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Some California Democrats have a plan to avoid disaster in the governor’s race: Wait until the last minute to vote.

With no one candidate emerging as a clear favorite and an open primary where the top two advance regardless of party affiliation, panic has set in for some who plan to vote Democratic.

To avoid a dreaded scenario in which Democrats are locked out of the November general election, many Democrats coalesced around former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who ultimately flamed out after multiple women accused him of sexual assault.

That fear has morphed into wariness, leading some party activists and influencers to encourage people to hold off on voting early, watch the polls, then vote for the candidate with the most support just before Election Day.

In a “normal year,” Katie Evans-Reber of San Francisco said she would probably back former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter even though the Democrat is not likely to advance to November given her current polling. But this year the stakes are higher, she said, and as a lesbian woman, any of the Democrats would be more aligned with her core values than a Republican.

She fears supporters of President Donald Trump who have soured on him could back Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, giving him enough of a boost to match the power of Trump’s endorsement for Steve Hilton, the former Fox News host who is leading all other candidates in the polls. That would send both Republicans to the runoff.

“The thing that flipped for me was going from, ‘I don’t really know what to do,’ to, ‘I strategically am not making a decision,” Evans-Reber said.

In pole position is Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary who surged from single digits to the top of the polls following Swalwell’s downfall. As his popularity soared, so has the scrutiny of his record at HHS and as California’s former attorney general.

Behind Becerra are progressive Democratic challengers Tom Steyer, a former businessman turned billionaire activist and Porter. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has also positioned himself as a tech-friendly moderate and ally of Silicon Valley.

Evans-Reber and other impassioned Democrats have been urging others to follow the “same “wait and see” strategy by sharing videos and posts on social media.

One post even falsely attributed the strategy to Heather Cox Richardson, a political historian and popular Democratic influencer who writes the substack “Letters from an American.” That erroneous post was the first one Evans-Reber saw and forwarded. She later had to follow up with a disclaimer that Cox Richardson was not the author.

“It’s not like, bad advice, but it’s 100% not coming from me,” Cox Richardson told CalMatters in an interview.

Democratic political consultant Paul Mitchell disagrees.

“It’s just a bad message,” he said. “I think they should always have a message of, ‘As soon as you get your ballot, fill it out, turn it in, mail it in and get it done.”

Mitchell said although activists might talk about and push for a strategic voting plan, trying to organize a movement like that at scale would likely not produce significant results.

“I think people vote for whoever they were going to vote for anyway,” said Mitchell, whose company tracks how many ballots are turned in each day statewide.

The push to vote late flies in the face of recent pleas from election officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom for voters to get their ballots in early in the hopes of speeding up California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process. Attorney General Rob Bonta, a fellow Democrat, told reporters last week that the social media posts urging late voting could be misinformation, disinformation, and “potentially unlawful,” and Secretary of State Shirley Weber said her office would “look into” those social posts.

“Time is of the essence in preventing election lies from taking hold,” Newsom wrote in a recent letter addressed to all 58 county registrars urging them to “tabulate and release results quickly and accurately.”

Turning in a mail-in ballot on Election Day, as some activists propose, is the worst possible scenario for election administration officials.

It creates what Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, calls the “pig in the python effect.” County election offices are inundated with in-person ballots on Election Day, as well as mail-in ballots that require a meticulous process of signature matching, envelope opening and extracting the ballot before it can be counted.

Returning ballots even a few days earlier can give counties a head start, Alexander said at a recent CalMatters forum on election integrity.

Mark DiCamillo, who runs polling for the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, said pollsters are doing their best to produce accurate results, but in an election with so many variables, even the best surveys could be off-base.

The past trend of low voter turnout in gubernatorial primaries, plus a potentially confusing array of 61 candidates for governor alone, make it difficult to determine who the likely voters will be and account for that in their surveys.

“This election’s got all the elements you have to deal with,” DiCamillo said. “It’s a challenge for the polling profession.”

Despite the concerns about a slow vote count and imprecise polling, Evans-Reber says she still plans to stick to her last-minute voting strategy. She doesn’t trust that mailing her ballot will reach the county elections office in time. She plans to bring her completed ballot to the office or one of the county’s vote centers and hand it directly to an election official.

“I am going to cast the ballot at the very last possible moment,” Evans-Reber said. “I’m going to wait until polling day.”

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Esther Mejia and Kelly Merchant had a question Friday afternoon for their professors: Where were you?The UC Riverside public policy students were among the likely hundreds of thousands in California who lost access to the all-important academic software Canvas when it was brought down by a hacker group Thursday afternoon. Losing Canvas meant losing assignments, tests, and required reading material along with a way to communicate with instructors. The timing was especially bad for UC students, who were hunkering down for midterms or finals.

“This is a very crucial time for students to be able to access their coursework. So I definitely do think that professors should reach out,” Mejia said in an interview. “And they did not.”

Merchant heard from only one professor by Friday who addressed the downed website. She learned about the hack attack on the social media site Reddit after she was logged out of her account while finishing an assignment.

“Professors should reach out. They did not.”
— Esther Mejia, student, UC Riverside

The Riverside students’ experience underscores just how central Canvas has become to higher education in California — the outage likely affected more than 1 million of the state’s university students. The hack has raised serious questions about how schools should be vetting and balancing their use of online platforms, to what extent they may be held liable for breaches, and what role policymakers should play in protecting student data and regulating edtech.

The attack seems to have begun on or around April 29, when Instructure, the company behind Canvas, “detected unusual activity,” according to a class-action suit filed in a Texas federal court. It exploited a vulnerability in Canvas’s free tool for teachers, the company later disclosed.

On May 4, some Cal State campuses experienced a brief shutdown but were operational within 20 to 30 minutes, the university system said.

By May 7, Thursday, the platform was offline. The University of California system blocked access to Canvas the same day, and wrote on its website that it won’t “be restored until we are confident the system is secure. We understand this disruption is concerning.”

