News

UPDATE 12/18: We updated our King Tide photos blog post with some non-King Tide comparative photos ... like we should have done to begin with.

Sigh. Live and learn.

Thursday morning at 10:46 a.m., was when the North Coast was predicted to have its highest tide of 2012, i.e. THE KING TIDE. So the Journal went out and took pictures. Yup. Lots o' water (9.5 ft at the Eureka Slough Bridge).

If you happened to be out and about gawking at high tideage too, and you'd like your pictures to do more than to claim bytes on your hard drive, Humboldt Baykeeper is soliciting shots for their 2012 King Tide Photo Initiative. For more details email [email protected] or call 268-8897.

(Click pictures to biggify.)

Reduced Indian Island

At C Street Plaza, Eureka

You know how, when you ride the Madaket, you have to descend down that plank. Well, that plank was just 'bout level today.

Photos by Andrew Goff.

UPDATE: Facebook commentor and tide lover Matthew Knight would like us all to share in his private hell. Everyone sing along!

There's not much information in this press release about what might have caused the death of a 35-year-old inmate at the county jail this morning. The Sheriff's Office simply says there is "no sign of foul play."

Here's the press release:

On 12-12-2012, approximately 6:40 am a Humboldt County Correctional Officer was notified by an inmate that another inmate, identified as Jonathan Michael Sorrell, 35 years from Hoopa, was having a medical issue. The Correctional Officer immediately went to Sorrell's aid and called for jail medical, extra correctional staff and an ambulance to respond. Initially Sorrell was breathing, however while the Correctional Staff was with Sorrell he stopped breathing and they began C.P.R. until they were relieved by jail medical staff. After an ambulance arrived at the facility a physician determined that Sorrell was deceased.

The Humboldt County Coroner was summoned to the scene. There is no sign of foul play. An autopsy will be scheduled by the Humboldt County Coroners Office to determine the cause of death.

 

Today, December 12 (12/12/12!), is the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, celebrating the day on which Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in 1531 on Tepeyac hill (just north of Mexico City) to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoazin.

Although it's not an official holiday in Mexico, it's a special day for Catholics (who comprise 83% of the population).

Here in Guanajuato, Mexico, it’s both a day for celebration and devotion.

The California Highway Patrol says Jason Anthony Warren murdered Suzie Seemann, the university professor who died when a Kia allegedly driven by Warren ran into her and two friends on the morning of Sept. 27 as they went for their morning jog on Old Arcata Road. Her friends, Jessica Hunt and Terri Vroman-Little, suffered major injuries, and Hunt's dog, Maggie, also was killed.

The CHP, in a news release/collision report issued this afternoon, requests that the Humboldt County District Attorney file several charges against Warren: one count murder, two counts attempted murder, one count animal cruelty, three counts assault with a deadly weapon and one count vehicle theft.

In November, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department asked the DA to file homicide and auto theft charges against Warren for a separate incident -- the killing of Hoopa resident Dorothy Ulrich -- earlier on the same morning the joggers were hit.

 

At least that's what director M. Night Shyamalan envisions. The trailer for his upcoming sci-fi blockbuster After Earth was released today and features quick shots of some of the footage the crew shot amongst our redwoods back in April.

Also, monkeys.

Enjoy.

The film is scheduled to be released in June 2013.

Good news for locals who travel in the sky (or whose friends/family/customers do): A group of area businesses, tribes, governments and nonprofits has cobbled together $250,000, which will be added to the $750,000 federal grant we got in September to reach the cool million dollars required to attract a new airline carrier to our foggy, remote corner of the world.

As you might recall, American Eagle, a subsidiary of American Airlines, announced a deal last spring that would have brought twice-daily service between the Arcata-Eureka Airport and LAX, but the deal fell through a few weeks later. Why? Because the county hadn't lined up funding for the $1 million revenue guarantee that American Eagle was demanding. (Such demands are now industry standard.)

