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As vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, Frankie Myers often shows up to official events in a sport coat, jeans and traditional beaded necklace, whether he’s addressing the state Water Board, working with the governor on legislation to address the Missing or Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis or testifying before the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

When he announced late last month that he’s running for the 2nd District seat in the state Assembly, most of the news stories included photos of him in this business-casual-tribal attire.

But when I caught up with Myers last week he was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, having just changed out of a Santa Claus costume, complete with fur-lined boots, gloves and a fluffy white beard. He’d shoved the costume into a plastic shopping bag and upon seeing me he offered a jolly smile and firm handshake befitting Father Christmas.

We met up on the campus of Weitchpec Yurok Elementary School, a tiny K-4th grade public school with a single teacher for the dozen-or-so kids that enroll each year. The schoolhouse sits in a clearing on a densely forested hillside above the confluence of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers. It’s the southeastern edge of the Yurok Indian Reservation, which straddles the lower Klamath River for 44 miles from here to the Pacific Ocean.

The day’s schedule was packed, though his duties were mostly Santa-related. He needed to pick up his wife Molli at home before driving 50 minutes northwest along the river to the far end of the road, where he would don the festive outfit again for the benefit of another dozen-odd students at the K-8th Jack Norton Elementary School before making the long drive back.

The Yurok Tribe’s land once spanned more than a million acres., and its lifestyle and culture are inextricably linked to the Klamath, which provides salmon (or ney-puy in the Yurok language), Pacific lamprey (ke-ween), sturgeon (Kaa-ka) and candlefish (kwor-ror). 

Growing up

As Myers navigated the winding contours of State Route 169, one of the most remote roads in California, he described his upbringing on the reservation, his life-altering excursions beyond its borders and his trajectory from fiery activist who crashed corporate stockholder meetings with “Undam the Klamath” banners to his current role in tribal leadership and his candidacy for state office.

The eighth of 10 children (one of whom was only recently discovered via Ancestry.com, living on the other side of the country), Myers spent his earliest years in the Yurok village of Sregon, going back and forth between his parents’ house and his grandparents’ house next door. Like most people on the reservation in those days, his family didn’t have electricity, though Myers said he didn’t feel deprived. 

“It was amazing,” he said. “It was absolutely amazing.”

The bus ride to and from school took about an hour and a half each way, and when he got home he’d often check in with his grandparents before hiking two miles to his friend Eli’s house.

“We’d go to the river, hike in the woods, run around,” Myers said. “Maybe we’d get up the gumption to go visit another friend [who] lived a couple miles away.”

His family didn’t have landline phone service, either, though his grandpa had a radio mobile phone that transmitted calls over the airwaves. Five or six other families on the reservation had one, too, which meant they could tune into the same frequency and eavesdrop on conversations. 

“Every once in a while, you know, people on the other end would forget they were getting broadcast,” Myers said with a smile. “Everyone was congregated and you’d hear some, ‘Hey, hey, hey! Don’t forget you’re on the radio phone!’ People would get in trouble if they cussed or whatever. … Oh man, you would hear all the gossip.”

When he was seven or eight years old, Myers said, his grandfather on his mom’s side suffered a stroke, and so he moved north with his parents and younger siblings to the Portland suburb of Oregon City to help care for him. 

“It was a culture shock,” Myers said. “Huge culture shock. I remember on the way up there we were driving through Crescent City and we stopped at the overlook to see the city and I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s so many lights. There’s so many.’ It’s a very vivid memory. I remember thinking, ‘How big is the generator to run all these lights?!’ 

Myers pulled his Jeep SUV into the gravel driveway of his property, where a trampoline was set next to the family’s brown prefab home. After a minute, Molli emerged and hopped in the car as the family dog, who they just call Puppy, wagged his tail. Molli said they need to get a new dog because Puppy doesn’t bark when bears come around, which is often.

“Lotta bears,” Myers confirmed.

“How’d it go?” Molli asked him, referring to his performance as Santa Claus.

“It was great,” Myers replied.

Molli tilted her head back to address me. 

“This is so Frankie’s jam,” she said.

Frankie and Molli have five kids of their own, ranging in age from not quite 10 to 20. 

Back on the rez and beyond

Pulling back onto SR 169, Myers said that after four or five years in Oregon City his grandfather passed away and the family moved back home, “which was another culture shock. You know, TV and electricity and phones and all of that I got very accustomed to, living up there.”

At Hoopa Valley High School, Myers excelled on the wrestling team, which gave him the opportunity to travel with the team to meets in cities such as Reno, Stockton and San Diego. Hoopa High was small, and only about 10 or 12 kids would go out for wrestling each year, but they competed against squads from big city schools. He remembers words of advice from his former coach, Sam Razzo.

“It was this philosophy that I think got ingrained in me that I’ve carried through the rest of my life,” Myers said. “He would just constantly tell us, ‘It doesn’t matter where you start. It only matters where you end up. You can go against these other kids and these other schools; it doesn’t matter. It’s always you on the mat.’” 

Asked how that translates to his current life, Myers said, “I think it applies almost every day. … Here on the reservation, I think we’re still pretty disconnected to every other place. … I think it’s still that same kind of mindset: I have something to offer, and regardless of the advantages that other people have and what they know, it doesn’t matter because it’s still just me at the end of the day.”

Myers embraced this philosophy when he joined the dam-removal campaign, in which tribal activists took on the federal government and multinational corporations such as Scottish Power and Berkshire Hathaway.