The hackers, a group calling itself ShinyHunters, claimed to have obtained sensitive data, including billions of messages, and threatened to release the data if they weren’t paid a ransom. The CEO of Instructure has said that core “learning data (course content, submissions, credentials) was not compromised” and Cal State has said that Canvas does not store social security numbers.

One of Merchant’s professors, she said, created a Discord group for the class at the beginning of the term and on Thursday evening shared the material students needed to complete an assignment due Friday. She appreciated the initiative, though observed that not every student checks Discord as regularly as they would their email account.

By May 9, Saturday, UC Riverside mostly restored access to the platform, with other universities coming online in the following days. Mejia had a quiz and assignment due Monday at 2 p.m. She received a note from the professor of that class only at 9 a.m. that day through Canvas, she said. The professor granted a two-day extension.Merchant wants more professors with a communication back-up plan, especially since Canvas has been down before. “Whether it’s a cybersecurity thing or routine Canvas maintenance, it’s going to continue to be a risk. And we have to prepare for it.”

UC Riverside and the systemwide UC Office of the President did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For many colleges and high schools, Canvas has become indispensable, with teachers using it to give quizzes, message students, post grades, and more.

Almost 9,000 colleges, K-12 schools and school districts, and offices of education around the world were reportedly affected by the Canvas outage, according to the hacker group and other media, along with likely millions of students and teachers. California seemed to be hit especially hard. The institutions relying on the system and affected by the cyberattack included Stanford, at least some campuses at the University of California, USC, all 22 California State University campuses and all 116 of the state’s community colleges.

The number of students ultimately affected by the breach could be staggering. The Cal State system alone enrolls more than 400,000 students. The UC system, where hackers claimed to hit six of 10 campuses, enrolls about 300,000. The hacker group listed the Los Angeles Unified and Fresno Unified school districts as among their targets — they too enroll more than 400,000 students combined.

Deputy chancellor of the LA Community College District, Nicole Albo-Lopez, told CalMatters that Canvas was being used by students in thousands of courses, including as a “repository for gradebooks, sharing of course materials, and messaging.” The district is among the largest community college districts in the country, with nearly 200,000 students annually.

Canvas, she said Friday, still hadn’t informed them of what’s been exposed in the hack. “We’re supposed to receive specific information about what was accessed in our specific system, but we have not received that yet,” she said.

‘Eggs in one basket’

One expert said the incident highlights the problem of relying on “all-in” solutions for online education tools.

The attraction of software like Canvas is that it allows institutions without technical expertise to easily manage everything on a single platform. But the hack shows the danger of relying on such centralized systems, where a breach of one company exposes the data of the countless institutions that rely on it.

“The beauty of these software as a service systems and what they sell is, ‘Hey, your staff members don’t need to run this, we’ll just handle it,’” said Jake Chanenson, an education technology researcher and PhD student at the University of Chicago.

In the best case, those companies have diligent cybersecurity teams protecting student data.

Many schools without tech departments, by contrast, may only be equipped to give any new tools “a cursory, at best, privacy and security assessment,” Chanenson said. Small schools, especially, may then struggle to recover from a breach or outage.

But a centralized system also means that only a single point needs to be hacked for every school that uses the software to be affected.

Chanenson, who is currently researching “critical infrastructure” in schools, said that

“when you put all your eggs in one basket across schools, it makes these targets very attractive.”

One state lawmaker wants a legislative audit into California’s heavy reliance on Canvas. “The Canvas breach exposes the growing risks of concentrating massive amounts of student records, academic systems and institutional operations into a single platform,” said Sen. Melissa Hurtado, a Democrat from Bakersfield, in a written statement.

What now?

It may be too early to identify the consequences of the hack for schools and for Canvas. It’s still not clear, for example, how the breach happened, or the full extent of data that was compromised.

At minimum, schools will want to reassess how much information they’re willing to give over to third-party software companies in the name of efficiency. Those companies, Chanenson said, should also take a look at their policies around data collection and retention to minimize how much sensitive information they store.

“You think in your head that any data set that you have has a non-zero probability of being leaked or breached or some sort of privacy loss, then you want to start thinking about things like data minimization,” he said.

Past data breaches have led to legal consequences for the companies and institutions involved, including action by state attorneys general. There are federal legal protections for data belonging to children under 13, through the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, as well to students, under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. In California, the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act protects data for K–12 students. Lawmakers in the state are also actively considering additional data protections.

The state has grappled with previous compromises of school data. Los Angeles Unified School District has faced a series of class-action lawsuits related to data privacy breaches. Most recently, the district disclosed last year that a telehealth vendor it worked with experienced a breach.

Chanenson points out that schools are prime targets for hackers since they hold immensely sensitive data but often lack the technical prowess of other large institutions, like banks.

“They’re happening with enough of a frequency that it’s more of a when, not an if,” he said.

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CalMatters reporter Adam Echelman contributed to this story.

Brooks Otis
May 3, 1938 – May 9, 2026

Brooks Otis, a beloved husband, father, musician and pillar of the Humboldt County community, passed away peacefully at his Arcata home on May 9, 2026. Born on May 3, 1938, in Geneva, New York, to Brooks and Christine Otis, he was the eldest of five children, joined by Molly, Cheney, Irene, and Paul. From his earliest years, Brooks moved through the world with curiosity, warmth and an abiding love of music.

Brooks spent his high school years in Geneva and abroad, living with his family in Rome and Beirut in the 1950s. After studying history at Columbia University, Brooks was drafted into the Army, serving from 1961 to 1963 as a medic in Germany, and, true to form, keeping himself sane by playing music. During those years he formed friendships and musical connections that would last a lifetime.

