Two months ago, a robbery suspect in a high-speed car chase struck Ciara Keegan’s Honda CR-V while fleeing police. Keegan, 25, had been on the phone with her boyfriend making dinner plans when she saw the suspect’s car bearing down on hers.

“All (my boyfriend) heard was the crash, my screams, the sirens of police cars,” Keegan, 25, told CalMatters in a phone interview. Seeing smoke after the crash, she worried that her car would set on fire. “As I was being loaded into the ambulance, I saw the other car completely engulfed in flames,” she said.

The chase ended in Oakland but began in Chinatown in San Francisco, where in March voters will decide on Proposition E. The wide-ranging measure would loosen restrictions put on police use of surveillance technology in 2019 and allow police to use drones in high-speed chases, among other things. The local measure could have statewide implications for law enforcement, as policies adopted in one California city can be copied elsewhere.

“What we’re seeing in San Francisco isn’t limited to San Francisco,” said Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights advocacy group. “It has implications for other cities and jurisdictions as well.”

Police and Prop. E supporters say using drones in car chases will reduce injuries. Keegan is skeptical.

“I’m worried police chases will increase in frequency and more people will get hurt and there will be less safeguards for the general public and San Franciscans will be treated like collateral damage,” said Keegan, who was born and raised in San Francisco.

Prop. E would allow police to test surveillance technology for a year or more unless the County Board of Supervisors intervenes, and gives police the power to deploy cameras and drones without oversight. Prop. E rolls back a 2019 law that bans use of face recognition by police and requires public disclosure and debate before police obtain new forms of surveillance technology.

“This is an important moment where powerful interests are trying to attack oversight and limitations on their power,” said Matt Cagle, a senior staff attorney for the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

San Francisco is one of the largest major cities to adopt surveillance technology oversight championed by the ACLU. In recent years, half a dozen cities from Oakland and Berkeley in the Bay Area to San Diego in southern California have adopted similar policies, but efforts are underway to reduce those powers. In December 2023, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria proposed amendments that civil liberty advocates argue water down surveillance technology oversight. Hussein points to AB 2014, a bill proposed last month by Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, a Democrat from Elk Grove, as another attempt in this vein. That bill would enable unarmed drone donations from the US military to state and local law enforcement agencies.

San Francisco set a standard for civil liberties protections when it passed a law that makes public comment and local governing body approval of new police uses of surveillance technology, said Hussain. She said that if Prop. E passes it has implications in other parts of California where lawmakers may consider policy that puts unilateral decisionmaking power about tech adoption in the hands of police.

The pendulum has swung toward public oversight in recent years and rightfully so, said Yes on Prop E spokesperson Joe Arellano, but people are fed up with seeing small businesses get burglarized. He said Prop. E gives police the power to initiate pursuit of people accused of committing property crimes but doesn’t make it a mandate.

Police currently have discretion to pursue any suspect deemed a risk to public safety regardless of the crime they’re suspected of committing.

“Our officers are highly trained and should be trusted to make smart decisions about these incidents,” Arellano said.

Reggie Jones-Sawyer, the Democrat Assemblymember from Los Angeles and chair of the public safety committee, said measures like Prop. E can have unintended consequences.

“You could implement this [Prop. E] and find out later that it causes more problems than you anticipated,” said Jones-Sawyer, who recalled being falsely identified as a criminal by face recognition along with other members of the California legislature back in 2019. “That showed a flaw, so with any new technology whether it’s drones or others we really need to look at all the ramifications that can come about.”

Drones in car chases

There were 42 San Francisco car chases in 2023, according to California Highway Patrol records obtained by CalMatters. By comparison, 28 car chases a year occurred on average from 2018 to 2022. There was also a higher than average number of injuries and deaths last year.

Now Prop. E, which is supported by San Francisco Mayor London Breed and bankrolled with more than $300,000 from tech tycoons, asks voters to change vehicle pursuit policy to allow police to chase suspects for misdemeanor crimes and use drones along with or in lieu of vehicular pursuits. Police in many major cities limit pursuits to violent crimes and suspects who pose a serious threat to public safety.

