Sunday, July 21, 2019
Eureka’s criminalization of homeless is ‘counterproductive,’
Friday, March 10, 2017
Donald Trump Out of Humboldt County!
President Trump directs homeland security secretary to deputize local law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws as ICE agents
NOT ON OUR WATCH!
Add your voice now, tell elected officials in Humboldt County to stand up to Donald Trump. Add your name at OurWatchHumboldt.org
PETITION TO HUMBOLDT COUNTY'S BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, CITY COUNCILS, AND THE HUMBOLDT COUNTY SHERIFF
Endorsed by:
SURJ Humboldt (Showing Up for Racial Justice)
PETITION TO HUMBOLDT COUNTY'S BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, CITY COUNCILS, AND THE HUMBOLDT COUNTY SHERIFF
We, the undersigned, do hereby petition all law enforcement agencies and governing bodies of Humboldt County to cease collaboration with Federal Immigration Officers in all local law enforcement matters unless explicitly required by law, including but not limited to not sharing jail release dates, not sharing personal information, and not using ICE agents (or other immigration officials) as interpreters.
Furthermore, we implore local law enforcement to diversify their forces to ensure that Spanish speaking officers, as well as officers of color, are represented on all departments and task forces.
We also petition our local representatives to fully support California SB 54, which would repeal existing Section 11369 of the Health and Safety Code, which provides that when there is reason to believe that a person arrested for a violation of specified controlled substance provisions may not be a citizen of the United States, the arresting agency shall notify the appropriate agency of the United States having charge of deportation matters.
(add your name at OurWatchHumboldt.org)
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Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Economic growth for Humboldt County based on evidence, not nostalgia.
By Dave Spreen of TransportationPriorities.org.
The newspaper headline read “Port seen as key to economy” and went on to report that after a roundtable discussion about ways to improve the local economy, the group of College of the Redwoods Administrators and area business owners came to a consensus that “developing Eureka’s port to increase commercial shipping traffic” was the answer.
Unfortunately, that headline was from February 1988 — over 27 years ago. We have spent hundreds of millions pursuing that goal, yet we are basically no closer. It’s not too late to change course, but if Caltrans’ Richardson Grove Highway 101 and the Del Norte Highway 199/197 road “widening” Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA) oversize truck access projects are not cancelled, the international freight “port with rail” dreamers will continue to be a drain on public resources that could be better utilized elsewhere.
Opponents have suggested a smaller scale model. For example, Port Townsend, Washington, where 30 years ago folks there calculated that the train was not likely coming back in their generation, if ever, so they chose to accept that and build on local strengths. The Wooden Boat Foundation was created to attract craftspeople to the Port Townsend area and over time, rebuilt their community. By 2008 the Foundation was serving 150,000 people annually in its educational programs, events, and services at which time the Northwest Maritime Center was built on property previously owned by an oil company. Local and regional maritime enthusiasts, marine trades, local organizations, visitors and thousands of visiting schoolchildren from around the region use the center. The maritime center serves as an economic anchor for the port and community.
Locally, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District’s list of state and federal legislative priorities for 2015 includes “funding to develop a National Marine Research and Innovation Park,” which, along with the district’s short-sea-shipping initiative represent feasible projects to stimulate desirable economic growth and doable international shipping solutions without massive taxpayer subsidies.
Supporters of an international port with rail and oversize STAA trucking have for too long followed a locally unsuitable economic model that holds that industrial port development must be the primary economic driver for creating jobs and generating income for recreation and conservation improvements. The empirical evidence certainly does not support that model.
As reported in Dennis Mullins’ “Business Sense” column, “... the county continues to add jobs, has lower unemployment than about 40 of California’s 58 counties and is growing entrepreneurs at a faster rate in comparison to other rural counties.” (“Humboldt’s unemployment rate continues downward,” Times-Standard, July 19, Page D1.)
How could this be? Well, consider the newly released study by Department of Agriculture economist Timothy Wojan, which looks at the role of the “creative class” and natural amenities in rural counties’ performances during and after the Great Recession.
From the study overview: “The creative class thesis — that towns need to attract engineers, architects, artists, and people in other creative occupations to compete in today’s economy — may be particularly relevant to rural communities, which tend to lose much of their talent when young adults leave.”
In an article for CityLab.com, Richard Florida writes: “Two kinds of rural counties are experiencing growth, according to Wojan’s analysis. The first are nonmetro creative class counties close to major metros. The second are rural creative class counties that are home to colleges and universities, which are themselves knowledge economy hubs. This proximity effect is likely to become more important, as larger metros and knowledge economy hubs play an increasingly important role in driving economic growth across the nation.” (“The Fall and (Partial) Rise of the Rural Creative Class,” Nov. 11, 2014.)