Returning from the Army to Palo Alto, Calif., Brooks worked at the Stanford Press and studied part-time at Stanford University. His interest in Latin America drew him to the Peace Corps in 1966. At the initial training in Seattle, he met the love of his life, Carolyn Chaffee, and the two were posted to a rural Aymara Indian village in Bolivia, where they helped establish a food cooperative, build a new school, and taught literacy and English classes.

Brooks and Carolyn returned to the United States and married. At 30, he went to work for California Indian Legal Services in Escondido, California. That work brought them north to Eureka, where Brooks served as a Project Director for United Indian Health Services. They put down roots in Humboldt County in 1970, and their son Dan was born in 1971.

In September 1974, Brooks and his partner Mike Manetas opened the doors of Wildwood Music in Arcata. For thirty years, Wildwood was a hub of musical life in the region, offering lessons, instrument sales and repairs, and a gathering place for the community. Brooks was also a longtime radio host and Music Director at KHSU, edited the Humboldt Folklife Society newsletter for many years, and was an avid gardener and photographer.

Throughout his time in Humboldt County, Brooks remained an active musician. He was a member of the seminal bluegrass band Fickle Hill, the dance band Swing Shift, and played in many other bands, including the Country Pretenders, Kenny Ray and the Mighty Rovers, the Horn Band, the Continental Drifters, Loafer’s Glory, Rosanne and Kentones, Bayside Quartet, the Timber Ridge Boys, just to name a few. He played flute, clarinet, saxophone, banjo, guitar, fiddle and pedal steel guitar.

Brooks gave generously to everyone around him. He was always ready to fix an instrument, share a melody or mentor a young musician. His vast, curated music collection brought joy to all who encountered it. He touched lives quietly and without fanfare, which was entirely his preference.

Brooks is survived by his son, Dan Otis; his two sisters, Molly Barnes and Irene Otis; his brother, Paul Otis; and by the many musicians, students, friends and neighbors whose lives he touched. A memorial for both Brooks and Carolyn is being planned for some time in August.

Fifteen months after Eden Goldberg was attacked by a neighbor’s dog — a traumatizing ordeal that left her with bite marks and gashes on her face, arms and legs — the Shelter Cove resident is still seeking justice. 

Despite months of back-and-forth with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Animal Control Division, Goldberg feels the county hasn’t done enough to resolve her case or address her concerns about “unsafe dog culture” in rural communities. Now, she’s launching a public safety campaign and pushing for changes to local policies to increase accountability for dog owners.

Goldberg, a local performer and emcee, is one of several Humboldt County residents who’ve spoken with the Outpost in recent months about encounters with off-leash or uncontrolled dogs that resulted in serious injuries to people and, in some instances, pets being maimed or killed. Those who sought help from animal control often said they were frustrated by the outcome of their investigations and disappointed to learn that the county’s current policies place the blame on the dog rather than the owner. 

“There’s a real gap in understanding going on here,” Goldberg said. “This wasn’t a case of bad dogs … [or] a case of dangerous dogs; this was a case of negligent human beings. … [The owner] made a negligent choice of who she left her dogs with … and he was negligent. It’s about the humans — that’s who I want to [be held accountable].”

‘That Dog Started Attacking Me’

Goldberg was attacked on the morning of Jan. 12, 2025, while walking her two leashed dogs — both Rhodesian Ridgeback mixes — on a Bureau of Land Management trail near her home in Shelter Cove. Minutes into their walk, an unleashed dog came bounding toward them “as if to play.” She could see a man a little ways up the trail holding the leash of a German Shepherd, and she called out to him, “Please leash your dog!”

The man either didn’t hear her or didn’t listen. She called out again, “Please call back your dog! Put him on a leash; we do not want to engage. I do not want your dog coming near us!”

“And then it started a dog fight,” Goldberg said, adding that she was shouting at the man to take control of the unleashed dog as she struggled to hang onto her own dogs. She would later learn that he wasn’t the owner of the dogs, but a pet sitter. “This guy … he just kind of froze. … And as soon as he walked [up to me] with the leashed dog, that dog started attacking me.”

“It mauled my left arm and … my right calf, and then came back around on my left side, and sank its teeth in my left nostril about an inch under my right eye. It was trying to shake my face to rip my face off,” she continued. “When I ripped my face out of the dog’s mouth, it slit open a one-inch gash … right under my eye … and I tucked my face in so it couldn’t go for my main vein.”

After a few minutes, the man was able to leash both dogs and get them under control. Goldberg, gushing blood and surging with adrenaline, said she needed to get herself and her dogs back to her truck immediately, and asked the man to meet her at the main road to swap information. There, he explained that he didn’t own the dogs, but was watching them for another Shelter Cove resident who was on vacation. He gave her his name and phone number, adding that he would tell the property owner about the incident. When Goldberg tried to call him later that day, she said the call didn’t go through and assumed he had given her a fake phone number.

The Outpost has omitted the names of the dogs’ owner and their handler in this story. According to Goldberg, both parties have been “non-responsive and non-compliant” since the attack occurred.

Goldberg pictured about 20 minutes after she was attacked. | Photo submitted.

After getting herself home and checking her wounds, Goldberg asked a friend to take her to the Shelter Cove Volunteer Fire Department for an initial medical assessment before heading over the hill to the emergency room in Garberville. A first responder took a dog bite report, and she was asked if she wanted to press charges against the owner or pursue a potentially dangerous dog hearing, which could result in anything from fines to court-ordered euthanasia.

“That was not the time to make that decision,” Goldberg said, later adding that she spoke to an attorney after the incident and is still weighing her legal options.

After completing the report, Goldberg was taken to Jerold Phelps Memorial Hospital, where staff assessed and treated her injuries. She sustained numerous bites on her face, including a gash under her right eye and several puncture wounds ranging from a quarter-inch to a half-inch deep. She also recorded puncture wounds and “severe” bruising on her upper arm and leg.

