Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On October 24, 2022 at about 7:15 a.m., officers with the Eureka Police Department, with the assistance from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and HCSO K9 Yahtzee, served a search warrant at a residence on the 1000 block of Hiller Road in McKinleyville. The search warrant was part of an ongoing investigation into 47-year-old Jed Vandanplas of McKinleyville for illegal firearms and narcotics.

During the search warrant, Vandanplas was located inside the residence and detained. During a search of the residence, officers located eight rifles including one assault rifle with a suppressor attached, four shotguns including one with an illegal short barrel, two handguns, thirty-two high capacity magazines for the assault rifle, six firearm suppressors, approximately 1.3 grams of suspected cocaine, approximately 2.2 grams of suspected methamphetamine, 15 Suboxone strips and drug paraphernalia.

Vandanplas was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility for possession of firearms while in possession of narcotics, addict in possession of firearms, possession of an assault weapon, possession of high capacity magazines and possession of a short- barreled shotgun.

Today Californians get their first statewide look at test scores measuring the toll the pandemic took on students — and the way state education officials have handled the rollout provides plenty of clues that the news won’t be good.

Earlier this fall the state Education Department refused a media request to immediately release the scores, saying it would do so by the end of 2022. That fueled speculation that the agency’s head, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, was delaying the release until after his November re-election bid. Eventually the department reversed course and agreed to release the data.

But it did so in a way guaranteed to complicate coverage. Reporters received the data Sunday morning, under a news embargo until 10 a.m. today. Typically, they use that embargo time to interview district officials and education experts — so releasing test score data when those sources are unavailable hinders reporters’ ability to analyze and contextualize an important measurement of the pandemic’s impact on California’s public school students.

“I can’t read minds, but it does give the appearance of trying to conceal the data,” said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. “It’s not uncommon that government at all levels will release data or other news when it’s inconvenient for media.”

It’s also likely not a coincidence that the state results will be released to the public the same day scores on a different test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, were unveiled just past midnight on the East Coast. That test, taken by a much smaller sample of California students, allows comparisons between all states — and showed an achievement drop in every single one.

But Gov. Gavin Newsom immediately issued a press release highlighting the fact that California students overall didn’t fare as poorly as those in most other states. Anyone hoping to divine how divergent state pandemic policies impacted academic achievement will find these national results confounding: California fared about the same as Florida and Texas, two states that rushed to return to in-person learning.

Not so California, where state officials deferred to local control. Citing health concerns, schools here generally continued remote learning long after students in many other states had returned to their classrooms.

Unlike the national test, California’s Smarter Balanced tests are given to almost all students in grades three through eight and grade eleven every year. They measure whether students have mastered state standards for math and English language arts. The scores the state is releasing are for the 2021-22 school year, the first year that all students in the designated grades were required to take the tests since the start of the pandemic.

California’s Education Department, which supports over 1,000 school districts and charter schools, oversees the administration of standardized testing as well as the release of the Smarter Balanced scores.

“If the superintendent of public instruction is up for re-election in less than three weeks, it looks like they’re trying to bury the data.”
— David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition

In the past, it has given reporters a day of advance access to the test score data, usually on a weekday before it releases it to the public. Reporters use the time to analyze the data and identify outlier districts and schools. In this case, CalMatters attempted to contact education officials but most did not return calls because the advance release occurred on a Sunday.

The Education Department hosted a half-hour-long press briefing late Friday to summarize the test score data before it was released to reporters. But the virtual briefing only consisted of Malia Vella, a deputy superintendent at the department, speaking with her camera off. There was no slide presentation during the Zoom conference, and only a brief question-and-answer session. Reporters had to submit their questions in writing in the Zoom chat. The agency provided a text file following the briefing containing summaries of the data.

Earlier this year the education news site EdSource requested the statewide data from the department through a public records request but was denied in September. In its denial, the department stated it planned to release the data by year’s end, along with other student data like absenteeism and suspension rates.