Instead of turning the Humboldt/Del Norte Highway 101 corridor into I-5 Coastal, we should be renaming it “Redwood Coast Highway” and restricting it to California legal trucks only. Can you imagine anywhere on the coast south of us even suggesting STAA oversize truck access on Coast Highway (State Route 1) would be key to their economic development?
The Times-Standard reported that Humboldt was ranked second best county in the U.S. by the “natural amenities index.” (“Second best county in US,” Aug. 19, Page A3.) When two paths diverge in the woods, you can’t take both. Let’s direct transportation resources to enhance development of our rural creative class economy, not through-route access for oversize trucks in a futile pursuit of unsustainable goals.
Dave Spreen, a Kneeland resident, is spokesman for the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities. For more information, visit www.TransportationPriorities.org.
please add your comments online here.
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More info on successful economic development strategies for rural communities:
www2.epa.gov/smartgrowth/smart-growth-small-towns-and-rural-communities
http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/files/thenewcitystates.pdf
www.nado.org/vibrant-rural-communities-case-study-series/
www.sitka.net/Downloads/Small_Towns.pdf
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Notes on development of Humboldt Bay as a cargo shipping port:
While an active shipping port would have once been a source of numerous living wage jobs, modern automated ports create few jobs. Meanwhile frequent cargo ship traffic could seriously hinder commercial fishing, an industry that defies automation and instead still requires skilled workers. Large ships traffic will also impeding sport fishing, a proven source of local revenue (not to mention a cherisher activity for many us Humboldt residents!).
Here's a few footnoted quotes:
...Automation began to significantly decrease longshore jobs in the early 1960, ...the number of employed longshoremen declined from over 50,000 in 1953 to 23,000 in 1967. Since then the number has dropped to under 16,000. The cuts on the West Coast have been equally dramatic. There are now fewer than 10,000 regular longshoremen in all thirty-two ports of the West Coast. ...The loading and discharge of ships now involves ever-fewer humans… ...Longshore work will increasingly decasuaIize and more resemble warehouse or factory work: source
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...“If the port doesn’t automate, it will not be competitive,”
... equipment that moves containers from ships to shore cranes and trucks with minimal human labor. .. The technology at TraPac’s terminal at the Port of Los Angeles is likely to reduce the number of workers needed per crane by about 53 percent, and at transtainers — the hoisting devices for loading and unloading cargo from rail cars or trucks — by 85 percent, according to the Los Angeles Harbor Department report… source
However discouraging the job outlook for many persons “automated” out of work now or in the near future, some students of the problem insist that the long-range employment prospect is not as gloomy as it is often pictured. Assuming that automation will lead eventually to a general reduction in working hours, they point out that the resulting increase in leisure time will probably create new occupations and thus accentuate the established trend toward expansion of the service industries... It has been suggested also that additional leisure time may bring about “an increase in the demand for artists of every kind and for others catering to cultural requirements source
Friday, December 5, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Restore the General Plan Update
Today we are asking you to take steps to restore the role of public input in the General Plan Update process. We are asking that you do four specific things:
Protect our supply of clean water by restoring reasonable protections for streams and wetlands. Protecting clean water is critical to our quality of life, the health of our economies, and critical to the goal of recovering local salmon runs.- Honor our communities intent to build a regional (county-wide) trail system. Restore the language in CO-G4 to read:
"Parks and Recreation. Well maintained and accessible parks offering a range of popular recreation opportunities and a countywide trail system that meets future recreational and non-motorized transportation demands."
Prioritize acquisition of land for community forests. Restore the language of OS-P1xx to read:"Open Space Acquisition. The County shall seek opportunities to acquire high value open space lands, including community forests, and open space conservation easements. Full-fee acquisitions shall only be from willing sellers."
- Do not direct the Planning Commission to re-review any more of the General Plan at this time.
The last several weeks have been divisive, wasteful, and ineffective. We are asking you—our elected representatives—to take responsibility for this unfortunate situation. In order to participate effectively we require:
advance notice of meetings
clear agendas and a clear understanding of the process
time to review changes made between meetings
In order to honor and respect the public input received over the last decade we request that you clearly focus your attention—and the work of the planning commission—on only the “shortlist.”
Now is not an appropriate time in this update process to be be rewriting or making dramatic changes to the existing draft. Please restore the General Plan process by honoring and protecting public input from the past, in present decision making, and in all future deliberations.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
HELP is of no help to Humboldt
Eureka Times Standard
In response to Kay Backer's My Word of March 22, Getting Humboldt leaders to lead: Kay Backer is a paid professional spin doctor from Sacramento. Hired by local developers, she is paid to badger county government and bamboozle the public. She feigns concern for our families by shedding crocodile tears about so-called affordable housing here in Humboldt County.
