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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On Saturday, June 8, 2024, Eureka Police Dept. Patrol Officers conducted a traffic enforcement stop on the 4000 block of Broadway.

As a result of the stop, 36-year-old Edward Brinson was placed under arrest for a felony warrant and a search warrant was authored for his vehicle. The search resulted in locating nine firearms and various stolen property including vintage US Currency Notes and Coins. The property is valued at approximately $5,000.

Brinson was booked for his felony warrant, a felon being in possession of a firearm(s), and for possessing stolen property.

If anyone has information regarding missing firearms or vintage currency please contact Eureka Police Department Criminal Investigation Unit at (707) 441-4300.

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard oral arguments in the case of Kyle Zoellner v. City of Arcata, in which Kyle Zoellner’s attorney alleged that Arcata Police Department detective Eric Losey fabricated evidence that led to her client’s arrest as the primary suspect in the stabbing death of David Josiah Lawson in 2017.

The appeals case was filed after a U.S. District Court overturned the decision of a federal jury that sided with Zoellner against Losey and the City of Arcata, both of which happened in October 2022. If the jury’s verdict had stood, the City and Losey would have been ordered to award Zoellner more than $750,000 for “malicious prosecution.”

Whether or not the District Court’s decision to overturn was made in error is the question now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Arguments made on both sides in Monday’s hearing centered around questions of “qualified immunity” — which protects government officials in cases of lawsuit if the official acted “in a reasonable but mistaken way” — and probable cause.

“A reasonable officer with Mr. Losey’s knowledge would believe there was a fair probability that Mr. Zoellner stabbed Mr. Lawson,” U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley wrote in the October 2022 ruling that overturned the jury’s verdict.

Judge Scott Corley’s identification of probable cause became a point of note as the appellate judges — Jacqueline Nguyen, Ryan D. Nelson and Daniel Bress — assessed exactly what the case required of them.

“We’re being asked here whether the district court erred in making a probable cause finding as to Losey, correct?” Judge Nelson asked from the bench. “We cannot just decide and say, ‘Hey, there’s qualified immunity for those counts?’ We actually have to reach the probable cause determination?”

Nelson answered his own question shortly thereafter, noting that the court’s finding of either probable cause or qualified immunity would “get you to the same place” (that place being: support for the District Court decision to overturn Zoellner’s victory).

Opening the appeal, Zoellner’s attorney, Elizabeth Zareh, argued that because “no additional facts” had been presented since the jury’s initial decision siding with Mr. Zoellner, probable cause “should not be relitigated.”

“If it is being relitigated, there should be a strong presumption that there is no probable cause and the burden [of proof] should shift on the other side to show whether there was sufficient evidence,” she said, referring to the Judge Dale Reinholtsen’s decision to release Zoellner in 2017 and the 2019 Humboldt County Grand Jury decision which declined to indict Zoellner, or any other person, in the stabbing death of Lawson.

Zareh also argued that qualified immunity “would not come into play when there is a fabrication of evidence by the police officers,” reiterating claims that Losey fabricated evidence against Zoellner in a police report detailing the eyewitness testimony of Jason Martinez, which was subsequently repeated in the charging summary submitted to the Humboldt County District Attorney’s office by Arcata Police detective Todd Dokweiler in April 2017.

In the report, Losey wrote that Martinez had identified Zoellner as the person who stabbed Lawson.

“He [Martinez] made a statement to Detective Losey that he was at the party, and he was walking from a distance, and he saw someone stop Mr. Lawson,” Zareh said, adding that Martinez neither named nor “described the physical appearance” of the person he saw with Lawson.

Losey alerted the DA’s office to the erroneous claim in the report — which Lori Sebransky, the attorney representing Losey and the City of Arcata, referred to in Monday’s hearing as a “mistake” — before the May 1, 2017 preliminary hearing in the murder case brought by the District Attorney.

The hearing was followed by a Humboldt County Superior Court decision that the DA did not have sufficient evidence to hold Zoellner to answer for the crime, which was followed by his release and subsequent suit against the City of Arcata and select Arcata Police Department personnel for malicious prosecution, unlawful arrest, defamation and other violations of rights. Losey was the only individual defendant named in the 2022 trial after a U.S. District Court judge threw out part of Zoellner’s case earlier that year.

Despite Zareh’s initial stand against relitigating probable cause, the longest statements in the hearing from either side recounted the scene officers arrived to on April 15, 2017, the date of the stabbing, with Sebransky arguing that probable cause was reached and Zareh highlighting what she said were “significant issues” with the evidence.

Zareh went first, arguing that no witness had reported seeing Zoellner with a knife and that the knife found at the scene lacked DNA or forensic evidence tying it to Zoellner. She also focused on what she said were discrepancies between eyewitness accounts of the fight between Lawson and Zoellner and the blood patterns found on the scene and on Zoellner’s clothes –– saying that his shoes and hands were clean, and the blood on his clothing was never forensically linked to Lawson.

“There’s testimony that Mr. Zoellner suffers from severe blood issues relating to his nose, bleeding from his nose,” she said, adding that Zoellner’s father had previously testified that even as a child, “every time there was any kind of minor impact, he was bleeding very heavily.”

Sebransky, on the other hand, called the evidence for probable cause “quite strong” and pointed out that it was “undisputed” by the plaintiff in trial before beginning her review of the evidence.

She began by saying that witnesses pointed the first officer on the scene to Zoellner, and that he found Zoellner “covered in blood” before learning that Zoellner and Lawson had fought because “he [Zoellner] was questioning whether somebody stole the girlfriend’s phone.”

She described the testimony of an eyewitness, Paris Wright, who had seen Lawson after the fight. “He is not stabbed,” Sebransky said. “Everything is fine.”

“A few minutes later, Paris Wright hears a scream, looks up the hill, sees Mr. Zoellner in a [second] fight with Mr. Lawson,” she continued. “When Mr. Wright pulls them apart, he sees that now Mr. Lawson is stabbed.”

