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(VIDEO) What Would Brian Dahle Do as California Governor?

Alexei Koseff / Monday, April 18, 2022 @ 7:27 a.m. / Sacramento

State Sen. Brian Dahle, candidate for governor of California, answers questions from CalMatters reporters in Sacramento on Apr. 5, 2022. Photo by Martin do Nascimento, CalMatters



They may not agree on much, but Republican gubernatorial hopeful Brian Dahle pledges that Democratic lawmakers would find a more receptive partner at the Capitol if he unseats Gov. Gavin Newsom this year.

After a decade in the GOP’s (super)minority in Sacramento, Dahle said he knows how to build relationships across the aisle and pass bipartisan legislation — inviting colleagues to his seed farm in Lassen County, bringing them fresh peaches from a neighbor and annually gifting them See’s candies, purchased through a fundraiser to help a local eighth grade class visit the state Capitol.

“They’ll have more access to the horseshoe than they do now,” Dahle said during a 90-minute interview this month at the CalMatters office in Sacramento. “I will have every single legislator in my office when I’m governor and we will talk about their district and we will talk about the challenges and we will find places we can work together.”

Dahle points to his work on major legislation carried by Democratic colleagues — including a 2016 measure to stop surprise medical bills for insured patients who are treated by out-of-network specialists at in-network facilities — as his proudest accomplishments.

“It will be a different atmosphere in that building” if his underdog campaign is successful, he said, far more cooperative with legislators than under Newsom, whom Dahle has slammed as a “dictator” for largely governing by executive order, without the Legislature’s input, during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’ll find out what they care about. Because all of us love California, there’s just too much politics in this place,” Dahle said.

Here are five issues that he said would be a priority if he is elected governor.

‘Get violent criminals off our streets’

Like many Republican candidates this election, Dahle is focused on crime rates in California. He said that, if political reality was no obstacle, his primary goal as governor would be to “get violent criminals off our streets and back off our streets and get repeat criminals off our streets.” That requires more funding for local law enforcement agencies, he said, which have taken on a greater share of the burden over the past decade as California reduced the population of its overcrowded prisons.

Dahle also wants to roll back much of Proposition 47, an initiative approved by voters in 2014 to reduce some property and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, which he blames for enabling serial shoplifting. He would maintain the reduced penalties for drug possession, however.

“I’m not for putting people in jail if they have been smoking marijuana and they were nonviolent criminals,” he said. “Most of those people were nonviolent criminals.”

‘We need charging stations’

Dahle said his perspective has shifted the most on environmental issues during his decades in public office. He sees unique opportunities for collaboration, because of his own experience as a Lassen County supervisor, working with both environmental activists and the forestry industry to lobby the federal government for better forest management policies.

“What I learned in that process was, we don’t hear each other sometimes,” Dahle said. “We have a lot in common if we just would listen and hear each other and spend time together. I think that’s what’s really lacking. And so that’s been something that I’ve picked up that has really changed my outlook on how to legislate.”

Dahle’s focus would be building more transmission lines so that clean energy could be shared from one part of California to another, rather than being exported out of the state when there is an excess supply. He said that would also help secure the grid for the transition to electric vehicles, though he does not support Newsom’s mandate that all new cars sold in California be zero-emission by 2035.

“We need to make sure the grid is in a place where we can actually put electric vehicles and hubs in the cities,” he said. “We need charging stations. We can’t have electric vehicles if we don’t have enough charging stations.”

‘If you frivolously sue…you have to pay’

Dahle believes the biggest obstacle to building more housing and increasing affordability is the California Environmental Quality Act, also known as CEQA, the landmark state law that requires government agencies and developers to study and mitigate the environmental effects of proposed projects.

While it was a “great law” in its original intent, Dahle said, “unfortunately, it’s turned into a pawn in many schemes,” misused by rival companies, labor unions and neighborhood groups to hold up projects they don’t like.

To get around powerful interests that block any significant changes in the Legislature, Dahle said he would support a ballot measure to increase penalties for abuse of the environmental review process.