It's ridiculous that Kay Backer is even treated as a legitimate voice in our local affairs just because Rob Arkley and HELP summon her to town for a meeting, or to send off an e-mail full of accusations and threats to the media. She represents nothing other than a handful of developers. Are there even five people who will admit to being a member of HELP?
It's absurd that those who pay her (they call themselves HELP but really should be called HELP-Yourself) are implying that the reason they want to build more houses is because they want to see home values drop. When has any developer ever wanted to see any housing prices drop? Do you want to see the value of your home decline?
In the Sacramento area, where Ms. Backer lives, homes are being built at an astounding rate. Strangely enough, housing prices there are still shooting up and now routinely cost about half a million dollars. Is that what Ms. Backer's backers have in mind as affordable†housing?
Now Rob Arkley is threatening to use his money to sue the county unless planning officials buy into HELP's fabricated projections of housing needs. Isn't that called blackmail?
I have no objection to developers making money off constructing houses. But it's an outrage to be told that the reason they want permission to build more -- and forever change the essentially rural character of Humboldt County -- has anything to do with stopping people from moving out of town, lowering home prices or anything other than their search for higher profits.
Where will Kay Backer's concern for our community be the day after her paychecks stop coming in? Will she still be shouting HELP or just go on to her next lucrative public relations campaign?
Thursday, December 29, 2005
The big box vs. local entrepreneurs
Eureka Times Standard
I want to thank my friend Cletus Isbell for furthering the discussion on big-box stores in his My Word of Dec. 23. I do, however, want to respectfully disagree with three points he makes.
First, I disagree that those consumers now comfortably buying items off the Internet (and getting them home-delivered) will switch to the big boxes. Instead, the big box's customers will mainly be those of us who now frequent locally owned and operated brick-and-mortar stores.
The second and third reasons have to do with the intertwined subjects of jobs and taxes, and can perhaps be best illustrated with the example of Home Depot, a timely subject coming before the Eureka City Council in the form of a zoning change request for the Balloon Track. A Home Depot would have a devastating effect on everyone who sells everything from appliances to flooring, hardware to cabinets, lumber to home heating. The list goes on and on (and a Best Buy -- another possibility -- would include everyone in music and home electronics). Since Home Depot now also does installation, work would be snatched from all sorts of contractors and tradespeople, too.
Yes, some driven out of business will be able to get jobs at the Home Depot, but the ripple effect on our community will be devastating. The key difference is that Home Depot spends most of its money with out-of-the-area suppliers -- and sends all of its profits back to corporate headquarters.
Whatever short-term gains there may be in the tax base would pale in comparison to the money drained from our local community. Because whenever a dollar is spent at a locally owned company, it recirculates several times through the local economy. The county has already acknowledged this economic fact of life in a comprehensive study called “Prosperity -- The North Coast Strategy†(available at www.northcoastprosperity.com), which the city of Eureka signed onto.
I urge readers to just do a Google search on “big box impact†and read any of the myriad studies detailing the disastrous effect these stores can have on the economy of areas with a limited population like ours. Our locally owned and operated small businesses are the lifeblood of what has proved to be a vibrant and resilient local economy, but there are limits to how much more impact we can sustain.
The loss of extraction-industry jobs already has been hard on us, and small businesses are the best hope for living-wage jobs. Yet even those businesses which might survive the initial impact and aren't forced to close down will have to cut back: Cut back on their workforce and downsize their American dream. There is simply not enough business in such a small community to support both the big box and the local entrepreneur.
I don't know that the government could or should stop a big box from coming to town, but business owners, tradespeople and all their customers and neighbors alike ought to tell their elected officials, starting with the Eureka City Council, not to facilitate the process through zoning changes or the rejection of study grants.
Richard W. Salzman, an artists' representative for illustrators working in advertising and publishing, has long been active in local Democratic politics. He lives in Trinidad.
The opinions expressed in this My Word piece do not necessarily reflect the editorial viewpoint of the Times-Standard.
Ben Mclaughlin for Humboldt County Superior Court Judge, JUNE 7, 2022 ELECTION
(As seen in the Mad River Union newspaper / May 3, 2022) Dear Editor, Right now the historic confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown...
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President Trump directs homeland security secretary to deputize local law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws as ICE age...
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Building on our rural creative class economy a better bet By Dave Spreen of TransportationPriorities.org. The newspaper headline read “Port ...
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(As seen in the Mad River Union newspaper / May 3, 2022) Dear Editor, Right now the historic confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown...