Mary Janet Carroll, age 94, of Fortuna passed away peacefully at home on April 6, 2026, while in the loving care of her son, Brad.

Mary was born on January 27, 1932, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Eugene Robert Kinney and Ethel Donovan. She was the youngest, and last survivor, of eight siblings. Mary lived the past 30 years in Fortuna. For 64 years she was married to Donald “Buck” Carroll, who died in 2017. The couple met in Corona del Mar, where they both worked for Pacific Bell. Mary left her work as an operator for PacBell when the family relocated to the Tahoe area. For the next 10 years, Mary worked as a school librarian. An athletic woman at a time when that was somewhat rare, Mary long enjoyed playing tennis with her husband. She was both a water and a snow skier and was a strong swimmer, another of her many passions.

Brad, who served as his mother’s caregiver for almost a decade, said the role that Mary enjoyed most was mothering her three challenging boys. Describing her, as, “the sweetest most generous and kindest person I’ve ever known,” he added, “she always placed herself last.”

A devout Catholic, Mary was a regular attendee of Sunday Mass at The Church of The Assumption in Ferndale until the COVID era ended that pleasure. Mary cherished her 100% Irish heritage and her strong family connections which included the every-three-year Kinney/Donovan family reunions, which might be held in any corner of the United States. Brad recalls the last such reunion where Mary and he were part of 600 members of the clan who packed a ballgame of the Denver Rockies, gaining the assemblage a bit of notoriety.

Among her survivors are here eldest son, Robert, of Yreka and youngest son, Beau, of Reno. Cousins. Ernie and Val Schulze were always there with love and support for the family. Special friends and neighbors include Sherry Canveri, Marge Frate and Christie Sheehan, who had lunch with Mary at least once a week.

The family would like to thank Hospice of Humboldt for their ongoing presence during the final months of Mary’s life.

A graveside service will take place on Saturday, May 23 at 3 p.m. at the Sunrise Cemetery in Fortuna. Memorials in Mary’s name may be directed to Ferndale’s Church of The Assumption.

A McKinleyville man accused of a 2022 shooting that left two dead and two wounded in Pine Hill pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder charges levied against him last month.

He faces a maximum of 148 years to life in prison for this conviction. He’ll be sentenced in July.

45-year-old Russell Martin Albers was convicted of murdering Jennifer Paddock, 42, and Daniel Garcia, 51, after agreeing to a plea deal he reached with prosecutors.

He pleaded guilty to second degree murder for Garcia, and first degree murder for Paddock, according to a conditional plea deal entered at an April 21 hearing.

The man arrived armed at a Pine Hill home on Dec. 27, 2022, where his former girlfriend was staying after leaving him. He shot four people at the home, two of whom survived.

Albers booking photo from 2022.

Paddock, the former girlfriend’s sister, died of a gunshot wound to the chest, and Garcia died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen. These two were partners with a then-four-year-old child, who was at the scene of the shooting.

The former girlfriend and another woman in the house were wounded by gunfire; Albers pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree attempted murder for these shootings.

He was also convicted of firearm enhancements for the charges.

In exchange, the People withdrew 10 charges and a spread of special allegations levied against him detailed in a lengthy complaint filed after police captured him, following a manhunt and high speed chase. This included a charge relating to kidnapping his former girlfriend after shooting her in the abdomen (he dropped her off at the hospital after making a couple stops).

According to court records, the maximum time of imprisonment is 148 years to life for the charges. His sentencing is scheduled July 16.

Under the plea deal, he waives his right to an appeal.

Reporting from the North Coast Journal shortly after his arrest found that, according to the Sheriff’s Office, Albers’ former girlfriend had decided to leave him and their abusive relationship. She had fled to a family member’s home; the victims were the woman’s sister and her sister’s boyfriend.

She testified in court he had become increasingly violent and unstable, according to reporting from the Times-Standard, and he arrived at the home  with aims to take her.

According to court minutes, the man previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but withdrew this plea. He was held to answer for the charges back in Sept. 2023.

He remains on a no bail hold.

