Steven Arne Gustafson passed away peacefully on the evening of Monday, January 1, 2024 at the age of 64 after a nine-year journey with early onset Alzheimer’s and dementia. He is survived by Lynnette Chen, his wife of 15 years, daughter and son-in-law Kelsey and Andrew Grootsky, son Huxley Gustafson, grandson Alexander Gustafson, brother Bruce Gustafson, sister Marta Gustafson and uncountable friends and family. Steve is preceded in death by his mother, Marjorie Louise Gustafson, father Arne Bruce Gustafson and step-mother Carol Blanche Gustafson.

Steve was born December 30, 1959 and grew up in Alameda and Walnut Creek. He graduated from Ygnacio Valley High School and earned a BS degree from Humboldt State University. His love for nature and conservation was solidified during his years working with the California Conservation Corps on backcountry trails and subsequent seasons with the National Parks Service. Later he worked for Rogers Machinery Company, Inc. and then for the Humboldt County Division of Environmental Health. He was a founding member of Marsh Commons Co-Housing in Arcata and a frequent walker at the Arcata Marsh & Wildlife Sanctuary.

Steve always had a ready smile and easy laughter, loved playing all types of games and finding ways to incorporate everyone’s level of skill or interest if he could. He organized many outdoor game days and regular game nights for tabletop gaming. Steve was a devoted husband, beloved father, and a dedicated brother. And he readily formed many friendships great and small. He valued time spent outdoors, improving the neighborhood through small projects and work parties, and sharing his love of music. Steve touched many lives with his charm and goofiness.

Enduring thanks to the caring staff at Redwood R and R, Adult Day Health Care of Mad River, Hospice of Humboldt, and Ayres Family Cremation.

For details about Steve’s Celebration of Life event in April, please contact Kelsey on Facebook or by email: gustafsonApril24@gmail.com

If you would like to make a donation in Steve’s honor:

• UCSF’s Alzheimer’s research - Memory and Aging Center: makeagift.ucsf.edu
• California Conservation Corp: https://www.cccfoundation.net/
• Friends of the Arcata Marsh - Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center: accepts donations in person
• Hospice of Humboldt: hospiceofhumboldt.org

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Filming for Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie — known only as “BC Project,” for now — continued in Humboldt County on Monday. Traffic and pedestrians were allowed controlled passage past the day’s filming location in front of the Murphy’s Market in Cutten and more than a few people captured some imagery of a hippied out Leonardo DiCaprio rushing to a pay phone as part of one scene.

Video above and photos below courtesy Kari Helgeson

Humboldt resident Kari Helgeson passed along the clip above and told us the production was “very organized.” She said the crew “guided us out of filming range but made sure we could still see.  Everyone watching was very respectful as well. Nice to see.”

Law enforcement vehicles emblazoned with “Baktan Cross Police Department” decals were also scene patrolling the area. 

Anderson’s movie has been shooting throughout the county for the last couple of weeks with many locals taking on roles as extras. Filming is set to continue in Northtown Arcata tomorrow. 

PREVIOUSLY: 

• Film Set to Shoot in Eureka is From Renowned Director Paul Thomas Anderson, With Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Regina Hall, According to Industry Reports

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Arcata drivers may want to avoid Northtown tomorrow, as many streets in the area will be closed to parking and/ or traffic while the section of A-town becomes a filming location for the production everyone in Humboldt is talking about, codenamed the “BC Project.” 

Locals have been abuzz about the major film – produced by Warner Bros., directed by renowned filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood) and featuring several A-list actors, including Leonardo DiCaprio – for weeks now, as folks have caught glimpses of police cars, filming crews and even, allegedly, of Leo himself in various locations around Humboldt. 

Details of  the film’s plot have been tightly kept under wraps, though we do know that filming locations have included Eureka High School, Cutten Plaza, Trinidad and Murray Fields, and on Tuesday the cast and crew are set to film on and near the pedestrian bridge at 18th and G Streets in Arcata. A notice was sent out to residents and businesses in the area last week, letting them know of street closures, parking restrictions and traffic control happening during filming and preparation.

“The BC Project is preparing to film in your neighborhood on Tuesday, January 30th, 2024,” the notice, shared with the Outpost by several people, states. “There will be pedestrian limitations with posted ‘no parking’ signs on certain city blocks, street closures, intermittent traffic/ pedestrian control and sidewalk closures.” 

