Category: Far North

The Westhaven Center for the Arts presents a birthday bash for local singer/songwriter Linda Faye Carson. The show will feature two groups she is associated with, LodeStar and 7th Generation Rise, both chock full of talented musicians and on that vibe that spans the expressway from the deep roots of the earth and out into the far reaches of the cosmos. The fun starts at 7 p.m. at Trinidad Town Hall and has a sliding scale door price of $5-$20…

February’s regularly scheduled board meeting of the Humboldt County Fair Association included an announcement from Junior Livestock Auction Chair Mandy Marquez that the committee has added three new members (Lee Chamberlain, Charlie Anderson and Breanna Cahoon), a decision for revised fair dates that will allow for the possibility of an open show and a report out on the recent sponsor dinner. But — as has been the case for the last several months — the question of whether or not horse racing will happen in August dominated a majority of the discussion. (For more on the decision to change the fair dates how the fair association violated state open meeting laws, click here.) During public comment, The Enterprise asked for an update on the fair’s 2025 budget, which was initially scheduled for review in November. Finance Committee Chair Jack Rice said there had not been a finance committee meeting in the last month and development of the budget was “paused” until a decision has been made regarding horse racing. The date of that decision is yet to be determined. In a Feb. 6 meeting, the

The Humboldt County Fair Association violated California’s open meeting laws when deciding to advance a seven-day fair calendar during closed session Feb. 18. The amended fair dates — which will see the fair start Aug. 16 and close Aug. 24 — were formally approved by the board at its regularly scheduled Feb. 24 meeting after being pulled from the meeting’s consent calendar before being passed after a motion from Director Clint Duey and a second from Director Greg Gomes. (For more on the rest of the Feb. 24 meeting, click here.) Following direction of the Executive Committee, staff had previously proposed the association put on a five-day fair, though when it was brought to the board some directors voiced misgivings. The board then met in closed session Feb. 18 for a performance review of CEO Moira Kenny that was to include an evaluation as well as discussion of her goals for the organization. Kenny told the North Coast Journal the board reported out of that closed session that it would pursue the seven-day fair, approval of the revised calendar to appear on the consent calendar

It’s the last night of the Lost Coast Film Festival, a nearly month-long event that has been showcased among various SoHum and Shelter Cove venues. Tonight’s finale will be at 7 p.m. at the Gyppo Ale Mill. According to the press materials, submissions remain open to encourage local talent to flourish. I’m not sure if there’s a door charge but it couldn’t hurt to bring some dubloons for a refreshment of your choice. 

Editor: During Trump I, Kellyanne Conway famously called falsehoods “alternative facts.” Now, with Trump II, alternative facts are in vogue again. An example is in the news today (Feb. 19). Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, Trump claimed in an executive order that everybody is either male or female. Today, the NY Times reports that JFK Jr. is claiming the same thing. Also today, the Washington Post reports medical experts explaining why this is false, are saying that close to 2 percent of the population does not fit neatly into the male/female binary. Sadly, Trump’s alternative facts are so common that the media treats them as ordinary. John Williams, Petrolia…

Editor: This party in power is moving fast to shred the fabric of our society and nature (Mailbox, Feb. 13). We’ll all be living homeless in tatters, stranded, awaiting the flying saucers to another planet. Communication is forced to yield to silence or petty retribution and surveillance. Culture is dismissed as elitism. But whether it’s the bitter-sweet or the tragic in his mind, I enjoy Collin Yeo’s writing (The Setlist), often expressing angst and dissonance, because it resonates. It’s not surprising that he enjoys a range of music, and I hope an audience of listeners. Susan Pence, Eureka…

Full impacts of Trump orders, freezes and firings remains murky on the North Coast Now a month into the second Donald Trump presidency, we’ve seen a daily barrage of headlines documenting executive orders, funding cuts and layoffs, though how those are trickling down to the North Coast has been hard to decipher. Journal attempts to get hard numbers of local federal employees fired and local funding streams frozen or cut have found little success. We’ve confirmed that local employees of the National Parks Service and the United States Forest Service have been fired, though no one seems to know or be willing to say how many. And we know that a variety of local nonprofits have faced funding uncertainty and angst, but whether they have yet seen cuts materialize is likewise unclear. North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman hosted a virtual town hall meeting Feb. 24 and painted a dire picture of what is happening in Washington, though he provided few specifics. Inquiries to his office seeking specifics to quantify the impacts of layoffs and funding freezes were not immediately returned. During his town hall, Huffman

Editor: It is my opinion that Measure O funds should be directed toward its primary intention, as described in the load of marketing materials I received from Humboldt County during the last election (“Election Results,” Nov. 6). That marketing said while funds could be spent on anything, the breadth of it stated the goal was to repair roads. There was only one line about public transportation on each marketing piece received by me. Now the county is having a debate about how to spend our money. One supervisor has said, “We have got a lot of money to work with.” Wow. The county and special districts should know that they can only go to the well so much. Please just start fixing and/or repairing the roads. Chad Sefcik, McKinleyville…

Editor: Inefficient, ineffective, illegal and immoral. That describes the first month of the new administration (Mailbox, Feb. 13). It’s inefficient to have workers dismissed midday or on a Friday night and then oops, “not you, nuclear safeguards,” prison guards, firemen, park rangers, etc. If only we knew who they were and how to find them! That’s not getting rid of unnecessary staff, but simply last in, first out. Not a smart process and certainly not efficient. These layoffs are ineffective, because there is no guarantee they will make for a more effective program. On the contrary, it has every indication of a less effective process as holes are left in crucial positions and the chain of command is altered. Just who is in charge? Some employees promoted to a higher level were listed as new hires and dismissed. There goes years of experience, knowledge and competent service. Not a smart process and certainly not effective. The Civil Service Law was enacted because of abusive hiring practices: relatives, who you knew or who paid to play. The merit system was a vast improvement. Due notice of

