Closely mirroring California’s landmark mandate, the Biden administration today proposed new greenhouse gas emission standards that will scale up sales of electric cars and trucks nationwide.

If enacted, the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed standards would be among the most stringent and aggressive measures the federal agency has ever taken to slash planet-warming tailpipe pollution, clean up dirty air and tackle climate change.

“We have reestablished the United States as a leader in the clean transportation future,” Ali Zaidi, deputy national climate advisor to President Joe Biden, said Tuesday. “This is a moment of transformation.”

The proposed regulation comes almost eight months after California set its own, more aggressive standards mandating sales of electric cars.

Unlike California’s mandate, the EPA standards would not require that zero-emission vehicles make up a percentage of sales. Rather, the total fleet that an automaker sells each year would have to comply with an overall emissions standard, forcing them to produce enough electric vehicles to avoid surpassing it.

EPA officials calculate that their proposal would require between 54% and 60% of sales of 2030 models and 67% of 2032 models to be zero-emissions. In comparison, the California mandate, adopted last August by the Air Resources Board, requires 35% of new 2026 cars sold in California to be zero-emissions, increasing to 68% in 2030, until reaching 100% in 2035.

About 19% of new cars sold in California last year were zero-emissions.

“The California Air Resources Board looks forward to providing comments on the proposal and working with the U.S. EPA to finalize the strongest rules possible as we pave the way together for continued progress on our efforts to improve air quality and reduce the impacts of climate change in California and beyond,” air board Chair Liane Randolph said in a statement.

California has aggressively cleaned up car and truck exhaust with its own emissions standards for more than half a century, and it has been leading the way in recent years in electrifying cars.

The EPA’s new standards would have no effect on California car sales, since the state has authority under the 1970 federal Clean Air Act to enact its own emission standards because of its severe air pollution. At least 17 states have pledged to enact California’s standards rather than EPA’s. But a nationwide standard will help clean California’s air and cut greenhouse gases by regulating emissions of cars purchased in other states.

The auto industry is already moving to meet California’s requirements by producing more electric vehicles. General Motors, for example, had already pledged to go fully electric by 2035.

But auto manufacturers say they’re being pushed too fast to adhere to these sweeping new mandates.

“The vehicles are in production and automakers are committed to making this shift,” according to a memo from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents the auto industry. “The question isn’t whether it can be done, it’s how fast it can be done and how fast will depend almost exclusively on having the right policies and market conditions in place to achieve the shared goal of a net zero carbon automotive future.”

Charging availability also remains a concern. The lack of public charging “raises serious questions” about ensuring that the transition to electric vehicles is equitable, according to the memo.

California faces a daunting task to electrify all cars because of the comparatively high costs, inadequate charging facilities and other obstacles for low-income residents. A CalMatters analysis shows that communities with mostly white and Asian, college-educated and high-income residents have the state’s highest concentrations of electric cars. And most are concentrated in Silicon Valley cities and affluent coastal areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties.

In stark contrast, California ZIP codes with the largest percentages of Latino and Black residents have extremely low proportions of electric cars. In the 20 California ZIP codes where Latinos make up more than 95% of the population — including parts of Kings, Tulare, Fresno, Riverside and Imperial counties — between zero and 1% of cars are electric. And 17 of the 20 communities with the highest percentage of Blacks have between zero and 2.6% electric cars.

Concerns also have been raised about whether California’s electric grid can handle the ramp-up of electric cars while avoiding brownouts. Despite expecting 12.5 million electric cars by 2035, California officials insist that the grid can provide enough electricity. But that’s based on multiple assumptions — including building solar and wind at almost five times the pace of the past decade — that may not be realistic.

“The question isn’t whether it can be done, it’s how fast it can be done.”
— The Alliance for Automotive Innovation

The average price of an electric car as of February was $58,385 — about $9,600 more than the average car — although it dropped from about $65,000 last year. Lower-end fully electric cars start around $27,500.

Medium and heavy-duty trucks would also be regulated by the EPA’s new standards. Limits for medium-duty trucks would require an estimated 46% of new 2032 models sold nationwide to be zero-emissions. California also is proposing to ramp up electrification of medium and heavy-duty trucks under a plan coming before the air board later this month.

The EPA’s proposed rules build on existing federal standards for 2023 to 2026 model years.

