the town dandy / By Hank Sims

Revolutions Won and Lost

(April 10, 2008)  Even allowing for the fact that this is an election year, the speed and fury with which the coalition that has recently formed to oppose the standard tactics and practices of the Humboldt County Code Enforcement Unit was a wonder to behold. They filled up Garberville’s Vets’ Hall on Friday of last week, and they took up an entire day of the Board of Supervisors’ time on Tuesday.

Hundreds of people at both venues took to the podium to upbraid the county on the odd specter of building inspectors showing up with a heavily armed posse to search rural residences seemingly at random, as has been happening with alarming frequency of late. (See our story “Codes Damned Codes,” Feb. 28, for a description of such a raid.) Speakers, many of whom had been among the raided, could barely contain their fury at the tangled, confusing bureaucratic structure under which code enforcement operates.

But it wasn’t just the hill folk who told their tales and excoriated the elected and appointed county officers who had come to hear them. It was also people like Lee Ulansey of the Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights,a hands-off-my-property group that arose in the wake of the county’s attempt to restrict home building on lands zoned for timber production, and which now has larger aims. HumCPR’s location of common ground with the lefty hill folks represents the first real political success for any of the various groups opposing land regulation in the county, many of which have come and gone.

After hundreds of people spoke out against the code enforcement raids at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday — some telling frightening tales of being the victim of a raid, others calling for heads to roll — Supervisor Roger Rodoni, who represents the Garberville area, where most of the raids have taken place, put forward a motion to place a 45-day moratorium on code enforcement activities and to appoint a task force to study the issue. It passed 4-0. (Supervisor John Woolley was absent.)

People seemed satisfied, but their newfound passions likely remain. One has to wonder whether this ad hoc coalition will stick around long enough to influence the June election. In order to win control of the update of the county’s general plan — something that has been long on the mind of at least some of those baying for the firing of Community Development Services Director Kirk Girard — the development community has to ensure that Rodoni is reelected and Supervisor Jimmy Smith is not. And whoever wins the majority on the board this year can determine the shape of the county for many years to come. There’s a lot of money at stake.

We note, with interest, that the 45-day moratorium on code enforcement actions is set to expire on May 23 — just a week and a half before the election. You think it’s going to be an issue then?

On Friday,a not insignificant percentage of the Eureka Police Department staged an uprising at Eureka City Hall. The occasion was a Eureka City Council special meeting to sign a five-year contract with EPD Chief Garr Nielsen, who was brought in from Portland to reform the department a year ago. The EPD officers and support staff who filled the hall Friday evening sought to block the contract. They failed.

The EPD contingency in the council chambers that night made one thing clear: Nielsen has made more than one enemy during his tenure. He has reassigned several members of the department against their wishes. DeeDee Wilson, a former police dispatcher, was in tears as she testified, saying that Nielsen had taken her job away. “He has lied and cheated,” she said. She said that she had filed a sexual harassment claim against him. Several sworn officers — almost all of whom stated their place of residence as Fortuna, incidentally — asked the council to wait. They said that they spoke for many, as several of their fellows were on disciplinary probation. “Chief Nielsen - he is feared,” said department employee Cindy Meadows.

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