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Press release from Ridges to Riffles:

San Francisco, CA –  Last week, the Yurok Tribe, with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and the Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), sued the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) to ensure enough water will remain in the Klamath River to protect threatened coho salmon and endangered resident killer whales.

In February, BOR reduced Klamath River flows below the mandatory minimum required to preserve extremely at-risk coho salmon stocks. The water reduction will dry up critical habitat for juvenile coho and Chinook or king salmon. Federal fisheries managers are poised to shut down the ocean commercial salmon fishing season in California due to this year’s dismal Chinook salmon forecast on the Klamath River. The Yurok Tribe will be canceling its commercial fishery for the fifth consecutive year to protect fish runs. 

“The flow reduction is unacceptable and unjustifiable given this winter’s heavy rainfall,” said Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers. “Dropping flows below the bare minimum is the nuclear option. We repeatedly asked BOR to take a more measured approach to water management, but they refused to listen. Our only recourse was to petition the court to reverse this terrible decision and protect our most sacred resource.” 

The Yurok Tribe, whose culture and livelihood depend on the Klamath River and its salmon, joined with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), two major fishing industry groups, to file the lawsuit to protect the salmon that are the foundation of their members’ ways of life and of the coastal fishing economy.

The lawsuit claims the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) failed to meet its obligation to protect salmon and orcas under the Endangered Species Act and seeks to stop water deliveries for irrigation until the agency complies with minimum water flow requirements for the river required by the ESA to ensure the species’ survival.

Reducing Klamath River flows below the mandatory minimum will damage the rearing habitat of juvenile salmon and dewater salmon redds. The lawsuit aims to force BOR to meet river flows as directed by the salmon Biological Opinion, which is based on the best available science. 

BOR is the federal agency that built and manages the Klamath Irrigation Project to provide irrigation deliveries to 225,000 of agricultural lands that were once wetlands and lakes. The Project was built in the early 20th century.

BOR created the shortfall when it increased water deliveries to agricultural users last year, despite the risk to salmon. Then, BOR claimed there wasn’t enough water in the lake to meet ESA needs this year and dropped river flows 16% below the minimum required by the Endangered Species Act. BOR also failed to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the federal agency tasked with protecting salmon under the ESA, when it decided to violate its plans by going below minimum flows.

“We are deeply disappointed by the BOR’s decision to cut river flows. We just broke ground on the biggest salmon restoration project in history and BOR’s actions threaten to undermine this progress, ” said Amy Cordalis, legal counsel for the Yurok Tribe and a tribal member. “The Klamath River and its salmon are essential to our culture and our way of life. We will not stand idly by while our river and our fish are put at risk.”

Dams currently block salmon from over 400 miles of historical habitat  upstream. The removal of four Klamath River dams and restoration of 38 miles of river between the dams is already underway. Dam removal will restore fish passage, improve water quality, and restore habitat along the river. The project is a collaborative effort between the federal government, the states of California and Oregon, and various stakeholders, including Klamath Basin Tribes, environmental and fishing organizations, and local communities. 

Tragically, however, these restoration efforts could fail if salmon are not protected while the dams are being removed and habitat is being restored. Recent low salmon numbers in the region underscore the importance of maintaining minimum river flows in the Klamath.

“The Bureau of Reclamation is harming salmon and violating the ESA even as West Coast salmon fisheries are closing because of poor Klamath stocks,” said Patti Goldman, senior attorney at Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit with the Tribe’s Counsel. “Salmon cannot afford another year of mismanagement.” 

“The Bureau of Reclamation is jeopardizing the very existence of ESA-protected salmon throughout the lower river with this illegal water grab,” said PCFFA/IFR Executive Director Glen Spain. “When the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Biologists set the ‘minimum flows necessary to prevent extinction,’ they meant what they said. That minimum has to be the lowest these flows should go – not 16% below that minimum. Minimum means minimum, and it’s simply not optional if these fish are to survive.” 

Very low salmon runs from the Klamath have triggered widespread ocean fisheries closures like we are seeing this year – closing down coastal salmon-dependent communities and costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses. Both coastal and Tribal in-river salmon fisheries have been closed or severely restricted in most recent years for lack of enough water left in the river to sustain salmon. This illegal Bureau water grab will prevent the fish runs and salmon-based economies from recovering. 

Arcata High School is currently nearly twice the size of McKinleyville High School. Why? One of the main factors is intradistrict transfer students, who live in McKinleyville but attend Arcata High. This has become so significant that the Northern Humboldt Union High School district has established a task force to look into the matter.

The Enrollment Task Force (ETF) met for the first time on February 10, with the stated purpose of “understand[ing] the impact on teaching and learning due to enrollment disparity.” The task force consists of students, parents, staff and members of the administration from both McKinleyville and Arcata.

“The district’s idea [was] to get a whole bunch people together from all different parts of the district and help look at what we can do to make the schools more even, and to see why so many kids are not going to McKinleyville,” Maureen Kiritsy, an Arcata High teacher and member of the task force, said.

