Kevin Patrick Coyne of Eureka passed away on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Though taken from us too soon, Kevin lived a robust life for 73 years.

Kevin was born on February, 27,1950 in Bethesda, Maryland to Raymond and Margaret Coyne. With three older sisters and dozens of cousins, there was rarely a dull moment when the family gathered. Kevin’s father, Raymond, was in the US Marine Corps and by the time Kevin was six, they moved to Ray’s new station in San Diego. After a brief stint in San Diego, the Coyne family moved to the Bay Area where Ray retired from the Marines and taught law at the University of San Francisco. Burlingame was where the Coynes put down roots and where Kevin would grow up and always consider his home, and where their younger sister, Kelly, was born.

Kevin graduated from Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, where he excelled in athletics, mainly baseball. He went on to graduate from the University of California at Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. While at Cal, Kevin dove deep into music, playing in regional bands. He could often be found playing his saxophone around the Bay Area as a vagabond type of busker, and of course, cheering on his beloved Giants.

Kevin met and married Sally Coyne in 1978. They welcomed their son, Brendan, in 1982 and their daughter, Natalie, in 1984. The Coyne crew eventually moved to the Midwest and settled in Columbia, Missouri. Once their children had gone to college, Kevin and Sally moved to Humboldt County to enjoy an active life where the redwoods meet the Pacific. Kevin was a woodworker by hobby and even made wooden sea kayaks that he and Sally used in Humboldt, Baja, and Vancouver Island. A lover of the outdoors, Kevin found such peace in the beauty of the North Coast.

In January of 2020, Kevin became the beamingly proud grandfather to Natalie’s son, Quinn Elliott. The profound joy he had for Quinn was so tender, so pure. Quinn will miss his “Anpa.”

Kevin is preceded in death by his father, Raymond, mother, Margaret, and sister, Kelly. He is survived by Sally, his son, Brendan, his daughter, Natalie, his grandson, Quinn, his sister, Meg, his sister, Betsy, and his sister, Kathy. Kevin is also survived by many nieces and nephews, who miss him dearly, and many friends. A Humboldt service will be planned for early August.

We’ll all miss you, Daddy. As we always said when I was a little girl, I know you loved me more than fishing, and I’ll always love you more than strawberries.

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Ed Whitten peacefully passed at the age of 86 with his family at his side on May 28, 2023. Ed was one of six children and grew up Sonoma, Calif. He served two years in the United States Army before going to work for the California Department of Forestry for over 30 years. His favorite part of his job was flying in the helicopter. He had been retired for 26 years, spending time with family, hunting, gardening and helping anyone in need.

Ed met the love of his life, Jackie Andersen, and married on June 15, 1970, settling in Fortuna for 53 years. He had four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Ed will be greatly missed. He leaves a legacy that will continue to live in the hearts of many. His leadership style, kindness and good humor gained the admiration and respect of many of the men he led.

He and his wife attended the Presbyterian Church in Fortuna for the last several years, where he looked forward to eating his wife’s good cooking and the cooking of other members of the church at their weekly Sunday potlucks. Ed and Jackie were very faithful and devoted many hours at keeping the grounds of the church very neat and beautiful.

Ed is preceded in death by his parents Bert and Frankie, his daughter and son-in-law, Judy and Ken Noel, brothers, Bob, Henry and Charles Whitten. He is survived by his wife Jackie Whitten, wife of 53 years, brother James Whitten, sister, Carole Jackson, daughter, Sheri (Don) Jewett, son, Randy (Kendra) Andersen, grandchildren, Krista Viggers (Ryan McKenzie), Chad Viggers, Melissa Demello, Steffanee Andersen (Brett), great-grandchildren, Asa, Layla and Shawnessy Mckenzie.

To a live well lived. We love you so much, Ed. Celebration of Life: Saturday, June 24, 2023 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Fortuna Fire Hall, 320 South Fortuna Blvd.

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News time! Armed robbery at Three Corners Market, tightening public agency budgets, free lunches for kids, courses for elderly caregivers, gun violence awareness, bike share survey, and more miserable weather ahead!

Plus, this poll:

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office is seeking the community’s help to identify two suspects of an armed robbery last weekend.

On June 3, 2023, at about 8:05 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a business on the 5900 block of Myrtle Avenue near Eureka for the report of an armed robbery.

According to an employee of the business, two unknown, masked suspects entered the business, brandished a firearm at the employee and demanded money from the register. The suspects fled the business with cash and alcohol. The employee was not physically injured during this incident.

The suspects are described as follows:

• Suspect One: Approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall, 160 pounds, wearing a white and gray hooded Puma jacket, black pants, shoes and facial covering, and in possession of a black backpack.
• Suspect Two: Approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall, very thin build, wearing a blue hooded Nike jacket, gray jeans, black shoes and facial covering, and in possession of a black backpack.

 The suspects may be associated with a gray four-door sedan.

This case is still under investigation. Anyone with information regarding the suspects’ identities, whereabouts 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, reference case number 202302554.

