Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On 1/13/2024, at about 4:00 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s Special Services deputies were dispatched to the area of Felt Road near Myrtletown to assist a homeowner with an evacuation due to flooding.
Deputies arrived on scene but were unable to access the residence due to rising water levels. Deputies deployed a Zodiac Raft and traversed the flooded roadway about one mile to the residence. When deputies arrived, they discovered nearly four feet of water had flooded into around the residence and was continuing to rise. Deputies were able to safely evacuate the occupants of the residence which were two adults, a one-month-old infant, and a pet cat. None of the occupants were injured during the flooding or evacuation.
With more winter weather ahead, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office would like to remind the public to be continually vigilant around areas prone to flooding. If in need of emergency rescue, call 9-1-1 and do not attempt to leave unless it can be done so safely.
Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.
A home for sale in the Sunset district in San Francisco on July 12, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters.
California will dole out $250 million more in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers this spring, while making changes to its 1-year-old program aimed at reaching a more diverse group of borrowers across the state.
Last year frenzied homebuyers hoovered up nearly all $300 million budgeted for the California Dream for All loan program in just 11 days. While the new program was wildly popular, some realtors and lenders reported that clients who received the funds were already far along in the home purchase process, fueling speculation about whether the loans were going to people who already could afford to buy homes.
The program’s next round, launching today, keeps the same “shared appreciation” lending model: The state will give first-time homebuyers money towards a down payment — up to 20% of the purchase price or $150,000, whichever is lower — then it will get paid back the loan plus a share of the home’s appreciation whenever it sells again.
This time the California Housing Finance Agency, which administers Dream for All, hopes to head off a mad scramble for the loans by replacing its original first-come, first-serve model with a lottery.
Homebuyers will have until April to find a state-approved lender and start working on an application. A lottery opens in early April, and buyers will have a month to submit their applications. Between 1,700 and 2,000 lucky lottery winners will receive vouchers that they’ll then have 60 days to spend on a home.
More time to prepare
The extra time to prepare should help Californians who may not be sure if they could buy a home without state assistance, said CalHFA spokesperson Eric Johnson.
The program is for people for whom homeownership “may be a dream but they’ve got the steady income, they’ve got the decent credit score of above 660 and they’re thinking, ‘OK, wow, this could really make the difference,’ ” said Johnson. “This gives them time to get motivated, to find a loan officer. If they need to do a little work on their credit score or change their debt-to-income ratio, they’ve got time to work with one of our loan officers or brokers.”
The agency will set aside a number of vouchers for each region of the state based on its share of the state’s households. That’s to avoid the geographic disparities that emerged in the program’s first round, in which Sacramento County homebuyers disproportionately benefited but those in Los Angeles County, which represents 25% of the state’s population, received just 9% of loans.
California Dream for All “was initially conceived of as focusing on higher-cost parts of the state where it’s especially hard to use existing down payment programs, and that was not exactly an unequivocal success,” said Adam Briones, CEO of California Community Builders, which advocates for closing the racial wealth gap through homeownership and helped draft the research that inspired the program.
The state’s red-hot housing market means some Californians who might otherwise be able to afford mortgage payments must struggle to save enough for a down payment. About 55% of Californians own their homes, the second-lowest home ownership rate of any state, behind New York.
Who will benefit?
Dream for All’s backers had hoped it would especially benefit members of communities that have experienced redlining or low homeownership rates, such as Black and Latino Californians. A CalMatters analysis of Dream for All’s first round found that its beneficiaries included a higher share of people of color than exists among California’s current homeowners, but they were still whiter than the state’s overall population.
California law prohibits state-sponsored affirmative action, which poses a challenge for officials trying to design a program that tackles historical redlining without explicitly addressing race, Briones said.
California Dream for All’s new rules include a requirement that at least one homebuyer in each transaction be a first-generation homebuyer, defined as someone who has never owned a home and whose parents also did not own a home, or someone who grew up in foster care. The state also has lowered the income eligibility threshold from 150% of the area median income to 120%, a number that ranges from about $95,000 a year in Fresno County to about $215,000 in Santa Clara County.
The state plans an outreach campaign beginning in February that will focus especially on Southern California and the Central Coast to let potential homebuyers know about the program, Johnson said. It will include flyers in laundromats, text messages and advertisements on Spanish-language radio and in Black newspapers.