Sebransky also argued that the discovery of a kitchen knife at the scene, which she called “unusual” in a stabbing “outside of a kitchen,” and the fact that Zoellner was a chef and kept knives in a bag in his car contributed to probable cause.

“No one else that night had been in a fight with Mr. Lawson,” she concluded, “And no one else that the officers could discover had any kind of a motive to kill him.”

A judge then questioned Sebransky about Zareh’s argument that the blood pattern officers encountered at the scene was in a different area than eyewitnesses reported to be the site of the second fight between Zoellner and Lawson, to which she responded that Wright said that he had seen Lawson crawl after being stabbed.

The judges’ final question for Sebransky centered on the plaintiff’s claim of fabricated evidence, and she reiterated that while Losey’s report was made in error, there was “no fabrication.”

“If the only thing we had was a fabricated statement, this guy did it, and that turned out to be false, then no qualified immunity,” Sebransky continued on to say, “But whereas here we have all of this other evidence supporting qualified immunity, then qualified immunity would still apply if the court chose to go down that road instead of just making a decision on the constitutionality of the arrest based on the probable cause itself.”

The hearing concluded with a brief rebuttal from Zareh, which clarified the plaintiff’s claims of fabricated evidence and was cut short for time, before the Court called recess for the day without making clear when its decision on the appeal can be expected.

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CORRECTION: This post initially misspelled the name of Lori Sebransky. The Outpost regrets the error.

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Ed note: Gillen Tener Martin is working for the Outpost this summer. She’s on an internship from her journalism program at Paris’ prestigious Sciences Po. Disclosure: she previously worked for the City of Arcata, beginning in 2019. She was uninvolved in the case this article covers.

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PREVIOUS LoCO COVERAGE OF THE LAWSON CASE:

• Jail Records Reveal Name of Suspect in Fatal Arcata Stabbing
• Arcata Police Receive Anonymous Email Detailing Specifics of Arcata Homicide, Beg Author to Come Forward; Suspect Officially Named
• ‘He Was the One’: Josiah Lawson, Humboldt State Student and President of Brothers United, Remembered at Campus Prayer Service
• Zoellner Pleads Not Guilty to Arcata Stabbing Murder; Bail Set at $1 Million
• United by Tragedy, HSU Community Celebrates the Life and Mourns the Death of David Josiah Lawson
• ‘It Should Not Have Happened’: Friend of Arcata Murder Victim Believes Racism Delayed the Emergency Medical Response That Could Have Saved His Life
• ARCATA MURDER HEARING: First Witnesses Cast Doubt on Whether the Police Department’s Suspect Could Have Stabbed Victim; More Testimony Coming Tomorrow
• ARCATA MURDER HEARING: Witness Testifies That Lawson and Zoellner Were Grappling as the Victim Bled; Police Officer Describes Chaotic Crime Scene
• ARCATA MURDER HEARING: Friends Testify on ‘Girl Fight’ Between Lawson and Zoellner’s Girlfriends Prior to Fatal Stabbing
• ARCATA MURDER HEARING: More Testimony on the Knife Found at the Scene; Lawson’s Friend Testifies He Saw Zoellner Drop Something Shiny
• Judge Dismisses Case Against Kyle Zoellner, McKinleyville Man Arrested in Stabbing Death of HSU Student David Josiah Lawson
• Arcata’s Police Chief, Vice Mayor React to Zoellner Hearing Ruling
• ARCATA MURDER HEARING: Kyle Zoellner to Be Released After Judge Reinholtsen Rules Not Enough Evidence to Hold Him For Stabbing Death of Josiah Lawson
• (PHOTOS) Protesters March Through Arcata Demanding ‘Justice for Josiah’
• HSU Faculty, UPD, Brothers United Participate in Radio Town Hall on Lawson Case Tonight; Arcata Mayor Releases Statement; HSU Walk Out Planned Tuesday
• (PHOTOS/VIDEO) After Busy Week, Family and Friends of Josiah Lawson Still Seeking Justice
• Josiah Lawson’s Mother Offers $10k Reward for Information Leading to the Conviction of Son’s Killer
• Arcata Calls in Outside Investigators, Approves $21K Reward for Info Leading to Conviction of Lawson Killer
• Kyle Zoellner Appears in Court to Request Law Enforcement Return His Cell Phone, Laptops; Judge Says No
• (VIDEO) This Morning’s Lawson Murder Press Conference Offers Few Updates
• Public Investigator Working With APD in Josiah Lawson Case
• Kyle Zoellner, Once Suspected of Homicide in David Josiah Lawson Slaying, Files Claim Against City of Arcata For Defamation, Pain and Suffering, Emotional Distress
• (PHOTOS) Hundreds Turn Out for Eureka MLK Day People’s Rally and March for Justice
• DA: Grand Jury Declines to Indict Anyone in David Josiah Lawson Case
• (VIDEO) Justice for Josiah Activists Hold First Monthly Vigil Since Grand Jury Decision; Charmaine Lawson Vows to Keep Fighting
• ‘Justice For Josiah’ Advocates Demand Arcata City Council Turn Lawson Case Over to the State
• Arcata Police Release Images of Potential Josiah Lawson Stabbing Witnesses, Ask Public’s Help
• TWO YEARS
• (WATCH) ‘Who Killed Josiah?’: Documentary Takes a Look at the Lawson Case
• California Attorney General’s Office Says it Will Not Take On Josiah Lawson Case
• ‘Racism Kills!’ Supervisor Bohn Adjourns Meeting and Leaves Chambers Amid Outcry Over Derogatory Joke
• Humboldt High Schoolers Announced as First David Josiah Lawson Scholarship Recipients
• Josiah Lawson Documentary Set to Air on Los Angeles Television Later This Month
• (AUDIO) Charmaine Lawson, Arcata Police Chief Ask Witnesses to Josiah Lawson Slaying to Come Forward in Public Service Announcement.
• (VIDEO) ‘Justice for Josiah’ Activists Shut Down Arcata City Council Meeting
• Outside Review of Lawson Case Complete; Emergency Response Deemed Appropriate But More Training Recommended
• On the Third Anniversay of Josiah Lawson’s Death, Arcata Police Once Again Ask for Witnesses to Come Forward
• (VIDEO) Charmaine Lawson Interviewed for TV Documentary Series ‘Still a Mystery’; Episode on the Murder of HSU Student Josiah Lawson to Air Tonight
• Civil Grand Jury Finds ‘Failures’ and ‘Ineptitudes’ But No Direct Evidence of Racial Bias in Review of Josiah Lawson Homicide Investigation
• Submissions Sought for David Josiah Lawson Oration Festival
• Charmaine Lawson Settles Lawsuit Against City of Arcata; Terms Include $25,000 Contribution to Scholarship Fund, New City Mural and Additional, Undisclosed Terms
• Eureka City Schools Board Overturns Mural Ban, Making Way for BIPOC Student Art
• Five Years
• Charmaine Lawson Continues to Seek ‘Justice for Josiah’ Five Years After Her Son’s Death

