The Ferndale Open Door health clinic at 638 Main Street.
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Press release from Open Door Community Health Centers:
For more than 10 years, Ferndale Community Health Center has cared for families in Ferndale and across the Eel River Valley. Open Door is proud to be part of this community and grateful for the trust patients have placed in us.
As we look to the future, we are making changes to ensure people continue to receive high-quality healthcare close to home.
Starting August 17, 2026, primary care services currently offered at Ferndale Community Health Center will move to Fortuna Community Health Center. Fortuna has more space, a larger care team — including 10 full-time doctors, nurse practitioners, and physicians assistants — and more resources to meet the needs of patients now and in the years ahead. Margaret Lee, PA, and all Ferndale staff will also be transitioning to join the Fortuna team.
This change will help patients have more reliable access to care, more provider coverage, and stronger support when providers or staff are away.
At the same time, Open Door is excited about a new opportunity for the Ferndale center.
The Eel River Valley is home to a growing number of senior adults. Because of this, we are beginning to plan a new model of care in Ferndale focused on helping seniors with more complex health and social needs.
Our vision is to create a center where older adults can receive extra support, care coordination, and services designed to help them stay healthy, independent, and connected to their community.
“This change allows us to strengthen primary care in Fortuna while creating something new and exciting in Ferndale,” said Tory Starr, Chief Executive Officer for Open Door Community Health Centers.
“We believe this approach will better meet the needs of the Eel River Valley for many years to come.”
While services may look different in the future, our commitment to Ferndale remains strong. Open Door will continue investing in the health and well-being of the Eel River Valley and working with the community to shape what comes next.
We are excited about the future and look forward to sharing more as these plans take shape.
Current patients of Ferndale Community Health Center are encouraged to call the health center or stop by for support ahead of this transition.
Russell Albers was sentenced to at least 128 years to life in state prison today for the horrific 2022 murders of Daniel Garcia and Jennifer Paddock, a shooting in the Eureka area that orphaned their then four-year-old child and injured two women.
[CLARIFICATION: His final sentence will either be 128 years and four months or 136 years and four months. This will be determined next week, according to his attorney, due to laws surrounding sentencing for one of the firearm enhancements Albers admitted to. He described this question as “academic” as it doesn’t affect the man’s minimum eligible parole date.]
The sentence was handed to Albers after the court heard an onslaught of raw suffering from family members, who said the shooting shattered their family.
Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Kelly Neel told Albers it’s “unfathomable that you could choose to decimate a family, much less in front of a baby,” and called the plea deal he entered into an extension of mercy from the prosecution.
2022 booking photo.
“I believe you will likely die in prison” she said, adding he’s “earned every day” of the sentence.
In the deal, Albers waived his right to appeal, and his right to use the three years he’d spent in the Humboldt County Correctional facility as credit toward the sentence.
The packed, teary courtroom heard from family members of the victims, who told the judge that Albers took away a massive part of their family.
On Dec. 27, 2022, Russell Albers followed his former romantic partner — who had attempted to leave him after he became increasingly violent — to her sister’s home in Pine Hill, according to reporting on witness testimony from the Eureka Times-Standard.
He demanded he leave her sister’s home with him. He shot her, her sister, her sister’s partner and another woman who was staying at the home. The child of the victims was in the home during the shooting.
The four-year-old ran to get help from neighbors after seeing her father dead.
In a victim impact statement read by a victim witness, the now eight-year-old girl said, “I want to know why he killed my parents” and recounted seeing her dad’s open eyes, even after he had died.
She wrote she hoped Albers found God.
Her adoptive mother said the girl suffers from nightmares and sleepwalking, and witnessed something most could never imagine. She recounted a time where the child said “if Russel gets out of jail he will come and kill me.”
She noted a sense of guilt that her mother will never get to see her daughter play the piano, graduate kindergarten, and said the loss and trauma from the shooting will never go away.
Another family member told the court the girl used to say how much she loved Uncle Russel.
Between sobs, the former girlfriend described Albers as possessive, controlling, and abusive, and told her he’d kill her if she left him.
“He took my sister, she did nothing to him but try to protect me,” she said.
She said she watched him kill the victims, and the only thing she could think about was that her niece was next.
“He destroyed so many lives, so many families. I will never get them back. I live with this every day of my life,” she said.
The family urged the judge to give him the longest possible sentence — some promised to show up in later decades to Elderly Parole Hearings to testify on the pain he caused.
Prosecutor Candace Myers described Albers’ actions of the caliber only seen in nightmares and horror movies.
During the hearing, Albers expressed remorse through a statement read aloud by his attorney, Deputy Public Defender David Nims.
Albers described the people he murdered as good friends, and said he thinks about what he’s done every day.
“I am so very truly sorry. I hate myself for what I’ve done,” he wrote. The table in front of the man held balled-up tissues as he heard the statements from victims.
Albers had entered into a deal with prosecution in April, pleading guilty to first-degree murder for Paddock, second-degree murder for Garcia, and two counts of second-degree attempted murder for the two women wounded by gunfire in the shooting.
In exchange, the prosecution withdrew 10 charges and an array of special allegations levied against him. He faced a maximum of 148 years to life in prison for this conviction.
Nims noted that Albers chose to plead guilty and accept life in prison, which spared people from reliving the events in a jury trial.
Neel called the plea deal well reasoned, pointing to Albers waiving his right to appeal, in response to one victim lamenting Albers would not be convicted from the other crimes he was initially charged with.
On Tuesday, a hearing is scheduled to tie up loose ends before he is transported to state custody, including a protective order against his former romantic partner if he is ever released on parole. Albers was ordered to pay court fines, fees and restitution.
Humboldt Domestic Violence Services’ 24/7 support line can be reached at (707) 443-6042
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Marijuana Enforcement Team:
On July 16, 2026, deputies with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) served a search warrant as a part of an investigation into illegal cannabis cultivation in the 200 block for Ware Ranch Road in the Alderpoint area. The California Department of Fish & Wildlife and the California Department of Cannabis Control assisted in the service of the warrants.
The property investigated was identified through arial [aerial] surveillance and did not possess the required county permit and state license to cultivate cannabis commercially. On scene deputies located sub-par living conditions for those working the site. These poor conditions are often indicative of labor exploitation. No individuals were located on scene at the time of the warrant service.
During the service of the warrant, deputies eradicated approximately 2,180 growing cannabis plants, 1,199 cannabis clone starts. Additionally, Deputies seized and destroyed over 2,300 pounds of cannabis bud.
Assisting agencies found the following violations:
Water diversion violations (up to $8,000 fine per day, per violation)
Stream alteration violations (up to $8,000 fine per day, per violation)
Depositing trash in or near a waterway violations (up to $20,000 fine per day, per violation)
Additional violations with civil fines are expected to be filed by the assisting agencies.
No arrests were made during the service of the warrant. The case will be forwarded to the DA’s Office for review.
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.
The slough bridge going southbound. Photo by Ryan Burns.
Why is traffic so messed up coming into Eureka? Many confused motorists have no doubt asked this question recently since Caltrans began work on the southbound Eureka Slough bridge on Highway 101 several weeks ago. Apparently, the bridge’s foundation is messed up and deteriorating, and it needed emergency stabilization.
Originally reported by the Times-Standard earlier this week, Caltrans says the repairs are immediately necessary, and has pressed the Coastal Commission to grant Caltrans two emergency permits to allow it to repair defective support columns (piles, in civil-engineering parlance). Several environmental groups, including Humboldt Waterkeeper and the Surfrider Foundation, asked the commission to ensure that Caltrans ensures the safety and well-being of nearby marine life.
Caltrans spokesman Myles Cochrane told the Outpost via email that Caltrans was monitoring and protecting the environment’s health.
“Caltrans is conducting hydroacoustic and marine mammal monitoring and maintaining a shutdown zone to minimize potential disturbance to harbor seals and other marine mammals,” Cochrane wrote. Drivers should keep expecting a lane to be closed while the construction crew works on the bridge’s foundation, he added. Their work will be completed in the upcoming months.
“Crews are doing a great job keeping traffic moving as the lanes on the southbound bridge are shifted over a bit,” Cochrane wrote. “101 in Eureka is open and safe for travel. We appreciate the public’s patience and encourage drivers to slow down, stay alert and cruise safely through the cone zone while this job goes on.”
The mobile-pay parking lot at the corner of Third and G streets, one of 13 such lots across downtown, was completely full Thursday afternoon. | Photo by Ryan Burns.
The City of Eureka’s Passport Parking Program has generated more than $40,000 in revenue since it launched on April 1, with an estimated $30,000 worth of unpaid parking citations that will eventually be collected, according to data provided to the Outpost by city officials.
That adds up to more than $70,000 in revenue for the city in less than four months.
