(AUDIO) The Water Kefiry on KHUM

How’s your New Year’s resolution going, Humboldt? Maybe you’re one of those people who said, you know, I’d like to cut back on my drinking this year but — ack! — I find myself struggling come the end of the day with that craving to sip on something delightful and delicious. 

Well, can we interest you in some water kefir?

These days more and more people are experimenting with sobriety, which is one of the topics discussed on today’s edition of Wellness Wednesday — KHUM’s weekly Lizzerd Kween-hosted discussion of all things health. Today we chat with Ivy Lucco, founder of The Water Kefiry, whose passion is crafting high-quality and innovative probiotic-rich beverages right here in Humboldt County. 

Click the audio player above to hear Lucco and Lizzerd Kween chat about the mental and physical benefits of healing your gut and/or click on over to The Water Kefiry website for more information. And be sure to tune into KHUM 104.3/104.7 to hear a new Humboldt-based health enthusiast share their passion on the next edition of Wellness Wednesday. 

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A routine maintenance project has turned into a full-blown renovation of the Mad River Grange Hall in Blue Lake, following the discovery of the 136-year-old building’s hidden ceiling. 

“This is one of those stories you hear about renovating an old building — each time you peel off a layer, you find this wonderful thing that was there before and wonder why in the heck someone covered it up,” Mad River Grange President Marlene Smith told the Outpost. “It really is stunning.”

For decades, the building’s original wooden structure was covered by a generic drop ceiling, a secondary ceiling that hangs below the original and is often used to conceal unsightly infrastructure or to improve acoustics. Last month, a volunteer with the Mad River Old Crows, a men’s service group, uncovered the historic beadboard while installing a new heat pump in the area above the false ceiling. 

“He had to remove one of the acoustic tiles from the ceiling and when we looked up and saw the beautiful wood and height, we saw the potential of the hall,” Hall Manager Jennifer Kramer told the Outpost. “We have many talented woodworkers, electricians, contractors and architects in our group, and they’ve decided to take the hall back to its original beauty.”

The drop tiles and wall panels have been removed, and the original ceiling has been sanded, repainted and outfitted with new lighting, as seen in the picture below. A mural that wraps around the interior of the hall was slightly damaged during the ceiling removal process, Smith said. The artist, former Blue Lake resident Jerry Lee Wallace, came down from Portland to touch it up and add new colors that will fit with the new wall color. 

So far, volunteers have put approximately 500 hours into the renovations, which have been funded through donations. Right now, they’re focused on repairing and refinishing the hardwood floors, which were previously hidden under a layer of drab linoleum. Once the floors are done, they’ll replace the windows.

“Our main focus on improving the space is to make it more attractive for people to hold their events there, whatever it may be,” Smith said. “[The grange] is the heartbeat of the community. It’s a gathering place where the whole community can get together and put on their event, whether that’s a celebration of life, a birthday, a potluck or a local forum.”

Smith added that the renovations wouldn’t be possible without the help of the Old Crows.

“The Old Crows are a really wonderful group of guys,” Smith said. “They get together weekly for their own socialization and recreation, either playing bocce ball down at the courts, throwing darts at the Logger Bar or horseshoes at the park. They just get together and do projects like this to exercise their skills and give back to the community.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore Gets in There Early, Announces That He Would Like to be Your State Senator in 2026

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The race to decide which Sonoma County resident will represent us in the California State Senate come the year 2026 is heating up!

Rogers.

Via the Press-Democrat, we are made aware that Santa Rosa City Councilmember Natalie Rogers is throwing her hat in to succeed State Sen. Mike McGuire, who will be termed-limited out at the end of next year.

According to her bio on the city of Santa Rosa’s website, Rogers is a family therapist who was first elected to the City Council in November 2020. She’s a union member. She served as the city’s mayor from 2022-2024.

Welcome, Ms. Rogers! Humboldt County here.

As linked above, Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore announced in January that he would seek to follow McGuire after the latter is booted out next year.

But according to the P-D, which is physically very close to the population center of the Second Senate District, the race is about to get more crowded still in the coming days.

The paper mentions that Assm. Damon Connolly, who currently represents the Marin/Napa half of the Second Senate District in the lower house, is expected to jump in at any minute.

Other names to watch, according to the P-D, are former Healdsburg Mayor Ariel Kelley, last seen shooting for former Assemblymember Jim Wood’s vacated seat, and … drumroll … Arcata’s own Rusty Hicks, last seen doing same!

Nice that legislative seats are contested once again. It didn’t use to be this way.

Fun note: Natalie Rogers’ Santa Rosa City Council colleague, Chris Rogers, was the eventual victor in last year’s assembly race. So if Natalie ends up victorious in her campaign for the Senate, she would reunite with Chris in Sacramento and the North Coast would have both a Mr. Rogers and a Ms. Rogers representing us in the Capitol. Makes you think.