Over the past eight years, automakers have invested more than $120 billion in electric vehicle production and battery manufacturing facilities across the U.S, according to a report from the Environmental Defense Fund released in March. Federal dollars have largely helped fund these investments: At least 42% have occurred in the past six months due to incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act.

“We have already seen the market moving in really powerful ways in response to the incentives that are included in the Inflation Reduction Act, in response to California’s leadership and changes in consumer demand,” said Peter Zalzal, associate vice president for clean air strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund. “This is an opportunity to build from California’s leadership and to ensure that communities all around the country benefit from zero-emitting solutions in terms of health and air quality benefits.”

Matt Peterson, CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, a business group that is working to get 80% of cars sold in Los Angeles County to be electric by 2028, said their effort is “now given big tailwinds by the EPA’s new rules.”

“We have already seen the market moving in really powerful ways in response to…California’s leadership and changes in consumer demand.”
— Peter Zalzal, Environmental Defense Fund

The proposed rules extend beyond Biden’s goal for half of all new vehicle sales to be electric by 2030, Zaidi said.

Through 2055, federal officials estimate the proposed standards could eliminate about 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions from being spewed into the atmosphere — equivalent to more than twice of the nation’s total carbon emissions in 2022.

“In every corner of this country, Americans are seeing and feeling the impacts (of climate change) up close,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. “The stakes could not be higher. We must continue to act with haste and ambition to confront the climate crisis.”

The EPA will accept public comments on its proposal for 60 days, then issue its final regulation.

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

Ted Trichilo passed away on March 23, 2023. He was a third-generation Californian, born in Oakland on November 20, 1921. Ted attended public schools, and in 1939 entered the University of California as a pre-pharmacy student.

As a seaman in the Oakland U.S. Naval Reserve, he was called to active duty in February, 1941, serving with the Navy in the Pacific and Atlantic, and with the U.S. Marines in the Pacific. He was discharged after the war as chief pharmacist mate and re-entered University of California College of Pharmacy at the Medical Center in San Francisco.

Ted graduated from U.C. College of Pharmacy in 1948, and began his career as a pharmacist at Day and Night Pharmacy in Downtown Oakland. Later, he moved his family north to Humboldt County, where in 1950 purchased a small drug store in Loleta. In 1957, Ted took over Brown’s Drug Store on Main Street in Fortuna, which he later renamed Fortuna Prescription Pharmacy. In 1963, Ted became the first pharmacist at Redwood Memorial Hospital, and then in 1965, became the director of pharmacy at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka. He retired from pharmacy in 1983.

Ted married his wife Josephine in February of 1947, and was the father of three children — Paul, Diana, and Teddy. The Trichilo home is in Fortuna where the family has enjoyed the surrounding forests and the undisturbed redwood environment. As a lifelong environmental activist, Ted served on the Board of Directors for the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, and in 1975 was named Audubon’s “Man of the Year.” In 1979, he was appointed to the Humboldt County Planning Commission, and later served as Humboldt County representative to the BLM citizen’s advisory committee.

Since retirement, most of his time was spent caring for a year-round garden and small farm. When outside chores were done Ted would catch up on his reading, and was particularly interested in history. As an avid watercolorist, his subject matter usually focused on wilderness and wildlife, especially birds. Ted was a lover of authentic Italian food and enjoyed preparing savory dishes for his family and friends. He also loved the game of bridge, and enjoyed playing the card game for many years.

Ted was a duck hunter and fly fisherman, and throughout his life enjoyed numerous fishing trips to local rivers. He loved the outdoors and the wonders of the natural world, especially the bays, wetlands, and rivers of Humboldt County. He will always be remembered as a great environmentalist and a true friend of nature.

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Born February 27, 1962 and Creator called him home on April 2, 2023

Bud was preceded in death by his parents, two of his close nieces, Amanda and Mardell Markussen, and many other relatives. Bud is survived by his sister Doreen Markussen and his brother Ryan Markussen.

Born to Delgord Markussen and Mardell Jones. Bud, as he will always be fondly remembered, grew up on the Hoopa Reservation, where at an early age, he learned to love hunting and fishing. Bud was a kind, gentle man who always greeted you with a smile or a gentle nod of his head. Bud always loved spending time with family no matter what they were doing.

