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PREVIOUSLY:

• SCANNER TRAFFIC INDICATES: Airplane Crash at Shelter Cove

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Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On July 8, 2021, at about 12:32 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the area of Shelter Cove Beach for the report of a small aircraft accident.

According to the reporting party, the aircraft crashed into the water approximately 200 yards from the beach. U.S. Coast Guard and Fire personnel responded to the scene to assist with recovery efforts.

The aircraft was occupied by one passenger and one pilot. One occupant swam to the shore and the second occupant was recovered from the water by fire personnel. Both occupants were airlifted to a local hospital for medical treatment.

The CA Governor’s Office of Emergency Services was notified of the incident for assessment and response to potential hazardous materials and aircraft recovery. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office is working in partnership with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration to investigate this incident. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the Shelter Cove Fire, CAL FIRE, U.S. Coast Guard, CA Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration for their assistance and collaborative response.

Anyone with information related to this case is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251.

As Gov. Gavin Newsom retools the state’s prison system to emphasize rehabilitation, his administration has little evidence that a privately run program for parolees costing taxpayers $100 million a year works to prevent future crime.

The state does not collect data on whether parolees who participate in the program have found jobs or whether they are returned to prison for another crime. What state data does show is that only 40% of participants completed at least one of the services they were offered.

The information gap frustrates critics of the governor’s policies as well as supporters who want evidence that the state’s investments are working.

“At the end of the day, we’ve come from 160,000 people incarcerated down to 95 (thousand). So we’ve had some success,” said Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat, referring to the decline in the state’s prison population since 2011.

“But I also want to ensure the public that they’ve been safe with all these people not recidivating… And the only way we can do that is to come up with data,” he said.

CalMatters’ yearlong investigation of the parolee reentry program draws on court records, state reports and data, contracts, tax forms, policy experts, interviews with vendors and communication with several current and former program participants — some of whom are back in prison.

CalMatters found:

• Corrections department data is outdated, inaccurate or doesn’t exist. When the department provided CalMatters with a roster of more than 400 locations providing rehabilitation services, we visited 23 of them, finding some with inaccurate addresses, one with a padlocked gate in front of a seemingly closed site, another that appeared to be abandoned, and three where employees said they were no longer providing rehabilitation services.
• Department officials struggled to explain how many people enrolled in the program in 2020-2021. The department published an annual report noting 17,650 participants. Dana Simas, a department spokesperson at the time, told CalMatters the program served 9,516 people. The department later revised that number to 8,213.
• State data show only two out of five parolees who participated in the rehabilitation program in 2020-2021 completed at least one service offered to them. Based on how the state collects data, it’s unclear if anyone finished all of the services offered to them. A spokesperson said the corrections agency “is unable to provide further completion information.”
• State officials rarely review the operations of the four companies that operate the program, state accountability reviews show. Records show state officials only documented reviews of three of the more than 400 state-funded reentry homes and treatment facilities from 2018 to December 2022.
• Some of the nonprofit vendors that manage reentry homes lease their facilities from their own executives, according to public records, raising “red flags” among experts who say the arrangements could signal financial conflicts of interest.
• The state’s July 2022 list of reentry homes included several with suspended business licenses and nonprofit status revoked years ago by the California Department of Justice — effectively barring them from doing business in California.

The rehabilitation program for parolees formally launched in 2014 under the name Specialized Treatment for Optimized Programming, often referred to as STOP. It is a voluntary program that serves less than a quarter of the roughly 35,000 inmates released from prison each year. Many of the parolees live at the homes; others visit outpatient centers.

The STOP program for parolees, which has cost the state about $600 million in the past decade, is run by four large contractors. Those companies also contract with nearly 200 nonprofits, private companies or community organizations to provide housing and rehabilitation services for parolees in roughly 450 homes and treatment centers.

A California rehabilitation program for former prisoners places parolees in hundreds of homes and treatment centers around the state. About 8,000 parolees participate in Specialized Treatment for Optimized Programming every year. Photos by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

All of the contractors told CalMatters that they were proud of the work that they do with the program.

“GEO Reentry Services is proud to operate California’s Specialized Treatment for Optimized Programming … on behalf of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,” wrote Monica Hook, GEO’s vice president of communications. “GEO Reentry connects participants in 18 counties with housing, education, and treatment services to support successful reentry and recidivism reduction.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials ignored multiple requests for an interview.

Instead, a department’s public affairs official responded to emailed questions with emailed responses, and fulfilled many public records requests.

After CalMatters’ inquiries, department official Terri Hardy said by email that the department would begin to track recidivism and the employment rate among participants in the STOP and that it would prevent unlicensed vendors from managing reentry homes and treatment facilities.

