Earl Eliot Eddy (75) of Blue Lake, CA, passed away on June 1, 2023 at the VA Memorial Hospital of Long Beach, CA from a terminal lung disease.

He was a very boisterous and fun-loving person, with a booming voice. Earl made a friend wherever he went. He was the social glue of the Eddy family, always keeping up with his siblings, cousins, and his many step-mothers. He loved to tell embellished stories of his life and the shenanigans of his children’s lives.

He led an active lifestyle. His favorite physical activity was golfing; he regularly played softball; and he attended spin cycling class multiple times per week. Additionally, he participated in armchair sports, watching his favorite movies and shows with a large bowl of buttery popcorn.

Earl enjoyed a 45-year career in construction management after obtaining his bachelor’s degree from Cal State Long Beach. His career took him all over California until he opened his own company, Milestone Builders, in Anaheim, CA in 1986. Milestone Builders closed in 1993 due to a recession, and he and his family moved to Grand Rapids, MI. He lived there for 20 years and retired in 2014, then moved to Northern California to be near his children in Humboldt County. In retirement, he worked periodically as a Consultant/Owner’s Representative.

Earl was always involved in his community, serving on multiple committees and projects. He most recently served on the Blue Lake Planning Commission, the Blue Lake Community Emergency Response Team, the Blue Lake Old Crows, and the Humboldt Housing Project.

He is survived by his wife, Lynette Eddy; his children Matthew Eddy (Amy Aiello), Nicholas Eddy, and Aluka Eddy; and his grandchildren Raven Eddy, Savannah Aiello, Luella Eddy, Marlon Eddy, Anna Franklin, Preston Franklin, and Molly Franklin.

If you were acquainted with Earl, please join us for a small, casual Celebration of Life in his honor on Saturday August 19, 2023, from 2 – 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, at the Mad River Grange (110 Hatchery Road) in Blue Lake, CA. 

Andy Kitna was truly one of a kind.

We are so very glad he joined us, just wish he could have stayed longer.

Andy was born in Fortuna, California. He graduated from Fortuna High in 2005. He played soccer, basketball and Little League in Fortuna. He was never a great student but was smart, had a great memory and was so incredibly funny.

No one was more kind-hearted than Andy. He was a complicated young man but loved simple pleasures. He loved his family, movies, books and critters. An avid reader, most of his favorite authors were introduced to him by his father. They passed books back and forth his whole adult life. They also shared a love of the Lonesome Dove series, trading quotes often. He was also a fan of the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Bears. He enjoyed fishing at Ruth Lake with his buddies and bottom fishing off the Oregon Coast with his Dad.  Andy was a named member of the Grouse Mountain Hunting club and was a long-time blood donor.

Andy grew up with shelter pets. The two summers before he was old enough to drive he volunteered at Miranda’s Rescue. His beloved grandmother helped get him to his little job there, cleaning out cages and walking dogs. Once he bought his own home he had fur friends Murray and then Mabel. His first real job was working as the kennel attendant for the Fortuna Police Department.  

Andy then worked at the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department as a Correctional Deputy from 2006 until his death. He was known there for his kindness and calm demeanor. We thank the Sheriff’s Department for their nice press release and are strengthened by all the kind comments that followed. He was loved and respected by so many more people than he realized.

Andy married the love of his life, Samantha, in 2016.  Even though the marriage didn’t last, we are so grateful for the joy that relationship brought to his life.

Andy suffered from complications of Type I Diabetes and depression but it was an undiagnosed intestinal bleed that took his life. Thank you to Dr. Nathan Brinckhaus for trying to get Andy to follow through with testing that might have detected it.

Andy Kitna is survived by parents Kris and Edna and sister Emily. He also leaves behind Aunt Betty Rowell and cousins Kelli and Kurt in Santa Rosa. He is predeceased by his grandparents Jim and Trudy Kitna, grandmother Lillian Rowell, and uncles Marvin and Roger Rowell.

We’d like to thank the law enforcement community for all the kindness and offers.

We are a little family in shreds so services will be private.  

UVA UVAM VIVENDO VARIA FIT Safe journey Sonny Boy.

PREVIOUSLY: GOING DOWN: Eureka Stabbing

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On August 2, 2023, at about 6:37 p.m., Officers with the Eureka Police Department responded to the 100 block of W Sonoma Street in response to a 911 call of a physical altercation between an adult female and an adult male friend of her roommate.

Upon arrival, officers located the female and male and determined both had sustained wounds consistent with stab wounds.

Humboldt Bay Fire and City Ambulance arrived and transported both to a local hospital, where the female was ultimately pronounced deceased. The male was treated at the hospital for his injuries and released.

The exact details of the incident remain under investigation by the Eureka Police Department Criminal Investigation Unit. The female has been identified; however, her identity will not be released at this time, pending notification of next of kin.

This is a complex and active investigation and no arrests have been made. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact Detective Nunez at rnunez@eurekaca.gov or (707) 441-4109.

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UPDATE, 5:15 p.m.:

Folks on the Facebook page Fortuna Happenings have posted photos of the threatening messages allegedly posted to the windows of Aunna Bollmann’s home. Below are a couple of them, from Kristin Agajanian Ambrosini, republished with permission.

While the images are a bit blurry, some of the messages remain legible, including one addressed to the Fortuna police chief saying, “Casey Day I’m going to kill you.”

—Ryan Burns

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Original post:

Press release from the Fortuna Police Department:

On Thursday, August 3rd 2023, at about 2:30 PM, Fortuna Police served a search warrant at the home of Aunna Sophia Bollmann in the 40 block of 11’ Street, Fortuna, California.

Aunna Bollmann, a 41-year old resident of Fortuna, had an active arrest warrant stemming from weeks of threatening and harassing phone calls to government officials. Aunna Bollmann had been threatening to kill elected County Officials, Elected City Officials, and City/County staff members via telephone, voicemail, and text message, and had posted similar threats on paper, which she posted in the windows of her home.

Over the past week, the threats became more direct and egregious prompting concern for the safety of community members and those she was threatening. The threats were not isolated to Fortuna Officials and were made to several officials in several jurisdictions throughout the Humboldt County region including Humboldt County and the City of Eureka. Section 422 of the California Penal Code makes it a felony for one to criminally threaten another. Additionally, section 76 of the California Penal Code also prohibits criminally threatening an elected official.

Bollmann wasbooked on her outstanding arrest warrant and additional charges will be submitted to the Humboldt County District Attorney for consideration and potential prosecution. As a result of the search warrant, documentation and digital evidence was recovered. The majority of written documents seized were specifically threatening to City and County Officials. As a result of this incident, Aunna Bollmann was transported and booked into the Humboldt County Jail.

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The Eureka Police Department has been busy this Thursday attending to separate crime scenes a mere block from each other.

Wabash Avenue has been closed to through traffic between A and B streets after officers responded to reports of gunfire in the area. 

Eureka Police officers responded to the scene and blocked the road with crime tape. A police services vehicle is also blocking the intersection of Wabash and B in front of the Stop and Shop convenience store.

“Officers located shell casings but have not identified a suspect or [determined] if there are any victims,” EPD Public Information Officer Brittany Powell said. “The area is being searched for evidence and surveillance.”

Officers initially appeared to be focusing their attention on a two-story, seafoam green building at the southeast corner of Wabash and A streets, according to the Outpost’s Andrew Goff, who is on the scene. The officers are telling pedestrians that this is an active crime scene.

As if that weren’t enough, around 3:40 p.m., a white Mercedes sedan sped past the crime scene and turned east onto Del Norte Street, where it promptly ran into a parked vehicle, Goff reports.

“Lots of neighbors came out of their homes and confronted the man, who used a racial epithet towards one of the bystanders,” he tells us. Residents surrounded the man, pulling him to the ground. One woman informed him that this was a citizen’s arrest.

It’s unclear, at this point, if the crash-and-flee incident is related in any way to the police response on Wabash. (UPDATE: EPD tells us the individual involved in the collision is 21-year-old Miles Armstrong.)

Warning: The video below contains racial epithets and partial nudity.

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After nearly two decades sitting in boxes in an attic, “30,000 Salmon” — a huge, collaborative art installation — is again seeing the light of day and has been reinstalled at Morris Graves Museum in celebration of the removal of the dams on the Klamath River. 

Congressman Jared Huffman, who has helped support the dam removal efforts, came to an advanced look at the installation on Thursday morning, joined by artists, teachers and community members who contributed to the project. 