In the video above, produced by Eureka City Schools, please meet Eureka whiz kid Bien Hou, who has parlayed her passion for computer programming, data science and machine learning into big scholarship $$$ from Amazon and Dell.

Congratulations, Bien! I, personally, dislike that she is using npm in the above clip — and on Windows, no less! — but no doubt that is because I am an extremely old man.

Just in time for summer break: The wonderful folks at Backcountry Press have released a new book — Hiking Humboldt Kids — that’ll give you some great options?

Here are authors Jennifer Gonzales and Humboldt hiking legend Rees Hughes to tell us all about their new book, which is in English and Spanish side-by-side. Not only do you get hiking suggestions, you get a ton of kids activities tailored to each specific hike. Good stuff!

Check it out! Video above, rough transcript below.

O’CONNOR:

Well, welcome to another Humboldt Conversation. I’m really thrilled to say we’re here today with Rees Hughes and Jennifer Gonzales, who have just brought out this fantastic new book, Hiking Humboldt Kids. Now, you may have already spotted it on our bookshelves on Humboldt today. We’ve been having it behind me as we’ve been doing the news for the last few weeks. So tell us about this book, Rees, what’s it all about?

HUGHES:

Well, I think it’s a recognition of the importance of getting outdoors and getting families with young children outdoors. Yeah. Both of us have gone through the process of being parents of young kids and what a great opportunity to get out and explore this wonderful place we live in.

O’CONNOR:

Yeah, there’s a lot going on around here and Jennifer, there’s a Spanish version as well I believe.

GONZALES:

The book is fully bilingual. Oh, bilingual. I apologize. There’s English and Spanish side by side.

O’CONNOR:

So what’s the highlights of the book? If people are looking for this for kids, what can they expect to get out and explore?

HUGHES:

There are 25 hikes that we’ve highlighted and in here are not only the hikes with very simple maps and Directions and things that they they might expect to see that we have what we call well There are two things one is either exercises they can do with their kids or what we call Here I’ll give you an example. I don’t know if it’ll show up here, but we have a series of things, like this, we call them scavenger hunts. They’re not really a traditional scavenger hunt. But it’s the notion of things that you might see when you’re out on this walk, so it may be historical it may be an animal or a plant, it may be a bit of information that you might expect to see. What would you add to that?

GONZALES:

And activities to do with young kiddos. Yeah. Drawing, journaling for kiddos that write. Even kids that aren’t writing words can journal with their own drawings. And yeah, just different activities to engage families and get them out there sharing experiences.

O’CONNOR:

Well it’s perfect timing because the nicer weather has finally arrived. Who thought it was ever going to come this year? We finally got it so as to get out there. Now this is actually a partnership though isn’t it with a couple of different organizations? 

HUGHES:

It is — the principal one being First 5 Humboldt. And I think you can talk a little bit more about that. The other part of it is Backcountry Press. And they were a key partner in this as well. You can talk about First Five.

GONZALES:

Yeah, so the project was born in the height of COVID. And First 5 Humboldt was trying to think of ways to get families outdoors and enjoying nature and finding ways to reduce stress from, you know, COVID was hard. It’s been hard. And so yeah, so I reached out to Rees and we started chatting and then we roped in Michael with Backcountry Press and his wife, Alison, and yeah, we worked together for about a year and a half?

HUGHES:

Longer than we ever would have thought. But it’s a complicated project with the intent of being as inclusive as possible. And I think that is a special challenge. And I think that’s also especially important.

O’CONNOR:

Now, it is for children of all ages, isn’t it? But it’s also very much for adults as well, because anybody can follow the trails.

GONZALES:

Absolutely, absolutely. We did design it specifically thinking of folks with kiddos, you know, five and under. That’s our, that’s our…

HUGHES:

Target group.

GONZALES:

Target group. That’s our target, with First  Five Humboldt.

HUGHES:

I have to say that I’ve had some older friends who’ve said, you know, this actually is about my length of hike. Perfect for me. So I think … and obviously it’s complex. We didn’t try to talk down to the reader. So in that respect, I think it’s really intended to be for the parents. And they will then be guides for their kids. 

O’CONNOR:

And future generations, their grandkids. And we are checking in now.

HUGHES:

Grandkids, right, or themselves.

O’CONNOR:

It’s a lovely book, it’s available now, tell us how much it is.

HUGHES:

You know what? $24.95. $24.95. And in part the reason I had to look because not only is it for sale but through your program…

GONZALES:

Yeah, First 5 Humboldt has purchased copies to distribute free for Humboldt County families with children ages 5 years and under. For the entire month of June, myself and my colleagues at First 5 Humboldt will be traveling around the county through playgroups and library branches to distribute them free for families to get them outdoors.

O’CONNOR:

Fantastic. Well, it’s a lovely book. I’m really glad I had the chance to meet you both today. Thank you. It’s been a real pleasure, Rees. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for a Handbook Conversation and join us for another one very soon.

There are lots of thorny legal problems with filing kidnapping charges against a rival governor, but the most important one is simple: Proving that the chief executive of the other state is, in fact, responsible for luring migrants onto a plane under false pretenses.

