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December 22, 2005
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? A little over a year
ago, Cherie Arkley was not sure what she and husband Rob Arkley,
owners of Security National, might someday build on Eureka's
abandoned rail yard known as the Balloon Track. "But,"
she said in a Nov. 14 article in the Times-Standard, "it's
not going to be a big box. Repeat: It's not going to be a big
box."
Well, things appear to have changed in a big way.
Cherie Arkley, along with members of Security National Servicing
Corp., met with Eureka City Council members last week to discuss
development plans for the site, namely accommodating a big-box
like Home Depot and Best Buy.
The Balloon Track property is currently owned by
Union Pacific Railroad. Security National has been negotiating
a purchase of the site since October of last year and recently
came to a purchase agreement on the condition that Security National
will clean up hazardous chemicals at the site, though the sale
will reportedly not be complete until the spring of next year,
at least. Plans for a park and residential units were proposed
for the area before the extent of the toxic cleanup was known.
The waterfront site is zoned public, which means
if the Arkleys are to get their big-box, city officials need
to change the zoning to light-industrial or commercial, and that
will likely need to occur before the purchase is finalized. City
Manager Dave Tyson has expressed enthusiasm at the prospect of
having the long-vacant site developed. Eureka City Councilmember
Chris Kerrigan is not convinced that a large retail store should,
or will, come to the waterfront. "It's definitely going
to be a huge fight," he said. "I'd like to see their
development drop the idea of a big-box and move forward."
Six years ago Wal-Mart looked into putting a store
on the coveted property and was vociferously pushed out by area
residents and public officials including Assemblymember Patty
Berg.
$ SIGNS IN THEIR EYES: Eight logging protesters
swabbed in the eyes with pepper spray in 1997 agreed to a settlement
of $750,000 to cover expenses of their years-long legal battle
against Humboldt County and the City of Eureka. The plaintiffs
were seeking close to $2 million. The matter went to court three
times in eight years, with two mistrials and a final ruling by
a federal jury in San Francisco in April that awarded each plaintiff
$1 in damages for excessive force used against them by police
during logging protests.
GOOD GRIEF! We just know that the Voice
of Linus Van Pelt wanders these Humboldt hills, talking about
this and that with them and us (well, we wish with us).
Sure, the Voice of Linus is 40 years older now than when it issued,
at age 7, from the scribbly mouth of that droll, intellectual
whippersnapper clutching a security blanket in the 1965 TV special
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" to offer such cherished
and timeless observations as "Charlie Brown, you're the
only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas
and turn it into a problem," and "Of all the Charlie
Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest," and
"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
But that's just it -- we wanted to know, once we
discovered that actor Chris Shea has a home (or two?) in Humboldt
County, how it feels after all these years to know that his younger
self is still making people all warm and weepy around this time
every year? Shea was the voice of Linus in Peanuts shows
produced between 1965 and 1969 (his brother took on the voice
in the 1970s). Did being the voice of Linus affect his own life?
Is there, perhaps, a bit of Linus Van Pelt in Mr. Shea? Does
he have a security blanket? What's up with Honeydew?
We had other (predictable) sorts of questions like
that. So, a couple weeks ago, we did our darnedest to reach him
in a timely fashion. We'd heard he lived in Honeydew, so we called
the Honeydew Store whose clerk said to try the Honeydew Post
Office and ask for Paula. Sure enough, Paula at the post office
knew of Shea, said he picks his mail up once a week. "He
has property here, but he lives in Westhaven." She said
she'd give him a message to phone us when he came in for his
mail. And we, stupidly-and-in-a-shortsighted-panic, said: "OK,
but he has to call us by deadline!"
Meanwhile, we expanded our harassment to Westhaven,
calling businesses at random. Nobody up there had heard of Shea.
And now, just days before Christmas, we find upon phoning up
the Honeydew Post Office that Shea did in fact wander in for
his mail that week we called, but it was after our deadline.
And, respecting our panicky instructions, he did not call us.