Huffman has been working to support Klamath River restoration efforts since he was elected to Congress 11 years ago, he said. Though there is still a lot of work to be done and the reemergence of this installation comes at a time when the Klamath’s salmon population is among the lowest on record and salmon fishing season has been officially canceled, he is happy to see the dam removal process finally moving forward after decades of the process struggling through political red tape.

“I think there’s a powerful message here,” Huffman told the Outpost while gazing at the piece, which hangs from the ceiling in the middle of the museum. “We’ve kind of come full circle, but in a better way because this year we’re celebrating the removal of the Klamath dams. And we still haven’t fixed all the problems on the Klamath River, but getting these dams out is the biggest piece of bringing these rivers back to life.” 

The installation was first put together in 2002 by local artist Becky Evans as a response to the devastating Klamath River fish kill that left more than 30,000 salmon dead (around 30,000 was the initial number reported, but later counts estimated that upward of 70,000 salmon died) as a result of water diversion to the Klamath Basin during a drought year.

To bring attention to the ecological disaster, Evans reached out to artists, teachers and students around Humboldt to help contribute to the art project. The result was 30,000 individual pieces, including drawings, cutouts, papier-mâché and ceramics suspended in the shape of a fish, with objects below. Originally, the art exhibit was installed at the now-closed First Street Gallery in Old Town Eureka

At the time of the original installation, Evans told the Outpost, former North Coast Rep. Mike Thompson extended an invitation to take the installation to be displayed in D.C. But after Evans and her assistants boxed up the entire piece, it turned out that there was not enough space or money to transport the piece to the capitol. So, Evans put the deconstructed sculpture pieces in her attic, where they sat for 19 years. 

“My idea was to save it all until the dams come down, if I live that long,” Evans told the Outpost at the Morris Graves on Thursday. “And I’m happy to have lived that long.” 

Several of the teachers whose students had contributed to the original project were present to view the sculpture, including Moureen McGarry, who taught art at Sunset Elementary at the time of the original installation. McGarry’s kindergarten, first grade and second grade classes created ceramic pieces, which are scattered in a fish shape on the gallery floor. Students in her after-school art program also painted salmon designs on swaths of silk that are hanging among the thousands pieces of fish art. 

“It was a really important educational moment for [the students] to recognize that there is an impact in what we do as humans to this planet and that it affects all of us,” McGarry told the Outpost, recalling what the process was like for her students so many years ago. 

Lee Roscoe-Bragg, who taught at Zane Middle School, had her seventh-graders create a series of fish kites for the project back in 2002 and said that she is thrilled to see the pieces displayed again, adding that she remembers how much the students enjoyed viewing the installation the first time it went up. She hopes that some of those students, who are now full-grown adults, will be able to come see the piece again at the Morris Graves.  

“The students were very enthusiastic,” Roscoe-Bragg said. “While they didn’t understand exactly how it was all going to come together, they were really excited to be part of such a huge contribution.” 

The installation is also accompanied by a short documentary film created by married couple Ken Magnuson and Barbara Morrison that highlights the original project and the catastrophic event that inspired it. Magnuson and Morrison edited the full 25-minute film down to a 10-minute feature that plays on a loop next to the exhibit. 

If you would like to view “30,000 Salmon,” the exhibit officially opens to the public this Saturday, Aug. 5 and will be on display at the Morris Graves Museum of Art — 636 F Street, Eureka — through Sep. 19. Evans hopes that those who help contribute to the piece and other members of the community will come to experience this impressive work that both illustrates the devastation that occurred on the Klamath River and celebrates the progress that has been made since. 

“It’s about all the people who contributed and all the people in the tribes, in the agencies – the individuals who have not given it up and worked so hard for so many years,” Evans said. “It just brings tears to my eyes that this has happened and I’m considering this a celebration.”

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NOTE: This article has been changed to reflect that 30,000 was the initial number of salmon reported dead on the Klamath in 2002, and this is why Evans’ project focused on that number. Other counts estimated that upwards of 70,000 salmon died. 

California voters regularly name out-of-reach housing costs and homelessness as among the most important issues facing the state.

Now lawmakers are calling their bluff. Next year the electorate will likely get the chance to put unprecedented gobs of money where its mouth is.

There’s the $10 billion bond proposal, spearheaded by Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and currently slated for the March ballot, that would replenish the coffers of some of the state’s premier affordable housing programs. If a majority of voters approve, it would be the largest housing-related IOU that California has issued since at least 1980.