The notice states that filming will occur on Tuesday between 1 p.m, and 1 a.m. that the pedestrian bridge leading to 18th and G will be closed for the duration of the filming, and other sections of the neighborhood, including the 101 North onramp, will be closed intermittently or open to “local traffic only.” The notice also says that filming will include “simulated police activity and special effects.” 

In addition to the street closures, the crew has been prepping 18th Street for filming, with several of the businesses being made over with fake signs and façades. Similarly to how the production transformed Cutten Plaza into a Mexican mini-mall, 18th Street between G and H seems to have been transformed into a small Chinatown. 

Though the general feeling surrounding the filming seems to be excitement, some business owners in Northtown are a little concerned about how the closures will impact their business. 

Brian Koneko, owner of True Nature Tattoo, said that as a business that is appointment-driven, he plans to remain open, but he was a little concerned about how the parking and traffic closures might impact customers. 

Koneko reached out to the location manager, he said, and was told that it “shouldn’t impact people with appointments,” but he is messaging people with appointments to let them know to arrive early and plan for potential delays. Though True Nature is mostly reliant on appointments, the business does take walk-ins and sometimes makes a fair amount of money from foot traffic. 

Josh Hand, owner of Japhy’s Soup & Noodles, told the Outpost that after careful consideration, he’s decided to close the restaurant on Tuesday. As a popular lunch spot that’s very dependent on foot traffic, especially from Cal Poly Humboldt students, Hand was concerned that business would be extremely slow. 

“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” Hand said in a phone interview Monday morning. “I just felt like it would have been a loss for me.” 

And though he might be losing business on Tuesday, Japhy’s was asked to cater for the crew’s wrap on Wednesday. Hand said he was surprised by the request, since Japhy’s does not usually cater, but he’s happy for the business. 

Other business owners don’t seem concerned at all. Scott Henderson, co-owner of ¡Hey Juan! Burritos said that since the restaurant is closed on Tuesday anyway, the filming won’t impact business. He said he plans to come down to the area just to see if he can catch a glimpse of the filming. 

For anyone else planning to be a looky-loo, know that there will be police officers securing the entrance points in the area, with both APD and CHP officers helping to direct traffic. Those who live and work in the area are promised local access, but there may be delays during filming periods. 

And if you’re not trying to gawk and just want to go about your normal day, you might want to avoid the area altogether if you can.

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Humboldt County’s social mediasphere has been abuzz with breathless reports of Leo sightings and firsthand accounts of simulated police chases as a Warner Bros. film crew continues its locally shot production of the new movie by renowned director Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Licorice Pizza”).

Most recently, some shops inside Cutten Plaza, including Babe’s Pizza and the nearby laundromat, were transformed into a Mexican grill and a lavandería (“laundromat” in Spanish), respectively.

The production, which is being filmed under the working title of “B.C. Project,” has been in town for the past week and a half, at least, and pre-production efforts date back years, according to Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commissioner Cassandra Hesseltine.

See photos of the remade Cutten Plaza below. And scroll down for photos and video of a police car chase scene that was shot in Trinidad about a week ago.

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And below you’ll find some photos and video submitted to the Outpost by Carrie Peyton-Dahlberg:

Press release from Cal Poly Humboldt:

Students enrolled in Cal Poly Humboldt’s Bachelor of Arts in Communication at Pelican Bay State Prison can now receive Pell Grants, starting in Fall 2024. The program is the first in the nation to be approved for eligibility by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) under a new federal policy that went into effect last July.

The program is one of the first B.A. programs to be taught in person on a Level IV yard (a high-security facility) in California. 

The program is a partnership between the University and its Project Rebound chapter, College of the Redwoods, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The first cohort started this January with 16 students who previously completed their associate degrees through CR’s Pelican Bay Scholars Program.

Now, the students can pay for this programming with federal Pell Grants. For the first time in nearly 30 years—outside a limited pilot program known as the Second Chance Pell Experiment—individuals enrolled in approved prison education programs (PEPs) will be eligible for Federal Pell Grants, as a result of statutory changes enacted through the FAFSA Simplification Act. In order to receive the funds, the act—which went into effect in July 2023—“requires a ‘confined or incarcerated individual’ to enroll in an eligible PEP in order to access a Federal Pell Grant,” according to ED. 

