budget, elections, Government, Humboldt, marijuana / By Bob Doran / Jan. 12, 3:04 p.m.

Supervisor Mark Lovelace - running for re-election

Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace gathered supporters on the Arcata Plaza Thursday afternoon to announce that he’s running for re-election (see text of speech below), then discussed challenges ahead, among them holding onto the county’s tax money, rural school busing, marijuana policy and smart meters.

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Environment / By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg / Jan. 12, 10:17 a.m.

Sewage Settlement

The city of Blue Lake has agreed to keep a closer eye on whether any of its treated sewage might be seeping into the Mad River. It will also spiff up its sewage treatment ponds, repairing dikes and adding more aerators to provide oxygen for crud-gobbling microbes.

That’s all part of a settlement reached late last month with the environmental group River Watch, which had threatened to sue.

The deal commits Blue Lake to sampling water quality in the Mad River upstream and downstream from its percolation ponds. The city also agreed to study whether it should create special rates for big industrial users, including a casino and a brewery.

Arts, Beer, Business / By Heidi Walters / Jan. 9, 5:21 p.m.

Gone Fish

Go Fish and Chips Cafe, that long-dead restaurant on Waterfront Drive, has finally bleached into oblivion. That is, it’s been painted all over in white. Which means the feverishly bright mural on its face, of fishes and birds and other creatures, painted by Eureka artist Augustus Clark about five years ago, is gone. Gone, also, the debate — is it good art? Is it appetizing?

Oval signs announce a new identity: Bar-Fly Pub & Grub. Country music lilted from the building Monday afternoon as workers hammered away inside, readying it for an anticipated Jan. 27 opening. Yeah, said one guy, they’ve heard some comments about the whiting-out of the mural — quite a few folks saying “whew, it’s about time,” others saying they missed it.

On the phone from Michigan, the new owner, Sheila Turbett, said she thought the mural was really cool. “But it didn’t coincide with our theme, so it had to go. We did take a lot of pictures of it, and I’m going to put pictures of what it used to be like, a little history, in the bar.”

The pub’s theme will be “down-home,” with pool tables, a juke box, antiques and country-western motifs, and will serve cocktails, beer and pub grub.

And the artist, how is he taking it?

“I’m happy to have had it out in the public for a while,” said Clark over the phone Monday afternoon, in his ever-easy-going way that brings to mind the lyric never was heard a discouraging word … . “I’m a little sorry that it’s gone. But if it’s going to go, let it go quickly. It’s gone now. And I’m all right.”

By Heidi Walters / Jan. 6, 6:20 p.m.

Party Totals

We’ve all heard of the horrors inflicted upon the Arcata Plaza during this past Halloween’s bacchanal. McKinley’s statue debauched. Grass embedded with broken glass and decorated in human fecal matter. Revelers jabbed with needles. Drunken revelers hauled off to the emergency room or jail. Planters and irrigation systems assaulted and plants killed. Storefront windows busted.

And we know what New Year’s Eve on the Plaza was like as a result of those Halloween excesses: tick-tock, tick-tock, nothing but the sound of a few dozen cops’ hearts beating in vigilant, calm rhythm as they stood in rank around the temporarily fenced off Plaza as the hour of 2012 approached. That, plus occasional grumblings from would-be Plaza partiers stopping to stare at the empty Plaza and the law enforcement spectacle, a steady festive chatter from the smallish crowd clumped alongside bar row, a drum session nearby and other small pops of elation and frustration.

And the next day? A very clean Arcata Plaza.

Now comes the judgment and second-guessing. Was it worth it to cordon off the Plaza and kill the people’s New Year’s buzz? How did the two measures measure up — the cost of cleaning up after the worst property-damaging impromptu party in memory on the Plaza, versus the cost of preventing another such debacle?

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Eureka, postcard, weather / By Bob Doran / Jan. 6, 8:30 a.m.

Snow! In Eureka!

No, it did not snow last night. But it did snow on this day in history 105 years ago.

Local postcard collector Steve Lazar dug out this photographic postcard record of the unusual weather event, although it took some history detective sleuthing to figure out exactly when and where the photo was taken. (View from the Eureka Court House, Jan. 6, 1907.)

Apparently the snow was shortlived. A newspaper account at the time noted, “The day was raw and cold and the white carpet remained longer than usual but by noon it had nearly all disappeared,” and goes on to describe “snowballing pranks” that caused property damage around town. 

 Mr. Lazar’s account of his snow postcard research project follows: 

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