Colette Washington, a realtor in Oakland, said that about a quarter of her clients are first-time homebuyers and she tried to encourage them to apply for California Dream for All last year. But most were confused by the program and procrastinated, she said, and the money ran out before any of them successfully applied.
Buying a house “is probably the biggest financial commitment most average folks will make in a lifetime and so it’s intimidating,” she said. “Fear is paralyzing.”
This time around, she said, “I personally would like to see the people who really need the money get it first.”
How to apply for Dream for All
So far California Dream for All has survived Gov. Newsom’s budget ax, which fell on some of the state’s other housing programs last week, as the governor proposed clawbacks of unspent funds to solve a budget deficit his office projects will reach $38 billion in 2024-25.
Created in 2022, Dream for All was originally envisioned as a 10-year, $10 billion investment before lawmakers scaled it back last year.
Johnson had one other piece of advice for wannabe homeowners in the state: “Most importantly, don’t give up hope. There is a possibility of owning your own home in California.”
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Illustration by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters; iStock
How much difference will a March ballot measure make when it comes to fighting California’s massive homelessness crisis? That’s the question before voters as they weigh in on Proposition 1, which has been touted as California’s chance to finally do something about the epidemic on the streets.
Prop. 1, the only proposition on California ballots this March, asks voters to green-light a $6.4 billion bond for treatment beds and housing units catering to people with mental illnesses and addictions. It also would restructure some current funding to funnel more mental health money toward housing.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has championed the measure, said it will “prioritize getting people off the streets, out of tents and into treatment.” The governor has a lot riding on its success, as voters become increasingly frustrated with the state’s lack of progress when it comes to cleaning up encampments and helping the people suffering within them.
But experts are cautioning against putting too much stock in Prop. 1 as a solution.
It won’t help everybody — not by a long shot. Nor is it designed to. In addition to funding 6,800 beds in facilities treating mental illness and addiction, the $6.4 billion bond would create up to 4,350 new homes for people who need mental health and addiction services — 2,350 of which would be reserved for veterans, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. In a state with an estimated homeless population of more than 180,000, that will hardly make a dent.
“It will be great for those individuals, but still leaves almost 98% outside or in shelters,” said Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness.
Prop. 1 also would require counties to spend 30% of their Mental Health Services Act funds on housing — including rental subsidies and new construction. Those funds, which come from taxing California’s millionaires, are expected to raise about $1 billion per year for housing programs.
“It will be great for those individuals, but still leaves almost 98% outside or in shelters.” — Bob Erlenbusch, executive director, Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness
New homes funded under Prop. 1 would target homeless Californians who often are both the most visible and the hardest to help, including those in the throes of psychosis and addiction. Many unhoused Californians don’t fit that description.
“The public perceives it as everyone, and it’s definitely not everyone,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, who directs the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, “but there are a fair number of people who have these disabling conditions.”
In a recent comprehensive study of homeless Californians, 27% of people surveyed had been hospitalized in their lifetime for a mental health problem. When asked if they had ever experienced a prolonged period of hallucinations, 23% said they had, according to the study by the Homelessness and Housing Initiative.
About one-third of those surveyed reported using drugs three or more times per week.
Even though it leaves people out, pouring resources into the sickest subset of California’s homeless community is the humane thing to do, said Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, a Democrat from Stockton.
“They count too,” said Talamantes Eggman, whose bill reforming the Mental Health Services Act became half of Prop. 1. “We can’t just see people as a problem. You have to see people as people and (ask) how do we do our best to help those who need it the most?”
Targeting the people with the highest needs may be politically savvy as well. Voters who are up in arms over the state’s increasingly dire homelessness crisis — and politicians’ seeming inability to fix it — aren’t complaining about the person who drives for Uber during the day and sleeps in his car, out of sight, at night. They’re complaining about the people living in encampments, walking into traffic and shouting at nobody. Those are the people this measure could help. And that’s where voters might actually see the measure make a difference on the street.
“We’re at a point where voters need this,” said Christopher Martin, policy director for Housing California. “Voters are feeling fatigued on housing and they need to see some progress, and I think we need to demonstrate that.”
But Susan Ellenberg, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, doesn’t anticipate Prop. 1 will do much on that front.
“In terms of addressing homelessness, we need more housing, period,” she said. “And I worry that when people’s expectations are conflating, they’re disappointed and feel that problems aren’t being solved even though so much money is going out the door.”
