Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On April 12, 2023, at about 11:08 a.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Team was dispatched to Centerville Beach for the report of a suspected military ordnance found by beachgoers.
According to the reporting party, a group of beachgoers were utilizing metal detectors at the beach when they found the ordnance buried in the sand. Upon realizing the potential of this object being a live explosive, the group immediately contacted law enforcement.
EOD deputies arrived at the beach and inspected the object. It was determined to be a live antique military-grade artillery round. Deputies rendered the ordnance safe, and no one was injured.
There is no perceived elevated threat to the community. Antique military ordnances are commonly found in Humboldt County due to heavy civil defense/military activity in the area during the early 20th century. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office would like to remind the community that if you see something suspicious or out of place in your neighborhood, do not touch or move it, but contact your local law enforcement.
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On April 11, 2023, at about 1:04 a.m., a Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputy on patrol in the county’s jurisdiction of Eureka conducted a traffic stop for a vehicle code violation in the area of McCullen Avenue and Iowa Street.
Deputies contacted two women inside the vehicle. The driver was identified as 34-year-old Katherine Erin Carlson and the passenger, 48-year-old Sara Marie Carnemolla. Carlson was found to have two outstanding felony warrants for her arrest and was on parole. During a search of Carlson, Carnemolla and the vehicle, deputies located drug paraphernalia and items consistent with the sale of controlled substances. During their investigation, deputies learned that both women were in possession of controlled substances hidden on their bodies.
Carlson and Carnemolla were transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility and searched. During a search of Carlson, correctional deputies located over 54 grams of suspected fentanyl. During a search of Carnemolla, correctional deputies located over 44 grams of suspected fentanyl and over 20 grams of methamphetamine.
Carlson was booked into the Correctional Facility on charges of possession of a controlled substance (HS 11351), transportation/sale of a controlled substance (HS 11352(A)) and violation of probation (PC 1203.2(a)(2)), in addition to warrant charges of violation of probation and parole revocation (PC 3000.08(f)).
Carnemolla was booked into the Correctional Facility on charges of possession of a narcotic controlled substance (HS 11364) and possession of a controlled substance paraphernalia (HS 11364).
Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On April 11, 2023, at about 11:45 p.m., a Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputy on patrol in the Hoopa area conducted a traffic stop for a vehicle code violation in the area of Highway 96 and Pine Creek Road.
Deputies contacted two men inside the vehicle. The passenger, 26-year-old Stephen Ray Noble, was found to have outstanding felony warrants for his arrest. During a search of Noble and the vehicle incident to his arrest, deputies located approximately 33.5 grams of Methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and items consistent with the sale of controlled substances.
Noble was arrested and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of possession of a controlled substance for sales (HS 11351), possession of a controlled substance (HS 11378), possession of drug paraphernalia (HS 11364(a)) and violation of mandatory supervision, in addition to warrant charges of Post Release Community Supervision Revocation (PC 3455(a)).
The driver of the vehicle was released at the scene.
Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.
We can talk freely, here, amongst ourselves — flying out of ACV can be a hassle, sometimes.
Most of the time, of course, everything goes exactly according to plan and having a local airport is a wonderful convenience. One-way flights to Burbank for under $100? Fantastic. Your employer’s footing the bill to get you to some conference in middle America? They’re not going to balk at the extra cost.
But once in a while, you spin the barrel and it lands on that sixth chamber. Flights delayed. Flights canceled. You’re camping out at SFO for days on end, desperately dreaming of delivery.
Cody Roggatz, Humboldt County’s Director of Aviation, joins us for a Conversation today to talk about what the county’s doing to try to fix all that, or at least to make it less likely. The airport’s going to get major upgrades this summer — so major that it’s going to shut down all flights for about two weeks in August — with the goal of modernizing the infrastructure somewhat. Roggatz is here to tell us what they’re hoping to accomplish.
Video above, transcript below.
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JOHN KENNEDY O’CONNOR:
Welcome to another Humboldt Conversation. I’m here today with Cody Roggatz. Did I get that right?
CODY ROGGATZ:
You got it.
O’CONNOR:
Who is the Director of Aviation with the Humboldt Airport. Or what is the actual official title? Because everyone has a different name for it.
ROGGATZ:
Yeah, for the airport itself, it’s the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport. I just say ACV, to keep it simple.
O’CONNOR:
There’s quite a few changes coming up. A lot of changes to the runway, electrical improvements, etc. that are going to be happening this fall, which is going to have a very big impact on the airport, because the airport itself is going to have to close.