She would later discover that her bite report, which was filed with the county’s animal control division a couple of weeks after the incident, did not mention the wounds to her face. Frustrated, she contacted an animal control officer after she received a copy of the report in April 2025 and informed them of the error. She received a copy of the amended report in February of this year, 13 months after the bite report was taken. 

“I don’t know how many times I called them asking for an amended report,” she said. “I just remember feeling very frustrated, like, why is this a hard thing to accomplish?”

In the weeks and months that followed the attack, Goldberg struggled with psychological trauma and was diagnosed with Acute Stress Disorder by a therapist. The experience impacted her grad school studies and derailed her plans to care for her ailing mother, who had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. 

“It [was] extremely traumatic, and I’m a tough cookie, but I am still struggling,” Goldberg said. “It’s to the point where I have not hiked my dogs the one to two miles a day [that they had gotten used to] for over a year now. I don’t walk my dogs anymore, and … that is the best part of mine and my dog’s day. And I thought I was just the only one, [but] as I’ve started to talk to people, I’m finding everybody else feels that way.”

To get a better sense of the feelings surrounding local “dog culture,” Goldberg started talking to her friends and neighbors about their experiences with dogs in different areas of the county. At the time of our interview, she had spoken with about 50 people about negative experiences with off-leash dogs. 

“Moms expressed fear about their babies being on the beach [while] multiple dogs run around off-leash,” she said. “I’m not saying you have to live your life in fear, but moms are definitely concerned. An elder who’s lived here for 43 years was getting out of her car, and this black and white dog that’s been running free-range in our neighborhood bit her arm. … I’ve talked with doctors and nurses and grocery store owners who are like, ‘I can’t walk my dogs when I get home because there’s vicious dogs roaming.’”

While working on this story, I came across a Facebook post from Shelter Cove resident Kierstin Fernandez alerting her neighbors about two loose dogs that had killed her family’s cat. 

“I am creating this post to hopefully help the next family, but also because I am truly so sick to my stomach over what has just happened at my home,” she wrote in the March 4 post. “We had two dogs come onto our deck and kill our beloved cat and leave with her. … I have two small children, my daughter runs around outside my home all the time. How am I supposed to feel safe with these animals loose?”

In a follow-up interview with the Outpost, Fernandez said she didn’t know who the dogs belonged to, adding that no one had come forward to claim them after her Facebook post. 

“At the end of the day, I’m not trying to do anything to these people or their dogs,” she wrote. “I was hoping my community would come together and maybe know who the owners were before making a formal report. … I know accidents happen, and maybe the owners really never meant for their animals to get out but the dogs being that aggressive on an ‘accident’ does worry me still. I just have to hope that the owners are taking better precautions.”

Fernandez decided not to file a report with animal control. It seemed as though she just wanted to move past the traumatic incident.

Reached for additional comment on the issue of local dog attacks, Christopher Christianson, the general manager of Shelter Cove’s Resort Improvement District (RID), acknowledged that the coastal community “has no shortage of loose dogs,” but said they are generally well-behaved and accompanied by an owner.

“This isn’t a very common complaint,” Christianson wrote, referring to the prevalence of reported dog attacks. “In my experience as the General Manager, I’ve talked to one dog owner in the community after we received a complaint about his loose dog. Both he and his dog were very cooperative, understanding, apologetic and accommodating. On a personal level, a nearby neighbor’s two dogs were coming over to where I live in Shelter Cove and chasing my cats. That neighbor was also very apologetic and nice.”

Of course, that’s the best-case scenario. While dog-related disputes are often settled between neighbors without the involvement of city officials or local law enforcement, unchecked bad behavior can lead to horrifying outcomes. 

Many of our readers will recall in 2021 when a mother of five was viciously attacked by two pit bulls while helping a neighbor in Myers Flat. Her injuries were so severe that one of her legs was amputated. The dogs were declared “vicious” and euthanized, and their owner was prohibited from owning any other dogs for three years.

In March of 2023, Ted and Brenda Pease were attacked by a loose dog while walking their dog Stella in Trinidad. The dog bit a half inch of Ted’s finger off, bit Brenda in the calf and maimed Stella, turning her “face into hamburger and crush[ing] her foot,” according to Pease. A court hearing determined the off-leash dog, a 70-lb mixed-breed named Claudia, to be “vicious,” and required the owner to confine the dog and notify animal control officers if he moved. 

One year later, Claudia attacked again. The incident occurred at a home in Eureka where the dog’s owner had been staying with a friend. The dog attacked the homeowner’s brother-in-law during the commercial break of a football game, leaving him with facial injuries so severe that he was airlifted to UC Davis Medical Center for treatment. 

Another hearing was held, and the dog was determined to be vicious, yet again. The owner didn’t attend the hearing and animal control officers weren’t able to track down Claudia after the attack, according to Eureka Police Department spokesperson Rachel Sollom.

Similar to Goldberg, Pease believes humans should be held to account when a dog attack occurs.

“There are no bad dogs,” he told the Outpost. “That may be an overstatement, but most of bad dog behavior results from inattentive humans, training or lack of it. … In our case, the attack by a known aggressive animal [occurred] because the owner failed to restrain her on his property. The owner of the dog had no penalties that I know of, and returned with the animal to Humboldt a year later, when the dog attacked someone else. … Clearly, the owner was not held accountable.”

Pease acknowledged that “law enforcement has more pressing matters to attend to than dog issues,” but felt the “system failed in this case.”

The Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury explored this very issue in its 2018 report, “Dogs on the Run: Do County and City Animal Control Codes, Policies, and Procedures Adequately Protect Our Residents?” The report, which came about in response to a countywide uptick in dog attacks, urged local animal control agencies to increase staffing and communication across jurisdictions and improve follow-through with victims.

While strides have been made to improve staffing and interagency communication, there hasn’t been any substantial update to county code that increases accountability for the owners of dogs involved in violent attacks.

