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May 5, 2005
CALPINE DENIES
BANKRUPTCY RUMORS: The San Jose
company that wanted to build a liquefied natural gas terminal
on Humboldt Bay until dissuaded by public sentiment last year
saw its stock drop 36 percent in April amid speculation that
it was headed toward bankruptcy, according to the San Francisco
Chronicle and other news sources. Calpine Corp. posted a
news release on its Web site to try to dispel the rumors. "While
it is not Calpine's policy to respond to market rumors, we feel
compelled to comment today to assure the marketplace that these
rumors are false," the April 22 statement read. "Calpine
remains in compliance with its corporate and project indentures.
Further, the company assures the market that it has no plans
to file for bankruptcy."
DOG MAULS WOMAN: Animal control officers are asking for help in
locating a large Rottweiler-type dog that attacked a 24-year-old
woman in the McKinleyville Shopping Center at 9:20 p.m. Wednesday,
April 27, as she left a liquor store. Patricia McGrath was treated
for head and facial wounds at Mad River Community Hospital and
later released. If the dog is not found and examined, she will
have to undergo rabies treatment. The Animal Control number is
840-9132.
RANKED CHOICE VOTING EXPLORED:
About 45 people attended a Eureka
town hall meeting last week on a voting method that is gaining
approval in a number of cities, including San Francisco, Berkeley
and Burlington, Vt. In "Ranked Choice" or "Instant
Runoff Voting," as it is called, voters rank their preference
for each office, rather than just voting for their top choice.
It eliminates the need for run-off elections, thereby saving
time and money, and allows people to vote for third party candidates
without fear that they will be "spoilers," supporters
say. The local activists who organized the Wharfinger Building
forum said they hope to get the Eureka City Council to adopt
the method for its elections through a charter amendment. Organizer
Scott Menzies said he had high hopes for the method's approval
in Eureka and other municipalities. "I really don't think
it's a matter of if anymore. I think it's a matter of when."
KIDE RELEASES KLAMATH
DOCUMENTARY: Two and a half years
after the massive fish kill on the Klamath River, Hoopa public
radio station KIDE-FM recently released an hour-long radio documentary
on the tragedy and its aftermath. Entitled "Dying for Water:
Indians, Politics and Dead Fish in the Klamath River Basin,"
the program -- narrated by tribal member Merv George Jr. -- looks
at various aspects of post-kill politics on the Klamath: the
fight over power-generating dams upstream, struggles over water
with Oregon's Klamath Basin agricultural interests, and how commercial
fishermen and tribes along the river are coping with declining
salmon stocks. During the week of May 16-21, the documentary
will stream live over the Internet courtesy of the American Indian
Radio on Satellite Service. Check www.airos.org for program times.
Compact discs of the program may be ordered by contacting Northern
California Cultural Communications at (530) 625-4222.
STUDENT EXCHANGE INFO
STOLEN: The Northcoast Preparatory Academy is asking for
the public's help in finding a stolen briefcase that contains
tickets and information for a 20-student exchange trip to France
later this month. Marceau Verdiere, a teacher with the Arcata
charter school, inadvertently left the black, soft fake-leather
briefcase in his unlocked pickup truck overnight on Monday in
front of his downtown Blue Lake home, he said. It was gone Tuesday
morning. The briefcase contained French train tickets for the
Arcata students, which can be replaced, but the real loss was
information provided by 25 French students for their Humboldt
County host families, including bios, photos and heartfelt letters,
Verdiere said. Anyone with information about the theft is urged
to call the Blue Lake Police at 668-5895.
MCCLINTOCK TO SPEAK: State Sen.
Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) will be the guest of honor at the
Humboldt County Taxpayers League's annual dinner Friday. In his
23-year history in state politics, which began with his election
to the Assembly in 1982, McClintock has built a reputation as
one of the state's fiercest budget hawks -- a reputation he solidified
during the 2003 gubernatorial recall election, in which he placed
third among a large field of replacement candidates. McClintock
is now running for lieutenant governor in the 2006 election.
The event will be held at Eureka's OH's Townhouse, 206 W. Sixth
Street; cocktails will be served at 5:30 p.m., with dinner to
follow at 6:30. Tickets are $30 and must be bought in advance.
