Who is the flesh-and-blood landlord with a city-spanning portfolio of apartments concealed behind an obscurely-named limited liability company? Who is the proprietor of a local restaurant, hotel or regional car wash chain shrouded beneath a corporate veil?

Who actually owns what in California?

For three years a coalition of anti-eviction advocates, unions, legal aid organizations, affordable housing boosters, workers rights groups and pro-transparency activists have been demanding that the state make it easier to answer those questions.

And for three years, those efforts have failed in the Legislature.

Supporters of this year’s version, Senate Bill 1201 authored by Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, now worry that their fourth effort will soon meet a similar fate.

Businesses operating in California must regularly submit documents with the Secretary of State that list the company’s name and address, along with those of its top managers and anyone responsible for receiving legal filings on the company’s behalf. That information is publicly available on the Secretary of State’s website.

Durazo’s bill would add an additional disclosure requirement: The names and home or business addresses of “beneficial owners” — defined as anyone who “exercises substantial control” or owns at least 25% of a company.

As Durazo explained at a recent Senate committee hearing, the bill is “simply adding one line on the forms that anybody fills out…It’s not asking for any more.”

Yet last week the Senate Appropriations Committee, tasked with putting a fiscal price tag on pending legislation, said implementing the bill would cost the state $9.3 million in its first year and nearly $3 million every year after that. The majority of those ongoing expenses would go toward paying the estimated 24 state employees that Secretary of State analysts say are needed to make the bill work. That would represent roughly 10% of the agency’s workforce that now processes business filings.

Though $9 million is couch cushion change by California budgetary standards, the bill’s supporters say they are mystified by the number. For a 2020 bill requiring the Secretary of State to add a different question to the same form, the fiscal estimate was a mere $561,000 in the first year and $79,000 thereafter.

“This is an example of a good governance bill that will fail because of bad governance,” said Jyotswaroop Bawa with the progressive nonprofit Rise Economy, which is sponsoring the bill. “By not collecting beneficial owner information, the Secretary of State’s office is allowing chaos to continue with impunity.”

Bawa and other supporters of the bill say publishing ownership information will make it easier for tenants, workers and regulators to track down scofflaw landlords and other business owners.

Opponents of the bill, which include state and local landlord groups, the California Association of Realtors and the California Chamber of Commerce, argue that it is already easy enough to contact a business and that disclosing the identities of individual owners would violate their privacy and enable harassment.

The Secretary of State’s office refused to break down sky-high estimate

Once a bill receives a big cost estimate, it’s put in a list known in California legislativese as the “suspense file.” Then, in marathon sessions held twice a year, the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees rapidly tick through every bill on that list, passing some along and killing others without debate or a public vote. The first legislative culling of the year is set for mid-May.

With its seven-digit cost estimate, Bawa said she worries SB 1201 will be the latest victim of “death by price tag,” especially when the state is facing a multibillion dollar deficit. And it wouldn’t be the first time this idea has died a quiet procedural death.

In 2021, a bill that would have required companies to unveil their human owners when filing business records with the state didn’t get a hearing. A revived attempt the next year failed in the Senate after a majority on a key committee declined to cast a vote “yes” or “no,” but simply abstained. Last year, a third try succumbed to the suspense file after the bill was dinged with a $9 million cost estimate from the Secretary of State’s office.

In coming up with this year’s figure, the Senate committee’s fiscal analysis said it got the estimates from the Secretary of State. Itemized totals include $3 million in “IT project costs” and more than $2 million in “mailing costs.”

The Secretary of State’s office refused to answer specific questions from CalMatters about the bill’s cost estimate, but instead responded by email with an unsigned statement.

“The Office of the Secretary of State continues to be involved in deliberations and ongoing discussions with legislative staff related to SB 1201. In furtherance of this process, we must respectfully decline to publicly comment on the substantive or fiscal issues associated with the bill at this early point in the legislative process,” the statement said.

While the office “did not provide context” for its fiscal breakdown, the committee analysis says, the Secretary of State expressed more detailed concerns over last year’s version of the bill. Back then the office warned that investigating and verifying the ownership information through a modified form would be costly.