The district is divided into two zones of enrollment. High school students who live south of Orick to the Mad River are zoned to attend McKinleyville High, while students who live south of the Mad River to Jacoby Creek (extending into areas like Sunny Brae) are zoned to attend Arcata. If students want to attend a school outside their enrollment zone, they must get an intradistrict transfer.

Thirty-six percent of Arcata High’s population are transfer students – 21 percent intradistrict, and 15 percent interdistrict (from outside of the Northern Humboldt Union High School District entirely). Only a little more than 5 percent of McKinleyville High’s population are transfer students – 3 percent intradistrict and 2.7 percent interdistrict.

Since 2017, Arcata High’s student population increased by 163 students, growing from 889 to 1,052, while McKinleyville High’s population has stayed essentially the same, growing from 555 students to 556.

“I think because the disparity is getting a little more extreme,” said Superintendent Roger Macdonald. “There are issues at both schools that aren’t great for teaching and learning that are happening, and so the board asked me to look into it.”

Too much growth comes with growing pains. The disparity has become a problem for both Arcata High and McKinleyville High. McKinleyville High wants more students, and Arcata High, whose population increased by 46 students this school year, feels overcrowded.

In “Arcata High enrollment and concerns,” from the Pepperbox’s October issue, students and staff reported overcrowding, limited classroom space, larger classes and overtaxed staff.

“Some teachers have to share their classrooms, which never used to happen. Last year I had to share my classroom with another teacher during prep. To clear out of your classroom and not have a place for prep is really hard,” said Kay Wozniak, an Arcata High math teacher. “The impact is there. There’s a shortage of classrooms, for sure.”

Kiritsy explained that part of the Enrollment Task Force’s goal was to figure out what student population is right for Arcata High. They’re looking to find a “sweetspot number,” where all the classes are full but the school isn’t overcrowded.

Many students choose Arcata High because of programs not available at McKinleyville High.

Ohsoo Kwan is an Arcata High sophomore and intradistrict transfer student who lives in McKinleyville.

“I feel like students would get restricted a lot from the policy,” he said, referring to the potential limiting of intradistrict transfers.

Kwan thinks that the freedom intradistrict transfers give students is important, mentioning offerings like Arcata High’s AP Computer Science class.

Kiritsy pointed to similar reasons for the disparity.

“We kind of know a lot of the reasons,” she said. “There are a lot of programs like music and AAI and stuff, but it’s like a catch-22. We have all these great programs because we have more kids. We want to be able to have all those good programs so that kids will want to go there, but there’s not enough kids going there right now so you can’t offer those. It’s like this vicious cycle right? How do we fix that?”

The task force is also analyzing elementary and middle schools in the district and which high schools they feed into as a potential factor in the disparity. Many intradistrict transfer students at Arcata High cite their K-8 school location as the reason for their transfer.

“I’ve always been with Arcata schools,” said Sean Shermer, senior and intradistrict transfer student at Arcata High. “I went to Arcata High because I was already in the district.” Shermer attended Jacoby Creek School. “The educational understanding at JCS was very unique, it wasn’t anything like Morris or anywhere else you could go,” he said.

Shermer sees the ability to transfer to another school in a student’s district as important. Other intradistrict transfer students felt similarly.

“I went to middle school in Arcata,” said sophomore and intradistrict transfer student at Arcata High Cal Tucker, explaining his decision to transfer. “My parents put me and my brother [in Arcata K-8 schools] because they thought we would get a better education.”

Tucker said the idea of going to a high school in McKinleyville after middle school in Arcata would have made the transition difficult.

“If I went to middle school in McKinleyville and then to high school in McKinleyville then it would be fine,” he said. “If I had to go now, it would probably be fine but I would definitely not enjoy it.”

The ETF is looking to interview a variety of students and families to understand why people choose the high schools they do. Macdonald referred to this step of the process as “empathy interviews.” The ETF has compiled data on the percentage of economically disadvantaged students enrolled at both high schools, the percentage of students of color, percentage of special education and the percentage of homeless students at both high schools. McKinleyville High has a significantly higher percentage of economically disadvantaged, POC, and special education students. According to Macdonald the task force will first examine the raw numbers and data regarding intradistrict transfers. The next step will examine the causes of intradistrict transfers, and then the impact of enrollment disparity. The EFT will present their findings to the school board sometime in mid- to late spring.

The school board will then make a decision about a potential policy change. Students currently applying for an intradistrict transfer to attend Arcata High next year have been placed on a waiting list. He said that students and families will be notified late in the spring semester about the ETF’s findings, and whether or not their intradistrict transfer will be approved.

“If the board were to ask me to make any big changes, we’d want those big changes to be made on data, we’d want to understand the issue really well,” Macdonald said.

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Dylan Berman is co-editor in chief of Arcata High’s Pepperbox newspaper.

Mobile home residents in California face an outsize risk of failing utility systems, flooding and fires as a result of infrastructure that frequently hasn’t been updated or repaired in decades.

In 1984, California passed a law to help remedy this: a loan program, paid into by the residents themselves, to buy and in later iterations, fix their parks.

But that solution, for the last 10 years, has helped only one of California’s 4,500 mobile home parks.

