Frances Jenett Lowe passed away on May 31, 2024, peacefully in her sleep at the age of 89; only 18 days away from her 90th birthday. She was born to Albert and Cora Gee in De Queen, Arkansas on June 18, 1934. Frances was only 16 years old when her husband Jim first laid eyes on her. Never did he look at any others after that, and were they married on July 9, 1951, in Vancouver, Washington. They settled in Blue Lake, where they raised three wonderful children, two sons and one daughter. They were blessed to build their dream home in Arcata where they tenderly cared for their five grandchildren. They were happily married for 51 years. When she lost her husband Jim in 2002, she focused all her attention on spending as much time as she could with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

She was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother who was always available for her family. Frances will always be remembered for her love of gardening with special attention to her roses. Hummingbirds always brought that special smile to her face that people will remember her for. Her generous ways were infectious to all. Her love for family and her sisters was unsurmountable. Her and her sisters Wilma, Sally and Eunice had such an incredible bond that all sisters should have. She was able to spend most of the last two years of her life living with her grandson Aaron, his wife Dakota and their two kids. Making special memories with her great-grandchildren that they will never forget.

She is survived by her son James Lowe and wife Ida, daughter Carol Beason, sister Eunice Richmond and her husband Robert always known as Bob. Grandchildren: Elizabeth Williams and her husband Justin, Sarah Beason, Jason Lowe and his wife Rhonda, Ashley Brown and her husband Brandon, Aaron Lowe and his wife Dakota, along with 9 great-grandchildren, 1 great-great grandchild, and many nieces, nephews and cousins.

She is preceded in death by her parents Albert and Cora Gee, her husband Jim Lowe, one son David Lowe and grandson James Beason; sisters Wilma Brown, Sally Wilson and her husband Cecil; brothers Robert Gee and Donald Gee and his wife June.

Her wishes were no formal funeral services, just a simple graveside service which will be held on June 15, 2024, at 11 a.m. at the Greenwood Cemetery in Arcata, which all friends and family are welcomed to attend. After service has concluded all are welcomed to join a small celebration of her life at Aaron and Dakota’s home in Fortuna.

Janet Darlene Waddell Eastburn lost her heroic fight to cancer May 8, 2024. Janet was born October 23, 1972 in Fortuna. She grew up in Rio Dell and attended Fortuna Junior Academy from first to tenth grade. She graduated from Rio Lindo Adventist Academy in 1990. She was a lifelong member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

In 1999 Janet gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Kitana, and in 2019 she was blessed with a granddaughter, Saphira. Janet married Kenneth Eastburn in 2020 and they have had the privilege of raising Saphira for the last five years. Saphira was Janet’s joy and her reason to fight her illness far past the time the doctors gave her.

Janet loved fast cars and spent a lot of time helping with the races at Redwood Acres. She loved to spend time birding and collecting flowers with her mother. She was an amazing cook and baker. This past year she crossed several items of her bucket list, including swimming with sharks in the Bahamas. Her favorite thing though was to spend time with her family and friends at the beach. She loved to play in the waves and sink her toes in the sand. The ocean was where she went find balance and restore her peace.

Janet is survived by her husband, Kenneth Eastburn, her daughter Kitana Neller, her granddaughter Saphira,her sisters Robyn Waddell, Kimberly Unruh, and Valerie Wikander, her brother Timothy Elwell, and her niece Robyn Meija, plus aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who miss her dearly. She was proceeded in death by her mother Barbara Kanen and her son Arman, who she is waiting to meet at Jesus’s return. Janet loved the Lord with all her heart and knew the next thing she would know is her Savior telling her, We’ll done, my Daughter.”

Per her request a party to celebrate her life is being planned for July 27 at 1 p.m. It will be held at her friends: 790 Ireland St in Rio Dell.

An Outpost reader sent us the following screenshot last week, shortly after a New York jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felonies he committed as part of a “hush money” scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election:

That’s kind of odd, right? For a local TV news station to “Love” react to such a blatantly religious and partisan post? (The Del Norte Republicans Facebook page has since deleted the post after commenters objected to the Christ-Trump comparison, but the Outpost confirmed that North Coast News “Loved” that thing.)

As it turns out, whomever is managing the station’s social media account has a history of “Love” tapping right-wing religious content, including anti-LGBTQ posts from one particularly divisive Ferndale pastor.

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Perhaps it’s a bit less surprising once you learn that North Coast News, the local ABC affiliate broadcasting as KAEF in Eureka, is among the whopping 193 TV news stations owned or operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media conglomerate known for its overtly conservative political tilt. 

