Fredricka (Snookie) Sue Baskette, 79, of McKinleyville, passed away October 28, 2022.

You will always be remembered no matter what.

Your presence, love, and kindness will forever be with us.

Rest now until we meet again.

At Snookie’s request, no services will be held. A celebration of life will also not be held.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Snookie Baskette’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Karen Christine “Kaycee” Hoffman Benninghoven sadly passed away on October 31, 2022, at the age of 75 in Eureka from heart failure.

Kaycee, originally of Indiana, was the second of three children and grew up on her family’s farm where they raised beagles, chickens and pigs. Her childhood nickname was Happy, because she was full of joy. After high school she joined the US Navy and soon meet her husband of 50 years, Theodore Benninghoven. She was honorable discharged from the Navy after becoming pregnant with their first of three daughters. They spent many of their years in the Navy overseas in Guam and Hawaii. They later retired to Eureka to be close to family where she was a resident for over 32 years.

While Ted was out to sea, Kaycee was known to take small jobs, such as working for the Census and making birthday or anniversary cakes. Always a family woman, she tried to instill good values and morals into her daughters and grandchildren so they would be strong and independent people. She was a Girl Scout cookie mom, an ROTC mom, a band class mom, and a room mother for her girls. She was always willing to volunteer at her girl’s schools; from marching in the symphony fun run in Hawaii with her girl scouts in the 1980s, to working the firework booth for NJROTC in the 1990s. She loved arts and crafts, sewing, baking, music, reading, old movies, and watching Jeopardy nightly.

After losing her sight in 2003 due to complications of diabetes, it was discovered in 2004 that she had end stage kidney failure and went on dialysis. For 18 years she was transported three days a week by Dial-A-Ride, to the Fresenius Kidney Care dialysis center, where she would gift her drivers and the staff with various treats and a smile on her face. Kaycee was also active in the low vision group here in Humboldt and made use of the California State Talking Books Library to continue her love for reading.

Kaycee was preceded in death by her husband Theodore, her parents Walter and Wanda, and older brother Rusty. She is survived by her daughters Kathrine; her husband Roger and daughter Mariko, Mary; her husband Douglas and son Michael, and Margaret; her husband William and son Cyler, together with her younger sister Roberta, nieces Dulci, Franki, and nephew Matthew.

We would like to make a special thank you to the Eureka Fresenius Kidney Care Dialysis unit. These ladies and Gentlemen have provided the best love, care and support for the last 18 years.

Kaycee was cremated, per her wishes, and will be sprinkled out at sea, along with her husband’s ashes, due to their joint loving connection to the US Navy.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Kaycee Benninghoven’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Doris Norine (Wahlund) Fridley passed away November 7 at Granada Rehab and Wellness Center in Eureka. She was 99 years young.

Doris was born to John and Norine (Etter) Wahlund on September 6, 1923 and lived her entire life between Frank Street and Ohio Street in Eureka. She was proceeded in death by her parents, her husband Robert and her sister Marjorie (Wahlund) Baker.

Doris has three children, Claudia Lesnick of San Mateo, Stephen (Lynnette) of Fountain Hills, Arizona, and Kenny (Doreen) of McKinleyville. She has two granddaughters — Stephanie Lindeman of Litchfield Park, Arizona and Adrienne Livingston of Loleta — and three great-grandchildren, Alexis (Trent) Crouse, Curtis (Makenzie) Lindeman and Norine Lindeman. She’s also survived by her nieces Cindy (Dale) Stockly, Nancy (Bob) Steffen, Jeannie (Dale) Warmuth and Elizabeth Baker.

Doris is survived by many cousins having been born to the Wahlund (Walund) and Etter families in Eureka. She also has numerous nieces and nephews in the Fridley family.

Doris’ passions included taking great care of her family, gardening, sewing clubs with family and friends, cooking, and her love of cats. She probably walked the globe in miles around Eureka over her adult life feeding stray cats along the way with kibble in her pockets.

Many thanks from the family go out to the staff at Granada for their care and compassion for our mom. We also wish to thank Dr. Hahn for her constant support and care.

No funeral arrangements have been made at Doris’ request. Donations can be made to any of the local animal shelters or food banks in her name.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Doris Fridley’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

If you’re looking for even more shows to watch now that Humboldt’s weather has taken its annual cold turn, perhaps you could be enticed to learn more about the work and wisdom of a handy rising star in our midst. 