“The public perceives it as everyone, and it’s definitely not everyone.” — Dr. Margot Kushel, director, UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative
She also worries that some of the unintended consequences of Prop. 1 could end up exacerbating her county’s homelessness crisis. To pour the required amount of Mental Health Services Act funding into housing, the county will have to take money from other programs. That means there will be fewer dollars for things like homelessness prevention and early mental health interventions. If the county skimps on the types of services that keep people off the streets in the first place, Ellenberg worries more people will fall into homelessness or their mental health will deteriorate to the point where they need even more care.
Los Angeles County’s mental health department also has “some serious concerns” about Prop. 1, said Director Lisa Wong. Last year, the county spent 32% of its Mental Health Services Act funding on outpatient services — the psychiatric care, counseling, medication and more that helps stabilize someone living outside a psychiatric facility. If Prop. 1 passes and redirects a chunk of that funding into housing, the county will be able to spend less than 18% on outpatient services — and other programs such as crisis response and homeless services will have to dip into that funding pool as well.
“We are concerned that missing those service dollars might compromise the ability of people to stay in housing once they’re housed, or to get to a place of wellness where they can be successfully housed,” Wong said.
Recent expansions in Medi-Cal mean more people are covered for more services, which should help offset funding losses, Talamantes Eggman said.
“I don’t see it as cuts,” she said. “I see it as a reprioritization.”
“In terms of addressing homelessness, we need more housing, period.” — Susan Ellenberg, president, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
There’s also the question of how counties will come up with the resources needed to make the necessary program shifts. Santa Clara County is facing a shortage of workers and hiring freezes brought on by a budget deficit, Ellenberg said.
“I feel like we’re being asked to do significantly greater amounts of work with fewer and fewer tools,” she said.
Kushel, who specializes in the intersection of homelessness and health, said the authors of Prop. 1 — Talamantes Eggman and Democratic Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin of Thousand Oaks — have their priorities in the right place.
It’s nearly impossible to stabilize someone’s mental health or treat their addiction while they’re living on the street and pouring all of their effort into surviving day to day, Kushel said. But when given housing combined with the right treatment plan, even people who seem incredibly sick can thrive.
“Will it be enough? I don’t know,” she said. “But it seems like we should try.”
How can Prop. 1 funds be put to the best use? In San Diego, Deacon Jim Vargas says: detox beds. He runs Father Joe’s Villages, which has more than 1,000 shelter beds — none of which are specifically for detox. The entire county has only 77 detox beds — not nearly enough, he said.
Vargas hopes to use Prop. 1 dollars to open more.
“I’d like to think that yes, it will make a difference on the streets,” he said.
Martin, of Housing California, has more tempered expectations.
“It’s certainly a step in the right direction,” he said. “But it’s not everything.”
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Wayne
Roy Maples passed into the loving arms of his Savior on Sunday,
January 14. Wayne was 96, born on April 14, 1927, in Luther,
Oklahoma. He was one of nine
children, and the last surviving of the Roy and Sarah Maples family.
In 1935, Roy sold everything and loaded the family of 11, plus two
relatives into one Buick and headed for Southern California. Wayne
(Dad) was 7. He sat on his sister’s lap.
There,
in Ontario, Dad completed his eighth-grade
education and entered the work force, mostly
picking fruit. In the winter of 1944, Dad was 17, and longed for a
role in World War 2. Receiving the parental permission required for a
17-year-old, Dad enlisted in the Navy, and proudly served his country
in the South Pacific theatre. When the war ended, Dad still had some
time to serve. His stateside base was Alameda, Calif.
In 1947, on a weekend leave, Dad ventured over to San Francisco’s
Playland, an amusement park that once inhabited the Pacific
shoreline. Having spent his last cent that day, Wayne began trying to
sell a fountain pen for the return fare back to Alameda. One young
woman showed interest — the
former Maxine Friesen. She spent the rest of the day paying for them
both to go on the rides, and for the cab fare. Wayne and Maxine were
married six weeks later and were married until Mom’s passing in
2021. Seventy-four years.
Upon
Wayne’s discharge from the USN he and Maxine located to Tempe,
Ariz.
to be near Wayne’s parents. Their first of five sons, Michael, was
born there in 1948. In 1950, the young family of three
traveled to visit Maxine’s family, who had just relocated to
Eureka. At Maxine’s request her and Michael remained in Eureka for
a longer visit while Wayne returned to his power company job in
Tempe. Just a few days later Maxine received a call from Wayne
announcing that the family was moving to Eureka. Maxine was overjoyed
to be locating near her family.