It’s not just you! It’s legitimately colder than a rabid bull’s tookus out there! (Is that a thing? Anyway…)

We’ll toss it over to the greatly appreciated folk at the Eureka arm of the National Weather Service for the official call:

A record low of temperatures of 28 degrees was set in Eureka, CA today, February 12th 2025.

This broke the old record of 29 degrees set in 1949 and 2001.

For many domestic violence victims in California, the danger doesn’t end when their abuser is sentenced to prison. Instead, it becomes a waiting game until the assailant is released.

Assemblymember James Ramos, a San Bernardino Democrat, wants California to institute a six-month safety net for survivors by issuing temporary protective orders that restrict contact during that critical window.

His proposal, Assembly Bill 285, aims to close the gap between the time a defendant is released and the victim secures a permanent restraining order.

“By issuing a criminal protective order, we ensure that upon an offender’s release, they cannot gain contact with those whom they victimized,” Ramos said. “This is especially important when it comes to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons as many of those cases stem from domestic violence.”

Last year Ramos passed a related bill, AB 2695, which requires the state Department of Justice to track criminal incidents involving missing and murdered Indigenous People, and to record whether domestic violence incidents took place on tribal land. California tribes have been pushing for an emergency declaration to help address the high rate of unsolved cases that often stem from domestic violence.

Currently in California, restraining orders can expire before someone convicted of domestic violence is released, leaving victims scrambling.

“Survivors often live in fear of facing an eventual prison release date and potential contact with the offender,” San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson, a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.

Ramos’ bill would require a six-month restraining order to take effect before an abuser is released. Supporters hope this would give the survivor time to get permanent protective orders, said Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin, who is also a co-sponsor of the bill.

Under a temporary order, a judge could forbid communication with a victim, prevent the defendant from annoying, harassing, threatening or harming the victim, and order law enforcement agencies to provide protection for victims and their family members, the bill states.

Susanna Barnett, executive director of Morongo Basin Unity Home, a nonprofit that serves people who have experienced domestic violence in Yucca Valley, said it’s a real worry for her clients.

“When the abuser has been released he or she might be angry because they put them in jail or prison,” Barnett said. “They feel like it’s the victim’s fault that they called the police or put a restraining order on them. It’s very common.”

When abusers come back, she said, “It is worse…They feel that they’ve lost that control so they escalate to physical violence.”

She said judges sometimes deny restraining orders when a defendant has been in prison for a long time and no new offenses have occurred.

“If nothing has happened then they won’t grant the restraining order, which is kind of an oxymoron, because we want these people to be safe,” Barnett said.

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

It’s safe to say there’s no legislator more familiar with battling fires against the Santa Ana winds than Sen. Kelly Seyarto.

He’s one of just a few former firefighters in the Legislature’s history, and the only former career firefighter currently in office, according to the California State Library (Current Assemblymember Heath Flora, a Republican from Ripon, worked three summers as a firefighter and volunteered for another 15).

The Republican from Murrieta spent 35 years in the field — starting as a firefighter and paramedic for the Inglewood Fire Department and retiring as a battalion chief for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

During that time, he was assigned to various fires throughout Southern California, and led a 20-person strike team in the 2007 Canyon Fire that burned one of the areas affected by the recent Palisades fire.

Still, when it came to special session bills in the Senate related to the recent fires, Seyarto said he was pretty much left out of the planning. Meetings to discuss the Legislature’s initial response were limited to Democrats.

“For Pete’s sake, folks, I’ve been in the fire service for 35 years,” Seyarto said recently on the Senate floor, where he voted in favor of two bills to fund the fire recovery. “I implore you, no more caucus meetings to come up with a Senate Democrat plan, or Assembly Democrat plan. … We need a plan from all of us to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Democrat from Santa Rosa, did not respond to a request for comment.

Chris Micheli, a longtime lobbyist, said Democratic leaders in the Senate typically pick a handful of legislators to work on large issues like wildfires. “Those working groups don’t include Republicans. But of course, Republicans can introduce bills of their own, and can obviously provide input on legislation.”

Tim Edwards, president of the union representing state firefighters, said — no matter which party — it helps to have someone in the Legislature who has worked in the trade, so they can communicate issues to other lawmakers, such as Seyarto’s support on a recent proposal to transition seasonal firefighters into year-round employees.

“Public safety is a unique thing, so in order to have someone that’s actually worked the job to walk you through and explain things is really great to have on the legislation,” he said.

Public service: from fires to government

Seyarto, 65, was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley and wanted to be a doctor growing up. But he didn’t have the best grades, so a firefighter neighbor encouraged him to try out the paramedic path instead.

During his decades as a firefighter, there were plenty of memorable moments. He doesn’t like to talk about the bad ones: “There are too many of those. It’s usually when people are dying, and you can’t do anything about it.”