The bill, as currently written, does not require the Secretary of State to perform that due diligence, which led an earlier Senate committee to raise concerns about the bill’s effectiveness.

‘We could do it for $200’

Corporations and limited liability companies exist in part to ensure that investors in a company aren’t held directly legally responsible for the things that that company does or doesn’t do. If a company maintains unsafe conditions at a rental property, a tenant can sue the company itself, seeking damages from the corporate treasury, but not from the business owner’s personal checking account.

Publicizing an owner’s name and address, then, doesn’t serve an obvious legal purpose, said Debra Carlton, a spokesperson for the California Apartment Association. Landlords can always be reached through the property management companies they employ. Lawsuits can always be served to a company’s listed representative.

“The point of the corporate veil is that you go after the corporation’s assets” in a lawsuit, said Carlton, but it doesn’t prevent landlords from getting sued. “You see lawsuits every day being brought against the industry.”

Matthew Silver, a lawyer who represents cities and counties in substandard housing cases, agreed that Durazo’s bill isn’t likely to make his work easier going after negligent landlords. It’s often quicker to serve court papers to a corporation or LLC than “an individual slumlord” who doesn’t have a paper trail or web presence, he said.

“There’s a path that leads you from the corporate name to the people who actually own it, ultimately, and we will find them and hold them responsible,” he said.

But there are times when it’s crucial to to track down a human business owner quickly, long before matters end up at court, said Larry Brooks, who runs the residential lead prevention program for Alameda County.

He remembers a case in 2022 when twin toddlers were found living in an old apartment with flaking paint. Lead levels in their blood were so high the children were immediately hospitalized. The twins’ parents, undocumented immigrants, initially refused to put Brooks and his team in touch with the building’s property management company, fearing eviction or deportation, he said.

So Brooks began hunting on his own. He turned first to the county assessor’s office to find the property owner’s name, then plugged that name into the Secretary of State’s database. The corporate documents there only listed a street address. Brooks struggled to connect that address with a phone number or email address.

Finally, a county nurse persuaded the twins’ mother to share the phone number of a Sacramento-based property management company. That company put Brooks in touch with the owner, a corporation in Texas, he said. The entire process took two weeks.

“I wish that there were some state or federal law that required every corporate landlord to have a local contact,” said Brooks, who has also advised Human Impact Partners, a public health nonprofit that supports Durazo’s bill. “In a situation like with the twins, where the blood lead levels were so high they were life threatening and the kids had to be rushed to the hospital, you want to be able to call somebody immediately.”

Brooks said he couldn’t share additional information about the children or the landlord citing medical privacy laws and pending litigation. CalMatters was unable to independently verify the details of the story.

Making it easier to find the name and address of a business owner would provide a treasure trove of data for tenant rights organizations, housing researchers and investigative reporters.

But it would also be a boon for would-be harassers and activists, said Carlton. “I can’t figure out what their true purpose is,” she said of the bill’s sponsors. “They want to shame people publicly, maybe.”

But Carlton was also puzzled by the $9 million cost estimate: “I almost felt like saying, ‘We could do it,’” she said. “We could do it for $200.”

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

Press release from the California Highway Patrol:

On May 4, 2024, at approximately 2:45 am, Humboldt Communications Center (CHP Dispatch) received a 9-1-1 call of a pedestrian lying down in the lanes of northbound US 101, near Piercy, CA. The California Highway Patrol’s Garberville Area officers responded to the scene. Upon their arrival, officers located a pedestrian who had been struck by a vehicle. The pedestrian was pronounced deceased at the scene and the involved vehicle(s) did not stop or call 9-1-1 to report the incident.

Dakota Stafslien. Photo submitted by family.

The decedent, Dakota Stafslien, 28-years-old, resided in the Garberville/Redway area. The California Highway Patrol’s Garberville Area is investigating the incident. The investigators are requesting assistance from the public. If you know anything regarding the involved vehicle(s) or person(s) who may have been involved, we are asking you to contact the California Highway Patrol, Garberville Area, at (707) 932-6100 during normal business hours (Monday - Friday 8am – 5pm) or Humboldt Communications Center (707) 268-2000 outside of normal business hours.