High-speed vehicle pursuits resulted in 56 collisions from 2018 to 2022 in San Francisco. Forty percent of chases resulted in a collision and 1 in 6 chases resulted in an injury to a suspect driver, police officer, or bystander, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Vehicle pursuits of suspects led to 52 deaths statewide in 2021, according to a highway patrol report, and roughly 1 in 3 crashes involving police pursuit of a suspect resulted in an injury.

Supporters say drones can play a role in high-speed vehicle pursuits and possibly reduce injuries to bystanders and police officers by reducing the number of police vehicles involved. The ACLU and other groups that oppose Prop. E say it guts hard-won reforms and endangers the public, officers, and suspects by authorizing high-speed chases for low-level crimes in one of the densest cities in the country.

Cagle says he wants proof that drone involvement in police car chases won’t make things worse.

“The idea of having drivers flee police cars as well as having to look over the shoulder to figure out where the police drone is as well doesn’t seem like a recipe for safer police car chases or public safety generally for pedestrians and people in the city,” he said.

A 2023 ACLU report found that more than 1,400 police departments in the U.S. use drones today and that drone-as-a-first-responder programs are on the rise. In 2017, the Chula Vista Police Department in San Diego was the first in the nation to receive a federal aviation administration exemption allowing drones to operate outside of the sight range of their pilots. So far this year, the Chula Vista Police Department has sent drones in response to roughly a quarter of 911 calls for service. Elsewhere in California, police in Fremont, San Pablo, and Santa Monica are exploring drone-as-a-first-responder programs.

The claim that drones can stop high-speed vehicle pursuits features prominently in promotional material distributed by companies that sell drones to police. At a debut in San Francisco’s Marina District last fall, Skydio introduced X-10, a drone that can fly in the dark at speeds of 45 miles per hour. Once X-10 locks on a target, the drone can follow people and vehicles from high in the air, so speed isn’t as much of a factor.

Skydio CEO Adam Bry discussed ongoing efforts to enable drone-as-a-first-responder programs in other U.S. cities, including New York, where vehicle pursuits are on the rise and police envision autonomous drone deployments. Skydio partners with Axon, a company whose AI ethics oversight board resigned in protest following a pitch for autonomous Taser-mounted drones.

“What we’re seeing in San Francisco isn’t limited to San Francisco.”
— Saira Hussain, senior staff attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

The California Highway Patrol found that suspect apprehension is more likely with aerial support. In Los Angeles, police prioritize air support from helicopters when considering whether to pursue a fleeing suspect or known risk to public safety.

But an LAPD review ordered last year by the Board of Police Commissioners following a rise in injuries found that 1 in 4 vehicle pursuits end in a collision and half of people injured are bystanders. Los Angeles allows high-speed pursuits for misdemeanors, as Prop. E would allow in San Francisco. San Francisco Chief Bill Scott told the police commission the department is developing drone use policy but currently does not use drones or helicopters.

At the same meeting, Department of Police Accountability Policy Director Janelle Caywood evaluated the department’s vehicle pursuit policy and compiled a report on vehicle pursuit best practices.

She called current vehicle pursuit policy average compared to other U.S. cities. She also noted that injuries and deaths are on the rise in some major cities. In New York City, police pursuits are up 600%.

Caywood recommended using drones to reduce the need for pursuits and de-escalate incidents. If use is limited to crimes in progress and vehicular pursuits, she told the commission drone use may be worth discussing, but that drones should go through the surveillance tech oversight process put into place in 2019 to ensure safe use and protection of civil liberties. She also recommends exploring use of devices that shoot GPS trackers at fleeing vehicles.

Cagle said he fears increased drone use could result in privacy violations and higher levels of surveillance of communities of color. Community members expressed a similar concern in 2022 when arguing that San Francisco’s police department should not have access to killer robots.

Chinese for Affirmative Action is a civil rights group based in San Francisco that’s part of a coalition of community groups, including the ACLU, that oppose Prop. E.