KAEF’s Redding-based sister station KRCR, aka “the Northstate’s News,” is also Sinclair-owned. The local affiliates have produced some award-winning reporters and popular TV news personalities over the years, including Nazy Javid, who’s now an anchor over in Redding. 

But as PBS NewsHour reported a few years back, Sinclair often mandates that every single one of its stations run its “clearly conservative editorials and features” verbatim.

North Coast News did not respond to emails seeking comment on its social media activity. We’ll update this post if we hear back. 

In the meantime, here’s a 2018 montage displaying the kind of lockstep messaging broadcast by Sinclair-owned stations across the country.

Press release from Friends of the Eel:

PG&E announced on Friday, May 31 late last week that it will request a 7-month extension from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in decommissioning the Eel River dams. Stakeholders were expecting the utility to file its Draft Surrender Application plan with FERC this month, with a final version due in January 2025. PG&E now says it will file the draft plan in January 2025 and the final version in June 2025.

In announcing the delay, PG&E expresses support for the still vague proposal for the New Eel-Russian Facility. This proposal would see a dam-free diversion from the Eel River to the Russian River constructed and managed by the newly formed Eel Russian Joint Powers Authority. PG&E is working with the proponents of the New Eel-Russian Facility (Sonoma County Water Agency, Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Humboldt County, Round Valley Indian Tribes, California Trout, Trout Unlimited, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife) to develop a surrender application MOU “that aligns with PG&E’s Surrender Application and Decommissioning Plan.”

It would appear that PG&E hopes a short delay now will prevent a longer delay later. We are wary, however, that PG&E appears to be giving ground on their previous position that arrangements for a potential continued diversion will not delay Eel River dam removal. The Eel River’s native fish don’t have time to spare, and Eel River residents have waited long enough to see the justice that is dam removal.

Meanwhile, residents of Humboldt County continue to demand a free-flowing Eel River as soon as possible. Last month a group of nearly 60 dam removal enthusiasts floated the river from McCann to Dyerville, waving banners of support for freeing the Eel River.

Learn more or support local organizations working to Free the Eel at eelriver org, or tribresearch.org.

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Humboldt County First District Supervisor Rex Bohn may have been half kidding when referred to yesterday’s special meeting of the Board of Supervisors as “doomsday,” but County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes wasn’t amused.

“That wasn’t exactly the connotation I’d like to start off with but yes, Supervisor Bohn,” she said before introducing the reason for the gathering: With the county government staring down the barrel of its second consecutive annual budget deficit in excess of $10 million, the board was being asked to consider a dozen potential money-saving measures.

The 12 options varied in significance and complexity, and over the course of the meeting’s four-hour runtime they generated varying degrees of angst and support from department heads. 

In preparation for the day’s hearing, staff from the County Administrative Office had conducted an employee survey and met with department heads to get a sense of each one’s priorities and to gauge potential institutional resistance.

“I do just want to acknowledge that this is a stressful topic for staff, for your board [and] for department heads … ,” Hayes said. “[T]here are a lot of feelings around these topics.”

For example, Assistant CAO and Chief Operating Officer Karen Clower said department heads voiced strong opposition to the prospect of mandatory employee furloughs, but a majority of them would support closing offices to the public on Fridays to allow employees to focus on their workloads.

Other options being explored include various ways to centralize services, which Clower said would serve to increase resiliency, lead to better succession planning and allow for more collaboration.

One such option would create a “one-stop” permitting shop by locating Planning and Building, Public Works Land Use and Environmental Health in one location. Another would involve switching to a system with a county executive office, wherein a CEO would oversee the county’s appointed department heads and their respective departments. (Under the current system, department heads report directly to the Board of Supervisors.)

Clower went through each of the dozen proposals one by one, detailing department head feedback and the costs of pursuing each of them. As outlined in a report prepared for the meeting, staff recommended pursuing some options, further analyzing others and rejecting the remainder.

Her presentation took about an hour, and by the end of it Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson was a bit overwhelmed.

“This list is too big for normal humans to analyze and digest and make, you know, robust decisions on [during a single session],” he said. Instead, Wilson recommended making a few preliminary decisions at this meeting and pursuing others through a more systematic “iterative process.” He went on to offer his initial thoughts on the various proposals before the board.

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone addressed the subject of a recent report from the Civil Grand Jury, saying it’s “foolish” to be leasing property when there are opportunities to purchase buildings and consolidate services into under-used facilities.