Call 442-8299 for details.
WILDFLOWERS RETURN TO
PARK: A three-year project by the
California State Parks has succeeded in restoring the native
dune ecosystem at Humboldt Lagoons State Park, park officials
said. The project, completed this winter by park personnel and
members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, focused on the eradication
of invasive exotic plant species such as European beachgrass,
pampas, Jubata grass and iceplant. Getting those out means that
native dune plants can move back in: the yellow sand verbena,
yarrow, beach evening primrose and beach morning glory, among
others. The park, which is located 40 miles north of Eureka,
encourages visitors to come and see the new flowers, which should
be present through June.
CR STUDENT'S BIG SCHOLARSHIP: For the second
year running, a College of the Redwoods student has won one of
the 25 annual scholarships awarded to community college transfer
students by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Jennifer K. Smith,
24, who grew up in Colorado, will receive up to $30,000 per year
to cover the costs of her future education at UC Berkeley, where
she will enroll as an English student this fall. "I am pursuing
more than an English degree," Smith was quoted as saying
in a CR press release. "I am pursuing my passion for art,
for culture, for creativity. I am pursuing my dream to be a writer,
an intellectual, a leader and an artist."
G'VILLE TOWN SQUARE GRANTS: The organization
leading efforts to build a town square in Garberville last week
announced that it has recently received two grants, totaling
$11,500, to assist its efforts. The grants -- $10,000 from the
Mel and Grace McClean Foundation and $1,500 from the Humboldt
Area Foundation -- will fund hiring, planning and architectural
studies for the project.
PROTECT YOUR PET: The county's Health Department, in association
with local veterinarians, will hold a series of low-cost rabies
vaccination clinics throughout the county over the coming month.
Rabies shots for either dogs or cats will be given for $5; vaccines
against other types of diseases will also be available. For information,
call the Humboldt-Del Norte Veterinary Medical Association at
822-2402.
Pepper
spray saga ends with victory for plaintiffs
But $1 award points to
compromise
by HANK
SIMS
After seven and a half years
and two mistrials, a federal jury in San Francisco ruled last
Thursday that local law enforcement agencies used excessive force
when they swabbed pepper spray directly into the eyes of eight
nonviolent forest protestors on three separate occasions in the
fall of 1997.
The ruling, which awarded each
of the eight activists a symbolic $1 in damages, was the first
judgment in the long-running, costly lawsuit brought by the activists
against Humboldt County, the city of Eureka and current and former
law enforcement officials.
"We feel very vindicated,"
said Spring Lundberg of Garberville, one of the plaintiffs in
the suit. "The main concern has always been to protect civil
liberties, and that's what this decision does."
But as the case now moves to
the question of whether or not Eureka and Humboldt County should
have to pay the activists' legal costs, which are still unknown
but likely to be substantial, residents on both sides of the
issue are sorting out what the decision means.
On Monday, the lead defense
attorney in the case -- Nancy Delaney of the Eureka firm Mitchell,
Brisso, Delaney & Vrieze -- challenged Lundberg's characterization
of the decision as a victory for the activists.
"In effect, the plaintiffs,
despite their puffing and headlines and whatever, did not receive
a definitive verdict," she said.
Delaney said that during the
course of the two-week trial, the plaintiffs claimed that the
pepper spray incidents had left them emotionally scarred in various
ways. In their closing arguments, the plaintiffs' attorneys --
the same legal team that represented Earth First! Activists Darryl
Cherney and Judi Bari in their successful suit against the FBI
in 2002 -- asked the jury to award damages of up to $100,000
per person in compensation for their alleged injuries.
The fact that the jury was only
willing to award nominal damages was an indication that they
essentially sided with law enforcement, Delaney said. "Essentially,
the jury, by its verdict, showed that it did not believe them."
Delaney said that she spoke
by phone with the jury's foreman, who said that he believed he
was doing the defendants a favor by putting an end to the legal
battle, which resulted in hung juries on two previous occasions,
in 1998 and 2004. Delaney said that it was her understanding
that the jury was originally split 5-3 in favor of law enforcement
when deliberations began early last week.