In response to the denial, EdSource’s lawyer argued that the records exist because local school districts had already received their own test score data. The lawyer also stated the department did not identify any public interest when it chose not to disclose the data.

Less than a week later, the department backtracked and agreed to release the scores by the end of October without the additional student data. Some districts, including Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified, released their data to the public independently.

Thurmond, who has faced blowback for what critics described as a lack of leadership during the pandemic, did not respond to questions about the timing of the release.

But education experts who specialize in standardized testing said there’s an array of potential issues that could delay the publication of standardized test data. Li Cai, an education professor at UCLA specializing in standardized testing, said late October is still a reasonable time for the education department to release the data.

“They’re historically always pretty good, but during the pandemic there are occasionally delays and that’s understandable,” Cai said. “I don’t want to dramatize this.”

But Loy from the First Amendment Coalition said the timing is suspect: “If the superintendent of public instruction is up for re-election in less than three weeks, it looks like they’re trying to bury the data,” he said.

Thurmond’s challenger, Lance Christensen, was more explicit in his criticism.

“I’m utterly surprised the superintendent can’t own the drop in test scores and say we’ve had a problematic last few years,” Christensen said. “Hiding it and not having the data accessible to the public until right before the election, it’s really cynical and sad.”

Megan Bacigalupi, the executive director of the parent advocacy group CA Parent Power, said the test scores are just one factor that might help voters choose a school board candidate this election. Parents received their own children’s test scores months ago. But she said the complete state-level data is crucial for parents who want to compare schools.

“Parents need to know where their own child is academically, and how they’re doing,” she said. “But it’s also important to see where your school is in relation to your district. That’s information parents should have.”

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

After months of an extraordinarily quiet race, in which Gov. Gavin Newsom has barely even acknowledged his own campaign for re-election, the Democrat came out blazing Sunday in the only gubernatorial debate, relentlessly attacking his Republican challenger as a stooge of oil companies who has obstructed his every effort to solve the biggest problems facing California.

The barrage — at times remarkably personal, as when Newsom warned that his “extreme” anti-abortion opponent would force 10-year-old incest victims to carry a pregancy to term — seemed to stun Brian Dahle, a state senator and farmer from rural Northern California, who struggled to respond to some of the criticism.

But Dahle was clear in his message to voters, who will decide this fall whether to give Newsom a second term in the governor’s office: Despite billions of dollars in new funding for everything from schools to homeless services, California is worse off than it’s ever been because Newsom’s solutions are the wrong ones.

He accused the governor of focusing more on national issues than those plaguing the state, a claim that Dahle has repeated with increasing frequency in recent months as Newsom launched broadsides against the leaders of GOP states and speculation mounted that he is laying the groundwork to seek higher office.

“I want to start out by thanking the governor for taking time out of going forward on his dream of being president of the United States and actually coming to California and having a debate,” Dahle said. “Californians are suffering. They’re fleeing California and they’re going to other states where he’s campaigning nationally.”

The exchange prompted the debate moderators to ask Newsom whether he would commit to serving out the full four years should he win another term.

“Yes,” Newsom said. “And I’ve barely been out of state. I was out of state for a few hours to take on his party and [the] leader of his party, Donald Trump, who he is a passionate supporter of.”

The one-hour debate, hosted by KQED at its San Francisco headquarters, is unlikely to change the contours of a race that public polls show Newsom is expected to win by double digits. It aired live on the radio and online Sunday afternoon, as many viewers were tuned to NFL games instead.

Reporters, who were initially offered access to the studio where the candidates debated, watched a livestream from a separate room. A spokesperson for KQED declined to comment on why journalists were barred from attending in person.

Here are some of the other highlights:

‘Extreme’ positions on abortion

Newsom immediately sought to draw a contrast with Dahle on abortion. While the governor has spent millions to air a television ad touting Proposition 1, a ballot measure that would put the right to abortion into the state constitution, a campaign account controlled by Dahle donated $20,000 this month to defeat it.

Dahle, who calls himself “pro-life,” denied that. A spokesperson later said it was an in-kind contribution, because Dahle’s campaign shared polling it had conducted with opponents of Proposition 1.

