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• North Coast Tribes Advocate for ‘Meaningful, Impactful Partnership’ with Potential Developers Ahead of Tomorrow’s Highly Anticipated Offshore Wind Lease Auction

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Press release from the Yurok Tribe:

The Yurok Tribe is partnering with Cal Poly Humboldt and College of the Redwoods on an initiative to create a local workforce for the proposed development of floating offshore wind projects along California’s North Coast.

This partnership is reflected in Memoranda of Understanding signed with both schools that outline future plans.

“From this day forward, Native Americans will have the opportunity to participate fully in this region’s economic prosperity,” noted Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers. “Education is the key to these opportunities and we are proud to partner with Cal Poly Humboldt and College of the Redwoods to help train our Tribal members and the rest of the North Coast community.”

Both Memoranda acknowledge the need for a skilled workforce to develop offshore energy projects and recognize the barriers to higher education faced by Native Americans.

“I am thrilled to announce our new Memorandum of Understanding with the Yurok Tribe. This partnership represents a significant step forward in our shared commitment to workforce development and providing opportunities for members of the Yurok community to acquire new skills and knowledge, especially in emerging technologies such as offshore energy. I am confident this partnership will be beneficial to our college, the Yurok community, and the greater North Coast Region,” said College of the Redwoods President Keith Flamer.

Last December, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) conducted an auction to the development rights to 130,000 acres of ocean off the Humboldt coast for a floating offshore wind energy project. The project is part of state and federal efforts to dramatically increase renewable energy sources. Similar future projects are being considered off the Del Norte coast. These projects could create thousands of jobs in the area over the next 30 years.

This opportunity comes as Humboldt State completes the transition to Cal Poly Humboldt, with ambitious goals for expanding degree offerings and student enrollment.

“This is an exciting moment to be a Lumberjack,” said Cal Poly President Tom Jackson. “We plan to train the workforce that will lead the North Coast and America towards a new energy future. This creates an urgent need for a new generation of engineers, scientists, business professionals and skilled trades people here on the North Coast. The Yurok Tribe has been doing business here on the North Coast for time immemorial and so they are a natural partner in this endeavor.”

The initiative provides potential floating offshore wind developers with an opportunity to invest in supporting local workforce training. These investments could then serve as a credit towards developers’ fees for the rights to develop the designated wind area 20 miles off the Humboldt Coast.

“Native Americans take great pride in our legacy as stewards of the North Coast,” concluded Vice Chairman Myers. “These agreements help us continue that stewardship but also provide great potential for generational transformation for our young people, providing good paying jobs and economic security for Native Americans in all of California and beyond. The offshore wind goals set by California will require a tremendous increase in skilled labor for many different areas. We want to lead that transition”

Harold Dean Phenix, born October 15, 1949, passed away February 3, 2023 at the age of 73.

Harold is survived by his wife of 53 years, Connie; his daughter Krista DeFraga and husband Gary and daughter Melissa Combs and husband Hank; grandchildren, Joe Valadao (Nicole), Larissa Brodigan (Matt), Bailey and Connor Perry, Ashleigh and Emma DeFraga and Kaitlyn and Taylor Combs; great-grandchildren Eli and Maddie Valadao and Riley Brodigan; his sister Shirley Brooks and husband Dave, as well as numerous nieces, nephews and friends.

Harold is proceeded in death by his mother Aline Sylvester, father Lawrence Phenix, sisters Evelyn, Sharon, Vivian and Barbara, brothers Howard, Jimmy and Randy.

Harold was born in Roseburg, Oregon and moved to Blue Lake at the age of 2. Harold loved Blue Lake and never had the desire to move. He attended Blue Lake Elementary, as well as Arcata High School. He graduated in 1967 from Arcata High.

On February 3, 1967 Harold was at the Lemon Tree in Arcata. This is where he met Connie Rickard. Connie thought his name was Earl, and this gave the family a good laugh for years. Connie and Harold were married on October 17, 1970 and have resided in Blue Lake since.

Harold spent 25 years serving Blue Lake Volunteer Fire Department. He served as a firefighter and later earned the rank of Assistant Chief. He was also the department’s first public information officer.

Harold worked in the lumber industry all his life. His knowledge of lumber and cuts was phenomenal. Harold knew exactly how a machine needed to be set up for the perfect cut. He loved wood working and built many fences, decks and all kinds of items for around his home, as well family and friends homes.