The community has been understandably gun-shy about offering "revenue guarantees" to airlines since 2010, when Delta bailed on us after just 15 months of service, pocketing $500,000 in Headwaters Fund money in the process.

But in announcing this latest million-dollar carrot, which has been ponied up by the Department of Transportation, the Headwaters Fund and more than 70 local donors, Redwood Region Economic Development Director Don Ehnebuske argued that the expense should pay dividends in the long run.

For one thing, he said, ticket prices should be cheaper with competition. After Delta and Horizon skipped town, leaving Humboldt County with just one airline (United), ticket prices shot up. (Anecdotal evidence: I just searched for a round-trip ticket to San Francisco, leaving next Monday and returning Friday. Price: $556.)

Plus, Ehnebuske said, a lot of locals have simply given up on flying out of here, opting instead to drive to airports in Sacramento, San Francisco, Redding and Medford. That costs us federal aviation dollars, which are granted based on passenger numbers.

Ehnebuske and others have pointed out that Delta came very, very close to reaching its passenger-load goals back in 2010, and that was at a time when the economy was worse off and airline fuel prices were at an all-time high. The prospects for an air carrier should look better in spring 2013, which is the target date for new service to start, according to a press release from RREDC.

In a phone conversation this morning, Ehnebuske broke down some of the funding amounts by source: As reported a few months back, the federal government is providing the lion's share with a $750,000 grant. Of the remaining $250,000, the Headwaters Fund agreed to match local fundraising efforts dollar-for-dollar, meaning it will wind up contributing roughly $125,000. 

The cities of Eureka and Arcata each chipped in $10,000, Ehnebuske said, while Trinidad and Ferndale threw in $1,000 apiece and Blue Lake got on the board with $100.

See more donors listed at the bottom of this press release from RREDC:

(EUREKA, CA) - The Redwood Region Economic Development Commission (RREDC) announced today that a giant step has been taken towards attracting more air service to the area -- and bringing competition back to the Arcata Eureka Airport (ACV)-- when a $1 million fundraising goal was reached today. The money will be used to support a new air carrier flying to a new hub airport until that route is self-supporting. RREDC and the County are now actively recruiting airlines and hope to have new service in place by spring 2013.

"We all recognize that air service is a crucial link to the world for Humboldt County, just like the Internet and U.S. [highway] 101," according to Don Ehnebuske, executive director of RREDC. "But like many people, we questioned why the community should raise funds to attract an airline to the area. After all, isn't it their business to provide air service? However, when we started looking into it, we came to understand the huge payback for everyone in Humboldt County."

Ticket prices shot up when Horizon ceased flights from ACV, leaving only one airline serving the area, and passengers began driving to other airports to take flights. Average one-way ticket prices to Los Angeles are now about $100 over the competitive fares of two years ago, costing the tens of thousands of passengers flying to LA millions of dollars a year. And there are about 50,000 fewer passengers flying from the airport every year, which dramatically reduces FAA construction funding available for local contractors and suppliers. The total loss to the community is at least $5 million per year by the most conservative estimates.

The $1 million raised came from the Department of Transportation, the Headwaters Fund and from over 70 local donors -- businesses, tribes, individuals and local governments. The total local contribution was $250,000. That translates to at least $40 in reduced prices and construction jobs for every $1 invested by the community over the two-year agreement with a new airline.

Local donors include:

Advanced Security
American Hydroponics
Anonymous Donor, Humboldt Area Foundation
Azalea Business Support
Bear River Band of Rohnerville
Blue Lake Rancheria
Boroni Designs
Carter Hotel
Cassandra Hesseltine/Carpe Diem
Cher-Ae Heights Casino
Chris Lehman
City Ambulance of Eureka
City of Arcata
City of Blue Lake
City of Eureka
City of Ferndale
City of Fortuna
City of Trinidad
Cypress Grove Chevre
David Somerville
Denise McNulty & Associates.
Dockal & Associates
Dr. James & Virginia Fisher
Eric Weems
Eureka Payments
GHD (formerly Winzler & Kelly)
Good Relations
GoodKind Organics
Green Diamond Resource
Harper Motors
HealthSport
Humboldt Area Foundation
Humboldt Association of Realtors
Humboldt Bay Harbor District
Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau
Humboldt Investment Capital
Humboldt Land Title
Humboldt Moving & Storage
Humboldt State University
Hunter, Hunter & Hunt
James Poovey
Jessicurl
Joan Brady
Larry Hewit/Thule
Lost Coast Communications
McKinleyville Chamber of Commerce
Mercer Fraser
Mid City Motor World
Ming Tree McKinleyville
Northern California Community Blood Bank
O&M Industries
Opie Hendricks/Avis Car Rentals
PG&E
Premier Financial Group
Recology Humboldt County
Redwood Capital Bank
Renner Petroleum
Reprop Investments Inc
Republic Parking Systems
Schmidbauer Lumber Inc.
Sequoia Personnel
SHN Consulting Engineers
Thule/Larry Hewitt
Times Printing
Wild Planet Foods Inc.
Wildwood Manufacturing
Wing Inflatables Inc.
Zwerdling, Bragg, & Mainzer

For your amusement, we pass along this anecdote from a friend of the Journal, as recounted on Facebook:

Update Friday Dec. 7: Make that at least three school districts getting ready to issue new bonds with so-far-unknown structures. The McKinleyville Press blog reports today that the Northern Humboldt Union School District is scheduled to vote Tuesday night on issuing more bonds. (Voters approved that borrowing in a 2010 election. The two districts mentioned in our original post below got voter approval last month.)

Other school districtcs out there with more bond authority from past elections might also be getting on the bond train any time -- if you want to know what's going in your school district, this ia a good time to ask. It's especially timely because apparently, unless school district trustees ask some very specific questions before they vote, they might not be told whether their particular bond package will include some offerings that will one day cost taxpayers 10 times than what the schools borrowed, or even more. Seems like a good time to ask for the fine print.

Original post: Fortuna Union High School District trustees are getting ready to issue $3.5 million in school bonds, and the package they're scheduled to review next week includes the kind of bonds that can pile up hefty debt stretched out for years.

Similar bonds have triggered scandals in some Southern California school districts, and several Humboldt County districts are on the hook to repay five, seven or even 10 times what they've borrowed. (See "The Big Borrow" in this week's Journal.)

It's not uncommon for school boards to agree to large bond packages without ever asking whether they include these capital appreciation bonds, known as CABs, or how much will be repaid in relation to what was borrowed, according to Jon Isom, who with his brother Greg Isom advises many Humboldt area schools on bond issues.

The brothers, under the name Isom Associates, work for Urban Futures Incorporated, a government finance consulting firm. Jon Isom said that until recently, school trustees primarily focused on the big picture -- how much their districts would spend each year to repay their bonds, and whether that would keep taxes around the levels they promised in school bond elections. They didn't drill down to individual bonds that can come with steep price tags.

But he expects that could change in Humboldt, at least for now, as his firm advises Fortuna and Arcata school districts on upcoming bond sales.

Fortuna superintendent Glen Senestraro hadn't known too much about different kinds of school bonds before the Journal phoned him up today, but he has already started asking questions.

He read over the proposed resolution on next week's agenda, huddled with Jon Isom and then e-mailed the Journal that "CABs are in the resolution, but right now there is no intention of using any of those."

The Arcata Elementary School District, which could issue bonds early next year, has been following the flurry of interest in high-repayment bonds, and Superintendent Pam Jones said that along with working with Isom, she plans to consult with county Treasurer John Bartholomew.

"We're trying to be very careful with this," she said, and "the county treasurer can give us some good advice."

From Bartholomew, she can likely expect an earful.

"Capital appreciation bonds are horror stories for the long-term maturity CABs," he said on the telephone this afternoon. Much safer are the current interest bonds, known as CIBs, which pay interest regularly so that big payoffs don't land years down the road.