Bud began working at the Humboldt Recovery Center Program on August 15, 2010, as a valued employee. While working at Humboldt Recovery Center Program, Bud gave selflessly throughout the years, where he was always there to help no matter what needed to be done. Bud enjoyed going on the yearly camping trip with the Humboldt Recovery Center. He would eagerly teach the children and, often, their parents how to fish. Bud would also take some of the younger men in the program back to his home in Hoopa and teach them how to catch and process steelhead and salmon.

Bud was always ready to help anybody who needed work on their car and couldn’t afford to take it to the shop. Bud often enlisted the help of some of the younger men at the program, and he spent countless hours teaching them the basics of working on their vehicles.

There will be a viewing at Sanders Funeral Home in Eureka on Sunday, April 16, 2023 from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., after which Bud will be taken home to the Hoopa Cemetery.

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HUMBOLDT TODAY: A man convicted of killing a Humboldt Hill man as he slept in his bed in 2019 gets early release; California snowpack measured at historic levels; plus, the state has removed the final mask and vaccination mandates. Those stories and more in today’s newscast with John Kennedy O’Connor.

FURTHER READING: 

• Family Members ‘Blindsided’ Following the Early Release of Local Man Charged with Fatal Humboldt Hill Collision
• How’s Arcata Doing on Meeting its Housing Goals, And Should it Make K Street Traffic One-Way? Those Will be Some of the Questions Addressed at Tonight’s Planning Commission Meeting
• With Spring Snow Survey Complete, Klamath National Forest Says That the Current Snow Pack is Nearly Double That of an Average Year
• CONVERSATIONS: Let’s Check in With Cheryl Dillingham, Humboldt County’s Auditor-Controller
• The California Mask Mandate Is Gone. Now Some Patients Fear for Their Health.

HUMBOLDT TODAY can be viewed on LoCO’s homepage each night starting at 6 p.m.

Want to LISTEN to HUMBOLDT TODAY? Subscribe to the podcast version here.

Liz Martin “lost everything” the night her husband, 64-year-old Robert “Bob” Beland, was killed by a drunk driver who crashed into their Humboldt Hill home. 

Bob Beland pictured with his dog, Buddy. Photo: Liz Martin

“There just aren’t even words for this type of tragedy,” Martin told the Outpost during a recent interview. “We lost everything. The house, the business, my husband … rebuilding over these last few years has been a constant reminder that life will never be the same.”

Nearly four years after the tragic incident, Ryder Dale Stapp, the man responsible for Beland’s death, has been released on supervised parole.

Stapp was celebrating his 25th birthday, drunk and speeding down Humboldt Hill on the night of June 28, 2019, when his truck ran off the road and crashed into a house, killing Beland, who was asleep in his bed beside his wife. 

Stapp pleaded guilty to felony charges of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and to hit-and-run causing injury. On Feb. 25, 2020, he was sentenced to 11 years in state prison, the maximum term of 10 years for manslaughter and an additional year for the hit-and-run charge.

Prior to sentencing, Beland’s family was aware of the possibility that Stapp could be released in five and a half years for good behavior. They were “blindsided” when the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) informed them that Stapp would be released on supervised parole this year.

“My son [Dylan] and I originally received notice that he was going to be released in May earlier this year,” Martin said. “And then it was moved to the beginning of April and we were a little blindsided by that. … I don’t have any outrage, I’m just profoundly sad. That’s what I’ve felt since the beginning.”

Dylan Beland acknowledged that he never expected Stapp would serve the full eleven-year sentence for his father’s untimely death but said, “Three years is a punch in the gut and, to be honest, enraging.”

“Not because I am of the belief that every criminal should be locked away for life, but because my mom, my wife, my uncle and I are still every day grappling with the fallout of Stapp’s selfishness, stupidity and carelessness,” Beland wrote in an email. “What amount of rehabilitation could he really have received in these few years? And I wonder what message his early release conveys to the community regarding drinking and driving. [It] feels paltry.”

The Notice of Release does not offer any explanation for Stapp’s early release, only noting that “there are many contributing factors which determine [the] release date” of an inmate. 

Reached for further comment on the matter, CDCR spokesperson Mary Xjimenez told the Outpost that Stapp’s sentence was reduced because he participated in the California Conservation Camps program, which provides participants “with a 66.6 percent credit-earning rating” for individuals housed in a fire camp or minimum custody settings who are convicted of nonviolent crimes. “Stapp was released for parole … after serving his full sentence as defined by the law,” Xjimenez added.

