HUMBOLDT TODAY: Schneider’s dream house is coming down; a Humboldt man arrested for murder earlier this week has his charge reduced to manslaughter; plus, your weekend events and weather. Those stories and more in today’s newscast with John Kennedy O’Connor.
Readers might remember last summer, when the entire community of Fairhaven was provided with free high-speed internet as a part of the California Digital Divide Innovation Challenge, a contest that promised a winning prize of $1 million to a company that could find a way to provide accessible internet throughout the state.
The service was installed by Bay Area company Dalet Access Labs, which worked with help from Humboldt County Department of Education (HCOE) and the Samoa Peninsula Fire District, to install the Fairhaven service. At the time, Odion Edohomon, president and CEO Dalet Access Labs, was so happy with the outcome of the project that he seemed almost certain his company would win the contest.
“I don’t think there was any chance [of winning],” Edohomon said in a recent interview with the Outpost. “We met all the requirements. But [people running the challenge] were sloppy. They didn’t do a follow up.”
The contest was launched in 2021 by the California Department of Education and funded by the Michelson Foundation, General Motors, Genentech and PG&E, as a way to help bridge the digital divide, especially for students who were unable to participate in digital learning during COVID. Searching for an innovative and speedy solution to the issue, CDE put the call out for entries, with the requirements that service cost no more than $15/month per household, include 100 megabits synchronous upload and download speed with no data caps, and have fully deployable implementation within a year.
The challenge also stipulated that the competitors must test their innovation with students experiencing a lack of connectivity either due to barriers of affordability or infrastructure. The tiny community of Fairhaven, which has not consistently had internet service available and had many children unable to access virtual learning, seemed like the perfect fit.
Assigned to Fairhaven, Dalet Access Labs went to work installing free service for the 78 homes in the community. The company worked with Cogent Communications and AT&T to launch a live fiber optic line to the Fairhaven fire station. From there the signal is sent out to five antenna nodes, which the company installed on the roofs of houses scattered throughout the community. The network also operates completely on solar power, which charges batteries that can keep the power running 24/7. Fairhaven’s internet went live on July 1, 2022 and the residents have been enjoying the service ever since.
One of the antenna nodes installed on a house in Fairhaven
After the system was deployed, the Humboldt County Office of Education praised the project, saying in a press release that the service with low latency speeds of 700 to 900 megabits, surpassed the requirements for the Innovation Challenge. “It’s an amazing example of what public-private partnership can do to help address and solve a real problem,” Colby Smart, HCOE assistant superintendent, educational service, said in the press release sent in August.
Dalet Labs’ entry was also celebrated by the Department of Education, and representatives from the department, including Chief Deputy Superintendent Mary Nicely, attended the project’s ribbon cutting ceremony in October. A press release sent about the event also stated that the project “surpassed the minimum requirements.” Edohomon said that this response gave him some encouragement. But, he did think it was strange that no one from the corporations that were judging the contest was present.
Nicely sent him one follow-up email following the ceremony, asking what the cost of infrastructure was and what the monthly cost per household would be. Edohomon replied that the sustainable monthly cost would be $80 per household, but that for low-income households with students, the monthly fee would be $15, which could be achieved with government subsidies to cover the other $65. But the positive response seemed to end there and shortly after the ribbon cutting, Edohomon said, the state officials involved fell silent, not returning any of his emails or calls about the contest for months.
When Edohomon did finally receive a response, Nicely said that the judges — which included members of the Michelson Foundation, General Motors, Genentech and PG&E — determined that none of the entries met all of the required criteria to win.
“We know this was an ambitious challenge,” Nicely wrote in an email to Edohomon. “The main concern was the lack of sustainability shown by any challenger. In light of this, we encourage you to work with one of our partners, The Michelson 20MM Foundation as they support up and coming entrepreneurs and community organizations in developing innovative and sustainable solutions to the major problems facing our communities today.”
In other emails between Nicely and Chronicle reporter Jill Tucker, Nicely said that the main issue with Edohomon’s entry was that it failed to meet the requirement that monthly service cost $15 per household, something that apparently the judges wanted for every household, not just for students.
Still, after the Department of Education attended the ribbon cutting and sent out a press release saying that the Fairhaven project met all the requirements, Edohomon is left feeling a little burned, especially since he spent more than $400,000 on the project. And according to the Chronicle’s reporting, other contestants felt the same way, some saying that the whole thing just seemed like a publicity stunt.
Meanwhile, Fairhaven residents will have the high-speed internet service disconnected on April 17. But Edohomon hopes that there can be a way to keep the service going for Fairhaven and said he will continue working with local stakeholders – including the HCOE, the Peninsula Union School District and the County of Humboldt Economic Development – to find options for providing all of the Samoa Peninsula with access to affordable, high-speed internet
“It’s still our plan to extend to Samoa, to the peninsula schools and to serve all those homes, including the affordable housing that DANCO built there,” Edehomon said.