‘Public Safety is Our Primary Concern’

How a dog attack is handled depends on the severity of the situation, Animal Control Facilities Manager Andre Hale told the Outpost. Generally speaking, victims are given two options when a dog bite occurs: 1) request a hearing for a “potentially vicious, dangerous or nuisance” dog or 2) file a civil claim against the owner of the dog. 

“If the situation meets the criteria/definitions in the county code for ‘dangerous’ or ‘vicious’, the victim can request an administrative hearing,” Hale wrote via email. “Animal control may take the dog for quarantine at the shelter and may hold the dog at the shelter pending the outcome of the administrative hearing. At the conclusion of the quarantine and/or hearing the dog may be returned to the owner. If a hearing was held and the dog was declared as dangerous or vicious, the owner will be required to meet the restrictions set forth in the code.”

Hale added that the dog’s owner “may be issued a citation for any violations that occurred,” but that doesn’t happen in every situation. 

Goldberg declined animal control’s offer to pursue a potentially dangerous dog hearing in her case, asserting, “If that other dog was on-leash, there would have been no dog fight, and there would have been no dog mauling.” She reiterated that “this was a case of negligent human beings.”

Goldberg argued that the county is failing to enforce laws that hold dog owners accountable, including California Penal Code 399, which imposes criminal liability for owners of “mischievous” animals that kill or cause “serious bodily injury” to a human. Penalties range from misdemeanor charges to felony convictions, depending on the severity of the incident.

“The negligence in this matter stems from the owner’s decision to entrust a powerful animal to an unqualified and untrained caretaker,” Goldberg said. “[PC] 399 requires that ‘ordinary care’ be taken to prevent an animal from causing injury. By delegating this responsibility to someone incapable of managing the animal, demonstrated by the lack of leash control, the absence of basic dog recall, then walking the second dog to my side causing me to be severely mauled, the owner created a preventable hazard.”

Asked why the sheriff’s office or animal control didn’t pursue changes under PC 399 in this case, Hale said there was no evidence that the dog that attacked Goldberg had a history of biting. 

“[PC 399] requires that the owner knew of the dog’s dangerous tendencies and failed [to] take necessary steps to prevent someone from being injured,” she wrote in her emailed response. “We do not have any evidence that is the case in this situation, as there is no known history of the dog biting.”

Goldberg pushed back, asserting that current interpretations of the code “often lean too heavily on the animal’s prior history.” In this case, the “mischievous” nature of the event was “not inherent to the dog, but was created by the human handler’s lack of training and situational awareness,” she said. “The law must hold individuals accountable for the negligent management and improper supervision that allow these dangerous encounters to occur.”

Hale acknowledges that there are “limitations to what animal control is able to do” in certain cases, “which often results in the complainants being frustrated or upset.” She emphasized that animal control officers strive to “do everything we can to address these issues.”

“Public safety is our primary concern,” Hale said. 

Reached for additional comment on the matter, Undersheriff Justin Braud explained that animal control officers may issue citations in some cases, but they don’t have the authority to arrest people. If Goldberg were to pursue charges under PC 399, the case would have to be turned over to the sheriff’s office, he said.

“Should it have been? I don’t know,” Braud said. “I don’t know the details of the case, but it’s a possibility [that charges could be filed] and I would encourage her to call us. … If there is a chance that it could still be or should have been investigated … I think that’s something that we can still try to fix and maybe create some clarification going forward.”

But to make that determination, Braud said Goldberg would probably have to go through a dangerous dog hearing. 

“I’m on her side about this,” he continued. “I think that people who have dogs not on leash out in public are super unsafe and not responsible at all. … I would be fully in support of there being changes to the county codes to put some sort of mechanism in place to hold owners liable, because I do agree that although animals are unpredictable — pet or not — that danger needs to be considered by people around them, but also the people that are maintaining them and taking them in public.”

While frustrated by her previous interactions with animal control, Goldberg said she is “fully open to working side-by-side with all agencies and sectors involved with dog-attack cases,” and hopes the sheriff’s office “can open a path for justice” for local victims of dog attacks. She noted in our interview that she’s filed a complaint with the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury.

Yellow Ribbon Campaign and Initiative

Hoping to “open channels of communication” around the issue and reduce bad interactions between dogs and people, Goldberg is launching the Yellow Ribbon Campaign and Initiative. The educational campaign, rooted in the Yellow Dog Project that began in Sweden in 2012, uses a yellow ribbon or bandana, often tied around the collar or leash, to indicate that the dog needs space and should not be approached. 

“When you have a yellow ribbon on your leash, what that symbolizes to the community is your dog does not want to be approached in any way,” Goldberg said, adding that there are a variety of reasons a dog would not want to be approached by strangers. While some yellow ribbon dogs may have a history of aggressive behavior, others may be in training, recovering from surgery or fearful of other dogs.

“My mission statement is to reorder the disorder of community dog safety through survivor-led advocacy, clinical reform and rigorous stewardship,” she continued. “We bridge the gap between education and accountability to ensure that space is respected, victims are supported, and the agency run-around ends. Our end goal is a healthy, vibrant community.”

Goldberg acknowledged that the initiative will have little to no effect on loose dogs, but hopes the educational campaign will drum up conversation about the issue and change the way people handle their dogs in public. 

Curious to hear a professional dog handler’s take, I got in touch with Janna Campillo, a longtime dog trainer and founder of the Redwood Coast K9 Academy in Fortuna. She acknowledged that it’d probably take some time for the Yellow Ribbon Initiative to gain traction, but thought it sounded like “a really good concept” that would be especially helpful in teaching children how to interact with dogs. 

“It reminds me of when I was a little kid showing horses,” Campillo said. “We would put a little red ribbon on the tail of a horse that could potentially kick another horse, and as little kids, we figured out really quickly that we better keep our horses farther away from horses with red ribbons. … This would be a fantastic thing to teach children. … I think it’s a great visual way to start spreading the word and allow dog owners to basically back up and support their dog if their dog is nervous and anxious.”