ROGGATZ:
Yes, yes.
O’CONNOR:
So what is the situation?
ROGGATZ:
So, for the first time in about 25 to 30 years, we are doing a major overlay of our primary runway. Unfortunately, our primary runway here at ACV is the only runway that airlines can use at any of our six airports. It’s the only one long enough for them to safely take off and land. But what we’re gonna be doing starting in June is phase one of an electrical upgrade, and that’ll be replacing infrastructure that dates back, some of it’s all the way back to the 1950s actually. So, long overdue for replacement.
We’re super excited to be receiving the federal funds to be able to do this. It’s about a $20.2 million project. When we’re done with phase one of that electrical, that’ll roll into pavement. So we’ll mill two inches off of the runway surface, add six inches to that infrastructure. And then on the third phase, so that second phase is August 14th through the 25th, so 12 day closure. And then on the backside through about mid-December, we’ll be finishing up the electrical and bringing those new lights up to be flush with that new surface. So they’re actually four phases.
O’CONNOR:
One, three and four will not impact the closure of the airport. It’s only phase two.
ROGGATZ:
It’s one, two, and three, and all three will. So two is the main impact. That’ll be 12 full days of closure of the entire airport. We’re hoping we don’t have to do anything like this for about another 20 years. So it’s a short-term sacrifice for the long-term benefit so that we can keep that runway open in the long-term and keep it structurally sound for the bigger aircraft that we have coming and going. The electrical on phase one and three will not have impacts to the airlines, but we worked very closely with them to compress that phase two paving timeframe. But also on phase one and three, we’ll be doing overnight closures, so outside of their normal operating windows. So it’ll only be overnight when we typically don’t have airline flights anyways.
O’CONNOR:
Now is there any contingency possible for that closure period? I mean, will the flights operate from other local airports? Will there be transportation to those airports? Or it really is just a closure?
ROGGATZ:
It really is just a closure. We’re continuing to meet with the airlines. We’ve been meeting with them for over six months discussing this now, and they’ve been a part of planning for this. And one thing we’ve asked them to do is monitor the bookings that they have prior to the closure and if they have the capability to add some additional flights on those days leading into that 12-day closure to address those folks that won’t be able to fly during those 12 days.
O’CONNOR:
Now we recently ran a survey on Lost Coast Outpost and it was very interesting. The majority of people said they actually still would prefer to travel out of Medford or San Francisco and do that commute because they’re frustrated by the airport. I mean how do you react to hearing something like that? It’s very negative.
ROGGATZ:
It is, and I think it’s, for a lot of folks, it’s been decades for some people where they’ve been frustrated. This is a big piece, is replacing this electrical infrastructure and the runway pavement itself. But we’re also working on another project on the planning side and evaluating if we would be eligible to upgrade our approach system here, which is what folks talk about typically is our fog. And if you look back at the history of this airport, it was put here to train pilots in foggy conditions because it’s so prevalent.
Now, if you look at the statistics, too, a lot of our delays and cancellations are actually credited to issues with San Francisco and that airport being so congested. But nonetheless, we’re making an effort on the home front here to try to ensure that we have the best systems possible moving forward.
O’CONNOR:
Because we spoke to a reporter, she was actually up here, it took her three … she lives here, it took her three days to get home. And in fact she was in the air, but they had to turn back. And that is very bad.
ROGGATZ:
It is very frustrating and we’re trying to do the best we can and get the latest technology if we’re eligible for that. But we’re in that exploratory phase right now, we’re just kicking that project off. I’ve been here for four and a half years and the records that I’ve dug through, I haven’t seen any evidence of this being explored before. So we’re trying to get the best we possibly can that’s available in the industry.
O’CONNOR:
And will there be more flights added once the runway is in better shape? Because we lost the American flight to Phoenix, that’s gone. And others have also reduced service, etc. So will airlines be coming in rather than out?
ROGGATZ:
Yeah, so we actually added a whole bunch of service last year — well, now a year and a half ago, in 2021. We did lose some of that last year in 2022, but we have retained the majority of that capacity. The Burbank service with Avelo has been wildly successful and very popular with the local community. We’re very thankful for the community supporting that.
Unfortunately, the Phoenix one in particular that you mentioned was load factor-wise, or seats filled versus those available, was very successful, but the industry as a whole, not just American on the regional level, which was who is providing that service, is really struggling with pilot capacity. There’s a nationwide pilot shortage that there’s a lot of headlines daily about that situation, and many small communities like Humboldt or like the ACV airport have been negatively impacted a lot worse than we have.