State administrators approved a single loan application, in 2021, from a fund now worth $33.5 million, the state’s Housing and Community Development Department confirmed to CalMatters. The loan went to a non-profit organization to rehabilitate a run-down park in the Eastern Coachella Valley, a region notorious for its dilapidated mobile home parks. The last two applications it approved before that were in 2012, according to Alicia Murillo, speaking for the department.

Housing experts, including from the housing department, attribute the program’s failures to limited demand and an overly complex application process. Yet the need among poor residents is greater than ever, as living conditions at parks slump, chances of corporate ownership steepen and alternative affordable housing options vanish.

So, in 2022, the Legislature revamped the loan program, which is now known as the Manufactured Housing Opportunity & Revitalization Program, or MORE. The new version of the loan program will fold in an additional $100 million over the next two years and has fewer restrictions. The loans will now be forgivable; usable for more kinds of rehab work that prioritize health and safety; and available to private park owners, who were previously ineligible. The state will begin accepting applications by May.

Disillusioned lawmakers and housing experts told CalMatters they plan to watch its implementation carefully, in the hopes it doesn’t lead to more of the same.

“I’m going to wait and see what this does and monitor it very closely,” said Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, a Democrat from Coachella who authored a bill to reform the program in 2018.

What went wrong?

The original intent of the fund was narrow: Help residents buy their parks.

“This program was intended for a very specific purpose. When we’re thinking of all the needs of parks and residents, it’s easy to assume it was meant to do it all,” said Sasha Hauswald, assistant deputy director at the housing department.

During a conversion to resident ownership, residents can turn the lots into condominiums they buy individually, or create a non-profit cooperative that owns the land and issues shares to participating residents.

Housing experts say resident ownership is one of the best ways to remedy poor habitability and economic conditions at mobile home parks, which house some of the state’s most vulnerable residents. Because they rent the land their trailers sit on, residents are often at the mercy of park owners, who have little incentive to make the capital improvements old parks need.

But if they were to own their park, residents could pool their money to make repairs. After buying a park in Houston, Texas, for example, residents together bought a storm water management system that later protected them from Hurricane Harvey.

At its inception, California’s program was designed to combat rent hikes, poor management and park closures, which were increasingly common as the infrastructure at parks, which were often built to poor standards, began to fail and the land around them grow in value, said Jerry Rioux, a former housing department employee who helped write the legislation for then-state Sen. John Seymour.

“At that time there were more applications than we could fund,” said Rioux, who is now consulting with the state housing department on behalf of the California Coalition for Rural Housing, a Sacramento-based nonprofit. “Residents wanted to buy their parks.”

Sewage seeps from underneath a mobile home where Guillermina Zamudio, 44, lives with her family in the Shady Lane Estates mobile home park in Thermal, March 23, 2023. Pablo Unzueta for CalMatters

The barriers to entry for resident ownership are now much higher, especially in California. Land costs more and residents trying to create a co-op must now compete against a growing field of investor-buyers. There are also more protections in place. Rioux said it’s much, much harder to shutter a mobile home park now, and more than 100 cities and counties have enacted rent control measures.

“Into the ‘90s there were enough protections in place that residents weren’t as hot on the idea of buying their park,” Rioux said.

Sixty-six of the roughly 70 loans the program awarded since its 1985 inception were parsed out before 2001, according to an Assembly analysis of Garcia’s 2018 bill and a 2022 report from the housing department addressed to the state Finance Department. Until Garcia’s 2018 bill, the loan program only funded rehabilitation of a park together with purchase, according to the bill analysis. The law, which went into effect in 2019, also allowed the program to issue grants instead of just loans and use the money to rebuild parks following natural disasters.

But the program was still run inefficiently, multiple non-profit directors who applied on behalf of residents told CalMatters. One problem: Loans could take months, if not years, to approve, which made it hard to compete with deeper pockets. Institutional investors accounted for about a quarter of park purchases across the United States in the previous two years, according to a June 2021 report by Real Capital Analytics, a research firm.

“With (the housing department) taking so long to process the loan program, it became virtually impossible to get a deal done,” said Maurice Priest, who runs Affordable Communities, Inc. nonprofit housing corporation in Sacramento and said he tried to sell a park to its residents using the program without any luck. Priest, like Rioux, also helped dream up the program, on behalf of mobile home resident group Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League in the 1980s.

In the previous decade, three staffers were assigned to the program at any time — but they were also working on other projects, amounting to one full-time employee, said Murillo, speaking for the housing department. Three staffers will work on the new program full-time.

One in 4,500 mobile home parks

“I’ve never dealt with a governmental program that was meant to give out money that was so inefficient at doing so,” said Bob Solomon, a law professor at UC Irvine who co-directs their Community & Economic Development Clinic, which provides pro bono legal services to low-income park residents. He should know — he ran a housing authority in Connecticut for more than a decade, and secured multiple loans from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, he said.

Starting in 2012, Solomon and his colleagues at the UC Irvine clinic represented a group of nearly 150 farmworker families at Capistrano Terrace who wanted to buy their park from its owner, whom they had successfully sued over neglect of the park. The 18-acre Orange County park was long plagued by failing electrical and sewer systems. The center helped families form a resident-controlled nonprofit corporation and submitted multiple applications for the state’s loan program to buy and fix up the park. None succeeded.