Dylan Beland criticized the notion that Stapp’s actions were considered nonviolent and took issue with the state’s handling of DUI crimes. 

“I would like people to simply be reminded of the consequences of drunk driving – consequences that are rarely endured by the driver,” he said. “Please be responsible. My dad was the hardest-working and most generous person I’ve ever known. … It is heartbreaking that he was robbed of his retirement that he labored so hard for, for so many years. I miss him terribly.”

Martin still struggles daily to fill the void her husband left behind.

“Often I’ll think about sharing something, but I don’t have anybody like that to talk to now,” she said. “You just want to share something small that happened during the day or a wonderful photo you took – just the little things in life that you share with the person that you love. … He was my best friend. We shared so much together.”

When asked if she had anything more to share with the community, Martin remained hopeful that Stapp “has come to his senses and will make amends with the community.”

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PREVIOUSLY:

• CHP: 64-Year-Old Humboldt Hill Man Fatally Injured in His Bed During Last Night’s Crash; Suspect Attempted to Flee, Charged With DUI
• Man Arrested After Fatal Humboldt Hill House Collision Out on Bail; Court Records Reveal Previous Speeding, Hit-and-Run Convictions
• Man Arrested After Fatal Humboldt Hill House Collision Charged With Gross Vehicular Manslaughter
• STAPP PLEADS NOT GUILTY: Man Accused in Fatal Humboldt Hill House Collision Faces Up to 16 Years in Prison, Remains Free on Bail
• DA Alleges Fatal Humboldt Hill Collision Suspect Bailed Out With Illegal Weed Money
• Hearing Delay for Man Arrested in Connection with Fatal Humboldt Hill House Collision
• Fields Landing Man Pleads Guilty to Fatal Humboldt Hill House Collision, Receives Maximum Sentence
• At Emotional Sentencing Hearing, Local Man Who Crashed into Humboldt Hill Home, Killing Local Business Owner, Officially Receives 11-Year-Sentence

Press release from the Klamath National Forest:

The Klamath National Forest has completed the April 1st snow surveys. These measurements are a part of the statewide California Cooperative Snow Survey program, which helps the State forecast the quantity of water available for agriculture, power generation, recreation, and stream flow releases later in the year.

Winter continued strong all through March. There were many snowfall events; and when snow did fall, it stayed in place and helped build up the local snowpack. The end result is an amount of snow that hasn’t been seen in years and quite welcome after the lows of the previous year. According to measurements taken for the April survey, the snowpack is at 178% of the historic average snow height (snow depth) and at 163% of the historic Snow Water Equivalent (“SWE”, measure of water content) across all survey points (see results table).

The Box Camp site was unable to be surveyed this year. An attempt was made, but due to high snow load, the route proved to be overly technical and difficult for snowmobiles to access. However, even without the datapoint, it is clear that it would have joined the other sites as well above the long-term April average.

April 1st is an important date for surveying snow because early April is historically when the snowpack is at its maximum; and this date has the greatest weight when the State forecasts annual water availability. To gain additional data for April, three extra locations are added to the surveys for this month to supplement the usual five Scott River watershed snow measurement sites. Of these, Etna Mountain and Box Camp are also in the Scott River drainage, and Wolford Cabin is within the Trinity River basin. These additional sites are generally considered too remote or difficult to access on a monthly basis.

Snow surveys are conducted monthly during the winter and spring months (February through May). Forest Service employees travel to established sites in the headwaters of the Scott River watershed to take measurements. The newest measuring site at Scott Mountain has been monitored for over thirty-five years; the oldest site at Middle Boulder has been monitored for over seventy years. Some sites are located close to Forest roads with good access, while others require hours of travel by snowshoe and/or snowmobile.

The height of snow and SWE are measured by a snow sampling tube with a cutter end that is driven through the snowpack, measuring depth. The snow core is then weighed to determine the water content (SWE). The information is forwarded to the State of California, where the data is compiled with other snow depth reports and becomes part of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys program. The data is managed by the California Department of Water Resources; more information is available on their website at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/snow/current/snow/index.html.

