The Eureka City Council will, as always, tackle some exciting and important issues during tonight’s meeting, including a few items concerning the City’s water and sewer systems.
Homeowners have been freaking out on social media in recent weeks in response to proposed water and sewer tax hikes from the City of Eureka. The council will discuss the proposed rate increase during tonight’s meeting, but is not expected to make a decision on the matter as of yet.
Let’s take a look at that agenda!
Water and Wastewater Revenue Refunding Bonds
The council will start off tonight’s meeting with a request from staff to refinance a series of bonds related to the City’s Water and Wastewater funds.
In case you’re not aware (this reporter surely wasn’t), the City currently has four bonds, or debt obligations, related to the Water Fund and two bonds related to the Wastewater Fund. Each fiscal year, the City makes six separate principal and interest payments related to each bond. Since interest rates are lower than in years past, staff thought now would be a good time to refinance the City’s debt.
“This transaction is akin to a homeowner refinancing their mortgage for a lower rate/payment and it has no effect on the total debt owed by the City’s utilities,” Lane Millar, the City’s finance director, explained in an email to the Outpost. “The result of the two transactions is that the City will pay less in interest over the remaining life of the bonds. This will lower expenses in both the water and sewer funds.”
The City issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) earlier this year to find a bank willing to refinance the City’s debt at a lower rate. Last month, the City selected Signature Bank as the best option for the Water Fund and California Bank and Trust for the Wastewater Fund.
If approved, the proposed transactions will save the City more than $814,000 in interest expenses over the next 20 years.
“When combined, the current debt service payments, less receipts, will result in net cash flows of $18,589,570 [for the Water Fund] during the period of 04/01/2023 to 06/30/2043,” according to the staff report. “The total savings of the proposed transaction is approximately $142,619 with present value of savings of $184,269. …The total savings of the proposed transaction is approximately $671,820 [for the Wastewater Fund] with present value of savings of $545,959.”
In the past, the City has issued bonds to fund major capital improvements for its water and wastewater systems. Millar noted that the staff is “not proposing to issue new debt in this case” but is instead “looking to lower the cost of the debt already incurred.”
The council will also receive a report on a recent water and sewer rate study during tonight’s meeting. The item is somewhat related to the aforementioned bond discussion, but the items will not directly impact one another, according to Millar.
“I hesitate to directly relate the refinancing to the rate study because I think they should be understood apart from one another,” he said. “What I mean [is], the interest savings are good, but they will occur between now and 2042. Since the rate study looks out five years, the refinancing will have no effect on the proposed rate changes.”
However, any effort to reduce costs to the water and sewer systems can reduce rate increases over the long run, he added.
Private Sewer Lateral Ordinance
The council will also consider a revision to the City’s Private Sewer Lateral Ordinance. The ordinance, adopted by the city council in 2019, shifted the responsibility of maintenance and repairs of the lower lateral – which is the sewer pipe connecting a property’s plumbing system to the public sewer main under the street – solely to the property owner.
Since the city adopted the ordinance, staff have reported ongoing issues with laterals not being replaced by property owners when they should be, largely due to the cost.
“The main hurdle has been the fact that replacement of the lower lateral requires a Class A contractor due to the insurance requirements of working in the City right-of-way,” the staff report states. “The number of Class A licensed contractors in our area is limited and owners were often having to hire two separate contractors to replace the upper and lower lateral. This increased the cost, complexity and duration of the process significantly.”
To alleviate this issue, staff proposed the implementation of a set fee and a point-of-sale trigger to “significantly accelerate the rate at which aging sewer laterals are replaced.”
“The sale trigger will increase the number of laterals replaced annually, helping to satisfy the City’s obligation to reduce wet weather flows,” the staff report continues. “The set fee, payable prior to closing, will allow sales to progress unimpeded, as timing is often critical in the sale of the property. The City would then aggregate the projects and bid them together as a single public works project.”
The fee amount would be based on the average City bid cost of lateral repair/replacement over the previous two years. Currently, the anticipated fee would fall under $10,000, the staff report says. Property owners who feel they can get a better deal through a private contractor will still have the ability to do so.
The council will also review another segment of the City’s proposed Coastal Land Use Plan during tonight’s meeting. Rather than bringing the entire proposal to the council for consideration in one go, staff decided to break the plan into several digestible chapters to present to the council through January.
This week’s installment will focus on land and aquatic resources. You can read more at this link.