“We’ve seen how police chases have led to the deaths and injuries of our community members in San Francisco,” said the group’s community safety and justice policy manager Nhi Nguyen in an email.

Nguyen believes that if Prop. E passes, it could have implications for other municipalities when elected officials try to expand tools for local police in an election year. She argues the root cause of public safety concerns is access to housing, education, health care and economic opportunity. “We can’t police chase and surveillance our way out of socio-economic problems,” she said.

Body cameras and use of force

If passed, Prop. E would also allow body-worn cameras to satisfy reporting requirements in incidents involving police use of force.

The San Francisco Police Department is 18 times as likely to use force on Black residents compared to white residents and 5 times as likely to use force on Hispanic residents compared to white residents, according to data released in November 2023.

A 2022 California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board report also found that the department is also more likely to use force against people who identify as transgender and people with mental health conditions.

Prop. E will make it harder for community members to know how many use-of-force incidents are taking place in San Francisco, which puts lives at risk, said Sana Sethi, spokesperson for the SF Rising Action Fund, which also opposes the measure. She fears that other cities may adopt similar policies and expand surveillance if Prop. E passes.

Since crime in San Francisco attracts so much media attention, she’s concerned that passage of Prop. E will amplify a narrative that distracts from evidence-based solutions to crime reduction like access to housing, health care, and substance abuse treatment.

“Prop. E would bring a new standard of lack of oversight on harmful tactics, not only here, but throughout California,” Sethi said.

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

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Demos Barcelos on February 20, 2024. He was born on March 9, 1957, in Hanford, Calif. and moved to Humboldt County as a young child where he lived the rest of his life.

Demos spent his early years working on his family’s ranch helping raise most of their food. He and his brother Tony were expected to toe the line, pull their weight and work hard every day but would “raise a little Hell” with friend Gene when their dad was not home. They would shoot BB guns and ride motorcycles inside the house and as teenagers, borrow dad’s car without permission. Above all, Demos was taught to be hard-working, honest, self-reliant and to always excel at everything he did. All these traits earned him respect from anyone who worked with him on the job or on projects.

Demos started his work career at Louisiana Pacific in Carlotta working nights and going to high school during the day. He was then hired by The Pacific Lumber Company (Palco) in 1977 and worked 38 years in the lumber industry. He held many roles including Tableman, Grader, Sales Coordinator, and advancing to Quality Control Manager. He had mentors he greatly admired and said they were the best in the industry including John Campbell, Jack Coleman, Buzz Sarvinski, Gary Macy and Ron Bush to name a few. After Palco and HRC, Demos decided he needed a change, so he started at Fortuna Ace Hardware in 2016 working in the lumber yard and assisting customers. He had much respect for owners Jack Rieke and Jerry King and loved his coworkers often telling them that he did. He said he had his Palco “family” and his Ace “family” and the outpouring of love and prayers from both during his illness was inspiring. To those who reached out, please know Demos felt the love.

In his younger years, Demos owned countless muscle cars buying and selling so many he was warned he needed a used car dealer’s license. He loved cruising town with loud music playing on the best stereo money could buy, riding 3-wheelers at the dunes, camping and fishing trips, hunting, beach parties, crabbing, and riding motorcycles and 4-wheelers. One day when he was cruising town, he asked a girl named Debbie to cruise with him. They drove around for hours blaring an 8-track tape of the Beatles then stopping at Bob’s Footlongs to eat (Demos always ordered 2 taco burgers, a corn dog, large garlic fry, vanilla shake, hot fudge sundae). That was the beginning of 48 years together.

In recent years, he enjoyed playing music with his kids and grandkids blaring Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Dire Staits and Tom Petty. House of the Rising Sun was his signature song which he expertly played on the guitar. He also showed his grandkids how to plant and harvest enough potatoes to last the family a year and gave them rides on his riding mower, fishing boat and 4-wheeler. Demos was an enthusiastic outdoorsman and loved sharing that passion with his family and friends. When he became ill, he watched many episodes of Gunsmoke and Hawaii 5-O with his furry friend Winnie snuggled beside him in his recliner. Above all else, he was a committed family man who would do anything for those he cared about.

