worked with us on the city’s diversity, equity and inclusion work. He will be leading the strategic visioning process. … We’re hoping to get as much participation as possible.”

The workshops will begin with a public comment period, which will be followed by a brainstorming and breakout group session. During the city’s last strategic visioning session, this process involved lots of sticky notes on a whiteboard, Slattery said.

“We basically developed a laundry list of goals and priorities and then looked at different factors to determine whether there was adequate funding or if there’s enough staffing to do whatever is being proposed,” he said. “If there’s enough staffing and if there’s adequate funding and the resources to do it, then that stays on the board.”

Once the visioning process is complete, city staff will synthesize the information and create initiatives to meet the community’s goals.

The workshops will take place at 9 a.m. on Friday and Saturday at Humboldt Bay Fire’s training center at 3030 L Street in Eureka. Public comment will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Friday and 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. And yes, there will be snacks.

More information can be found here.

California hospitals in financial trouble will soon be able to apply for interest-free state loans, although key questions about the selection process aren’t yet resolved.

The Legislature on Thursday approved a bill that will allocate a one-time sum of $150 million from the general fund to aid hospitals that are facing severe financial distress and are at risk of closure, or that have closed but have a plan to reopen. The loans would have to be paid back within six years, although loans may be forgiven for hospitals that meet certain requirements. Gov. Gavin Newsom needs to sign the bill to enact the program.

Legislators and hospital administrators have acknowledged a loan program is only a stop-gap for a number of hospitals that for months have warned of their precarious fiscal situations. Legislators fast-tracked action following the closure of Madera Community Hospital at the start of this year, which left this San Joaquin Valley county of 160,000 people without a local emergency room.

Since then, another hospital, Beverly Hospital in the city of Montebello, has filed for bankruptcy.

“This bill, this money, will keep them (Beverly Hospital) open long enough to be able to perhaps sell, regroup, whatever, but they will keep their doors open,” Sen. Bob Archuleta, a Cerritos Democrat whose district includes Montebello, said on the Senate floor.

Loans under the new program would be available to nonprofit and public hospitals. Those that most likely need and could benefit are independent and rural hospitals, some of which were struggling even prior to the pandemic, and have had a difficult time managing cash flow after they stopped receiving federal COVID relief funds. Hospitals that apply will have to demonstrate need and viability to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, which will oversee the program in conjunction with the state’s health department and the California Health Facilities Finance Authority, a financing program within the State Treasurer’s Office.

“This bill, this money, will keep them (Beverly Hospital) open long enough to be able to perhaps sell, regroup, whatever, but they will keep their doors open.”
— State Sen. Bob Archuleta, Democrat from Cerritos

It’s not clear exactly how many hospitals could qualify and how much each will get, according to officials from the state Department of Finance who testified in a budget committee hearing earlier this week. That will be determined by the agencies in charge, who will have to create eligibility criteria for these loans.

In hearings leading to Thursday’s vote, lawmakers asked why the state wasn’t conducting its own analysis of hospitals’ current situation so that the Legislature knows exactly which hospitals are in immediate need of relief.

“We don’t know how many hospitals, we don’t know which hospitals. We don’t know which areas those hospitals are (in), we don’t know anything. And now we’re asked to approve $150 million to be doled out without access to plans, without access to the finances that would give us the evidence to feel comfortable with this,” said Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, during a Senate budget committee hearing on Tuesday.

Much of the information available to legislators has come from the California Hospital Association, whose job is to lobby on behalf of hospitals. According to a report commissioned by the association, 1 in 5 hospitals is at risk of closure, and half of California’s hospitals are losing money. The report did not list which hospitals are in immediate danger. The association has also not identified facilities, noting that when a hospital announces its financial troubles it can prematurely begin to lose workers and patients.