“You’re not pro-life. You’re pro-government-mandated birth,” Newsom said. “What my opponent believes is some 10-year-old that’s raped by her father should be forced to bear her brother or sister. His position is extreme.”

Dahle did not discuss the specifics of his beliefs about abortion. He instead lambasted Newsom for adding hundreds of millions of dollars in new money for abortion services in the latest state budget, including $20 million to help women from outside California travel here for the procedure.

“He wants to make this a sanctuary state where all of Americans can come here and get an abortion at the expense of Califonia taxpayers,” Dahle said. “I know that’s a great platform when you’re running for the president of the United States. But here in California, people are struggling, and yes, I would absolutely take that out of the budget.”

Yet Dahle said that, as governor, he would allow some funding for abortion services if necessary to reach a budget deal with a Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Bringing down gas prices

Dahle tried to focus on the high cost of living in California, as exemplified by gasoline prices that are nearly $2 per gallon more than the national average.

He said the state is affordable only for Newsom’s wealthy friends, blaming overly burdensome environmental regulations and climate policies that Dahle believes are the wrong priority at a time when the state is deep in drought and struggled to keep the lights on during a recent historic heat wave.

“We have no water. We have no electricity. We have no plan,” Dahle said.

Rather than the inflation relief rebates that the state began sending out to most Californians this month, or the special session that Newsom plans to call later this year to tax oil industry profits, Dahle once again urged Newsom to suspend the state’s gas tax, which he argued would provide more immediate assistance to drivers.

But when pressed by Newsom about how to ensure that oil companies, which pay the tax, would actually pass along all those savings to consumers at the pump, Dahle could only offer, “Well, we make sure that they do it.”

Newsom denounced Dahle’s answers as ripped from “Big Oil’s talking points.” The governor bragged that gas prices were down 65 cents per gallon since their peak after he ordered the state to transition early to its cheaper “winter blend” of fuel. Prices remain so much higher than the rest of the country, he said, because the oil industry is gouging Californians.

“There’s no justification — none, whatsoever — for these outrageous, usurious costs,” he said.

All talk, no progress?

By the end of their hour together, the candidates fell into a familiar pattern.

Newsom would trumpet some historic funding in the latest state budget — the highest per-pupil spending ever for K-12 schools, two dozen positions in the Department of Justice to combat fentanyl trafficking, a new court to compel more homeless people into treatment — and blast Dahle for voting against it.

Then Dahle would counter that it was all talk and Newsom had done nothing to actually solve the problem.

“The governor talks really slick and smooth about all of these processes he’s doing,” Dahle said. “What he’s done in the last four years is throw money at every single issue, more than there’s ever been. And what are the results for Californians?”

Take their exchange on the drought, which has only worsened this year even as Newsom implored Californians to reduce their water usage. The governor said his plan was “not just about a mindset of scarcity,” but “also about creating more water” by building additional storage.

Dahle shot back that the proposed Sites Reservoir in Northern California has yet to start construction nearly a decade after state voters approved bonds for the project. Newsom said he is seeking federal funding to help cover the $5.2 billion cost, while Dahle noted that a nearly $100 billion projected surplus in this year’s budget easily could have paid for it.

“In four years, not one shovelful of dirt,” Dahle said. “Talk is cheap, governor. You’ve got to perform.”

Dahle also hit Newsom for the homelessness crisis in California. Though the governor made it a priority of his first term, the number of people sleeping on the streets has only increased.

Newsom pointed to an innovative program he launched during the coronavirus pandemic, transforming vacant hotels and motels into homeless housing, and said he was ramping up pressure on local governments to take the problem more seriously.

“It’s an outrage. It’s unconscionable what’s happening on the streets and sidewalks. That’s why we’re requiring accountability plans,” Newsom said. “We’re not going to hand out any money any longer if local governments can’t produce real results.”

By contrast, he said, Dahle’s plan for solving homelessness — including banning encampments near sensitive areas such as schools — is “illusory.”