“We congratulate Cal Poly Humboldt for being the first school in the country to be approved to provide a Pell eligible Prison Education Program inside of a correctional facility. Education has the power to transform lives, families, and communities and it opens doors to rewarding careers and meaningful civic engagement,” says Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education, Amy Loyd. “Access to these Pell Grants will give people who are incarcerated an opportunity to create a new vision and future for themselves by acquiring the knowledge, skills, and abilities to thrive and build better lives. We know that Cal Poly Humboldt is the first of many schools that will be leveraging this important funding stream to provide college in prison.”

The move helps increase access to education, and in turn lowers recidivism rates for many students who are confined or incarcerated.

“Education is a medicine for recidivism,” says Tony Wallin-Sato (Journalism, ‘20), program director of the Humboldt Project Rebound chapter, which is helping to jump-start the University’s B.A. program. 

Research from RAND Corporation shows that formerly incarcerated people are 43% less likely to reoffend and more likely to be employed when they participate in any type of PEP. Additionally, RAND found, “every dollar invested in correctional education saves nearly five in reincarceration costs over three years.” 

“College is transformative and a tremendously powerful rehabilitative tool—that’s why CDCR is committed to providing grade-school-to-grad school opportunities for all incarcerated individuals,” says Shannon Swain, Superintendent of Correctional Education for CDCR. “Pell Grants will allow even more students to access these life-changing programs and meet their goals. We are thrilled that our partners at Cal Poly Humboldt are leading the way in ensuring students housed at Pelican Bay State Prison can utilize these vital funds and look forward to seeing this access and programming blossom statewide.” 

“At Cal Poly Humboldt we define ourselves by who we include and not who we exclude,” says Jenn Capps, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Cal Poly Humboldt. “Creating access to education is one of our primary goals and launching the bachelor’s degree at Pelican Bay, the first bachelor’s degree in a Level IV yard in California, does just that—creates access to education, improves outcomes for people who are incarcerated and increases community safety.”

Citing safety threats, California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would keep the property they own and other personal information from annual financial disclosures off the internet.

The measure, Assembly Bill 1170, would shift to an electronic filing system for the statement of economic interest, known as Form 700, that elected officials and some public employees in California are required to complete each year.But a secondary provision proposes to expand the redactions on publicly available versions of the form, shielding the addresses of filers’ real property interests and businesses, though they would still be available upon request.

Organizations that advocate for greater transparency in government have objected to withholding information that could illuminate conflicts of interest. Laurel Brodzinsky, legislative director for California Common Cause, said Form 700 is an important tool for understanding how elected officials’ economic interests shape their decision-making.

“We do think that having that transparency is really important for accountability,” Brodzinsky said.

A compromise on the bill — which is on the Assembly floor and faces a deadline to pass out of the chamber by Wednesday — may be imminent.

Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, the Anaheim Democrat who is carrying the measure, said he is working on amendments that would narrow the redactions to only addresses where a filer lives. He declined to further discuss any changes.

“By modernizing state processes and improving government efficiency, we are focused on the priority of saving the state money during this critical budget time,” Valencia said in a text message. “However, that will not come at the expense of the public’s access to government documents that provide transparency into potential conflicts of interest.”

Lawmakers are increasingly raising concerns about what they say has been a rise in political violence and harassment in recent years, such as the October 2022 hammer attack against then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their San Francisco home.

During a committee hearing for AB 1170 earlier this month, Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat, said she believes “the expanded redaction requirements in the bill are important to ensure filers’ privacy and safety.”

The Legislature approved another bill last year that would have expanded the ability of California political candidates to use campaign funds to pay for security expenses, such as home security systems and bodyguards. It was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom\, who said the measure did not provide enough guidance on what would be a legitimate security expense.

The Fair Political Practices Commission, the state campaign ethics regulator that manages the statement of economic interest, sponsored Valencia’s bill because it wants to require electronic filing of the form. Senior legislative counsel Lindsey Nakano said the redaction provision came out of discussions with lawmakers about increased security and safety issues.

“We heard concern about people who might use the addresses found online on the Form 700s to harass the filer or those connected to them, including to potentially harass tenants of real property owned by the Form 700 filer,” Nakano said in an email. “I’m not aware of any specific incidences.”