Harold always had a joke or story to tell. He spent years making his friends and family laugh until they cried. He would write everyone poems and the way he came up with words was incredible.

Harold had a huge heart, piercing blue eyes and the most beautiful grey hair. He gave everyone a nickname. It was rare to be called by your name, he called you by your nickname.

Connie and Harold came full circle together. Harold took his last breath on February 3, 2023 with Connie’s cheek in his hand and his daughters by his side.

We will all miss his smile, his jokes, hearing him call us by the little names he had for us. Seeing him standing by a bbq, drinking a cold coors light or planting flowers.

The family would like to thank Hospice of Humboldt for their care and support of Harold, as well as his medical team at UC Davis.

A celebration of life will take place on March 25, 2023 at Blue Lake Fire Dept. at 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Hospice of Humboldt, or Blue Lake Fire Department.

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

When Johannes Gutenberg devised a complete system for mechanically printing books in the mid-1400s, he ushered in the Humanitarian Revolution, which embraces the Renaissance and every type of knowledge thereafter. The Catholic church, which — mostly — supported his endeavors (presumably liking the idea of there just being one version of the Latin “Vulgate” Bible, rather than versions that differed slightly from one another, scribal copying not being perfect), might not have been so sympathetic if they could have seen a few decades into the future.

Until Gutenberg, virtually the sole repository of learning in Europe was the Church, and the Bible was by far the most copied book — of course! The copyists were monks working in the scriptora (writing rooms) of monasteries, whose reward for spending years and years hunched over their tables, trying to stay warm month after month, year after year, would have been arthritic fingers and poor eyesight*. (In this life, at least: no doubt they had higher expectations for the life to come.) After Gutenberg, everything changed: books became more available, they were much cheaper than hand-copied volumes, and reading was democratized: more books meant more readers which meant more books…

* Convex spectacles, invented around 1230, would have added years to monks suffering from presbyopia.

The numbers are staggering. Pre-Gutenberg, there were perhaps no more than 30,000 books in all of Europe. By 1500, just 45 years after publication of his beautiful, 1,288-page, two-volume, leather-bound Bible, some 250 print shops in virtually every European country had printed at least 15 million books, all using Gutenberg’s system. (The first press to operate in the Americas was set up in 1539 in Mexico City, while the first in British North America was in Boston, in 1649.)

I wrote earlier that Gutenberg devised a system. His particular genius lay in combining inventions from previous ages, such as:

• The ink he used — a combination of lamp-black (soot), linseed oil and egg white, was already being used by artists of his time.
• His press was based upon wine presses (he was working in Mainz, in the heart of the Rhone wine country), except he had to figure out how to avoid the turning action of presses used in wineries.
• Having been trained as a goldsmith, it’s likely he already knew the required consistency of metal type, a mixture of lead and tin, with a little antimony (from antimony sulfide ore) mixed in to prevent cracking as it cooled.
• Movable metal type had already been figured out by Korean printers over a century earlier. We have copies of the Jikji (a treatise on Soto Buddhism) dating from 1377. Historians are divided on whether Gutenberg was aware of the Korean techniques.
• Historians do, however, credit Gutenberg with the invention of the hand mold, by which single letters could be cast repeatedly by pouring molten metal into a template containing a hand-carved letter, at a rate of perhaps one letter per minute.

It’s hard to overstate just what mechanical printing meant for the world of science, of literature and of the humanities. Once books had been reduced to manageable sizes and prices (thanks to an Italian printer by the name of Aldus Manutius), you could curl up with a book and have essentially a direct mind-to-mind connection with the writer, whether you were reading a novel (think Cervantes’ Don Quixote), the latest discoveries in the heavens (think Galileo’s Starry Messenger), or philosophy (think Descartes’ Discourse on the Method).

Yet the man himself is a near mystery to historians. We’re uncertain when he was born (sometime between 1394 and 1406) although we know where (Mainz, Germany); we don’t know if he married or had children; and we don’t know what he looked like. Most information about his life derives from court records, in particular the case he lost as he was finishing the print run of about 180 Bibles. After being successfully sued for repayment of loans by his main patron, Johann Fust, he was forced to surrender his press and his remaining Bibles. Fust went on to form his own, successful, printing operation, availing himself of the knowledge brought by his foster son (and future son-in-law) Peter Schöffer, who up til then had been Gutenberg’s loyal assistant…while his teacher fades from history.

