Catherine Ann Lay
Aug. 8, 1937 – Dec. 24, 2022

Catherine Ann Conroy was born to Elmer and Lela Conroy in Memphis Tennessee on August 8, 1937, and passed away December 24, 2022, in Eureka at the age of 85. She and husband, Roy Lay, who was born in Kiowa Oklahoma, married and had three children, Jill, Jody and Jonathan.

Cathy was baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses on January 30, 1960, and remained faithful for the rest of her life. She was preceded in death by her son Jonathan, her husband Roy in 2008 and her daughter Jill in 2012.

She is survived by her daughter Jody from Redding, her grandchildren Brian and Sarah Hutchinson and her great grandchildren, Tyler Reed, Chance, Cayden, John Jr., Damon, Dillon, Cierra, Levi, Britton, Lucy and Aimee.

Cathy was a kind and gentle soul and will always be remembered by her love for others and her ability to deal with any situation with dignity and grace. We would like to thank the staff of Granada Rehabilitation and Wellness Center for taking care of Cathy in her final years.

Cathy was a steadfast and loyal integrity keeper, and she lived with the hope found in the Bible Book of Revelation, chapter 21 verses 3 and 4, where it says: With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them. And He will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Cathy Lay’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: Another earthquake — which reminds us that Humboldt has been declared a disaster and you may be entitled to benefits. Also, the latest on Redway residents water woes, weekend happenings and more on today’s newscast with John Kennedy O’Connor.

FURTHER READING: 

• Facing a Collapsed Economy and a Wave of Nonpayment, Redway Community Services District Starts Shutting Off Water to Customers
• THANKS, WINTER STORMS! Due to the Devastation Wrought Upon Humboldt County During the Recent Rains, You Now Have Until May 15 to File Your Taxes
• FRIDAY LOWDOWN: The Elephant Man! Brandie Posey! Barn Dance! More!
• EARTHQUAKE! 3.7M Earthquake 3 Kilometers Southeast of Fortuna

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More than 20 years after Caltrans established the “safety corridor” between Arcata and Eureka, lowering the speed limit and installing digital “Your Speed” signs as a temporary fix aimed at reducing deadly collisions, construction is nearly set to begin on the final components of a wholesale redesign of this section of Hwy. 101.

On Thursday, Watsonville-based construction company Granite announced that it has been awarded the $46 million contract for the project, which entails the construction of an undercrossing at Indianola cutoff, a traffic signal on 101 north at Airport Boulevard and closure of the median openings at Mid-City Motor World, Bracut Industrial Park and the Bayside cutoff.

The new design elements along this six-mile stretch of roadway will eliminate many of the dangerous traffic crossings, which have resulted in numerous fatal collisions. Two of the intersections — those at Mid-City Motor World and Indianola Cutoff — had more than double the state average rate of serious collisions (those resulting in serious injury or death), before the safety corridor was implemented.

Once the new project is completed — expected by the end of 2025 — Indianola Cutoff will be extended to run underneath a newly constructed bridge, with north- and southbound traffic passing overhead. The freeway will have a slight incline as it approaches this undercrossing from either direction.

Caltrans Project Manager Jeffrey Pimentel said the design of the Indianola interchange has been updated to include a connection with the Humboldt Bay Trail, which is expected to be complete by next summer. 

Closure of the median openings elsewhere will force drivers to take some longer routes. For example, anyone leaving Mid-City Motor World for destinations to the south will first have to turn north onto 101 and head to the Indianola undercrossing to reach the southbound lanes.

Similarly, drivers will be no longer be able to make lefthand turns from the Bayside cutoff to Hwy. 101 south, a maneuver that requires a dangerous acceleration across the two lanes of speeding traffic on 101 north. Instead they’ll need to head south to Indianola or north to Arcata to reach the southbound freeway.

The traffic signal at Airport Boulevard will only affect northbound traffic (it’s called a “half-signal”). It will turn red to allow southbound cars to safely make the left turn across 101 north to access Airport Boulevard and the various businesses along Jacobs Avenue.

In public meetings, Caltrans officials and public safety advocates have argued that the minor inconvenience of these re-routes and stoppages are a small price to pay for fewer traffic deaths. 

The California Coastal Commission approved the project in 2019 only after adding some conditions, including more proactive planning for sea-level rise.