So while we don’t want to ever see anybody leave, and it was unfortunate to see American go because that was a great service directly to Phoenix and the large hub that they have there, providing connections in and out of the Phoenix region, we are still meeting with airlines. In fact, that’s why you and I aren’t sitting down until today, or part of the reason. Just a couple weeks ago we were meeting with airlines and throwing those pitches.
I don’t know that we’ll have anything exciting to announce here in 2023, again due to the pilot constraints and capacity issues, but we’re full bore ahead on trying to entice somebody to come in here or multiple new routes, hopefully, for 2024 or beyond.
O’CONNOR:
Will you go to London at any point, or…
ROGGATZ:
I don’t know about a direct flight. Either way, we’re just rehabbing it.
O’CONNOR:
Cody, great to meet you. Thanks for taking the time for a Humboldt Conversation today. Great to see you.
ROGGATZ:
Thank you very much.
O’CONNOR:
I hope to have another Humboldt Conversation very soon.
Neighborhood resource coordinators Jawid Sharifi (center) and Gustavo Tellez, right, meet with unhoused residents at a homeless encampment on W Street and Alhambra Boulevard in Sacramento on April 11, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters
Technically, the encampment of about a dozen tents at W Street and Alhambra Boulevard in Sacramento is illegal.
The tents, tarps and associated debris — clothing, a discarded crib, boxes of rotting food — are blocking the sidewalk in violation of a new city ordinance. Located on a major thoroughfare and across the street from a neighborhood of houses, the camp is one of the most complained about in the city, said Hezekiah Allen with Sacramento’s Department of Community Response.
But on a recent Tuesday morning, his team wasn’t out there threatening to arrest people, or even telling them to move. Instead, city outreach worker Jawid Sharifi was greeting encampment residents, whom he knew by name, with fist bumps. Gently, he inquired whether they’d given any more thought to moving into a city-run trailer park for unhoused residents.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Sharifi told a man in a black hoodie who emerged from a tent. “We’ll come back here in the afternoon also to talk to you guys.”
As in many California cities, Sacramento’s shortage of affordable housing and shelter options makes it difficult to enforce anti-camping laws. But despite obvious challenges, local ordinances designed to crack down on encampments are becoming increasingly common.
Liberal leaders in cities and counties throughout California, pushed to their wits’ end by massive encampments and irate voters, are taking steps to ban camps. Cities including Los Angeles, Sacramento, Elk Grove, Oakland, Santa Cruz and Milpitas — all run by Democrats — passed ordinances in the past three years to target behavior such as setting up tents near schools and other buildings, blocking sidewalks or even camping at all when shelter is available. Officials in San Jose and San Diego are considering similar measures.
“It’s a reflection of where we’ve gotten to as a society on this issue,” said Democratic political strategist Daniel Conway, who led support for a 2022 Sacramento ballot measure that will make large encampments illegal if shelter is available. “Because I think there’s a recognition that the kind of status quo of having over 100,000 people in California living and dying on the streets, it’s terrible for those people…And at the same time there’s this increased sense that people don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods and their own communities anymore.”
So far, state lawmakers have been reluctant to follow with new anti-camping laws. Two bills backed by Republican legislators would take the unprecedented step of making it illegal for unhoused people to camp in certain areas — including near schools — throughout the entire state.To date, the state’s involvement in encampment management mostly has been restricted to agencies such as Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol clearing camps from state land.
Broader anti-camping measures can be politically and morally fraught, as well as logistically complicated. Activists argue displacing unhoused people from their camps is traumatizing and dangerous to their health.
And such laws run the risk, particularly for liberal lawmakers, of appearing to criminalize homelessness — so far, Democratic legislators by and large have been unwilling to sign on in support.
The new local ordinances, which come with penalties that can include fines or even arrest, have become a flashpoint in a heated debate. Advocates for the rights of unhoused people argue they’re cruel and unconstitutional, while some housed neighbors – sick of seeing human waste, trash and discarded needles in the street – say they don’t go far enough. Enforcement of the new ordinances, which largely is driven by complaints, has been uneven, and most cities don’t have the resources to respond to every encampment.
And then there’s the state’s legendary affordable housing shortage. Sky-high rental prices have forced multitudes of Californians onto the street, where they’re confronted with a dearth of shelter beds, addiction treatment and mental health help. Though anti-camping laws may score political points for officials under immense pressure to clean up their city’s streets, without places for unhoused people to go, they continue to move block by block around our cities.