It was an ignominious end to a genius whose name we associate today with the beginnings of the modern world of knowledge. I plan on raising a glass to Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg just as soon as I’ve finished spellchecking this column.

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For a weird, brief moment, prominent conservatives pitched a collective freak out over the false notion that the Biden Administration was coming to steal gas stoves. (“You can have my stove when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”) While bad faith scare mongering in the conservative culture war isn’t really newsworthy, the moment had something of a Streisand effect: it exposed that your gas stove may be giving your kids asthma as well as the public relations campaign by the fossil fuel industry to cover up this well-documented link. Whoops.

Laura Deehan, state policy director at Environment California, joins the show to talk about the indoor air quality risks from gas stoves and the movement to limit gas appliances in new home construction.

Want to start electrifying your house. Environment California has put together a toolkit to help!

It is with great sorrow that our family announces the passing of our beloved father, John Edward Johnson. Called home on February 7, 2023, he was surrounded by his loving children. He was born May 28, 1957, in Arcata. In his youth, he was known to move from place to place but he always made his way back to Humboldt. Finally settling in Eureka, he lived with his children for many years. He was so excited when he finally got his own place at Silvercrest at the ripe old age of 63.

John was a force in this world and he cheated death more times than we could count. He was stubborn, loud and cussed like a sailor. Known to smell overwhelmingly of body spray and icy hot, his hugs lingered on your clothes for hours. He was a damn good man. He loved his family very much, even though we all overwhelmed the hell out of him. Family functions meant bets were being made among the siblings on how long he would end up staying and who he would ask first for a ride home.

John will be remembered as an adoring grandfather and great-grandfather, a hard-working brother, an unruly uncle and an assertive father. And while he made his fair share of mistakes, he grew to be a kind-hearted and sincere man. Though he never lost his spunk, and you could find him sipping whiskey and watching old westerns almost every day of the week. He spent his last month living at the home of his youngest son, where his family came together and provided the most outstanding care for him.

John is survived by his children, son Clifton Lee Bowman and his wife Rebecca, daughter Karen Asbury and her husband Jason, daughter Alisha Johnson, and her husband Joe, son Travis Johnson and his wife Docia, and daughter Luana Johns and her husband Michael. Selfless and devoted they were to him in not just his final days but all the days before that, along with his grandchildren Gage, Mykai, Tru, Raven, Nathaniel, Andrew, Anthony, Arianna, Logann, Hunter, Isaac, Bryce, Jasmine, Jocelyn, Justin, Adrina, Ramsey, Raina, and Melina, all who loved their grandpa very much.

At John’s request, there will not be a funeral but we will come together for a celebration of life on March 18, 2023, at 2 p.m. in the Carson Building theater room. This is a potluck so please bring your favorite dish to share. Daddy, we will love you forever, forever and ever amen.

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

Ted Schroeder
April 7, 1954 – February 6, 2023

It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Ted D. Schroeder at Mad River Community Hospital in McKinleyville on Monday, February 6, 2023 at the age of 68 with family by his side.

Ted Douglas Schroeder was born April 7, 1954 in Atlantic, Iowa to Lloyd Frederick Schroeder and Janice Faye (Peters) Schroeder. He attended school in Atlantic, Iowa and graduated from Atlantic High School.

Ted’s interests were fishing, skiing, hunting and attending NHRA, NASCAR and dirt bike races. He will be remembered by his family and friends for his generosity, kindness and passion for life.

Ted began his career with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2012 and remained the Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) Water & Sewage Plant Supervisor until his passing. The institution released the following statement after learning of his death, “Many of us knew Ted both personally and professionally. He was a good friend, a good person and a good human being. Ted will be missed. Our condolences go out to his family, friends, and loved ones.”

Ted will be missed by his wife Melody Schroeder; sons Jason Schroeder and wife Megan of Stuart, FL and Matthew Schroeder of McKinleyville; daughter Taylor Schroeder of McKinleyville; grandchildren Ryan Schroeder and Elizabeth Schroeder of Stuart, Florida; brothers Tim Schroeder and wife Laurie of Smithville, Missouri, Todd Schroeder and wife Ginnie of Atlantic, Iowa and Trent Schroeder of Atlantic, Iowa. He will also be missed by his nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. Ted is preceded in death by his parents and son Joshua Schroeder.