The bill, as currently written, would also require the commission to redact the signature, personal address and telephone number of a filer, though none of that information currently appears in the copies of Form 700s available online.

Brodzinsky of California Common Cause said there are reasonable limitations on what information is disclosed about elected officials and other public servants given the threat of violence.

“We do understand the concerns of the privacy of the filer and they would not want their residential address out so publicly on the internet,” she said.

But there are also legitimate reasons for making the real property interests of filers known, Brodzinsky argued. She pointed to an investigation last fall by the San Francisco Standard into a city building inspector who signed off on construction permits for his own home, which cited Form 700 records.

CalMatters analyzed legislators’ real property interests in 2019, as they were considering a measure to cap rent increases, and found that more than a quarter of the members of the Legislature at the time were landlords.

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

Before California’s fast food workers get a minimum wage hike to $20 an hour in April, the state will grant them another historic avenue to advance their interests.

A first-in-the-nation fast food council will offer workers and labor advocates a way to set industry working conditions, hammering out rules directly across the table from franchise owners and representatives of restaurant chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King.

The council is supposed to start meeting by March 15, and its decisions will be sent to state labor agencies to decide if they’ll become real regulations. Gov. Gavin Newsom will have a hand in how the discussion plays out: He’s responsible for appointing seven of the council’s nine members; legislative leaders will appoint the other two. The positions are unpaid, except for $100 per day for council business.

The council will be split, 4-4, between business and labor. Newsom will pick the chairperson, who is “unaffiliated” with fast food businesses or workers — and could end up regularly being a tie-breaking vote. The governor’s office is interviewing applicants now, a spokesperson said.

Labor advocates see the council as a way to decide workplace standards in an industry with scant union representation and multiple kinds of companies involved — including the franchise owners who employ the workers, and the large chains that dictate various aspects of production.

In recent years, the labor movement has also sought industry-wide councils for nursing home workers in Minnesota and nail salon workers in New York, borrowing from a European method of bargaining with employers that is uncommon in the U.S.

California is the first to convene a council for fast food, a sprawling industry employing mostly workers of color and women, who earn on average less than those in other service sectors. More than 500,000 people are employed in more than 30,000 limited-service restaurants in California, according to federal data; the council will govern those that belong to chains with 60 or more locations nationally.

The council, said SEIU California president David Huerta last year when Newsom signed the law creating it, puts “power in the hands of workers to improve conditions across their entire industry.”

It’s also a five-year experiment in how to regulate businesses in general across California — by returning to a model from the past.

For most of the 20th century, the state’s now-dormant Industrial Welfare Commission — a similar, but more powerful council with labor and business representatives — convened wage boards specific to certain industries. The boards took testimony from workers and employers and wrote work standards in those industries.

Lawmakers did away with the commission two decades ago, after unions complained it had been seized by business interests to pass regulations that were less protective of workers’ rights. Now, labor laws are almost all passed by the Legislature, which former commissioners from both business and labor say is less responsive to an industry’s specific needs.

Though business groups have pushed back on the idea of industry-specific labor boards, lawmakers have signaled they’re interested. Last year, during negotiations between the fast food industry and labor groups, the Legislature briefly resurrected the old commission, with a focus on industries with high levels of worker poverty.

“It is likely we’ll see a continued push for both more sectoral labor standards” such as minimum wages specific to the fast food or health care industries, said UC Berkeley Labor Center co-chairperson Ken Jacobs, “as well as the use of labor standards boards in certain industries, where the structure of the industry makes traditional collective bargaining more difficult.”

Former industrial welfare commissioner Barry Broad, a former lobbyist for unions who now sits on the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board, recalls convening wage boards that would discuss specifics such as tipping practices in hospitality jobs, the length of shifts in nursing and how cement mixers almost universally took lunch breaks in the cabs of their trucks. He sees promise in creating such a forum that gets deep into details, for fast food work or other sectors.

“When you have something which is industry-specific like this … you’d get a consensus about how the work was organized and what the customs were” across that industry, Broad said in an interview. “There was a common understanding, and it led to compromise.”

More fights ahead?

But after more than two years of a dizzying political fight between business and labor over whether to even consider specific regulations for fast food, will the new council result in more of the same battles?

Broad said it’s possible to reach consensus, depending on who gets on the council.

But his former colleague, Bill Dombrowski, a representative of employers on the industrial commission, remembered its meetings as being just as contentious as the business-labor fights of today.