‘It didn’t matter how big the opposition was. It’s just people and individuals in charge. If you can … connect with them as just people then the rest of it doesn’t matter.’

“And it was always just that same philosophy that it didn’t matter how big the opposition was,” Myers said. “It’s just people and individuals in charge. If you can meet them face-to-face and have conversations and connect with them as just people then the rest of it doesn’t matter. … We apply that to our daily lives all the time and [convey] that to our kids.”

Myers attended Clackamas Community College for a couple of years, competing on the wrestling team while pursuing a degree in psychology, but he eventually got homesick and worried about his aging Gram (his dad’s mom). So he moved home and began working for the tribal fisheries program, doing surveys on the Klamath.

He was in his second or third year of that work when the devastating 2002 Klamath River fish kill occurred, wiping out tens of thousands of adult chinook as they returned to the river to spawn. It was the largest recorded salmon kill in the history of the Western United States.

“I was out on the boat doing surveys when the fish kill happened,” Myers recalled. “It was devastating. It was absolutely devastating.”

He remembers not just the sight but the smell of so many dead and dying fish washed up on the banks. It felt like an existential disaster, and not just for the fish.

“I grew up with stories that my dad [and] my grandma told me about the connection between us and the salmon,” he said. “And one of the stories that became really relevant is the story that if there ever comes a time when there’s no more salmon in the river, there’ll be no more need for your people on Earth. So to see, you know, 100,000 salmon dying, it felt like the end of our way of life completely. It was a real visceral sensation.”

‘Un-dam the Klamath’

Around that time the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was preparing to relicense the four Klamath hydroelectric dams, which tribal scientists had identified as one of the primary factors leading to the mass fish die-off. 

“There’s a whole bunch of things that are wrong with the system, but none of it matters if the dams are there warming the river at the top of the headwaters, right where salmon go to spawn,” Myers said. 

Members of the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley tribes launched a campaign to get the dams removed, and Myers remembers getting dismissed a lot during those early days, even being told to sit in a corner during meetings. 

By who?

“By everyone,” he said.

“Even ourselves sometimes,” Molli added.

“Yeah, our own community, absolutely, would be like, ‘This is too big. It’s impossible.’ It’s the federal government [and this] huge corporation, Scottish Power,” which at the time owned PacifiCorp, the electric power utility that owns and operates the four dams on the Klamath.

But the activists persevered, advancing their cause with help from environmental allies and the Ruckus Society, a nonprofit organization offering training and consultation for activists working on causes such as social justice, human rights, workers rights and environmental justice. 

The group had recently launched the Indigenous Peoples Power Project, and Myers said they taught Klamath activists how to strategize, build their campaign, assess their opposition, work with the media to tell a story and more.

Frankie and Molli met each other during this campaign. They were among about a dozen Yurok members in a contingent of tribal activists who flew to Edinburgh, Scotland, to crash a stockholder meeting and demand dam removal. To their surprise, the Scottish people were very welcoming and understanding.

“Turns out they’re salmon people,” Myers said, “and they know a thing or two about having an oppressive regime over them.”

However, Scottish Power was in dire financial straits, and shortly after this 2004 shareholder meeting it sold PacifiCorp to Berkshire Hathaway’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. for $5.1 billion plus the assumption of $4.3 billion in debt.

And so the dam-removal campaign simply shifted its focus to Berkshire Hathaway stakeholders and its billionaire owner, Warren Buffett. Frankie and Molli recalled taking a couple dozen activists to an event at Oakland’s Oracle Arena, where Buffett planned to take questions from people at podiums that were set up around the stage.

“They had it set up so it was first-come, first-serve, and whoever got to a podium got to ask a question directly to Warren,” Molli said.

‘We took a couple dozen people and took over every single podium and spent an hour and a half asking Klamath questions.’

“So we took a couple dozen people took over every single podium and spent an hour and a half asking Klamath questions,” Myers added.

Asked when he felt that their movement started to gain traction, Myers said, “Maybe two years ago?” But then he chuckled and said, “No, there were a lot of milestones.”

Those included the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA), which was actually a series of agreements between various water users and other stakeholders in the Klamath River Basin. The effort began in earnest in 2005 and came together with a signed agreement in 2010, only to stall out in Congress. 

“I think it was just too big, tried to accomplish too much, and it failed,” Myers said.

He and others were crestfallen by the setback, but one component of the KBRA, called the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, was salvaged and, in 2016, renewed, offering another path forward for dam removal.

But progress was slow and incremental, often coming via unexpected channels. For example, Yurok activists had made connections over the years with the Ho-Chunk Nation, even building an economic sustainability plan based on that tribe’s model. One day, in a casual conversation, Ho-Chunk/Winnebago Tribe leader Lance Morgan mentioned to the Myers that his father-in-law was none other than Warren Buffett himself. 

“And we were like, ‘What?! What are you talking about?’” Myers recalled. “He said, ‘Yeah, that’s my kids’ grandpa.’” Morgan offered to help the Yurok, and when dam-removal negotiations stalled out, Myers asked Morgan if he would personally deliver a letter to Buffett. 

“We got it in front of him; he read it and was like, ‘Get this done. This is enough,’” Myers said. “It was the first time — over the whole time that we had worked on the campaign — that Warren Buffett himself said ‘the dams are coming down.’ And that was pretty amazing,” Myers said.