For example, Sacramento County, which counted more than 9,000 unhoused residents in its 2022 homeless census, has about 2,400 shelter beds.
“The overarching issue is if you don’t have actually acceptable places for people to go, then people can be forced to leave but then they’ll just go somewhere else,” said Jennifer Wolch, a professor emerita at UC Berkeley who specializes in issues surrounding homelessness. “And it will become a problem for another neighborhood.”
Should the state decide where encampments can be?
Despite what’s going on at the local level — and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s repeated insistence that clearing California homeless camps is a top priority — Democrats in the Legislature have been reluctant to jump on board.
Senate Bill 31, which would make it illegal to sit, lie or sleep within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare, park or library, failed to make it out of the Senate Public Safety Committee and is awaiting reconsideration. The bill, introduced by Senate GOP leader Brian Jones of San Diego County and backed by seven other Republicans, has just one Democratic co-author – Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa. Representatives from 15 different organizations across the state spoke out against the bill during its committee hearing last month, calling it “misguided” and accusing supporters of prioritizing criminalization instead of health and safety.
Assembly Bill 257, another GOP bill that would make it illegal to camp within 500 feet of a school or daycare center, also was voted down in committee. Author Josh Hoover, a Folsom Republican, tried to assuage critics by narrowing its focus — it no longer applies to parks or libraries and now prohibits “camping” instead of “sitting” or “lying” — but to no avail. Even so, it’s not dead yet. The bill was granted reconsideration and Hoover remains hopeful.
“I personally have found needles in the park where my kids play, and I think this is something that most of the public finds unacceptable,” he said in an interview. “It needs to be addressed immediately statewide.”
Debris from homeless encampments at a regional park lies scattered due to the recent flooding in Sacramento on April 11, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters
“I believe that addressing these concerns at a local level rather than a statewide level is the best approach,” Nguyen said in an emailed statement.
Ashby refused an interview request and her office wouldn’t say whether the senator supported the statewide efforts.
City leaders also don’t necessarily want the state to step in.
“When it comes to where do you enforce a no-encampment zone, I feel like that should be a city decision,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
San Jose City Council voted in 2021 to target homeless encampments near schools for removal, and since then has cleared 42 school-zone camps. Mahan said the experiment has been successful, as people have agreed to move from the school zones without creating “a huge tax on city resources or a big controversy.”
But Shaunn Cartwright, a local advocate for the rights of unhoused people, said many of those displaced from school zones just move their camps to other locations in the city.
“All it does is stigmatize unhoused people as these are people we can’t trust around children,” she said of the city’s policy. “And it’s ridiculous because many unhoused people obviously are parents.”
Mahan is considering eventually implementing broader no-camping zones in places like key business districts, but only after his city increases its temporary housing capacity.
Brigitte Nicoletti with the East Bay Community Law Center said in addition to being a “really cruel and shortsighted way of addressing homelessness,” ordinances that ban camping when there’s not enough shelter may violate unhoused people’s constitutional rights. Another problem: When clearing encampments, many cities will offer shelter not everyone can accept – whether it’s because of mental or physical health conditions, or because it would force them to leave behind beloved pets or important possessions.
“It’s really just pandering to people who are freaked out by health and public safety issues,” she said of the uptick in no-camping ordinances, “but it does nothing to address people’s actual needs.”
Democratic leaders want more California homeless shelters
Several factors led to the growth of massive homeless encampments throughout the state and prompted the recent spate of anti-camping ordinances. In addition to an overall increase in the state’s homeless population – it’s estimated more than 170,000 unhoused people lived in the state last year, compared to just over 150,000 in 2019 – many cities stopped clearing homeless camps during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing them to grow and become more entrenched.
A 2018 ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also changed the game. In Martin vs. Boise, the court ruled cities cannot penalize someone for sleeping on public property if no other options exist – which many cities have interpreted to mean they can’t clear an encampment unless they have enough shelter beds for the displaced residents.
Cities’ new anti-camping ordinances take advantage of a loophole in that ruling – even if they have no space in their shelters, they still can make it illegal to sleep outside in certain places or at certain times.
But no liberal California leader wants to be accused of “criminalizing” homelessness. So most are pairing anti-camping ordinances with a push for resources. Mahan of San Jose wants to build 1,000 new temporary housing units this year before he expands no-camping zones. Santa Cruz’s no camping ordinance has yet to take effect, and won’t do so until the city can create 150 new shelter beds and establish a place for unhoused people to store their belongings.