Editor: So, it turns out that the scourge of cats killing wildlife might now be as bad for cats as it is for wildlife. According to Tanya Schrum’s article in last week’s NCJ, “cats appear to be the first extra-host to suffer the most significant mortality” from avian influenza (grammatically nonsensical, but it sounds scary). Will it be enough to get cat owners to — finally — keep their cats confined? The threats of cars, dogs, coyotes, mountain lions, toxoplasmosis and catfights; cats’ impacts on wildlife, especially birds; and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act haven’t done it, so I’m not overly optimistic. One could not be blamed for thinking that people didn’t give a mouse’s ass about birds or their «beloved» cats. But it is heartening to know that this might just put a small dent in the number of cats wreaking havoc out there, one way or another. If you happen to be one of those cat owners for whom this news tips the scale, I invite you to explore the concept of catios, which allow cats to experience the outdoors with no risk to them or wildlife.

The Humboldt Journalism Project recently named two first place winners for this year’s 40th Award, including North Coast Journal News Editor Thadeus Greenson for his series of articles on the controversy surrounding Eureka City Schools’ now-defunct deal with a mystery developer for the purchase of the former Jacobs Middle School and a Eureka ballot measure seeking to block affordable housing projects. “His coverage, published in the face of a threatening letter from the school district’s attorney, shed light on the players behind a land deal that was intertwined with Eureka’s Measure F,” a press release says. “That ballot measure, which failed in November, would have limited Eureka’s affordable housing plans and protected parking lots instead.” Also honored was Isabella Vanderheiden of the Lost Coast Outpost for her work, “There a Ticking Time Bomb in the Heart of Orick, and It’s Not Clear Whether Anybody Can Do Anything About It,” which the release describes as examining the “complex issues of flood safety, river ecology, levee maintenance and much more, describing multi-layered conflicts in efforts to protect the struggling community of Orick.” The award, which comes with

A federal judge has dismissed a class action lawsuit filed in December against North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman alleging he broke the law when he voted in favor of providing military aid to Israel. About a month after the case was filed, Vince Chhabria, a judge in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, ordered the plaintiffs — a group of more than 500 taxpayers from nine counties, including Humboldt — to explain why they had an actionable case or standing to bring it, saying, “At first glance, this lawsuit appears to be a frivolous attempt to get the court involved in a pure foreign policy issue.” He ordered the plaintiffs’ attorneys to file a response of not more than 15 pages. “The plaintiffs should use the space to explain how they have standing, to describe what sort of relief they could be entitled to and articulate why it would be appropriate for a federal court to get involved in foreign policy questions relating to the United States’ role in the Middle East,” the judge’s order states, noting that attorneys representing Huffman and fellow Representative

The Humboldt County Fair Association Board of Directors will meet tomorrow facing a decision its members say may shape the very future of the iconic annual event. At issue is whether the association should pursue holding a horse racing meet — a staple of the yearly event going back generations — even as the industry is in a state of collapse. Should the board choose to move forward, it will do so without the help of the California Association of Racing Fairs, which has historically provided much of the logistical and financial heavy lifting. That means the fair association would be solely responsible for borrowing or purchasing necessary equipment, securing and paying for federal and state licenses, gathering purse money, negotiating contracts with betting agencies and simulcast providers, and recruiting horses and trainers to fill the races. As Board President Andy Titus explained it to the Journal some weeks ago, the board faces competing fears. On the one hand, it’s long been believed racing is the proverbial rising tide that lifts all ships and that while it in and of itself may not be profitable

Editor: In asking how 300 people could be wrong in their support of another elite retirement community in McKinleyville, I’m reminded of the 77 million that just voted to put billionaires in charge of national policy (the advertisement for Life Plan Humboldt, Feb. 13). Any institution, small business or “nonprofit” accessing public resources and subsidies used to advantage privileged individuals merits public outrage. The cruel fallacy of “separate but equal” has expanded with bipartisan support. Life Plan Humboldt founders could have avoided costly visits to similar Life Care Communities by visiting their websites where all-white boards of directors and residents reflect an expected outcome from $650,000 entry fees, thousands more in monthly charges to stay and additional user-fees for services … mirroring billionaire’s priorities for the nation. “We’re living in one of the most segregated versions of American society that has ever existed where democratic leadership fails to counterpunch against oligarchs, at a minimum, by publicly articulating universal programs helping working class families,” U.C. Irvine professor Catherine Liu said commenting on her book: Virtue Hoarders, The Case Against The Professional Managerial Class. Instead, the nation’s

Editor: Anti-vaxers are like drunk drivers, maybe worse (Mailbox, Jan. 16). Both anti-vaxers and drunk drivers think that what they want to do is more important than other people’s lives. Many drunk drivers acknowledge that drunk driving is wrong. But they delude themselves: “But I’m not drunk” or “I can handle it.” Anti-vaxers don’t even admit they’re doing wrong. Some get very sanctimonious, claiming it’s their constitutional right. It’s not. Read the Constitution! There is nothing in the Constitution that allows an individual to “pursue happiness” in such a way as to harm others. That would include causing avoidable deaths. At present there is a flu epidemic that is killing more people than COVID (which also can be prevented with a vaccine). And there is a whooping cough epidemic. Some people cough so hard they crack a rib. But the great majority of people who die from whooping cough are infants — because they’re too young to receive vaccines. Is avoiding an injection worth an infant’s life? Or the lives of seniors or people who have chronic diseases? There are significant criminal penalties for drunk driving. Anti-vaxers should be dealt with the same way. Robert Argenbright, McKinleyville…