Eric Hollenbeck, founder of Eureka’s Blue Ox Millworks, has spent even more time having his essence captured by fancy cameras for the second season of The Craftsman, which is set to premiere with its first episode on Friday, Nov. 11.  The show can be watched/streamed Discovery+ and the Magnolia Network app.

Watch the trailer for season two of The Craftsman above and learn more in the Blue Ox Millworks release below:

Season two of the hit Magnolia Network show The Craftsman, featuring the city of Eureka’s Blue Ox Millworks, premieres this Friday, November 11 beginning at 1:00 a.m. Pacific Time on HBO Max, Discovery+ and the Magnolia app. 

Eric Hollenbeck is a master woodworker with a passion for restoration. Inspired by the Victorian-era architecture in his hometown of Eureka, California, Eric’s dedication to restoring homes and forgotten treasures spans four decades. He and his family own the Blue Ox Millworks and operate the non-profit Blue Ox Historic Village, a working museum offering tours and workshops in the traditional arts.

The Magnolia Network on Discovery Plus launched The Craftsman in March of 2022 with nine episodes featuring Hollenbeck and his business of restoration and traditional craftsmanship. The show was met with great acclaim and was renewed for another season which recently completed filming in Eureka.

The first episode of season two premieres November 11, and the second episode will air on November 18. Season one is also available for streaming on HBO Max, Discovery+ and the Magnolia app. Learn more about Blue Ox Millworks at www.blueoxmill.com and www.blueoxhistoricvillage.org.

The California Public Utilities Commission today released a long-awaited overhaul of its proposal to regulate rooftop solar installations, removing an unpopular new fee but reducing how much utilities would pay homeowners for supplying power to the grid.

The revised proposal comes after the CPUC earlier this year abandoned a controversial plan that solar advocates warned would undermine the state’s efforts to battle climate change.

The measures to overhaul management of California’s residential solar program have languished for more than a year. The CPUC’s challenge is to encourage more rooftop solar production while not disproportionately saddling low-income residents with higher energy bills.

Ramping up solar power to replace fossil fuels is considered critical to cutting greenhouse gases in California. State law has set a target of 90% zero-carbon energy by 2035 and 100% by 2045.

The revised proposal addresses some — but not all — of the concerns raised by solar supporters. Power companies say it’s not difficult to discern the governor’s fingerprints on the changes. Newsom, who appoints the CPUC’s five members, twice weighed in, suggesting the original proposal needed to be revisited.

“The changes are stark,” said Kathy Fairbanks, a spokesperson for Affordable Clean Energy For All, which represents 120 organizations, including Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. “It’s clear there was some influence.”

The CPUC will hear oral arguments at a public meeting next Wednesday and is scheduled to vote on the measure on Dec. 15. If adopted, the new rules would take effect next April.

The revised rules would:

• Remove a proposed $8 monthly fixed charge, a so-called solar tax, on new residential systems.
• Reduce utilities’ payments to homeowners for excess power they sell by as much as 75% compared to current rates. The change would not apply to residents with existing solar systems.
• Fund $900 million in new incentive payments to help purchase rooftop solar systems, with $630 million set aside for low-income households.
• Encourage the installation of solar panels plus battery storage.
• Set lower rates in an attempt to shift consumers’ use of power to the times of day that improve grid reliability.

The CPUC is required under state law to update its net metering rules, which triggered a prolonged, complex and politically thorny process.

Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar & Storage Association, said the 75% reduction in credits to new solar customers means utilities will pay residents less for the power their rooftop systems provide to the grid.

The proposed rules “would really hurt,” she said. She estimated that new customers would be paid a base rate of 5 cents per kilowatt-hour for power they generate but don’t use, compared to about 30 cents now.

Del Chiaro said the newest proposal “needs more work or it will replace the solar tax with a steep solar decline.”

The solar industry is pleased that the monthly fee was removed. They said the surcharge would have discouraged installation of solar panels and damage the growing clean-energy sector.

The state’s utilities, however, are disappointed that there aren’t changes that would better manage the shared costs of residential solar.

