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Jan. 2, 2003
Timing is everything:
Media frenzy fuels the selling of Bridgeville on Ebay
by BOB
DORAN
The town of Bridgeville, as
everyone knows by now, sold for almost $1.8 million on eBay last
week. Who bought the place remains a mystery, as the winning
bid was submitted anonymously.
But as the media furor subsides,
a couple of things are clear: The price didn't begin to skyrocket
until the Associated Press broke the story on Christmas Eve;
and residents who have worked hard over the years to improve
the town are wondering what the new owner has in store for them.
 The price wouldn't have climbed so high without
the Internet. After failed attempts to sell the property through
ads in publications like the Wall Street Journal and Soldier
of Fortune magazine, owner Elizabeth "Jo Anne"
Lapple, an antique dealer, turned to eBay, the Internet auction
site. On Nov. 27, she put up nine parcels along the Van Duzen
River, 82 acres total, for a 30-day auction. Described as a "power
seller," she included this teaser: "Own the entire
rustic town of Bridgeville."
Bidding began at $5,000; in
a week it jumped to $125,000; by Dec. 24, the price had reached
$357,300. That's when a story by Bay Area journalist Michelle
Locke hit the streets.
"In the still of approaching
winter, what used to be the town center of Bridgeville is wrapped
in a silence broken only by the sibilant rush of the rain-swollen
Van Duzen River," she began. "And yet, amid the bucolic
calm, something is stirring as modern as a mouse: point and click,
point and click"
The story's hook, using the
Internet to sell a "rustic town," proved irresistible
to news editors around the country, in part because of the timing.
The holidays make for slow news days since reporters and their
sources take time off and readers aren't looking for anything
too heavy. Locke's little tale filled a need -- and column inches
-- in papers from the New York Times to the Sydney
Morning Herald.
A cemetery and
a backhoe
Based on Lapple's description,
the town included 10 houses and four cabins -- plus a cemetery
and a backhoe. Locke included a hint of warning to prospective
buyers, pointing out that the backhoe was "not just for
show," and that "the county has deemed some of the
houses uninhabitable."
Septic system failures due to
a high water table and impervious clay soil led to condemnation
of all four cabins and one of the houses. Similar problems exist
for the restaurant and gas station/general store that closed
a few years back.
The description on eBay put
it this way: "Many of the structures included with the town
could be described as fixer-uppers, so be prepared to do a lot
of work to get the town into sparkling condition."
Lapple's mother, whose name
is also Elizabeth, bought the property in 1972, then sold it
in 1977 to a group from Fremont called the Pentecostal Faith
Challengers. There were plans for a Christian senior citizens'
retirement community that never came to fruition. The church
group's major accomplishment was alienating the truck drivers
and locals who frequented the gas station by ending sales of
tobacco and alcohol.
With no money coming in, the
group fell behind on mortgage payments. In 1979, Don Houston
and his church group, Vision for Missions, stepped in, but before
long there was $50,000 in back property taxes due. The Lapple
family paid the taxes and began a foreclosure process that took
more than seven years, according to Christine Larsen of Sunset
Real Estate, the Arcata firm handling the sale.
The media buzz created by the
AP story caught Larsen and Realtor Denise Stuart off guard. "We
really had no clue that this was going to happen," said
Larsen. She and Stuart have been fielding calls from newspapers
and radio stations around the world since Christmas Day. Of course,
it should be worth their trouble -- assuming that the sale goes
through, Sunset Real Estate's six percent commission will be
$106,662.
As the story grew, the tide
started to turn online: 30 bids on Christmas Eve took the price
to $521,400 -- still far below the Lapple's minimum "reserve"
price of $775,000. But since Christmas day is even slower news-wise,
the media momentum continued. By day's end, as thousands of mouse
clicks steered the curious to the eBay listing, the bid more
than doubled to $1.6 million, and that too became a story.
By the time the sale closed
just before 10 a.m. on Dec. 27, the story was hot as a firecracker,
with National Public Radio, the BBC, MSNBC, CNN and countless
TV news outlets jumping onto the bandwagon. The crescendo came
on the day of the sale, when Stuart and Elizabeth's brother,
Ed Lapple, appeared on the "Today" show.