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The Eureka City Council will meet on Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 6 p.m. at Eureka City Hall — 531 K Street. The agenda can be found here.
On November 19th 2020 a newborn baby was safely surrendered to Humboldt Bay Fire Station 1 on C St. in
Eureka. Since the inception of the Safe Surrender program for HBF in 2013, this was the first experience the
department had with activation of the protocol. All Humboldt Bay Fire Stations are designed as drop-off sites
for “safely surrendered babies.” The California Safely Surrendered Baby Law allows a parent or other
individual having lawful custody of a child 72 hours or younger to voluntarily surrender physical custody of
the child to any firefighter on duty at any of our stations. This may be done discretely without fear of
judgement or prosecution for child abandonment.
After the child was transported for further assessment to the hospital and entry into the county’s system, HBF
personnel did not know the outcome of the child’s story.
On Thursday November 10th 2022, nearly two years after the incident, the child surrendered that day paid a
visit to Station 1 with their newly adoptive parents. As luck would have it, when the visit was made the
firefighter who received the child that day was on duty in the administrative offices of Station 1 and was able
to meet the child, now nearly 2 years old, and their new family. The emotional visit was welcome closure to
the story as the child was healthy, happy, and greatly loved by their new family. Needless to say we at
Humboldt Bay Fire feel very privileged to have been apart of their story and know that we played a small part
in the wonderful outcome.
The success of this story only goes to prove the value of this program. The California Safe Surrender program
had a demonstrated history throughout out state in truly making a difference in the lives that it touches. Per
the California Department of Social Services website most recent information, From January 1, 2001 to
December 31, 2017, there were 931 newborns surrendered in California. This is compared with 164 infants
abandoned since 2001. Available data indicates a generally decreasing trend of abandonments since
enactment of the Law, from 25 cases in 2002 to five or fewer cases per year since 2010, representing a
decrease of at least 80%.
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
The Humboldt County Coroner’s Office has positively identified human remains discovered in the Bridgeville area as that of local missing woman Patricia Ribeiro.
On November 11, 2022, at about 1:10 p.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Communications Center received a call regarding skeletal remains found by a resident near a private road located off of Highway 36 Milepost Marker 31.5. Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies and a deputy coroner responded to the scene and recovered the remains.
Foul play is not suspected at this time. An external examination of the remains is scheduled for Thursday, November 17.
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office extends our deepest sympathies to Ribeiro’s family during this difficult time.
Because potential witnesses were canceled by mistake, the preliminary hearing for alleged child molester Gary Frankland Landergen was postponed this morning until next month.
Landergen.
Landergen, 57, is accused of molesting three teen-age girls while he was a coach and math teacher at Fortuna High School. His preliminary hearing was reset for Dec. 7 because it was thought the defense attorney, Conflict Counsel Meagan O’Connell, was in trial today in another courtroom.
“Witnesses were called off because it was believed Ms. O’Connell was still in trial,” Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm told Judge John Feeney this morning.
Landergen, who has been arrested twice and posted bail twice, was in court this morning with a friend. He was arrested in April after the alleged victims went to law enforcement. He posted bail of $35,000, but was taken into custody again weeks later when Judge Kelly Neel raised bail to $100,000. Landergen posted the remaining $65,000 and remains out of custody.
O’Connell said she would like the preliminary hearing held “as soon as possible.”
Another Fortuna resident, Sean Michael Allman, is scheduled for a hearing next week on whether he can receive mental health treatment instead of going to trial on charges of threatening eight members of a church youth group.
Allman.
Allman is scheduled for a Nov. 28 jury trial on charges of terrorizing or obstructing the exercise of religion and making threats of death or great bodily injury. But now defense attorneys Ben Okin and Andrea Sullivan have filed a petition asking Judge Christopher Wilson to place Allman on a so-called mental health diversion.
Under that program, if a defendant successfully completes treatment charges can be dismissed.
Allman was 18 back in June 2019, when he allegedly sent threatening messages to an Episcopal youth group planning to visit then-Humboldt State University. According to testimony at his preliminary hearing, Allman was obsessed with mass shootings.
Some of his text messages contained pictures of bloody people lying on the ground.
The hearing on the mental diversion option is set for Monday. Allman is out of custody but did not attend the hearing today.
Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm is the prosecutor.
Also today before Judge Wilson, defense attorney Owen Tipps said no report has been received from a doctor hired to re-evaluate murder suspect Austin Michael Medeiros.
Medeiros.