“You’ve got to start making some shifts in order to make anything happen,” Madrone said. The county is getting ready to set its 2024-25 fiscal year budget, and if all budget requests get approved it would result in a roughly $13 million deficit, he noted. 

“And then that leaves us 10 million in our reserves, and what next year?” Madrone asked. “We’re out of money. We’re done. We have no options whatsoever but to start laying everybody off and all kinds of crazy decisions that would have to be made.”

He suggested temporarily moving the Planning and Building Department out of the dilapidated old hospital building it shares with the Sempervirens Psychiatric Health Facility (on Wood Street in Eureka) and constructing a large multi-story structure in its place with parking on the ground floor. 

One quick aside about that: As if to illustrate the dire conditions of that building, a waterlogged ceiling tile fell onto Planning and Building Director John Ford’s desk over the weekend. 

“Obviously, the roof above is leaking,” Ford said when reached via email. “The mess has been cleaned up, and there is a trash can sitting on my desk to collect the dripping water.  I understand Building Maintenance will come back tomorrow to put sealant on the roof to stop the leak and replace 3 ceiling tiles.”

Here are photos of the damage, submitted by Ford:

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“This does not seem to be structural, and so the cost [of repairs] is [limited to] the staff time, sealant, and ceiling tiles,” he told us via email.

Regarding other potential cost-cutting possibilities, Bohn said he recently read that artificial intelligence will soon enable grant applications to be filled out in half a day, where previously it took mere humans as long as five days. Bohn also spoke in favor of losing staff through attrition but not via layoffs. 

When it came time for department heads to address the board, Connie Beck, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services, said she was opposed to the idea of creating new administrative costs in the form of a county executive office. 

“To me, this feels like a revenue grab on the backs of our most vulnerable people in our community,” Beck said. “I’m not opposed to a different reporting structure. I’m really opposed to adding additional costs to our budgets right now.”

Other department heads encouraged the board to be careful and meticulous in its decision-making processes. Some voiced concerns about consolidating services such as human resources, public information officers and information technology. Others expressed frustration with the limited range of answers available in the survey that had been distributed. 

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo said she’s interested in exploring the CEO model and supportive of the proposal to close county offices to the public on Fridays. Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell made a multi-part motion, including these components:

• proceed with the plan to close certain offices (those that “are able”) to the public on Fridays with “ample” public messaging about that change
• evaluate the consolidation of IT security
• revisit other centralization plans whenever “better budget times” allow
• review the “one stop” permitting plan
• review the potential combination of Public Works’ Facilities Management unit with the County Administrative Office’ compliance team for the Americans With Disabilities Act, and
• hold further discussions about the CEO model with individual board members and department heads

Bohn suggested that on weeks with holidays, county offices should remain open to the public on Fridays. Otherwise, on weeks with Monday holidays, those county offices would be closed to the public for four days straight.

Bushnell said she’d worry about how confusing that might be in terms of messaging to the public. Bohn let the matter drop. Wilson expressed appreciation for the department heads on behalf of the board, and the motion passed unanimously.

Press release from the County of Humboldt:

The Humboldt County Department of Aviation will hold a full-scale emergency simulation training exercise on Wednesday, June 5, between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon. It will take place at and around the area of the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport (ACV), located at 3561 Boeing Ave. in McKinleyville.

The exercise will be loud and includes participation by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay, Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services, several local fire departments, ambulance providers, the American Red Cross, airline personnel and many others.

During the exercise, those in the vicinity of ACV should expect to hear sirens and see emergency lights and participants with mock injuries crying for help. Airport visitors should also expect to see law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services personnel responding to a simulated emergency. First responders will be using emergency radios, and traffic flow may be temporarily affected near the airport. Please plan accordingly.

There are no planned street closures and airport operations will not be impacted as a result of this training exercise.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires all certified commercial airports perform a full scale mass casualty training exercise every three years. The purpose of the exercise is to train airport staff and local first responders on how to respond to an emergency at ACV. The emergency simulation is intended to provide a real-time, realistic experience of a mass casualty incident and allow airport partners and first responders from several partnering agencies to practice together, assess their emergency response procedures and solidify strong operational relationships.

The training area will be closed to the media. Media inquiries regarding this exercise should be directed to cgallardo@co.humboldt.ca.us.

For more information on the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport, please visit FlyACV.com.

As Dr. Rishi Patel’s street medicine van bounces over dirt roads and empty fields in rural Kern County, he’s looking for a particular patient he knows is overdue for her shot.