Humboldt Domestic Violence Services’ 24/7 support line can be reached by calling (707) 443-6042

PREVIOUSLY:

• HCSO: Two Killed, Two Injured in Pine Hill Shooting Early This Morning; Suspect Still at Large
• With Double-Murder Suspect Still At Large, St. Joseph Hospital Limits Public Access
• Wild Police Chase Through the North County Today; One Person in Custody
• Sheriff’s Office Confirms That Pine Hill Double Homicide Suspect is Now in Custody Following Today’s High-Speed Chase up 101
• Pine Hill Double Murder Suspect Arraigned, Pleads Not Guilty; Charges Could Put Him in Prison For Life With No Parole
• Victims of Tuesday’s Double Homicide Identified

PREVIOUSLY

• Humboldt Supervisors Advance Proposal to Increase Civilian Oversight Over HCSO, Despite Pushback From Sheriff Honsal
• The Board of Supervisors Will Redo That Whole Sheriff’s Oversight Committee Hearing Due to a Likely Brown Act Violation

###

The idea of establishing a civilian-led oversight system for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office has proved divisive among the local community — a fact lamented today by Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell. 

But after another round of polarized public comments, today’s do-over hearing by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors had the same result as last time around: The proposal was advanced. However, “advanced” doesn’t mean “approved.”  There’s a lot of process between here and there. 

As it did two weeks ago, the board voted to form an ad hoc committee consisting of Bushnell, Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo and other county staffers. That committee is charged with developing a draft ordinance for this oversight proposal and bringing it back to the board in September for further deliberation. (The matter had to be heard a second time due to a public access snafu on April 28.)

The movement for civilian oversight of county sheriff’s departments has gained momentum in recent years, with a dozen California counties establishing or working toward such a system, albeit not without occasional pushback from law enforcement. When the 2023-24 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury recommended such a system locally, it said:

Civilian oversight of elected offices such as the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office promotes good management, fiscal responsibility, transparency, and accountability without interfering with the Sheriff’s Office’s enforcement and investigative functions.

The proposal is to create an independent policy and practice board, which would have subpoena power, and to have the county hire an inspector general. Sheriff William Honsal opposes the proposal; he has argued against it on social media and at public hearings, noting that his position is independently elected and accountable to existing oversight boards and state agencies.

Most of the people who called in to today’s meeting voiced support for a civilian oversight committee. Some argued that it would increase transparency and improve public trust. Others noted that if the board doesn’t act, community members will likely develop their own ballot initiative to advance the idea. A caller from McKinleyville took issue with Honsal’s recent characterization of oversight advocates as a “special interest” group.

There was a higher percentage of opponents to the proposal among the public speakers who addressed the board in person. Several vouched for Honsal and his deputies on personal grounds, attesting to their honesty, competence and kindness. Others argued that civilian oversight would be costly and redundant. 

When the public comment period wrapped up, First District Supervisor Rex Bohn reiterated his own opposition to the proposal. He argued that Honsal’s popularity has been proved by the fact that he’s run for re-election unopposed, and he estimated that the oversight proposal could cost the county as much as $750,000. 

“If it costs any more than two deputies we can put on the street, there’s no way that I can support this,” Bohn said. He later suggested that anyone who serves on an oversight committee would “invariably be people that … are looking for problems when there are no problems.”

Bushnell indicated that she doesn’t really support the idea either and only agreed to serve on an ad hoc committee two weeks ago so that she could be involved in the process. She noted that state law already delegates oversight authority to grand juries, district attorneys, the Attorney General’s Office and the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).

“I don’t know what more people could add to that,” she said.

Arroyo said she would have preferred for the board to approve putting a ballot measure before the voters in November, and she said, “I personally welcome any kind of additional transparency that people want to have, including over me.”

She also noted how uncomfortable it can be facing down such staunch opposition from a phalanx of officers in the board chamber.

“We have certainly seen a lot of turnout from law enforcement when we have discussed this, and I’ll be honest: even I’m a little intimidated by it,” she said. “I grew up with law enforcement. I spent a lot of time working closely with law enforcement, and it [still] makes me nervous. It makes me a little shaky and a little anxious to have this type of conversation in a way that’s just not supported and where we can’t really come together to see what some of the benefits might be.”

Third District Supervisor and Board Chair Mike Wilson said that while he’s had very positive experiences with Honsal and his deputies, he stands by his support for advancing the oversight committee.

Last time around, the motion to do so passed 4-1, with only Bohn dissenting. This time, Bushnell also voted “no,” but the motion still passed, 3-2.