Hardy also said by email the department is “currently working on a report that addresses STOP programs.” She added that the department said it has created a tool to “better track” whether the four primary contractors are conducting annual reviews of reentry homes and treatment facilities, which are required.

“CDCR understands the importance of oversight and accountability in this program,” Hardy said by email. “Since STOP was created in 2014, CDCR has continually worked to make the system better.”

→ Tell us about your experience in a California parolee or prison rehabilitation program.

Advocates for the program maintain it is a good investment for the state. They say it provides a soft landing for parolees who otherwise would be on their own and competing for scarce housing in California’s high-priced market.

Matthew Cate, whose company lobbies for several rehabilitation providers and who led the corrections agency under former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, said reentry programs are often the best option for rehabilitating offenders.

“What the STOP program tries to do is…provide some community programs that are meant to address (parolees’) most severe needs.

“It’s very difficult to say whether it’s this program or that program that’s helping. And it’s also extremely difficult in terms of a scientific study, to say which of the programs that they’re not getting is the reason that they failed. … We’re trying to help each individual.

“It’s just very hard to measure.

“In fact, as someone who’s worked in this field for a long, long time … I know that it’s better than nothing,” Cate said.

Inconsistent programming

Absent state data on how well the program works, CalMatters reached out to roughly 150 inmates and parolees who were recently released from prison to learn about their experiences.

Some committed crimes and returned to prison soon after leaving the STOP program. Others felt the rules of the houses in which they lived limited their ability to find jobs. Some appreciated the time the program gave them in a structured environment, allowing them space to ease back into the civilian world after decades in prison.

Chad Doherty, 37, is among the parolees who washed out of the program and bounced back to prison.

He cycled in and out of San Bernardino County courtrooms for years before he was sent to prison in 2015, court records show. He was released in 2017 and sent to a state-funded reentry home.

“I held a job, got myself a car and I was working the program,” he wrote CalMatters.

But he didn’t stay long.

Doherty said he was kicked out of one home for threatening the operator, and left another when its 10 p.m. curfew would have kept him from working a job with a night shift. He left the program in February 2018, two months after joining. By 2019, he was back to prison.

Released early during the pandemic, Doherty stayed out of trouble a few months before he was charged with possessing narcotics, according to San Bernardino County court records.

A year later, court records show Doherty was charged with stealing a vehicle and eventually sentenced to four years in prison — time he’s currently serving inside California Men’s Colony State Prison in San Luis Obispo. Doherty told CalMatters he’d like another shot at the parolee rehabilitation program after his release.

“I was doing good when I was in control of my mind but at some point my mind started mastering me,” he told CalMatters. “And it mastered me right back into prison.”

“As someone who’s worked in this field for a long, long time … I know that it’s better than nothing.”
— Matthew Cate, former California Corrections Secretary

The rehabilitation did not have a lasting impact on Jack Loney, either. Loney, 43, was released in 2020 and sent to a reentry program in Northern California after serving 23 years in prison for second degree murder, he told CalMatters.

The program “was great,” but after he finished, he began to unravel. He said he couldn’t find housing; had only a few months of paystubs; no rental or credit history; and fell back into “old patterns of thinking.” Within a year, Loney was serving time at Centinela State Prison in Imperial, back in prison after being arrested for possessing an illegal firearm, he told CalMatters.

Former participant Tammy Cooper-Garvin felt the months she spent in the program four years ago, at a women’s treatment home in San Francisco, was a waste of time.

“The program, excuse me, was (expletive) up,” Cooper-Garvin said. “I had to sneak and get a job … at Target.” She added that the site where she lived tolerated drug use and violence.

Another parolee who wanted to remain anonymous because he fears retaliation from his landlord, is finding the program difficult to navigate. As a condition of his release, he has to live in a reentry home, and the parolee program is his only option that would not charge him rent and other fees.

The corrections department “just stuck me in (the program), so I have to fulfill their requirements, like go to group … in a whole other city where I have to catch three buses,” he said.

Left: Eugene Lewis walks through a mobile home park in Van Nuys on Feb. 4, 2023. Lewis visits his wife at her RV when he gets a chance away from his halfway home. Right: Eugene Lewis holds up a schedule of classes he takes in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, 2023. Lewis attends a certain number of classes as part of his rehabilitation program. Photos by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

One former prisoner said rehabilitation gave him a chance to get on his feet, an opportunity he didn’t have when he was in and out of prison as a young man.

After spending two decades in prison, Eugene Lewis lived in a home he shared with other parolees. He spent his mornings doing chores and his days in group therapy sessions and self-help classes.