He prefers to think about the ones where he was able to save lives. One was an apartment building fire in the late 1980s or early 1990s, he said, where 40 people had jumped from the second story to escape flames.

Sen. Kelly Seyarto is the only former career firefighter currently serving in the Legislature. A framed photo of him wearing his uniform sits in his office in Sacramento. Feb. 11, 2025. Photo by Sameea Kamal, CalMatters

“I wound up having to figure out how to manage 40 patients that … had broken legs and hips and cracked heads,” he said. “We didn’t really have a system yet, and so I kind of figured out a streamlined system on how to get them all through.”

That inspired conversations within L.A. County’s fire department to create a formalized system, now known as the Simple Triage And Rapid Treatment, or START, system.

“That’s where my mind kind of goes, is how to organize something quickly and then make it go through a quick process and get it done,” he said. “That’s why it’s so frustrating being in the Legislature, because you see a problem and you think, ‘Okay, well, let’s see, we can do this, this and this, and then let’s get it going. And it doesn’t go like that.”

Seyarto stepped into elected office when he ran for Murrieta City Council in 1997 while still working for the fire department. He served on the city council until 2006, then stepped away to spend more time with his wife and three daughters. He retired from firefighting in 2015 and returned to the council in 2016, serving a total of four stints as mayor.

In 2020, he won a seat in the state Assembly, where he served two years before switching to the Senate. He now serves on seven committees and is vice chair of four of them: appropriations, natural resources, public safety and housing.

Seyarto doesn’t focus on wildfire legislation as a state senator — he says he prefers to apply what he learned in the fire service to various policy areas. He has only introduced a few bills related to wildfires since 2021, none of which has passed.

The Legislature’s role

So how does Seyarto think the Legislature should approach wildfires?

Seyarto said the Legislature’s most impactful role would be to pursue a comprehensive statewide strategy focused on prevention, response and recovery instead of the piecemeal approach the state often takes with legislation targeted toward a specific community impacted by a fire.

He said a comprehensive approach would require a bipartisan effort that brings together experts in the various issues involved: housing, insurance and local governments.

“We have to figure those things out, and we can’t figure them out if we’re having Democrat caucus discussions only, or Republican caucus discussions only,” he said. “This is a whole legislature (joined by) experts in the field type of issue.”

In general, Seyarto said stopping a fire once it has started is challenging. That’s why risk management is key, he says: identifying fire hazard zones and hiring enough staff to clear brush or manage controlled burns that can prevent fires from starting or spreading.

He also introduced a bill last month that would allow evacuation routes in fire hazard zones to be eligible for funds under Proposition 4, which voters approved last year to fund climate-related projects.

“It’s all about saving those people first, and so having evacuation routes … and not allowing a bureaucratic structure to obstruct the process,” he said. “It’s that kind of bureaucratic process, especially when it relates to public safety that we really need to kind of eliminate … so we don’t keep repeating the same catastrophes, one after another, after another.”

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

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of lifetime Garberville resident Todd Barton on December 20, 2024, at the age of 61.

Todd was born on May 10, 1963 to Dwayne and Mary Jean Barton in Garberville. He lived a joy-filled, social lifestyle. As a child he was a member of the local bowling team and the Cub Scouts and played pee-wee baseball. After graduating from South Fork High School in 1982 he began working for Blue Star Gas, where he was employed for nearly 28 years prior to his departure in 2017.

His greatest passion was serving for the Garberville Fire Protection District. He was one of the department’s longest standing volunteer fire fighters, beginning his service in the late 1980s and serving until the day he passed, over 35 years later. He never missed a call, was always first on the scene, and was a key and trusted source of information regarding any and all aspects of the job, facility, equipment, and community he served.

He regularly attended the New Hope Assembly of God Church in Garberville, was a member of the local ham radio club, and a member of the Garberville Cemetery Committee. Moreover, he served the community by facilitating flag placement and assisting with organizing an volunteering for community events and parades.

He dabbled in many hobbies including golf, bicycling, RC cars, walking, and casually socializing with his beloved community members. Like his father, he loved his cars! He kept tally of them all, but was especially fond of his very first car, a light-blue 1963 Chevy Impal He was a very kind and gentle soul. He was compassionate, kind, loyal, dedicated, and tenderhearted. He was wonderful with children and held his community members, friends, and family close to his heart. He was a good man and will be missed dearly.

He was preceded in death by his mother, Mary Jean Barton (2001), father, Dwayne Richard Barton (2016), and sister Tracy Diane Hostetter (2013). He is survived by his niece Jillian Bryant, nephew Scott Hostetter, nine great nieces and nephews, and cousins Mike and Ron Fernald and their families.

A celebration of life will be held in his memory on Sunday, February 16 from 12 to 4 p.m. at the Garberville Fire Hall, and will be followed by a graveside memorial service at 4:30 p.m. at the Garberville Cemetery.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Pam Barkdull’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.