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Despite ongoing staffing constraints, Humboldt County’s Code Enforcement Unit (CEU) has made significant progress in recent years resolving longstanding issues on nuisance properties across the county. 

At today’s Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting, Code Enforcement Manager Dean Beck presented the CEU’s annual report for 2023. Beck pointed out a “steady decline” in unassigned code enforcement cases, which have decreased from 450 in 2020 to just 88 this year, thanks to “improved processes and procedures” within the unit. All told, the CEU closed 176 percent more cases in 2023 than were opened, he said.

“One of the things that we looked at was [how] cases were being assigned,” Beck explained. “Late in 2023, [we] did an assessment of open [code enforcement] cases by APN [assessor parcel number] to identify how many open cases there were, to whom they were assigned, and to provide a method of assigning new cases. This is a similar method to how building inspections are assigned to inspectors. …  Using the new process, the CEU should be more efficient when doing inspections and can visit several properties in a certain area in one outing. This will save both time and fuel.”

However, staffing has proven to be challenging, Beck said. The CEU lost nearly 40 percent its staff in 2023. “All of these contributed to an increased workload by the remaining team members,” he said. “The number of staff has been reduced from 13 to 8. With this reduction in staff, work must be prioritized and the volume of cases that can be addressed simultaneously has been reduced.”

In 2023, the CEU set up a multi-agency task with the Sheriff’s Office, the Environmental Services Division of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Planning and Building Department, Public Works and County Counsel to address some of the county’s most “difficult” properties.

Seven properties required county abatement in 2023, including the Green Valley Motel and nearby gas station along Highway 101 in Orick. In 2021, the county deemed the motel uninhabitable due to extremely poor living conditions. The deteriorating condition of the motel made it a candidate for abatement, Beck said, but a pending real estate transaction postponed the process. In January 2022, a fire erupted at the adjacent gas station, destroying both buildings. The abatement process, completed in May 2023, cost the county $475,052.

The CEU abated five other nuisance properties, including the old Judy’s Market on Highway 36 in Carlotta, a property on Lupin Road in Arcata, an uninhabitable mobile home on Weiler Road in Eureka, two garbage-strewn properties in Fields Landing, and a property with numerous abandoned vehicles and solid waste issues on Salmon Creek Road in Miranda, as seen in the breakdown below.

The county has at least two multi-agency cases coming up, Beck said, including one in Stafford and another at Yee Haw, a longstanding communal living property on Quarry Road near Trinidad. “Both of these cases are from 2012,” he continued. “It should be noted that a proposed amendment to the [tiny home] ordinance that would benefit the owners of the Quarry Road [property] has been in the works.”

Switching focus to cannabis enforcement, Beck noted that illegal outdoor grow operations have become nearly non-existent due to significant advancements in aerial imagery technology. “The success of the cannabis abatement program cannot be overstated,” he said. “The volume of outdoor cannabis cases continues to decline.”

In 2023, the CEU’s cannabis team opened 41 new cases and closed 136, 121 of which were from previous years, Beck said. In conjunction with the Sheriff’s Office and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the CEU issued 29 warrants resulting in 29 new cases.

The board’s comments generally revolved around the need for more proactive enforcement of nuisance properties. First District Supervisor and Board Chair Rex Bohn urged staff to use their enforcement tools to address minor issues early on, preventing them from escalating into prolonged abatement problems.

“If they’re not going to clean it up in 12 months and they’re not going to pay any the fees in 12 months, they’ve pretty much committed to not paying for the next two years,” he said. “[Y]ou should make one trip, give then them the warning second trip, and if they’re not going to do it, then we start the [legal] process. But numerous trips of telling them to clean up, and they say they’re going to clean up but they never do.”

Similarly, Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson expressed concern for the time and money being spent on abatement and suggested property owners recoup some of the cost.

“I think that we need to figure out ways to have some of those property owners be more financially responsible for all the efforts that we’re using,” Wilson said. “We need to be equitable in the way that we provide these services across the county. … If we’re doing abatements that cost more than the property’s worth, we were never going to recoup that money and [it’s] just footed by the public.”

Planning and Building Director John Ford said the CEU is working to change its overall approach in dealing with enforcement. “To be blunt, we’re finding that constant pressure on property owners is the way that things get done,” he said. “You can’t just send them a letter and hope that they’re going to deal with it if you’re not talking to them almost every day, in their face. It sounds kind of blunt, but that’s where the change gets made.”

Bohn asked if the enforcement process was entirely complaint-driven or if CEU staff have the authority to open a case on a property. “Are you able to drive by a house and go, ‘Oh my god, I’m glad that’s not my neighborhood!’ and put it on the books or open the case?” he asked. “Or do you have to get a call from a neighbor?”

Ford said he could look into it, but emphasized that “there is a fine line with enforcement.” If there is not a complaint on record, the county could be accused of discriminating against an individual,” he said. “It’s far easier for the county to defend a position that is complaint-based [because] it’s not something that anybody in the department or any individual had against somebody else and just decided to get revenge or something.”