Years of analysis, studies and negotiations followed, culminating with a landmark accord involving the Oregon and California state governments and, remarkably, a promise from Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway to cover any cost shortages that may arise from what will be the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. One of the four dams, Copco No. 2, was completed in September, and the rest are scheduled to come down before the end of next year.

“The company that ended up really coming through for us at the end was the same folks that we had fought for the better part of the whole campaign and my adult life,” Myers said. “And it boiled down to what I was talking about earlier — getting to know people on an individual level [and] recognizing that people are people, regardless of their positions or who they represent.”

As he was driving, Myers kept pointing out things of note as we passed them: Over there was Myers Lane, where he grew up. Along the river bank we spotted the local herd of wild horses, nibbling grass and lounging in the unseasonably warm sunshine. Around one bend Myers spotted his brother-in-law, a “phenomenal carpenter” who was rebuilding the tribe’s traditional jump-dance house in preparation for the world renewal ceremony.

Eventually we pulled up in front of the entrance to Jack Norton Elementary and Myers turned off the engine.

“Hey,” Molli said. “Aren’t you supposed to sneak in here?”

Myers grabbed the plastic bag containing his Santa outfit and scampered off to the bathroom to change. A few minutes later he walked through the doors of the school gym as Kris Kringle.

After handing out gifts and posing for photos with each of the Jack Norton students, including his two youngest sons, Myers changed back into his casual attire and we filed back into the family vehicle to head back upriver. 

Tribal leadership

Discussing his entry into tribal governance, Myers said he was heavily influenced by Troy Fletcher, whom he described as a personal mentor and a “foundational” member of the tribe who worked as the lead negotiator in the dam-removal campaign and helped shape the tribe’s governance.

“He took me under his wing,” Myers said. “He saw me as a feisty, arrogant young kid who was willing to fight and not back down.” Fletcher taught him how to channel his passion and anger in productive directions, Myers said, and when Fletcher died suddenly from a heart attack in 2015, it left a huge void. 

Myers was among the tribe members who sought to fill that void. He switched from operating an excavator on watershed restoration projects to working as the Yurok tribal historic preservation officer, which allowed him to get more involved in policy and consultation with outside government agencies.

After a couple of years, current Tribal Chairman Joe James encouraged Myers to run for tribal council. 

“He had an economic and cultural vision for the tribe,” Myers said. “He was a dance leader as well, and I had a bit of knowhow, so we ran for a leadership role because we wanted to transform the tribe and move it ahead.”

Together, they worked to move the tribe beyond its dependency on natural resources and grants to create true economic development.

“Throughout the years we had tried a couple of ventures and nothing had really grown and we were … .”

“Poor!” Molli interjected.

‘The fact of the matter is the tribe was in a position to really grow and have an influence. … People were paying attention and actually listening to what we had to say.’

“Yeah,” Myers said. “We were poor. … The tagline we would use for Yurok was ‘The largest, poorest tribe in California,’ and I hated it. I hated that ‘poorest’ part because I never felt like we were necessarily poor, but we were. … And the fact of the matter is the tribe was in a position to really grow and have an influence. Because of the work that we’d done on the ‘un-dam the Klamath’ campaign, people were paying attention and actually listening to what we had to say. But we didn’t have the infrastructure to really get out and do all the work that was actually possible for us to do.”

James and Myers have helped to develop businesses on and off the reservation, diversifying away from tourism into more industrial, technological and commercial endeavors.

This includes the Yurok Tribal Corporation’s 2019 acquisition of Mad River Brewery along with the development of two tribe-owned construction companies, a LIDAR and high-res aerial photo business called Condor Aviation, the Yurok Agricultural Corporation, a hemp seed company and the Yurok Telecommunications Corporation, which last year received a $61 million federal grant to expand broadband access in Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribal communities.

Myers rattled off a few other tribal business ventures — the Bigfoot Golf Course in Willow Creek, the Weitchpec Nursery, which is being transformed into a food sovereignty program. 

“I’m sure I’m missing a couple,” Myers said.

“You are,” Molli replied.

Regardless, he said the Yurok Tribe’s financial outlook has transformed dramatically.

”In the past five years we’ve moved from 98 percent of our revenue being generated by grants to about 60 [percent], and that’s right where we want to be,” Myers said. “And we have enough businesses diversified throughout different sectors that we take advantage of this global economy that we live in.”

The tribe has quadrupled its revenues and is now spending roughly $4 million per month on employee salaries alone, and its housing projects across Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties have increased tenfold, Myers said. He believes that the boost in tribal self-determination has gone a long way toward alleviating a pervasive lack of hope that contributed to a devastating youth suicide crisis on the reservation a few years back. 

The campaign

Asked why he decided to run for Assembly, Myers said he’d like to take what he’s accomplished for the tribe and expand it across the North Coast region. 

“I came from a unique place,” he said. “I have a unique perspective, and I think what we’ve done is absolutely amazing. I see the continued work that could happen in the larger community.”

But another big motivator is representation.

“In the 140 years that this county has been established we’ve never had one single tribal person even file for [state] office — and that’s too long,” Myers said.

Institutional racism has played an obvious role in this lack of representation, Myers said, and he was disappointed to encounter it again recently, when he was the only state Assembly candidate not invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Covelo. The event took place around the same time as the annual Nome Cult Walk, a 100-mile trek from Chico to Covelo that commemorates the Native Californians who were forcibly detained and marched onto reservations in 1863.

Myers said the snub felt intentional, even if it wasn’t, especially in light of Covelo’s history and the way it overlaps with his own story and expertise. (The ribbon-cutting was related to an alternative energy project.)

“And it hurt,” he said. “It really did hurt. … You want to know why I’m running? This is why I’m running. Because it’s enough. Enough.”

That said, Myers added that he’s seen “huge steps forward” on Native American issues in local politics in recent years, whether it’s the Arcata City Council’s vote to remove the McKinley statue from the Plaza or the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors commemoration of Indigenous Peoples Day.

“The list really does go on, on and on, and we do have really good relationships with a lot of our local government … ,” Myers said. “I think there is this awakening to the idea that when you bring tribes into what your communities are doing you have this opportunity to capture federal, state and tribal funding and local funding, to make phenomenal projects take place. That is something I want to bring to the forefront with the work we’re doing now for Yurok and what we could be doing across the entire district, because it’s there. We’ve proven it and we’ve seen it. You can see it happening to other communities.”

Asked how he’ll make his case to voters in Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and other population centers to our south, Myers said his message about bringing resources and diverse partners together applies as much down there as it does up here.

He would also like to take lessons learned in the Klamath dam-removal fight and apply them to the ongoing negotiations over the Potter Valley Project on the Eel River, he said 

”We have to start at the community level, understanding that we all have very similar passions for being here in this place. … Tribal people have a very deep-rooted connection … but that’s not to say that the irrigating community and the farming community isn’t also connected and has a sense of family and a sense of community and a sense of belonging and sense of purpose in the place. … Ensuring that there is an equitable solution that keeps the communities whole is what we try to fight for.”

Other priorities, should he get elected, would include fighting for local protections and incentives during the development of offshore wind energy and working to find meaningful solutions to the MMIP crisis. 

“That has huge impacts on our communities up and down the coast,” Myers said. He believes that the crisis is worsened by factors that affect the entire region, including mental health management, housing and the high number of children in the welfare system. 

“Those are community issues,” Myers said. 

And his pursuit of representation reached at least one influential supporter for his campaign. He and Molli have set up an online campaign donation system and get updates whenever someone contributes. Myers said he gets excited seeing donations come in from Humboldt, Mendocino and Del Norte counties and beyond.

But the other morning, as he was helping get the kids ready for school, Myers checked his phone and saw that a donation had come in from a Washington, D.C., address. 

“And so I’m, like, kind of groggy. I’m looking at it.”

In the “occupation” field he saw, “Department of Interior, secretary.” 

“I look again. I’m like, ‘Deb Haaland! Oh my god! Oh my god!” 

The U.S. Secretary of the Interior, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to serve as a presidential cabinet secretary, donated to Myers Assembly campaign.

Myers was ecstatic. “I go back, I wake up Molli. I’m like, ‘Auntie Deb donated!’ …  That hit pretty hard. She’s such an inspiration.”

Myers dropped me off at my vehicle, not far from where the day’s journey had begun, and after posing for a couple of photos in front of Martin’s Ferry Bridge, with the sun setting behind the Bald Hills, he piled back into his SUV with his family and his Santa suit and headed up the road.

Press release from the City of Rio Dell:

The Rio Dell City Council is scheduled to consider a Rental Housing Inspection ordinance at their meeting on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. The proposed ordinance is motivated by the December 20, 2022, Ferndale Earthquake and the January 1, 2023 aftershock. CAL-OES inspectors and other response and recovery partners widely reported that they observed a significant number of substandard rental units.

“It’s clear following the earthquakes that the status quo cannot stand and that changes need to be made to increase quality and safety,” stated Rio Dell City Manager Kyle Knopp.

Many tenants will not report substandard conditions because of the fear of losing their housing. On the other hand, some tenants do not properly maintain the units they live in or the property the units are on. When discussed with the City’s Nuisance Advisory Committee, the Committee recommended that the City consider establishing a Rental Housing Inspection Program. The City’s Planning Commission recommended the draft Ordinance language on November 28th of 2023.

There are approximately 640 rentals in the City. The Rio Dell Fire Protection District (RDFPD) is responsible for inspecting multifamily properties containing more than three (3) units. The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) regulates mobile home parks. That leaves approximately 465 units that the City would be responsible for.

The draft ordinance allows self-certification that the rental units comply with state-adopted Building Codes, Health and Safety Codes, the Uniform Housing Code, the International Property Maintenance Code and the Rio Dell Municipal Code. Tenants are required to attest to the self-certification.

The proposed fees for City inspected units include the $15.00 annual registration fee and a $55.00 inspection fee once every three years. This equates to approximately $2.78 a month over a three year period. The fees for self-inspected units would be $45.00 a year or $3.75 a month.

Community Development Director Kevin Caldwell stated: “The City is actively working to eliminate blight and substandard housing in order to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing. We believe this is a win for both tenants and landlords and ultimately makes us better prepared as a community to face future seismic events and improve the housing stock.”

The Rental Housing Inspection Program ordinance will receive its first reading on January 2, 2024. The Council meeting begins at 6:00 p.m. at 675 Wildwood Avenue in Rio Dell. Interested members of the public are encouraged to attend and may also submit comment on the proposal via email at publiccomment@cityofriodell.ca.gov.

How was your 2023? 

For this reporter, the year felt like a settling into the post-pandemic status quo. Some things are different than before, sure, but 2023 was recognizably something like normal life. New-normal life, I suppose.

Today, as is tradition, we look back on Humboldt’s year that was through the lens of The Only Metric That Matters™ — traffic to the Lost Coast Outpost website. This time last year we noted with some approval that Humboldt’s tastes had rated slightly higher-brow than in years past; those gains, if gains they can be called, completely reverted to the mean in 2023. Y’all went straight back to the smash-and-grab stories, the ones that tickle some deep reptilian instinct in the brain. Which is fine. We don’t judge.

Kiss this year goodbye! Here they are — the Top 25 Stories of 2023, as chosen by you, the Lost Coast Outpost reader. Let’s count them down!

25. Eureka Police Issue Statement on Dead Woman Found at Samoa Recycling Center

The first big tragedy of the year not earthquake-related was the shocking fact that a woman who had apparently sought shelter in a recycling dumpster was crushed to death when that dumpster was emptied into a garbage truck and driven to the regional recycling plant in Samoa, where her body was discovered.

This was the news of that. Our Isabella Vanderheiden later went back and wrote a heartbreaking story about how that woman, Jestine Green, ended up in that dumpster — the circumstances she faced that day, and throughout her life. Read that story.

24. Two McKinleyville Women Dead After Head-On Collision on State Route 299

A tragedy just west of Lord Ellis in April. The women were 21 and 30 years of age. One was Emerald Grace Bartollota, a Sheriff’s Office employee. The other was Kassidy Bertoldi, who worked for the county’s human resources department.

23. Eureka High on Hard Lockdown as Police Investigate Off-Campus Incident

This wasn’t the worst or most traumatic lockdown of the year — those would be the wave of (apparently fake) threats that washed over Mack High earlier this month — but the big Eureka lockdown freaked a lot of people out. It was prompted by a guy carrying a stupidly realistic BB gun into the greenbelt behind the school.

22. OBITUARY: Kenneth ‘Michael’ Davis, 1997-2023

Michael Davis, by all reports we’ve seen, was a good guy. He tried to help a friend experiencing severe mental health problems and wound up murdered.

21. Two Dead, Including a 16-Year-Old, After Vehicle With 15-Year-Old Driver Hits Embankment Near Willow Creek

Another fatal collision on 299. The teenage victim, William Price, was a student at Hoopa High, and he sounds like the kind of kid you’d want your kid to be friends with.

20. After 50 Years in Eureka, Humboldt County’s Last Denny’s Will Close May 31, Soon to be Replaced by an IHOP

Chain restaurant news is almost always a winner here among the LoCO faithful. Whether out of gluttony or rage, we seem always to want to keep a close eye on what’s coming and what is going.

But leave aside all talk of Little Caeser’s and Wingstop and Habit Burger. The closure of the Eureka Denny’s, a longtime fixture that many of our older readers remember from their days of goth makeup and clove cigarettes, hit a little harder.

On the other hand: IHOP. It took longer than expected, but the IHOP is now up and running in the same location. It’s not open 24 hours a day. Have you gone? Is IHOP a suitable replacement?

19. Sudden Closure of Redwood Harley-Davidson in Eureka Leaves Customers Surprised and Frustrated

Customers and employees alike were mystified at the sudden closure of Redwood Harley-Davidson, the big dealership off Eureka’s Sixth Street that serviced the not inconsiderable North Coast Harley community for two decades. Some were left with warranties that they’ll have to travel to Redding to take advantage of. People were looking for answers, and the Outpost’s Ryan Burns did his best, but the reason for the closure and especially the manner in which it was handled is still something of a mystery.

18. One Man Dead, Another Suffers Major Injuries After Car Plummets 200 Feet Off Embankment on Scenic Drive Near Trinidad

Horrifying.

17. ARCATA HOMICIDE: 36-Year-Old Fortuna Man Shot and Killed; APD Seeking Suspect

A transient man, Joshua Gephart, previously of Fortuna, was shot and killed in Valley West in the middle of the night on July 2. A suspect — Gregory Nelson Mattox of McKinleyville— was later identified and arrested in the Bald Hills area.

16. CITIZENS’ ARREST: Wabash Avenue Closed in Eureka After Reports of Gunfire; Motorist Flees and Crashes Into Parked Car

This post, you will remember, is the one that had the fun video of the citizens’ arrest performed on a guy who, after crashing into a parked vehicle and attempting to escape on foot, proceeded to have an even worse day than that.

I’d like to think he’s doing better now.

The gunshots were determined to be real, though they didn’t injure anyone, The hit-and-run incident, the aftermath of which is depicted above, occurred after the fellow in question drove by officers investigating the shooting, yelling at them. He was held on charges of driving under the influence.

15. Cal Poly Humboldt is Exploring the Idea of Housing Students on a Huge-Ass Barge in Humboldt Bay

The barge never came to be, not least because Cal Poly’s enrollment numbers were, uh, not so hot as had been anticipated … but man, this was a story.

This was a story! Funnest story of the year, probably. Calmatters reporter Alexei Koseff happened to be visiting LoCO around the time this story came out, and he asked us “So, what’s the news up here these days?” And we said: Oh ho ho, have we got a story for you! His eyes probably didn’t actually bug three inches out his head the way I want to remember them doing, but the Calmatters barge story did arrive tout de suite.

A lot of Cal Poly students said they didn’t care for the idea of living on a barge parked in the bay behind the Vista del Mar. Those students are insane. If I were still a student I would have traded my whole stash of bong resin for a chance to sling my hammock on the S.S. Dormroom!