As anyone with eBay experience
knows, the final minute of an auction is what counts. In the
last hour before deadline the bidding jumped over $100,000, and
the winning bid was entered mere seconds before the deadline
by an anonymous buyer.
Bought unseen
 So far, Lapple and real estate agents have only
told reporters that he comes from somewhere on the West Coast
and that his name is Bill.
The buyer has apparently not
seen Bridgeville yet. He reportedly will be here sometime soon,
and according to Larsen there will be a two-week inspection period
before the deal goes into escrow.
One thing is certain: Bridgeville
residents are eager to meet him and find out what he has in mind,
and not just those who have been paying Lapple $450 to $550 a
month rent.
Michael Guerriero considers
himself a Bridgeville resident even though his home is far from
the bridge that forms the center of town.
"Bridgeville is a community
that encompasses 10 or 15 miles up and down the highway all the
way out to Buck Mountain and down to Grizzly Creek," said
Guerriero, a silkscreen artist who has lived in the area for
more than 20 years.
Guerriero has spent most of
the last decade working with other Bridgeville residents to enhance
the community. With help from a $400,000 "Healthy Start"
grant from the state, the Bridgeville Community Center Board
coordinates services for families in the area, including health
care and a senior lunch program, offered at Bridgeville Elementary,
the grounds of which are surrounded by Lapple's property.
The group also provides transportation
for those who need to go to Fortuna or Eureka for doctor visits
or for social services. They also organize BridgeFest, an annual
community pride celebration in August that includes an arts and
crafts fair and a contest for the best flying saucer.
"A lot of us who live in
outlying areas have pumped a lot of energy into making it a center
for the community," said Guerriero. "We haven't seen
much come of it aside from what we've done at the school, and
one reason is because of the lack of interest or support shown
by the owners of the town."
In recent months a group of
residents has been working with the county on a community plan.
Last week as part of the process, Bridgeville residents got a
survey from the planning department in the mail. "It asks
people what they think the future holds for Bridgeville and the
community," said Guerriero.
There has been talk about businesses
they would like to see in town and even discussion of a plan
where the residents would buy Lapple's property. "Of course
that's obsolete at this point," said Guerriero. He hopes
that the new owner will be ready to work with his neighbors to
improve Bridgeville -- and that he hasn't spent his whole bankroll
on the purchase.
"There's the potential
to offer some services for those in the surrounding community
and for the tourists who come through. But it will probably mean
investing another million dollars to do it," he concluded.
Workers
again sue Eel River Sawmills
by
EMILY GURNON
Former lumber workers have once
again filed a $25 million suit against Eel River Sawmills, charging
their one-time bosses with gross mismanagement that they say
drove the company into the ground and made their employee stock
nearly worthless.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 23 in
Humboldt County Superior Court, alleges that the company reneged
on a written promise that employees would own a majority of the
stock, thereby enabling them to bring in new management if they
chose. The suit also charges company president Dennis Scott and
his associates with hiding the existence of a Barbados subsidiary,
buying a lavish home for officials' use and spending the company's
money to settle claims of sexual harassment after doing nothing
to stop the behavior.
"It seems entirely unfair
to me that these hardworking sawmill workers could be promised
so much and receive so little . . . while others at the top have
come out very prosperously," said Bill Bertain, the Eureka
attorney representing the plaintiffs. "I find it appalling
that the people who made this company a success can be treated
so harshly and with such contempt."
Scott said Monday that the mismanagement
charges were "bullshit."
"If we had the logs we
had before, this company would still be running," he said.
"That's what's so ridiculous about some of the claims. [All
the small mills] are just barely hanging on."
Dean Blake, 61, worked for more
than 20 years at the company, most recently as a forklift operator.
He was laid off in 2001. More than 300 other employees also lost
their jobs when the company's mills shut down.
One of three plaintiffs in the
case, Blake said he and his co-workers were misled about Eel
River's prospects and their stake in it.
"We were cheated out of
our retirement. We were cheated out of our jobs," Blake
said. "They kept promising us that things were gonna straighten
out, that we were gonna be on top of the world. We were gonna
own the sawmill." Instead, he said, "It went down the
tubes."
