on the cover / By Ryan Burns

E Pluribus Eureka

Talking budget, blight and big box with the City Council candidates

(Oct. 23, 2008)  Parents gathered on the rock-hard bleachers at Eureka High, cheering their linebacker sons and cheerleader daughters, live in a different Eureka than the one inhabited by the tattooed women over at the Shanty, downing PBRs and flaunting their bruises after a gloriously brutal Roller Derby match.

The Eureka of art patrons sipping wine at the Morris Graves isn’t the same as that of the Mexican men playing soccer over at Zoe Barnum, or the woman curled up in a moldy sleeping bag in Halvorsen Park. Each group occupies its own little sub-Eureka, coexistent but distinct.

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On the other hand, the struggling shopkeeper on Sixth shares the same worry as the Evergreen Pulp Mill worker, the Mervyn’s clerk and the McMahan’s salesperson: How will I pay my bills?
In a city that has staked its future on being able to diversify economically, clearly it has already done so socially. If there’s an overarching attitude, a sort of pan-Eurekan mood, it’s this: Eureka is ill at ease. Looking around, residents see longstanding questions still unanswered, nagging problems still unsolved. The town’s standard irritants — crime, meth, unemployment, homelessness — have been around so long, most folks have just learned to live with ’em. But lately those persistent buggers have proved difficult to ignore.

Long-discussed plans for ambitious developments seem to have stalled. A series of police controversies has set citizens on edge. The prolonged (but not complete, dammit) collapse of the timber and fishing industries have left Eureka exposed to the economic elements, which are becoming more brutal by the day. Unemployment is at its highest level in more than a decade. Stores — both local and corporate — are downsizing or leaving altogether. The much-ballyhooed boardwalk is hardly the bustling tourist draw that was promised.

And the Marina Center. At this point, the proposed Balloon Track development, with its rumored Home Depot hub, has taken over Bigfoot’s mantle as the area’s most talked-about fictional entity. (A long-awaited environmental impact report is rumored to be circulating city hall.) The city’s economy is in flux, and nearly every day brings another sign that the global financial Armageddon has arrived on our humble shores.

On the upside, Eurekans, the whole diverse spectrum of ’em, are a resilient bunch. Drive through the city and you’ll see countless campaign signs standing earnest and proud — primary-colored indicators of optimism and civic engagement. For all their hard luck, anger and fear, Eurekans remain hopeful — ready and willing to work, to engage, to figure this out together.

That’s the environment facing the current crop of Council candidates — four people vying to represent two of the city’s five wards. In the Second, incumbent Polly Endert looks to defend her seat against challenger Linda Atkins. In the Fourth — being vacated by termed-out councilman Chris Kerrigan — county coroner Frank Jäger is battling retired restaurant owner George Clark.

While theoretically nonpartisan, Eureka Council races rarely play out that way. Two years ago, an organized platform of progressives, including Mayor Peter La Vallee and council contenders Larry Glass, Ron Kuhnel and Nan Abrams, proved unsuccessful, with only Glass emerging a winner. Nevertheless, history seems to be repeating itself with Clark and Atkins running a joint campaign and characterizing the race as Democrats (them) versus Republicans (Jäger and Endert).

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