The last, final rejection from the housing department for what Solomon said was a $3.5 million loan said the application didn’t demonstrate “financial feasibility,” according to a 2018 letter the housing department shared with CalMatters. The group secured a nearly $10 million loan anyway — from Clearinghouse CDFI, a private lender, Solomon said.

“I’ve never dealt with a governmental program that was meant to give out money that was so inefficient at doing so.”
— Bob Solomon, law professor at UC Irvine

Solomon was shocked to hear the Caritas Corporation, a nonprofit, scored the 2021 loan to rehabilitate Shady Lane, a mobile home community in Thermal, California — an unincorporated part of the Coachella Valley home to 32 migrant farmworker families. Caritas applied for a $3 million loan, according to their application, obtained through a Public Records Act request from the housing department. The housing department did not confirm in time for publishing whether the full amount was approved.

“Literally my mouth was open when I heard Caritas had gotten an application,” he said.

But not because the park didn’t need help. Park residents successfully sued the owners in 2012, alongside Solomon’s group and California Rural Legal Assistance, a legal aid group, over unlivable conditions. Raw sewage regularly flooded the park’s roads and backed up into residents’ sinks and bathtubs, said Tracy Bejotte, chief operating officer of Caritas. A failed electric system left families without air conditioning during sweltering summers and children played amidst piles of garbage and sewage, according to Caritas’ application letter.

“It was horrible out there,” Bejotte said.

Mario Salinas, 50, is backdropped by an abandoned trailer in the Shady Lane Estates mobile home community in unincorporated Thermal on March 23, 2023. Salinas, who works at a recycling factory nearby, is a 21-year resident here. “The conditions have been the same for years, it is a difficult place to live, especially for the kids,” Salinas said. Pablo Unzueta for CalMatters

Caritas took over the park in 2017 and installed new septic tanks and electricity upgrades — a temporary solution. It applied in 2020, and was approved a year later, for a loan from the housing department to rebuild the park and add eight more spaces. It plans to start redevelopment next year, which will involve paving new roads, building a clubhouse and laundry facilities, and replacing dilapidated mobile homes. Before it starts, it’s waiting for the city of Coachella to connect the park to public water and sewer lines, Bejotte said.

The application process — which multiple experts with experience applying for government loans described to CalMatters as complicated — involved gathering a list of documents including an appraisal, a hydrology study and land use permit from the county. The application even included the appraiser’s resumé.

Multiple sources expressed skepticism that anyone without extensive professional experience tackling such programs would be able to successfully navigate the process solo.

“The folks in this park I don’t think would have had the ability to do everything that was needed for (the housing department),” she said. “It’s just not what they do for work. You need, like, a Caritas that wants to come in and help.”

Solomon said there’s a reason the housing department approved the application: Caritas has dependable managers and owners with technical expertise.

“There seems to be very little attention to the starting point,” Solomon said. “Which is, ‘Where’s the greatest need? How can we preserve housing?’ And that does not seem to be where people start. The funders seem to start with who has the nicest application.”

Hauswald, assistant deputy director at the housing department, insists the new program will be “a different story” because, in part, it was simplified and recrafted alongside many of the same stakeholders that struggled with the original program.

The biggest change: Park owners will be eligible to apply for the new funding to make repairs that fix health and safety violations, as long as they keep rents affordable. Of that money, $25 million will be available this year, and an additional $75 million next year. Park residents will also be able to access the money to fix problems in their homes, through non-profit partners who will administer those funds. The loans will also be forgivable.

“It remains to be seen whether we can do it,” said Brian Augusta, a longtime housing policy lobbyist in Sacramento. “A critical piece is that the state has signaled that they want to be an active partner. And I think a lot of people are hopeful that we can see more money get out the door and save some parks and create better living conditions.”

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

Last week, I discussed how the weird belief of “ensoulment at conception” is used to justify banning abortion: If personhood depends on having a soul, and if we start life in the womb with one, then deliberate abortion at any stage of pregnancy is murder. Since the whole dualistic idea of souls is suspect, to say the least (basically Plato’s after-life beliefs grafted onto St. Paul’s attempts to square Jesus’ teaching that “some who stand here will not taste death” with the reality — they did), then falling back on alleged “souls” to make banning abortion okay is a pretty dodgy tactic.

But I’m convinced that the vast majority of lawmakers who pass anti-abortion laws aren’t that stupid, and they put “souls” up there with the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. I believe “ensoulment” is just a smokescreen for the time-honored belief that women are second-class citizens, and that men have the God-given right to control women’s bodies and minds. I gave a couple of examples last week, including how women were thought in ancient Greek times to be merely the receptacles in which male sperm would be nourished and cared for until birth, no female ova involved.

Aristotle, who may have been the first to formalize this belief, was following in the footsteps of his predecessor Hesiod (c. 750 BC), contemporary of Homer, who rhapsodized about an all-male Golden Age: “They lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting …They dwelt in ease and peace. ” Their idyllic lives ended when Zeus punished Prometheus for giving the bros the gift of fire (an eagle ate his liver overnight, which grew back the next day), simultaneously punishing men for accepting the gift by giving them “an evil thing for their delight” — women.