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone also brought up the issue of enforcement at homeless encampments and the possibility of a sanctioned encampment, noting that there has been a surge in camps around the McKinleyville area since Devil’s Playground was dispersed in 2016. 

“I know Eureka tried hard to try and figure that whole puzzle out and it was not easy,” Madrone said. “Frankly, it probably would have been better just to bring services and sanitation [on site] because what we’ve done now is dispersed [people] all over the place. Pretty much any wooded area in McKinleyville has homeless camps, and I get calls constantly from the neighbors very upset about it. [They are] very concerned for the safety of their children and the perception of danger, and in real cases, some cases real danger from folks doing drugs and other kinds of things. Not that all homeless people are because many of them are just down on their luck.”

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo, who sat on the Eureka City Council at the time of the Palco Marsh evictions, said she didn’t “want to go too far down the rabbit hole,” but acknowledged that it was a “very difficult time for all of our communities.”

“[The eviction] was necessary to relocate people so that the Humboldt Bay Trail could be constructed there,” she said. “Not only did folks relocate elsewhere in Eureka, but they relocated to the Samoa Peninsula and a number of other places. I’ve seen the impacts of that, but I’ll just say from my perspective – because it does intersect with code enforcement and sanctioned camps – we did have … a number of sanctioned camps that were rotating between different sites … . But they were, I would say, by and large not a success.”

Arroyo said she would support “something like that in the future” if the county was able to identify a robust funding stream to support it.”

After a bit of additional discussion Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell made a motion to approve the report, which was seconded by Wilson. The motion was approved 5-0.

DOCUMENT: Code Enforcement Unit Annual Report: 2023

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Other notable bits from today’s meeting:

• The Planning and Building Department will be closed on Fridays for the foreseeable future. The board unanimously approved staff’s recommendation to reduce the department’s public counter hours to Monday through Thursday, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. to give staff more time to focus on their workload. “Managing the public-facing counter and working on online projects simultaneously has proven challenging due to erratic flow of customers at the counter,” according to the staff report. “Dedicating staff time to these activities will allow staff to concentrate and reduce project turnaround time.” The item was unanimously approved along with the rest of the consent calendar.
• The board also received an annual report from the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission. Cassandra Hesseltine, the executive director of the commission, touted the organization’s success in bringing several big motion pictures to the region in recent years. Hesseltine said film productions have brought in $12.4 million “direct dollars” to the region since 2011. The board did not take any action on he item but agreed to accept the report.
• The board also approved staff’s request to revoke conditional use permits for two connected Redway businesses – the Country Club dispensary and Grass Roots Distribution – at 3525 Redwood Drive. “This is not controversial,” Ford told the board, noting that the permit holder hasn’t been in touch with staff since last year and is rumored to have skipped town. He recommended that the board revoke the permit to allow another applicant to take over the space. The motion was unanimously approved 5-0.

And if that’s not enough local government for ya, you’ll want to check out the Outpost’s coverage of Monday’s special budget hearing here. 

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The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors engaged in a lengthy, fraught and at times testy discussion on Monday about how best to market our region to tourists while the county government is in the midst of a budget crisis.

The specific question on the table was whether the county should stop directing hotel bed tax revenues (aka transient occupancy taxes, or TOT) to the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau (HCVB), a nonprofit that has served as the county’s designated marketing organization since its establishment in 1979.

Ultimately, the board chose to extend its contract with the bureau for just six more months, a move that renders the long-term future of the organization uncertain while disappointing its board of directors and executive director, Julie Benbow.

The board also voted to allocate nearly $200,000 in tourism and marketing funds to the county’s own Office of Economic Development, which will use that money to conduct a marketing assessment in collaboration with local cities. 

Lastly, the board allocated $10,000 to the Loleta Chamber of Commerce and $25,000 to the McKinleyville Chamber of Commerce, with those funds coming from Measure J, a two percent increase in the county’s hotel bed tax, approved by voters in 2022.

In introductory remarks to the board, Scott Adair, the county’s director of economic development, said county staff, local stakeholders and the board itself have discussed these tourism and marketing matters “ad nauseam” over the past year. Staff’s recommendation was to sever ties with the HCVB now, meaning its contract would expire with the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

In recent months, an ad hoc committee of the board, composed of Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone and Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, has met with local chambers of commerce, the HCVB and other stakeholders, and their recommendation was to redirect funds currently being spent on travel and tourism activities toward an in-depth marketing assessment in collaboration with local cities, tourism districts and partners in the private sector.

For the upcoming 2024-25 fiscal year, $639,712 has been budgeted for tourism and marketing services. The ad hoc committee decided that this isn’t enough money to support a robust marketing campaign and recommended spending that money instead on county-wide travel and tourism efforts. 

Another reason cited for cutting ties with the HCVB was this: The bureau has failed to meet it contractual obligation to regularly submit detailed financial reports to the county – this according to Adair, Bushnell, Madrone and County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes.

Bushnell defended the county’s pivot away from the HCVB, saying, “This in no way is a money grab … .This is really us trying to be responsible.”

Madrone said the county should improve collaboration with local municipal governments, adding that it’s “long overdue that we take a comprehensive view” of the various tourism marketing efforts in the region.

During the public comment period, a number of people spoke in defense of the HCVB, including leaders from local chambers of commerce. 

Benbow, the HCVB’s executive director, argued that her organization has met its contractual obligations, and she warned the board against cutting off its financial support. Doing so would sever important relationships that the bureau has formed with organizations across the country and destroy a reputation taken decades to build, she said.

“We believe that the county staff don’t have the professional tourism marketing expertise to effectively or efficiently replicate the many things that we currently do for Humboldt and its residents and its businesses,” Benbow said. “So we respectfully request that any decision made today, you do it knowing that it’s going to be a huge gamble.”

Ken Hamik, president of the HCVB board, also defended the organization. 