But aside from the now defunct Madera Community Hospital, at least seven other hospitals have publicly spoken about their financial troubles, either through Op-Ed pieces, news reports, notices on their website or communication to their staff. These include: Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia, El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County, Beverly Hospital in Montebello, MLK Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles, Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital in Hollister, Sierra View Medical Center in Porterville and Mad River Community Hospital in Humboldt County.

“The hospital closure in Madera and other looming closures would be catastrophic in both rural and urban communities.”
— State Sen. Anna Caballero, Democrat from Merced

During this week’s hearings, legislators also questioned how the state came up with the $150 million figure, given that the state does not yet know how many hospitals need a loan or would qualify.

“One hundred fifty million is something that we believe we can absorb at this time,” said Erika Li, with the state’s Department of Finance, during Tuesday’s budget hearing. “Trying to address an issue during fiscal constraints is always difficult because you’re always balancing lots of priorities.”

With eyes on the upcoming fiscal year, the California Hospital Association has asked the state for $1.5 billion in one-time relief, a tough request in a deficit year. But Senate Democrats are in support, proposing that hospitals get $400 million annually for four years that would come with requirements and conditions, according to their budget proposal that is to be finalized this summer.

A spokesperson for the California Hospital Association said the loan program is welcome news and promising for hospitals on the financial brink, but more state support is necessary. Specifically, the association has been advocating to increase reimbursements for services provided to patients covered by Medi-Cal, the health insurance program for low-income people, which covers about 15 million people in the state.

“Beyond this short-term relief, a sustainable and systemic solution will be needed to protect care for Medi-Cal patients throughout the state for years to come,” said Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association. “As California continues to reel from the long-lasting and negative impacts COVID-19 has wrought on the state’s health care system, the work must continue if we are to preserve critical hospital services in all communities.

Seeking longer-term relief, Sen. Anna Caballero, a Merced Democrat whose district includes Madera, is also pushing separate legislation that calls for the state to renew a tax on managed care organizations that expired last year. That money would be used to increase Medi-Cal payments to hospitals and other providers, helping hospitals that disproportionately serve low-income patients.

“Ensuring that our hospitals remain open and able to serve patients has been priority number one for me this year. The hospital closure in Madera and other looming closures would be catastrophic in both rural and urban communities,” Caballero said in a statement following Thursday’s vote. “To ensure proper oversight of public funds, I will continue to seek more transparency and frankly more accountability on hospital operations to ensure California preserves health care access for all.”

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

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When Christine DiBella arrived at Humboldt State University (which would soon be rechristened Cal Poly Humboldt) as a transfer student in the fall of 2021, it wasn’t long before she realized the campus might prove challenging for her. DiBella has physical disabilities and uses a power wheelchair to get around, and in a Zoom interview Wednesday morning she said she encountered accessibility issues before even making it to her dorm room.

DiBella on campus. | Submitted.

On the day she arrived, she said, “I couldn’t put the keycard into the keycard slot to open up the gate to my dorm.” The slot was located off the sidewalk and out of reach. 

DiBella soon encountered more problems. The university’s Housing & Residence Life office had organized a hike on which newly arrived transfer students could meet each other, but the route wasn’t wheelchair accessible so she couldn’t participate. 

During a campus fire drill, she was only able to evacuate from her third-floor dorm room in the College Creek Apartments by taking the elevator, which she knew would not be functioning in the event of a real fire or power outage. When she repeatedly asked university personnel to provide her with an adequate escape plan, such as one that includes an emergency evacuation chair, she got the runaround and was eventually told to just design her own.

These and numerous other allegations are included in a class action civil rights suit recently filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit alleges that by failing to make its campus accessible to DiBella and other disabled students, Cal Poly Humboldt is violating Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Federal Fair Housing Act. 

The complaint argues that DiBella has been denied meaningful access to numerous campus locations, including parking facilities, her dorm’s laundry room, the Jolly Giant Commons cafeteria, the student recreation center, certain classrooms and buildings and more, with assorted physical barriers limiting her access to residential and campus-life activities.