“We expected the [Commission] to do more. It’s frustrating,” said Fairbanks of Affordable Clean Energy For All.

Fairbanks said the amended proposal does not address what is known as “cost shift,” referring to solar customers not paying their fair share of costs associated with delivering residential power and the impact on the function of the electric grid. The utilities say those costs are now spread unfairly among all ratepayers.

More than $3 billion was passed on to non-solar customers in 2021, according to the CPUC’s Public Advocate’s Office. The new proposal “went backward” in addressing that gap, Fairbanks said. Rooftop solar customers “ have been getting a sweet deal for decades.”

The original proposal largely reflected the interests of the state’s three largest utilities. It was attacked by the solar industry, clean energy and consumer advocates and environmental justice organizations.

The timing of the proposal was awkward: As the state was ramping up its renewable energy ambitions, Newsom reiterated that rooftop solar power was “essential” to meet California’s clean-energy goals. The state’s popular incentive program has put solar panels on 1.5 million roofs of residences and small businesses.

The policy, called Net Metering, was implemented in 1995 and established a framework for large utilities to buy excess energy from homeowners and supplement power to the grid. The program was bolstered by incentives that brought down the upfront costs of purchasing the systems.

The new proposal cites the evolution of clean energy and its impact on the electric grid. Officials say the rule would align state policy with a grid that is bloated with solar energy during the day and overburdened with demand for power when the sun goes down.

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

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For Alexandra Robertson, the best part of her job is connecting with Arcata’s unhoused community. Having struggled with mental health issues and homelessness in the past, Robertson knows the importance of making people in that position feel comfortable and cared for. 

“I know how important it is to just feel seen and heard,” Robertson told the Outpost recently, during a walk around the Arcata Plaza. “If people had not helped me and listened to me and made me feel like I was heard, then I wouldn’t have been able to get out of that hole.” 

Roberston is one of Arcata’s new Community Ambassadors – a group of folks hired by the City of Arcata to serve as a helpful presence around the Downtown Northtown neighborhoods. You may have seen them during the last several weeks, picking up trash, weeding the planters or doing other generally helpful tasks, sporting a green vest with City of Arcata seal on the front and “Community Ambassador ” typed in black letters across the back.

Modeled after similar programs implemented in other cities, the Community Ambassador program was approved by the city council to operate for two years using money from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The program was officially launched in October as a collaborative project between the Arcata Police Department and local non-profit Arcata Main Street. 

Robertson is one of seven program employees recently hired by the city – six ambassadors and one lead ambassador. Once hired, the ambassadors received one week of training in city policies, de-escalation and communication strategies, city resources and local homelessness services. The ambassadors work throughout Arcata’s business district – roughly between Highway 101 and J St. and Seventh and 18th Streets – on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. 

The team is overseen by Sgt. Luke Scown, APD’s community outreach team supervisor. Scown said that even though APD oversees the program, he wanted to be clear that the ambassadors operate separately from the police department and that they are not seen as a form of law enforcement. 

“They’re not out there to be security guards, they’re not out there as a law enforcement presence,” Scown told the Outpost. “We don’t want people to feel like they’re being watched.”

So if they are not there to watch people, what exactly are the ambassadors doing? Well, Robertson helped us better understand by letting the Outpost shadow her during part of her shift. We met at the ambassadors’ office, a city-owned building behind the Arcata Transit Center off of E Street. After doing a little bit of administrative work, Robertson went out on her first walk around. Gradually making her way from the office to the Plaza and around the perimeter, Robertson used a trash grabber to pick up recycling, garbage and many cigarette butts along her way.  

Picking up litter is one of the ambassadors’ duties, and one that Robertson said is already making a visible difference in the downtown area. In a span of less than three weeks, the ambassadors have recorded collecting more than 100 five-gallon buckets of garbage. And picking up trash is a pretty important service right now, because there isn’t anyone else in the city specifically in charge of that task. Scown said that the Public Works Department takes care of larger messes – such as illegal dumping and things like that – but not cleaning up litter.  

And Robertson said that the ambassadors picking up trash seems to encourage other people to do the same. “We used to fill a bucket [with trash] every 20 minutes,” Robertson told the Outpost. “Now there’s way less trash to pick up. A lot more people seem to be cleaning up after themselves.” 