Demos said he was not ready to leave this earth as there were still so many fish to catch, deer to hunt, gardens to sow, home projects to complete, music to play, drones to fly and people to tell “glad you got to see me”. Unfortunately, a rare and aggressive form of cancer took him quickly and too soon. When his health failed, Debbie and their children stayed by his side at home until his passing as he wished. Demos left a huge void and will be deeply missed.

Demos was preceded in death by his biological mother, Maria (at age 3), his dad Antonio, bonus mom Filomena who raised him from 1961 on as her own, and son Jesse. He is survived by his wife Debbie, daughter Tracie (Jeremy), son Trevor (Jessie); grandchildren Damien, Mahayla, Auvanie, Noah, Finn and Izzy; brother Tony (Lori), “brother from another mother” Gene Demello; in-laws Bob and Sena, Dena (Dale), Delvin (Tami), Dawnette (Eric), Denton (Carlene); many nieces and nephews, his beloved dog Winnie and many friends too numerous to name.

A special thank you to Dr. Ben Hunter, Dr. Tony Alexander Anagnostou and Hospice for their excellent and compassionate care and guidance. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Hospice or your favorite charity. To those who visited, brought food, coffee, or flowers, know how much your kindness is appreciated.

A celebration of life will be held at a future date yet to be determined.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Demos Barcelos’ loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

Allen Churchill Thibeau was born on May 23, 1950 in Frankfurt, Germany. The son of a U.S. Army Captain, Allen moved numerous times across the United States during his childhood. Although he didn’t call a single one of these places home, his fondest childhood memories were helping on his mother’s family farm in Farmington, Arkansas, spending time with his beloved cousins.

Eventually, his family settled down in Antioch, California, where Allen attended Antioch High School. He met the love of his life and eventual wife, Marilyn, in French Club. They started dating when she got up the nerve to ask him to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. Allen was Salutatorian of his 1968 graduating class. He was an incredibly well-read and intelligent man, and his love for learning continued throughout his life.

Allen went on to college at UC Berkeley. He majored in Forestry, where he cultivated his love for the outdoors. Allen’s first job out of college was at Simpson (Green Diamond) in Humboldt County. He liked it so much he ended up staying for 39 years. He always said it was the best job in the world because he got to do what he loved—be outdoors.

Allen was an avid hunter, backpacker, and fisherman, and loved sharing in these activities with his family. He loved baseball, especially when he could watch a game with his brother, John, or coach his son, Matt. In retirement, he enjoyed taking care of his dog, Skip, who was by his side for every adventure.

Allen enjoyed fixing and building things. He was meticulous and the type of person who read the instruction manual twice before he assembled something. He took pride in his work—and he worked hard.

When you really got to know Allen, and you peeled back the layer of rugged outdoorsman who could build anything with his two hands, you found that he was a multi-faceted person with the kindest soul.

Allen was soft-spoken, but an amazing listener. He didn’t talk just to talk; he thought carefully about his words and spoke with conviction.

Allen loved to listen to good music. And he was musically talented; he taught himself how to play both the guitar and piano. He had a beautiful singing voice. His kids loved when he would get his guitar out in the living room and play them songs, such as “The Fox Went Out On a Chilly Night,” before their bedtime.

Allen was an incredibly talented dancer. If there was a dance floor at any event, especially if there was live music, he was almost guaranteed to be on it, dancing. One of his favorite local events was the Jazz Festival—a little for the music, but mostly for the dancing. Of course, his favorite dancing partner was his wife, Marilyn.

Allen loved kids and babies. When he saw any baby out in public, he would light up and interact with them; he loved seeing the world through their eyes. He was the happiest when he was with his granddaughter, Annie. He absolutely loved being a grandpa. One of Allen’s favorite shirts read, “No one tells me what to do except my granddaughter!” He wore it proudly.

A piece of advice written and left by Allen reads, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s (almost) all small stuff.” Allen could always see the bigger picture, and he moved through life in a practical but thoughtful way.