Medeiros, accused of murdering a young disabled woman, was initially deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. After undergoing treatment and taking anti-psychotic medication, his competence was declared “restored.”
Tipps disagreed with that conclusion, saying at the last court hearing that Medeiros, 28, still suffers from delusions. Tipps’s request for a second competency evaluation was granted, with a different doctor, clinical psychologist Michael Morris, appointed.
His report was due today but has not materialized.
Wilson set the next hearing for Dec. 12.
Medeiros remains in custody but was not brought down from the jail to attend court.
Deputy District Attorney Candace Myers is the prosecutor.
On November 19th at noon The Redwood Unit of the Backcountry Horsemen of California will kick off
the holiday season with their annual Cowboy Canned Food Convoy. The horses and their riders will
parade through Old Town Eureka and pack their saddlebags with food donations to deliver to Food
for People. They will be making stops to pick up canned food items at Sailor’s Grave Tattoo, Chapala
Cafe, Good Relations, Humboldt Herbals, Booklegger, Ramone’s Bakery and Cafe, Ecocann
Dispensary, Old Town Coffee & Chocolates, Eureka Books, Belle Starr, and Los Bagels. The riders will
be joined by Cub Scout Pack 4047 out to Fortuna who will help collect donations along the way.
Please join us at 12pm on Saturday, November 19th in the parking lot at the foot of D St. to see The
Redwood Unit of the Backcountry Horsemen of California kick off Food for People’s Hunger Fighter
Challenge! The Hunger Fighter Challenge is a collaborative effort between local businesses, clubs,
and groups to collect donations of food and fund to help feed the community during the holidays.
The Redwood Unit will be the first Hunger Fighter team to have its donation weighed in—officially
kicking off the Holiday Food & Fund Drive. For more information on becoming a Hunger Fighter Team
visit foodforpeople.org/hunger-fighter-challenge.
The Gateway Area boundary, looking south | Images from the City of Arcata’s Draft Gateway Area Plan
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OK, so it might be a little last minute, but LoCO knows that you care very much about Arcata’s Gateway Area Plan – that controversial plan to rezone about 138 acres of land in and around the Creamery District to facilitate the development of high-density housing. And so we feel that we must inform you that the Arcata Planning Commission will be discussing the plan today during a special meeting at 4 p.m. Better late than never, right?!
The focus of this evening’s discussion will be the plan’s proposed Community Benefits Program. Community benefits are, just like they sound, features of a project that would generally benefit the community. This could include things like adding or improving trails, beautifying the area with more murals, or improving public transportation.
In the case of the Gateway Area Plan, planners and staff propose using community benefits as a way to incentivize development project by offering to streamline the approval process for projects that include certain benefits. The idea is that the benefits program would be tiered, so that if a developer offered more community benefits, they would be allowed to build taller and higher-density buildings.
The developers could select from a list of proposed benefits, which were drafted based on input from the community during previous workshops and outreach sessions. The list focuses on different categories of community improvement, including job creation, arts and culture and transportation. You can view the full list of proposed benefitshere.
Tonight the planning commissioners will review the list of community benefits, rank them based on how much value they would bring to the community and make a recommendation to the City Council based on their findings.
Some concerns brought up by the planning commission in the past have included whether or not the list should include features that would only really benefit the tenants, rather than the entire community. Commissioner Judith Mayer also expressed concern over some of the listed benefits, which she believes should be required for all new developments. You can read Mayer’s list of concerns here.
The Planning Commission meets today (Tuesday, Nov. 15) at 4 p.m. at Arcata City Hall – 736 F Street. You can view the full agenda and directions on how to participate here.
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On Nov. 14, 2022, at about 6:46 p.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a residence on the 100 block of Hansen Drive near Fortuna for the report of an unwanted person attempting to gain entry into a residence.
Deputies arrived at the residence and located 38-year-old Kristopher Sean Mobley Jr. nearby a broken window of the residence. When contacted, Mobley began acting erratically toward deputies and physically resisted them upon detainment. After a brief struggle, Mobley was taken into custody without injury.
During their investigation, deputies learned that Mobley and the resident were acquaintances. The resident told deputies that Mobley had arrived at the home that evening uninvited and the resident asked him to leave. Mobley refused to leave, began banging on the resident’s exterior door and then broke a window.
Mobley was arrested and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of felony vandalism (PC 594(b)(1)) and resisting a peace officer (PC 148(a)(1)).
Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.