Their
first Eureka place of residence was low-income housing located where
Winco is now. In those days Eureka was dominated by the redwood
lumber industry, and Dad first worked at a sawmill. He hated it. So,
he began to apply elsewhere, including PG&E, but was not hired.
The PG&E interviewer gave Dad’s name to a local plumbing
company in need of an apprentice. It seems their apprentice had
“skipped” off to Canada to avoid the draft. Dad was hired as an
apprentice over the phone the next day, sight unseen. The plumbing
industry would prove to be our family’s good fortune. He completed
his apprenticeship in 1953, having received time for his military
service. He acquired his contractor’s license in 1960 and started
his own company. Dad and Mom would experience a good measure of risk,
sacrifice, loss, near bankruptcy and recovery. He borrowed the $1,000
seed money for the venture from his mother-in-law. So it was also
Mom’s investment from the beginning. Whatever ups or downs the
company experienced, it was Wayne and Maxine’s pulling together
through their hard work ethic.
During
these early years Wayne and Maxine added four sons to their home —
Bruce in 1951, twins Rodney and Roger in 1954, and Dale in 1962.
Dad’s faith in his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was the foundation
of our home. He and Mom made sure us boys knew the way to Jesus. Dad
was a faithful and active member of the Eureka Nazarene Church,
serving as usher, building improvement volunteer and board member.
Dad
instilled early in us boys a work ethic and the importance of the
acquisition of a skill. He preferred that we worked during vacation.
He, nor Mom, were helicopter parents. We rode our bikes to school, to
practice, to the store and all-around town. We returned home at dark.
We spent summer weekends water skiing. We always had a boat. He took
us to church on Sunday. When complaining about our Sunday attendance
his famous line was, “You don’t have to go to church, you get to
go to church”.
As
time went by and travel became possible, Dad and Mom traveled the
world, from China to Israel, and from cruises through the Panama
Canal to the Alaskan Inside Passage. Mom and Dad were the perfect
example of two, being one. Dad loved his grandchildren, great
-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. Dad and Mom wore out
several motorhomes traveling to see them all.
Finally,
it must be said that Dad, along with Mom, loved Eureka. For 74 years
they both enjoyed love returned from this community.
Dad
was preceded in death by mom in 2021, and grandson Michael Wayne Jr
in 1983. He is survived by his five sons and their spouses — Michael
and Debbie Maples of Surprise, Ariz., Bruce and Linda Maples of
Tauranga, N.Z., Rodney and Sonja Maples of Eureka, Roger and Janice
Maples of Santa Rosa and Dale and Jillaine Maples of Eureka. He is
also survived by his 22 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and 2
great-great-grandchildren.
The
last two years were a little hard for Dad. He’d lost Mom. We’d
like to thank just a few. First, the VA. They really came through
with providing home care. Second, Agape home care. The workers were
amazing at developing relationships with Dad. Third, Hospice of
Humboldt. All the great things you’ve heard about Hospice are true.
Any words penned here to describe Hospice would not be enough.
Finally, friends and family. Too many to name. Through the work and
love of all, Dad was able to live out his years at home.
A
memorial for Wayne will be on January 27 at 2 p.m., at the Eureka
Nazarene Church. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to
Hospice of Humboldt.
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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Wayne Maples’ loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.
The future Grace Marton Park, by the Sacco Ampitheater. Click here for a full PDF of current site plans.
Press release from the City of Eureka:
The City of Eureka is excited to announce its award by the CA State Parks Land and Water
Conservation Fund Program in the amount of $619,989 for Grace Marton Memorial Park. CA State
Parks received $154 million in requests with only $35.6 million available. Grace Marton Memorial
Park was one of 16 park projects selected for funding.
The upcoming establishment of the new Grace Marton Memorial Park will be located on the grass
lawn area in front of the Sacco Amphitheater and is made possible due to a generous donation by
Lance Hardie and Grace Marton. The Grace Marton donation, city funds, and grant funds results in
a $1,239,979 project budget.