It was downhill from then on. The Abrahamic religions reinforced women’s subservience to men — well, they were led by men, after all, who had good reason to keep women in their place. From the mythical Moses endorsing the primary role of men (women are marriage transactions in the Torah, and sexual slavery is endorsed); to Mary’s unwitting impregnation; to arch-misogynist St. Paul preaching that “wives should submit to their husbands as to the Lord”; to Mohammed saying, over and again, that a woman is worth half a man. (A 2-to-1 ratio apparently adopted by SCOTUS’ six men vs. three woman). Not just Judaism, Christianity and Islam; Buddha was a deadbeat Dad, according to the Tripitaka.

Of course, we all know that men prefer large-breasted women, don’t we? (No.) So girls looking for mates should be doing everything in their power to attract men with their “greatest charm, a symmetrically rounded bosom full and perfect,” natural or otherwise, from padded bras to this:

Even practices in what looks like women doing the oppressing can be traced back to an underlying belief in the superiority of men. For instance:

• Foot binding. Only outlawed in China in 1912, aristocratic girls whose feet had been painfully bound when young were more marriageable because, as adults, they couldn’t walk on their own and had to be helped, thus demonstrating their obedience and dedication to their husbands.
• Female Genital Mutilation: The removal of a girl’s clitoris and labia and sewing up of what remains of her vulva, while usually performed by older women on young girls, is all about controlling a woman’s sexuality: her groom can be assured his bride is a virgin. Not forgetting that the obscene “surgery” makes sure she can’t enjoy the independent pleasure of orgasms.

Where to stop?

• It took 144 years for Jefferson’s noble claim that “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence to embrace women, who were only granted — by men! — the right to vote in 1920.
• 63 years ago, the FDA approved an oral contraceptive for women. How about a pill for men, a simple formulation of testosterone and progestin to stop sperm production? Hah! Why should we men have to take a daily pill? We don’t have to go through nine months of pregnancy and the rigors (and risks) of child-bearing. (Not incidental: the US has three times the maternal mortality rate of most other high-income countries.)
• Then there’s our pussy-grabbing ex-POTUS to Harvey Weinstein to Anita Hill (I still believe her!) to the Taliban to…

Nah, I’m done. Banning abortion is all about men controlling women.

“I believe as long as people are breathing, there’s hope,” says new Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel.

Bergel, who took over the office just a few months ago after eight years as a councilmember, is putting her city’s most vulnerable citizens at the forefront of her agenda. 

What makes Bergel think her efforts can find solutions to the homelessness crisis — a problem that is far bigger than Eureka — after so many others have become jaded?

That’s what we’ve set out to explore in our inaugural episode of Humboldt Tea Time, in which the Outpost’s John Kennedy O’Connor plies the mayor with an authentic pot of PG Tips.

Brew up a batch of your own, cut the crusts off your cucumber sandwiches, then join them in the video player above! No RSVP necessary.

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If you’re not looking it’s easy to miss the EXIT Theatre, a small and inconspicuous venue located in an unlikely spot above the Moore’s Sleepwear storefront on the Arcata Plaza. But once you discover the entrance and walk up the flight of stairs, you’ll find an intimate space showcasing many local performances including music, variety shows, plays and burlesque dancing. 

The cozy theater, which seats only 35, is a perfect space for DIVA Burlesque – a monthly showcase put on by a different local group of performers each month, featuring striptease dance entertainment. March’s showcase was presented by Bare Elegance Burlesque Beauties and included performances by Nephelé Rose, Alora Devora, Jadis Coyote, Darling Demoania, MadamFoxx, Lottie Deluscious, Knaughty Nebula, Petite Félicité and hosted by Jamie Bondage. 

Petite Félicité, or Carissa Titius when she’s not on stage, recently took over leadership of Bare Elegance, after the troupe’s founder Electra Gray moved on to new adventures. With a background in tap, jazz, hip-hop and lyrical dance, Titius has been a burlesque performer since 2018. Starting out her career in San Francisco and the Bay Area, Titius moved to Humboldt in 2021. Having lost her husband to cancer in 2020, Titius felt it was time to start fresh. 

Petite Félicité performs at EXIT

“One of the reasons I moved up here was to get away from where everything reminded me of him,” Titius said in an interview with the Outpost after her show on March 10. “I was up here for my friend’s birthday and I just fell in love with the beauty. [We] went to the beach in Trinidad and I cried … I thought ‘this feels like home.’”

After Titius decided to relocate to Humboldt, she promptly went to work finding out where to do burlesque. She found Bare Elegance, went to an audition and secured a spot with the local troupe. Since then she has been performing pretty regularly around Humboldt, making appearances at the Clam Digger, Siren’s Song Tavern and many more local venues. 

Having performed for years in the Bay Area, Titius said that there is something special about the artist community in Humboldt. Because it is a smaller community, Titius said, there is a lot of intertwining of different types of performances. Particularly drag performers and burlesque dancers will often do shows together, whereas in the Bay Area, you might see more separation between the two. There also seems to be less of a competitive attitude in the burlesque world and more of a collaborative one. 