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

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

Peter Nathaniel Norton Booking Photo | Humboldt County Correctional Facility

On Oct. 23, 2022, at about 3:43 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a residence on the 500 block of State Highway 96 in Willow Creek for the report of a gunshot victim.

Deputies arrived in the area and located a deceased adult male with what appeared to be a gunshot wound.

The suspect was located and admitted to shooting the victim during an altercation, 24-year-old Peter Nathaniel Norton, was determined to be the suspect responsible for the victim’s death. Norton was arrested and is booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of homicide (PC 187).

This case is still under investigation. There is no perceived threat to the community at this time.

The victim’s identity is being withheld pending next of kin notification.

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.

“Age is, of course, a fever chill/that every physicist must fear.
He’s better dead than living still/when once he’s past his thirtieth year.”

— Paul Dirac, 1933 Nobel Laureate in Physics

Not just physicists, either. F’rinstance:

Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world of his time by the time he was 30. (He died in Babylon on his way home to Macedonia, age 32.)

Noam Chomsky revolutionized the field of linguistics at age 26, introducing his radical theory about language acquisition (we’re all born with a “language organ” already in place, as much of a baby’s body as their heart or lungs). I wrote about his ongoing feud with (my hero!) Daniel Everett here.

Joan of Arc, a peasant girl, successfully led the French army against the English at age 19.

Joan’s compatriot, Napoleon Bonaparte, had beaten Russia, Austria and Turkey, i.e. the Ottoman Empire, before he turned 30. (* Sorta: he was Corsican, the island having recently been annexed by France from Italy, so he was really Italian.)

The Scotsman William Wallace won the Battle of Stirling Bridge against the English when he was 27.

Albert Einstein was 26 in his “miracle year,” 1905, when three papers of his—including Special Relativity—changed physics, and the world, forever. (He famously said, “A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so.”)

Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon when he was 25.

Charles Darwin returned from his five-year voyage on the Beagle at age 27, having figured out evolution by natural selection. (It took him another 23 years to have the courage to make his “It wasn’t God” views public in The Origin of Species.)

Clyde Tombaugh was 24 when he discovered Pluto.

Margaret Mead published Coming of Age in Samoa when she was 28. The controversy over it continues today.

Isaac Newton had figured out calculus by age 24. Gottfried Leibniz by 29. (Neither published their discoveries at the time, leading to a bitter feud that, according to some jingoistic writers, still rages.) (Archimedes beat them both by 2,000 years. We don’t know how old he was when he nailed down the method of infinitesimals.)

Sara Bareilles was 28 when her Love Song was No. 1 on iTunes “most downloaded albums” in its first week of release in 2007.

And then there’s Mozart…

And of course, never trust anyone over 30.

Humboldt County has some of the highest pedestrian fatality numbers in the state. Thankfully, a large cultural change is taking over in local transportation planning. Under the banner of “Vision Zero,” transportation planners are imagining how we can manage our road network to reduce road fatalities down to zero. Sounds too lofty? Other jurisdictions have already seen significant improvements in road safety under this model.

What does Vision Zero look like? Addressing issues with investments in road safety, like Caltran’s new Broadway HAWK beacon to large planning efforts, like the Humboldt County Association of Governments’ Safe and Sustainable Transportation Targets. 

Alexis Kelso of Caltrans and Stevie Luther of HCAOG join Gang Green to talk about how their agencies are hard at work to save lives.

Want to learn more? Check out this cool video with safety improvement ideas that are being implemented across the world.

There is never going to be a shortage of makers in Humboldt County. There has always been a lot of value in the arts and crafts community at large.

Jason Lopiccolo, 38, is a full-time biologist and part-time high-end knife maker. At his day job for The Watershed Stewards Program, Lopiccolo is writing, analyzing data and helping onboard young scientists for a 10-and-a-half month program at various California sites.

After clocking a 40-hour work week, he devotes 25-30 hours of his remaining time to knife-making.