Humboldt Commons Appeal Denied

Earlier in the meeting, in another 3-2 vote, the board rejected an appeal from the nonprofit developer behind the Humboldt Commons senior housing project in McKinleyville, upholding a requirement that Life Plan Humboldt pay for widening a key stretch of Hiller Road.

The Humboldt County Planning Commission unanimously approved the subdivision and a special permit for this project back in March, but in doing so it imposed a condition of approval related to street improvements.

Project Manager Emma Haskett delivered a PowerPoint presentation and told the board, “This requirement was not anticipated or disclosed during pre-application, and we believe it goes beyond what is fair and proportional for our project.” 

Life Plan Humboldt President Dr. Ann Lindsey concurred, saying it would cost an extra $200,000 to construct the required 13‑ft travel lane on Hiller Road. Together, Haskett and Lindsey argued the widening demand is legally disproportionate to their traffic impacts and threatens the affordability of the county’s first “aging‑in‑place” community, which already must fund nearly $1 million in public improvements, including trail connectivity.

Planning and Building Director John Ford and two of his department’s planners, on the other hand, argued that the condition is a “pretty standard,” safety‑driven frontage requirement and a key piece of the long‑planned McKinleyville Town Center street network. 

Bohn said he supports county staff and the Planning Commission and would therefore be voting to deny the appeal. Supervisor Steve Madrone, whose Fifth District includes McKinleyville, said he supports the appeal.

“I think what really stands out for me is that the applicant is absolutely willing to … do the curbs, gutters and sidewalks, which is what the normal requirement would be for any other development.” Requiring road paving on top of that struck Madrone as too much to ask.

Arroyo said she agreed with Bohn rather than Madrone, a rare alignment that “may cause some tension,” she quipped. 

“This is about bike and [pedestrian] circulation in all of McKinleyville, and I think it’s absolutely reasonable” to require frontage road improvements, she said. “And I’m a little surprised that it would be seen as not reasonable.” Arroyo pointed out that Hiller is a key connector schools, services and the McKinleyville Family Resource Center.

Bushnell expressed frustration with what she sees as inconsistencies between what’s required of rural landowners versus subdividers on county roads, and she went back-and-forth with staff in search of a compromise. For example, she suggested a cost-sharing agreement whereby Life Plan Humboldt would chip in for the county’s larger Hiller improvement plans. Madrone made a similar suggestion later in the meeting.

Public Works Director Tom Mattson poured some cold water on such proposals, noting that it could be 10 or 15 years before the county project comes to fruition.

Ultimately, the board voted 3-2, with Madrone and Wilson dissenting, to deny the appeal. That means Life Plan Humboldt will be responsible for constructing a 13‑foot paved area along the Hiller Road frontage within five years of the building permit issuance. 

In Memoriam

Early in the meeting there was a big outpouring of love for Lindsey Day, a man who worked on the county’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) team for nine years and who died last week after “a short but valiant fight with cancer,” County Administrative Officer Alishia Hayes said.

Day was a professional woodworker, specializing in furniture-grade cabinetry, and judging by the 30-minute procession of emotional testimonials — from supervisors, staff and the public — he made a huge impact on countless people.

Hayes teared up talking about Day, saying he was gigantic in both stature and humor. Friends and family members offered tributes, and staff played a slideshow of photos of Day with others.

Bohn was clearly moved. “I have never seen an outpouring like this, and a true amount of — it’s not grief or sympathy; it’s, ‘Damn, we were lucky to know him,” he said.

Wilson referred to Day as “probably the most huggable person in this building” and said, “There just was an aura about Lindsey that was just unmistakable. From the first second I met him, it was just like, ‘Whoa, this guy is magic,’ right?”

The board eventually adjourned today’s meeting in Day’s honor.

Adrianna Tatom had just started her own business, and she was excited. She’d sunk over $100,000 into a building a few blocks from the Arcata Plaza, outfitting it with all the equipment necessary to turn it into a bubble tea shop, Boba Monster. Sales hadn’t been astronomical, but she was hopeful that they’d grow. 

At about the same time she moved in, so did another tenant, the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction, who rented an office in the back of the building she shared with one other tenant. It was business as usual for a while, but she began to notice changes. People started sleeping in the bushes outside her storefront. The screen on her door went missing, as did the floor mats. Needles started showing up in her trash, and human feces on the outside of the building. Loose dogs ran rampant in the parking lot and added their own waste to the mix. People started leaving their trash in the lot and on her doorstep, “constantly” smoking cigarettes and hitting pipes. A van showed up one day; three people were living in it. Others congregated outside the office, out in the parking lot, around the clock, day and night, sometimes yelling at people walking by or her customers.  