Like Goldberg, Campillo acknowledged that the initiative wouldn’t do much to solve Humboldt’s problem with off-leash and roaming dogs. Still, she felt that more conversation around the issue could only help dogs and their owners. 

“When people approach [yellow ribbon dogs], it only makes them more fearful. They need space, they need time and they need to acclimate to situations that make them afraid. People approaching them and trying to make friends, a lot of times, only makes that behavior worse. … I think it could be a good marker for social settings, especially for classes, public events or anything where dogs are respectfully on leash. It could take some time, but it might actually help owners who are a little bit shy about speaking up for their dogs.”

During our interview, Campillo underscored the importance of keeping dogs on leash in public spaces, “unless the dog has an impeccable recall.” One of the main focuses of her training classes is to get dogs used to walking on a leash. When an off-leash dog approaches an on-leash dog — especially one that is already fearful or struggling with anxiety — it can result in a dog fight.

“There’s an assumption that it’s OK — and this is my least favorite quote — because they’re shouting ‘my dog’s friendly’ as they’re running towards your dog that’s on a leash,” Campillo said. “Even my friendly Boston terriers will get defensive, and they’ve been around thousands of dogs in my training. … If a big dog runs up to them, they’re going to jump up and snap at them. And guess what? If that other dog doesn’t appreciate them snapping at them, then there’s going to be a dog fight, and then my dogs might get attacked. … The loose dog may very well be friendly, but the dynamic is unfair.”

Campillo described a recent interaction she had witnessed between a client’s dog and a stranger’s dog during an acclimation exercise at a local park with leash laws. She was seated about 20 feet away from her client and their muzzled dog when an off-leash dog came bounding toward them. 

“I said, ‘Don’t let your dog come over here,’ and here comes the dog,” Campillo said, adding that the owner of the off-leash dog claimed her dog wouldn’t have come toward them if she hadn’t said anything. “The dog proceeded to circle my client and her dog, while her dog was lunging and lashing out, and she was getting dragged all over the place. Luckily, the dog eventually ran over to my dog and me, and I was able to catch it and hand it back to [the owner]. … The progress we had made with my client’s aggressive dog had been completely wiped away.”

Campillo gave the dog’s owner a bit of a lecture, emphasizing that dogs should not run off-leash in public spaces unless they have recall. Even so, if there are leash laws in effect, she felt dogs should stay on-leash to be respectful to other dog owners.

“I’m not going to say that my dogs are constantly on a leash, but I’m very diligent and very aware,” she said. “I don’t let them off leash on trails and places where we can’t see around the next corner. It’s very appropriate when I do let my dogs off leash, and they’re very well trained.”

Goldberg couldn’t agree more, especially about dogs being leashed on trails. 

“It’s imperative that you have your dogs close to you,” she said. “It came out of nowhere, and this dog came running right at my dogs and me. It just happened so fast.”

Goldberg is still fleshing out the details of her Yellow Ribbon Dog Campaign and Initiative, which she hopes to one day present to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. Eventually, she plans to partner with other local organizations to create a response network dedicated to survivors of dog attacks that can connect victims with legal aid, mental health resources and financial assistance. 

You can read more about it on Facebook and Instagram. Want to share your encounter with a dangerous dog? Fill out Goldberg’s survey at this link.

Press release from PG&E:

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) crews are currently surveying by helicopter electrical distribution lines, other equipment and nearby vegetation to spot and prevent potential wildfire risks throughout Lake County and Humboldt County. The flights began in late April and will continue through late May.  

Helicopters equipped with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors and high-resolution imagery technology will evaluate PG&E powerlines and adjacent trees in rural areas. At each inspection point, the helicopter may hover for 10 minutes.

“Throughout the North Coast, PG&E is doing everything possible to mitigate wildfire threats, including leveraging advanced technologies like aerial LiDAR. Surveying by helicopter allows us to safely access remote areas and gather highly accurate data on our equipment and nearby vegetation. We understand that a low-flying or hovering helicopter can be noticeable — and at times disruptive — for customers, which is why we’re communicating in advance. The technology we use is focused solely on our electric assets and surrounding vegetation, and it is not used to observe people or private property. This data helps us identify where maintenance and safety improvements are needed to reduce wildfire risk,” said Dave Canny, Vice President of PG&E’s North Coast Region.

The majority of the helicopter surveying activity will take place in Lake County and Humboldt Counties. Below is a breakdown of locations where helicopter surveying may be observed:

• Humboldt County – In and around the areas of Eureka, Garberville, Arcata, Hoopa, Fortuna and Myers Flat

• Lake County – In and around Kelseyville, Clearlake, Lower Lake, Lakeport, Clearlake Oaks and Upper Lake

The helicopter surveys will be along distribution powerlines every day between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., weather permitting. Helicopters will be flying low at an altitude of about 500 feet but will occasionally hover at times as low as 200 feet.

A surveyor in the helicopter will collect the data on PG&E’s powerlines, poles, and the surrounding trees and brush located along distribution circuits within or adjacent to extreme (Tier 3) and elevated (Tier 2) wildfire risk areas (as defined by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) High Fire-Threat District Map). This data is used to create a 3-D simulation of our facilities. 

Additionally, the data is used to inform PG&E’s machine learning artificial intelligence risk models to predict the potential risk of catastrophic wildfires from vegetation contacting electric lines.

Utilizing multiple methods to gather data — including ground, aerial and climbing patrols, physical testing of poles and the use of infrared and LiDAR sensing — PG&E plans to complete inspections of transmission and distribution structures in extreme fire-threat areas, which includes more than 390,000 distribution poles and nearly 39,000 transmission structures.