“I’ve never been in any halfway house or reentry,” said Lewis, who said he was required to stay as a condition of his release. “It’s great. I have no complaints.” A few months later, he told CalMatters that he wasn’t as excited about the program as he once was — but didn’t say why. Lewis left the program in June 2023.

Four contractors in charge of parolee program

What happens in the homes is largely up to the four contract operators hired by the state. The companies divide the state by regions and hire hundreds of nonprofits and for-profit companies to run the homes and treatment centers. State records show:

• Amity Foundation, also known as Epidaurus, is an Arizona-based nonprofit that provides rehabilitation services for parolees and prisoners. Amity in 2018 began overseeing parolee reentry providers in Los Angeles County. It signed a a five-year, $121 million agreement that expired June 30.

• GEO Reentry Services, a Florida-based for-profit company known for its private prisons, has two contracts to manage providers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the Bay Area and the Central Coast, totaling $195 million.

• HealthRight 360 is a San Francisco-based nonprofit. It signed a seven-year, $80 million contract with the state to manage reentry subcontractors in Imperial, Orange and San Diego counties.

• WestCare California is a Nevada-based nonprofit that the state pays to manage programs in the Central Valley and Northern California. WestCare signed two seven-year contracts, totaling $189 million.

All of the companies have turned to high-powered former leaders of California’s prison system to help them lobby in the Capitol and/or set direction on executive boards.

Former California Corrections Secretary Scott Kernan left the agency on Aug. 31, 2018. Ten days later, Kernan was appointed to the GEO Group’s board of directors, a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows.

The main office for the Amity Foundation on Feb. 2, 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Former Corrections Secretary Cate left the agency in 2012. He had several roles before helping launch Mosaic Solutions and Advocacy. His company started lobbying for the Amity Foundation, HealthRight 360 and WestCare California in the 2021-2022 legislative session.

During that time, Amity Foundation spent $230,000 to lobby the Legislature, with $45,000 going to Mosaic. WestCare California paid Mosaic some $51,000 and HealthRight 360 paid the company $27,500 to lobby on its behalf, state lobbying records show.

Hands off oversight

The four contractors are required to annually inspect and create a report on their subcontractors. In addition, state employees are supposed to “conduct routine Program Accountability Reviews (PAR) of contractors and/or subcontractor facilities,” contracts show. The contracts give no timeline for the state’s review.

An analysis of the reports shows that the accountability reviews do not happen annually, as the contract requires. Furthermore, state officials did not write any program accountability reviews for the four contractors between 2018 and December 2022, and only reviewed three out of hundreds of its subcontractors, state records show.

Amity has reviewed its own facilities at least twice, once in 2019 and once in 2021. The corrections agency itself had not written any program accountability reviews of Amity sites when CalMatters requested them.

Asked if this practice was a conflict of interest, Amity’s chief operations officer Carmen Jacinto responded by email: “Annual Program Accountability Reviews of subcontractors … may be conducted by Amity or CDCR. … Even in situations where CDCR does not select our sites for a formal evaluation, Amity will conduct self-audits and report on them.”

In the Central Valley, WestCare California often detailed what its subcontractors were doing right and their shortcomings. In 2021, it inspected one of its vendors in Atwater and found there “hadn’t been a licensed clinician” at a women’s facility in nearly two years, even though the contract required it, according to a program accountability report. Treatment costs at the facility ranged from $2,250 to $12,000 for a 30-day stay, the contract shows.

In other treatment homes, WestCare reported that several of its subcontractors were allowing unapproved staff to work, not providing enough group therapy hours, not accurately tracking therapy times, and not documenting drug screens.

But WestCare does not appear to have applied the same scrutiny to the properties it runs directly. Neither the nonprofit nor the state corrections agency wrote accountability reviews of WestCare facilities, records show.

WestCare did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about its program review process.

“(The state) gives these people a lot of money, but they don’t check into the program,” said one resident who currently lives in a home overseen by GEO Reentry, who wanted to remain anonymous because he said he fears retaliation from his landlord . “There’s no programming inside the house…just free room and board.”

The corrections agency in November released to CalMatters its July 2022 list of providers for the STOP program. The roster included roughly 400 addresses. CalMatters visited 23 of them, finding a padlocked gate in front of a seemingly closed site, inaccurate addresses, a facility that appeared to be abandoned and three where employees said they were no longer STOP providers.

Hardy, the corrections department spokesperson, said its contractor shut down the vacant site three days before CalMatters visited the property in February. According to the state, HealthRight 360 closed the location because it could not keep the 72-bed facility full. Hardy said the state provides oversight in various ways such as, “monitoring the referrals, placements, data reports, and budgets.”

