In loving memory of Maria Dos Anjos Silveira, born September 2, 1948 in Sao Jorge, Acores. She migrated to Humboldt County in 1971, and married the love of her life, Emanuel Silveira.

Maria passed away on February 5 at home surrounded by family and on her own terms.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Manuel Carvalho and Maria Dos Anjos Pachecho.

She is survived by her brother, Geronimo Carvalho, husband of 50 years Emanuel Silveira, her three children Nuel, Iria, and Lucy Silveira, her seven grandchildren Emmanuel, Eziekiel, Alexxia, Emilio, Antwone, Alia and Maria, and two great-grandchildren Oakley and Nayvee.

Maria was a feisty, strong and proud woman. She was selfless, giving and the best mother and wife anyone could ask for. She loved being a wife and mother. She was the happiest in the kitchen, cooking and caring for her family. She was well known for her Portuguese sweet bread and cake. Maria will be missed by everyone she touched. She was the center of the family and was always wanting to feed you. No one ever left her house without a full belly or without food to take home.

Gone is a mother loved by all
Her soul is now at rest.
She’ll sleep in peace – her work is done.
A mother’s work – the best.
She’ll know the joy of perfect rest
In heaven up above
Where she may dwell contentedly
Protected by God’s love.
Our hearts may grieve that she must lie
Beneath the sacred sod
And yet we know she lives in peace
Within the house of God.

A viewing will be held at Paul’s Chapel Arcata on Friday, February 11 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and mass on Saturday February 12, at 10 a.m. This will be followed by graveside service at St. Mary’s Cemetery, Arcata.

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Donald “Don” Kay Rassbach, passed away at the age of 83 on January 5, 2022 in Fortuna. Don was a loving father, husband and friend.

Don grew up in Arcata and started playing baseball and bowling at an early age. Don attended Stewart School and Arcata High School where he met his high school sweetheart, Patsy Brim Rassbach. After graduating high school in 1959, Don and Patsy went on to marry and have two children, Tammy Rassbach Goff and Troy Rassbach.

Don bowled professionally with the Professional Bowlers Association in the early 1960s through mid-1970s. Don also coached Little League and Babe Ruth youth baseball through the 1970s and 1980, winning many local championships. Don also worked for Louisiana Pacific Particle Plant and retired after 40 years.

Don’s two favorite pastimes were fishing the rivers of Humboldt County and playing poker. Don and Patsy opened several card rooms around the Humboldt area. In the card rooms, he was known as the “Colonel.” For many years, Don could be found fishing the rivers or playing Texas Hold ‘em at the casino.

Don was kind, smart, fun and loved his family. He will be missed by all who knew him.

Don was predeceased by his wife, Patsy in 2011 and his parents Earl Rassbach in 1995 and Katherine Rassbach in 1999. Don is survived by his daughter Tamara Goff of Fortuna, son Troy Rassbach of Arcata and granddaughter Kimber Rassbach if Arkansas.

Friends and family are invited to attend services at Paul’s Chapel in Arcata at 12 p.m. and burial services at Oceanview Cemetery at 2 p.m. on February 15, 2022.

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A simulation of wave propagation in the Pacific caused by the Tonga eruption. | NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a simulation of last month’s tsunami that triggered warnings in Humboldt County and around the Pacific.

The “tsunami propagation” animation, put together by the Tsunami Research NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, shows tsunami waves and ocean disruption produced by the massive volcanic eruption on the uninhabited South Pacific island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai on January 15.

Jonathan Garner, senior meteorologist with Eureka’s National Weather Service office, told the Outpost that NOAA created the animation using the Method of Splitting Tsunami numerical simulation model — used by researchers to effectively study tsunami behavior and make long-term predictions.

“This is the tsunami movement away from the [volcano] on Jan. 15,” Garner said of the simulation.

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai was blown apart by the powerful eruption. | NASA

While NASA’s Earth Observatory reported that the eruption was hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, few deaths have been reported as a result of the blast and ensuing tsunami.

The eruption seen from space. | NASA

“This is a preliminary estimate, but we think the amount of energy released by the eruption was equivalent to somewhere between 4 to 18 megatons of TNT,” said Jim Garvin, Chief Scientist of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “

The Jan. 15 blast produced tsunami waves less than a foot high in Humboldt County. Crescent City, meanwhile, saw tsunami waves as high as 3.7 feet — the second largest tsunami waves measured in the contiguous U.S. that day.