Next, there’s the $4.68 billion measure, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and also scheduled for March, to build housing and expand psychiatric and substance abuse treatment for homeless Californians. That would be the largest-ever expansion of behavioral health funding in California, according to the governor’s office. As a housing-related bond, it would also be the third largest such measure in recent memory.

But both of those state measures could be dwarfed by a third proposed at the regional level. The recently created Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, tasked with funding affordable housing projects across the nine counties that surround the San Francisco Bay, is still figuring out exactly how much it wants to ask voters to sign off on in November 2024. But it could be as much as $20 billion.

Three of the largest housing bonds in California history would seem to be great news for housing advocates.

So why are some so worried?

“I’m a runner. I’ve never run my three best races in a row,” said Louis Mirante, a lobbyist with the Bay Area Council, where he focuses on housing legislation.

With lawmakers considering a bevy of other bond measures in 2024 that could total as much as $80 billion — more potential debt than the state has put on the ballot since at least 1980, even adjusting for inflation — the sheer scale of the state’s potential borrowing plans could test the upper limit of what voters are willing to stomach.

“It’s conventional wisdom that if you put a bunch of bond proposals in front of voters, they get overwhelmed and are like ‘I don’t want to pay all of this money, so I don’t want to pay any of this money,’” said Mirante.

And even before the question is put to voters, lawmakers will have to negotiate what goes on which ballot in the first place. Unlike the other initiatives, constitutional amendments and referenda that will already crowd the 2024 ballot, bond measures can only be put before voters with a vote by the Legislature and approval of the governor.

“There is only so much capacity that the state has for debt,” said Ray Pearl, executive director of the California Housing Consortium, which lobbies for more affordable housing construction in the Legislature. “And politically, for the governor and the Legislature, there’s only so much they are willing to take on.”

Lawmakers may not have long to hammer out those negotiations. Any bonds bound for the March ballot need to clear the Legislature by the end of the session on Sept. 14. Branch-on-branch negotiations have been slow to get going so far, but may ramp up once the lawmakers return from recess on Aug. 14.

“We want to make sure that we’re presenting a ballot to the electorate, in as much as we have the ability to, that is thoughtful and aims to tackle some of our tougher challenges, but in a way that doesn’t confuse voters with, like, ‘Here are your ten opportunities to vote for housing,’” said Wicks. “I anticipate over the next probably two or three months that we’ll start landing some of these planes.”

Not everyone in housing world is so concerned. The mere fact that so many housing-related bond measures are vying for space on next year’s primary and general election ballots is a sign that the state’s affordability crisis is finally getting the political and fiscal attention it deserves, said Kate Hartley, who directs the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority.

“I don’t know what voters will think about” a glut of bond measures next year, she said. “But I do know that voters really care about this and they want solutions.”

‘You name it, there’s a bond’

Some of the most competitive real estate in California these days is a spot on either of the two 2024 ballots.

The Legislature is considering as many as ten borrowing measures for either the March primary or November general election next year. Among them are competing school bonds, climate and flood protection proposals and a bond aimed at fighting the fentanyl crisis. Though it isn’t likely that all will make the cut, taken together, they come with a collective debt of at least $80 billion, with the price tag on one proposal still undetermined.

“We have so many crises for people facing so many different challenges,” said Chris Martin, policy director with Housing California, an affordable housing advocacy group. “You name it, there’s a bond for it being considered in the Legislature and there’s only so much bonding authority.”

The Newsom administration has reportedly set the borrowing limit for both of next year’s ballots at $26 billion, but the final number is likely to be ironed out in negotiations with legislative leaders.

Whatever the borrowing cap, it’s as much a question of political arithmetic as it is budget math. There is no legal limit on how much debt voters can approve in a given election. Budget analysts keep their eye on different metrics comparing the state’s debt payments to its discretionary cash cushion, its overall budget or the total size of the California economy. Projections of future interest rates and future budget surpluses and deficits also get considered.

One measure — the ratio of the state’s annual debt payments to the budget’s discretionary “general” fund — currently sits at roughly 3.5%, depending on how you measure it. That’s a tad high compared to other large states, but it’s far lower than it has been in the past. Keeping that figure below 6% is “generally considered prudent,” said H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the California Department of Finance.

There’s no evidence that voters have any of that in mind when they vote “yes” or “no.”