Sacramento’s Measure O, passed by voters in November, includes a requirement to set up more shelter beds before cracking down further on camps – something city leaders plan to achieve via a new partnership with the county.
“It’s first up to the society through its government to provide safe dignified alternatives to people,” said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who has become one of the state’s most high-profile examples of a progressive politician caught between the pressures to clear camps and to respond to homelessness with compassion. “And if that test is met…to say people cannot choose to live out on the streets.”
Uneven enforcement
Enforcement of these ordinances presents a tricky question: How do cities get unhoused people to comply without punishing them for having no home? Approaches vary widely throughout the state – and even within cities.
In Elk Grove, the city can confiscate homeless people’s belongings if they violate the city’s new anti-camping ordinance, but can’t fine or arrest them. The Sacramento suburb has not yet seized anyone’s belongings.
San Diego, on the other hand, after issuing warnings and offering people shelter and other help, wrote 925 citations and made 513 arrests last year for violations of laws aimed at homeless camps, according to Voice of San Diego.
San Diego is trying to do even more. Last year, Mayor Todd Gloria directed police to target anyone who had a tent up during daytime hours. But follow-through was “somewhat uneven,” Gloria admitted in an interview, due to police understaffing and COVID-related issues. Now he’s backing a proposal that would prohibit all encampments on public property when shelter is available, and bar camps near schools and shelters even when it’s not.
“The city is providing more solutions than it ever has,” Gloria said. “And I think as a result the taxpayers helping to fund this should have a right to expect safe and hygienic public spaces.”
Oakland passed a controversial encampment management policy in 2020 that prioritizes clearing camps near schools, homes and businesses, but doesn’t give authorities the ability to cite or arrest people for camping. The city cleared encampments in 226 locations over the past year.
Sacramento in 2020 passed an ordinance making it illegal to camp within 25 feet of “critical infrastructure” such as government buildings, bridges and electrical wires. In August, the City Council passed a measure banning homeless encampments that block sidewalks, and in October they expanded the critical infrastructure ordinance to ban camping within 500 feet of schools.
City homeless coordinators walk through a regional park in Sacramento where several homeless encampments are located on April 11, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters
The Sacramento ordinances are enforced selectively, generally based on complaints made by residents calling 311. The city has about 20 outreach workers, like Sharifi, who try to connect people to shelters and warn occupants of problem camps that they need to move. If they refuse, police or code enforcement may take over.
The intention isn’t to be punitive, said Assistant City Manager Mario Lara.
“We’ve responded to thousands of calls,” he said. “We’ve not issued any citations or any arrests.”
Camps on route to Sacramento school
Though encampments still dot the city, some Sacramento residents say they’ve seen a little improvement. Last year, the route Amy Gardner’s 8th-grade daughter walked to Sutter Middle School got so bad that she and other parent and community volunteers formed a group to escort kids past an environment she characterized as rife with snarling dogs, human waste, broken glass, needles and people in the throes of mental health crises.
It took months, but the city finally cleared the main camp on the route, under an Interstate 80 overpass, Gardner said. The kids now feel safe walking to school.
But the problem didn’t go away.
“The camps have shifted and moved,” she said. “It’s not that everyone got shelter.”
A homeless encampment at W Street and Alhambra Boulevard in Sacramento on April 11, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters
Some people from under the overpass relocated about eight blocks over, where more than a dozen tents recently lined 29th Street. Damian Newton, who has been homeless for a dozen years, was one of them. The city told him and his neighbors the bridge they slept under is off-limits because it’s “critical infrastructure,” Newton said.
“They just didn’t want us in sight,” 38-year-old Newton said. “What damage have we really done to schools? What damage have we really done to bridges?”
Soon, he’ll have to move again. As he talked to a reporter on a recent Thursday, while sitting on a bare mattress in the doorway of his tent, Newton said the California Highway Patrol had been by that morning to tell him and other camp residents they had to leave their new home within four days.
Newton said he’s been offered a shelter bed before, but after seeing friends accept and then end up back on the street, he doesn’t see the point. Activists and those who have lived in shelters throughout California say residents sometimes chafe under a shelter’s strict rules, feel uncomfortable or unsafe there or get frustrated by the lack of options to transition from there into permanent housing.
So where will Newton go next? He’s not sure. Maybe across the street, until someone complains and he has to pack up again.
“Not many places that’s left to go, really,” he said.