[CORRECTION: This post initially misstated the sex of the deceased. We regret the error.]

“I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law.”

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

These last couple weeks have been full of emotion for our little town of Arcata and our small Humboldt County. Emotions are high. Opinions are loud. Anger and rage run through our bodies like the winter Trinity River—fast, dangerous, loud, and frothy.

Since October 7th, we’ve had an onslaught of news and media projecting horrific images across our screens—hostages taken, slaughtered bodies lying near escaping vehicles, homes and concrete buildings demolished, children with missing limbs and life slumped against busted walls, hospitals bombed and people displaced and starved and dying. Trauma isn’t a word big enough to encapsulate what we’ve seen, much less knowing our country is supplying the ammunition—our tax dollars funding death.

What do we do with this? How should we respond? Prayer, posts, pennies, protests…

I wrote about protests when George Floyd was murdered. Folx were angry and frustrated at how protestors behaved. Why can’t they do it peacefully? they asked. Why do they need to loot or riot? they wondered. Why can’t they ask nicely? they pondered.

A parable: A teenager had his own room in his parent’s house. He was responsible for the state of his room, but rarely took care of it because he didn’t mind the mess. It didn’t bother him. His parents would ask him to clean it up because the smells were starting to seep through the door. He said it was fine with him and they shouldn’t worry. It’s his room. They told him nicely. They reminded him kindly. He brought more food in, plates stacked with rotten, moldy garbage. He began turning his underwear inside out instead of washing anything. He sat on a pile of wrappers, clothing, empty cans of sticky soda while playing his Xbox, oblivious that the smells became toxic. They nudged him and handed garbage bags and asked if they could at least remove the old dishes. He slammed the door and cursed their request. They had enough. They marched into the room, grabbed the Xbox, went to the open hallway window, and threw it out. As it smashed into a thousand pieces, they wondered if their reaction might have been too much. But maybe now their teenager might listen, might change, might see how serious his behavior, or lack of behavior, affects people other than himself. Maybe now he’ll listen and respond.

Oh, I know this parable doesn’t perfectly represent what’s going on with students across our country, but they’ve posted and prayed and given and now they needed to protest. They couldn’t help it. It grew from the depths of their being. Listen to their hearts for a moment, and you’ll hear a longing for justice, a longing for things to be made right, a longing for death to cease and peace to prevail. (I recognize there are also violent words spewed towards perceived enemies in some hearts as well).

Listen.

This is a word I am stuck on.

We rarely listen to each other, do we? We come with assumptions and accusations like bricks in our hands, building walls between each other. 

What would you hear if you approached the other person with curiosity and willingness to listen? To understand?

You might hear the student stuck on campus, imprisoned in their dorm and needing a police escort to move around. You might hear about needing to get into specific buildings to access their important research, hoping disrupted time between checks didn’t destroy months of experiments. You might listen to their deep sadness and frustration because they didn’t get a graduation ceremony from high school, they didn’t get to move freely on campus their first year of college, and now they might not get a graduation ceremony again. 

You might hear the campus electrician, maintenance worker, groundskeeper, plumber who feels betrayed by the protestors who left an enormous mess behind. You might listen and hear about their long days, their stressed feelings, their bodies on high alert as they carefully moved around their blockaded campus. You might listen to both their relief that no one was hurt and their irritation of having to cleanup the mess. 

You might hear the faculty who are scrambling to help students finish out their semester, searching for spaces to meet—garages, coffee shops, churches, Zoom, and living rooms. You might listen to their anguish over these complexities with supporting protesting efforts, caring for other uninvolved students, modifying finals, seeking peace, devastated from Palestinian death, demanding the return of hostages, making dinner for their family, showing up at the ballet recital for their daughter, going through a divorce, and still having to walk the administration’s line despite a seemingly uninvolved president. 

I wonder what we might hear if we approached each other with compassion and curiosity—if we began to listen. 

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” 

Peacemakers aren’t there to keep the peace by towing the line and avoiding conflict. They place themselves between the conflict, using their bodies and words as healing balms of truth. They go to the center of unrest, where the battle seethes and enemies spew prideful hate towards each other, and model another way forward—“hands up, don’t shoot,” they say. Peacemakers bravely root themselves in the chaotic fray until someone stops and settles down long enough to listen.