Let’s bring the barge back in 2024.

14. OBITUARY: David Dahl, 1965-2022

David was widely mourned.

13. ‘We’re in Crisis Mode’: Collapsing Cannabis Industry Guts Garberville Businesses; Local Leaders Look to Tourism as a Saving Grace

Our Isabella Vanderheiden formerly worked at KMUD News just a couple of years ago, at a time when the Southern Humboldt economy was much more lively than it is now. This was her deep-dive return to Garberville, and our attempt to get our hands around the implications of the cannabis bust for the people of SoHum.

12. Bookkeeper May Have Embezzled Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars from Humboldt County Fair Association, GM Says

The fair apparently went off without a hitch yet again this year — well, one hitch, maybe (see below) — but behind the scenes there was a fair amount of chaos. This was the biggest part of it: The news that a former bookkeeper, Nina Tafarella, had allegedly squirreled away over $400,000 of the Fair Board’s funds using the names of fake employees on the books.

Tafarella was later indicted following an FBI investigation.

11. Smith River Complex Sparks More Evacuations; No Estimated Time For Reopening U.S. 199, Caltrans Says

There were some fires to watch in Humboldt County — the South Fork Complex down in the south, the Lone Pine fire near Hoopa,  a complex of blazes up near Orleans— but our neighbors to the north in Del Norte took the brunt of fire season this year. Highway 199 was closed down for weeks, and there were mandatory evacuations all along that vital corridor. Power was out in almost the whole county for five days, until Pacific Power was able to get portable generators in.

Our Jessica Andrews covered it all; this was just her most trafficked post.

10. The 2023 Kinetic Grand Championship!

The glory returneth!

Some sculptures won prizes; others, I suppose, didn’t. Our Andrew Goff gave Outpost readers a visual primer on the 42 teams that competed in this year’s enactment of the traditional Arcata-to-Ferndale Memorial Day art race, as he does. The photos are still there if you want to relive it.

9. ‘He is Going to Have to Deal With This the Rest of His Life’: Mother of Arcata Stabbing Victim Shares Status of Her Son’s Recovery

Our Stephanie McGeary chronicled how the family of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed outside the Arcata Theater Lounge were working their way, as best they can, to his recovery. It’s a story about post-traumatic stress, senseless violence and gaps in the criminal justice system, the brokenness of our healthcare system and the stress of being a parent in the 21st century.

8. Hundreds, Perhaps Thousands of Humboldt County Residents Won’t Have Their Power Restored for Another Two Weeks, According to an Estimate From PG&E

There were some bad winter storms this year, and they hit hardest along the semi-populated, tree-infested stretch of land north of Trinidad, much of which was knocked off the grid for more than a week. 

Small comfort to them, but this is the thing that extended Humboldt’s income tax deadline all the way until October 15.

7. Ground Has Been Broken on Klamath River Restoration, the World’s Largest-Ever Dam-Removal Project

Now we’re talking.

And by “now we’re talking,” I mean now we’re done talking.

Twenty-one years after the great Klamath Fish Kill, and after decades of meetings, negotiations, federal flip-flopping and so much more heartache, the Klamath hydropower dams, four of the principal causes of degraded conditions along that mighty river, started actually, physically coming down this year. The smallest of them, Copco #2, is gone — wiped off the face of the Earth. Copco #1, Iron Gate and J.C. Boyle are soon to follow.

6. Ferndale’s Foggy Bottoms Boys Say Local Business Owner Lobbed Anti-Gay Slurs at Their Employees, Destroyed Property During Chili Cook-Off at Humboldt County Fair

At minimum, a story about alcohol and the things that come out of some people’s mouths when they drink it.

5. Mendocino Law Enforcement Share Grisly Details of Discovery of Missing Eureka Woman’s Body; Son of Deceased in Custody

A Eureka woman who had been reported missing was found dead in a van after her son crashed that van on the outskirts of Willits. The body had apparently been hidden in the van; the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office had to get a search warrant to locate it there, a day after the crash.

Foul play is not suspected in the case, but the son, Root Birimisa, was taken into custody.

4. Three People Found Dead in McKinleyville Residence in Apparent Murder/Suicide; HCSO Investigating

It’s believed that one of the deceased — an 81-year-old man — shot the middle-aged couple before turning the gun on himself. The older man had been dating the younger man’s mother before she passed.

3. Eureka Woman Dies at Moonstone Beach One Day After Graduating From Nursing School

Just the saddest story. Twenty-five-year-old Martina Scarfia of Eureka was surfing at Moonstone with her sister when she suffered some sort of medical emergency. The Coast Guard attempted a rescue, but couldn’t get there in time.

Scarfia had just graduated from the College of the Redwoods nursing program

2. Security Footage Shows Physical Encounter Between Wildberries Manager and Teen Shoplifter

It’s pretty shocking, in this day and age, to see footage of a grown man physically — very physically — restraining an underage girl. That’s what this was: Internal security camera footage from Wildberries Marketplace, which showed store manager Aaron Gottschalk physically holding, throwing around and tackling a 16-year-old high school student who had shoplifted from the Arcata store.

In speaking with the Outpost’s Ryan Burns, the girl’s mother admitted that the girl had shoplifted, but maintained that this could scarcely justify the employee “putting hands” on her daughter to the degree that he did. But though there were calls around Arcata for a boycott of the popular supermarket, Gottschalk apparently acted within the law: The so-called “shopkeeper’s privilege” gives store employees latitude to physically detain suspected shoplifters, and the Arcata Police declined to investigate the matter further.