CalMatters asked why the facilities are not reviewed annually as required by their contracts. Hardy replied via email on Jan. 27: “We are developing functionality in our Automated Reentry Management System that will allow us to better track whether contractors conduct annual (program accountability reviews) of their subcontractors. The … tool is completed and (program accountability reviews) are anticipated to be conducted in early 2023.”

The tool had not been used as of June, said Hardy.

What does it cost?

Small nonprofit organizations and big contractors charge a range of fees for the services they provide to parolees.

WestCare California’s contracted services for licensed substance use disorder treatment can run taxpayers between $2,250 and $12,000 per person each 30 days. GEO Reentry Services can charge between $3,900 and $6,600 for the same service, and HealthRight 360’s prices range from $3,000 to $9,000, state contracts show.

For recovery and reentry housing alone, WestCare California in the Central Valley and HealthRight 360 in Imperial, Orange and San Diego counties charge between $900 and $6,000 per person, according to their contracts. GEO Reentry in Riverside and San Bernardino counties charges between $1,350 and $3,450. Amity Foundation, which covers Los Angeles county, charges between $1,092 and $2,860, records show.

Throughout the program, CalMatters found several instances where businesses and nonprofit groups lease properties personally owned by their executives, according to tax statements and property deeds. CalMatters found this practice in every region of the program, and though not illegal, it could present a conflict of interest, one expert said.

Yellowstone Women’s First Step House, a subcontractor of HealthRight 360, leases properties connected to its CEO and board member emeritus, Dr. Anna Thames. HealthRight’s most recent tax filing shows it is paying Yellowstone $1.6 million for rehab services in 2020.

CalMatters found that four of the eight Yellowstone facilities listed on the department’s roster of STOP providers are owned by Thames, or a trust for which she is the trustee. In 2021, Yellowstone had five month-to-month leases with its CEO, renting seven buildings at “approximately $29,000” per month. In all, the company paid Thames $260,386 for rent and an additional $168,002 for compensation, and owed her $154,267 in rent at the end of 2021, according to nonprofit financial records filed with the California Department of Justice.

Nonprofit expert Nora Silver noted that in some cases using personally held properties may be the only way to ensure people with a criminal record have a place to stay.

Even so, she said, it’s a practice nonprofits should stay away from because it could give a leader a personal financial stake in the work of the organization.

“If board members or a CEO or executive director has a financial interest in some work the organization is doing, that’s a red flag,” said Silver, founder and faculty director at UC Berkeley’s Center for Social Sector Leadership. “There’s room for conflict of interest and that’s serious.”

CalMatters spoke over the phone with a person who identified herself as Anna Thames. “I’m in a meeting right now,” she told CalMatters’ reporter before agreeing to call back. She has not returned the call or responded to follow up calls.

The former Karl Holton Youth Correctional Facility now the location of the California Health Care Facility in Stockton on Feb. 5, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters

California’s changing prisons

California’s spending on the parolee program swelled over a decade of reform in the state’s prison system, when Govs. Brown and Newsom backed policy changes that shortened criminal sentences and steered more resources to rehabilitation.

The new policies slimmed down California’s overburdened system, allowing Newsom to close a prison and begin shutting down three more.

But the two Democratic governors and state lawmakers have not compelled the corrections agency by law to track whether the new rehabilitation services are helping former inmates stay out of prison.

Recidivism, by the state’s definition, occurs when someone is “convicted of a new felony or misdemeanor within three years of being released from custody” or placed on supervision for a previous criminal conviction.

California discloses recidivism data on a three-year cycle but the latest report is outdated. In fact, the most recent report describes people who were released from prison in 2017-18 — before Newsom took office.

“Almost nothing we do has any evidence suggesting that it works,” said Michael Romano, director and founder of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School. “In fact, much of what we do routinely, we have evidence that shows it does not work. It’s a problem well beyond STOP that they don’t have evidence that it works. I don’t think the (corrections agency) has any evidence that any of its programs — or any of its punishments — work or don’t work.”

For years, the recidivism rate has hovered around 46%, the most recent state report shows. The data show only 700 inmates out of about 35,000 released that year earned credit for participating in rehabilitation programs while in prison. They had a substantially lower recidivism rate — 23% — than those who did not.

There have been two detailed but narrow investigations into California prison rehabilitation programs. One in 2021 by Stanford researchers concluded that inmates who serve the last year of their sentences confined in a community-based rehabilitation program outside of a prison reduce their likelihood of getting arrested within a year of release by 13%.