(If you’re wondering whether those unpaid citations will ever be collected, the city’s code enforcement manager points out that if offenders don’t pony up voluntarily, the fees willbe obtained through the DMV registration hold process when vehicle owners renew their registrations.)
The Passport Parking Program, which requires app-based pre-payment through your smartphone, charges $1.10 per hour for parking in 13 designated downtown lots between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday (excluding federal holidays). It used to be through 6 p.m., but City Manager Miles Slattery explained that the city shortened the fee period “mainly to accommodate our events in Old Town but also to balance the needs of downtown businesses, employees, residents, and visitors.”
Map adapted from one on the City of Eureka’s website.
The program also allows downtown residents and employees to purchase permits for off-street parking. A permit purchased today would cost $70 and be valid through the end of the year. The city plans to implement on-street parking fees sometime early next year, though only after a presentation to city council and public awareness campaign, according to Slattery.
So far, the city has collected $20,860 via parking permits, with 251 employee permits issued and 46 residential permits. In an email to fellow city staff, Code Enforcement Manager Matt Morgan noted that this annual revenue stream is likely to fluctuate from year to year based on permit sales.
Meanwhile, the city has received $6,982 in parking citation fees — the ones that have actually been paid. And the pay-by-space parking has generated $13,088.
“[I]f the current pay-by-space revenue trend continues, we can conservatively estimate that it will generate approximately $39,000 annually,” Morgan said in his internal email.
Parking availability in downtown Eureka has been a hotly debated topic among locals in recent years as the city works to convert several “underused” lots into housing developments. Expect the debate to continue through the upcoming election season.
G and 17th streets could one day look like this, if the Reconnect Arcata project begins construction. Screenshot from meeting.
The Arcata City Council laid waste to a smorgasbord of an agenda last night, doing everything from learning about a potential funding method for the Arcata Fire District, to considering adopting a policy regulating city employees’ use of artificial intelligence, to improving the Redwood Park basketball court, plus a few other items. (They’re also interesting.)
Potential Fees for the Fire District
The council heard a report from Blair Aas, from consulting firm SCI, on levying new fees on developments in and around the city — not for the city’s benefit, but for the Arcata Fire District’s. AFD only has so many ways to earn revenue, Aas and fire chief Chris Emmons explained, and Arcata’s growing population necessitates an expansion of their services they don’t have the funding for.
The scheme would work like this: the city would charge developers constructing new property a fee, a set amount of money per square foot. The exact charge would vary depending on the kind of development; ones with fewer people on-site, like warehouses and agricultural land, would be the cheapest, and multi-family housing the most expensive. Under state law, accessory dwelling units under 750 square feet would be exempt. After taking some of the revenue to compensate its staff, the city would then give the fees to AFD, because it has no power to levy fees on its own.
It might be a necessary step to support a beleaguered, crucial service in a growing town, Emmons and Aas said. To keep their services the same across an expanding community, AFD would have to keep up with new development. “Growth should pay for growth,” as Aas put it.
The fine points haven’t been hammered out, Aas said, but it’d be ideal if the fees were automatically adjusted to keep pace with inflation.
Aas said he’s also going to attempt to sway the county to implement the fee as well, across the unincorporated area AFD serves. He’ll present a report to the board of supervisors in September.
The council members seemed interested in the idea, but there’s no firm plans yet to put the fee into law.
How — if at all — should city employees be allowed to take advantage of the productivity-optimizing power of artificial intelligence? The council, faced with a resolution that would answer some of that question, decided they’d wait until the next meeting to pass it.
Merritt Perry, Arcata’s city manager, said the resolution was a “baseline;” easily adjustable and widely applicable, with few specific “dos” or “don’ts.” He said he expected to update it regularly.
Perry said the city had been behind on regulating its employees’ AI use. Some of them had purchased their own subscriptions to an AI service, and the city needed to get everyone on the same boat. They haven’t selected a specific artificial intelligence every city employee will use, but because they paid for the Microsoft suite, Copilot could end up being the one.
Council members Meredith Matthews and Sarah Schaefer both said they were wary of the harm AI can inflict on the environment and on artists, whose online work is regularly scraped and used for training the bots. They said they didn’t want any AI-generated material to be used for external, public-facing purposes.
“It’s so fast and so convenient, and then it’s hard sometimes to remember — you could be grabbing art from somebody else who produced it,” Perry said. “Some of our staff are very cognizant and on top of that. I think there are a number of folks who are very focused on ‘Let’s try to not take advantage of others’ artwork.’”