For more information on how PG&E is working every day to reduce wildfire risk, visit www.pge.com/cwsp

One or two of them are always in sight.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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Students may soon be able to earn bachelor’s degrees in as little as three years at California State University campuses as system leaders contend with and a need to attract more working-age students and those without a degree eager to lift their job prospects.The system’s trustees voted unanimously last week to allow campuses to create three new types of shortened bachelor’s degrees:

• Bachelor of Education, for aspiring teachers who want a bachelor’s focusing on teaching specifically
• Bachelor of Professional Studies, which targets employees pursuing managerial positions that will give them course credit for skills learned at past jobs
• Bachelor of Applied Studies will be geared toward students with vocational or technical training, such as in car maintenance or home heating repair

The new degree types don’t replace the existing four-year bachelor’s in the arts and sciences but will instead widen the offerings campuses can provide — if they want to. There’s no mandate for the campuses to create any.

Nor do the new degrees have to be as short as three years. They may require any number of units that take between three and four years to finish. The policy sets the minimum units for these degree types at 90 units — which typically take three years for students to complete. A four-year degree generally requires 120 units.

The changes are meant to “reduce the time required for students to earn a degree” and to “offer more immediate access to economic and social mobility,” said Nathan Evans during last week’s trustees meeting. He is Cal State’s associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and helped to write the policy.

The new offerings are also designed to compete with for-profit and online colleges that offer quicker degree programs but are generally far pricier than what Cal State charges.

Students transferring from community colleges may choose these degrees to earn a bachelor’s in one year, rather than two, said Evans in an interview. Adults with on-the-job experience and busy schedules may opt for these so that they convert some of their workforce experience into completed degree units and finish degrees faster, saving money.

Battling enrollment declines

Today, some Cal State campuses are experiencing enrollment growth but others are battling steep student losses, prompting soul-searching about how to bring in more learners and plug the financial holes from lost tuition revenue. Ten campuses have seen double-digit-percent enrollment declines between 2020 and 2025, including Easy Bay and Dominguez Hills.

Evans said the new degrees could appeal to workers in fields undergoing strain, such as set workers in Hollywood. Campuses that adopt these shorter degrees may pair them with master’s programs in professional disciplines as part of accelerated pathways, Evans said.

Chancellor’s office officials indicated that a handful of universities in other states now offer these quicker degree types, such as Cornell University, the University of Kansas and New Mexico State University. Meanwhile, the University of California has promoted traditional four-year bachelor’s degrees that students can earn in three years, such as economics and math at UC Santa Cruz. Students there generally need to take summer courses to fit all their courses into the tighter window.

Fall is the earliest that faculty at Cal State’s 22 campuses will begin working on developing these new degrees. The first to debut may come as soon as fall 2027, but more likely in 2028, Evans said.

California is home to more than 6 million working-age adults with a high school diploma but no college degree. Half of them earned some college credit.

Bachelor’s degree recipients in California typically earn an annual salary of $96,000, according to 2024 data. It’s $65,000 for those with associate degrees and $48,000 for workers with only a high school diploma. Student loans may eat into those wages, but most Cal State undergraduates earn their bachelor’s without debt.

Another change allows Cal State students to earn a degree without having to accumulate a minimum number of units at any one campus. In the past students had to earn at least 30 units at the Cal State campus awarding them a degree. That campus-level requirement is now gone, which could make it easier for some students to earn a bachelor’s, such as those who previously dropped out of one Cal State, moved, and are returning to a different Cal State campus to finish their degree.

Some faculty express concerns

The systemwide academic senate, a key player in shaping academic programming, supports the shorter degree plan broadly but objects to specific portions. The academic senate wrote publicly before the board’s vote that any degree needing fewer than 120 units shouldn’t be called a bachelor’s but some other degree name. They also wrote that these new degree programs should expire after 10 years, unless an evaluation indicates the degrees requiring fewer units have merit.

“A student who worked hard to earn a degree with 120 units would be lumped in with a student who merely took 90 units, so the traditional BAs and BSs would be devalued. Frankly, students might feel insulted that their hard-earned (in terms of money and in terms of academic work) BAs and BSs are treated the same as degrees with fewer units,” the letter states. The letter says almost all of the advocacy for the new bachelor’s program comes from College-in-3, an organization advocating for three-year degrees with about 60 campuses as members. However, there are thousands of colleges in the country that haven’t joined the group, the letter says.

The senate chairperson, Elizabeth “Betsy” A. Boyd, told trustees that the senate wanted to pause the approval of the new degrees until at least September. The trustees denied that request.

Evans said in an interview and to the trustees that colleges in Europe award bachelor’s in three years. But the academic senate’s letter says that’s only because European high schools are more rigorous than U.S. high schools and can in turn offer fewer courses once those students enter college.

But one trustee was sympathetic to the academic senate’s worries. Jack McGrory, who often faults the Cal State system for requiring too many general education courses, said “we’re diluting the quality and the importance of a BA degree by lowering the unit count,” with these new degree types.

Cal State officials stressed these new degrees won’t replace existing four-year bachelor’s degrees and the system is not pivoting to fewer units for all its bachelor’s offerings.

Other trustees supported the measure but said the systemwide chancellor’s office isn’t doing enough to consult the faculty. “I’m not comfortable approving things that they don’t feel they’ve had enough consultation with,” said Trustee Larry Adamson.

One possible barrier to creating expedited degrees is approval from the regional accreditor of academic offerings at California’s colleges and universities. But Evans said that the accreditor, the quasi-federal Western Association of Schools and Colleges, is on board with these degrees.

“WASC has already approved five or six of these degrees for their universities that are part of their accrediting region, and they’re expecting many more to come,” Evans said in an interview.

He noted to the trustees that the regional accreditor recommended slightly different names for the shorter bachelor’s degrees. Cal State officials heeded that advice — which is why the new degrees have “applied”, “education” or “professional” in their titles.

“We’re not mandating anything. It’s really an opportunity to experiment and be more flexible,” said Julia Lopez, a trustee, during the board meeting. For campuses without enrollment struggles, these shorter bachelor’s degrees may not be what they want to do. But for campuses on a state watch list for low enrollment, a faster degree may attract the students they desperately seek.