Rats!
HCAOG SNUB: For nearly two decades, the
Hoopa Valley Tribe has sought membership on the board of the
Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG), and been
repeatedly denied. The tribe's latest bid for membership was
met with a split 4-4 vote by the HCAOG board on Dec. 12. Since
the board has no rule for dealing with a tie, the split vote
equates to a rejection.
HCAOG is a joint powers agency whose membership
includes Humboldt County and the seven incorporated cities of
Arcata, Blue Lake, Eureka, Ferndale, Fortuna, Rio Dell, Trinidad.
Serving as the Regional Transportation Planning Agency as well
as the Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies, HCAOG makes
important decisions on transportation planning -- and allocation
of transportation funds -- for local road improvements, public
transportation and even those roadside call boxes placed alongside
the highway.
Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Lyle Marshall, on
a visit to Arcata last Friday, expressed disgust at yet another
snubbing by HCAOG. "I think there are some communities in
HCAOG who don't want to share that money with an Indian tribe,"
Marshall said. "But we would not be in HCAOG as a tribe.
We would be in it as a government. If McKinleyville incorporated,
they would automatically be on."
Marshall said the tribe, with 90 miles of roads
within its reservation that link eventually to other roads in
the county, provides the same sort of vital services as other
agencies on the HCAOG board: Tribal law enforcement officers
are cross-deputized to work with the county Sheriff's department,
tribal ambulances transport patients to hospitals on the coast,
and so on.
Furthermore, Marshall noted that a state statute,
resulting from legislation sponsored by former Assemblyman Dan
Hauser (now Arcata's city manager) in the 1980s, specifically
recognizes the Hoopa Valley Tribe's Business Council as a public
agency qualified to participate on HCAOG. "And we've been
trying to get on it for 18 years," Marshall said. The tribe
is pondering legal action against HCAOG.
HO-HUM, A HALF-MIL: No, no, no, no, no.
Never, ever say in the press that you're less-than-excited about
that half million bucks you just won after slinging your humble
Lincolns into the Aristocrat Millioniser penny slot machine at
the Bear River Casino in Loleta. Especially if you're a precedent-setting
second winner of $500,000 from that jingly machinery in the amazing
span of just one month (on Nov. 13, Nancy Harlan of Fortuna pulled
a $500,000 jackpot from the Loleta casino Millioniser).
The casino's marketing manager, Art Collins, sent
out a buoyant news release about the happy event. That, however,
was followed by a lugubrious report in the Times-Standard
by Ann Johnson-Stromberg, who quoted Dec. 16 jackpot winner Sharon
Badostain, of Garberville, as saying that while she knew she
should be "jumping up and down and screaming" with
joy over her winnings, instead she just felt an underwhelming
sense of "Wow" -- she had personal trouble on her mind.
Ah, but ambivalence, even depression -- nay, that isn't the message
a casino wants to get out there, even if you are feeling so sad
about a personal relationship gone bad that all the money in
the world couldn't buy back your happiness. What visage will
they put on the "Sharon won $500,000" billboard?
Now, it'd be easy to cry "sore winner!"
at this point, and suggest that Badostain maybe could ship those
winnings off to a happier person. But instead it's more fun to
wonder what the casino PR-machinery will make of it all. And
to re-quote Badostain's own wisdom: "Money can't buy happiness."
Still, we hope Badostain forgets the chump who made her unhappy
and enjoys her windfall.
Case Closed
State prosecutor says he won't take the Salzman
matter to court
by HELEN SANDERSON
In a letter to the Trinidad Police Department,
an attorney with the California Attorney General's Office wrote
last week that while it seems Richard Salzman is guilty of using
other people's names to write letters for publication in newspapers,
any attempt to prosecute him would likely be unsuccessful.
The letter appears to bring the three-month-old
investigation of Salzman to an end, with no charges filed against
the political campaigner.
