Screenshot of Tuesday’s Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting.
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Should California get rid of its gas tax in favor of something more equitable?
As electric vehicles become more and more prevalent, the state is looking for a new way to fund roadway maintenance and repairs that aren’t based on gas taxes. The “California Road Charge Program” would serve as an alternative funding mechanism based on miles driven rather than the amount of fuel used by an individual driver.
During a presentation to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Lauren Prehoda, Road Charge Program Manager for Caltrans, described the road charge program as a way to “bring that fairness back into the tax system.”
“We’re seeing this greater unfairness in what people are paying in terms of their taxes,” she said. “Basically, we’re taking one collection mechanism and switching it out for another. We’re not necessarily looking at changing how the money is spent. The money is already being spent [on] our state and local roads, transit, active transportation, all those things. We’re looking at one per mile rate for all passenger vehicles … so everyone is paying the same to use the road.”
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Caltrans and the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) are working with tribes and rural communities in Humboldt County on the Public/Private Roads Pilot Project. Currently, when a driver is on a private road, they are still paying for the gas tax even though there are no public funds going into the maintenance of that road. The pilot program will utilize GPS technology to differentiate between when a vehicle is driving on a public road versus a private road.
“For example … say you have a farmer who’s driving on his private frontage road that’s exactly parallel to the public highway,” Prehoda explained. “In one case, he should be paying a tax, and in the other he should not. Right now, under the gas tax system, there’s no way that you can differentiate between [the two]. … We also want to understand if there are any tax benefits specifically for rural drivers in embracing those higher-tech solutions.”
Those interested in participating in the pilot project will receive up to $250 in incentives. “Basically, you’ll need to sign up and you’ll have a little device sent to you to plug into the OBD-II Port of your vehicle and you just drive around for six months as you usually would,” Prehoda said. “Then you’ll take some surveys and that’s it.” You can sign up here.
Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson said the road charge proposal “sounds fair” but pointed out inequities between vehicle weight/size and infrastructure impacts.
“How much maintenance, wear and tear on a road [does] a larger, heavier vehicle have?” he asked. “I know that there is a tendency for larger vehicles [to be used] in more rural areas due to work and other things … but I just want to make sure that, at the very least, you guys are considering that because it is not necessarily fair and equitable [for] someone who is using less resources [to] subsidize those who are using more resources.”
Prehoda acknowledged the disparity, noting that “one person’s idea of fairness is not necessarily [that] of another,” but maintained that vehicle weight only becomes an issue at a commercial scale.
“The relationship between weight and the impacts to our transportation system is not linear, it’s actually exponential,” she said. “In the lower ends of the weight categories, there’s really not that much of a difference in terms of the impact to the roadway and bridges. And really, that’s everything around 10,000 lbs and below. … When you get above that in the commercial vehicle space … that’s where you see significant damage.”
After some additional discussion, Wilson made a motion to accept and file the report, which was seconded by Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell.
The motion passed 5-0.
Life Plan Humboldt Senior Living Community
The board also received a presentation from Life Plan Humboldt, an organization looking to build a resident-run senior living community in McKinleyville. The community – which would offer 144 independent cottages and apartments for residents 60 years and older – would be the first of its kind on the North Coast.
“We’ll provide assisted living level services to people in their homes and memory care all on one campus,” Ann Lindsay, president of the Life Care Humboldt board of directors, said during this week’s meeting. “We’ll have dining and fitness, a wellness center, meeting space, picnic areas and trails. … We really want to provide a lifelong opportunity for learning, growth and wellness, and to integrate into the broader community.”
“We’re currently negotiating for property in Mckinleyville that will be part of the McKinleyville Town Center,” Lindsay said. “It’s a fantastic location for us. We’ve surveyed prospective members and they all want to be within walking distance of amenities, and there certainly are a lot of amenities in Mckinleyville. … We have some alternatives, but this is where we’re working currently.”
The organization is hoping to raise $2 million from local individuals, businesses and foundations to pay for pre-financing development costs, Lindsay said. They’re hoping to secure another $2.5 million in one-time state funding to secure the $75 million needed in bond financing to complete the project.
The board expressed support for the senior living community and unanimously agreed to sign a letter of support for the project.
Privatization of Medicare
The board also received a presentation surrounding the privatization of Medicare through the Direct Contracting Entities (DCE) and Accountable Care Organization - Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO-REACH) programs, also known as the “Medicare Advantage” plan.
Two local members of Health Care for All and Physicians for a National Health Program Humboldt, Patty Harvey and Corinne Frugoni, warned us about this issue a few months back. The pair asserted that Medicare “Advantage” is not traditional Medicare.