If they had known what was to
come, many of them would have looked for new jobs years earlier,
Blake said. Their stock, once valued at about $35 a share, is
now virtually worthless.
The lawsuit is related to another
filed in probate court earlier in December which asks the court
to investigate the actions of the trustees in charge of a trust
set up by Eel River Sawmills founder Mel McLean, who died in
1999.
Eel River Sawmills, based outside
Fortuna, was one of California's leading lumber producers in
the 1980s and 1990s. The once-thriving operation, which consists
of two mills, a chipping plant, a reprocessing plant, about 25,000-acres
of timberland and the Fairhaven power plant, employed more than
550 employees at its peak in the late 1980s.
It continues to operate the
power plant with about 24 employees.
Company president Scott has
said that declining lumber prices and environmental restrictions,
such as land declared off-limits for the spotted owl, caused
the financial problems.
Now, Eel River is considering
the latest in a series of purchase offers. Several other deals
have fallen through.
Meanwhile, the state Department
of Industrial Relations announced last week that a self-insurers'
security fund was taking over Eel River Sawmills' payments on
$7 million worth of workers' compensation claims after the company
defaulted on the payments.
The
'new' zoo takes shape
by
ANDREW EDWARDS
OUT ON W STREET IN EUREKA, IN
THE SHADE of redwood trees in Sequoia Park, a hulking barn-like
building is being built to last. The structure is tall, nearly
three stories rising to the top of its peaked tower; and broad,
encompassing 4,000 square feet in all.
It's the Sequoia Zoo's new petting
zoo, the latest addition in a spate of zoo development, much
of it made possible by a large but not officially disclosed amount
(read $2 million) of money donated by local philanthropists Rob
and Cherie Arkley.
 The building itself is merely a prelude to what's
to come: a multi-purpose entrance pavilion, including a new gift
shop and cafe an interpretive center and lecture hall.
The Sequoia Zoological Society
has been planning this project for years. In 1993 the Eureka
Parks and Recreation Department drew up the Sequoia Park and
Zoo Master Plan, outlining improvements they envisioned would
be put in place over the next 20 years. The estimated cost was
$5.5 million.
The problem was the money.
Over the last few years the
zoo has received more than $100,000 in grants from the McLean
Foundation, Schmidbauer Lumber and the Humboldt Area Foundation,
as well as support from numerous private donors and the zoological
society. But it all fell far short of the estimated cost for
even the first phase of development: $1.8 million.
"That [the 1993 report]
was like pie-in-the sky; it was a wild dream. If we had all the
money in the world this is what we would do, and of course
we didn't," said Robert Taborski, president of the zoological
society and a member of the committee that produced the plan.
But in September 2001 everything
changed. A new, ostensibly anonymous donor stepped forward, offering
to finance several new capital improvements on the condition
that they, and not the zoological society, would head up management
of the project.
The anonymity didn't last. The
Journal broke the story last May when, in an interview,
Cherie Arkley indirectly revealed that she and her husband had
given the zoo $2 million.
The Arkleys made clear that
the money should go toward the completion of the entrance
pavilion. That wasn't the first priority on the 1993 master plan,
but money changes things.
"The priorities in [the
`93 report] became superfluous. If you have anyone coming forward
to give you money for a project that, of course, becomes the
priority," Taborski said.
But, when looking at what would
have to be done to build the pavilion, someone noticed that the
old petting zoo barn, a popular attraction for nearly 20 years,
would have to be demolished.
To avoid any public backlash,
zoo officials decided to first build an improved petting zoo
before beginning any demolition.
The new structure is the result,
for an estimated cost of $600,000, or $150 per square foot.
Exhibits tentatively planned
for the structure include a real barn owl situated in a rafter
aviary, a barn mice exhibit in one of the beams, an outside "contact
area" (where the actual petting will take place) and a beehive
in one of the walls. The structure will also contain several
stalls for the animals and a quarantine area for sick animals.
The structure is scheduled for
completion in the next couple of months, depending on the weather.
Work is then supposed to begin on the entrance pavilion.
Taborski said the zoo is extraordinary
for a city this size.
Built in 1907, the Sequoia Park
Zoo is the oldest zoo in the state of California, and the smallest
accredited zoo in the nation.