1. Earthquake! 5.4M Earthquake 15 Kilometers Southeast of Rio Dell

January 1st, 2023 — this wasn’t the craziest earthquake anyone ever felt, but we were all still on edge from the middle-of-the-night Dec. 20, 2022 rock-and-roller, which was, if you remember correctly, insane, and for many traumatic still to this day. When this one hit at around 10:30 a.m., you all rushed for your phones.

It all went downhill from there.

California workers will be guaranteed five paid sick days a year starting Jan. 1, up from the three days that employers are currently required to provide, thanks to Senate Bill 616.

The bill, authored by Long Beach Democratic Sen. Lena Gonzalez, also extends protections against retaliation to workers who are in a union, but excludes provisions that would have granted railroad employees access to unpaid sick leave.

It was a significant, but partial victory for proponents, including advocacy groups for families and women and dozens of unions. They originally sought seven days, but the final version was reduced in negotiations during the legislative process.

The California Work & Family Coalition hailed the law — one of several measures last session aimed at improving work-life balance — as “a commonsense change.”

But trade associations representing various industries such as the California Grocers Association and California Hotel & Lodging Association, as well as chamber of commerce groups throughout the state, argued that the law would hurt small businesses that have not recovered from the pandemic, are now dealing with inflation and can’t afford the additional cost of covering for sick workers.

The National Federation of Independent Business lists the new law among its top five “compliance headaches” for California’s small business owners in 2024, along with SB 848, which makes it unlawful for employers to refuse as many as five days of “reproductive loss leave” for miscarriages, failed adoptions and other events.

The state Chamber of Commerce had the sick leave law on its “job killer” list and recently issued guidance for employers to navigate the law’s complexities.

There’s no federal law that requires employers to give workers paid sick leave. California became the second state in the nation to adopt a paid sick leave policy in 2014, but now provides less time than 15 states and many of its own cities, including San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley.

Upon signing the bill on Oct. 4, Newsom said too many people were still having to choose between skipping a day’s pay and taking care of themselves or their family members when they get sick.

“We’re making it known that the health and wellbeing of workers and their families is of the utmost importance for California’s future,” he said in a statement.

This isn’t the first time a sick leave expansion has been introduced, but the COVID-19 pandemic amplified the need. In March 2021, a new law required larger employers to provide as many as 10 more days for quarantines or vaccine side effects. But that benefit went away, along with federal tax credits that paid for it, six months later.

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

Starting in the new year, California employers will be barred from asking workers about their use of cannabis outside of work, and from discriminating against them because of it.

Two bills signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in the past couple of years aim to strengthen the state’s legal cannabis industry by updating outdated laws. Assembly Bill 2188, which Newsom signed in 2022, will prohibit employers from using the results of hair or urine tests for marijuana — which can detect traces of cannabis for days or weeks — in their decisions to hire, fire or penalize workers.

When the governor signed AB 2188 along with other cannabis-related bills in 2022, he said in a press release that “rigid bureaucracy and federal prohibition continue to pose challenges to the industry and consumers.”

SB 700, which Newsom signed this year, clarifies AB 2188 by amending the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act to bar employers from asking job applicants about their prior use of cannabis.

California NORML, a nonprofit organization that advocates for consumer rights related to cannabis, sponsored AB 2188. In its argument supporting the bill, the organization said hair or urine testing for marijuana does not detect actual impairment, a fact the federal government has acknowledged. “Studies indicate that metabolite tests for past use of marijuana are useless in protecting job safety,” the group said.

The exceptions under the AB 2188 would be for workers in the building and construction industry and for job applicants and employees in positions that require a federal background investigation or clearance.

The National Federation of Independent Business lists the new laws among the top five “compliance headaches” for California’s small business owners in 2024. California Chamber of Commerce opposed AB 2188, though it removed its “job killer” label after some revisions, saying before the bill was signed that employers risk liability when they “take legitimate disciplinary measures” against employees. “Employers must be able to keep their workplace safe by disciplining employees who arrive at work impaired,” the group said.

But AB 2188 does not prevent employers from using other tests to detect impairment, such as blood tests.

SB 700 accounts for employers’ rights to ask about an applicant’s criminal history, but the employer may not discriminate against an applicant when it finds information about past use of cannabis related to criminal history unless otherwise permitted by law.

In 2016, California became the first state to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, and the state’s voters legalized its recreational use in 2016. Recreational use of marijuana is now legal in 24 states and Washington, D.C.

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

The COVID-19 pandemic took a brutal toll on Danielle Miele’s family, but after two exorbitant ambulance bills she’s afraid to call 911.

Her teenage son attempted suicide in 2022, Miele said. His mental health deteriorated during the pandemic, and he needed an ambulance transfer from the Roseville emergency room where Miele took him to a treatment center in San Mateo. The ambulance company hit Miele with a $9,000 out-of-network charge, which was sent to collections “almost immediately,” she said.

The virus also left Miele with seizures that mimic the symptoms of a heart attack, she said. Miele called 911 the first time a seizure happened. The 15-minute ride to the hospital cost $4,000 without help from insurance.

“The last time I had one of my seizures I basically said, ‘I’m going to die here at home…I’m not getting another ambulance,’” Miele said. “I’d maybe rather die at home than have more medical debt.”