Many of them, parents or young students, told Tatom that they were uncomfortable with what was going on. Several of them said they were too scared to park in the back. Sales dropped. Tatom began to fear for her own safety. 

“There were times in the winter, when it gets dark earlier, and I’m the only person here, and I’m leaving — I never know what’s gonna happen,” Tatom told the Outpost. “I remember, even in the daytime — the other day, there’s a girl out there, and I was bringing stuff in, and one of the workers was like, ‘Hey, you be nice to her.’ And I could hear her walking up behind me. And so I turned around, because she’s just out of her mind, you know? You never know what people are gonna do.”

This May, the organization left the office on 11th Street, as did the people sleeping in the bushes and frightening the customers and Tatom. Half a dozen employees and owners of businesses surrounding the lot HACHR occupied for two years shared similar stories with the Outpost. Many of the people who live and work near their new location, concerned about their safety or the health of their businesses, don’t want them there either.

###

Usually called by their acronym HACHR, the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction is an advocacy group for the homeless and for people struggling with drug abuse. Founded in 2014, they provide harm reduction services, distributing free toiletries, fentanyl and xylazine testing kits, Narcan, and “safer use kits” with sterile tools for drug use. 

HACHR is well known for its needle and syringe exchange program, which allows drug users to give them their used needles and syringes and swap them out for new ones. People are going to do drugs regardless of whether their tools are clean or not, the thinking goes, so it’s sensible to make using safer. Proponents argue that it’s also a public health issue. Dirty needles can transmit diseases like HIV and hepatitis, and stopping their spread helps the community at large. 

It’s hard to assess the efficacy of the programs. A 1994 metastudy done by a group of Washington-based epidemiologists concluded that designing a study that could accurately judge how well a needle-exchange program stopped the spread of HIV would be extraordinarily difficult: the number of confounding factors researchers would have to factor in would be gargantuan, and asking subjects to participate in a truly randomized trial (asking one group of drug users to exchange their needles and telling another control group not to) would be unethical and logistically unfeasible. Other research has been more positive, though researchers noted similar hindrances. 

HACHR’s program has a history pocked with controversy. An EPD investigation in 2020 found that they were “complicit” in allowing their clientele to use and traffic narcotics next to — and on — their property. Undercover officers reported that HACHR employees allowed people to get high in a bathroom on their premises. A long series of back-and-forths between HACHR and the city of Eureka followed, and HACHR eventually ended up leaving. It moved to a location in Valley West in 2022, next to the Harbor Freight and the Kebab Cafe gyro shop. 

###

During the course of the Outpost’s reporting, many of the sources interviewed requested anonymity because they were afraid of HACHR’s ability to mobilize against organizations and officials it has deemed are working against it. Last summer, HACHR, among other organizations, brought dozens of people to two meetings of the Arcata City Council and managed to halt city business almost completely. Many of the people the Outpost interviewed are business owners and employees with thin margins; any retaliatory actions could put them in the red. “If they took an activist approach against the small business,” one said, “it could be the death knell of them.” Several residents who live nearby HACHR’s new offices, fearing damage to their personal life and homes, also requested anonymity. 

Reached via email last Thursday, Ethan Makulec, HACHR’s executive director, declined a request for an interview, but, in addition to sending a short statement, they asked us for a list of questions. As of publication, they haven’t responded.

HACHR spent two years in Valley West before moving to its location next to Tatom in May 2024, at 625 11th Street in Arcata. Things were quiet for the first year and a half of their tenancy, employees at several nearby businesses said, but near the end of 2025 things started to change. People loitering in the parking lot next to their offices became a “constant” presence at all hours, playing music and dancing late into the night. They “spilled” out of the building, one person said. They camped in the parking lot, both in a van (and underneath it) and outside, in the lot and in the bushes. Cars idled for hours; human and animal waste cropped up everywhere. The list stretches on. “This place is a cesspool of filth,” one business owner said in a letter to city councilmember Alex Stillman. “…Do not be sentimental about this facility.”

