News

Fortunately, a 2.6 magnitude earthquake -- like the one that just struck Santa Rosa -- is no big deal and not at all newsworthy at this distance.

It's just that when the quake in question is epicentered directly beneath the hoop of the middle school's basketball court ... well, you just have to wonder.

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A beloved North Coast holiday tradition returneth! For the first time since 2003, the Eureka Inn is home to a heart-warming, humbug-defeating, green behemoth. As mentioned in this week's Dandy, the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony is today at 4 p.m. and will feature music from the Arcata Interfaith Gospel Choir, the Humboldt Harmonaires, the College of the Redwoods band and the First Presbyterian Church of Eureka Choir.

Resistance is futile. Christmas is here.

Sundberg, Gallegos, Newman hold on with ease. Meserve makes a dash, but comes up short. Unoffical results here.

Chances are that they've finally cleared that ghastly, traffic-snarling accident in Willits by now, in which a propane truck went head on with another vehicle, overturning and dumping its contents all over the roadway and necessitating a response from a Hazmat team on one of the busiest traveling days of the year. Reports from the scene indicate that traffic through the city, never ideal, was backed up for over an hour on either end, and appears to have engendered a number of spinoff accidents.

The debate over whether to reroute Highway 101 to bypass downtown Willits has literally been going on for over 50 years. Caltrans just about had its ducks in a row this time 2009, but then got aced by the Army Corps of Engineers for inadequate wetlands remediation. (The highway-builders hold out hope.)

One thing that the accident has revealed is how few Humboldters -- at least those on the Twitters -- know how to bypass Willits by their own damn selves. It's not that hard, and it's kinda pretty too. Take a look at the map below in case something like this ever comes up again, and please click through for turn-by-turn directions. One false move, here, and you'll be out in deep, deep boondocks before you know it.

This, of course, kills your traditional Burrito Exquisito/Al's Redwood Room/Chad's Fish and Chips/Purple Thistle/Mariposa Market/Paradise Cafe/Book Juggler stop, but as compensation you'll pass within a few hundred yards of the ancestral Sims manse.

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Spotted today in an Old Town Eureka parking lot: A Toyota 4Runner with a license plate issued by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

I knew that some Native American nations issue passports. I remember the showdown earlier this year when the U.K. shamefully refused to let members of the Iroquois National lacrosse team travel to a tournament without documentation issued by The White Man. But I didn't know that a whole bunch of nations effectively have their own DMVs. 

There are many deep and tricky discussions to be had about native sovereignty. What is the proper balance of power between the federal government, state government, local government and sovereign tribes? To what degree does self-governance in Indian Country lead to a fragmentation of our legal system, or our society? (Teaser: This week's Journal will likely touch upon one of these questions.)

Everything else being equal, though, I declare my natural bias in favor of sovereignty. It just makes the world more interesting. And with that, I'm throwing down a challenge: Hoopa, you're first. I want to see some license plates.

A car accident just north of Willits took the life of Humboldt State University Chemistry Professor William Golden Friday night, according to a Humboldt State University press release.

HSU press release follows.

^^^^^

William G. Golden, 58, of Sunny Brae, Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Departments of Chemistry and of Physics and Astronomy at Humboldt State University, was killed Friday, Nov. 19, at about 8:30 p.m. when his vehicle left the road and collided with two trees on Route 101, six miles north of Willits on Schoolhouse Hill in central Mendocino County. Cause of the accident is under investigation, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Golden joined Humboldt State in 1993 after many years as a scientist and staff engineer at IBM, San Jose. He earned his doctorate in physical chemistry in 1978 from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 

Winner of HSU’s Outstanding Faculty Award in 1999, Golden was a member of the American Chemical Society, American Physical Society and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, among other professional affiliations.

Steven Smith, Interim Dean of HSU’s College of Natural Resources and Sciences, said Golden brought exemplary teaching and administrative abilities to the campus. “He was respected professionally and admired personally by all who studied and worked with him,” Smith said. “He certainly will be missed.”

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Pretty decent summary of the Richardson Grove controversy from a Bay Area television station, including comments from Kerul Dyer, Rob McBeth, Kim Floyd and Lost Coast Brewery.

Somehow I missed the nude-in.

$121,125,647 to be (more or less) exact. That's how much of Uncle Sam's money flowed into Humboldt County between February 17, 2009, and September 30, 2010, as a result of President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. And the vast majority of that cheddar has been in the form of grants.

If you haven't yet noodled around on Recovery.gov, you're missing out on a cornucopia of accountability. For example, you can break down the data in a variety of ways -- by recipient, zip code, county, Congressional district, state and more -- plus interactive maps provide even more data.

Here's a brief breakdown of the county numbers:

• $39.2 million in grants has been awarded to the California Department of Transportation for work on roads and bridges in Humboldt County

• $7.8 million in grants has gone to county government. The largest of these awards was a $3.4 million Workforce Investment Board grant from the California Department of Employment Development

• $5 million in grants has been given to the Redwood Community Action Agency, including a $1.6 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (part of a statewide homelessness prevention initiative) and a $1.4 million grant from the Department of Energy (part of a statewide weatherization assistance program)

• $3.2 million in grants was awarded to the Northern California Indian Development Council, more than $3 million of which came from the Department of Health and Human Services [and was evidently distributed by the NCIDC to tribes statewide -- see Greg Gehr's comment below]

• $2.1 million in grants went to the City of Eureka (and still they have budget problems?), including $631,796 to hire cops and $665,129 for street repairs

• $1.1 million in grants has been given to county schools

The effects of these funds are incalculable, but the coin of the realm for many commentators and pundits (who vastly oversimplify matters, some would argue) has been the number of jobs created. According to recipient reports, here in Humboldt County we've seen fewer than 180 jobs as a result of these monies. In case you're curious, that works out to an average annual salary of $673,256.88.

Back in 2003, a 29-year-old man named Cody Alan Dwire attacked someone with an axe outside the Eureka Inn. It was pretty startling at the time, as the attack seemed to be random and likely would have been fatal had another man not intervened.

Recently, a reader alerted us to the shocking last chapter of Dwire's life, which took place in 2008. Below is a news report from a local TV station in Lewiston, Idaho.

Plenty of us have spotted the all-seeing Googlemobile rolling through town the last few weeks, stealing the souls of everything in range of its roof-mounted camera orb. And say what you will about Big Brother and privacy and whatnot, I dig Street View. It's fun being able to virtually wander city streets on six continents. Add a carjacking app and we'll have a kickass new Grand Theft Auto.

But riddle me this: How can Google's robot driver roll through almost every square inch of Eureka's surface streets and miss two long stretches of Fifth Street -- known hereabouts as Highway 101?!