The zoo contains around 100
animals on 5 acres and has an annual operating budget of $340,000.
More than 100,000 people visit each year.
The animals include a chimpanzee
named Bill, who, at 57, is the oldest living captive great ape
(he's just two years away from a Guinness world record).
The zoological society is seeking
to promote the zoo as a local gem that everyone in the county,
not just those in Eureka, can benefit from.
Plans include a membership drive
to increase the society's ranks, which includes only 200 people.
Taborski said that in Merced, Calif., his former home, 30,000
people out of the city of 100,000 were members of the zoological
society.
Zoo officials said they are
not worried that such a sizeable expansion will be unsustainable
in the fiscal situation that local governments are finding themselves
in.
Taborski pointed out that the
city of Eureka has committed to increased staffing levels for
the new buildings.
"We will not develop anything
we cannot maintain," said David McGinty, director of Eureka's
community services department, which manages the zoo.
Or, as Taborski put it, "The
people of Eureka wouldn't allow the zoo to shut down. It's a
treasure."
Wet and wetter
The North Coast again went toe-to-toe
with nature's fury last weekend, as another drenching winter
storm left flooding -- and new rainfall records -- in its wake.
Last Friday was the wettest
day ever recorded in Eureka. A whopping 6.79 inches fell, shattering
the previous record of 5.04 inches set on Oct. 29, 1950.
Additionally, this was the wettest
December known. The previous high of 21.26 inches, set in 1996,
was surpassed by half an inch (21.76 inches) as of Monday afternoon,
with a day and a half to go.
The bulk of the rain came in
two giant storms, the one last weekend and the tail end of a
typhoon that struck the area mid-month.
Nearly every creek in Arcata
was flooded at one point or another during last weekend's deluge,
with Janes, Jolly Giant and Jacoby all jumping their banks. To
no one's surprise, Elk and Freshwater creeks -- which flow down
out of heavily cut timberlands owned by the Pacific Lumber Co.
-- also inundated surrounding areas.
The Eel and Mad rivers, already
swollen from previous storms, went to flood level as well, with
the Eel topping off at 21.1 feet on Sunday afternoon and the
Mad rising to 22.1 feet late Friday night and Saturday morning.
The heavy rain also brought
on its share of transportation troubles with water flooding Highway
101 at the base of Tompkins Hill between Eureka and Fortuna on
Saturday. The water slowed but did not halt motorists.
The golf course in Eureka was
turned into a giant lake, closing F Street. H Street was also
overrun, as were other streets, as storm drains clogged. Elk
River Road, southeast of Eureka, was underwater at several points.
Monday night redwoods were blown
down at the corner of M and Manzanita streets in Eureka, damaging
the road and underground water pipes.
Rain is forecast at least into
Saturday of this week. Translation: the worst could be yet to
come.
Target EIR
challenged
Two weeks after the Eureka City
Council voted unanimously to allow the Target Corp. to build
a new 139,000-square-foot store and garden center at the north
end of Eureka, the Environmental Protection Information Center
(EPIC) in Garberville has raised concerns about construction
runoff into the Eureka Slough and the building's proximity to
Humboldt Bay.
EPIC took its appeal to the
California Coastal Commission. However, the board is not expected
to consider reviewing the appeal until February at the earliest.
The process could add months to Target's demolition and construction
schedule for the new store.
If the Coastal Commission accepts
EPIC's appeal, the board will have to hold public hearings and
review all documentation associated with the project. But Target
will not have to complete a new environmental impact report,
said Lisa Shikany, a Eureka city planner.
"But that's based on [the
Coastal Commission] accepting the appeal," she said.
Target Corp. has been working
for almost two years to demolish the existing 80,000-square-foot
Montgomery Ward store.
Christine Ambrose of EPIC said
in a letter that the new store planned for the 11-acre site should
be at least 100 feet from the bay, as required by the city's
general plan.
The current plans for the store
show a range of setbacks (the distance from the slough to the
pavement) between 40 feet up to 250 feet. The average, however,
is around 100 feet.
The city's general plan doesn't
strictly require a 100-foot setback, Shikany said.
Among other things, Target's
plan includes planting vegetation to act as a buffer.