The latest version of her complaint, filed last week, further alleges that all 23 campuses in the California State University system have failed to adequately plan for emergency preparedness for students with disabilities.  Defendants include the CSU’s board of trustees, its interim chancellor and the presidents of all 23 campuses.

DiBella, who remains enrolled at Cal Poly Humboldt, is being represented by Cat Cabalo, a partner in the San Francisco office of New Orleans-based law firm Pfeiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise. 

Cabalo joined in on the Zoom call Wednesday and said that, in researching the case, “it became evident that the problems that Christine was having were pervasive throughout [Cal Poly] Humboldt, definitely. And as we did more research [we found that] there is not one campus in the CSU system that allows for people with mobility disabilities to actively and meaningfully participate in emergency planning.”

DiBella says Humboldt’s lack of an adequate emergency evacuation plan caused fear and anxiety, and the physical barriers around campus often made her feel alienated or awkward. One day, while trying to get to a class in Room 201 of the Forestry Building, she found that the building’s front door was too heavy for her to open from her chair. According to the complaint, she relied on a stranger to open it, which was embarrassing because she prides herself on her independence.

Photo from the third amended complaint.

Once inside, she looked for a restroom, but the one she found on the first floor had a handle that was too high, and inside she found no accessible stall for wheelchair users, only a narrow one with not nearly enough space to turn around. (See photo at right.)

“Other restrooms throughout the campus are not accessible for similar reasons,” the suit says.

Meanwhile, the elevator to the Jolly Giant Commons, aka “the J,” was often out of service for maintenance, eliminating her sole means of access to food on campus, according to the complaint. 

Most of DiBella’s classes for her major have been in the Behavioral Social Sciences (BSS) building, which sits atop a hill that’s so steep her wheelchair can’t safely go up and down it, the suit says. 

After lodging complaints about her living conditions, DiBella was moved to a first-floor room in the residence hall. It was smaller, and she found that she couldn’t use the closet because the rod was too high for her to reach; the bathroom was inaccessible because the door swung out toward her, blocking the hallway and leaving no space for her chair; and furniture prevented her from reached the window, leaving her unable to ventilate the humid room. 

“Plaintiff tried to remedy these accessibility issues in the first-floor room by asking Humboldt if she could bring in her own furniture, but this was not allowed,” the suit says.

The lawsuit describes a series of similar experiences, and DiBella’s mounting frustration is clear in public comments submitted to the Associated Students board of directors.

“Wheelchair access!” she wrote in an email to the board in November. “Where is the disability access and compliance committee? Wheelchair access pathways are being blocked, I have no way to participate in the University. I am not safe. … it is offensive to treat me like furniture or cargo. I am Human! … I do not need permission for my body to exist.”

The suit alleges that Cal Poly Humboldt personnel retaliated against DiBella for speaking up. They labeled her disruptive and harassing, the suit says, and DiBella believes they required her to participate in a “conduct meeting” as retaliation for asserting her rights under the ADA.

“The message to Plaintiff is that she should shut up about systemic and pervasive physical and policy barriers that prevent her from participating in campus life and in activities that support her major and academic development,” the suit says.

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Attorneys representing the CSU Board of Trustees and other defendants have denied the allegations, though to date their arguments have focused on asking the judge to dismiss the class action portion of the suit. 

In a September filing, attorneys Alison K. Beanum and Douglas J. Collodel argued that it would be unfair and illogical to lump together all disabled students across the 23-campus system considering the unique conditions among individual campuses and students. 

Campuses located in Sonoma or Humboldt counties may need a plan for forest fires, but that’s not necessary for campuses in Los Angeles or San Francisco, they argued.

DiBella’s claim, they said, “treats all students with a mobility disability as a single monolithic group. They are not. It is indisputable that the type and degree of disability will differ from student to student. For that reason, each student’s disability is best accommodated through a personalized plan.” 