“I feel like over here it’s more community-oriented,” Titius said. “In the Bay Area, it was so easy to be really cutthroat, and to feel like you had to be really good or you can’t get a spot to do [shows].”  

Titius said that with an artform like burlesque, where you are being very vulnerable, it is really important to encourage each other and promote a safe and supportive environment. That attitude is something she really tries to pass on to new performers in the troupe. 

“I’ve just been really trying to think about how we can really push the new performers to be professional and community-oriented,” Titius said. “ I just want them to really understand this is a very sacred artform, and there is a lot of vulnerability with it. So you have to give that capacity to everyone.” 

Christina Augello, the co-owner and artistic director of EXIT Theatre, also relocated from San Francisco pretty recently and took over the Arcata space in 2020. With a long background in theater and acting, Augello owned and operated the original EXIT Theater in San Francisco for the last 40 years, while also working as a bartender to help support herself. After COVID temporarily shut down both of her means of income, Augello said, she started thinking it was time to move on. Having visited Humboldt many years ago, Augello thought it might be the right fit. 

“For me, it was cost, culture and climate,” Augello said in a recent interview with the Outpost at the theater. “And I’m an old hippie. So, I figure this is where old hippies go to die.” 

Since opening in 1983, the EXIT Theater on Eddy Street in San Francisco has become a well-loved gem of the Tenderloin District. Probably most recognized for hosting the SF Fringe Festival, Augello and her theater were also known for hosting unique, independent shows that often gave newer artists a chance to develop their work and build their audience. The venue was quite a bit larger than the Arcata space, holding a complex of four different theaters – the largest was an 80-seat theater, and the smallest a 25-seat café theater that served food and drinks. 

But like many live venues, EXIT Theater struggled to survive after the pandemic. Even after the space was able to open again, it was difficult to cover the overhead costs, Augello told the Outpost. On top of the impacts of COVID, conditions in the Tenderloin District worsened, and people just didn’t want to come to the theater as much. In 2022 Augello had to close the Eddy Street space. 

Before that, Augello had been splitting her time between Arcata and San Francisco, trying to keep both theaters open. Though closing the San Francisco venue was a difficult decision, Augello said, it did give her the opportunity to spend more of her time in Arcata, where she now lives, and to focus on the new space on the Plaza. 

Overall things have been going very well at the Arcata theater, and since live shows have been making a post-COVID comeback, Auguello has had many performers eager to utilize the new Arcata space. With this theater, Augello strives to continue the previous EXIT Theatre’s mission of providing a place for artists to create, experiment, and grow by producing new works, and providing production support and keeping the theater rentals as low-cost as possible.

To check out the list of upcoming events at EXIT Theater – located at 890 G Street, above Moore’s Sleepworld on the Arcata Plaza – and to find tickets, visit the theater’s website. The next DIVA Burlesque is at the theater on April 14 at 8 p.m. You can find tickets here. You can also purchase tickets at the box office inside the theater 30 minutes before showtimes, but because the theater holds only 35 seats, the shows often sell out. It’s recommended that you buy tickets beforehand. 

If you simply want to check out the space it is open during Arts Arcata – the second Friday of every month from 6 p.m. – and features free live music by jazz saxophone artist Stan Fleming. If you would like to use the theater for your own project, Augello can be reached at mail@theexit.org.  

“The door’s always open and I’m open to an eclectic combination of work,” Augello said. “If you wanna do something, just tell me what it is…My job is to build a village. And when the village says, ‘I would like to do this,’ my job is to see how we can make that happen.”

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The sneak attack of the Japanese on U.S. Navy ships at Pearl Harbor set off defensive action along the Pacific Coast and Humboldt County was no exception. The U.S. Coast Guard set up regular patrols at every beach where a landing might be possible. Military men rode horses on the long beaches while, on the smaller beaches, trained dogs accompanied the men as they kept an eye out for enemy invaders.

Airplane watches were set up, which involved many women trained to watch for and recognize enemy planes. They reported to central headquarters any and every unknown flight passing overhead.

A Civil Defense system was set up, complete with headquarters, block captains and air raid wardens throughout various coastal communities. Bomb shelters were set up to supply food and first aid — just in case. Radiological monitors were trained to detect any radioactive material in case of a nuclear bomb attack (this writer went through this training).

At the very beginning of the war, Dec. 19, 1941, the general petroleum tanker Emidio was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Eureka. The entire United States was well aware that the Pacific Coast was in danger.

The shipping lines were warned of Japanese submarines possibly lurking in the coastal waters. The U.S. Navy set up submarine patrols with the command headquarters located at U.S. Naval Air Station Moffett Field in California. The station was commissioned Jan. 31,1942. The U.S. Navy set up the first blimp base at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay during March 1942. The second auxiliary facility was established at Watsonville, Calif., and anti-submarine patrol operations began from that station. These bases were established all along the Pacific Coast.

In the beginning these non-rigid airships, or blimps, used for patrol were type “L” or primary trainer. These measured 150 feet long and featured a car 23 feet long. On Oct. 31, 1942, the first “K” type patrol airship was received by the squadron, a blimp designed for submarine patrol and convoy duty. It measured 251 and a half feet long, with a car 42 feet long. Several of these type “Ks” were stationed along the coast. Despite the different types, all of these blimps were non-rigid (no frame) structures featuring large gas bags filled with helium.