Allen was a loving husband, gentle father, doting grandpa, and loyal friend. And although we wish we had more time on this Earth with him, we will honor him by choosing to see the bigger picture: the world is a better place for having had him in it.

Allen passed away peacefully on the morning of February 20, 2024.

Allen was preceded in death by his parents, Roy and Carolyn Thibeau.

Allen is survived by his devoted wife of 50 years, Marilyn Thibeau; son, Matthew Thibeau (Emma); daughter, Theresa Trenholm (Kyle); granddaughter, Annalise Trenholm; brother, John Thibeau (Marcie); and many other beloved family members.

There will be a celebration of life for Allen in Summer 2024 at Camp Bauer in Korbel, California. Please reach out to Allen’s immediate family for details. All who knew Allen are welcome.

Virginia June Shaffer (nee Anderson) was born at Trinity Hospital in Arcata on June 1, 1928 to Gladys Larson and Lloyd Anderson. A lifelong resident of Arcata, she died on Feb 20, 2024 at 95 years of age. She attended College Elementary School, Arcata High and Humboldt State College (1948-1952). Virginia married Jack Shaffer in 1952. They built their own home on Old Arcata Road in the Eucalyptus Grove.

Their first child, Hollie Goodman (Michael), was born in 1953 and their son, Mark Shaffer, was born in 1958. Virginia loved reading, animals, and baking cookies and pies. Every week Virginia took Hollie, friend Joyce, and Mark to the Arcata Library. She would check out 7 books at a time… and read them all!  She and Mark always had pets including Buffy, MaMa Kitty 1 and 2, and Midnight with Stars. She enjoyed the beach cabin at Big Lagoon and later sitting in the sun at the A-frame Mark and Jack built in Hawkins Bar in the ‘70s. She would identify plants and birds on her daily walks with husband, Jack.

Starting in high school, Virginia worked for the family businesses including Hutchins Grocery and The L&A Style Shop and later volunteered at the American Cancer Society and Friends of the Arcata Library.

She was a loving grandmother to Matthew (Catheline), Anna, Jay ( Lauren) and Moira. She attended their school events, baseball games and whipped up birthday cakes and apple pies. She dragged them to dentist appointments and annual flu shots too. She was great grandmother to Caleb, Faith, Grayson, Cibella, Adlei, and Jack. 

Thanks to Sequoia Springs Memory Care Unit, Hospice of Humboldt and Paul’s Chapel in Arcata for their care and support. 

No services are planned.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Virginia Shaffer’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

“…we are stuck with our undemocratic Senate – a powerful federal policy-making body designed to frustrate the popular will.”

— Second-Rate Democracy website

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Consider a football game in which 11 players on one team are opposed by 143 players on the other, that is, 13 to 1. Hardly fair, obviously, but what counts as fair in sports doesn’t apply to that other great American institution, politics. For example, when it comes to choosing Senators, it takes 13 votes here in Humboldt County, California, to match a single vote in Humboldt County, Nevada. Such is the undemocratic system by which the 100-member US Senate is elected, two Senators per state, large or small. Here in California, 40 million of us get two Senators to represent us, while the 40 million people living in the 22 smallest states (by population) get 44 Senators.

Bottom line: 51 Senators (a majority) can be voted in by just 17% of the US population, and those small-population states wielding enormous power (like largely rural Wyoming, Idaho and the Dakotas) tend to be white and conservative.

The US Senate commands enormous authority. For instance, 100 Senators confirm or reject nominees to the Supreme Court. Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland was blocked by Senate Republicans representing 20 million fewer people than Democrats supporting him, while Trump’s Neil Gorsuch was appointed despite being opposed by 45 Democrat Senators representing 25 million more voters than the 55 Republicans who supported him. Similarly with Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, both voted in by Senators representing a minority of voters. (These last three justices were appointed by a double minority, in that Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes.)

Our undemocratic Senate is also the obstacle to reforming the absurd Electoral College system, which, as I understand it, came about as a result of a constitution written by slaveholders whose goal was to make it impossible for slavery to be ended constitutionally, by giving a disproportionate amount of power to a minority of states.