In a phone conversation Friday, Pimentel said the project has design includes a feature known as a seat-type abutment for the Indianola undercrossing. 

With this design, Pimentel said, “we’re able to facilitate raising the structure into the future if we need to for sea-level rise without having to reconstruct it [entirely].”

The Coastal Commission is also requiring Caltrans to develop a comprehensive adaptation implementation plan for this stretch of 101, and Pimentel said the agency is working with various local stakeholders to develop strategies for the various sections. The plan must be completed by 2025.

Other safety-enhancing project elements have already been completed. These include a cable median barrier, lengthened acceleration and deceleration lanes, newly constructed bridges over Jacoby Creek and Gannon Slough and replacement of old tide gates along Humboldt Bay.

The total project cost for this next portion of work comes to about $51.4 million, including some items furnished by the state, Pimentel said. 

“The department is just excited to hit this milestone,” he said. Caltrans is working on a public outreach plan to inform the public about project updates and what to expect during construction. In the meantime, Pimentel suggested keeping tabs on the Caltrans District 1 Facebook page and website.

Enduring economic struggles in Southern Humboldt forced the Redway Community Services District (RCSD) to shut off water and wastewater services for 16 customers on Thursday. Another 126 customers – more than 20 percent of the district’s service area – are expected to receive shut-off notices next month.

RCSD sent delinquency notices to 23 customers on Monday morning, as originally reported by Redheaded Blackbelt. Several customers were able to pay their bills or set up a payment plan within the 48-hour time frame. Those who could not pay had their water and wastewater services shut off at the meter.

“We had to shut off services for 16 accounts,” RCSD Office Manager Glenn Gradin told the Outpost this morning. “We’ll run our reports again at the end of this month and see who is still on the 90-day delinquency list. Another 60 customers – and then probably another 30 of the worst ones – will probably receive [delinquency notices] with their bills if they still haven’t paid or made arrangements to make payments.”

At the beginning of this month, RCSD was owed approximately $97,000 in delinquent payments, forcing the district to dip into its savings to maintain regular operations.

When asked what factors had fueled the rise in delinquent payments within the district, Gradin said there were “lots of little things” at play, including inflation and impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, but largely attributed the current situation to the ongoing collapse of the cannabis market.

“We would get people to be coming in with [small bills] to pay their $300 or $400 water bill because they were trimming,” he said. “Those jobs are gone. They’re just gone. There’s not enough work for people around here that actually pays a living wage. The rents around here are through the roof … and what money they have is going toward rent and food, not their other bills.”

Gradin urged RCSD customers – or really anyone struggling to pay off delinquent utility bills – to apply for financial assistance through the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) which will pay up to $2,000 in past-due water and wastewater bills. 

“People have been very hesitant to apply for [the program] because they assume they will be denied,” he said. “We’ve only had seven people in our service district complete the process because people often think that your earnings have to be extremely low or that you’re in a really dire situation but this program was designed to have looser conditions for getting help.”

Those interested in applying for the program will have to schedule an appointment through the Redwood Coast Action Agency by calling 707-443-3831. 

More information can be found at this link.

Somehow this only just now rose to our attention. Maybe it hasn’t risen to yours yet. In any case, know that you, Humboldt County taxpayer, officially have an extra month to file your taxes this year.

This is due to the recent winter storms that nearly flattened every standing structure in the area. [Shhhh… — Ed.] Humboldt County is one of 41 California counties that have been declared disaster zones due to the pummeling we took from the atmospheric river earlier this month. Because of this, the IRS and the state Franchise Tax Board have magnanimously given us until May 15 to file, allowing us time in the meanwhile to forage for canned foods underneath the rubble of the post-apocalyptic hellscape we all inhabit.

Here’s the IRS’s official word on the matter. Here’s the corresponding word from the state of California. The Humboldt County Library — which, by the way, always has very good self-help tax services — has a notice here.

Stay strong, everyone.

On a recent night, by the Miramar Reservoir in San Diego County, a man named Erwin sat at a picnic table scrolling through dozens of texts from his wife. He read aloud her warnings about police patrolling a road near their home.

“‘There’s a lot of cops out tonight,’” he read. “Cops everywhere.’ ‘Be careful; lots of cops.’ ‘Too many cops.’

“Every time I want to get a burger or juice or anything like that and I leave the house, she will text me ‘There’s a lot of cops. Be careful,’” Erwin explained. “It’s a reality that we live in. We adapt our life and our every day to it.”