Their behavior often went beyond merely soiling the parking lot. Several people told the Outpost that the campers often screamed at people walking by, sometimes forcing them to duck into a building until it stopped. They got into fights. Drug use was rampant. They smoked pipes and injected in plain sight, according to several eyewitnesses. Two sources told the Outpost that they saw the campers taking turns using the public bathroom down the street; they passed an “oily” children’s backpack between one another when they traded off using the bathroom.

HACHR’s role in allowing and perpetuating the behavior is hard to pin down. When they moved in, they told the building’s owner, Patrick Buckwalter (CEO of a local solar panel company) and its manager, Complete Property Management, that HACHR was only going to use the office for administrative purposes. HACHR operates a mobile syringe and needle exchange service out of a van as well, and told the property managers and Buckwalter that it wasn’t going to exchange paraphernalia out of the office. 

Though HACHR has been accused of side-stepping needle-exchange regulations in the past, Arcata City Manager Merritt Perry sent the Outpost a statement clarifying that the city has notified the California Department of Public Health that HACHR has conducted harm reduction services outside the areas its permit allows it to, like on private property and near city parks. Arcata asked the state to “communicate with their permittee” that HACHR can only “conduct their business within the authority of their permit and only in authorized locations.”

“So far that approach seems to be working,” Perry said.

People who looked unhoused often went into the office and came out with packages, sources said. They don’t know what was inside. One source said she saw people leave items in a red tent someone set up in the parking lot and enter the building. They looked intoxicated when they left, she said.

“This is a party,” one employee of a business near the office told the Outpost. “It’s a nightclub for transients. Like, not office space. I don’t know what office space has transients partying at 10:30 at night. That isn’t an office.”

HACHR dealt with similar problems when it had office space in Valley West, sources said. Sherilyn Munger, the owner of Complete Property Management (CPM), told the Outpost that she was aware of HACHR’s reputation when they moved in, but Ethan Makulec, HACHR’s executive director, told CPM that they were looking for another place that they’d offer their harm reduction services from. Munger said Makulec was easy to get along with and paid the rent on time. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said. “They qualified.”

Buckwalter, the owner, told the Outpost that he had never heard of HACHR, but he was sympathetic to what it did; he had had a friend that died from an overdose. HACHR does good work, he said, and it’s important to weigh the negative impacts they have on the community with the good ones as well. 

“I was torn,” he said. “We’re very sympathetic with the work HACHR does. But, you know, I don’t want the neighborhood to suffer because of them being there.”

Neighboring businesses reached out to Buckwalter and CPM, asking them to force HACHR to clean the lot up and stop people from loitering outside and harassing store customers and passersby. Munger said that, despite Makulec’s efforts, they were unable to make a large difference. Munger said it was Buckwalter’s decision to not renew HACHR’s lease; Buckwalter said he wasn’t sure whose decision it had been. Both parties said it had been made several months before the lease ended in May.

HACHR wasn’t generally very receptive to complaints, sources said. A group of HACHR employees burst into one of the businesses that contacted Buckwalter and CPM, asking them why they “told on them” to the landlord. 

The city wasn’t very helpful either, they said; one person claimed the police department told her that they couldn’t do anything about it, and she felt ignored by the officials she contacted. Tatom, fearing retribution, didn’t reach out to the city or the police. 

City hall knew about the situation and was monitoring it, Perry said; police issued citations if they saw someone violating city code. “It is always harder to follow up on complaints after a violation occurs,” he wrote, “which I think may have led to perception about lack of enforcement in this situation.”

“The vast majority of our relationships with nearby businesses, our property managers, and other neighbors has been positive at both our previous and new office location,” Makulec wrote in a statement sent to the Outpost. “I would happily reach out to any of these people if you’re interested in hearing their perspective. The complaints you have listed are not supported by the reality of our time there, and sound like the commonplace prejudice and fear-mongering that the communities of marginalized people we serve are made to suffer every day. This stigmatization can threaten the health, well-being, and survival of marginalized people, so I hope this article will not spuriously exacerbate such stigmas.”

Not everyone near HACHR’s 11th Street office had bad things to say about their former neighbor. An employee of a nearby business told the Outpost that he respected HACHR for doing a job no one else wanted to do. Nobody messed with their stuff; his employer didn’t take a hit because it’s appointment-based. He didn’t enjoy seeing the poverty and drug abuse outside his window every day, but he said he recognized the need. “They’re the first line of resources that I don’t want to provide,” he said. “I’m cool with them. Fuck it! It’s gonna happen next to someone.” 