A separate report by the California State Auditor in 2019 found that prisoners who completed recommended cognitive-based therapy rehabilitation programs recidivated at about the same rate as those who did not. The auditor recommended six legislative actions for lawmakers to ensure rehabilitation programs set performance targets and reduce recidivism.

Lawmakers have not made many of the recommended changes.

The Legislature in 2019 passed a bill that would have required an evaluation of in-prison rehabilitation. Newsom vetoed it, writing in his veto message, “the goal of this bill can be accomplished administratively.”

Now, the corrections agency is working with the Public Policy Institute of California to review the effectiveness of in-prison programming. The institute began receiving state data last year.

“What we are trying to do … has not been done anywhere in the country,” said Heather Harris, a criminal justice research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. “I wish we had better information to offer incarcerated people and policymakers…now. But we don’t.”

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

For four years, Stanford student Liam Anderson has gone to what he calls his “full-time job.” He puts on his uniform, laces up his shoes and just runs. As captain of the Stanford track and field team, the public policy major has put in 20 to 40 hours of running, conditioning and physical therapy each week — a pace he’ll continue when he returns to campus this fall to pursue his master’s degree.

It’s a lot of time away from academics, with little financial reward, which is partly why Anderson has been supporting and advising California lawmakers on new legislation that could dramatically alter college athletes’ compensation.

“This is the only labor market where the primary labor input — the players — receive essentially zero compensation from their employers,” Anderson said. “It is very difficult on a philosophical level to argue that these players do not deserve some form of compensation. To say a scholarship is enough is laughable.”

Assembly Bill 252, or the College Athlete Protection Act, would require California colleges to put some of their sports revenue into a fund that would pay student athletes when they complete their degrees. Athletes could earn as much as $25,000 for each year they participate in their sport.

But the bill has been controversial. Last week, its author, Assemblymember Chris Holden, put it on hold until next year after opponents — including the University of California, California State University and Team USA — argued it would further prioritize men’s basketball and football, causing campuses with tight athletic budgets to divert resources away from less lucrative sports. The NCAA has also opposed it.

Supporters say the first-in-the-nation bill, which the state Senate could take up again as early as January, bolsters athletes’ rights by giving them a cut of the revenue they generate. It’s the latest flashpoint in the debate over student athlete compensation, in which California has played a leading role.

“This is the only labor market where the primary labor input — the players — receive essentially zero compensation from their employers.”
— Liam Anderson, captain of the Stanford track & field team

As written, the bill would also require colleges to comply with a variety of health and safety standards, including paying all out-of-pocket health care costs for athletes injured on the field, and providing players with financial and life skills training. Sports agents seeking to represent student athletes would need to be certified by the state. A 21-member panel appointed by the Legislature and governor, with seats set aside for former college athletes, would oversee compliance.

The degree completion fund, however, has drawn the most attention since it would be a further blow to the amateurism model in college sports. California already catalyzed change within the NCAA when it allowed student athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness. NCAA policy now permits athletes to sign endorsement deals, but that money comes from private sponsors rather than the universities themselves. Athletes receiving it would be eligible for the degree completion funds, too.

Combined, California’s 26 Division I schools earned $1.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That includes media contracts, ticket sales, investment interest income, student activity fees and alumni contributions.

“Revenue is being generated. There are TV rights that are being negotiated for someone to make a lot of money, and it is not the student athlete,” said Holden, a Pasadena Democrat who played college basketball for San Diego State from 1978 to 1982.

“This is an opportunity to really recognize the kind of sacrifices that many of these athletes put on the line on behalf of universities and the NCAA, institutions that make billions of dollars,” Holden added.

Money for the degree completion fund would come from a university’s existing athletic revenue. Beginning in 2024, if an athletic department makes more annual revenue than it did in the 2021-22 academic year, the difference would be deposited in the fund. Athletes’ payments would depend in part on how much revenue their sport generates and how much their team already gives out in athletic grants.

Football and men’s basketball make up a majority of revenue brought in by athletic departments, and some of those funds currently go to subsidize other sports. That caused some supporters of those lower-revenue sports — such as swimming and volleyball — to worry that the bill would sap much-needed funding from their programs.

“If schools do not have the budget to fund sports, they will cut sports,” says an open letter from Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Danette Leighton to Holden. “If this were the case, we know from history that women’s sports and men’s Olympic sports would be among the first to be cut.”

Of the 21 NCAA Division I sports, 19 will be contested at either the 2024 Summer Olympics or 2026 Winter Olympics.

After initial concerns that the bill would violate Title IX by threatening the funding of women’s sports teams, lawmakers added an amendment to split the allocation of degree completion funds 50/50 between female and male college athletes.

Some opponents, however, still weren’t convinced.