The state association of county treasurers wants California to pass a law that would ban the riskier bonds that drag repayment out beyond 25 years. That could smack down deals like the one made last year by the McKinleyville Union School District, which authorized the sale of $7 million in bonds that would cost the district $71.6 million by the time all of them mature in 2050, although some could be paid off sooner without penalty.

Bartholomew sent McKinleyville's then-superintendent an alarmed email the day he found out about the terms of those bonds -- information that comes to him because his office collects the taxes that will pay for the bonds.

"I feel compelled to comment that I am appalled by its long-term costs," he wrote in February 2011, particularly because the bond issue was approved so narrowly. And projections about the size of the tax base that would one day exist to pay off the bonds seemed so optimistic he merely wrote "yikes!"

He encouraged McKinleyville to keep looking for ways to refinance that debt.

(Want to look up whether your school district has any capital appeciation bonds, and what the terms are? You can do a search on the Electronic Municipal Market Access website.)

... here's some video taken a few days ago of just such a thing creeping across Highway 101 about three miles south of Crescent City -- with people scurrying out of the way of falling trees and everything!

(No one was hurt. Chill.)

Also, we nominate the video's creator for "Most Beavis-like Laugh of 2012." You decide.

If you happen to be traveling between Humboldt and Crescent City today, fear not, the slop has been cleared.

Press release from College of the Redwoods:

In a move made to address College of the Redwoods' fiscal solvency and accreditation standards, the CR Board of Trustees on Tuesday, Dec. 4 voted unanimously to eliminate 39 staff and management positions and approved a reorganization plan that also removes two senior-level administrative positions, which will be discontinued when their contracts expire at the end of June 2013.

Trustee Rick Bennett, who is elected from the Del Norte area, was absent from the meeting and did not cast a vote.

CR's fiscal and accreditation concerns have developed over time and will take time to resolve. "The reorganization plan is just the first step in addressing the college's fiscal and accreditation challenges," said CR President/Superintendent Kathy Smith.

The reorganization plan and reduction in the number of CR employees will result in approximately $500,000 in savings for the 2012-13 academic year as well as permanent savings of approximately $1.6 million annually in subsequent years.

 

Smith recommended the staff reductions to the Trustees, stating, "This is a critical time in the history of College of the Redwoods. Our accreditation sanction of ‘Show Cause' in February, 2012, coupled with a structural fiscal imbalance, places CR in accreditation jeopardy. The institution is at risk of both losing its accreditation and moving toward fiscal insolvency. The institution must act immediately."

Smith emphasized that these staffing cuts were spread out throughout the CR District, including the Eureka main campus, as well as the Del Norte and Mendocino Coast Education Centers.

Smith said that staff reductions were extremely difficult to make and in in no way reflected dissatisfaction with an individual's performance.  "However, they will allow CR to adapt, survive, and continue to adhere to accreditation standards and eligible requirements," Smith said. 

"All the services students are accustomed to receiving at CR will continue to be offered," Smith said. That includes assessment testing, help with financial aid applications and registration, advising, as well as use of computer labs and the library. CR will also implement a District-level scheduling of classes and programs to better serve students throughout the District.

Community colleges across the state have been suffering from budget cuts for the last five years.  CR's funding has declined 15 percent during that period while staffing levels and costs of providing employee benefits have steadily climbed.  CR's annual budget has been out of balance for some time and the college has been dipping into reserves to fund its commitments. 

The college's financial reserves, however, have nearly run out.  CR reported only a 2.41 percent ending reserve balance as of June 30, 2012, which is less than half the state-required 5 percent.  With the current year expenditures expected to exceed current year revenue by $2 million, significant expenditure reductions are required, Smith said.

"The CR faculty, staff and management will continue to focus on its critical mission and emerge with more streamlined student services for the community," Smith said. "Our goal is to be an even better community college."