Target would not be the first
business to use landscaping in place of a buffer. The new Chevron
gas station on Broadway, Gold Rush Coffee Roasting at Broadway
and Henderson Street, Applebee's on Broadway and the Old Town
boardwalk, have all used landscaping or other mitigations instead
of creating a 100-foot buffer, Shikany said.
Target has also proposed removing
1.4 acres of pavement and replacing it with native vegetation,
Shikany said.
The buffer will not alleviate
concerns about runoff into the slough, Shikany said.
There will be a water filtration
system to prevent chemicals from flowing into the slough. Target
will also avoid using pesticides and herbicides on the landscaping,
Shikany said.
Target plans to open the new
store in 2004. But the company has yet to obtain its demolition
or building permits.
Tuttle's replacement named
Adam Forbes, a botanist with
the Pacific Lumber Co., will take over for the retiring Don Tuttle
as Humboldt County's Environmental Services Manager.
Forbes earned his B.A. degree
in rangeland resource science from Humboldt State University
in 1997. He earned a Masters of Arts degree in range management
from New Mexico State University and has a background in natural
resource protection, Tuttle said.
"He handled CEQA (California
Environmental Quality Act) documents for other counties,"
Tuttle said.
Aside from PL, Forbes, 31, worked
for an environmental consulting firm in the Central Valley.
His hiring was kept a close
secret by Tuttle until Monday.
"Hopefully [Forbes will]
carry on the tradition I've installed in that position,"
Tuttle said.
Tuttle had been with the county
since 1971. His wife, Andrea Tuttle, is the head of the California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Christmas tragedy
A Christmas morning house fire
that claimed the lives of three Blue Lake children appears to
have been an accident.
The damage to the Larson Heights
Road home was so extensive, fire investigators may be unable
to determine the exact cause of the fire.
Assistant Chief Ralph Altizer
of the Arcata Fire Department said the fire started in the kitchen
and spread throughout the single-story wood frame house.
Killed in the fire were Faustino
Medina, 8, Hoyce Medina, 6, and Rico Medina, 5.
Tynnese Menniweather, 21, Jennifer
Medina, 28, and her 3-year-old son were able to escape through
a back window.
Berg's appointments
Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka,
has been appointed vice chair of the Assembly's Aging and Long-term
Care Committee and will sit on the agriculture, appropriations
and higher education committees.
Berg has a background in senior
citizens issues. Additionally, being named to the appropriations
committee means Berg will have a front-row seat during the Assembly's
budget hearings.
Berg will also sit on the transportation,
and water, parks and wildlife committees.
In November, Berg beat Republican
Rob Brown and Green Party candidate Doug Thron in the race for
the state's 1st Assembly District.
Skullduggery
A rash of vandalism and thefts
hit Ferndale schools over the Christmas break, leaving behind
smashed windows, damaged offices and a missing skull.
On Dec. 23, someone broke into
the high school gym and took candy bars from the snack stand.
The men's and women's locker rooms were also ransacked. The suspects
also vandalized a coaches' desk before smashing a window and
forcing their way into a science room. Missing from the room
are a skull and a triple beam scale -- commonly used by drug
dealers.
A guitar was also reported missing
from the special education room.
On Christmas Day vandals damaged
two computers and ransacked a classroom inside Ferndale Elementary.
In a separate burglary, Ferndale
Police have identified three suspects who allegedly broke into
the youth football storage shed at Ferndale High. Two ice chests
and about $30 in candy were taken. Another juvenile was arrested
on suspicion of breaking into the high school wood shop in the
early fall.
Ferndale Police have turned
over the names of all the suspects to the Humboldt County District
Attorney's office.
Consumer protection kicks in
Among the myriad laws going
into effect this month are new consumer laws impacting Internet
service providers (ISPs), refunds from purchases made through
the Internet or mail-order, and mail-in product warranty cards.
Senate Bill 772 requires ISPs
to give at least 30 days notice before the company plans to shut
off service. Companies not complying with the new law can be
fined up to $1,000 per violation.
The law is similar to one requiring
utility companies to give at least 10 days notice before shutting
off service, cable television companies to provide at least 15
days notice before discontinuing service and long distance telephone
companies to provide a minimum of 30 days notice.