“It’s great that (payments) would go towards some women, but if it becomes infeasible for schools to then support the programs at all, then we’re not really ahead of where we started,” said Maya Dirado, a Stanford graduate and Olympic gold medalist in swimming.

Liam Anderson, a Stanford track and field athlete and co-president of the university’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee, supports a proposal to pay college players a share of the revenue they generate. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

Elise Byun, a UC Berkeley gymnast and member of the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, said she believes that NCAA athletes should be financially compensated by their college beyond athletic grants. However, she said the bill as written could jeopardize funding for non-revenue and Olympic sports, as well as programs like mental health counseling that would benefit all athletes.

“If the revenue that’s being taken is just giving back to football and basketball, we can’t advance the student athlete experience,” Byun said. “There’s no money left over to help bring up everyone.”

Also, the bill would not benefit athletes like Byun, who is not on scholarship, because degree payments would only go to those who receive an athletic grant. Division II, Division III and community college athletes would also be ineligible.

The University of California and California State University also raised concerns.

“The bill’s revenue sharing framework also would create broader inequities among our student athletes, as support for non-revenue sports would likely decrease and disproportionately impact women’s programs,” said Hazel Kelly, a CSU spokesperson. “This one-size-fits-all proposal is not appropriate for the broad diversity of size, scope and competitiveness that are the hallmarks of the CSU’s athletic programs.”

“If the revenue that’s being taken is just giving back to football and basketball, we can’t advance the student athlete experience. There’s no money left over to help bring up everyone.”
— Elise Byun, a UC Berkeley gymnast and member of the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee

Holden said athletic departments shouldn’t be worried about losing money for different programs because the degree completion fund doesn’t tap the department’s total budget, just the “excess” revenue generated above 2021-22 levels. The bill also prohibits schools from cutting athletic programs that were in place in the 2021-22 academic year.

“So we have provisions in it to protect all programs within the athletic department — men’s and women’s sports, from NCAA Division I football all the way to the rugby players who happen to be on a team if you have a rugby program — so that those programs would be maintained,” he said.

The next frontier in the debate over athletes’ rights

Holden declined further comment on why he had chosen to delay the bill, or the specifics of its formula for funding degree payments. The bill had been scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on July 5, but was pulled from the agenda that day and has become a “two-year bill,” meaning it can be considered in the second year of California’s two-year legislative session. That’s a common move by lawmakers who want more time to negotiate details of legislation and sway opponents.

While the bill likely faces a long road, its passage could further cement California’s status as a pioneer on college athlete compensation.

Mark Nagel, a professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina, said that similar institutional blowback to college athletics reform has been seen before in the past and that prior concerns haven’t really materialized.

“There’s always the idea that college athletics say that any change is going to cause the sky to fall and the world to end,” Nagel said. “We’ve already seen that, whether it’s high-, mid- or low-level programs, Division I universities and colleges have figured out ways to find that money.”

But Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, said that universities making direct payments to athletes beyond scholarships creates a variety of financial issues because there are Division I schools whose athletic departments run on deficits.

“When they lose money, the school has to raise tuition, it has to raise athletic fees, it has to go to the state legislature for more subsidies, it has less money to provide for the education of the athletes. On all of those grounds, it’s a very problematic proposal,” Zimbalist said.

A previous legislative attempt to establish a mandatory degree completion fund for athletes failed in 2022. The current bill passed the California Assembly before heading to the Senate.

The National College Players Association, one of the forces behind California’s push to allow athletes to sign paid endorsement deals, is co-sponsoring the degree completion fund bill, and the California Labor Federation supports it.

“Athletes throughout the state of CA would gain unprecedented and much needed protections, freedoms and rights. Every athlete will benefit if AB 252 is approved,” NCPA President Ramogi Huma said in an email.

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CalMatters politics reporter Alexei Koseff contributed to this story. This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation.

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

If you’re anything like me (god forbid), and you read a sentence like, “Dylan said they’d like a large latte,” you might find yourself going back over the previous paragraph to figure out who was Dylan was going to share the drink with. Turns out, no one. Dylan, whatever his/her/their birth sex or chosen gender*, prefers the pronoun “their.” Put down my double-take to the singular fact of my age: I was raised in the era when a woman was addressed as Madam Chairman, when flight attendants were mostly stewardesses, when my mum was often referred to as Mrs. Aubrey Evans (despite her name being Lyn), when “gay” meant “happy,” and the honorific “Ms.” was barely a gleam in Gloria Steinem’s eye.