“We need to, first of all, hold people accountable who are using CEQA to sue just to extract,” he said. “If you frivolously sue and you lose and continue to lose, you have to pay. You have to pay for this because you’re just holding up the process. It’s really not mitigating the impacts.”

‘We can produce it right here in California’

To bring down the cost of living for Californians, Dahle said he would also work as governor to lower the price of electricity. Studies estimate that consumers here pay on average 60% more for power than the rest of the nation.

In addition to his focus on building more transmission lines — which Dahle said would reduce costs by making energy options more widely available throughout California — he supports ramping up the production of oil in the state. He said it is safer and more efficient than importing from other countries.

“I would rather us put Californians to work,” Dahle said. “At the same time, it’s better for the environment. We can just pipe the oil to the refinery, and we can produce it right here in California.”

‘Spacing of the trees’

As California sinks deeper into drought conditions, Dahle does not favor imposing mandatory water use reductions, which he called “a sound bite that I don’t believe is going to make much difference at all.” He raised particular concerns, as a farmer, that harsh restrictions would further devastate California agriculture by forcing farms to fallow hundreds of thousands of acres of land.

Dahle said the state should put a greater emphasis on increasing water storage by building the proposed Sites Reservoir. He also has a novel idea to improve water supply by thinning forests, a policy that would offer other benefits such as providing timber and reducing wildfire risks.

“When the snow lands on the trees, on the limbs, it evaporates,” Dahle said. “When the snow lands on the floor, when you have the spacing of the trees, it actually goes into our watershed and is purified, and it’s good, clean water for the habitat and for us.”

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

BOOKED

Today: 3 felonies, 11 misdemeanors, 0 infractions

JUDGED

Humboldt County Superior Court Calendar: Yesterday

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(VIDEO) Watch Local Fighter Tyson Siphavong-Miller Win His Third Pro MMA Bout at Bellator 277; Louis Cosce Cancels Upcoming UFC Fight After Reportedly Testing Positive for COVID-19

John Ross Ferrara / Sunday, April 17, 2022 @ 3:30 p.m. / LoCO Sports!

Watch Siphavong-Miller’s fight in its entirety. | Bellator

Local MMA pro Tyson Siphavong-Miller won his third consecutive pro bout during the Bellator 277 prelims on Friday by defeating grappling expert Rhalan Gracie.

Gracie technically survived the first round with Siphavong-Miller, who delivered a series of vicious ground-and-pound strikes. However, the ringside doctor called the fight before the start of the second round after Gracie was determined to be too woozy to continue.

Siphavong-Miller thanked his family and celebrated with teammate Cass Bell and trainer John Thompson from the ring following the match.

Bell was scheduled to fight on the same undercard on Friday. However, the veteran fighter announced last month that he had to pull out of the fight “due to injuries and family issues.”

Following in the footsteps of Bell, who won his first five Bellator bouts, Siphavong-Miller now has a perfect professional record of 3-0.

Humboldt’s Cosce brothers also have upcoming pro fights in the UFC.

Louis Cosce was set to enter the octagon against Preston Parsons this Saturday for UFC Fight Night. However, Cosce announced on social media today that he will not be competing after testing positive for COVID-19.

“Disappointed to say I will not be competing next weekend, this last week was pretty rough trying to push through training,” Cosce wrote. “I caught a fever Friday night and then tested positive for Covid Saturday morning. I can honestly say this was the best shape I have ever been in prior to a fight was looking forward to fighting again, bummed to say the least. Thanks to everyone for the support over the years. I’ll be back in the gym as soon as this passes, looking for a new fight date. Much love and Happy Easter.”

His brother Orion Cosce, meanwhile, announced a new date for his previously canceled fight against Mike Mathetha yesterday.

After dropping out of his original matchup with Mathetha in February due to COVID-19, Orion Cosce will reportedly now fight Mathetha at UFC 275 in Singapore on June 11.