“By focusing on its mission, the bureau has been over-performing what the county has been investing … ,” he said. “We have the No. 1, by far, website in the county, the most visited by anybody, and it just cannot be recreated.”

When the matter came back to the board for discussion, First District Supervisor and board Chair Rex Bohn said he’s a big supporter of the HCVB and does not like the idea of throwing them out.

But Cody Roggatz, the county’s director of aviation, said his department has not gotten the support and partnership it needs from the HCVB. He also read from the organization’s contract with the county, saying that an obligation to hire an independent auditor to conduct an annual financial review has not been met.

Bushnell said she thinks Benbow and the HCVB have done a good job, “but frankly, there’s just not enough funding to market the county [in] the way it needs to be. … In our budget crisis that we’re having, we’re trying to look for ways to really be more efficient and to do a better job.”

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo agreed. “There’s just not enough in this pot to be effective,” she said.

As the meeting dragged into the lunch hour, things started to get a bit heated. Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson took issue with a suggestion from Madrone to give a bit more of the limited Measure J revenues to the McKinleyville and Loleta chambers of commerce. Micromanaging such funds while the board was trying to make a much larger decision “muddies the waters,” drawing the board into a complicated rabbit hole, Wilson said.

Peeved, Madrone said he’s been advocating for McKinleyville to get a larger slice of the pie for years, and he voiced frustration with organizations acting like they’re entitled to certain pots of money.

“I just feel very strongly that Loleta and McKinleyville absolutely should be getting some share from this,” he said. “These are not entitlements. They’re going to change in six months, so get over it.”

Bushnell made a motion to extend the county’s contract with the HCVB for six months but later withdrew it in frustration when it looked like she wasn’t getting support from the rest of the board.

Ultimately, Madrone wound up making a very similar motion, proposing to extend the county’s contract with the bureau for six months with an allocation of $145,589.50 while allocating $10,000 to the Loleta Chamber of Commerce and $25,000 to the McKinleyville Chamber of Commerce through the use of Measure J. The motion also called for $195,589.50 in tourism and marketing funds to be used for the marketing assessment.

Bohn voted against the measure because it called for a termination of the county’s relationship with the HCVB six months hence. But the other four board members voted yes, so the motion carried 4-1.

Reached after the decision Monday, Benbow said she felt positive about the amount of support the HCVB received from the community at the meeting and said she and her board are “thrilled” that they have six more months to come up with “creative and visionary strategies” to market the county.

She also suggested that the county may regret its decision to cut off the organization. 

”I know the Economic Development staff is not in any position to take over any of the professional marketing endeavors that we do,” she said. “They’re quite overstretched, and none of them have tourism marketing experience or the contacts that the bureau have developed over the years with national and international media.”

The bureau’s website gets more than 1.2 million visitors a year, she said.

The HCVB’s board of directors will meet in the next few days to discuss what comes next and exploring other potential revenue sources, Benbow said.

During today’s meeting, Arroyo mentioned the possibility of issuing a request for proposals from other agencies to take over tourism marketing, but Benbow said such a process would be long and involved.

Asked what the HCVB will do if this really is the end of the line for county financing, Benbow vowed to plough ahead.

“I think that because we have such a commitment to not letting the county residents and businesses down, we would do our utmost not to totally stop our services but to work with the county if we can to continue until they come up with a model that is different – or a replacement.”

Measure J revenues

Earlier in the meeting, in deliberations that were only marginally less contentious, the board divvied up $350,000 from Measure J revenues as follows: 

• $150,000 to the Ink People Center for the Arts for projects with an economic driver; 
• $100,000 set aside in a Housing Trust Fund;
• $45,000 to the Aviation Department to create a destination marketing budget for the Humboldt County Airport; 
• $30,000 to the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission as matching funds for the three-day, Star Wars-themed Forest Moon Festival; and
• $25,000 to the Economic Development Division for administrative costs to manage the above projects and contracts.

That $350,000 represents less than 40 percent of the $880,000 in projected Measure J revenues for the upcoming fiscal year, and the board voted to keep the remainder in the county’s General Fund as a rainy day investment.

“If it remains unallocated,” a staff report explains, “[those] funds will be available to help the county maintain essential services in future years … ; however should that not be needed, the funds will be available for additional tourism activities.”

Humboldt-Del Norte County Film Commissioner Cassandra Hesseltine made a pitch for more money, saying her small staff will be unable to throw the third annual Forest Moon Festival next year on “a shoestring budget.” She noted that the latest Apple iPhone 15 advertising campaign features Star Wars “costumers” headed to a convention, an indication of the ongoing popularity of the franchise.

Hesseltine also said that Academy Award-winning writer and director Alexander Payne recently approached the commission about the possibility of the Forest Moon Festival hosting the world premiere of a documentary about Irvin Kushner, director of 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back.

Leslie Castellano, Eureka city councilmember and executive director of the Ink People Center for the Arts, spoke on behalf of the Humboldt Creative Alliance, a group the includes the Ink People, Centro del Pueblo, Playhouse Arts and North Coast Repertory Theater.

Staff’s recommendation did not include any money set aside for a Housing Trust Fund, but Wilson advocated for it, saying that by simply setting the $100,000 aside with that earmark on it, the county will be able to qualify for state and federal housing development funding.

The rest of the board agreed, and the above-referenced funding amounts were approved unanimously.

Reached after the decision, Hesseltine said she feels compassion for county staff and the Board of Supervisors having to make tough financial decisions during the budget crisis. But still, the cut in funding to the film commission is “unfortunate.”

With a staff of just 2.5 full-time employees, the commission is already overworked, she said. The Forest Moon Festival has proved to be a success, “but now I have to spend more time on top of everything else to go hunt money,” Hesseltine said. “And that’s brutal because what do I give up?”

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Here’s video of the meeting, courtesy Access Humboldt:

On paper, it’s just a homeschool support program. But in practice, Ditch School aims to be more than that.

The bold acronym DITCH says it all: “Dare to Innovate and Transcend Cultural Hegemony.”