A robust public input process took place in Spring of 2023 resulting in a park concept that reflects
both Grace Marton’s vision and the community vision for a new and revitalized park space serving
all ages. Next steps will include permitting and setting a project timeline. Construction could occur
as soon as 2025 but is dependent on federal approval of the grant funding, permitting, and
finalizing construction documents.
A park design concept is available to view online and intends to evoke the region’s maritime and
logging history through a thoughtfully curated design featuring a playground centered around a
replica timber schooner ship submerged in rubberized blue surfacing, accessible by ramps
designed to look like waterfront docks surrounded by a timber log slide, log roll balance beams,
octopus climber, and marine creature rockers. Designated picnic areas overlook the bay and
playground, and a game area is provided featuring table top checkers, chess, and a cornhole court.
Amenities provided will include interpretive signage, seating, water fountain, waste receptacles,
and telescopes for wildlife viewing. Additional seating is provided by the incorporation of the
existing Sacco Amphitheater. This project also includes the resurfacing of the waterfront trail
between the Adorni Center to just past the Samoa Bridge. It will also realign the trail through the
bayside of the park project replacing the current configuration that passes through the Sacco
Amphitheater.
More information and park design is available at this link.
New park improvements often produce interest in other parks in need of upgrades. The table
below provides the status of other parks.
A spokesman from Labcorp this morning confirmed that the company will be taking over Providence’s Eureka lab:
Labcorp, a global leader of innovative and comprehensive laboratory services, has agreed with Providence that in Humboldt County Labcorp will acquire the Providence Medical Group site in Eureka on 23rd Street.
The companies anticipate closing the transaction by the end of first quarter 2024. Until that time, there will be no changes in operations or services.
Both organizations are committed to a thoughtful transition including lowering the cost of lab medicine, maintaining high level of quality and service and providing broader laboratory access for Providence’s physicians and patients through Labcorp’s expanded test menu.
Providence Health & Services, the not-for-profit Catholic health care system that operates both St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna, reportedly plans to sell its local outpatient laboratory assets to Labcorp, a company which local health care workers describe as the Walmart of testing laboratories.
Christian Hill, communications manager for Providence Northern California, would neither confirm nor deny that such a deal has been made. Instead, when asked directly via email this morning, he replied that he was “Copying Neil Hirsch from LabCorp to address your question … . Looks like Neil is OOO [out of office] today and back tomorrow.”
Hirsch is the senior director of financial and strategic communications for Labcorp, which is headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina. One of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the world, Labcorp processed 2.5 million lab tests per week as of 2018, and in the intervening years it has entered into agreements to manage even more labs, including those belonging to Ascension, another major Catholic health care system.
Local health care workers say they saw a deal with Labcorp coming long ago.
“This has been the plan and in the works for years,” said Dr. Megan Smith-Zagone, a pathologist who’s been Mad River Community Hospital’s laboratory medical director for the past three years, following more than 14 years in that role at St. Joseph Hospital.
Smith-Zagone was one of several people we spoke with who said Labcorp is essentially the Walmart of testing labs, meaning they’re a nationwide company that’s considered cheap and serviceable, more or less, but with a reputation for poor quality.
‘Labcorp is in this to make money … so they’re going to do everything they can to reap profit.’
–Dr. Megan Smith-Zagone
“Labcorp is in this to make money,” she said. “Labcorp is a for-profit laboratory, so they’re going to do everything they can to reap profit.”
Chuck Petty, a former phlebotomy and pathology manager at St. Joseph Hospital, agreed that the writing was on the wall from the time Providence merged with St. Joseph Health in 2016.
“We went to a meeting [in which Providence personnel] said that their model was to move all non-essential services to centralized locations,” said Petty, who retired in 2022. “I think microbiology went first and after I left they moved pathology to Santa Rosa. So it’s no big surprise that they’re doing this.”
Marilyn Bazor, who managed the lab at St. Joseph Hospital (on the former General Hospital campus) until she quit in 2021, said the in-house labs at both St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial hospitals used to perform a standard set of basic tests, including complete blood counts, chemistry panels, urinalysis, tests to assess heart health and blood clotting, etc. More complex or esoteric lab work was either shipped south to the lab at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, which is owned and operated by Providence, or sent to a factory-style lab, like those owned by Labcorp.