Historically, the Senate also has acted as an impediment to progress. For instance, the US Senate:

• Voted against ratification of the League of Nations treaty in 1919 after WW1
• Delayed passage of anti-lynching and civil rights legislation after WW2
• Blocked the 1990s Clinton administration’s proposed universal healthcare program

More recently, the Republican-controlled Senate: 

• Blocked recent attempts to pass gun control legislation
• Opposed measures to mitigate global warming
• Voted against proposals to lower prescription drug costs
• And (of course!) killed attempts to reform voting and campaign finance

Of course, democracy (from Greek people + rule) was always an ideal. In ancient Greece, where the idea arose some 2500 years ago, only 1 in 4 adult residents in (slave-owning, misogynistic) Athens could vote. That was a direct democracy, while here we have a representative democracy, where we elect members of Congress and Senators to represent us. But what a farce, when so many of us are so blatantly underrepresented. A recent story in The Atlantic on democracies worldwide claimed that only two upper chambers — in Argentina and Brazil — are less unrepresentative than ours, in hewing to the principle of “one person, one vote.” And such is our system that reform is near-impossible: our undemocratically-elected representatives will see to that!

Does anyone actually care? Seems not. According to a 2016 poll, 54% of Americans are unaware that each state has two US Senators.

Join us for the first in a special series on sea level rise featuring local residents who share their thoughts on the challenges and potential solutions facing our region.

Many thanks to Marnie Atkins, Jerry Rohde, Nate Faith, Troy Nicolini, Adam Canter, and to Jessie Eden, who produced this episode with funding provided by the California Coastal Commission Whale Tail Grant Program.

For more info:

• Cal Poly Humboldt Sea Level Rise Institute
• Communities at Risk: King Salmon, Fields Landing, Fairhaven and Finntown - Aldaron Laird
• Humboldt Bay Shoreline, North Eureka to South Arcata: A History of Cultural Influences - Jerry Rohde
• Humboldt Bay King Tide Photo Project - Humboldt Waterkeeper

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Ed. note. New column! The Outpost, in conjunction with the Ink People Center for Arts and Culture, is delighted to bring you Culture Player, an occasional feature that spotlights the work of local people doing cool, creative things for our collective soul. 

Over to your host, Gabrielle Gopinath!

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Valetta Molofsky has a lot to celebrate this February. The organization she founded four and a half years ago, HC Black Music & Arts Association (HCBMAA), a DreamMaker Project of the Ink People Center for the Arts, is opening a new space. Youth and community volunteers have been working overtime for the past three months to turn a building on 16th Street in Arcata into a neighborhood youth center and organization headquarters, and HCBMAA is celebrating its opening during Black History Month with an open house party all day today.

On a recent February morning, the new space — called the Harambee Cultural Center — had a colorful, welcoming vibe. Soothing waterfall sounds fill the sunny front reception space. Green plants flourish next to African textiles. Low tables surrounded by colorful stools invite conversation. Wall art celebrates nature and the cosmos. An expansive mural represents a constellation of past and present leaders in the Black community. After waiting several years, Molofsky is excited to have room to enact the full spectrum of her programming vision.

“People have been coming in and asking, ‘what is this place?’”, Molofsky said. “We say, this is a healing restorative place. A place where you can refuel. That might mean spending time on our yoga mats. Or maybe you need to sweat it out and lift some weights. Maybe you need to manifest your beauty and look in that mirror and say, I am beautiful within and without. Maybe you want to come into the game room and shoot some pool with your friends. Maybe you need to use the computer lab and be around people while you do your homework. Maybe you want to take some time to journal and make art. Maybe you just want to sit on a beanbag, or cuddle up in our book nook. Whatever youth need, we have spaces to accommodate them.”

HCBMAA seeks to empower young people by connecting them with a sense of their history and their African roots. “In our childcare system, we provide services to youth ages five to thirteen, but we also work with emerging adults and adolescents,” Molofsky explained. The group is working to cultivate a safe, nurturing space for youth and families of color in Humboldt County, empowering youth through workshops, restorative circles, community outreach and Afrocentric cultural practices.