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Shelves full of flavored tobacco products including disposable e-cigarettes, pipe tobacco and shisha at a smoke shop in Berkeley. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
Three years ago, advocates for reducing smoking and vaping in California won a major victory when they persuaded the state Legislature to adopt a ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products despite an intense industry lobbying campaign.
But in recent months, those same groups have been largely silent as a first-term lawmaker sought to phase out tobacco sales in the state altogether. His proposal was shelved this week without even receiving a hearing, and he will instead pursue a bill this session to strengthen enforcement of the flavored tobacco ban.
The decision by major anti-tobacco organizations to sit out another legislative fight reflects a broader disagreement among advocates about the best way to reach what they call the “endgame” of a tobacco-free future — and whether that should be their primary goal. Concerns over public backlash, political feasibility and potential cuts to programs funded by tobacco taxes are all factors.
“All these groups have the same goal,” to eliminate the deaths and disease caused by tobacco, said Chris Bostic, policy director for Action on Smoking and Health, one of only a handful of anti-tobacco groups to endorse the sales phaseout bill. “But people have varying opinions of how to get from here to there.”
Assembly Bill 935, introduced in February by Democratic Assemblymember Damon Connolly of San Rafael, would have taken the bold step of banning the sale of tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars and vaping liquid, to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2007.
The legal smoking age in California is 21, so those who would have been affected by the measure aren’t able to buy tobacco from retailers for at least five more years anyway. But the proposal would have had the effect of creating a whole generation of Californians prohibited from ever legally purchasing tobacco products, with the goal of making it more difficult for them to start smoking or vaping.
It’s an idea that remains on the cutting edge globally. New Zealand became the first country to adopt the approach in December, banning the sale of smoked tobacco products such as cigarettes for anyone born after 2008. The Massachusetts town of Brookline passed a more expansive ban on tobacco products, including vapes, in 2020, which faced a legal challenge from retailers and was upheld in court last year.
Lawmakers in Hawaii and Nevada also introduced sales phaseout proposals this year, but neither measure has received a hearing yet either.
Bill did not gain traction
Connolly’s bill struggled to attract backing. By the end of last week, only 10 organizations, including the California chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, had sent letters of support to the Assembly Health Committee, where it was first set to be considered, according to an analysis prepared by the committee.
None of seven primary sponsors of the flavored tobacco ban — the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Common Sense, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — took a public position on AB 935. Most declined to discuss their reasons with CalMatters.
“This is not the time to tackle this. We’re trying to do the clean-up on the flavored tobacco ban,” said Autumn Ogden-Smith, director of California state legislation for American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. “We’re having enforcement issues.”
Jason Maymon, a spokesperson for Common Sense, said that the organization’s priority had shifted to protecting kids and teens from online harms. “Tobacco remains an important issue that we care about but more of our resources are focused on fixing the internet for kids,” he wrote in an email.
Bo Smith, a spokesperson for the American Lung Association, which has a “strategic imperative” to “create a tobacco-free future,” said in an email that the organization has “nothing to add to the story at this time.”
At the Assembly Health Committee hearing on Tuesday, Connolly accepted amendments from the committee that changed the focus of his bill. It will now authorize the California Department of Public Health and the state attorney general’s office to enforce the flavored tobacco ban, in addition to local agencies.
Assemblymember Jim Wood, the Healdsburg Democrat who leads the health committee, declined an interview request. In its analysis, the committee suggested that phasing out tobacco sales in California was less urgent because adult and youth smoking rates are only slightly higher than half the national average.
“The Legislature may want to consider whether it would be more effective to focus on enforcing the flavored tobacco ban rather than engaging on a new front,” the committee wrote, “and attempting to prevent a product that is legal in 49 other states, as well as on sovereign Tribal lands, from entering the state.”
Connolly, who was elected to the Assembly in November and previously worked on tobacco control as a Marin County supervisor, told CalMatters that he plans to revive the sales phaseout proposal next year. He said he would continue to seek the support of anti-tobacco organizations that did not come on board with this version.
“I don’t want to speak for them, but I think certainly there are shared goals around the ultimate objective,” he said. “So what I would anticipate is continuing to work with those groups, and all stakeholders, around a larger set of solutions as originally embodied in AB 935.”
Why anti-tobacco groups were reluctant
Supporters of the measure said they heard a range of objections as they tried to bring advocates into the fold, including both that the bill was too aggressive and that it did not go far enough.