Brian McLaren writes in We Make the Road By Walking, “Since the beginning, Jesus has taught that the nonviolent will inherit the Earth. Violence cannot defeat violence. Hate cannot defeat hate. Fear cannot defeat fear. Domination cannot defeat domination. God’s way is different. God must achieve victory through defeat, glory through shame, strength through weakness, leadership through servanthood, and life through death… In God’s name Jesus will undergo violence, and in doing so, he will overcome it.”

You might read these words and believe I’m not speaking strongly enough against Hamas, or Israel, or the students, or the administration, or President Biden, or the massive killing of innocent Palestinian people. I know I’m not. But I would love to listen and hear your heart and work for a new way forward. I believe it’s possible. I hope it’s possible. Maybe it starts this way: find someone who thinks differently from you, get a cup of coffee and listen.

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Bethany Cseh is a pastor at Arcata United Methodist Church and Catalyst Church. 

Last week, I was back in jail. For years — decades! — I was a regular member of a small group of guys who facilitated weekly silent meditation sessions at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility. I wrote about it here. Awhile back, I became an emeritus member, so to speak, to be called upon at the last minute when one of the remaining four regulars was unable to make it. Last week was one of those times. Out of nine “brothers” who had signed up, just four attended, three of whom had never meditated previously. Which got me thinking about an article I’d written long ago about my take on meditation and how, in my mind, a book title from the 1990s by Zen master Seung Sahn sums it up: Only Don’t Know.

F.W.I.W. here’s my article:

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My instructions to first-time meditators are becoming more and more minimalist. These days, it’s something like, “Sit quietly and notice what’s going on.” It used to take longer — when I was a meditation instructor at a Zen community in Mountain View, I would spend 30-40 minutes telling newbies how to sit, how to breathe, how to bow — not to mention how to enter and leave the zendo, how to ask a question, and (talk about setting them up!) what to expect.

Part of my “quickie” approach these days is dictated by logistics. At the jail where three of us local “zennies” take turns leading a men’s meditation program, we are almost always with inmates who have never meditated before, and we have limited time. I want to give them a taste right now of the essence of meditation. And when I’m leading our local weekly evening meditation group, new folks always seem to walk in as I’m about to ring the bell, so it’s a quick “Welcome … shoes off, please … chair or cushion? … so OK, why don’t you just sit and notice what’s going on for the next 30 minutes … thank you.”

That’s it? What about eyes open? 45-degree head tilt? Cosmic mudra, thumbs just barely touching? Spine as straight as the proverbial tower of gold coins? Tongue on roof of mouth? Breath awareness? Counting? Attention on the hara? Letting thoughts through without stopping for a chat?

All this is fine to experiment with once someone’s made the decision to practice, but for first-timers? I prefer giving them a big field to play in by following my core belief about meditation, that there’s no way to do it wrong — as opposed to just about everything else in my life! There’s often this underlying editorial commentary, along the lines of “Hey, good job, Barry … uh-oh, you really screwed up there … man, you’re doing well … oh god, the day’s gone and I’ve done nothing!” Meditation, on the other hand, comes and goes, the antidote to goal-oriented existence: I meditate because I meditate, and for the most part, I don’t try to improve it or tinker with it. It is what it is.

My problem with detailed meditation instructions is that by their very nature, instructions imply there are good ways and bad ways to do something. They say, This is what you should be doing, this is right, this is wrong. Instructions set up goals, just like in “real” life.

I wonder if this is why so many people try meditation once and quit, feeling they’ve somehow failed? At my old community, we estimated that out of five or six people who came the first time to the instruction session (followed by a sit), we saw just one of those folks again. For the vast majority, that one time was enough. How many times have I heard something like “Yeah, I tried meditation once, but it didn’t work for me … I just couldn’t do it right … My mind wouldn’t calm down”?

If a newcomer does have questions or concerns, I encourage them to try it first and to ask their questions after. Someone sitting for the first time can learn more about meditation in thirty real-time minutes than any amount of instruction can teach them.