“Poverty isn’t an easy thing to see,” he continued. “You look at that, you think, ‘That could be me someday.’”

Casey Waterman, the owner of New World Water across the parking lot, said that “Bobby,” one of HACHR’s employees, planted flowers and became her friend. She saw the refuse in the parking lot, saw the drugs, saw the dogs running amok, but said her experience with HACHR was mostly positive. Bobby cleaned up dog and human waste from the parking lot and near her back door, and he helped her move heavy pallets. 

But Waterman had her limits, too: she later sent a letter to Arcata City Hall asking that HACHR be banned from occupying the building it’s now moved into, at 750 16th Street. It’s a few blocks from Arcata High School, and she and many other people interviewed by the Outpost are worried that its proximity, combined with the likelihood the same people will be hanging around, could have drastic effects on the hundreds of teenagers that flood by every day. 

“They do attract a really rough crowd (that seems to be increasing all the time) who do hang about the premise day and night,” Waterman wrote. “Beyond their presence I haven’t personally been affected. But I have spent enough time observing that it is absolutely an inappropriate group to parade high school students past on a daily basis.”

“But mostly it is absolutely a danger to young children,” she continued. “After a year of being across the parking lot I can one hundred percent say with confidence that the safety and wellbeing of children has to come before the needs of the folks this establishment is helping…I agree their services are needed but that location is wildly inappropriate.”

Buckwalter, the owner of HACHR’s old location, agreed. He wrote a letter to the city that the Outpost obtained, claiming that HACHR told him that its use of his building would be “administrative” in nature. However, he wrote that he saw many of the things people contacted him to complain about; the amount of foot traffic the location got was also higher than he anticipated. He said he thought that a different location, farther away from the high school and the many businesses in Northtown, would be a better fit. 

Almost all of the business owners and residents near HACHR’s new location the Outpost contacted, about a dozen total, had similar reservations. They don’t want the kids anywhere near the office, even if its tenancy is only going to be “administrative” like the previous office was supposed to be. 

“Every community has drugs in it, but we have a prevalence of drugs in our community, and I don’t think it’s a wise move for the city of Arcata to expose the kids to something like that on their lunch break,” Holly Ameline told the Outpost. Her business, Northtown Coffee, is around the corner from HACHR’s new office, and she has a child graduating from Arcata High this year. “…When people are hanging out, they’re gonna talk. And if the high school kids start chatting with them, and — I just don’t know if the exposure on their lunch break is the best idea.”

Roger Macdonald is the superintendent of the Northern Humboldt School District, which includes Arcata High. He told the Outpost that he was meeting with Makulec soon to talk about the district’s expectations. Macdonald’s aware of the issues that plagued HACHR at its previous location, he said, and the district will do what it can to prevent them from repeating. 

Many of the business owners are already struggling to make ends meet, and they’re worried about their bottom lines as well. Justin Brown, owner of Revolution Bicycles, said that he didn’t think the office was a good fit in Northtown. He’s dealt with multiple break-ins over the years and isn’t excited about the prospect of dealing with more. 

“It’s just not what we need in this neighborhood,” Brown told the Outpost. “If they want to support that community, they should be where that community is, down by Samoa Boulevard. It’s just unfortunate. It’s really, really hard to do business in this town right now, just to keep the lights on, and it’s just expensive. I can’t afford the customers being turned away because they are being harassed, getting out of their car or whatever.”

Another businessman nearby said that a HACHR employee had visited him recently and told him that he wouldn’t see an impact. If he’s right, then he’s not against it, but, considering HACHR’s past promises, he’s not certain that’ll be true.

“There are people that, if they come here, and they have a bad experience, and there’s some scary dudes out there or something, someone’s passed out, they’re not going to stop,” he said. “They’re leaving.”

Most of them noted HACHR’s history of skirting the law and breaking rules set up for them by landlords or by the government; they don’t think any real changes in HACHR’s behavior are likely. 