(VIDEO) HUMBOLDT OUTDOORS: Ray Olson Cracks the Case on the Mysterious Arcata Community Forest Wood Carvings

John Ross Ferrara / Sunday, April 17, 2022 @ 2:30 p.m. / Humboldt Outdoors

PREVIOUSLY: (VIDEO) HUMBOLDT OUTDOORS: Mysterious Wood Carvings in the Arcata Community Forest

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Self-taught Humboldt documentarian Ray Olson has reportedly uncovered the artist behind the once-mysterious redwood carvings found along Park Drive in the Arcata Community Forest.

The local artist’s family contacted Olson after the Outpost shared his previous report on the sculptures last month. Unfortunately, the artist responsible for the carvings, Jack Navarro, has since passed away. 

However, in his latest episode of Humboldt Outdoors, Olson sits down with Navarro’s former wife Lynn Navarro to talk about these sculptures and more of his work that can be found around Arcata.

These works include multiple wood sculptures on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus and a carving on Lazy L Ranch on Fickle Hill Road. Enjoy!

(AUDIO) HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP: Local Engineer Darren Weiss Went to Antarctica, So Let’s Talk About That

LoCO Staff / Sunday, April 17, 2022 @ 9 a.m. / Humboldt Holding Up

Darren Weiss — the one more covered up on the left, there — during his recent trip to Antarctica

(AUDIO) Darren Weiss is Holding Up

On this week’s episode of Humboldt Holding Up — LoCO’s pandemic-era podcast experiment that we’re still doing for some reason — we speak with Darren Weiss, longtime host of KHUM radio’s The Chicken Scratch Show, but more profitably a professional engineer who specializes in renewable energy. It is the latter pursuit that led to a recent opportunity to travel to Antarctica as part of an expedition to see the effects of climate change on our southernmost continent.

Click the audio player above or head over to Apple Podcasts to hear Weiss’s chat with LoCO’s Stephanie McGeary and Andrew Goff and/or scroll our list of past guests at the end of this post. Also, you can read more Weiss’ trip here or glance at a few pics taken along the journey below.

Playing backgammon aboard the Ocean Victory vessel

Penguins, of course

PREVIOUS HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP GUESTS:

GROWING OLD UNGRACEFULLY: Probabilities Redux

Barry Evans / Sunday, April 17, 2022 @ 7 a.m. / Growing Old Ungracefully

After scrivening this column for over seven years (this is #379) I thought I had a pretty fair idea of which of them would elicit a “meh” reaction and which – GMOs and UFOs, for instance — would bring out the critic that lives inside all of us. Wrong again. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about probabilities — how much more mundane a topic can you get? To my surprise, a ton of folks responded. Many of whom made my point for me, that we tend to rely too much on our gut feelings (“That can’t possibly be true!”) than on basic-but-boring logic. So much so that I think it’s worthwhile revisiting it, with my very best effort at explaining why the (non-intuitive!) solutions I gave are correct. And — bonus! — Monty Hall.

Urn Problem

You’re shown two urns, one of which contains one black and one white ball; the other contains two black balls. You pick one urn at random and put your hand in, pulling out one ball: it’s black. What’s the probability that the second ball in that urn is also black?

2/3.

Label the balls B1 and B2 (in one urn) and B3 and W1 in the other. You’ve pulled out, with equal probability B1, B2 or B3. In two of those cases (B1 and B2) the other ball is black, while in one of those cases (B3), the other ball is white.

Mitch’s ATM Puzzle

An ATM dispenses $20 bills and has only four left, one of which is a counterfeit. Alice and Bob and Carol and Dave each make a $20 withdrawal from the ATM, after which it has no money left to dispense. You decide to check the women’s bills first, starting with Alice. Alice does not have the counterfeit. What are the odds that Carol will have the counterfeit?

1/3

This is the urn problem revisited. After Alice has checked her bill, we’re left with three bills, one of which is counterfeit, so the odds of either Bob, Carol or Dave getting it are one in three. Which brings us to…

The (Notorious) Monty Hall Puzzle

Both the urn and the ATM teasers have echoes in what’s become known as the “Monty Hall puzzle,” after the late Monty Hall, host of Let’s Make a Deal for many years. In fact, several commentators of two weeks ago brought it up.