Erwin, who asked not to use his last name for fear of deportation, is a 27-year old business manager, husband and father of a 6-month-old baby girl. He’s also a Congolese immigrant whose visa expired. His wife, a U.S. citizen, fears what would happen if police stop him.

Although California is a sanctuary state — with protections for immigrants who lack documentation authorizing them to be in the United States — there are loopholes and law enforcement sometimes works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Beyond that, Erwin worries a traffic stop might escalate. “Believe me, in my country, I would never have to worry about getting pulled over and being scared that they’re going to shoot me,” he said.

Erwin wants to swap his foreign driver’s license for a California one.

“Before I didn’t have a family, so I could risk it,” he said, “but now I have my family and I drive my kid everywhere we go. So I decided to get right and get the driver’s license, so it’s less of an issue if I get pulled over.”

A license to drive

Erwin has made multiple attempts to obtain an AB 60 driver’s license. It’s a special license that lets undocumented California residents legally drive, but with federal limitations.

Proponents say the special license was a boon to immigrants and the state’s economy. But critics, and even some immigrant advocates, say it has drawbacks and risks, since law enforcement and immigration officials can access it. Nevertheless the state is expanding its flexibility, giving IDs to more undocumented residents.

California lawmakers first passed AB 60, called the Safe and Responsible Drivers Act, in 2013, as part of a broad effort to adopt more inclusive policies toward immigrants, to decriminalize their daily lives and maximize their contributions to the economy, experts said.

Since the law took effect in 2015, more than a million undocumented immigrants, out of an estimated 2 million, have received licenses, and more than 700,000 have renewed them.

Besides California, 18 other states have followed suit.

‘I feel like that’s a very important psychological piece, in the sense of ‘This is who I am. I have an ID to show you who I am.’
— Shiu-Ming Cheer of California Immigrant Policy Center

“With AB 60, what we did was recognize the needs of many hard-working immigrants living here and contributing so much to our great state,” said Luis Alejo, the former Assembly member from Watsonville who authored the bill. Now he is a county supervisor for Monterey County.

Undocumented immigrants in California contribute $3.1 billion a year in state and local taxes; nationally they contribute $11.7 billion in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington D.C. research entity.

New legislation signed in September will make other California ID’s available in January to undocumented immigrants who don’t drive or who can’t take the driver’s test. Backers of that measure say residents most likely to benefit are the elderly and people with disabilities.

“IDs are needed for so many aspects of everyday life, from accessing critical health benefits, to renting an apartment,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, deputy director of programs and campaigns at the California Immigrant Policy Center, a sponsor of the law.

Experts say more flexible ID laws may do more than help people on an individual level. Eric Figueroa, a senior manager at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said licenses enable undocumented immigrants to look for better jobs and gain better protections from employers trying to steal or withhold wages.

“It helps build the economy broadly — by unlocking people’s potential — and it helps the workers by giving them more options,” he said.

Erwin uses family connections to remotely renew his Congo license — a privilege he noted not everyone has. Being able to drive allowed his family to move to a better neighborhood and him to find better employment in a suburb about 25 miles away, he said.

‘With AB 60, what we did was recognize the needs of many hard-working immigrants living here.’
— Luis Alejo, former Assembly member from Watsonville

No one has studied how many people have garnered better jobs as a result of the special licenses. Alejo said many of his constituents describe “profound economic impacts,” but he agrees more research is needed.

Some opponents of the licenses say their economic benefits are likely negligible. Instead it is encouraging illegal migration to California, they say, which further strains the state’s budget to provide education and other services.

More than that, it makes undocumented residents too comfortable, critics argued.

Before the special licenses, immigrants said they feared routine traffic stops and drunk-driving checkpoints, where their vehicles could be impounded for not having a driver’s license. Many also could face deportation proceedings after being contacted by police.

“Community members used to share that they always used to have to buy beat-up cars because they always knew it would get impounded,” said Erin Tsurumoto Grassi, policy director at Alliance San Diego, a community organization focused on equity issues.

“Folks were always losing their vehicles because they didn’t have a license. They didn’t have the ability to have a license,” she said.

Accident trends

Some opponents of the special license law claimed it would make roadways less safe, because some immigrant drivers wouldn’t be able to read traffic signs in English.