This new headquarters represents a major enhancement of HCBMAA’s capacity to serve the public. During the organization’s first years, Molofsky had to get creative in order to access space and resources, partnering with schools and with a fellow DreamMaker Project, Arising Community. The relationships that were developed during that time, she says, have been invaluable. “We were able to spend that quality time, building relationships in the community. Now, this is going to be our official center. This is the first time that we’ve actually set our feet — or what we call our souls — down on the ground and planted roots.”

HC Black Music & Arts Association came about through an organic process, inspired by founders’ perception that there was a need for cultural programming designed specifically for young people in Humboldt’s Black community. The group got its start in November of 2019 around a table in a Eureka Caribbean restaurant, Taste of Bim. “People of color had come together there,” Molofsky remembers. “No titles, no hierarchy: just people wanting to produce change for the community. As we sat there, we started to talk about giving youth access to cultural wealth and knowledge. And today, four and a half years later, we’re still doing that. We’re giving back to the community, letting the community take what they need.”

Getting the new space ready to serve the community has been a big lift for this small, grass-roots organization. Fortunately, HCBMAA has been able to rely on volunteer assistance. A big part of the group’s vision is empowering young people to take leadership and develop their own youth-centric programming. That commitment has been reflected in the design process.

“Much of this space was designed by members of our youth council,” Molofsky said. “The youth painted and patched the walls, figuring out what needed to be done. They came up with the colors. Young people came in and said, ‘This is what I have, these are my talents. Can I share this?’ They’ve done such a beautiful job.” Twenty volunteers also came in to help over a two-week period. “One person set up all our computers. We had volunteers who came from Cal Poly Humboldt who were setting up furniture. We had someone from Garberville, who’s from Nigeria, who drove all the way up here to build our shelves. The reception desk got built by a local person, who came in to do that on their day off. We had people from Belize who came in here and fixed the doors. We had someone who set up the kitchen. It was just amazing,” Molofsky recalled. “We were really hoping that people would put their vibrations into the space, and that the kids would feel the love.”

Having room to maneuver will make it possible for HCBMAA to continue and expand core programs like their annual production of holiday food baskets. “Our first year, we fed over 230 families. It was amazing to see what a need there is in the community. That’s meaningful for me personally, to know that we’ve been able to help people in that very fundamental way. Collaborators including Eureka Natural Foods, Wildberries and Winco stepped in and supported us where we needed help, so we were able to create these beautiful African baskets to give away. I see our beautiful baskets out there in the community, and I think how valuable it is that we are taking part in something good, feeding these families.”

Emphasis on developing self-worth through cultural awareness in HCBMAA programming derives from Molofsky’s perception that many young people in the regional Black community are under-resourced and under-valued. She designed the welcoming entry space, with its wall of lush green plants and a rippling waterfall, to promote a warm, supportive, tranquil atmosphere.

“My soul aligns with supporting these youth,” she said. “And my heart cries out when we lose youth from suicide. My soul cries out when I see students who take drugs. So the purpose of this space is to make it possible for young people to recover and to heal.”

High school-aged youth counselors are working with HCBMAA to make online wellness information resources accessible through scannable QR codes. Youth counselors also assist their peers directly, providing mentorship and companionship.

“They aren’t licensed, but they have lived the experience of being in high school. They can sit with these youths and say, ‘I’m here,’” Molofsky said. “We’re really putting power in the hands of young people to make this what they want it to be. When you’re speaking to someone who’s your own age, who’s grown up with the same things that you’ve grown up with, they can help on a different level than an older person can.”

The Harambee Cultural Center (725 16th Street, Arcata) is having a grand opening celebration today. A flyer — see below — promises “vendors, family activities and good company,” plus story telling, music, dancing and more.

To learn more about HC Black Music & Arts Association, email hcblackmusicnarts@inkpeople.org or connect on Facebook.

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Gabrielle Gopinath is the grant writing and communications director for the Ink People Center for Arts and Culture.