For years, Bazor said, St. Joseph outsourced its complex testing to a company called Quest Diagnostics, which Smith-Zagone described as the Target to Labcorp’s Walmart — slightly higher quality, perhaps, but about the same. (The best of the bunch, she said, the “Saks Fifth Avenue” of testing laboratories, is probably Associated Regional and University Pathologists, Inc., or ARUP. “That’s for if you have a really tough case.”)
Bazor told the Outpost that sometime in the past year or so, Providence ended its contract with Quest and started sending local patient samples to Labcorp instead.
“This is no easy task as each of the tests need to be ‘mapped’ to the Laboratory Information System,” Bazor said, referring to the computer software that processes, stores and manages data from all stages of medical procedures and tests. “This change of alliance [from Quest] to Labcorp indicates that this move has been in the planning stage for years.”
Like Smith-Zagone, Bazor doesn’t think too highly of Labcorp.
“I’ve worked with them in the past,” she said. “They don’t have the best reputation; they lose samples.”
Bazor and Petty both expect that local patients needing lab work will likely experience longer turnaround times for test results under Labcorp since the samples will have to be shipped out of the county. The outsourcing of samples from St. Joseph Hospital already resulted in lost specimens less than a year ago when a courier carrying patient pathology samples on State Route 36 lost control of his vehicle in the wintery March road conditions and crashed off of State Route 36. The samples were never recovered.
“My experience with Labcorp is negative,” said Petty, who worked at the hospital for 40 years before his retirement. About three or four years ago, he said, it became apparent that “everything that could go out to a centralized lab somewhere was going to,” and only the most basic tests, like chemistry profiles and complete blood counts, would remain in-house.
Petty said Labcorp’s facilities function like mills, with employees loading samples onto conveyor belts for labs that “just pump out tests and get specimens from all over the country.” In his experience, Labcorp would lose, on average, two or three of the 50-60 specimens that St. Joseph sent out for testing each month.
This outsourcing of so much lab work has frustrated local physicians, Petty said.
“If they get a test result back, they used to just be able to call or St. Joe and get a doctor, a pathologist or microbiologist or a clinical laboratory scientist on the phone, and they could talk through [any] problem with the test or what the test results meant,” he said. “Now they have no one to talk to.”
‘[Remaining lab workers] now are basically reduced to millworkers.’
–Chuck Petty
It has also reduced satisfaction among the people who remained working at the local labs, including clinical laboratory scientists, who typically have advanced training and a bachelor’s degree in biology, chemistry or microbiology, “and now they’re basically reduced to millworkers,” Petty said.
The number of employees affected by this transition is likely between 30 and 50, according to estimates from Bazor and Smith-Zagone.
In its press release announcing its lab closures last week, Providence promised to retain all employees who support the outpatient lab service line with no changes to their wages or benefits, but Petty is skeptical. He expects that the affected lab workers will be offered much simpler jobs that don’t require their expertise — basic chemistry testing rather than microbiology, for example — with evening or graveyard shifts that are less desirable.
Underlying economic factors
St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial hospitals are not unique in outsourcing their lab work. In fact, they’re actually behind the curve of a nationwide trend that hit metropolitan-area hospitals years ago, according to Dr. Brad Feliz, the chief of pathology at the Queen of the Valley Medical Center, a Providence-owned facility in Napa.
Feliz has run laboratories in California for more than 20 years, and in a phone interview Tuesday he said that the way labs have been doing business since the creation of the Medicare Program in the 1970s is simply no longer economically viable.
Specific factors here in California include the difficulty finding qualified staff who can afford the cost of living, the rising cost of labor among unionized health care workers, increased costs for lab materials such as test reagents and decreased reimbursements from the government and insurance companies, Feliz said.
Those and other economic headwinds are hitting hospitals across the state and beyond, Feliz said, and the trend shows no signs of stopping.
‘Obviously, if they’re not doing outpatient work they don’t need as many scientists, and that’s a loss for the community.’
–Dr. Brad Feliz
“So many hospitals are on the verge of closing, to be honest … that I think this is only the beginning, unfortunately,” Feliz said, referring to the consolidation and outsourcing of lab services. “They’re going to be letting people go from these hospitals because obviously if they’re not doing outpatient work they don’t need as many scientists, and that’s a loss for the community — and they’re probably never going to return.”
The situation has led Feliz to a bitter turning point in his own life.
“I’ve been a physician in the state of California running laboratories for over 20 years, so I don’t know where my career even goes from here,” he said. “I don’t know where this stops. … But I feel like the last thing that [hospitals] need to protect, is the actual inpatient care.”