“I don’t see anything changing with their past patterns,” one business owner told the Outpost. “Something keeps happening in a cycle. I feel like that’s going to continue to happen. I don’t believe that it’s going to — all of a sudden — going to change their way, to rectify things.” Brian Kaneko, owner of True Nature Tattoo, pointed out that even HACHR’s business card advises that people calling 911 to save someone from dying of an overdose avoid telling first responders that an overdose happened, instead asking callers to say that they’re “with someone who is unresponsive.” [The bolding is theirs.] Kaneko said that Makulec had told him they were only moving because they wanted a bigger space, and denied that Buckwalter and CPM decided not to renew HACHR’s lease. Kaneko had seen Buckwalter’s letter, and knew that wasn’t true. 

Kaneko is one of about 16 signatories of a petition being passed around the area calling on the city to force HACHR to acquire a conditional use permit that would, in their minds, stop it from allowing people to loiter outside their office, and preclude them from offering any services that attract people in the first place. (Buckwalter also signed it.) The petition’s creator, business owner Jesse Almas, told the Outpost that he hoped it would allow the public to have some input over HACHR’s operations, and also force HACHR to clarify what it’s planning on doing in its office.

“If there are conditions of approval that have taken public input into consideration, then city would actually have some teeth to ask HACHR to rectify the issues,” Almas wrote in a statement sent to the Outpost. “Other businesses are required to follow rules required by their CUP’s and there is a public process that helps officials arrive at those rules. I don’t see why HACHR should be any different.”

City Manager Perry said it was unlikely HACHR would be able to provide harm reduction services out of its offices on 16th Street. Because so many businesses and residents have expressed their apprehensions, the city would probably notify the California Department of Public Health to request that it deny HACHR permission to operate them there. Arcata doesn’t require anyone to have a conditional use permit to maintain an office.

All of the business owners the Outpost talked to said they thought the services HACHR provides are important, maybe even necessary; they just don’t want them offered anywhere nearby. A few of them suggested somewhere near a hospital would be a more appropriate location.

Not everyone cares. Ted Marks, the owner of Norcal Tattoo, down the street from HACHR’s new offices, said the uproar reminded him of his own start when he began tattooing. 

“I had to deal with the same stuff,” Marks told the Outpost. “People envisioned a tattoo shop was going to be the worst thing in the world: bikers hanging out, drug addicts. I dealt with the same discrimination. They go and try and get petitions. I’ve been on the other side of that Frankenstein-kinda thing.” 

Another shop employee agreed. James Kerr said he was once a “street kid on drugs”; his wife, Sarah, “saved” him, he said. Sarah was on HACHR’s board of directors from its founding in 2014 until last year. Kerr said he doubted HACHR moving to Northtown would change anything, and said what the people near their previous location were dealing with couldn’t definitively be proven to be HACHR’s fault. 

“It’s hard to argue with the argument that they’re enablers, that they’re enabling drug addicts,” Kerr said. “However you define that term, it’s definitely true, right? However, they’re not gonna stop them from using. That’s a fact.”

“It’s a little more nuanced and subtle, and it’s not so black and white when you dig into the whole issue,” he continued. “It’s a very complicated issue, very emotionally charged on both sides, because, I think, both sides, all we’re trying to do is keep our community safe.”

The Outpost spoke to several nearby residents, most of whom also aren’t thrilled about their new neighbor and the people it often attracts. 

“They’re not going to get in a cab and drive 10 miles away and do drugs,” one said. “No. They’ll be a foot off the curb, and they’re going to do it in the neighborhood.”

Ranika, a Cal Poly Humboldt student who lives near the office, said that she was glad HACHR was moving in. Homeless people are people too, she said, and even if they’re not well mentally, it’s still possible to reason with them and sympathize with them. She’s willing to wait and see how things go. She’s from Oakland, and she said she knows how to deal with it.

“I’m just pretty desensitized to homelessness,” she said. “Honestly, that would probably make it feel more like home for me.”

###

UPDATE, May 13: The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office says the missing juvenile has been found safe and reunited with his family. In keeping with the Outpost’s policy on missing kids, the previous post and identifying details have been deleted

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office: 

On May 9, 2026, at approximately 7:40 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a residence located in the 1000 block of The Terrace Road in Willow Creek to investigate a report of shots fired into an occupied residence.

Upon arrival, deputies contacted the resident, who reported he was inside the home when shots were fired into the residence. No injuries were reported. During their initial investigation, deputies developed information indicating that a red Hummer drove in front of the residence and that shots were fired from the vehicle into the home.

This case remains under investigation, and additional information will be released as it becomes available.