As for DiBella’s claim that all CSU campuses lack adequate emergency evacuation plans, the attorneys argued, “The entirety of Plaintiff’s class allegations is based on cherry-picked pieces of various emergency plan documents that Plaintiff found online through a cursory review, without any regard to whether those select quotes reflect a particular campus’s entire emergency planning procedures or the entirety of what is communicated to disabled students.” 

Their argument asserted that DiBella is “flatly wrong” in claiming that none of the 23 CSU campuses have an ADA-compliant emergency plan. Their filing includes links to websites and documents from each university campus that allegedly refer to each one’s plans for emergencies and evacuations specifically applicable to disabled students, though most of the links were broken by the time the Outpost clicked them this week.

The CSU’s attorneys, who are employed at the multinational firm of Clyde & Co, argued that DiBella’s case “would require a campus-by-campus and student-by-student inquiry” to review detailed policies, individual student circumstances and other evidence. 

However, in April the judge allowed the class action case to proceed, giving the defendants until June 7 to respond to DiBella’s third amended complaint.

“We survived against the motion to dismiss those class claims last month,” Cabalo said on Wednesday, adding that the next step will be asking the judge to certify the class. 

The lawsuit also asks for a permanent injunction directing the CSU to modify any facilities that don’t conform to ADA guidelines, provide accessible student transportation and make “appropriate policy changes.”

DiBella is also pursuing “appropriate damages,” and while Cabalo said the exact dollar amount is still being worked out, similar ADA-related cases have seen awards for damages in the range of $340,000 to $700,000, adjusted for inflation.

The Outpost emailed Cal Poly Humboldt seeking comment on the case Tuesday. On Wednesday they said they were working on getting us a comment, but on Thursday morning they referred us to the CSU. A voicemail left for the CSU’s public affairs manager had not been returned by the time of publication.

After being moved from the dorms to one of the Arcata hotels that Cal Poly Humboldt now uses for student housing, DiBella moved into different off-campus housing. 

“But I would very much like to be able to live on campus and have the support of that community,” she said.

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UPDATE, 12:27 p.m.: Shortly after this post was published, CSU Chancellor’s Office Public Affairs Manager Hazel J. Kelly emailed the following statement: 

The CSU values safety and inclusion and is committed to providing a positive and meaningful experience for all students. We disagree with the allegations and Plaintiff’s characterization. The CSU and its 23 campuses maintain publicly available emergency evacuation plans. Due to the pending nature of the litigation, the CSU is unable to comment further, but we do look forward to addressing Plaintiff’s claims.

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Grace Marton Memorial Park is slated for a major makeover in the coming months and the City of Eureka wants to hear your thoughts on the design of the soon-to-be playground. Do we want the park greeter to be a squid or a harbor seal on a rock? A pelican? The city needs your input!

For those who are not familiar, Grace Marton Memorial Park, wedged between Humboldt Bay and the Sacco Amphitheater along the Waterfront Trail, is named after a local woman whose husband, Lance Hardie, made a donation to the City of Eureka in 2016 to dedicate the park to his wife.

“Grace and Lance made this donation to honor the many lunches they enjoyed on the waterfront together and wished to improve this location for the community’s benefit by establishing a park and gardens,” according to the City of Eureka. “Upon Lance’s passing, and the sale of the estate, Humboldt Area Foundation notified the City of Eureka that the funds were available for the City to begin park planning.”

Planning efforts for the park are back on track after being put on pause by the COVID-19 pandemic. A chunk of the bequest will fund the development of a waterfront-themed playground featuring various sea critters to climb on and a reproduced merchant ship handmade by Eureka’s own Eric Hollenbeck of Blue Ox Millworks. The park will also feature an area for “social games,” like a life-size chess/checkers board, cornhole or perhaps a ping pong table.

The city plans to realign and repave the Waterfront Trail as a part of the park project. Staff are pursuing a 50 percent match grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to double the park and trail budget. Construction is tentatively slated to start next year pending additional grant funding and permitting.

Want to share your thoughts? Click here to take the survey!