Some groups worry that unintended consequences, such as pushing more tobacco sales into the black market, could set back the overall movement to end smoking. Others believe it would divert finite resources into a politically challenging fight at the Capitol and distract from a nascent local campaign to persuade cities to completely outlaw tobacco sales, which has already found success in Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach. Some see it as unjust to create a separate group of adults who cannot buy tobacco products while most still can.
Jack Maa, a Marin County physician and anti-tobacco activist who testified in favor of AB 935 at Tuesday’s hearing, said the most convincing argument he heard was that the bill would give the tobacco industry a pass for decades as sales are slowly phased out and that the endgame should come sooner.
“There’s not going to be one single legislative solution to the enormous problem that the tobacco industry has created over 500 years,” Maa said. “I believe it will require a multi-pronged strategy.”
Then there’s the fiscal reality that taxes on tobacco sales fund programs in California — including health care for low-income residents, disease research, early childhood education and tobacco use prevention — some of which are led by the same groups that are pushing to reduce smoking.
Following a campaign by hospitals, doctors, unions and anti-tobacco groups, California voters passed a massive tobacco tax increase in 2016 that initially promised to raise more than $1 billion annually for the state budget. It provided $30 million for local tobacco control programs and $19 million for competitive grants last year, according to the Department of Public Health.
Bostic, of Action on Smoking and Health, said he viewed it as a victory that the debate over tobacco had reached a point where a statewide phaseout of sales could even be proposed in California. He said he was not surprised that mainstream anti-tobacco organizations did not jump on board with the idea, in part because of fear over how their movement might be perceived, but he pointed to a nationwide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey conducted in 2021 that found that more than 57% of American adults support banning the sale of tobacco products
“We’ve got to get public health to catch up with the public, and then we’ve got to get decision-makers to catch up with both,” Bostic said.
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Joe Villa at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo on April 11, 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters
Thousands of adult Californians without a high school diploma want to take college classes. Unfortunately, those classes aren’t free, and the lack of a high school diploma cuts off access to most financial aid.
The good news is, there’s a fix. The bad news is most students don’t know about the fix, and most college officials don’t understand the laws surrounding it.
Federal law has a special clause that allows students lacking a high school diploma to access financial aid money they would otherwise miss. Known as the Ability to Benefit, the provision opens up federal financial aid to adults without high school degrees who enroll in GED and college classes simultaneously.
California community colleges also stand to benefit financially from the law because it could allow schools to boost enrollment and the number of students on federal aid, both of which are tied to the state’s new college funding formula.
More than 4 million Californians lack a high school degree and roughly 340,000 of those adults were taking some form of adult education in 2021, according to the California Community College Chancellor’s office.
At least that many adults could be eligible for this federal aid, but in 2016, just shy of 58,000 students in California actually received federal grants or loans associated with it. The numbers have dropped every year since, and in 2021, just more than 30,000 California students participated, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That means as many as 90% of eligible adult students weren’t taking advantage of this aid.
The decline is the result of a complicated balancing act. On the one hand, the federal government has noted a history of poor oversight and “abuse” of Ability to Benefit, especially by for-profit colleges. On the other hand, more regulation has left community colleges feeling confused and uninformed.
Still, Bradley Custer, a senior policy analyst for higher education at the Center for American Progress, said use of the aid has room to grow.
“There’s no compelling reason why we couldn’t at least get back to 2016 and prior enrollment,” he said.
Locked out of loans and grants
In California, community college tuition is free for qualifying low-income students who apply, but even for those who get the fee waiver, it’s just a fraction of the many costs related to attending college. Textbooks, transportation, and food add an average of roughly $12,000 a year.
That’s why the federal government offers flexible aid for college students — and through Ability to Benefit, adults without high school degrees can access that money, too. A federal Pell grant, for instance, currently provides as much as $6,895 a year for qualifying students, money that can be spent on things like childcare or rent.
Joe Villa, 67, needs that money. He has six children from two marriages, no high school diploma, and a criminal record that makes even a simple job interview challenging. But he won’t give up.
While serving a 10-year sentence at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, Villa attempted to get his GED, but the program closed before he could finish.
Then in 2019, Villa was standing beside a prison employee when another inmate charged at the two of them. Villa intervened, saving the employee’s life. Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted Villa’s sentence, and he was released in April 2020 — just weeks after the state locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There was no employment because of COVID, and I’m thinking, perhaps this is the best time to re-educate myself and get my degree,” he said. Through Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo, Villa promptly enrolled in both a GED program and a number of college classes. CalMatters found Villa through a Saddleback administrator reference.