Because meditation isn’t about following a set of directions down a mental highway: it’s an off-road adventure.

PREVIOUSLY: Director of the ACLU of Northern California Issues Statement on Campus Protests, Urges CPH Admin to Refrain from Involving Law Enforcement

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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California and the First Amendment Coalition today sent a letter to Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson expressing concern about the university’s decision to impose a campus-wide closure in response to the recent pro-Palestine demonstration.

The letter – written by ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Chessie Thatcher and First Amendment Coalition Legal Director David Loy – questions the constitutionality of the ongoing “hard closure” and asserts that the university has an obligation to “maintain spaces on its campus that constitute a designated public forum,” such as the UC Quad.

“We believe that the university’s policy limiting public access — and especially press access — is constitutionally suspect,” the letter states. “We recognize that this closure has been asserted in response to the recent civil unrest and involvement of law enforcement at Cal Poly Humboldt, but it is precisely in these moments that reporting by a free press is essential. We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to lift this campus-wide closure.”

The letter notes that the ongoing campus closure “does not appear to fall within its Campus Closure Policy,” which only applies when “an emergency or unplanned event occurs that threatens the safety of persons or property.”

“Whatever may have happened previously, it is difficult to see how any such emergency currently exists that could justify the complete closure of the entire campus, including its designated public forum spaces,” the letter continues. “That clean-up work might be more expedient without observation does not provide a basis to exclude observers. And the university is ‘not free to foreclose expressive activity in public areas on mere speculation about danger.’”

The letter also calls out the university’s “severe restrictions” on press access to campus. The new rules, imposed earlier this week, require members of the media to email in advance their “press credentials” or “authorization from your news outlet” to gain access to campus.

“California law does not require that a reporter be on assignment from a particular news organization to gain press access,” the letter states. “Nor does the law necessarily require reporters to provide identification or contact information for themselves or others.”

Read the letter in full here.

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California’s system of awarding water rights is anachronistic and out of touch with modern needs. Yet, we are still bound by it. The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District is navigating these challenges. The District once provided a lot of water to the pulp mills of Humboldt Bay. When these shuttered, the District faced a challenge: without putting that water to “beneficial use,” the District could lose its water right. (And in the worst case scenario, some big water user could put their straw into our river and slurp that water away, like is done in the Trinity and Eel Rivers.)

Now the District is proposing a new in-stream flow dedication to protect that water right. District Board Director Michelle Fuller joins the show to discuss the process to dedicate an in-stream flow right.

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The meeting of the grids. In red: The “Waterfront” grid. In blue: The newer, or “North-South” grid.

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One of the first things I noticed about Eureka when I moved to Humboldt County in 1979 was that my sense of direction, usually good, experienced problems when I visited. The part of town that was letters and numbers was okay: When I drove into town on 101 from my home in Westhaven, the first light was W, and the alphabet went backwards as I passed through. 101 was Fourth Street (or was it Fifth?) The lowest-numbered streets were to my right, in Old Town, and they got bigger as you headed away from the bay. So far, so good.

After that, things became less organized. For example, the numbered streets stopped before even reaching 20. After that, one entered a funhouse of alternative geography: Del Norte Street was followed by Sonoma Street, which was followed by Humboldt Street … And then there were the boulevards. Why did so many of them sound the same? Was Harris the one that went by General Hospital? No, that’s Harrison. Harris is the one you can use to bypass downtown if you come the back way from Bayside, and don’t miss the turns, and know it becomes one-way so you have to turn down “I” Street, also one-way. Then prepare to merge left so you can turn onto Henderson, which will take you to 101 … which is now called Broadway. Going home, you can take Henderson, too, but only for a block to the top of the hill. Oops! You wanted Harris!