Juror Conni Chandler of Hayward,
an administrative assistant for consulting firm Deloitte &
Touche, partially agreed with Delaney's characterization of the
jury's deliberation. She said that, though there was a 5-3 majority
for the defense when deliberations began, supporters of the plaintiffs
-- of which she said she was one -- were able to persuade members
of the other side to switch positions.
"Actually, two of the people
started to come over to our side even before the compromise was
met," she said. "They kept watching the tape and they
changed their minds. One of them actually wanted to award --
she thought along the same lines as I did, she thought they deserved
money."
Chandler said that about an
hour before the decision, the jurors reached a consensus that
the police officers did, in fact, use excessive force about an
hour. When discussions turned to monetary damages, though, Chandler
said that she and the other supporters of the plaintiffs relented.
"They said, `We feel like
[the plaintiffs] do not deserve any money, because they were
trespassing and they broke the law,'" she said. "That
was their whole argument. I think we had to compromise."
For her part, Lundberg dismissed
Delaney's interpretation of the verdict as a partial victory
for the defendants in the case. She charged that Delaney had
a financial interest in putting the best face on the results.
"Her firm is getting a
lot of taxpayer money for fighting this case, so of course she
would have a different spin," Lundberg said.
According to officials in Humboldt
County's General Services Department, the county has spent upwards
of $392,000 to date in legal expenses fighting the charges, with
more bills for the most recent trial still expected. A portion
of that money has been reimbursed by the county's insurance agency,
though by press time the exact amount could not be determined.
The county and the city of Eureka
split the legal bills in the case 50-50, so it is likely that
the cost of the defense will total over $800,000, even if the
court does not award attorney fees to the plaintiffs. Eureka
City Attorney Dave Tranberg said Monday that its own insurance
fund has covered all expenses in the case, apart from a $25,000
deductible that was paid by the city.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs
have one month to file a motion with the court asking to be awarded
legal expenses. The question will be decided by federal Judge
Susan Illston, who oversaw the jury trial this month.
The lawsuit stems from three
separate incidents in September and October 1997, when protestors
at the headquarters of the Pacific Lumber Co., at the gates to
a logging site in Bear Creek and at the Eureka offices of then-U.S.
Rep. Frank Riggs had pepper spray rubbed directly into their
eyes with cotton swabs by law enforcement officers. The officers
were attempting to get the protestors to release themselves from
"lock boxes," into which they had secured their arms
so as not to be dragged away from the site of the protest. Throughout
the trial, law enforcement and defense attorneys maintained that
pepper spray was a safer alternative to physically cutting the
"lock boxes" apart with power tools.
The incidents became the subject
of national attention after several network news outlets broadcast
videotapes taken of sheriff's deputies holding back protestors'
heads and swabbing their eyes, as the protesters screamed in
pain.
In addition to Lundberg, two
other plaintiffs -- Maya Portugal and Eric Neuwirth -- still
live in Humboldt County.
SEE ALSO: May 5, 2005: FROM THE PUBLISHER
SEE ALSO: DECEMBER
1997 Cover Story :"The Image seen 'round the world -- and
some that weren't"
Humboldt
leads state in drug deaths
by HELEN
SANDERSON
Humboldt County has the highest
rate of drug-induced deaths in California, according to a report
released last month by the state Department of Health Services.
And it does not appear that the North Coast's drug problems will
get much better any time soon.
"The stereotype is that
ghettos and barrios and metropolitan areas have the problems
and not rural communities like here, but the overdose rate is
led by us," said Gordon Costello, executive director of
North Coast Substance Abuse Council, a Eureka treatment center
for drug addicts.
According to the County Health
Status Profiles 2005, which posted data from 2001-03, Humboldt
ranks second out of 58 counties in drug overdoses, trailing slightly
behind Del Norte County.
Humboldt has a drug-induced
death rate of 29.6 per 100,000 people, according to the report.
Del Norte's rate is 30.5.
But our northern neighbor's
statistics have a high rate of uncertainty and therefore are
considered "unreliable" by the state, which in effect
bumps Humboldt County to the top spot.
And over the past few years
Humboldt has reigned at or near the top spot, officials say.