“They are draining the Medicare trust fund and, unfortunately, that is affecting the solvency of this public trust that we have all paid into,” Frugoni explained during a lengthy presentation to the board. “‘Medicare Advantage’ has convinced individual seniors to sign up for [its] programs with a lot of slick advertising and because premiums are less under ‘Medicare Advantage’. However, what seniors don’t recognize is that it can affect their ability to get the care they need if they become really sick because it affects the solvency of the Medicare trust fund.”
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Frugoni and Harvey asked the board to send a letter of opposition to the ACOO-REACH program to California Health & Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
First District Supervisor Rex Bohn acknowledged their concerns but questioned whether “shutting down this program is how we get there.”
“I mean, it was a great presentation – it scared the hell out of me – but I also have to go by what I’ve found out, what I’ve looked at,” he said. “This model has been in place for 31 days and we’re expected to write a letter saying this is the worst thing that’s ever happened? I think we need to be a little more open-minded. … I need to know more information.”
Frugoni pushed back, noting that the program has been in the works for two to three years under its former name, DCE.
Shortly after public comment, Wilson made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation to send a letter to state representatives opposing the privatization of Medicare. Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo seconded the motion.
Bohn reiterated his reluctance to support the letter of opposition “just for lack of information.” The motion passed in a 3-1-1 vote, with Bohn dissenting and Bushnell abstaining.
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You can find a recording of Tuesday’s meeting at this link.
HUMBOLDT TODAY: A judge dismisses molestation charges against a local teacher, a family decries the release of their loved one’s killer after three years behind bars, plus California’s teeth are struggling, and more in today’s newscast with John Kennedy O’Connor.
This is what it’s going to sound like. Shop With a Cop file footage.
Are you anywhere near Old Town or Target right now? If so, find some earplugs quick.
One of the least-noticed big bummers of the Dec. 20 earthquake was that “Shop With a Cop” was scheduled for that day, and was of course postponed. “Shop With a Cop” is an annual Humboldt County Christmas tradition wherein local first responders escort local kids who might need a nice Christmas present to Target for a shopping trip.
But the event was postponed, not canceled. And we’re doing the do-over now! The kids are gonna get rides in police cars and fire trucks and ambulances from their gathering spot at the Wharfinger all the way down Waterfront Drive and it’s going be a blast.
Now, what’s one thing you gotta do when you give a little kid a ride in a vehicle that is equipped with a siren? That’s right — you gotta blare that siren absolutely as loud as you can.
So imagine several dozen of these vehicles parading down Waterfront at low speed with all the sirens cranked to 11, and what you’ve got is a recipe for a panicked public. Tsunami? Air raid? End of the world?
None of these things. It happy kids and happy cops having a blast! It will end soon.
On January 26, 2023, the Eureka Police Department (EPD) notified the Arcata Police Department (APD) they had initiated an investigation into allegations of sexual assault, involving a former Eureka High School (EHS) assistant wrestling coach, and a female student who has since graduated and is now an adult. Because the criminal allegations took place in the City of Arcata, APD took the lead on the investigation and continued to work collaboratively with EPD.
On January 30, 2023, APD arrested 34-year-old Thomas Harlan Gowing without incident. Gowing was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility for multiple violations of Penal Code Section 261.5(C)-Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a Minor.
Gowing has had no association with EHS since June 2022.
The Arcata Police Department encourages anyone with information on this case, or any associated allegations against Gowing, to contact the Arcata Police Department’s Investigations Unit, at 707-822-2424.
APD would like to remind community members that have experienced, or are currently experiencing sexual abuse, there are advocacy services and resources available to assist (24/7) through our local and national partners, such as the North Coast Rape Crisis Team (707-445-2881), and the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673).
APD thanks the Eureka Police Department, Eureka High School, and the North Coast Rape Crisis Team for their assistance in this matter.
Friends and family of the late Taevonne “Tae” Latimer assembled in courtroom six Tuesday afternoon to seek whatever justice the court could offer before it released 19-year-old Logan Rain Brewer-Hearst back into the community.
It has been just three years and eight months since Logan-Hearst, then 16, fatally shot Latimer, 18, three times in the back.
During the weed deal gone bad, Brewer-Hearst also shot Latimer’s 18-year-old cousin, Daylyn Prudhomme, in the leg.
The District Attorney’s Office pushed for Brewer-Hearst to be tried as an adult, where, if convicted of murder, he would have been sentenced to life in prison. But Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis denied that request, and in December 2020 Brewer-Hearst was sentenced to 15 years in a detention center of the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice.
Per the terms of a plea deal, the sentence included four years for the involuntary manslaughter of Latimer, 10 years for using a firearm, and one year for shooting Prudhomme.
It was understood, even at the time, that Brewer-Hearst would not serve all 15 years. Under California law the maximum sentence that can be imposed on juvenile ends incarceration at age 25 — or when rehabilitation is achieved.
But no one expected his incarceration to end this soon.
No one in the Latimer family expected the state to close all of its juvenile detention centers.
The law calls for people aged 14 to 24 who committed serious offenses as minors to be returned to their home counties and either placed in county juvenile halls, which were built for short-term pretrial stays, or, if they’re deemed rehabilitated, released back into the community under probation.
That’s what’s happening with Brewer-Hearst, per the direction of a state advisory board, and the victim’s family is not happy about it.
“I’m confused, in my head; I can’t wrap my mind around this,” said Gary Thompson, Latimer’s great uncle, who was one of two family members who addressed Judge Lawrence Killoran at Tuesday’s hearing.
Thompson said he spent more than 20 years as a corrections counselor, racking up more than 50,000 hours with juvenile offenders, and he said, “Something in this doesn’t seem to feel right.”
He said that never during his career did he see someone convicted of such serious crimes get rehabilitated in just three and a half years. As Thompson addressed the judge, Brewer-Hearst sat nearly immobile at the defense table, staring straight ahead, away from the assembled family in the courtroom.
“Where can we get justice?” Thompson pleaded. “Where’s our justice? That’s all we’re asking for.”
After he sat down, Melissa Hall, Latimer’s aunt, said the family found out a year ago that the state’s juvenile justice detention centers would be closing and that Brewer-Hearst would be coming back to Humboldt County to serve the remainder of his sentence.
“We accepted that,” she said. “We understood. We understand this is rehabilitation. This is a juvenile case.”
But the family didn’t find out until this past Friday that Brewer-Hearst would be released so soon.
“That gave us four days,” she said, “to speak to younger siblings. To accept this as a family. To try to find the peace that we need to have in order to coexist in this community with the offender.”
Hall said the family trusted in the justice system and that they’re aware that their “side” played a role in the incidents leading up to the 2019 shooting, but what’s difficult, she said, is that Brewer-Hearst doesn’t seem sorry.
“There has been a lack of remorse from the beginning,” she said as Brewer-Hearst continued to stare straight ahead. “There has never been an apology, and maybe Mr. Brewer-Hearst isn’t sorry. But when you take a life — even if you do somehow [decide] in your head [that] you’re defending yourself — you’d think that you’d be able to look, you know, even at us when we’re talking and just show the remorse. So that makes me fear that perhaps a high-risk, dangerous offender is being placed back into our community, not rehabilitated.”
She asked the judge to add some restrictions to the terms of Brewer-Hearst’s probation and said the family has no ill will toward the state review board, the District Attorney’s Office or anyone.
“We don’t even have ill will with Mr. Brewer-Hearst,” she said. But she called on him to remake his life and said the family believes in him — because they have to.
Hall said this has been hardest on Latimer’s younger siblings, who are now 10 and eight years old and who think of Brewer-Hearst as a boogeyman. She read a note from each of them aloud. Hall’s 10-year-old niece (Latimer’s younger sister) had written, “He [Brewer-Hearst] affected my life because I cry myself to bed most nights and I’m really sad. Most of the time I’m really more sad than happy. Please have a good day, Your Honor.”
And Hall’s nephew (Latimer’s younger brother) had written, “I thought he was supposed to be in jail until I was 14 years old. I’m only eight. I am sad, mad and very scared.”
Judge Killoran thanked Hall, saying the family’s pain was “palpable.” Unable to prevent Brewer-Hearst’s release, the judge then proceeded to add a number of restrictions to Brewer-Hearst’s probation, as requested by the prosecution.
Brewer-Hearst will be returning to Southern Humboldt to live with family for the time being. Among the terms of his probation he must check in weekly with his probation officer and submit to a drug and alcohol test with each visit. He must also obey all laws and:
Be placed on an electronic monitor for at least six months
Notify the probation officer prior to any change in residence
Not leave the county without consent
Seek and maintain employment or vocational training
Perform 20 hours of community work per week
Not contact, annoy or harass Prudhomme
Submit to search and seizure any time day or night without a warrant
Never possess firearm or live anywhere with them in the house
Never consume alcoholic beverages or other intoxicating substances
Attend counseling program
Pay restitution in the amount of $77,790
Stay away from all K-12 schools in Eureka as well as the Eureka Costco to avoid interacting with the victims’ families
Obey a curfew between 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. unless working a job during those hours, and
Not associate with any known drug traffickers, users or associates
After these terms were read, Latimer’s family filed quietly out of the courtroom while Brewer-Hearst, still clad in his orange, jail-issued jumpsuit was led through a side door. His attorney, Andrea Sullivan, had told the judge that he likely wouldn’t be released until after business hours.
Brewer-Hearst was instructed to check in with the probation office by noon today.
Eureka City Schools (ECS) is aware of the arrest of Thomas Harlan Gowing. Gowing was a former coach and volunteer for wrestling at Eureka High School (EHS). Gowing has not worked in a paid or volunteer capacity in ECS since June 2022.
ECS supports the investigation with the Arcata Police Department, as student safety is the District’s top priority.
“The safety and wellbeing of our students is paramount,” said Rob Standish, EHS Principal. “Any EHS student who may be directly or indirectly impacted by this incident is encouraged to contact the EHS Counseling Office at 707-441-0262 for support.”
Inappropriate relationships between minors and adults will not be tolerated. ECS supports the efforts of law enforcement to prosecute this individual to the fullest extent of the law.
Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Arcata Police Department at 707-822-2428. All further inquiries should be directed to the Arcata Police Department.
Judge John Feeney has dismissed four felony child-molestation charges against Gary Frankland Landergen, a former Fortuna High School math teacher and track coach accused by three teenage girls.
After hearing hours of preliminary-hearing testimony from Fortuna police Detective Ryan Richardson, who interviewed the three Jane Does, Feeney ruled there was not enough evidence to hold Landergen to answer for lewd or lascivious behavior with a child aged 14 or 15.
Landergen.
Landergen, 57, was held to answer on two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery and two misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a child.
“The court does not condone the alleged actions of Mr. Landergen,” Feeney said, noting that Landergen was in a position of trust at the high school.
“However, (his behavior) does not constitute felonious conduct.”
One of the girls told Detective Richardson that Landergen put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close, said “I love you” and then slid his hand down to grab her butt.
When Richardson spoke with Landergen after his arrest, he adamantly denied the butt-grabbing. The detective then told him, falsely, that the act was caught on video. Landergen insisted he didn’t recall it, “but if it’s on camera it must have happened.”
Another girl said that at a track meet in Redding, Landergen hugged her and then patted her butt twice as she was leaving. She described it as a “good-bye pat” or “a little smack on my ass.” There were no witnesses to that alleged incident.
And a third girl reported that, while the track team was practicing stretches in the high school gym, Landergen touched the back of her thigh and the side of her butt. She said “Hey! Hey! Stop!”
But the student who had been her stretching partner said Landergen was just walking around the gym, making sure the girls were stretching properly.
Feeney, when making his ruling Tuesday afternoon, noted none of the allegations involved “skin-to-skin contact.”
In addition to the complaints about inappropriate touching, there were many reports about Landergen’s behavior in the math classroom. Students said he was fine during the first semester, but in the second semester he frequently told off-color jokes and made sexual comments.
“He began making inappropriate jokes of a sexual nature,” Richardson testified under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm.
Once, one of the girls reported, Landergen overheard a male student say the word “fucking.” He allegedly responded “I don’t know why you all look so sad. I’m always happy when I’m fucking.”
Other alleged comments:
Wrestlers are good in bed “because they know all the moves.”
“I would fuck anyone as long as I had someone to do it with.”
When a boy in class mentioned “wet dreams,” Landergen reportedly said “Oh yeah, I have wet dreams all the time.”
If the subject of “length” came up during math class, “He would turn it into a comment about penis size.”
Landergen’s defense attorney, Conflict Counsel Meagan O’Connell, noted that the three alleged victims talked to each other before any of them spoke to police.
Richardson testified that when he asked Landergen why the girls would make false accusations, “He told me that because he had made them run barefoot around the field.”
During cross-examination, O’Connell pointed out there were no adult witnesses to any of the alleged incidents.
“Correct,” Richardson said.
Asked if any of the girls believed Landergen was touching them for a sexual purpose, the detective said “None of them indicated that.”
Landergen must still deal with the misdemeanor charges. His trial is scheduled for May 1.
Landergen remains out of custody on bail. He posted bond when arrested in April 2022, and again a few months later when his bail was raised and he was re-arrested. The first bond was exonerated; the second was not.
Landergen was accompanied to court by three male supporters.