The woman, who has schizophrenia and has been living outside for five years, has several goals for herself: Start thinking more clearly, stop using meth and get an ID so she can visit her son in jail. Patel hopes the shot — a long-acting antipsychotic — will help her meet all of them.

Patel, medical director of Akido Street Medicine, is one of many street doctors throughout California using these injections as an increasingly common tool to help combat the state’s intertwined homelessness and mental health crises. Typically administered into a patient’s shoulder muscle, the medication slowly releases into the bloodstream over time, providing relief from symptoms of psychosis for a month or longer. The shots replace a patient’s oral medication — no more taking a pill every day. For people who are homeless and routinely have their pills stolen, can’t make it to a pharmacy for a refill or simply forget to take them, the shots can mean the difference between staying on their medication, or not.

The Akido street medicine team look for unhoused people in a vineyard to provide medical assistance in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

“They’ve been an absolute game-changer,” Patel said.

Street medicine teams bring the shots directly to their patients wherever they are — whether it’s in a tent along Skid Row in Los Angeles, in a dugout in the middle of a field in the Central Valley, or along the bank of a stream in Shasta County. Doctors can diagnose someone, prescribe the medication, get their consent and give the shot within a matter of days — or sometimes even more quickly — and with minimal paperwork and red tape. They don’t need a psychiatrist’s sign-off.

It’s estimated that California is home to more than 180,000 homeless residents. How to help the sickest of them — people with severe, untreated psychosis who might wander into traffic or otherwise put themselves in danger — has become a hot-button issue, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers creating new and sometimes controversial ways to get people into treatment. In a recent UCSF survey of homeless Californians, 12% reported experiencing hallucinations in the past 30 days, and more than a quarter said they’d ever been hospitalized for a mental health condition.

Doctors say the goal of giving an antipsychotic shot to someone living in an encampment is to get them thinking clearly, so that they can start engaging with social workers, sign up for benefits and get on housing waitlists. While Newsom’s new CARE Court allows judges to order people into mental health treatment, and other recent legislation makes it easier to put people with a serious mental illness into conservatorships, doctors administering street injections take a different approach. The treatment is voluntary, and people can get help where they are, instead of in a locked facility.

Some success stories are dramatic. Doctors talk about patients who one day are babbling incoherently, and a week after a shot, are having conversations.

“It’s been pretty common that that’s the initiation of, ‘We’re going indoors,’” said Dr. Coley King, director of homeless health care for the Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles. He said he’s seen dozens of patients get off the street after taking these shots.

As with any medication, the shots can have side effects. And while a patient can stop taking a pill and generally put a stop to a negative reaction, once they’ve been given a shot, they have no choice but to wait a month for the drug to wear off.

Despite some street doctors’ rave reviews, injectable antipsychotics still aren’t reaching everyone who experts say they could help. Street medicine teams report having just a handful of patients on these medications at any one time (King’s team in Los Angeles has about two dozen). Some patients don’t want the shots, balking at the idea of having a drug in their system for an entire month, especially if they have feelings of paranoia related to health care.

And street doctors complain that hospitals still seem to prefer discharging patients from temporary psychiatric holds with a bottle of pills they may or may not take – instead of giving them a long-acting shot.

Losing track of patients

One of the biggest challenges street doctors face in administering these shots is following up with patients.

In Kern County, Patel hasn’t seen the woman he’s looking for since his team gave her first antipsychotic shot almost two months ago. Now she’s past due for another dose.

It’s worrying, Patel said, “because I don’t know how she did on it.”

The last place they saw her was at an encampment known as “The Sump” in the Central Valley farming community of Lamont, where she lived in a plywood shack along a muddy ditch behind a farm. But code enforcement recently cleared everyone out of that area, and Patel’s team doesn’t have a phone number or any other way to contact her.

First: The Akido street medicine team exits their van with their equipment. Last: The Akido Street Medicine team checks on a homeless encampment in a dirt field in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Photos by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

The Akido street medicine team checks for a patient they are looking for in a homeless encampment in a dirt field in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

The first place they look is another encampment known as “the Shrine,” because it once held a shrine to Santa Muerte, a Mexican saint of death often prayed to by drug dealers. The team drives the van through an empty field of dead, yellow grass. Several people are living in room-sized pits they’ve dug into the dirt and covered with tarps and sheets of metal. Next to the vacant land is a vineyard, with rows of vines dotted with small, green grapes.

She’s not there, so the team hands out sack lunches and bottles of water, then gets back in the van and leaves.