Ambassador Gene Joyce doing some gardening | Photo submitted by Alexandra Robertson

As Robertson walked through the Plaza, she also stopped to talk with many of the people hanging out in the area – a man selling jewelry on the grass, a local unhoused woman known as “Sunshine” and an unhoused man people referred to as “Bunny Man” because he carries around a pet bunny rabbit. Robertson said that getting to know the Plaza regulars has been a very eye-opening experience, and that some people she used to be a little wary of she now considers friends. 

Building relationships with the people downtown – the homeless, the business owners and other community members – is another expectation of the ambassadors, so that people know who the ambassadors are and can ask them for help when they need it. For the homeless community, ambassadors can help connect them to services, such as Arcata House Partnership. For the business owners, the ambassadors may offer help with asking a homeless person to leave their businesses entryway. 

Again, the ambassadors are not meant to act as law enforcement and if they witness something illegal or dangerous, they are supposed to remove themselves from the situation and call the police. Basically, the ambassadors are there to solve small problems that don’t necessarily need the help of the police, so that the police department can dedicate more of its time to more serious calls. 

“It frees up time for police to do other things, to be places where they are absolutely needed,” Robertson said. “And that’s really helpful, because everyone is short-staffed right now.” 

One example Robertson shared was a time that a business owner had to call the police on an aggressive individual who was causing problems. Robertson asked if the business owner needed any help, and the business owner asked if Robertson could wait with her until the police arrived. 

Scown said that another ambassador recently saw a very small trash fire start on the Plaza and poured water on it to put it out. If someone else had seen the fire first, they would have likely called 911. Not to say that making a 911 call isn’t the right thing to do – it is. But Scown said that this was a time when the police and fire department were not really needed. Responding to minor calls like that takes up a lot of the department’s time and resources.  

Apart from finding and disposing of a used nitrous oxide canister and being offered some cannabis to smoke by a friendly passerby (which we declined, of course), nothing particularly exciting happened during the Outpost’s walk with Robertson. But it did seem like people appreciate the ambassadors’ friendliness,  and the ambassadors appreciate their role in the community. 

Each of the seven ambassadors has different strengths that they utilize, Robertson said. She tends to focus on engaging with the homeless community, where other ambassadors have more relationships with the business owners. One of the ambassadors – Gene Joyce, former owner of longtime furniture store Arcata Exchange — does a lot of weeding and gardening in the planters around the Plaza. Another ambassador, Daniel Osteman, said that he thinks that the ambassador program helps improve people’s perception of downtown Arcata and hopes that the program will be able to expand to other neighborhoods. 

“All in all,  I think it’s been a very positive presence – just to be here and be attentive,” Osterman told the Outpost.  “Part of why I got into this was to help keep things beautiful, in light of the way the world is going. It’s a small enough community that you can make an impact on things like that.”

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New election report released! Here is the new tally in the county’s three major closely contested races:

Full post-election night report here.

There are still upwards of 20,000 votes left to count, more or less, but in these three races, with 10,446 more votes tallied after the election night final report, we see the usual trend holding: the left-leaning Juan Pablo Cervantes’ lead has significantly increased since election night, while the right-leaning John Fullerton’s lead has decreased slightly.

Are there enough votes left in the hopper for G. Mario Fernandez to pull ahead? That’s an open question. But supporters of Cervantes have every reason to feel good about that race.

Press release from the Humboldt County Elections Office:

The Humboldt County Office of Elections will continue to post the results of the Nov. 8 General Election every Friday starting Friday, Nov. 18 and leading up to the certification of the election prior to Thursday, Dec. 8.

The Elections Office has approximately 20,175 unprocessed ballots as of today, Thursday, Nov. 10.

Unprocessed Ballots

• Provisional: 1,173
• Vote-By-Mail: 19,002

All valid vote-by-mail ballots will be counted regardless of the outcome or closeness of any race if they are postmarked by Tuesday, Nov. 8 and arrive by Tuesday, Nov.15.

Voters may subscribe to WheresMyBallot.sos.ca.gov to track their ballots, receive personalized text messages, emails or voicemails letting them know when their ballot is mailed, received, and counted by the Registrar of Voters. 

 For more information on the results of the election, please visit the Elections Results web page or call (707) 445-7481.