(* Other than about 1 in 6,000 humans — about the odds of a tossed quarter landing on its edge — we’re all born male or female. As Simone de Beauvoir put it in The Second Sex, the sexes “are basically defined by the gametes they produce.” Big gametes = female (eggs); small gametes = male (sperm).; these are, in our species, eggs and sperm, respectively. That’s sex, not chosen, and almost always binary. And quite separate from one’s preferred gender.)

Take these three sentences that use “their”:

• Jane likes their coffee without milk. (The speaker is being sensitive to the fact that Jane prefers “they/their” to “she/her.” Or anything else.)
• My friend had a teacher who hated it when their students arrived late. (I never bothered to find out the teacher’s gender.)
• Everyone has their little foibles. (Despite what my MS Word spellcheck says, it’s OK to mix singular and plural like this, see title of this piece. Has been for years. For instance, “Any student handing in their homework late will be penalized,” has been used throughout my lifetime. Actually, add another 500 or so years! The OED notes that a poem written in 1375 has, in modern English, “Each man hurried … till they drew near … where William and his darling were lying together.”)

Back to the gender issue, which has a very wobbly history. Take the Declaration of Independence, with its hypocritical (unless you were a white over-21 male landowner): “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal…”

So what’s left for an old white fogy like me, albeit one who has the good fortune to be married to a feminist who, 50 years ago, set me right about Ms. and much else? I still hear myself saying, “Thanks guys!” to the multi-gendered baristas as I leave OTCC; I cringe inwardly at a sentence like, “Alex answered their phone”; and I probably mansplain without realizing it. I’ll keep trying, though.

But I doubt if you’ll ever find me saying, or writing, such neologisms as xe/xem, ze/zim, or sie/hir. I’ll leave that to the kids.

Plastic is everywhere and not in a good way. From the Mariana Trench to the top of Everest to even your own blood (ew!), plastic pollution is a big and growing problem.

Jen Savage, Senior Plastic Pollution Manager at the Surfrider Foundation joins the show to talk about Plastic Free July, an international movement to try to reduce plastic use as much as possible for the entire month.

Need some help getting started? Check out the Surfrider Foundation’s tips for plastic-free living.

People at the present time may be surprised to know that the manufacture of leather was the third most important industry in Humboldt County during the late 188Os, 189Os and the early 1900s. In 1893, there were three tanneries: one in Arcata, one near Eureka, and one at Rohnerville. The bark for tanning was obtained from the tan-bark oak forests in the county, and part of raw hides were supplied by butchers of the county, but the larger portion was procured from San Francisco.

In Southern Humboldt County, the Wagner family from Stockton built the only extract plant on the Pacific Coast. It all started when Grandfather Charles Wagner came to California from Germany as a young man of eighteen to join the gold miners and to escape recruitment for the Kaiser’s Army. He went to the Mother Lode Country but failed to find gold. His father had operated a tannery in Germany, and Charles had worked for him. At this time there was a huge demand for buckskin, and Charles decided to build a tannery in the town of Stockton on the San Joaquin River.

In order to cure and preserve the skins from the animals, the chemical extract, tannic acid, was needed. This ingredient was obtained from the oak trees in Sacramento Valley. Charles married and a son, Edward, was born, who later joined his father in the tanning business.

The Wagners ran out of oak trees, and the two of them made a trip into Northern California in 1901 where they discovered a good concentration of California tan oak trees which grew among the redwoods in the watershed of the area near Briceland in southern Humboldt County. Here the Wagners decided to build an extract plant which would be cheaper and more convenient the than shipping the tan oak bark to Stockton.

In order to get the tan oak trees, the Wagners had to buy land and stumpage rights on the lands of the homesteaders. Many of the homesteaders found that they could not make a living on their forty acres of poor land, and they sold out to the Wagners who finally acquired some 7,000 acres. In 1902, the Wagners built a huge extract plant at Briceland, the only one of its kind on the Pacific Coast. In order to get the thick extract liquid called “molasses,” large redwood tanks, 12 feet in diameter and 20 feet high were installed in a large two-story building. Then by a simple process, like making coffee iu a percolator, the ground-up bark would be put in the false tops and hot water would be pumped over and over the bark chips until the bark was spent. The dark water would then be pumped into another tank with fresh bark to strengthen the liquid. This process was repeated through six tanks until the liquid was pumped into a huge copper vacuum where it was boiled down to make a thick molasses-like consistency.

This heavy concentrate of tanning material was then poured into a barrel, and was like “getting several cords of bark into one barrel.” These heavy barrels were moved by teams to Shelter Cove, and then by a contracted ship to the Stockton plant where the “molasses” was emptied into vats to determine the proper strength for tanning. This was a cheap way to send the tanning ingredient to Stockton.