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.

###

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

###

Some California Democrats have a plan to avoid disaster in the governor’s race: Wait until the last minute to vote.

With no one candidate emerging as a clear favorite and an open primary where the top two advance regardless of party affiliation, panic has set in for some who plan to vote Democratic.

To avoid a dreaded scenario in which Democrats are locked out of the November general election, many Democrats coalesced around former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who ultimately flamed out after multiple women accused him of sexual assault.

That fear has morphed into wariness, leading some party activists and influencers to encourage people to hold off on voting early, watch the polls, then vote for the candidate with the most support just before Election Day.

In a “normal year,” Katie Evans-Reber of San Francisco said she would probably back former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter even though the Democrat is not likely to advance to November given her current polling. But this year the stakes are higher, she said, and as a lesbian woman, any of the Democrats would be more aligned with her core values than a Republican.

She fears supporters of President Donald Trump who have soured on him could back Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, giving him enough of a boost to match the power of Trump’s endorsement for Steve Hilton, the former Fox News host who is leading all other candidates in the polls. That would send both Republicans to the runoff.

“The thing that flipped for me was going from, ‘I don’t really know what to do,’ to, ‘I strategically am not making a decision,” Evans-Reber said.

In pole position is Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary who surged from single digits to the top of the polls following Swalwell’s downfall. As his popularity soared, so has the scrutiny of his record at HHS and as California’s former attorney general.

Behind Becerra are progressive Democratic challengers Tom Steyer, a former businessman turned billionaire activist and Porter. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has also positioned himself as a tech-friendly moderate and ally of Silicon Valley.

Evans-Reber and other impassioned Democrats have been urging others to follow the “same “wait and see” strategy by sharing videos and posts on social media.

One post even falsely attributed the strategy to Heather Cox Richardson, a political historian and popular Democratic influencer who writes the substack “Letters from an American.” That erroneous post was the first one Evans-Reber saw and forwarded. She later had to follow up with a disclaimer that Cox Richardson was not the author.

“It’s not like, bad advice, but it’s 100% not coming from me,” Cox Richardson told CalMatters in an interview.

Democratic political consultant Paul Mitchell disagrees.

“It’s just a bad message,” he said. “I think they should always have a message of, ‘As soon as you get your ballot, fill it out, turn it in, mail it in and get it done.”

Mitchell said although activists might talk about and push for a strategic voting plan, trying to organize a movement like that at scale would likely not produce significant results.

“I think people vote for whoever they were going to vote for anyway,” said Mitchell, whose company tracks how many ballots are turned in each day statewide.

The push to vote late flies in the face of recent pleas from election officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom for voters to get their ballots in early in the hopes of speeding up California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process. Attorney General Rob Bonta, a fellow Democrat, told reporters last week that the social media posts urging late voting could be misinformation, disinformation, and “potentially unlawful,” and Secretary of State Shirley Weber said her office would “look into” those social posts.

“Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold,” Newsom wrote in a recent letter addressed to all 58 county registrars urging them to “tabulate and release results quickly and accurately.”

Turning in a mail-in ballot on Election Day, as some activists propose, is the worst possible scenario for election administration officials.

It creates what Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, calls the “pig in the python effect.” County election offices are inundated with in-person ballots on Election Day, as well as mail-in ballots that require a meticulous process of signature matching, envelope opening and extracting the ballot before it can be counted.

Returning ballots even a few days earlier can give counties a head start, Alexander said at a recent CalMatters forum on election integrity.

Mark DiCamillo, who runs polling for the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, said pollsters are doing their best to produce accurate results, but in an election with so many variables, even the best surveys could be off-base.

The past trend of low voter turnout in gubernatorial primaries, plus a potentially confusing array of 61 candidates for governor alone, make it difficult to determine who the likely voters will be and account for that in their surveys.

“This election’s got all the elements you have to deal with,” DiCamillo said. “It’s a challenge for the polling profession.”

Despite the concerns about a slow vote count and imprecise polling, Evans-Reber says she still plans to stick to her last-minute voting strategy. She doesn’t trust that mailing her ballot will reach the county elections office in time. She plans to bring her completed ballot to the office or one of the county’s vote centers and hand it directly to an election official.

“I am going to cast the ballot at the very last possible moment,” Evans-Reber said. “I’m going to wait until polling day.”