The word came down in a Dec. 12 letter from Deputy
Attorney General Keith Lyon to Trinidad Police Chief Ken Thrailkill,
who led the initial investigation against Salzman, a Trinidad
resident.
Lyon wrote that Salzman "technically violated"
and undermined the "spirit" of California Penal Code
538(a), the "False Personation and Cheats" section
of the code. The section makes it is a misdemeanor for a person
to sign "any letter addressed to a newspaper with the name
of a person other than himself ... with intent to lead the newspaper
to believe that such letter was written by the person whose name
is signed thereto."
"However," Lyons wrote, "I do not
believe that there is a reasonable probability of a unanimous
conviction by a jury of 12 individuals." He went on to state
that attempting to prosecute Salzman "would not be a wise
use of resources." Thrailkill said the estimated cost for
state lawyers to prosecute the case in Humboldt County would
have been $30,000.
It was also Lyon's opinion that Salzman did not
commit identity theft -- a felony charge -- because he "had,
or arguably had, permission to sign for others [in his letters
to editors]."
Lyon also notes that Salzman used the name of his
dog, Sarah Salzman to submit one letter.
"This is not a crime because Sarah Salzman
is not a person," he wrote.
When the Journal revealed Sept. 1 that Salzman
used the name of Dick Wyatt, a Fortuna resident, as well as the
names R. Trent Williams and R. Johnson to publish letters, a
number of left-leaning local residents defended his actions.
But defense later turned to public pillory at a Trinidad Town
Hall meeting, where Chief Thrailkill said he was dubbed a "Gestapo"
for pursuing the case.
"There's a thought out there, that [public
criticism] is all part of the job," Thrailkill said. "It
does not mean that when you are personally attacked it doesn't
affect you. But as a professional department you have to move
on and do what you are hired to do."
The criminal investigation began after Eureka
Reporter Managing Editor Glenn Franco Simmons filed an official
complaint against Salzman.
Salzman e-mailed area media outlets on Dec. 15,
issuing the first press release this paper has received from
him since Aug. 28, when he admitted to submitting letters to
the editor using a "pen name."
"I'm pleased that the matter has been resolved
and I look forward to returning my attention to the vital quality-of-life
issues facing Humboldt County.
"As my lawyer explained to me, the refusal
of the Attorney General's office to file any charges indicates
that the allegation didn't even clear the first hurdle for entry
into the criminal justice system."
Salzman's Arcata attorney, Russ Clanton, has handled
local high-profile cases, including the 2000 win against the
Humboldt County Sheriff's Department for illegally seizing the
medical marijuana of Chris Giauque.
A Tuesday morning phone call to Clanton was not
returned before deadline. Power was out at his Arcata office
following a rainstorm.
Salzman's case was forwarded to the state Attorney
General on Nov. 15, after the Humboldt County District Attorney's
office declined to investigate, citing DA Paul Gallegos' potential
conflict of interest in the matter.
Salzman, the coordinator of the Alliance for Ethical
Business, was Gallegos' campaign manager, directing a successful
battle against a Pacific Lumber Co.-sponsored attempt to recall
the DA in 2004.
"I don't see Richard working on my [2006]
campaign at this point," Gallegos said on Monday. "Richard
is a great friend, he has been a great friend to me. I have great
strong feelings for him but I don't think it would be appropriate."
Both Councilmember Chris Kerrigan and Fifth District
Supervisor Jill Geist have since distanced themselves from the
man who worked to get them into office. For the most part, Gallegos
seems to be following suit, though he still considers Salzman
a friend. Still, they have not spoken in recent months, save
for a passing "hello" and "happy holidays"
during a chance encounter in an Arcata restaurant.
"There's a sadness you feel when a bad thing
happens to your friend, when you don't get to talk to your friend
anymore because of what's going on in their lives," Gallegos
said. "That was painful, in all candor. It was sad for me.
It's like losing someone."
In recent months would-be campaign managers have
offered to take over Gallegos' next run, but the DA mentioned
no names.
"My campaign is next year, not this year,"
he said.
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