To remind you of the set-up: Monty gives you the choice of three doors: behind one door is a car; behind the other two, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and Monty, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens one of the other doors, say No. 3, revealing a goat. (He never opens the door hiding the car, of course.) He says to you, “Do you want to switch and pick another door?” The gut reaction of most people is no — there’s a 50/50 chance that either of the two closed doors hides a car, so whether you switch or not is immaterial.

When Marilyn von Savant wrote, in her regular Parade magazine column, that yes, switching improves your chances of winning the car, ten thousand readers (including many math professors!) took her to task. “How could switching doors possibly make a difference?” they asked. “You either picked the right door or you didn’t, and the fact that one of the doors is now open doesn’t change that!” But it does.

Take a look at this matrix, which exhausts all possibilities for when you pick door No. 1 and Monty opens a door hiding a goat. If you switch (games 1, 2 and 3), you increase your chance of winning the car to 2/3 compared with 1/3 if you stay (games 4, 5 and 6).

Birthday ‘Paradox’ Re-explained

How come the odds of two people in a group of 23 sharing the same birthday are better than 50/50?

If two people meet and exchange birthday dates, the odds of them sharing the same date are 1 in 365, so the odds of them not sharing the same birthday are 364 in 365.

In a room of 23 people, how many pairs of people have to check with each other to see if they share the same birthday? It’s the same as the number of handshakes, assuming everyone shakes the hand of everyone else. The first person to go shakes hands with 22 people; the second with 21 (having already shaken #1’s hand); the third with 20, etc. Total number of handshakes/pairs, is then 22 + 21 + 20 +…+ 1 = 253.

With 253 pairs, the odds of two people in a group of 23 not sharing the same birthday are 364/365 multiplied* by itself 253 times, i.e. (364/365)^253, which Google tells me is a tad less than 0.5. So the odds that two people in the room do share a birthday are better than 50/50.

* Note that each pairing is independent of all the others, so you multiply the odds. It’s like tossing a coin: toss it three times and the odds of getting three heads are ½ x ½ x ½, or one eighth. Your turn: Flip a coin four times. (1) What are the odds of getting three heads and one tail in that order? (2) In any order?

LETTER FROM ISTANBUL: Midnight At The Pera Palace

James Tressler / Sunday, April 17, 2022 @ 7 a.m. / Letter From Istanbul

A young journalist travels back in time to 1919 Istanbul, accidentally disrupting the natural flow of history. She must act quickly to prevent the assassination of Ataturk – which would threaten the very existence of modern Turkey.

This is the plot of “Midnight At The Pera Palace,” a Netflix series based (very, very loosely) on the popular book by Charles King. I read King’s book several years ago, and found his nonfiction recounting of the Pera Palace Hotel’s long and storied history to be very entertaining. I have even spent a night at the famous hotel myself, but that’s another story.

Anyone who has read the book will notice immediately that we are on a very different journey in this eight-part series. At first, I was keenly disappointed, when the chimes struck midnight, an earthquake rumbles through the elegant room, and next thing we and the protagonist are staring around wildly disbelieving (“Is that Agatha Christie? Oh my God, it’s Ataturk!”). It was like watching a mishmash of “Back to the Future” and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” I thought with dismay.

But after the first episode, I let myself just fall into the fantastical story. Misgivings aside, “Midnight at the Pera Palace” does have a lot to offer. Anyone who has been to the Pera Palace will appreciate revisiting its rich history, which is offered here in terms of how it serves the twisting, time-travel narrative.

The cast features many well-known Turkish actors. The journalist Esra is played by Hazal Kaya (a graduate of Bilgi University, where I teach as a matter of fact), and her “Doc Brown” assistant and Pera Palace manager friend Ahmet Bey is played by Tansu Biçet. Halut, the would-be assassin of Ataturk, is played by Selahattin Pasali.

Without giving away too many spoilers, Esra accidentally travels back to the Pera Palace in 1919, and due to a case of mistaken identity, is indirectly responsible for the murder of Peride at the hands of the conspirator Halut. Peride is a fictional historical character, daughter of the Pera Palace owner. In this recast history, it is Peride who is supposed to save Ataturk from an assassination attempt. Turkish history buffs of course know the famous true story of how Ataturk survived a real such attempt on his life, but was saved when a pocketwatch given to him as a present stopped the fatal bullet.