“We jokingly referred to it as the Industrial Warfare Commission,” Dombrowski said, though he agreed that the process was preferable to business and labor going through the Legislature.

Appointed by then-Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, Dombrowski said he understood the commission would push through labor-friendly policies Davis had backed, such as returning to a rule of paying workers overtime for time beyond eight hours a day. But his role was to “try to make it as business-friendly as you can.”

In the fast food industry, however, business groups aren’t happy to be coming to the table, and they’re likely to cite costs to push back on any new proposed regulations.

Pizza Hut employees strike to protest ongoing wage theft and abusive scheduling claims in Los Angeles on Jan. 26, 2024. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

Restaurant owners are already wary of the upcoming wage hike.

In December two Pizza Hut franchise operators notified the state they are eliminating delivery services and in February will lay off more than 1,100 drivers, mostly in southern California. The cuts will take place two months before the $20 minimum fast food wage goes into effect. (The statewide minimum wage ticked up to $16 on Jan. 1.)

The layoff notices did not mention the new law, but Jeff Hanscom of the International Franchise Association, which backed the deal leading to the fast food council and the wage hike, said restaurant owners across the state are considering whether it’ll prompt them to do the same.

“We have said all along, that you can’t have a double-digit percentage increase in wages overnight, and not expect there to be repercussions,” he said.

The law creating the council has also drawn the ire of many other restaurant owners, who are just now learning they’ll be included under any new rules — including the wage hike, said Matt Sutton, senior vice president of government affairs and public policy for the California Restaurant Association.

When business and labor agreed on the scope of the council last year, they included restaurants belonging to a chain of 60 or more locations nationally; a prior version of the law covered those in chains with 100 or more locations.

“There’s a lot of people that are caught off guard,” Sutton said, predicting restaurants not covered by the law and other businesses will also be pressured to raise wages. “That is going to have a tremendous shock.”

How will the council work?

The fast food council, having undergone significant changes since SEIU first proposed it in 2021, won’t be as sweeping or as powerful as the old industrial commission, which created new regulations directly.

After pushing the proposal through the Legislature in 2022 and then being subject to a multimillion-dollar industry campaign to repeal it at the ballot box, labor groups ultimately ended up last fall with a wage hike for workers and a more limited council. The industry, in turn, agreed to withdraw the referendum from the November 2024 ballot.

There are some workplace issues the council can’t touch, including creating any rules requiring employers to give workers more paid time off, or requiring businesses to adopt predictable scheduling policies.

And outside of minimum wages, most rules passed by the council would head to the state’s labor agencies, which could still revise them through the regular rulemaking process before making them law. That was a win for the employers, said Hanscom of the franchise association, which represents both franchise owners and fast food brands.

“We want to ensure that the council is simply not a rubber stamp for” labor groups, Hanscom said. “We want to ensure that there’s a counter-voice.”

Meetings will be public, held at least once every six months. With the first meeting scheduled in less than two months, there are few other details public about who will be on the council and what it will discuss.

It will be part of the Department of Industrial Relations, a state labor agency. Newsom will appoint two fast food workers, two franchise owners, two fast food corporate representatives and the neutral member of the public. The two other spots, filled by legislative leaders, are reserved for workers’ advocates.

Newsom’s office did not respond to questions about what he’s looking for in appointees.

A former “public member” of the old industrial commission, ex-U.S. Rep. Doug Bosco, said he wasn’t the tie-breaking vote as often as he expected. “It was quite reasonable and quite centered and balanced, and not impervious to the political whims but not beholden to them either,” he said.

Still, when asked how a neutral member should run the fast food council, he chuckled and said: “Don’t take the job.”

The council will also include non-voting representatives from the Department of Industrial Relations and the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.

No appointees have been announced yet, and business groups have been mum on who they’re pushing for the seats. On the labor side, Maria Maldonado, statewide leader of efforts to organize fast food workers through the Fight for 15 campaign, said she’s interviewed with the Legislature for a workers’ advocate seat.

“We’re going to have a democratic process where (workers) can raise issues and talk about solutions,” she said. “I hope that we can really convince (businesses) that we need to work together.”

Whether on the council or as a future advocate at its meetings, Maldonado said her first goal will be to “protect the workers’ hours” from getting cut in response to the wage hikes.

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