But Gov. Gavin Newsom, on Twitter, is threatening to do just that after two recent flights delivered 36 people to Sacramento. The first flight arrived Saturday and a second arrived on Monday morning.

Though neither flight originated in Florida, California’s governor put the blame squarely on the Sunshine State, as he did last year when planeloads of migrants were flown into Sacramento and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

“You small, pathetic man,” Newsom tweeted at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday morning. “This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard. Kidnapping charges?”

.@RonDeSantis you small, pathetic man.

This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard.

Kidnapping charges?

Read the following. https://t.co/kvuxe8Fb6F pic.twitter.com/KyE1lJiIYo

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 5, 2023

Newsom then linked to the California criminal code statute on kidnapping, specifically the section on bringing someone into the state against their will.

Newsom also made noise last year when requesting the federal government investigate the previous flights, but so far, the U.S. Department of Justice has not made public any such investigation.

Immigrant advocates said on Monday that the human consequences of federal inaction last year are arriving tired and hungry in Sacramento this week.

“I think it was a mistake to dismiss these flights as a stunt in September,” said immigration and border consultant Chris Rickerd. “It was a mistake not to stop the escalation then.”

The Sacramento Executive Airport on June 5, 2023. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

A spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta told The Associated Press that the migrants were transported through a program run by Florida’s Division of Emergency Management and carried out by the same contractor paid by the state of Florida to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in September.

“While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said in a statement.

Brian Hofer, an attorney and executive director of the Oakland-based nonprofit Secure Justice, which advocates against what the organization deems to be state and corporate overreach, said the legal ground is “messy” for determining charges, much less where to file them.

“You took people from one state, on flights which are funded by another state, dropped them off in a third state, and you’re going to say they were coerced or taken under threat of force?” Hofer said. “What court do you bring that in?

“It’s just a mess. The legal ground is certainly messy.”

Mark Meuser, a San Francisco-based constitutional and election law attorney, disputed Newsom’s legal reasoning in a tweet on Monday.

“Can you please cite one Florida law that prohibits the transportation of individuals who are in this country illegally to a sanctuary state?” wrote Meuser, a Republican who ran against U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla in last November’s election.

Gavin Newsom called for Justice Department investigation

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the flights “dangerous and unacceptable” on Monday, but the Biden administration’s response to previous migrant flights has been, at the very least, out of public view.

Newsom in September asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether the flights could be considered kidnapping under state laws. If they could, he wrote, then the U.S. Justice Department should get involved because they could be considered violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

In September, Rachael Rollins, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, pledged to “look long and hard” at potential charges. But Rollins has since resigned, and it’s unclear where that investigation led. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts did not return calls from CalMatters on Monday.

DeSantis’s office also didn’t return calls and emails from CalMatters. Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature has set aside $12 million for the migrant flights.

The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento on June 5, 2023. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

Bonta, as California’s attorney general, also didn’t file state charges related to those September flights, and it’s unclear what would be different this time. Neither Newsom nor Bonta responded to requests for comment from CalMatters.

It’s one thing to know the planes came from Florida and another to connect those flights directly to DeSantis. But at least one investigation into that connection is continuing, as the sheriff in Bexar County, Texas, has turned over the results of a criminal investigation into DeSantis for his alleged role in transporting 49 migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard last year.

The Texas Tribune reports that the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office recently filed several counts of unlawful restraint, both misdemeanors and felonies as a result of the investigation, but didn’t name individual suspects. The investigation has been turned over to the Bexar County District Attorney.

Sacramento surprised by migrant flights

California was caught unaware by the latest arrivals, who were diverted to a small airport in the city and met by local outreach groups and law enforcement.

Sacramento County spokesperson Kim Nava said the migrants left from Texas and changed planes in tiny Deming, N.M., before arriving in California.

“The county did not know the flight was coming in,” she said. “We don’t have communication (with the state of Texas) at this time.”

Sacramento County Communication and Media Director Kim Nava addresses the media during a press conference at the Sacramento Executive Airport on June 5, 2023. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the migrants were being used as “political pawns.” He said he’s focused on “making sure the people who landed here are cared for, and that’s our job.”

Steinberg, a Democrat who is considering a run for attorney general, said he supported a review of whether criminal charges should be filed.

“I mean, I think we ought to, you know, await the result of an investigation, but certainly, an investigation into potential criminal culpability is warranted,” he said.

Each of the migrants carried a clear plastic bag, inside of which were papers directing them to immigration courts, some as far away as Chicago, according to an advocacy group that has been supporting them. Landing in California could make it more difficult for those individuals to reach their court appearances.

“So they’re not even trying to get them closer to families or closer to their court,” said Lydia Guzman, national immigration chair for The League of United Latin American Citizens. “This is all politics.”

Guzman said the organization also demanded action from the federal government in September.

“We inquired with the (U.S.) Department of Justice, we wanted them to look at who was behind all of this,” Guzman said. “We never heard back from DOJ on this issue.”

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This story was written by Nigel Duara, Anabel Sosa and Jeanna Kuang. CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.