“We’ve seen results,” said Kirk McGowan, a street medicine nurse with Akido. “But we’ve seen more failures than successes. That’s just kind of the nature of the situation.”

Who should prescribe antipsychotic injections?

In most cases, the people prescribing and administering antipsychotic shots in homeless encampments are general practice doctors — not specially trained psychiatrists. That’s because despite the growing prevalence of street medicine, street psychiatrists are still rare, according to a recent USC report.

“You look over your shoulder and there’s not a psychiatrist there helping you out,” King said. “And we want to meet the need. We want to take care of these patients. They’re really, really ill, they’re really disorganized, and suffering and dying on the streets.”

There are no legal restrictions preventing a general practice doctor from administering these injections. But some practitioners think the responsibility should be reserved for psychiatric providers.

“These medications are in there for an extended period of time,” said Keri Weinstock, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who practices street medicine in Shasta County. “They do come with risks. There are specialty things that come along with some of these specialty meds, and it’s a lot to learn when you have to know everything else, too.”

Some street doctors who give these shots seek out additional psychiatric training, while others learn on the job — often with a psychiatrist on speed dial, just in case.

“I don’t think it’s rocket science to diagnose schizophrenia, as long as we’ve done it with some thoughtfulness,” King said.

Dr. Rishi Patel from the Akido street medicine team checks on an unhoused person living in a vineyard in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

In-the-field diagnoses aren’t always clear-cut, Patel said. Sometimes, people do such a good job of hiding their symptoms that it’s hard to tell they’re dealing with psychosis. Or, instead of experiencing obvious hallucinations or other symptoms commonly associated with schizophrenia, patients experience “negative symptoms,” such as extreme social withdrawal.

When those types of cases arise, Patel calls a psychologist for a second opinion.

While these drugs are generally considered safe, they do come with a risk of side effects that can include dizziness, sedation, stiffness and decreased mobility. Those symptoms might be no big deal for someone living in a house, but for someone on the street, could be catastrophic, said Dr. Shayan Rab, a street psychiatrist with Los Angeles County’s Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement team. It could make someone more vulnerable to being attacked or robbed, or prevent them from accessing food or shelter.

“It’s a very serious kind of action that’s being taken and a lot of time needs to be spent before you say, ‘Hey, this individual is safe for a long-acting injection,’” he said.

To make sure a patient doesn’t have an adverse reaction, doctors typically give them an oral dose of the same medication for a few days before administering the shot.

There’s also a risk that after a street doctor gives someone a shot, that patient could later get sent to the hospital on a temporary psychiatric hold. Doctors there might not know the patient already has a long-acting dose of antipsychotic medication in their body, and might give them another dose.

Before giving someone a shot, Dr. Aislinn Bird wants to be 100% sure their symptoms are actually caused by psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia, and not complex PTSD, major depressive disorder, methamphetamine use, or something else. Overdiagnosis of psychotic disorders is rampant, especially in the African American community, Bird said.

“You have to be sure you really know the correct diagnosis,” said Bird, who serves as director of Integrated Care at Health Care for the Homeless in Alameda County.

But Dr. Susan Partovi, who practices street medicine on Skid Row in Los Angeles, said that’s an “antiquated way of thinking.” When someone is experiencing psychosis, it’s an emergency that needs to be treated as soon as possible, no matter the cause, she said. Her preference is to treat the symptoms first, and then see if the patient wants to work on other issues, such as substance use.

An Abilify Maintena shot being prepared by the Akido street medicine team at their main office in Bakersfield on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Antipsychotic injectables, such as Abilify and Invega, tend to be most prevalent in street medicine practices. But street doctors also administer long-acting injectable HIV medication, as well as medication for addiction such as Vivitrol — an injectable, long-acting medication that can help reduce cravings for opioids and alcohol, and protect against overdose.

Silencing the voices in his head

Ricardo Fonseca Jr., who goes by “Ricky,” has been homeless for two years, living in a tent behind a Dollar Tree, then in a park in rural Kern County. The 31-year-old said he was working as a welder until he had a sudden mental breakdown and started hearing voices.

The voices said horrible things to him. Sometimes they yelled, and he yelled back, scaring those around him. He used methamphetamine to cope.

“It was getting to the point where I just felt like killing myself,” Fonseca said.

Two months ago, Fonseca started taking a monthly shot of the antipsychotic drug Abilify. Since then, “everything’s changed,” he said.

Now, Fonseca is staying at a friend’s house and considering going to school. He says he’s stopped using meth.

“I can finally hear the birds and the crickets,” he said. “I couldn’t hear them before.”

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