news story / By Ryan Burns

Call the Fiscal Justice League

So what do we do? “We’ve got to be smarter and find a competitive advantage,” Reed said. The North Coast has some inherent assets including the intelligentsia at HSU and an ahead-of-the-curve attitude about alternative energy.

Hackett said developing renewable energy has distinct challenges, notably a bottleneck in the state grid system that limits our ability to export energy. Wave energy is promising, he said, but Western Europe is currently offering more institutional incentives so will likely get there first. There are also hurdles in the way of finding credit and obtaining permits from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Nevertheless, Hackett said green energy has “great potential” for the North Coast. “Shell Wind is currently investigating developing wind energy on Bear River Ridge,” he said, “and wind is one of the cheapest forms of energy.”

John Dalby, president and CEO of Redwood Capital Bank, suggested banking locally, and while that clearly would benefit his own bank, the argument made sense. Of the $1.4 billion of FDIC insured deposits in Humboldt County, less than 10 percent is controlled locally. Dalby said money placed in non-local institutions gets put to work in other communities.

“When was the last time you saw a commercial project with a big sign that said, ‘This project financed by Bank of America?’” Dalby asked. “They’re doing it in the Bay Area. They’re doing it in the Central Valley. They’re doing it everywhere. But not in Humboldt County.”

As for questions surrounding the federal bailout (Will it work?), the recession (How bad will it get?) and national markets (What will my house be worth next year?), the panel had few answers. Turns out they’re only human after all.

But on the consumer end of the equation, they said the solution might be as simple as a single word: frugality. Simply put, we need to stop spending more than we make, Hackett said. That will probably mean a drop in retail sales, he warned, but spending responsibly will help us in the long run. “We have to learn to live within our means again,” Hackett said.

So while the Fiscal Justice League may not be able to save the day by themselves, they were able to elucidate some possible roads to recovery, roads that will require nothing superhuman, just hard work, ingenuity and a little tightening of the belt. Maybe we should send them to Wall Street.

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