How long has it been since you’ve thought about the Humboldt County Auditor-Controller’s Office?

If you were an engaged citizen at this time last year, or even the year before that, chances are you would have thought about it a lot more frequently than you do now! The previous regime of Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez was a seemingly never-ending whirlwind of recrimination and controversy, and there was rarely a day when someone wasn’t accusing her, or she wasn’t accusing someone, of dark, nefarious deeds. While all this was going on, the state began to knock on our door, telling us that paperwork that was required from the office wasn’t actually being filed, putting all sorts of funding sources in jeopardy. 

Former acting auditor-controller Cheryl Dillingham handily defeated Paz Dominguez in the June 2022 election, and took over the office shortly afterward. Since then, the amount of news emanating from the office dropped precipitously to pre-Paz Dominguez levels.

So how’s it going, Cheryl Dillingham? Video above, transcript below.

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JOHN KENNEDY O’CONNOR:

Well, welcome to another Humboldt Conversation. I’m really thrilled to say we’re here today with Cheryl Dillingham, who is the Auditor Controller for the County of Humboldt, a position she’s been in now for just about coming up to a year.

CHERYL DILLINGHAM:

Nine months.

O’CONNOR:

Nine months, I’m sorry. Now, Cheryl, about this time last year, the Auditor-Controller was in the news every single day, which probably shouldn’t have been the case. How have things changed behind the scenes? Because now we’re not really hearing so much about the job, which is probably a good thing.

CHERYL DILLINGHAM:

Well, we’ve been working really hard in the auditor-controller’s office. I was really pleased that the staff are just amazing, and I’ve hired new folks that are really amazing too, and we’ve been working really hard to get everything done and to meet all the deadlines and communicating and working with everybody to serve the residents of Humboldt County the best we can.

O’CONNOR:

Because that was one of the challenges, I think: There was so much controversy around the role. Now although you ran for office and you were elected, you did actually have to step in at very short notice as interim controller. That must have been a very daunting situation for you.

DILLINGHAM:

It took me a little by surprise. And it was much quicker than I had anticipated. I was interim auditor-controller three and a half years previously. And I was surprised by a couple of things. First off, there was only one person still working in the office that was working in the office when I was there three and a half years ago, which is a pretty significant turnover. And it felt like there was a lot more work than there had been, that things had changed a lot more in three and a half years than I think they had in the previous 10, 20 years. And that’s probably good enough. And I’d lost all the people that knew how to do property taxes. So I spent the first few months just dealing with property tax apportionments and getting those done, because they’re very important, because that gets the money to your local special district schools, cities, and all of those people.

O’CONNOR:

Now during your campaign you talked about fiscal controls and the need to actually enhance them. So what processes and changes have you been able to put in place to restore the calm and order to the office?

DILLINGHAM:

So I’m going to start by saying it wasn’t that bad. There are actually really good controls in place. The one area where I felt like there was the biggest deficit was reconciliations. So we’ve implemented daily cash reconciliations, bank reconciliations, outstanding check reconciliations, and a lot of that sort of thing. And we’ve caught up on the backlog, and we’re pretty current on doing that. So that was the biggest change. But overall, staff has really good internal controls, and they’re doing their job really well.

O’CONNOR:

Now, one of the things you’ve already touched on — when you took over there was a backlog of delinquent fiscal reporting. What’s the situation now?

DILLINGHAM:

So we closed, so this is really sort of, this is daunting. We have, we are just getting ready to start the audit for fiscal year 2021. We will then be going straight into doing the audit for 21-22. We’re currently in fiscal year 22-23 and we’re starting the budget process for 23-24. That is a lot of years and sometimes my head just spins around when I’m trying to figure out which year I’m working on and I’m talking to people. But we’re trying to keep staff, like staff, some staff work mostly on current and then so to try to keep the, so you know which year you’re in. But we’re, I anticipate that we will be completely caught up and have our audit for fiscal year 2022-23 completed on schedule.

O’CONNOR:

Now there were a number of funds and grants that were available to the county from the state for things like infrastructure improvements that could not move forward due to the delinquent reporting. Is the county in better shape now in the eyes of the state?

DILLINGHAM:

The state recognizes that we’re making progress. We’re still behind on the deadlines, and I don’t believe we’re losing any funding, but I do think we still have some that is gonna be a little delayed in getting out. When we get the fiscal year 2020-21 audit done, which we think will be the end of June, I think that’ll make things a lot better. 