“The idea of hegemony is that the people that are in power – whether they’re the elite rich, or the big corporations, or whatever – they tell the rest of us a story that keeps them in power,” founder Jessica London Jacobs told the Outpost during an interview. “And I really believe that our K-12 education system is this hegemonic reality.” 

So Jacobs, a teacher and former Arcata resident, created Ditch School from her Topanga, Los Angeles home in 2010. This September, Jacobs is moving back to Arcata, and she’s bringing Ditch School with her. 

In a nutshell, Ditch School helps 10- to 18-year-olds “hack the system,” as one student said, by enrolling in community college classes and pursuing passion projects in lieu of middle or high school. Jacobs – who clarified that Ditch is a private educational support program and not a school – says many of her students are accepted to four-year universities years ahead of their peers. And recently, Jacobs and some students have become involved with innocence work, the effort to free wrongfully incarcerated people from prison. The model is so open-ended, Jacobs says, there is opportunity to pursue anything. And then: “magic happens.” 

But education leaders in Humboldt say that though branded quite differently, Ditch School’s basic offerings seem similar to those of existing charter schools in the county, and expressed concerns and skepticism about the program.

“Let’s start with the term ‘Ditch School,’” Superintendent of Schools Michael Davies-Hughes wrote in an email to the Outpost. “This may be a catchy term for a middle or high school student, but is this the messaging that resonates with most parents who understand that regular school attendance is critical to student success?”

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It was Jacobs’ son’s unusual educational journey that inspired Ditch School: a path twisting through 23 schools and around bureaucratic loopholes, ending with a college degree at age 16.

Sage, a child actor, often got into trouble as a young student for stuff like doodling on his papers or talking without raising his hand. He was 11 when Jacobs decided to seek an option more radical than the handful of alternative schools Sage had already tried. At the time, Jacobs was teaching high school algebra and sometimes struggled to convince her students that it was applicable to adult life. 

“The kids called BS on me. And they were right,” she said. “Eventually, I just said: Wow, I need to stop doing this because I’m causing harm to all these kids who hate math. They’re stressed about it and it’s destroying their lives, for literally no reason – nobody will use algebra in their real life. And if they do, they will learn it on the job.”

She discovered that anyone, regardless of age, could enroll at a community college near her home in L.A., so she signed Sage up for geology and pulled him out of middle school. After accumulating college credits here and there – and filling his free time with acting, competitive surfing and working at a comic book shop – Sage had enough credits to transfer to a university. He was accepted to UC Berkeley at 14 and graduated in two years with a degree in performance studies and art. 

“Once my eyes were open to this, I started doing it for other kids,” Jacobs said. 

Here’s how it works: Jacobs helps families navigate the bureaucratic process of foregoing public education, either by legally establishing their own home as a private school or by declaring they have credentialed home tutors. (Jacobs assured that the legal requirements for these two homeschooling avenues – explained in more detail here – are met at her program.) Then, parents send their kids to Ditch. 

And what happens there? All of Jacobs’ students – she calls them “ditchers” – enroll in one or more college courses of their choice. Though Ditch offers virtual support to students around the globe, Jacobs encourages those who can to come in person. 

Arcata’s Ditch School will be located above Humbrews on 10th Street. Describing the Topanga location (which will stay open), Jacobs said formal activity at the “coworking space” operates just three days a week, but it’s always open to students. There, mentors support students while they socialize, do homework or work on other projects. Once or twice a day they gather for a game or group conversation, often about something controversial that might stir up disagreement. 

Fittingly, ditchers are free to come and go as they please. 

“We don’t have rules like you have to eat exactly at 12 o’clock, or you need to get permission to go to the bathroom, or raise your hand before you talk, or put your phone away during class,” Jacobs said. “Those are things that we want them to learn on their own, not because an authority figure told them that they had to do it this way.”

Jacobs calls her model a version of unschooling because students independently choose what college classes to take and how to spend their free time, with an emphasis on community involvement. Her ideology is inspired by an Indigenous worldview, a topic that she’s written about and is “the motivation for my work in decolonizing education and the legal system,” she said. On Tuesday, her team shared a press release describing the program in more detail. 

“Tuition” at Ditch School will be around 500-600 dollars per month, an amount that is cheaper than any private school in the area, Jacobs said. She plans to help financially strained students seek sponsorships and work trades with local businesses. 

Jacobs said Ditch School can suit anyone but is geared toward students who face barriers with the mainstream education system. Down in L.A., that’s included competitive athletes and actors, but Ditch is also for people who struggle with school or just don’t like it, Jacobs said, including those who are bullied, suffer from eating disorders or addiction, or who have attention disorders and can’t focus on six classes at once.

“I’d also really like to draw those kids who are interested in becoming lawyers, or doctors, or authors or anything,” she said. “If they already know what they want to do, please don’t waste your time in high school.” 

Angelina Avraham was 11 when she left her private middle school to attend Ditch. Her family learned about it through Sage, who was a substitute teacher at Avraham’s school and told parents there about his mom’s program. 

“‘Everybody was like, ‘She’s crazy,’” Avraham told the Outpost. “‘There’s no way that’s possible.’” 

But then COVID hit, so her family went to check out Ditch, which was offering in-person services at the time. Avraham said she did not want to go at first but slowly warmed up to it. Jacobs helped Avraham sharpen her reading and writing skills before enrolling in her first community college class, child development. 

“She really motivated me. I think that’s one thing that’s amazing about Jessica: she always motivates you to try,” Avraham said. “She’s a girl boss.” 

At 15, Avraham is about to start her senior year at UCLA, studying anthropology but considering a switch to criminal justice.

Jacobs is proud that her students do less school work with the same results as kids in traditional middle and high schools, who she says go through unnecessary stress in advanced placement classes and extracurriculars to get into college. 

Meanwhile, ditchers have more free time. With it, Jacobs said, they volunteer, help out on political campaigns, work part-time jobs, learn musical instruments, develop trade skills, study for the LSAT, start a small business … or maybe look into the details of a potentially wrongful conviction.