Schaefer and Matthews asked that staff tighten the resolution up to replace the “may”s in the resolution with “shall” or “will” so there’s no wiggle room. It’ll come back for a vote in two weeks.
Tax Incentives!
The city sent an application to the state asking that an Arcata census tract that includes some of the downtown and the Gateway Area be turned into an “Opportunity Zone,” a lower-income area where private investors and business owners are subject to lower capital-gains taxes. The program is meant to spur development in areas that need it the most. Jennifer Dart, a city planner, said they chose that census tract because it’s likely to be the most competitive out of all of the tracts in the city, with the most undeveloped land and commercial space that could entice people into building more housing or founding new businesses.
The census tract. Screenshot from meeting.
Reconnect Arcata
The engineering department snagged itself another $75,000 to pursue the dream of one day enabling seamless car-free transport from one half of the city to the other.
The Reconnect Arcata project has been on the ropes. Because of city-wide funding issues, its budget was slashed from $300,000 down to $150,000 when the city’s budget was being drawn up, which, according to the staff report, would have prevented the engineering department and the consulting firm it hired to “deliver a meaningful final project.”
Arcata has long been working to reconnect the eastern and the western halves long divided by Highway 299 and Highway 101, City Engineer Netra Khatri asserted. The Bay Trail down to Eureka, the Annie and Mary Trail, the pedestrian bridge on G Street, the overpass on Giuntoli — all of these were designed to allow residents to get around easier on foot. It’s time to continue the process, he said, and kick in more funding to cap off the project.
The council agreed, voting unanimously to allocate $75,000 from the General Fund on the project. “While I’m not super thrilled that we’re changing a budget that we just so recently passed,” Councilmember Meredith Matthews said, “I really can’t think of a better thing to spend that money on.”
The engineering department will use the funds to complete detailed maps of the proposed projects and hold a community meeting to solicit the public’s wishes.
Basketball court
The basketball court in Redwood Park is in rough shape, about 30 years after its construction. It’s being split and deformed by redwood tree roots, and a lackluster drainage system allows water to pool on the court. It is the only publicly accessible full court in Arcata.
It’s a worthy cause, the council said, deciding to award local asphalt company Hooven and Co. $115,319 to spruce up the court and ensure its health for the next few decades. The court will be resurfaced, the hoops and nets will be replaced, and the drainage system will be juiced up.
Councilmember Alex Stillman, somewhere around 87 years old, said she’d probably sit out any 5x5 council vs. staff hooping session. She is willing to be a cheerleader.
SACRAMENTO, CA – The Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) has taken legal action to protect reliable communications service for rural Californians by filing a motion to intervene in AT&T’s federal lawsuit against the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Attorney General. RCRC conducted this filing in partnership with The Utility Reform Network (TURN), the California State Association of Counties (CSAC), and the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
AT&T’s lawsuit seeks to eliminate California’s Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) requirements, longstanding obligations that ensure residents have access to basic telephone service regardless of where they live. RCRC and its partners previously filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the CPUC and Attorney General and are now seeking formal party status in the case to ensure the interests of California residents and communities are fully represented before a final decision is reached.
“This intervention is about ensuring rural voices are heard in a case that could have far-reaching consequences for communities across California,” said Miles Menetrey, RCRC Board Chair and Mariposa County Supervisor. “Carrier of Last Resort obligations have helped guarantee access to essential communications services for decades. Any effort to eliminate those protections must be carefully scrutinized to ensure rural residents are not left with less reliable service and fewer consumer protections.”
The motion emphasizes the importance of preserving universal service and ensuring that any replacement technology provides the same or better reliability, functionality, and service quality as the existing landline network. It also raises concerns about limiting California’s authority to enforce consumer protection and public safety standards, particularly in rural and underserved areas where wireless alternatives remain unreliable or unavailable.
COLR requirements play a critical role in ensuring access to communications services during emergencies, natural disasters, and power outages. For many rural residents, landline service remains one of the most dependable forms of communication when other networks fail.
RCRC remains committed to ensuring that any transition to new communications technologies preserves the reliability, affordability, and public safety benefits that Californians, especially those in rural communities, depend on every day.
About Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC)
The Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) is a forty member county service organization that champions policies on behalf of California’s rural counties. RCRC is dedicated to representing the collective unique interests of its membership, providing legislative and regulatory representation at the State and Federal levels, and providing responsible services for its members to enhance and protect the quality of life in rural California counties. To learn more about RCRC, visit rcrcnet.org and follow @RuralCounties on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