O’CONNOR:

So have you rebuilt relationships with the state and city bodies that had lost faith in the department under your leadership under your predecessor?

DILLINGHAM:

Communication, communication. So staff has been working really hard to communicate. We’ve had a couple of times where the state has called and said, where’s your such and such report? And we all look around and we’re like, I didn’t know we had to do that. We’re real honest. We’re like, oh, we’re so sorry. We’re just getting caught up to speed. We will get that to you next week. And so they’ve been very accommodating and are always happy just to hear us say, we’ll get it done. And we’ve been pretty quick about turning around anything that we discover. We’ve got a really good calendar going now of all the reports that we have to do. I’ve been working with local finance officers with the cities to get a local group going where we’ll get together and have peer discussions and have some local folks come and give us some presentations and get that group going. And I’ve now got staff that specifically works with special districts and cities so that they have a person they can call and develop a relationship with.

O’CONNOR:

That sounds like a great idea. Now one of the things — you’ve already mentioned it actually, you identified it during your campaign — was the need to recruit staff for your team. So have you now filled all of the available slots?

DILLINGHAM:

So the department has 19 positions. I have hired seven people since I started. Five of those are permanent and two of those are extra help. I still have a recruitment going right now for two positions. I’ve had one person leave since I started. She got a promotion, better job. It was good for her. So I have interviews for that job next week, and then I have another recruitment for the deputy, which is the second in command in the office that will be starting, the recruitment just ended. And so that’s kind of where we’re at with that. So that’s a lot of people, and they’re all getting up to speed. They’re doing a great job.

O’CONNOR:

Good to know. Now you also talked about the need to better harness technology to streamline processes to improve functionality. Have you been able to make any progress in that area?

DILLINGHAM:

This one’s an interesting one. So my first comment is, we’ve only got so many resources and really we’re just trying to get things done. So we’re constantly prioritizing and deciding what we have to work on, and implementing technology, honestly, it’s not easy. So that’s phase two. We figure when we get caught up, we’ll implement new technology.

We’ve got some great ideas. We’ve got requests for projects to do more workflow. Departments are really supportive of that. So we’re working on it, but it’s probably something that we’ll really start getting into about a year from now.

The other thing that’s just been interesting is, there’s just a lot of things that weren’t working. So some of the challenges with getting the audits done and some of those things were simply the reports that you needed to do it didn’t work. So we’ve gotten those fixed. The financial transactions report, which is the report we do for the state that was really delinquent, that was another, the reports didn’t work. We’ve got those fixed. So we’ve got reports now that basically just produce all the information that you need to plug it into the boxes in the report. Then the budget schedules also were another one that just didn’t quite work right and we’ve got those fixed.

So that is implementing technology, but it’s not quite as … I was looking more for things like workflow and reducing duplication of effort and that sort of thing, which we will be doing. I was going to say that.

O’CONNOR:

I was going to say — that’s something for the future.

DILLINGHAM:

Yep.

O’CONNOR:

Well Cheryl, it’s great that the Auditor-Controller is not the daily news story in Humboldt or Eureka every day as it was this time last year. So congratulations on that, you’ve obviously made an enormous amount of progress. Anything else you want to share with our Humboldt Today viewers?

DILLINGHAM:

I just want to thank my auditor-controller team and say that they’re a really amazing group of people and I felt that they had gotten, the last couple of years has been really hard on them and I just want to thank them for their dedication and they do a really good job of supporting. The auditor-controller’s office is like the last inch of service delivery for the citizens of Humboldt County. So, you may have economic development, working really hard to get a loan to make to a local business, and if we don’t cut that check at that point in time when it needs to be done, then the whole thing can just fall apart. And so, you know, our team does a really good job of helping, you know, get services out to the citizens. 

O’CONNOR:

It’s a very important cog in the wheel but it’s one that probably people don’t appreciate and don’t hear about. And of course when they were hearing about it, it was for all the wrong reasons.

DILLINGHAM:

It would be nice to have it be heard about for good reason.

O’CONNOR:

Well, I think we’re hopefully doing that with this message today. Okay. Cheryl, it’s been a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for joining us for a Humboldt Conversation and join us for another Humboldt Conversation very soon.