These blimps featured two Pratt-Whitney R-1340-AN2, 425-HP radial gasoline engines, one on each side of the car or gondola. They boasted a maximum air speed of 67.5 knots per hour (speed varied with wind conditions). They cruised about 50 knots per hour. The ships carried 1,500 gallons of aviation fuel, enough for 38+ hours of flight, with a range of 1,910 nautical miles. The blimps carried a crew of 10. Each blimp carried four, 500-pound depth charges.

When activated and dropped, these charges were set to explode at a certain depth in the ocean. The blimps also had one 50-caliber machine gun mounted over the gondola.

If a blimp left the base with a full load of fuel and, for reasons such as high winds or dense fog conditions had to return to the base, 1,000 gallons of fuel would be dumped into Humboldt Bay to lighten the load and lesson the danger of fire.

On May 22, 1943, the squadron began patrol operations from the auxiliary base at Eureka, with Lieutenant W.W. Bemis, U.S. Navy, serving as pilot aboard the K-47. This blimp base was located where the Eureka Samoa Airport is today, on the north Humboldt Bay peninsula.

These blimps would convoy ships as the crew watched for submarines. They also convoyed many of the big U.S. Navy dry docks built in Eureka by the Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. Some of these dry docks were towed to San Francisco, others to the Hawaiian Islands. While on these long flights, blimps would refuel on the aircraft carriers in the convoy.

The war offered many exciting times for these blimp sailors. Several times the servicemen sighted periscopes of submarines at sea and, appropriately, dropped depth charges. They also assisted in rescue work of shipwrecks, helped lost fishermen and reported floating objects that were hazards to vessels. The Eureka blimp reportedly blasted at least one sub off the coast of Trinidad.

When these blimp sailors had short liberty, they would head for Vic’s Tavern in Samoa for a few beers and hamburgers, or for the Hotel Vance Log Cabin where they would play the jukebox. They enjoyed all the latest tunes of the day, i.e. the Andrew Sisters and “Little Lambs Eat Ivy,” “The Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” and “The White Cliffs of Dover.”

Some of these blimp sailors had girlfriends attending Eureka High School. One day, while they were returning from patrol, they buzzed the high school. While down at very low elevation, they flew over the building with their tie-down ropes dragging the roof, and revved up the engines. The principal of the high school called the commander at the base to report this incident. The crew was severely reprimanded for this action, which they did not do again.

The first Japanese attack on U.S. mainland in 1942 was triggered by cactus spines connecting with a Japanese naval captain. The story goes:

In the late 1930s, Kozo Nishino served as commander of a Japanese tanker taking on crude oil at the Ellwood Oil Field near Santa Barbara, Calif. On the way up the path from the beach to a formal ceremony welcoming him and his crew, Nishino slipped and fell into a prickly pear cactus. Workers on a nearby oil rig broke into guffaws at the sight of the proud commander having cactus spines plucked from his posterior. Then and there the humiliated Nishino swore to get even.

He had to wait for the war between the United States and Japan. But on Feb. 23,1942, he got his revenge. From 7:07 to 7:45 p.m., he directed the shelling of the Ellwood Oil Field from his submarine, the I-17. Though about 25 shells were fired from a 5 and a half-inch deck gun, little damage was done. One rig needed a $500 repair job after the shelling and one man was wounded while trying to defuse an unexploded shell.

U.S. planes gave chase, but Nishino got away. The blimp patrol was, of course, in on this chase.

Thereafter, American coastal defenses were improved; the mainland suffered only one more submarine attack by the Japanese during the war, at Fort Stevens in Oregon.

Probably the strangest bombing campaign in warfare history was launched by the Japanese. This bombing campaign was launched against the entire North American continent in the waning years of World War II; a feeble attempt by the Japanese to get back at the forces who were then laying waste to vast stretches of Japan. The Japanese resorted to the oldest form of aerial transport: balloons.

Thousands of hydrogen-filled paper balloons, most of them carrying one small high-explosive and several even smaller incendiary bombs, were launched from the Japanese home islands. The plan was that the eastward currents of the Jetstream would carry them to North America where, with luck, they would blow up something valuable or set a forest fire. About 9,300 of these lighter-than-air aircraft were released and about 300 are known to have stayed aloft all the way across the Pacific.

The first of the balloons to have approached this country was found floating in the Pacific, 66 miles off San Pedro Nov. 4, 1944.

The last landed in Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta, Canada, about the time the Japanese surrendered in 1945. The first of these silent visitors to Northern California lit at Sebastopol Jan. 4, 1945. All told, 23 of these bomb- bearing balloons came down in California, all in the northern part of the state.

On January 10, an Army Air Force P38 shot down one of these wind-borne raiders near Alturas; it was taken to Moffett Field for examination. Part of another was found near Red Bluff and one was found caught in a treetop near Hayfork. Still bits of another were found near Cloverdale. In March, one draped itself over power lines in Butte County. On April 1, one came down on Hoopa Indian Reservation land.