In fact, Humboldt's rate is significantly higher than the state
average of 9.4 drug-induced deaths per 100,000 people. The goal
of the state is to reduce that to1 death per 100,000 due to drugs.
Humboldt County has a long way
to go.
One of the victims of drugs
last year was a 26-year-old man who died of an overdose while
on a waiting list for residential drug treatment.
Costello has seen his inpatient
residential services shrink due to state budget cuts. In 2001
the facility had 14 beds; this year they only have eight, he
said. To make matters worse, the numbers of addicts requesting
services has climbed steadily. As of last Friday, the facility
had a waiting list of 46 people, many of whom will have to wait
months for treatment.
There are only three other residential
treatment facilities that offer 24-hour care -- Humboldt Recovery
Center, Alcohol and Drug Care Services and Singing Trees in southern
Humboldt. All of these care centers are operated on a social
model of care, which means that medication is not given to the
addict to quell their detox process.
The county's only inpatient
detox facility that administered medication to addicts was at
St. Joseph's Hospital, and it closed a few years ago.
"The insurance structure
doesn't support that program anymore," said Humboldt County
Public Health Officer Ann Lindsay.
Currently, the best chance that
the county has for establishing an inpatient, medical model facility
is through legislation that state Sen. Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata)
has been pushing for the past three years, which would require
health insurance companies to cover alcohol and drug dependencies
like other chronic diseases, Lindsay said.
Other ways addicts sometimes
find help is at clean and sober houses. But since they cannot
be supervised all day, some people relapse easily.
Shawn Anderson was one of these
people. Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager said Anderson, 44,
was staying at a clean and sober house in Eureka last year when
he was found in a bathroom by roommates, dead from a heroin overdose.
A burnt spoon was lying beside his body.
Anderson, who was on parole
for drug-related crimes, lived at the residence for three weeks
and had tested clean every day, Jager said. His parents came
to Eureka from Washington state the night before to visit. They
were planning to take him out to dinner the day he overdosed.
According to county public health
statistics, there were 50 overdose deaths here in 2003, and 35
deaths in 2004. So far in 2005 there have been 14 deaths.
Last year's death rate could
have been much higher.
Jager said that in the
last six months of 2004, 17 people who overdosed on opiates were
saved by a new drug called Narcan.
Narcan is provided to families
and caretakers of hard-core addicts of opiates like heroin through
the Mobile Medical Office, a traveling van providing care for
poor people, in the event that they overdose.
Jager, Costello and Lindsay,
along with mental health and law enforcement officials, are members
of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Death Review Committee, which
meets every two to three months.
The addictions faced by Anderson
and two other middle-aged men who died under similar circumstances
in 2004 were discussed at a meeting last month in an effort to
evaluate the ways that the system did not work for these addicts.
One approach under consideration
is to provide counseling to drug addicted inmates before they
are released from jail.
"There should be more intense
counseling for when they go back out so they understand how dangerous
it can be to use the same amount of
drugs as they did before, or
of using drugs period," Jager said.
Jager keeps a database on all
of the drug overdose deaths in the county, and in the past few
years, he said, there has been a dramatic increase in the abuse
of prescription drugs.
According to the county's AOD
Death Review for 2004, almost one-third of drug overdose deaths
were caused by prescription drugs.
"Also what we're seeing
now, which I didn't see 15 years ago when I was a police officer,
is a lot more prescription drugs that are being sold on the streets,"
Jager said. "I don't know what the reason is. The only thing
I see is that there are a lot of people in pain and they're dealing
with it through self-medication."
Also on the rise is the rate
of drug-induced suicides. Most years, Jager said, there would
only be one or two suicide deaths from drugs. Last year eight
people intentionally killed themselves by overdosing -- all of
them used prescription drugs, including OxyContin (a pain medication),
Zyprexa (an antipsychotic), and Vicodin (a pain medication),
or a mixture of many drugs, something called polypharmacy intoxication.
Jager said that about half of
the people who overdose from drugs are destitute, the other half
are "just like you and me."
Costello agreed.
"There is this stigma surrounding
drug deaths because they reflects badly on families and communities,
so people assume it is only happening to street addicts on heroin,"
he said. "But polydrug abuse is the most common, and it
happens to all kinds of people."
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