A memorial service for Ted will be held on Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 11 a.m. at the United Methodist Church in Marne, Iowa.

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Are cooperatives the future of Humboldt’s cannabis industry? 

As corporate cultivation operations expand across California, small-scale cannabis farmers are joining forces to push back against their large-scale competitors.

The Cooperative Agriculture Network (CAN), a project of Cooperation Humboldt, launched an eight-week virtual academy this week to teach local cannabis producers everything they need to know about starting their own legal cannabis co-ops. ​​Local farmers and industry experts believe the development of a cooperative sector within the cannabis industry will lead to long-term economic viability for our region’s cannabis farming community.

“We were seeing that legalization was not going to support small family farms – it was actually destroying them,” Nicole Riggs, an affiliate researcher with the Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy (CASP), said during this week’s introductory course. “We didn’t want to see Humboldt succumb to the desolation that’s happening to the rest of rural America. We looked to cooperatives because we know that that’s a tried and true pathway for small independent businesses to work together and establish a place in the industry against corporate consolidation.”

CASP surveyed farmers throughout the Emerald Triangle in 2021 to determine whether there was any interest in forming local and regional cannabis cooperatives. The survey, “Corporate Cannabis is Coming: Cultivators, Are You Ready?” asked around 80 cannabis producers what services are lacking locally. Over 85 percent of survey respondents said they wanted more local support for cooperative development.

“They told us that they wanted to see cooperatives that would reflect the legacy experience, meaning homesteading and environmental stewardship, sharing genetics, working together to get sales and marketing,” Riggs said. “We have solid data that people want to have tools for cooperation, that they believe it will be useful. We developed [this] academy to provide farmers with these tools.”

What would a legal cannabis co-op look like, you ask? There are actually two legal cannabis co-ops already operating in Humboldt County: Uplift Cooperative and Salmon Creek Legacy Farms. Rather than operating as independent farmers, co-op members can rely on one another and share the burden of the entire production process.

“Through cooperatives, we can get to essentially pull in more and more of these verticals that are taking away our capacity for our capital,” Shawn Cherry, co-founder of Salmon Creek Legacy Farms Co-op, said. “There are all these different steps in the supply chain [and] I’m pretty convinced that they’re extraneous, if not redundant. … For example, we have the ability to get our product [to distributors] without having to hire [someone] to transport. If one of us has [the permit], we can outsource it to the rest of the co-op.”

Because each member of the co-op has an equitable vote in the company, “it cannot be controlled by capital,” Drew Barber, owner-operator of East Mill Creek Farms and co-founder of Uplift Co-op, explained. “The person who has the biggest investment of money doesn’t get the biggest say about how it works, which obviously has its challenges, and we work through that as well,” he said.

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Co-ops can operate in a variety of ways, ranging from informal to formal, but tend to follow the seven cooperative principles:

1. Voluntary and open membership
2. Democratic member control
3. Member economic participation
4. Autonomy and independence
5. Education, training and information
6. Cooperation among cooperatives
7. Concern for community

“There are also all kinds of non-financial methods of cooperation,” Tobin McKee, cooperative developer at Cooperation Humboldt, said. “Just sharing the burdens of everyday life, watching each other’s kids and so on. … It doesn’t need to be a formal entity. … We make an agreement, decide this is how we’re going to do it together and then we keep those agreements. And then, if those agreements aren’t working, we say, ‘Hey, this agreement isn’t working for me, can we change it?’  and then as a group, we collectively work to change the agreement.”

Courtney Bailey, co-founder of Giving Tree Farms and a founding member of Hive Mendocino Cooperative, emphasized the importance of finding people with similar values and a compatible work ethic. 

“There was a lot of heavy lifting in the beginning, and if someone’s not answering emails, not showing up … it can really slow you down,” she said. “We had to let a member go early on … but now, we’re starting to see that [the co-op] holds itself together naturally. It’s nice to see that it’s now its own entity keeping us together.”

Interested in co-oping with your neighbors? You may have missed the introductory course but there are still seven weeks left in the free CAN Academy. You can sign up here.