Emergency personnel are currently on the scene of a serious incident that happened within the last hour on Spear Avenue between Alliance and West End Road in Arcata in which a bicyclist was struck by collided with a vehicle.

APD Sgt. Chris Ortega tells the Outpost that the bicyclist sustained major injuries and that they’ve been taken to the hospital by ambulance.

The stretch of Spear where the collision occurred is currently closed to traffic. 

Three years ago on this very date, locals staged a one-sided snowball assault against the late statue of William McKinley in the middle of the Arcata Plaza.

For those keeping score, today in coastal Humboldt temperatures reached a high of around 70 degrees.

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The EaRTH Center is a go.

Last night, at the end of a three-hour special meeting, the Eureka City Council voted unanimously to approve the ambitious transit and housing development on two city-owned parking lots on Third Street between G and H streets, behind Lost Coast Brewery. 

The decision came after a sometimes emotional two-hour public comment session, with many downtown business representatives concerned about the impact of the project on downtown parking. But many spoke about the development with great enthusiasm, saying it would be a big shot in the arm for downtown Eureka.

EaRTH Center – a near-acronym for Eureka Regional Transit & Housing Center – is designed to include apartments for students, traveling medical staff and working residents, and will serve as the city’s mass transit hub. It’ll have an interior courtyard, rooftop greenspace, a space for food trucks and room for new retail establishments. It’s scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2024.

Garrett Scharton of Servitas, the development group that led the design of the facility, kicked off last night’s meeting with an overview of the $30 million development, which will be built in cooperation with the Humboldt Transit Authority. The buildings will be made of brick, matching the feel of adjacent Old Town properties, Scharton said.

After Scharton, City Manager Miles Slattery gave a presentation on how the development fits in with the city’s current general plan, which emphasizes “getting back to our roots” in terms of design standards. He presented a slide showing dense, tall development in Old Town, and contrasted that with a slide showing post-1950s development along Broadway. In that era, Slattery said, local building codes were changed to actually require developers to build smaller, shorter buildings on sprawling lots.

Most members of the public who came to express concern about the project were there to talk about its impact on downtown parking. The project is the most ambitious so far in the city’s recent push to develop housing on city-owned properties around town — either on vacant parcels or parking lots. 

“This is the busiest parking lot in the city of Eureka,” said Barbara Groom, owner of Lost Coast Brewery, during the two-hour public comment session. “You’re coming into the middle of the busiest part of town and gutting our parking — why? It doesn’t have to be there. There are just better places for it. It’s a wonderful project, but let’s think about the businesses that are down there paying the taxes and putting bread on people’s tables.”

Groom added that she was also opposed, particularly, to the inclusion of food trucks in the project’s design.

The parking lots in question on Tuesday afternoon. Photos: Stephanie McGeary.

But the council ended up being swayed by a presentation earlier in the meeting by Scott Ellsmore, transportation manager from the city’s public works department, who spoke to data on the current state of parking in the downtown and Old Town areas, as well as mitigation measures being considered.

In the first place, Ellsmore said, the data developed in the city’s recent parking study didn’t indicate that parking is at crisis levels. In 2019 — before COVID — 13 public lots in the Old Town and downtown areas, none of which are proposed for development, had about 50 percent of their spaces available throughout the day, dipping to around 47 percent availability during peak parking times around noon. The city is continuing to study parking and is working on a master parking plan downtown, Ellsmore said, and this will be a subject of future council meetings. (The website for that study, with opportunities to provide feedback, can be found at this link.)

Along with the EaRTH Center development, the city and the Humboldt Transit Authority are proposing to institute a free shuttle service around Old Town, downtown and the waterfront, hitting all the public parking lots in the area. 

But though many downtown business owners spoke against the development on parking grounds — many, like Groom, expressed enthusiasm for the project’s design, rather than its location — a sizable portion of the comments were very strongly supportive of the entire proposal. 

Connie Stewart, executive director of initiatives for Cal Poly Humboldt, said that the university was excited about strengthening its ties with Eureka through the EaRTH Center.