He tried to apply for federal student aid, but didn’t get far since he doesn’t have a high school diploma and didn’t know about the Ability to Benefit provision.
Qualifying for the Ability to Benefit exception is not easy. A student must first enroll in a program to obtain their high school degree or equivalent and take six credits of college courses. Alternatively, they can pass a special exam.
Finally, students who want the federal dollars must receive certain kinds of counseling support and can only take a certain set of courses, as interpreted by their college.
Villa checks nearly every box. He is currently enrolled in both a GED class and has already taken more than six credits worth of courses at Saddleback in the hope of getting his associates degree and then transferring to four-year university to study cinematography.
But as of 2020, Saddleback College no longer offers students aid through Ability to Benefit.
Fixing a ‘scam,’ facing consequences
It’s a trend, said Judy Mortrude, senior technical advisor at the National College Transition Network of World Education, Inc., a Boston-based nonprofit that helps community colleges.
In 1991, Congress put Ability to Benefit into the law and slowly added regulations that explained how students could qualify, like through an exam or by taking six credits. In 2012, Congress cut the funding, only to restore it fully in 2016. Then Congress required that colleges offer counseling and career training to these students and that they restrict them to a certain set of classes and majors that align with the local economy.
Whereas the original rule had only been about the student’s eligibility, the 2016 regulations asked colleges to perform certain services, and colleges didn’t know how to interpret it, Mortrude said.
“The chain of communication is poor,” said Naomi Castro, a senior director with the Career Ladders Projects, a nonprofit research group founded by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors. She said that many financial aid directors at community colleges didn’t even know that Congress restarted the program in 2016.
Saddleback allowed students who enrolled prior to 2012 to get aid at any point, since they qualified through the old law, but the college never implemented the 2016 regulations, meaning students such as Villa have yet to benefit.
Saddleback College in Mission Viejo on April 11, 2023. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters
The challenge, said Karima Feldhus, an academic administrator at Saddleback, is that the college lacks “an eligible list of careers” according to the 2016 regulations. As to why the college waited years to adopt the regulations , she said she didn’t know and referred CalMatters to the director of the financial aid office and the dean of enrollment. Neither person responded to requests for comment.
Nor did San Jose City College implement Ability to Benefit when it restarted in 2016, according to Takeo Kubo, the financial aid director.
San Jose City College spokesperson Daniel Garza said the 2016 law required “significant curriculum development efforts,” which he noted can be “quite an undertaking” at any school. He said he was not aware of what efforts the college made to consider making the necessary curriculum changes when the new regulations came out.
Some community colleges, including the four Sacramento-area ones in the Los Rios Community College District, did adapt to the new regulations. Those colleges currently have 42 students who receive aid through Ability to Benefit out of a total of 780 students in the system without a high school diploma.
While community colleges have increasingly shied away from Ability to Benefit over the years, for-profit colleges have leaned in.
Nationally, participation at public and private nonprofit colleges has dropped by more than half since 2016 while usage at private for-profit schools has risen, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education. The department did not respond to requests for recent statewide data.
For-profit and nonprofit use different processes, too. The department data shows public and private nonprofit colleges generally have students qualify for Ability to Benefit by taking six credits worth of classes. At for-profit colleges, nearly every student qualifies for it through an exam.
“It’s sort of a scam how they are getting bucket loads of people to hit a cut score on an exam who somehow couldn’t pass the GED test,” said Mortrude.
The department created many of the new regulations to clamp down on such “predatory behavior,” she said.
A third way
While students generally qualify for Ability to Benefit through the two national pathways, federal law also allows states to develop their own processes.
In 2019, Mortrude, Castro, and other college leaders sent a proposal to the Community College Chancellor’s Office on how California could set its own such process. Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Washington and Wisconsin have already done it.
In Wisconsin, for example, adult students at some technical colleges can qualify for aid by participating in an orientation and by working with a tutor or academic counselor, among other criteria.
The individual community colleges are responsible for implementing the Ability to Benefit provision for students, said Paul Feist, a vice chancellor for the California Community College Chancellor’s Office, in a statement.
He said the office will explore creating a “state defined process” akin to what other states have done. The office did not provide a timeline for a new state process.
This month, a committee of Saddleback administrators came together to figure out the federal regulations with the goal of offering the Ability to Benefit aid this fall.
If they succeed, Villa has a list of expenses he hopes his aid can cover. First, he’s late on child support payments. He wants a new apartment and after putting on some weight during the COVID pandemic, he needs new clothes that fit.
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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