The law is aimed at preventing
ISPs from abruptly disconnecting customers, leaving them without
access to e-mail and web pages stored on a company's server.
A good example is the recent
closure of Northcoast Internet and Tidepool Internet, two Arcata
companies that shut down on Dec. 19. Some businesses were left
scrambling to find a new ISP days before Christmas. Had SB 772
been in place, subscribers would have been notified in mid-November
the two companies were shutting down.
SB 1872 will help consumers
get refunds from Internet and mail-order companies in a timely
manner. Credit card purchases would have to be refunded if the
item is returned within seven business days. If a purchase was
made by cash, check or money order, a company would have 30 days
to refund the customer's money.
Some Internet companies often
take up to three months to refund or credit charge accounts,
said state Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, the author of the
consumer bills.
SB 1765 bans companies from
requiring consumers to return product registration cards. Often
those cards are marked as warranty cards leading consumers to
believe that if they don't return the card their purchase won't
be covered by the company's warranty. Bowen said companies sell
the cards to marketing companies who in turn sell the customer's
name to junk mail lists.
The new law requires manufacturers
to clearly state on the registration or warranty cards that neither
has to be returned in order for the warranty to be effective.
Dredging
the Salt
A plan to restore two miles
of the Salt River, between the Port Kenyon Bridge and where the
Salt and Eel Rivers meet, could cost as much as $6 million and
would require the purchase of 53 acres of private property around
Ferndale.
The project cost would include
a local match of $2 million that could come from state, county
and local entities.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
study showed the problem in the Salt River has existed for almost
100 years.
Over that time the width and
depth of the shipping channel at Port Kenyon has shrunk from
200 feet across and 15 feet deep to 20 feet across and 3 feet
deep.
A variety of natural and man-made
causes have eroded the channel, including natural erosion in
the Salt River watershed, rapid growth of vegetation in the stream
channel, seismic activity, as well as timber harvesting, road
construction and mining, and flood control activities such as
dams and tidegates.
Ferndale officials believe that
dredging the Salt River will prevent flooding problems in town
and in farmland. Presently, the clogged waterway prevents flow
from Francis Creek from getting past the city's sewage treatment
plant.
The project would also benefit
several endangered species, including the brown pelican, peregrine
falcon and steelhead trout -- all found in the Eel River estuary.
Check-mate
Four people were arrested Friday
by Humboldt County Sheriff's deputies and the FBI on suspicion
of passing stolen traveler's checks at the Cher-Ae Heights and
Blue Lake casinos.
Two others were arrested in
Eureka on suspicion of possession of stolen traveler's checks
and possession of methamphetamine.
Terry Michael Robinson, Jr.,
20, and Terry Raphael Robinson, Sr., 46, both of Eureka, were
arrested Friday morning at the Trinidad casino. During a search
of the Robinsons' vehicle, deputies found a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic
handgun. Terry M. Robinson was charged with possession of a loaded
firearm and Terry R. Robinson was charged with possession of
methamphetamine.
Earlier on Friday, Amber Dawn
Soderholm, 22, and James Joseph Soderholm, 24, both of Union
City, were arrested at the Blue Lake Casino for possession of
stolen property and passing fraudulent checks.
Leilani Noniela Castro, 20,
and Thong Tom Ding Nguyen, 24, both of Union City, were arrested
at a Eureka motel on suspicion of possession of stolen traveler's
checks and possession of methamphetamine.
The traveler's checks were reported
stolen from a San Francisco Wells Fargo Bank in October.
Money for kids' books
The Humboldt County Library
received a $25,000 grant from the county's Children and Families
Commission to purchase new children's books.
The grant will also go toward
developing a family literacy program to help parents and their
children improve their reading skills together.
Altogether, the commission handed
out $82,000 in grants. In addition to the library, other recipients
include: United Indian Health Services, Humboldt Child Care Council
and the College of the Redwoods.
United Indian Health Services
got $24,000 for a new child care center at the Potawot Health
Village in Arcata.
A $20,000 grant will go to the
Humboldt Child Care Council to expand Special Needs Connection,
a parent-to-parent monitoring program.
College of the Redwoods will
get $12,000 for its Child Development Center and Early Education
Program. The funds will help train staff and students to create
a friendlier learning space.
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