At any rate, with so much at stake, it is up to the enterprising Esra to assume the identity of the now-dead Peride. She must assume the manners and role of an early 20th Century daughter of powerful patriarch while at the same time get to the bottom of the plot to kill the future Father of Modern Turkey.

Like all time travel stories, “Midnight At the Pera Palace” enjoys playing with the trappings and mores of the past (“Knowing what we know now …”). For instance, somewhat predictably, Esra-as-Peride invokes the rage of her father through her millennial free spirited, assertive ways. And when she lapses into English when conversing with a British officer, her mystified sister asks aloud, “When did Peride learn to speak English?” which will probably make modern Turks chuckle, since for them, speaking English is as customary and commonplace as having a smart phone.

Another thought I had while watching the series was that it’s revealing and interesting to see the Pera Palace and its environs presented by Turks. King’s book, for those who haven’t read it (and I recommend it), is well-researched and carefully observed, with lots of dishy history on the hotel’s many stellar guests, and its role not only as the end point on the Orient Express, but as a character in some of the 20th Century’s most important events.

In the series, history again is more of a foil and backdrop, but directors Emre Şahin and Nisan Dağ and the cast allow we yabanci viewers a glimpse into how that pivotal time in Turkish history is viewed by Turks themselves. It is almost always more interesting to see history through the eyes of the locals, for they will have an eye for the little details, the mannerisms, ways and habits of speech, that may escape the notice of the outsider.

For example, there is the character of Sonya, a White Russian who was one of many forced to flee Russia following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and who is working as a maid at the hotel. She and Ahmet Bey sit and have a drink together at the hotel bar and their exchanges, while no doubt romanticized (would a recently arrived White Russian speak Turkish as fluently as Sonya does?), the scene is touchingly portrayed, and one can’t help but reflect on the current reality of thousands of newly arrived refugees from Ukraine, not to mention the millions of Syrians who’ve been here well over a decade.

Another revealing exchange occurs earlier in the series, when British officers patronizingly invite Mustafa Kemal to join them at their table. “Thank them on my behalf,” the Turkish general tells the waiter curtly. “But they are guests in our country. Tell them they are welcome to join me at my table.” Watching this scene, a yabancı such as myself reflects that Turkey, then as now, has always been home to many guests, welcome or not.

Watching Esra-as-Peride and Ahmet Bey scrambling, Marty McFly-like, around the city, eluding and following the conspirators, scrambling to restore history, to in effect, save Turkey, it also occurred to me that the directors wanted to show that Turkey is ever in search of its identity, and in a sense, ever-threatened from without and from within, by topsy-turvy events, chance or not.

Verdict: Give “Midnight at the Pera Palace” a shot, if you’re in between series at the moment. It’s time-travel angle may strike some as awkward and derivative, as it did me at first, but ultimately it’s a well-cast, beautifully shot and at times illuminating glimpse into one of the most interesting chapters of modern Turkish history. It reminds us that history is always being recast and rewritten, and has some fun along the way.

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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is a writer and teacher living in Istanbul.

(PHOTOS) Locals Brave the Frigid Waters of Humboldt Bay for 21st Annual Perilous Plunge

Isabella Vanderheiden / Saturday, April 16, 2022 @ 4:48 p.m. / Humboldt , Local Happenings

Miss Piggy pushes another muppet into the bay during the 21st annual Perilous Plunge. Photo: Isabella Vanderheiden


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Dozens of brave souls donned their wackiest outfits and came out to the Eureka Waterfront this afternoon to raise money for the Redwood Discovery Museum by plunging into the frigid waters of Humboldt Bay.

This was the museum’s 21st annual Perilous Plunge, yet another weird event created by the people of Humboldt to raise money for a good cause. This year, the museum expanded the event to include folks from all over the world by hosting a “hybrid plunge” and encouraged participants unable to attend in-person to submit a creative plunge video.

Scroll for more photos of this year’s event.

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