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:
On April 14, 2023, at about 1:03 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies on patrol in the Carlotta area conducted a traffic stop for a vehicle code violation near the 5400 block of Highway 36.
Deputies contacted one occupant of the vehicle, 48-year-old Leo Josh Rosecrans. Rosecrans was found to have an outstanding misdemeanor warrant for his arrest. During a search of Rosecrans and his vehicle incident to arrest, deputies located a loaded firearm, over 7 grams of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.
Rosecrans was arrested and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of possession of a controlled substance while armed (HS 11370.1(a)), felon in possession of a firearm (PC 29800(a)(1)), felon in possession of a firearm in violation of a restraining order (PC 29825(a)), possession of a controlled substance (HS 11377(a)) and possession of a controlled substance paraphernalia (HS 11364(a)), in addition to warrant charges of violation of a court order (PC 273.6(a)).
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.
Delilah Mays-Triplett, 19, works from her work station as a student assistant inside the Love Library Addition at San Diego State University in San Diego on April 12, 2023. Photo by Pablo Unzueta for CalMatters
California State University is the largest public university system in the country, so when sophomore Delilah Mays-Triplett decided working on the San Diego State University campus as a library assistant would be the best thing for her education, she didn’t expect to be paid less than the local minimum wage.
But when Mays-Triplett’s check came, she saw she was paid $15.50 per hour, nearly a dollar lower than the San Diego minimum wage of $16.30.
That reason, paired with others, is why Mays-Triplett decided to sign a union authorization card when organizers approached her. Undergraduate student assistants at the university are mounting a union organizing campaign, calling for more work hours, paid sick time and higher wages. The campaign could potentially affect thousands of library assistants, clerical workers and other non-academic student employees and comes at a time of heightened labor activism on university campuses.
“There’s a lot of things that are kind of unfair about our job,” said Mays-Triplett. “So just being able to organize and address some of those issues would be really helpful,” she said, adding that she finds power in “just being able to have a voice.”
The California State University Employees Union, which represents non-student workers in similar roles, filed petitions with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board in 2021 to add student assistants into its existing bargaining units, and has been working with student organizers to collect union authorization cards since last fall.
“Thousands of student assistants signed union cards. You’re almost ready to file for an election!” organizers texted student supporters April 8. Union spokesperson Khanh Weinberg declined to make leaders available for an interview.
Cal State has disputed the union’s claim that student workers have enough in common with other university support staff to be folded into existing bargaining units. “The Student Assistants’ primary role is that of a student and not a traditional employee,” Timothy Yeung, a lawyer for the university, wrote in December to the administrative law judge handling the case.
“We don’t have anything else to add on the matter,” Cal State spokesperson Mike Uhlenkamp wrote in response to an interview request.
But Grace Dearborn, another San Diego State student, said she deserves the same benefits as any other employee. Dearborn said she caught COVID last semester. While her supervisor allowed her to make up the hours she missed, she felt she should have gotten the paid COVID-related leave that California at the time required businesses to give full-time workers.
“This is a real job for a lot of students,” Dearborn said. “We get paid and we use that pay for bills and our personal expenses, and so if you’re expecting for it to be a real job but not receive sick pay, I think that that’s really weird.”
Several cited the discrepancy between Cal State’s minimum wage and local minimum wages as part of their motivation. University attorney Marc Mootchnik told San Diego State’s student newspaper, the Daily Aztec, in 2016 that because Cal State is a state agency, it is not required to comply with local minimum wage laws.
Emma Galloway, a commuter student at Cal State Northridge, said receiving at least the Los Angeles minimum wage of $16.50 for her work as a student assistant in the Journalism Department office would help her save money to move out of her parents’ house.
“I have a very big fear of being homeless, especially with the homeless crisis in Los Angeles,” she said. “I’m really grateful to have my parents and to live under a roof, but that fear kind of lingers a little bit, and I just want to save enough to the point where I can rent a one-bedroom apartment.”
“Student assistants are a backbone” for the campus departments where they work, she added.
Some 11,000 Cal State teaching assistants and other academic workers already have union representation through the United Auto Workers. But the undergraduates involved in the California State University Employees Union organizing effort are doing work that’s arguably less related to their studies – such as filing office paperwork, helping with print jobs and assisting in checking out books at the library.
More students are organizing
They’re part of a recent wave of campus labor activism that includes the largest higher education strike in history, in which 48,000 graduate student workers at the University of California walked off the job in November, eventually winning raises, transit passes and child care benefits.
In February, Dartmouth University agreed to pay its student dining hall workers a base wage of $21 per hour after they voted to authorize a strike — less than a year after being recognized as a union. And last month, undergraduate residential advisors at the University of Pennsylvania filed for representation with the Office and Professional Employees International Union.
“The most fundamental demand that people on college campuses are making right now is honor the principles that you say you are committed to,” said Caroline Luce, a labor historian at the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and a member of the university’s lecturers’ union. “You say you’re a public-serving institution; it doesn’t make sense to be paying people wages that they can’t live on.”