But that’s all part of the fun of learning a new place – most towns have their tricky bits. As the years passed, I learned my way around — even knew to call Buhne “BOON-er” Street. But I still noticed some intriguing oddities: Why is there that jog in H and I when you pass through town? Why does the alphabet on some cross streets go A, B, C, Lowell, William, D, E? And is it “William,” or “Williams”? The street signs literally go back and forth almost every intersection …

To solve a mystery, start with what intrigues you, and begin looking for clues. With matters of geography, my favorite sources are maps, so I started with the earliest maps I could find. As Eureka was settled from the water, it made sense that its earliest maps were actually charts. The one above, from 1858, shows the town at its beginning — a row of blocks facing the Bay radiating off 2nd Street, which connects to the trail heading south to Bucksport and beyond. The streets perpendicular to 2nd, today’s E, F, G, H, and I, have already initiated the grid that will dominate Eureka — 60-foot streets dividing 240-foot-square blocks. Most importantly, it shows 2nd Street aligned to run parallel to the Bayfront, which here has a bearing 10 degrees south of due West. Therefore, the perpendicular alphabet streets are oriented 10 degrees east of due south.

This orderly grid of right-angled streets — oriented to a shoreline running 10 degrees “off-plumb” —  became the framework of Eureka’s early development. An 1870 map (below) shows dwellings scattered along its thoroughfares as far south as the future intersections of 13th and J and 11th and E Streets. Old Town’s blocks are solid with businesses, and houses stretch eastward along 3rd and 4th Streets all the way to Myrtle Avenue.

But the 1870 map also shows the first sign of a different plan. On the southwest edge of town, surrounded by trees on 3 sides, is a tiny grid, centered at what will become Washington and B Streets. This is the first developed portion of “Clark’s Addition,” platted in 1866 by Eureka landowner Jonathan Clark. Though he kept the city’s template of 60-foot streets and 240-foot-square blocks, Clark made one crucial change — he tilted the axis of his grid 10 degrees west, bringing it into alignment with the cardinal points of the compass. By the time Jonathan and his son William finished subdividing the Clark acreage, over 150 new blocks had been added to Eureka — all with a true North-South-East-West orientation.

After 1870 the original Bayfront Grid grew a bit further south and east, but by 1900, the compass had won — the original pattern was entirely surrounded by tracts oriented to True North. And so it has remained to the present day. Wabash Avenue marks the original grid’s southern frontier from C to its end at H, with its invisible presence continuing east, creating the mid-block jogs in both I and J Streets at that point where Wabash would cross them if it ran that far. At K Street, 15th becomes the boundary, except for a small part of the “Weeks Addition” east of Cooper Gulch, where the tract line runs through the blocks between 15th and 16th before ending at West.

But where the Bayfront and True North grids have their most interesting interaction is in the part of town I call “The Wedge.”

“The Wedge.”

At 8th Street, C and D Streets are separated by a standard Eureka 240-foot-square block. But as C begins its Clark-ordained 180-degree-due-south trajectory, it immediately begins diverging from D, its old-school-10-degrees-east-of-south neighbor. A half-mile later at Wabash, the two streets are more than 700 feet apart. This creates room for an extra 2-and-then-some blocks of grid — as well as the need for two new streets to divide them. So the special “Eureka alphabet” is created — sing along, now! “A, B, C, Lowell, William, D … E, F, G … ”

The Wedge is also home to the town’s most interesting street-and-alley configurations, bred by its odd shape and having been platted by several different owners. Its housing stock reflects the full range of Eureka’s diversity, with particular strength in the late Victorian and early Craftsman eras. While Hillsdale Street may be its most renowned thoroughfare, the entire neighborhood and the blocks surrounding it are filled with “gifts to the street” both architectural and horticultural. As a final treat for the historically minded, it’s also an area rich in curb stamps, showing both original street names and creative interpretations of familiar favorites. 

And now to our final mystery: Is it William or Williams? All the old maps agree on “William,” as does Google Maps and Eureka’s GIS, but “the word on the street” is literally split down the middle — of the eighteen street signs within the city limits, there are nine with each spelling.

And the winner is … “William!” Local historian Bob Libershal cites Blue Lake archivist Susie Baker Fountain as reporting that the street was named for Jonathan Clark’s son (or brother) William.

But those “Old Ways” officially end at the city limits. The appropriately variate end to our story lies a half-mile or so south of there. In the unincorporated community of Rosewood, a two-block stretch of The Street with Two Names is consistently signed and Officially Known by the County of Humboldt as … Williams.

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The story above was originally printed in the Fall 2020 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.