From that standpoint, Feliz said he understands why Providence would sell its outpatient lab assets and focus on maintaining essential inpatient services, like delivering babies.
“The amount of money [hospitals] get on inpatient [care] is significantly more than what they’re able to get in the outpatient laboratory,” he said. “Yes, health care has never been more expensive, but a lot of that is not making its way to certain sectors of medicine, like outpatient laboratories. … The amount that hospitals are getting for outpatient laboratories actually declines [by] double digits almost every year.”
According to Bazor, a major contributing factor to this state of affairs dates back a decade to a piece of federal legislation called the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, or PAMA. Designed to forestall cuts to physician reimbursements, the bill instead wound up dramatically cutting the reimbursement rate to outpatient labs, especially those operated by hospitals and independent physicians.
“So I knew that it was going to be more difficult … for the laboratory to be profitable for the hospital,” Bazor said.
She also seconded Dr. Feliz’s observation about the ever-increasing difficulty in hiring licensed staff for the lab. Bazor said she personally mentored aspiring clinical laboratory scientists (CLS) over the years at St. Joseph but few stuck around. One left Humboldt County. Another went to work at Mad River Community Hospital. Younger ones asked permission to work four 10-hour shifts rather than five eights and were denied.
The lab at St. Joseph Hospital typically employed 10 to 12 CLS, and Bazor said that by the time she left in 2021, more than half of those positions were being filled by temporary contract workers, aka “travelers.”
At one point, a colleague mentioned that Cal Poly Humboldt might want to start a CLS training program and suggested that Bazor should be an instructor. She declined.
“I decided [that] in all good conscience, I cannot recommend the career of CLS to anyone, because it is a career that is so damaged,” Bazor said. “It’s all about profit. They ask people to work overtime; there’s no quality of life.”
Community impacts
While the factors leading to Providence’s anticipated deal with Labcorp may be national in scope, local health care workers say the organization’s decision will have specific detrimental impacts here in Humboldt County.
In the short term, the lack of information about the deal has caused anxiety for patients.
Bazor said she has received calls and texts since last week’s announcement from a number of such people, including patients on blood thinners worried about when and where they’ll get their usual prothrombin time test to evaluate clotting.
“I know another lady who has thyroid cancer, and she has to get some tumor markers,” Bazor said. “Other folks that may have prostate cancer and have to have their markers checked every six months. Those are people that have come to me like, ‘What are we going to do?’”
What does she tell them?
“My best guess is that Labcorp will [set up] several draw stations throughout the community, and then most of the tough stuff will be sent out” to out-of-county labs.
Not only will this change in practice impact patient care but it will also take dollars out of the community, Bazor said.
Petty said that the existing amount of lab work outsourcing has already led to dissatisfaction among physician specialists working at St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial, several of whom have left in recent years.
“I mean, people just — if they’re not supported by the hospital they don’t want to work here,” he said, adding that the switch to Labcorp can only exacerbate that trend.
Smith-Zagone said she doesn’t expect the affected local lab workers will want to stay working for Providence, either.
“People are already pretty miserable working at St. Joe’s so, like, honestly, I’m kind of hoping that a couple of them decide to come over to Mad River,” she said. Mad River Community Hospital operates its own outpatient draw center and performs many of its lab tests in-house. “So we support the local economy. Everybody who works here is committed to the community, truly.”
Bazor said that type of community commitment is precisely what Providence lacks, despite promises to the contrary when they first came to town.
“I feel that through the years … there has been a covenant with the community: ‘You’re here for us and we’re gonna be here for you guys,’” she said in reference to the messaging from Providence. “I feel they truly have broken that covenant.”
During Tuesday’s regular meeting, the Eureka City Council approved a letter of opposition to Measure A, also known as the Humboldt Cannabis Reform Initiative, a countywide ballot initiative that would reshape local cannabis regulations.
If passed, the 38-page initiative would amend the county’s General Plan to restrict the size and number of new cannabis-growing operations across the county, ban mixed-light and indoor grows, and limit cultivation permits to one per person/corporation per parcel. It would also impose new rules for water storage, well-drilling, access roads, generators and more.