Yet, for all their high hopes, the Japanese accomplished almost nothing with their balloons — with one tragic exception. On May 5, 1945, a church group on an outing at Bly, Ore., about 60 miles east of Klamath Falls, discovered one of these balloons in a forest. They began to tug at the balloon. It exploded, killing the minister’s wife, who was five months pregnant with what would have been her first child, and five members of the Sunday school class, ranging in age from 11 to 14. Today a memorial stands on the spot in that forest.

But back to the blimps and their operation: before taking off on a flight, the blimp would be filled with fuel, food supplies and drinking water. Then the total weight was checked to be sure they were not too heavy. Next boarded the flight crew of eight to 10 men, including the pilot (a U.S. Navy officer). The engines would be revved-up until they were running smooth. The pilot would then give the signal and the long hold down lines would be stowed on board, allowing the blimp to take off. The flight might be north to Tillamook, Ore., or south to San Francisco. The crew had to watch the weather conditions and fuel supply as to not go past “the point of no return.” An electric generator supplied 110 volts of electricity for cooking in the small galley as well as other needs. In general, the crew was quite comfortable on board.

Radar equipment on board could detect a submarine periscope at three or even four miles distance. Also, M. A.D. (Magnetic Action Detection) could detect any metal object on the ocean’s surface or at quite a depth at sea.

Upon their return to the Eureka base, the crew would dump any surplus gas and drop down to the landing area where the 30- to 40-man landing crew would be waiting for them (they had been in touch by radio). When the blimp was finally secured, the tie-down tower would be towed out by a small tractor and a man would climb up the tower and anchor the blimp. A gas winch on the tower would pull the blimp in tight and … all was well. The crew was ready for a good night’s rest. In case a high wind came up, the crew had to be there to take care of the blimp.

Sy Beattie, subsequently an electrician and contractor on the North Coast, manned the Blimp Base.

These are the men whom I am aware of who stayed here after the war: Sy Beattie, Frank Toner, I.A. Davis, Ray Lay (later fire chief of Eureka), and Charles Steele of Crescent City. These men comprised the flight crews. In addition, there were ground crew men such as Joseph Carter of Eureka.

On Monday, July 14, 1947, Joe Russ Jr., a Capetown rancher, noticed a U.S. Navy blimp cruising southward off Cape Mendocino after completing a photographic mission off Point St. George. The blimp was moving along at an elevation of about 400 feet when all of a sudden it hit a terrific down draft. The airship plunged nose-first into the sea. The command pilot, Lt. Duane DeVaney, put the ship to full throttle in an attempt to divert the crash, but she struck at 50 knots. The front section of the gondola was smashed. Pilot Lt. DeVaney and Lt. Britton Goetze, co-pilot, were thrown clear while six others took to the water. Three men leaped out of the gondola as the blimp drifted unmanned into the air, from a height of some 50 feet. It was first reported there were two men still aboard — not so.

Ray Crockett, Cape Mendocino lighthouse keeper, also witnessed the disaster. He logged the crash at 2:50 p.m. Joe Russ called the U.S. Coast Guard station, which then radioed the Blunts Reef’s lightship. The Coast Guard sent out a rubber raft and picked up the men. A lifeboat from Humboldt Bay station arrived, eventually bringing the 11 men to Eureka for the night. All were reported safe.

The Coast Guard called Al Camilli at the Humboldt County Airport to ask if airport personnel could track the blimp. A plane flown by Paul Fleming, with Pete Sacchi as observer, tracked the blimp to the location where it crashed; on Fickle Hill near the Minor Rock Quarry at 5:30 p.m. Les Brown and Duane Geddon raced to the scene in an ambulance. Brown, first at the scene, said it was being looted by souvenir hunters who had broken a trail through the heavy brush and were taking instruments, food rations and clothing.

A U.S. Coast Guard armed guard was soon posted. The Navy thought of saving the blimp but the skin was badly torn and all of the helium gas had escaped; those plans were abandoned. The Navy did retrieve most of the papers and instruments, including the machine gun and ammo. This particular blimp had been used on submarine patrol along the Pacific Coast during World War II. An official U.S. Navy report of the accident is as follows:

This ZPK-99 was assigned from Moffett Field. It carried three civilians on a sea lion photographic flight, July 13, 1947, at the request of the California Division of Fish and Game. The ZPK-99 was inadvertently flown into the water, washing the pilot out through a smashed window. The crew abandoned ship and were rescued in about 30 minutes. The airship “free ballooned” some three hours and came to rest some 16 miles north of Arcata, Calif.

The 11 men listed as being on board the ill fated blimp were; Lt. Duane DeVaney, pilot, San Jose, Calif; Lt. Britton Goetze, co-pilot, Minneapolis, Minn.; Lt. John Butler, Lincoln, N.D.; Schuyler Borum, Idaho; J. Losita, seaman first class; Milton Alley, aviation mechanic first class; Wallace Kundra, radio 2/c second class; and Tom Theotopatos, photographer second class.

These 11 men took part in just one of the many adventures surrounding the blimps and their relatively brief stay on the North Coast.

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The story above was originally printed in the Autumn 1994 issue of The Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society, and is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.