A new California law taking effect Jan. 1 targets the kind of “surprise” ambulance bills that put Miele’s family in debt even though they had medical insurance. These bills take the form of out-of-network charges for commercially insured patients who have no control over which ambulance company responds to a call for help.

Under the new law, patients will only have to pay the equivalent of what they would have paid for an in-network service. Health insurance and ambulance companies will have to settle the bill directly even if they don’t have an existing contract.

Supporters of the new law argue it will make a big difference for thousands of families like Miele’s. The second time that Miele’s son needed an emergency psychiatric hold, the ambulance company that arrived was part of the family’s insurance network. Their co-pay: $83.

Ambulance companies did not oppose the legislation, which includes assurances that health insurance plans reimburse them for services.

Californians hit with millions in surprise bills

The California Association of Health Plans, which represents insurers, opposed the bill before it became law because of its potential to increase premiums by $67.3 million statewide. In contrast, people with commercial health insurance stand to save approximately $44.5 million in direct charges for ambulance rides, according to a legislative analysis.

Katie Van Dynze, a legislative advocate for Health Access California, said the law closes a longstanding gap in California’s consumer protections against surprise medical billing for those with commercial insurance. Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group, sponsored the new legislation.

“It’s the last remaining gap, but it’s a really big one,” Van Dynze said. “You could be insured but it doesn’t matter.”

Approximately 14 million Californians with state-regulated commercial health plans will benefit from the law’s protections. According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 73% of all ground ambulance transports in California resulted in an out-of-network charge in 2018 among people with large employer insurance. California also has the highest median surprise ambulance bill in the nation at $1,209, according to a study published last year by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

In a statement at the time of the law’s passage, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, the Democrat from Carlsbad who authored the measure, said people have no control over which ambulance company picks them up in a time of crisis.

“The last thing anyone should be thinking about when they call 911 is whether they can afford the ambulance ride,” Boerner said in her statement.

The law also protects uninsured people from receiving an expensive ambulance bill by limiting their out-of-pocket cost to the Medi-Cal or Medicare rate, whichever is greater. Medi-Cal is the state’s health insurance program for very low-income residents and already protects its enrollees from these types of bills.

About 6 million Californians enrolled in federally regulated health plans won’t be shielded by the law, but a national committee is working on a solution to the U.S. No Surprises Act, which protects Americans from many kinds of surprise bills, including air-ambulance transports, but doesn’t cover ground ambulance rides. Generally, those are Californians who work for large multi-state or multinational private companies with self-funded health plans. Californians can ask their employer what kind of health plan they offer.

$4,400 bill for newborn’s ambulance trip

Lainey Arebalo and her family are thankful that future emergencies will be covered in California. Her health insurance company doesn’t contract with any ambulance companies in San Luis Obispo County where they live, leaving them with no choice but to pay out of pocket.

In September, minutes after Arebalo gave birth to her son Brady, doctors made the decision to transfer him to a larger hospital about 20 miles away. Brady wasn’t breathing properly and needed to be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit. The ambulance came and whisked him away.

Over the next month letters started arriving from the ambulance company: Arebalo owed $4,400 for the transfer, she said.

“Here I am, you know, less than two months after giving birth being told I would be sent to collections,” Arebalo said.

Brady Arebalo playing in his grandparents living room in Templeton on Dec. 19, 2023. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Insurance covered nearly all of Brady’s five-day hospital stay, which totaled $109,000, Arebalo said, but wouldn’t pay for the out-of-network ambulance ride. Eventually, insurance paid about a third of the bill after Arebalo filed a grievance, but the remaining unexpected expense still cut into the family’s finances. She ended her maternity leave early to return to work as a special education teacher in order to help pay the bills. She’s on a payment plan of $200 per month.

“It was definitely a surprise bill, and one that I’m still paying,” Arebalo said.

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Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

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

Paul Raymond Gierek joined his parents, Michael and Gertrude Gierek, as well as his brother Michael Gierek, and sisters Helen Scuri and Mary Hoffman, on 21 December, 2023. He is survived by one brother, John Gierek, Sr.

Paul was born on April 2nd, 1936. He lived his entire life in his Elk River family home. He attended Nazareth Academy as a child, and graduated from Eureka High School. He then graduated from Humboldt State College with both Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees. He immediately began teaching, the profession he loved. He retired later as Superintendent of South Bay Union School District.

He loved to travel, especially with his older sister Helen. In later years, the traveling centered on Reno and Las Vegas for the “monetary” opportunities as well as watching the bull riding at the National Finals Rodeo. Paul loved the ranch way of living.

He was an avid reader of history, especially scholarly work centered on the United States and the American West. He was a baseball fanatic - especially concerning himself with all things Los Angeles Dodgers.

He was never married, but befriended everyone he had the opportunity to meet. No one was a stranger, and he loved talking with them regularly up until the end of his life. Amazingly, he still corresponded with past students and those he met during his travels.

Paul was a devoted Catholic, and loved the Christmas season. In fact, he would decorate beginning in August, and maintain the season well into spring. He was adamant to be up and around to celebrate this season. It is fitting, I suppose, that his end happened when he realized he physically couldn’t do it.

His surviving family love and miss him.

The family wishes to thank Frye’s Care Home, Hospice of Humboldt, and Redwood Memorial Hospital. Especially, though, a big thank you to Tom and Pennie Gierek, who worked tirelessly on his behalf for years.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, January 2 at St. Bernard Church.