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Ditch School became involved with innocence work in 2020, after Jacobs watched a docuseries about wrongfully incarcerated people called “The Innocence Files.” Inspired, she contacted the innocence attorney who was featured in the series to ask how she could help. 

The attorney told her to look into the case of Jofama Coleman, an innocent man who was convicted of driving the getaway car in a 2003 drive-by murder in LA. With Jacobs’ help, Coleman was exonerated in February 2024 after 19 years in prison. She and her students also helped free Abel Soto, who was wrongfully convicted of shooting the victim in that same case. 

The story was covered by the Los Angeles Times and New York Times (reprinted here without a paywall), but for Jacobs it was just the beginning of her involvement with innocence work. 

The nonprofit Georgia Innocence Project estimates that four to six percent of incarcerated individuals in the United States are actually innocent. Jacobs said that she and her students have helped to exonerate four people, three more are in the exoneration process, and Ditch School is currently working on another twelve cases. Inmates have started reaching out to Ditch School to ask for help (innocence attorneys, often working pro bono, are overwhelmed). 

“We’re not practicing law without a license,” Jacobs explained; anyone can assist a case by doing background research. After investigating, organizing and summarizing a case, students present the information to an innocence organization, which then decides whether to take it on.

It’s not a requirement at Ditch School, but several of Jacobs’ students are working on cases. A couple of them created the nonprofit Youth for Innocence to work on cases and educate students on how to get involved with innocence work. 

“I love that [the students] are doing it and I love that they’re getting out people who went away when they were teenagers,” Jacobs said. “Abel Soto, the most recent guy to get out, he was 15 years old. And when we’re listening to the audio of the police interrogating him, it’s devastating. But for our teens that are 15 right now to hear that is powerful.”

The three former students of Jacobs’ we talked to said they’re considering careers in criminal justice after working on innocence cases at Ditch School. One of them, 18-year-old Asha Perry-Datt, is starting law school this fall. 

By the end of their time at Ditch, every student has a high school diploma, and most earn an associates degree as well – usually one to four years ahead of their age group, Jacobs said. Applying to a four-year university is one of the few requirements at Ditch School, but students don’t have to go if they don’t want to. 

Avraham said that entering UCLA at 14 was challenging. She had an argument with her mom over wanting to live in the dorms (her mom won), and she has found the social aspect of college isolating.

“Beginning UCLA, it’s so lonely,” she said. “I feel like every student that I’ve interacted with kind of treats me like a child.” Though she’s starting to find a friend group, Avraham said her social life remains built up around her weekly visits to Ditch School. This fall, she wants to start an organization at UCLA for underage students like herself.

Avraham said that it’s worth it, despite the isolation. She’s excited to be done with school. 

“I’ve always loved learning. I just hate the way that it’s taught. I hate the school systems,” said Avraham. “I don’t agree with how we’re evaluated on what we know and what we’re learning, and especially how it puts students down.” She says Ditch School changed her life for the better. 

“I have no idea where I would be if I wasn’t at Ditch,” Avraham said. “I absolutely love it there. And it may sound a little bit crazy, but it’s an amazing program.” 

The Ditch website touts students’ accomplishments in media links and lists university admits, but County Superintendent of Schools Michael Davies-Hughes expressed some doubt in those metrics for success. 

“I have looked at the information currently available on Ditch School and the details on student outcomes are based on testimonials, press releases and a list of student ‘graduates’ with the universities and colleges to which they have been accepted,” he said. 

“To me, that is insufficient evidence of a successful program.”

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Jacobs believes that a small college town like Arcata is perfect for Ditch. Walkability is important, the university and natural environment are a plus, and she likes the community here, full of folks who think outside the box. 

But Davies-Hughes said he’s “seen no evidence” that there is a demand for more alternative education in Humboldt given the county’s existing 31 districts and 15 charter schools, including some nonclassroom-based options. 

One such option is Alder Grove Charter School, a K-12 of about 460 students that offers homeschooling support, in-person tutoring and virtual assistance countywide. In a phone interview, the charter’s Director Tim Warner said that based on the information available to him, Ditch School’s offerings sound very similar to Alder Grove’s. 

Alongside its independent study program, Alder Grove students can optionally attend the Eureka location twice a week, and highschoolers may concurrently enroll in courses at College of the Redwoods. For students with more niche interests, Alder Grove has a Career and Technical Education department with pathways like culinary arts, digital media or construction.

Warner said he’d be surprised if families choose to pay for Ditch School when they can get a similar education for free at Alder Grove or other programs in Humboldt. 

Jacobs said that while commendable, existing alternative programs don’t do enough to challenge the status quo. 

“There’s a lot of programs for alternative education that are trying to evolve what’s in the mainstream schools, and there’s some great ones in Humboldt County,” she said. “But what I have learned in my experience with Ditch School is: let’s just knock that. Instead of an educational evolution, it’s an educational revolution.”

As it stands, she criticizes mainstream education for its structure and application of authority. 

“I feel like school was an experiment to create workers and soldiers. It did a good job of that,” she said. “But in all other ways, I think it was a failed experiment.” 

But Davies-Hughes said that public schools, at least in Humboldt, aren’t what Ditch School makes them out to be. 

“The Ditch School website states that existing school environments involve ‘Sitting in hard desks under fluorescent lights for six hours per day not allowed to ask a question or go to the bathroom without getting permission from an authority figure,’” Davies-Hughes said. “This is not the reality within any classroom in Humboldt County.”

He’s concerned that local families frustrated with their school experience and looking for a “quick fix” may turn to Ditch School. “I am skeptical that Ditch School will be able to provide this quick fix in the short or long term,” he said.

That said, Davies-Hughes doesn’t anticipate that Ditch School will impact existing educational services in the county. 

“I encourage families to reach out to our local schools to learn more about the programs currently being offered,” he said. “I believe they will find what they are looking for.”

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Before opening in September, Jacobs will hold info sessions for Ditch School at the Arcata Playhouse on June 17th and August 18th.