At the Briceland plant there were drying sheds for the bark, a barrel factory where 50-gallon oak barrels were made to transport the syrup extract, and a barn yard which contained a blacksmith, a mule-shoeing man, and 100 mules. There were also bunkhouses and a cookhouse building where “logger” meals were served.

The plant only operated in the summer because the road to Shelter Cove was too muddy during the rainy season. The Wagners employed about 100 local people during the summer, and Briceland was a bigger town at that time than Garberville. The town consisted of a store, a hotel, several saloons, and many homes.

Two woods camps were usually established in a central location in the woods where there was a cook tent, a dining tent, and sleeping tents for the men. The bark was usually collected in the spring when the sap was running and the bark could be easily split. First the bark was cut and taken from the lower trunk of the tree, and then the bark of the tree was cut from the top down, and the rest of the bark was removed. There was much waste in the barking operations. The bark was stacked along the trails, and loaded on mules which took the bark out of the canyons up to the roads where the bark was loaded onto horse wagons and taken to the Briceland plant where it was dried for one year before being processed.

The big problem in the tan bark operation was the roads.

These were only pack trails to Shelter Cove, and the Wagners had to build a road for the wagon trains with horses and plows and Fresno scrapers. The roads were built along the ridges so that there would be little dirt to move and where the rains would not wash out the roads.

Four fifty-gallon heavy barrels, weighing 300 pounds each, were placed on wagons and drawn by six horses. Halfway between Briceland and Shelter Cove a camp was established with a barn, feed, and relief teams. The teamsters with their wagons would start at daylight and arrive at the halfway station or “nooning grounds” at noon. A wagon would also arrive about the same time from Shelter Cove with a load of merchandise, and the teamsters would exchange loads. After getting fresh horses, the teamsters would head back to their respective areas. The steep terrain and weight of the barrels were a severe strain on the horses and they would be relieved at the halfway point. By this procedure, each teamsters could go back home every night.

The Wagners operated the extract plant for twenty years, from 1902 to 1922. In time Grandfather Charles Wagner turned the plant over to his son Edward who spent part of the summers in Briceland. Edward and his wife had two were born in the early 1900’s. Every summer the boys and their mother would come to Briceland. They started their long trip from Stockton to San Francisco where they stayed overnight. Then by train they arrived in Willits where they again spent the night before taking the train to Fort Bragg on the coast. The next day they traveled by horse stage to Usal where they spent the night, and the next day to Four Corners where there was a rig waiting to take them to Briceland.

When Edward and Charles got older, they went to work in the family business. About 1921, the Wagners ran out of tan bark, and they wanted to relocate their plant near Highway 101 in order to have access to more areas of tan bark. The County would not help them build a road, so the Wagners decided to forget the new venture. As time went on, the demand for tannic acid and leather declined sharply.

The reason for the decline was that from 1900 to 1920 there was a huge market for leather goods in the Orient, specifically in Japan and China. The aggressive Japanese came to America where they learned the business and hired men to build plants in Japan where they developed their own industry and took over the Orient trade. The local domestic market for shoe leather was very small because most shoes were made in the East.

About 1928, all the tanneries on the Pacific Coast went out of business. The Wagners closed their Briceland plant in 1922 and the Stockton plant in 1928.

When the tannery closed in Stockton, Edward, who always liked to fly, took over the Stockton airport. When World War II started, he signed a contract with the Government to train pilots at Carson City, Nevada. When there was a surplus of pilots in 1944, Edward, in order to help the war effort, came back to the Briceland acres to develop a sheep ranch. He ranched until 1970 when he retired. He now lives in Garberville and spends his leisure time traveling in foreign countries.

His young brother, Charles, who has two degrees from Stanford, a B.A. in Chemical Engineering and an M.A. in Business Administration, took over the tannery buildings in Stockton and developed a successful moving and storage business He is now semi-retired, and maintains a second home near Garberville.

The Wagner acres near Briceland are now managed by professional foresters who follow a cycle of rotation. Trees are planted, and over half a million feet of timber is cut each year and sold to the local mills. The Wagners purchased more land recently and are now harvesting Monterey pines.

When their father died in 1940, the boys wanted to establish a memorial for him in the form of a redwood grove because he had been a pioneer in southern Humboldt County. They were able to purchase 80 acres of virgin redwood six miles north of Prairie Creek Park, and they established the Edward Wagner Memorial Grove in his honor.

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The story above was originally printed in the November/December 1977 issue of The Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society, and is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.

Kathryn (Douglass) Hapgood won the race and went home to be with Jesus on May 16, 2023. She left peacefully while at home being cared for by those she loves most. 

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