Californians have generally been perfectly happy to put big projects on the state’s credit card. That may be because bond proceeds are typically directed at politically sympathetic causes and the downsides of borrowing — higher debt payments in future years — are more abstract for the average voter.

Since 1980, the electorate has signed off on more than 75% of all state bonds put before them, approving $182 billion in new debt and rejecting only $42 billion. In contrast, voters have approved only about 40% of all non-fiscal propositions.

The prospect of ‘bond fatigue’

There are clear exceptions. Sometimes the voting public, presented with particularly eye-popping sums, gets into a tight-fisted mood.

The November 1990 election was the most bond-happy in recent history, with 14 borrowing proposals in total. Voters batted down 12 of them.

A more recent example of bond failure: The March primary election in 2020, when voters rejected what would have been the largest school bond in California history, a $15 billion IOU. One of the possible post-election explanations offered at the time: Voters, saddled with a bumper crop of borrowing measures at the local level, succumbed to “bond fatigue.”

Now, with 2024 approaching, some housing advocates worry the electorate is susceptible to the same condition.

As a matter of fiscal reality, the two major housing proposals — the affordable housing measure and the Newsom-backed mental health bond — are dipping from the same pool of fiscal overhead and electorate will.

But as policies — one that supports the construction of more housing and the other that boosts behavioral health treatment capacity for people living on the street — they could very well complement one another. According to the governor’s office, his mental health bond would allow for the shelter and treatment of 10,000 more unhoused Californians. As negotiations kick into gear, some proponents of both measures are hoping the governor and legislative leaders will see things that way.

“If you have temporary shelter beds and services for an individual suffering from mental health or substance abuse disorder but no affordable housing, that person is likely going to return to homelessness,” said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which supports the affordable housing bond and is still reviewing the mental health-related proposal. “Conversely if you have affordable housing, but no services available, then that individual is going to struggle to maintain their housing.”

“We feel the Legislature has a real opportunity to connect the two,” he said.

A race against the clock

Politically, California voter frustration with unaffordable housing and homelessness could cut one of two ways.

Voters who believe public dollars are poorly spent may not welcome proposals to throw more money at the problem.

Earlier this year, lawmakers directed the state auditor’s office to dig into how the state’s homelessness funds are actually being spent. A 2020 audit from the same office called for an “overhaul” of California’s “cumbersome” affordable housing funding process, after the state allowed $2.7 billion in bonds to expire untapped. (The state application process has since been streamlined.)

But many housing developers hope it will translate into the popular political will to ratchet up the spending. In fact, they’re counting on it.

Of the roughly 2.5 million units the state Housing and Community Development department says California communities need to build over the next eight years to make up for years of under-building, roughly 1 million must be set aside for people earning less than 80% of the median income in their region.

But that planned-for boom in affordable housing won’t materialize without some extra help, said Heather Hood, who manages the northern California market for Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing developer.

“The state’s been, on one hand, very clear about what the ambitions and goals are,” she said. “And yet (it) hasn’t supplied the resources to enable that to happen.”

It’s unclear how many additional units $10 billion in extra state funding could bring online. The cost per-unit of affordable housing climbs year after year, occasionally exceeding $1 million. By that math, the eye-popping face value on the bond would only be enough to fund 10,000 new units. But state funding is almost always used to supplement private, federal and local sources of cash.

“Housing isn’t completely paid for by public dollars,” said Hood. “Having this kind of security in the public realm means that there’s more security in the private realm and so it smooths the pipeline.”

The last time the state turned to the voters to fund affordable housing construction was in November 2018. Voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1, giving the state the go-ahead to borrow $4 billion. Of that, about half went toward the construction, rehabilitation and preservation of income-restricted rental housing. The remainder was meant to be split between programs that promote homeownership, the construction of farmworker housing and other housing-related infrastructure projects.

The timing of Wicks affordable housing bond next year is also no coincidence. With a little over $656 million remaining, that Prop. 1 funding is expected to run dry by next year

But even if voters are feeling generous next year and sign off on each of the housing bonds on the ballot, Wicks said she is only just getting started.

“We have to have significant ongoing investments for a serious amount of time in order to crawl out of where we are right now,” she said. That could mean putting yet more bond measures on the ballot or dedicating more money from the state budget on an ongoing basis. “That’s something that I want to work on next year. And probably the year after that.”

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