But a 2017 study by the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University showed those safety concerns were speculative. The rate of total accidents, including fatal accidents, did not rise and the rate of hit-and-run accidents declined, which likely improved traffic safety and reduced overall costs for California drivers, researchers said.

The study, which documented a 10% decline in hit-and-run accidents, ran in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in April 2017.

“Coming to this as scientists, we were immediately shocked by the absence of facts in this debate,” said Jens Hainmueller, a Stanford political science professor and co-director of the lab. “Nobody was drawing on any evidence; it was more characterized by ideology.”

Other research by Hans Lueders, a postdoctoral research associate for the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice at Princeton University, found AB 60 did not improve insurance premiums nor increase the share of uninsured drivers.

Are license holders safe?

Questions persist about whether the special licenses make recipients easier targets for immigration enforcement.

Some immigrant advocates initially opposed the new licenses because they looked different from other driver’s licenses. On the front of the cards’ upper right side is “Federal Limits Apply” instead of the iconic gold bear of California. On the back the cards say: “This card is not acceptable for official federal purposes.”

Alejo said legislators had intended to protect people from immigration enforcement, so they wrote certain protective measures into the original AB 60 bill. They added language prohibiting state and local government agencies from using the special license to discriminate against license holders or for immigration enforcement.

Yet some advocates point to reports of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accessing the databases of state and local law enforcement agencies and of state departments of motor vehicles.

In December 2018, the ACLU of Northern California and the National Immigration Law Center published a report detailing multiple ways federal immigration agencies get access to motor vehicle records. After that, the California Attorney General’s Office implemented new protocols to protect immigrants’ DMV information from ICE and other agencies.

A chilling effect

Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said there is always going to be a risk someone will misuse data on undocumented people.

“I wouldn’t say that people should feel 100% safe,” he said.” I would just say that the risk has been lessened quite a bit … but that does not mean the risk has totally gone away.”

In recent years there has been a large drop-off in the number of immigrants applying for AB 60 licenses. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, 396,859 immigrants applied for the licenses in fiscal 2014-15, but only 68,426 applied in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2022.

Advocates said that may be because most people who wanted a license applied for it already, or because education and outreach about the law have lessened over the years.

Cheer said news of ICE accessing California databases could have a chilling effect on immigrants’ willingness to interact with government.

“It does create more of a trust deficit with government agencies whenever there is a story about ICE having access to California databases or information in California databases,” she said.

Being seen

On the other hand, there’s an added benefit to the new licenses, Cheer said: immigrants now have a feeling of being included and acknowledged as residents of California.

“I feel like that’s a very important psychological piece, in the sense of ‘This is who I am. I have an ID to show you who I am,’” she said.

Erwin said he carefully weighed the possibility that he would be effectively giving ICE his home address against wanting to have the proper paperwork, so there would be no excuse for a police officer to escalate a traffic stop with him. He decided one risk was worth reducing the risk of the other.

For some immigrants, the passage of the license law didn’t come soon enough.

Dulce Garcia, an attorney and advocate for immigrants, recently described at a San Diego public forum on immigration enforcement what happened when police stopped her brother who was undocumented.

Police cited Edgar Saul Garcia Cardoso for driving without a license and when he appeared in a courthouse in January 2020 to face the consequences, ICE detained and deported him, within hours, to Tijuana, she said.

There he was kidnapped, held for ransom and tortured for eight months, Garcia said.

In May 2021, he returned to the United States and received asylum protections. But he never recovered from the trauma, Garcia said. He died of unknown causes in September 2022.

“I wish there was a way you could see through my eyes the harm you have caused by colluding with ICE,” Garcia told law enforcement officials at the forum. “Edgar was loved, and his life mattered.”

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

HUMBOLDT TODAY: $46 million has been rewarded to an out-of-area construction firm for a major Highway 101 project, controversy erupts over who should control a local school, the latest on a major housing project in Arcata and more on today’s newscast with John Kennedy O’Connor.

FURTHER READING:

• ‘Hostile Takeover’: Eureka City Schools Looks to Seize Operation of Academy of the Redwoods, Threatens to Sue Fortuna Union High School District Unless it Complies With That Demand
• College Enrollment Decline Leads to Funding Changes for Underperforming Cal State Schools
• Cal Poly to Break Ground on Craftsman Mall Project Next Month, University Announces; Housing Facility Will Have Room for Almost a Thousand Students

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