“You make time when you like doing something,” Lopiccolo continued. “I don’t know how long I can keep making it work as someone who produces knives.”

There are several ways to get your hands on one of Jason’s knives. You can find his available knives at a local vendor’s markets. You can work through a specialty cutlery shop in Sacramento. Or you can contact him directly through one of his various online avenues — via email, Instagram or his website.

At one point Lopiccolo did make direct sales through his website, but since he cannot keep things in stock regularly he refrains from using it anymore. In any case, roughly 60 percent of his sales are local and the rest are online, throughout the United States.

“It all started because I needed to do something with my hands,” said Lopiccolo.

Ten years ago, before forging with hot metals, Lopiccolo earned his bachelor’s degree in biology. In that time, he always worked and still needed to take out loans. He worked full time as an algal culturist growing microalgae for an oyster hatchery and also taught lab courses in various subjects (Invertebrate Zoology, Phycology, Intertidal Ecology) at Humboldt State while he finished up his master’s degree.

Ever since his arrival in Humboldt County, Lopiccolo hustled at his multiple jobs to pay his bills. Once his knife-making took off, it helped supplement his income enough to stay afloat.

“You’re surviving, but you’re sure as hell not thriving,” Lopiccolo said.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Lopiccolo lost all forms of work, leaving him unemployed for six months. In that time, knife-making kept a roof over his head until he was hired for his current gig.

He wasn’t always good at it.

Lopiccolo was introduced to wood-spoon carving by his mother. She wanted all her children to make her wooden spoons for her 50th birthday. Lopiccolo really took to it. So much so that he would hold get-togethers called “Whittling Wednesdays,” where people went over to his house to carve spoons into the evening. He enjoyed it so much that it was the primary activity at his bachelor party.

It became the his gateway to knives.

“One summer I had spare time. On a lark I bought a cheap-o forge online and started hammering away,” Lopiccolo said. “My first knives were intended for spoon carving, and then I started making kitchen knives.”

Lopiccolo describes the first few knives he made as generally terrible. He learned, made mistakes, then made something decent and started selling a few. The very first knife he sold was around $40.

It began with a few posts on his personal Facebook page. People began to talk. Then he was approached by the Bayside Grange to start selling at one of their tables, there. After accepting their invitation, he got some more interest. From there, j.lopiccolo_blades on Instagram picked up the momentum and made him a local talking point.

Typically he makes batches of knives roughly ten at a time. Each one takes about 12 hours total to make. It has not been in any way profitable, but it has sustained itself. It’s obvious that Lopiccolo loves his craft, and most of the cost of each knife is to recoup the cost in materials and the time it took to make.

Sourcing the materials adds to the length of his process, but we live in an area that has plenty of beautiful woods to make handles out of, the most popular being redwood burl. There’s always a story to each piece that Lopiccolo works with.

Whenever he travels, he manages to bring home some new wood to craft with. While in Norway for his honeymoon — he’s married to Supervisor-elect Natalie Arroyo — he was given a block of birch that would not fit in his luggage. Determined, he pulled over at a gas station, bought a saw, and sawed the block of wood into pieces that would fit his luggage.

At the most recent North Country Fair in Arcata, one of his knives sold for $600. The most expensive knife he’s sold so far was just under $1000.

“I eventually made enough money to buy a digitally controlled kiln,” Lopiccolo continued. “It was probably the most important thing I could have done.”

Lopiccolo thinks of himself as a perfectly competent bladesmith, but wishes that he could pay to get some of his first knives back. Mostly because he thinks they are awful, but there is a little nostalgia behind it as well. He also considers offering to make newer, better knives for those people, but they are not interested in giving them back. They either gave them away as gifts or they now have their own sentimental value.

Your average home cook does not need the sharpest, most expensive knife. Those things don’t make it special. A local maker that spends hours crafting a unique, one-of-a-kind daily tool is special.

Lopiccolo knows it, and so do his customers.

“I never want to be a full-time knife maker.” Lopiccolo said. “ I think it would take the joy out of it.”

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