While Cal State undergraduates have been inspired by the gains made by graduate student organizing, Luce said, they face an uphill battle if the university continues to oppose the effort, because of the high turnover in their ranks. “If (Cal State officials) draw things out, they will win basically because the students who (are organizing) will go on to bigger and better things and it might fall apart.”
Public Employment Relations Board hearings to determine whether the California State University Employees Union can expand its bargaining units to include student assistants began in March and will resume June 12. Either the union or the university could appeal the judge’s decision to the full board and then to a state court of appeal. If the union prevails, it could then submit cards showing majority support and petition to represent the students, said the board’s general counsel, Felix De La Torre. It could also file to create a new bargaining unit composed of student assistants only.
“What makes it more unique than a typical public employee union drive is we’re dealing with individuals who straddle the line between employees and students,” said De La Torre. He cited recent controversies over whether, for example, collegiate athletes should be allowed to organize.
“All these cases begin to develop a body of law around this class of workers,” he said. “To that extent, it could be significant if this petition goes up to the board.”
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Walker is a fellow with the CalMatters College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. Network editor Felicia Mello contributed reporting. This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation.
CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Jeffrey
Kevin Brockman April 26, 1965 – April 7, 2023
It
is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we announce the passing
of Jeff Brockman, age 57, in Eureka —
son,
brother,
father,
grandfather
and special
friend to many.
Jeff
was born in Eureka at St. Joseph Hospital in 1965, to Richard and
Wilma Brockman. He was welcomed into the world by his two older
sisters, Wendy and Sherrie. A few years later he would welcome his
little sister, Stephanie.
Jeff
lived most of his life in Eureka/Fortuna area, with a few years in
Florida with his father, stepmother and stepbrother.
He
enjoyed baseball, fast cars and making people laugh! You could always
count on him to have some off-the-wall comment and then laugh!
Jeff
was a free-spirit person who took on many different jobs in his
lifetime. One which he cared for and enjoyed the most was being a
nanny to Amy and Lucy Rogers. He adored and loved them, as they
adored and loved him.
Earlier
in his life he was blessed with two of his own great sons, Jeffrey
and Steven.
Jeff
will be greatly missed and loved not only by his family but his
extended family and friends as well.
Jeff
is preceded in death by his father, Richard Brockman, grandparents,
numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.
He
is survived by his mother, Wilma Senteney, his sons Jeffrey Brewer
Brockman and Steven Thurston, his siblings Wendy Pesce, Sherrie
Hurst, Stephanie Gardner and younger brothers Brian and Jason
Senteney, many special family friends, Lucy and Amy Rogers, and the
Warnows whom he loved all.
Memorial
will be held in Jeff’s honor on Sunday, May 21 at the Monday Club in
Fortuna.
Rest
easy,
Jeff.
###
The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Jeff Brockman’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.
HUMBOLDT TODAY: Centerville Beach did not explode, thankfully; a new healing center for kids clears a large hurdle on its way to opening next year; plus, some local kids go swimming! Those stories and more in today’s newscast with John Kennedy O’Connor.
Sorrel Leaf Healing Center has been given the green light to move forward with its plans to establish the first youth-focused residential mental health facility on the North Coast.
The California Coastal Commission approved a permit application for the project during this morning’s meeting for the North Coast District. The picturesque 13.5-acre site, located at 124 Indianola Road in Eureka, will host a 12-bed crisis residential treatment facility in a renovated three-story farmhouse. The facility will house several therapy rooms, kitchen and dining facilities, as well as administration and operation spaces, according to the staff report. The site will also include a yoga pavilion, a greenhouse where patients will grow their own food and a barn that for small livestock therapy animals.
The approved permit application includes several special conditions to protect the surrounding environment and wildlife, including 3.34 acres of wetlands and an active bald eagle nest, according to the staff report.
“We are very happy to have received the California Coastal Commission’s approval for our plans to develop our Eureka property into a beautiful, land-based healing environment in which the North Coast’s young people will receive compassionate, transformative healing,” Dr. Evan Buxbaum, the center’s executive director, wrote in an email to the Outpost.
The farm-based residential treatment facility will be the first of its kind on the North Coast. Currently, the closest options for inpatient treatment for children and adolescents between 7 and 18 years of age are in either Santa Rosa or Redding, and those centers are frequently at capacity.
Sorrel Leaf will also provide crisis stabilization, continuing aftercare and mobile crisis response for its patients.
“Our Mobile Response Team will work anywhere in the community to de-escalate crises through timely and thorough mental health assessment and diagnosis, as well as the development of an appropriate safety and care plan in coordination with the child and their caregivers,” according to the organization’s website. “Each child will receive individualized psychiatric and therapeutic interventions with the goal of minimizing further trauma and keeping them safely in their homes whenever possible, with appropriate follow-up referrals and case management in place.”
With the Coastal Commission’s blessing secured, the project can be put out to bid for contractors. If all goes according to plan, the crisis residential treatment center will be ready to accept patients by the end of 2024.