“Cal Poly Humboldt wants to be Cal Poly Humboldt,” Stewart said. “We don’t want to be Cal Poly Arcata. We want to bring a lot of our economic development power to Eureka, and we’re looking at this project as one way of doing it, and we want to bring more projects here.”

Other local residents in favor of the project spoke about its impact on the city’s housing shortage, about the improved mass transit system, and about the aesthetic and economic benefits of more population in the downtown area.

Councilmember Kim Bergel said that she heard the downtown community’s concerns, but that the EaRTH Center was too good to pass up.

“I worked in in Old Town 15 years now, and it was hard to find a parking place,” said Councilmember Kim Bergel. “And so I hear what business owners are saying. And I want the project. So I want us to be able to mitigate those issues together and move through, so that we can have a win-win situation. So I’m all-in on this project, with that caveat.”

With that passed, the city looks to be turning some of its focus to the city’s in-progress Waterfront Specific Plan. The first of the public meetings on the subject will be held in March, and city staff and councilmembers assured the public that parking will be a major component of study.

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Who will be Arcata’s next city councilperson? That will be up to you to decide, Arcata voters! During a special meeting on Wednesday night the Arcata City Council voted to hold a special election during the June primary to fill the council seat being vacated by Vice-Mayor Emily Goldstein, who announced her resignation last week.

With Goldstein, who was elected in 2020, stepping down part way through her term, the four remaining councilmembers had three options to fill her position: they could appoint a new councilmember to serve until this November – at which point the seat would be filled by way of election, hold a special election in June to fill the position, or leave the seat open until the November election. The the vote was unanimous to fill the seat by way of a special election, although there was some debate about whether it would be better to hold the election during the primary on June 7 or during the general election on Nov. 8.

Councilmember Watson was initially in favor of placing the item on the November ballot, mainly because general elections tend to have a higher voter turnout than primary elections and Watson wanted to encourage the most public involvement possible. But the other councilmembers felt that it was important to have a full council sooner than November.

Goldstein | File photo from the City of Arcata

Several councilmembers also felt that placing the seat on the June ballot would be less confusing for voters than it would be to place it on the November ballot. Because both Councilmembers Watson and Meredith Matthews have terms expiring this year, the November ballot will already include the election of two new councilmembers for four-year terms. If a third seat was added, voters would be asked to elect one councilmember for two years and two councilmembers for four years.

Arcata City Manager Karen Diemer said that the special election will cost the City about $7,500. But all the councilmembers felt that it was important to let Arcata voters choose the new councilmember, rather than appoint someone.

“Especially for a council that has really, really been trying to focus on public engagement, I think appointing someone would probably not be the best thing to do,” Councilmember Matthews said during the meeting. “I think putting it out to the public would probably be the best thing.”

Goldstein will vacate the seat on March 1. Whomever is elected in June will fill out the remainder of Goldstein’s term, ending in December 2024. If you are interested in running for the council, you can pick up nomination papers at Arcata City Hall starting on Monday, Feb. 14. The deadline to file is 5 p.m. on Friday, March 11.

Here is more information on how to run from a City of Arcata press release sent this morning:

At a special meeting on Wednesday, February 9, the Arcata City Council voted to hold a special election on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 to fill Vice-Mayor Emily Goldstein’s vacant seat.

Goldstein will be stepping down from her position on the Arcata City Council on Tuesday, March 1 in order to support her family’s medical needs. Once elected, Goldstein’s replacement will serve her remaining term, which expires in November of 2024.

The Arcata City Council adopts laws and sets policies to guide the City Manager and City staff in City operations. City Council members attend two regular City Council meetings each month in addition to other special meetings and study sessions, and other monthly meetings of various regional agency partners.

Qualifications for individuals who wish to run for a seat on the Arcata City Council include that they must be at least 18 years old, must live within Arcata city limits, and are registered to vote at their Arcata residence address. Nominees must also obtain at least 20, but no more than 30, signatures of registered voters who reside within Arcata city limits and are registered to vote at their Arcata residence.

Nomination papers for the open City Council seat will be available to be picked up beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday, February 14 and must be filed by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 11 at the City Manager’s Office in City Hall, located at 736 F Street.

For more information, please visit cityofarcata.org or contact the City Clerk by email at bdory@cityofarcata.org or by calling (707) 825-2103.

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CORRECTION: This post has been changed to indicate the correct deadline for filing nomination papers — Friday, Mar. 11.