Today the Outpost is thrilled to launch the Internet’s newest feature: The Humboldt Handy! You need a handy person to sort out your home problems? You need the Humboldt Handy! It’s a directory of all licensed contractors in Humboldt County, broken down by city and specialty, or license type.

Roof coming apart? Browse the roofers. All your paint peeled off? Browse the painters. Yard sucks? Browse the landscapers. Fence blown over? Browse the fencers. Etc. Again: You get continuously updated listings for every licensed contractor in the county, with contact information and license details, and sometimes even more handy information.

Now, youngsters, let me tell you about the way it used to be. Back in the day, there was a thing called “The Yellow Pages.” It was a big book printed every year on cheap, ugly newsprint and, amazing as this may sound, distributed to every person who possessed a home telephone, which was basically everyone.

The wonderful thing about these “Yellow Pages” was that they offered you an at-a-glace list of absolutely everyone doing a particular kind of work in your community. Just for instance: Plumbers. When your plumbing exploded you pulled out the Yellow Pages and started going down the list until you found one who could come to your place, like, now.

There is no great way to accomplish that today! You’re stuck with Google searches, or hoping your friends might know someone, or asking Reddit for advice. Until now! Now you have the Humboldt Handy. Find it down below on our homepage, or Google “the Humboldt Handy,” or whatever else you want to do. It’s always there for you.

Now, everyone can hear this next part, but to the contractors: You can have your business featured on the Humboldt Handy, and that’ll allow you to add a bunch of extra stuff to your listing — photos, websites, your Instagram account, a little explanation or what your company specializes in … lots of stuff! Check out how we’ve tarted up the page for Will Power, a local electrician, and you’ll get some idea of what you can do with this. Featured businesses appear at the top of the listings, and you get all that cool stuff along with it.

How do you do it? Find the page for your business on The Humboldt Handy and click that link that says “Claim this business!” You’ll be taken to a form where you can fill out the details, add some photos, etc. Drop us a line if you have any issues.

This is an advertising feature, but why is it also good for you, the consumer? Because contracting services are a seller’s market in Humboldt County these days, and tons of businesses aren’t accepting new clients. People who advertise on the Humboldt Handy presumably have their shingle out and are awaiting your call.

OK! The Humboldt Handy, everyone!

On the one hand, allowing local advisory boards and commissions to meet remotely could make it easier for more Californians to take part, including those with disabilities or in jobs that make it hard to attend in-person meetings.

But on the other, shouldn’t people have the opportunity to address their public officials face-to-face?

That was the heart of the discussion around Assembly Bill 817, one of several recent proposals seeking to extend flexible meeting policies born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Legislature agreed last year to do that for state boards, until Jan. 1, 2026.

But lawmakers declined to give that flexibility for local advisory boards, including planning commissions and budget oversight committees, beyond emergency situations, caregiving and other exceptions they granted during the pandemic.

The broader bill failed in the Senate’s local government committee last week, failing to get a single “yes” vote. Four members voted “no” and three others didn’t vote.

Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat who leads the committee, said that since advisory boards are often appointed by elected officials and make recommendations that lead to action, “it is vital that the public can inform the recommendations these bodies make.”

“I don’t believe that you can as effectively do that on a computer screen instead of in person,” she said.

Currently, state law requires local boards to meet where the public has access. If that’s not at a central location like a county building, members are required to post a notice and allow the public to attend, even at their homes.

This bill — introduced by Downey Democrat Blancha Pacheco and passed by the Assembly on a 54-8 vote in January — would have, until Jan. 1, 2026, let advisory bodies have no board members and only one staffer at a physical meeting location, and one agenda posted at the staffer’s location. It would have required board members to be on camera.

Pacheco said at the June 5 hearing that her bill would bring local boards in line with state ones.

But press and government transparency advocates saw the bill’s failure as a “critical victory for open government.”

“This bill would have taken a meat cleaver to the Brown Act when a scalpel could give flexibility to those who truly need it,” said Brittney Barsotti, general counsel for the California News Publishers Association. The group is asking the Legislature to hold hearings to craft a better bill next year.

Durazo said Pacheco had declined amendments that would balance transparency with accessibility by requiring board members who get paid to attend in person, and that a certain number of members meet in person.

Ginny LaRoe, advocacy director for the First Amendment Coalition, which pushes for free speech and government transparency, noted that videoconferencing is already available to officials under a variety of circumstances.

“But it shouldn’t be the only option for the press and public to keep tabs on government,” she told CalMatters.

The bill’s supporters, which included Disability Rights California and groups representing local governments, said the state has a responsibility to allow more people to take part on boards and commissions.

“California is a huge state, and most counties have a large geographic area, and members find it very difficult, if not impossible, to attend meetings,” Janie Whiteford, president of the California IHSS Consumer Alliance and a member of a Santa Clara advisory committee on in-home supportive services, told the committee. She noted that one member had resigned because taking paratransit to and from meetings would take six hours.

“If you cannot conduct business due to a lack of quorum, the alternative is that we simply do not meet and county decision makers are left without local input,” Whiteford said.The influential AARP also supported the bill. Sens. Nancy Skinner and Scott Wiener, both Democrats from the Bay Area, declined to vote on the bill — a significant departure from their typical voting alignment with the retiree advocacy group, shown in the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

Opponents of AB 817 said last year’s bill that gives exceptions in emergency situations must be given time to play out before making further changes to open meeting laws.

“We’ve worked on proposals that kind of narrowly tailor the flexibility for public officials who have a need for more flexibility,” LaRoe said. But most of the bills on open meeting laws “tried to take things in what we feel is the wrong direction.”

Two narrower bills related to open meetings did pass the committee last week: A bill by Democratic Assemblymember Tasha Boerner allowing closed sessions to discuss cybersecurity threats, and one from Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover allowing email-only notifications to certain media for emergency school board meetings instead of by telephone.

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CalMatters Digital Democracy reporter Ryan Sabalow contributed to this story.

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