Eureka’s letter of opposition outlines the various ways the cannabis industry has benefited the city. “Since the legalization of adult-use cannabis in California in 2016, Eureka has become a hub for cannabis supply chain activities, including cannabis manufacturing, distribution, retail, and tourism,” the letter states. “These ancillary activities have generated hundreds of jobs and millions in economic activity in the city, and provide essential services to nearly 1,000 small-scale cannabis farmers in rural areas of the county.”
If passed, Measure A would “threaten to undermine Humboldt’s legal cannabis industry and reverse these hard-fought gains,” the letter continues.
Speaking during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting, Measure A co-sponsors Elizabeth “Betsy” Watson and Mark Thurmond disputed claims that they had misled members of the public while gathering signatures to place the measure on the March 2024 ballot.
Watson | Screenshot
“One of the things that our opponents say is that this is not a transparent and public process,” Watson said. “[We received] 7,000 signatures. We beat the streets for four and a half months. … To write Measure A, we interviewed well over 100 people from different agencies, and what we found was that they had the same complaints that they had when the ordinance that now exists was made. … We didn’t dream this all up. We got it by doing research and interviews and interacting with the public.”
Several representatives of the local cannabis industry urged the council to oppose the initiative. Dylan Mattole, owner of Mattole Valley Sungrown and board president of the Humboldt County Growers Alliance (HCGA), said he has also spoken with agency representatives who say Measure A “is not workable.”
“We have piles of documents from agencies, from the Planning Department, from professionals, from biologists, from folks that have looked at Measure A, and [they] are telling us [as] experts in the field that this is bad policy,” Mattole said. “This is not going to achieve the goals that it says that it wants to achieve.”
Craig Johnson, co-owner of Alpenglow Farms, added that Measure A only applies to farms that are going through or have already gone through the compliance process, not illegal cultivators. “This is only addressing the legal farms that have put in the work to come through the front door to be regulated,” he said.
Jackee Riccio, executive director of Cannabis for Conservation, disputed the proponents’ claim that Measure A would promote environmentally responsible cannabis cultivation practices, adding that the document “utterly lacks in both environmental and scientific rigor.”
“It was not written by or with biologists or scientists, nor was professional environmental feedback requested, which is abundantly clear not only through the measures’ policy changes and conclusions but also from direct communications with state agencies and local nonprofits,” she said. … The implementation of the policies [listed in Measure A] would not result in the intended environmental benefits.”
Councilmember Leslie Castellano acknowledged the stress that local farmers have endured in recent years and made a motion to approve the letter of opposition. Councilmember Kati Moulton seconded the action.
Councilmember G. Mario Fernandez said he could see where the proponents of Measure A were coming from but said, “It’s that potential impact that is really going to hurt the industry.”
Councilmember Renee Contreras-DeLoach said she had spoken with “a variety of civic leaders” and local tribal representatives about the potential consequences of Measure A and ultimately determined that she would not support the letter of opposition. “One of the issues I’m kind of uncomfortable with is [the city council] weighing in on this,” she said. “A lot of the cultivation doesn’t really necessarily happen in Eureka. We’re mostly retail. I think that this is something that [is] important for the voters to go ahead and decide.”
Contreras-DeLoach | Screenshot
Contreras-DeLoach also expressed concern for environmental degradation and “growing issues” with abandoned permitted farms. “One of the people [I spoke with] said, ‘We’ve got 20 years ahead of us of cleaning up these sites as people go under and leave them.’ And I think that’s something that we need to keep in mind.”
Mayor Kim Bergel acknowledged that she could not vote on the matter but expressed her emphatic support for the struggling cannabis industry.
“I’ve watched the courage of local farmers and the people in our community that have come forward and really taken a huge, huge risk … with their families and their lives to become legitimate, to become a part of our community and a part of our society,” she said. “I don’t think that these folks have put their time and energy to become legitimate for them to be kicked in the teeth. [They] didn’t come this far forward to just cut them off at the knees.”
Bergel noted Contreras-DeLoach’s point about abandoned farms and asked, “Why have they gone out of business? Because we don’t support them in a way that I believe we should.” Bergel said that was her personal opinion and not necessarily that of the council or anybody else.
Contreras-DeLoach maintained her position on the matter and said she had spoken with people in enforcement who said there are legally permitted growers who are “circumventing some of the rules.” She added that all local businesses need support, not just cannabis.
After a bit of additional discussion, the motion passed 3-1, with Contreras-DeLoach dissenting and Councilmember Scott Bauer — a scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife — recused.