At campuses with many part-time or working-adult students or with a goal of attracting them, “this may be a real opportunity to offer growth where there hadn’t been growth before,” she said.

Russell Vernon Lee Jr. passed away peacefully on March 18, 2026, at the age of 83, in Eureka. Russ was born April 7, 1942, in Berkeley to Russell Sr. and Carolyn Lee. He grew up in the Napa Valley and Bay Area of Northern California and had one younger sister, Karen. Russ went to several different schools, which often made him the new kid in school. The last school he attended was Calistoga High School in Calistoga. Leaving home and school at the age of 15 on a crazy adventure with a friend, Russ jumped trains across the U.S., working on a horse ranch in Colorado, operating a dump truck in Texas (until they found out he was underage), and ultimately ending up in Florida.

After his adventure, at age 17, he enlisted in the US Army and became a paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Russ spent a lot of his tour of duty in France. On March 8, 1962, while getting ready to board a C-130 for a training exercise out of Evreux Air Base, he gave up his seat to a fellow soldier, 20-year old James Waples. The plane crashed in the Ecouves forest, and all 15 occupants were killed. During a conversation with Dad in the 2012-2014 timeframe, we decided to do an online search for information about the crash. To his surprise, we found information, friends and relatives searching for answers, and a photo of a memorial that had been constructed at the crash site. James Waple’s girlfriend (at the time of the crash) was actively looking for anyone that could share more details about what happened and how James got on the plane. Russ reached out to her, they started a friendship, and she was very grateful. After his discharge in New York, he drove back home across the U.S. to California. During this trip, Russ planned several stops to collect debts. You see, while in the Army, he became somewhat of a “loan shark” helping fellow soldiers in need. Of course, payback was part of the deal, and only one guy got away without paying.

As an adult, Russ returned to school and got his GED, followed by an AA from College of the Redwoods. He worked for Beneficial Financial and Hyster Company before starting his career at Caltrans in the early 1980s as a resident engineer in construction. Many great times were spent with Dad during the summers at his home away from home, including Orick, Dos Rios, Gasquet, Phillipsville and Benbow. Later, he transferred to traffic operations so he could be home more and watch his boys’ baseball and football games. Russ retired from Caltrans in 2005 after 23 years of state service. He was a member of the Eureka Elks Lodge and Eureka Moose Lodge, where he spent many afternoons during retirement enjoying a beer and BS with fellow members.

In the early 1960’s Russ was married and had a son, Brian. In 1967, he met Joan Cunningham at a mutual friend’s house, and they were married on January 1,1970 in Carson City, Nevada. Classic bad boy meets good girl scenario. In 1974, Russ and Joan were blessed with their twin sons, Scott and Ryan. Dad loved his family very much. He was dedicated, consistent, fair, a great mentor/teacher, and a hard ass at times. He had high expectations, which likely stemmed from his early years on his own and time in the Service. Dad meant his word and stuck to it. He never forced us into anything, including sports. But, if there was something we really wanted to try or do, he would support us 110%.

Russ was an avid outdoorsman who was happiest out in the hills deer hunting or on the bay and lagoons bird hunting. He loved going hunting and fishing with his boys. He was also an incredible shot, loading his own custom ammo for years. Time spent at the Cottrell Ranch was a favorite of his. Russ was a good athlete who fell in love with golf later in life. We’re not sure how you can love something that makes you cuss like a sailor, break clubs, and nearly throw your bag in the creek, but he did. He and his boys spent a lot of time on the golf course together, and a large chunk of that time was spent with him pissed and us trying to hide and laugh without being seen. No, we had a lot of fun times too. Russ and Joan (Mom and Dad) enjoyed traveling with their RV and took several long trips around the country, including Tennessee, Texas (Big Bend National Park), and Alaska. Their Alaska trip was by far the longest, spanning nearly two months with travel through Canada, along the Alcan Highway, and to various sites and locations in Alaska.

Russ was a good man. He was very intelligent and a perfectionist. No matter the task, he would always excel. He was very good with finances and investments, much of which was self-taught. He was an incredible free-hand artist, just as his mom was an incredible painter. He was mechanically inclined and good with his hands. He could fix and build anything he chose. He was a go-to for advice, and his advice was always solid. We think Dad knew “more about more” than anyone we’ve ever known.

Russ was preceded in death by his parents, Russell Lee Sr. and Carolyn McDonald; sister, Karen Chalhoub; and brother-in-law, Pat Gaskill. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Joan Cunningham Lee; his twin sons, Scott Lee and Ryan Lee, and estranged son, Brian Lee, and his mother Pam; his grandsons, Braedon Lee (Mary) and Jordan Lee; and his great granddaughters, Lyla Lee-Murillo and newborn Marlowe Lee-Murillo born 3/19/26, the day after Russ passed. He is also survived by his sister-in-law, June Gaskill, and brother-in-law, Gary Cunningham (Lynn); nieces, Leanne Johnson (Jeff) and Melissa Bode (Ryan); nephews, Robbie Cunningham (Brandi) and Ron Harvey; and numerous great nieces and nephews.

The family would like to sincerely thank the doctors and nurses at Providence St. Joseph Hospital for their care and compassion during this time. They also wish to express their gratitude to Ayres Family Cremation for their support and professional care.

At Russ’ request, there will not be a formal service. His family will be holding a private gathering to celebrate his life. In his memory, and in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation or Hospice of Humboldt.

We miss you, Dad. The only thing that brings us peace is knowing you’re not suffering anymore. Thank you for being a hero to two little boys and all of your love, support, understanding, teaching, guidance … everything. Wherever you are, we hope you are enjoying a big pull of gin and a stogie. Until we meet again, Pop, just know you were greatly appreciated and loved by your family. Lastly, please come give Mom a hug. She misses you terribly.

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