on the cover / By North Coast Journal Staff

Top 10 Stories of 2008

Weed, feds, fish. Fallen moguls and crooked cops. General economic panic.

(Dec. 18, 2008) 1. CRASH

Ugh, the economy … woe is us. It’s “the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression,” we’re told every few minutes, and Humboldt County can no longer huddle behind the Redwood Curtain. To wit, Samoa’s Evergreen Pulp Mill, which withered in a sluggish global pulp market. The mill somehow changed hands in October — from a Chinese company to a British Virgin Islands outfit which may or may not be related — and was shut down, leaving nearly 200 skilled laborers out of work for at least three to six months. Probably longer.

GALLERY >

The myth that Humboldt is protected by its isolation was exploded in 2008. All of our big economic wounds — the mills, the retail closures, the continued declines in the housing, financial and timber markets — were largely inflicted by forces outside our misty borders. County home sales are down almost 20 percent from a year ago, manufacturing’s down 19 percent and retail’s down 12, according to the latest issue of the Humboldt Economic Index. And most experts agree that things will only get worse in the first quarter of 2009.

But lifting the Redwood Curtain has had its advantages, too. Ron Samuels, owner of Arcata’s world-class marimba manufacturers Marimba One had a good year. More than half of the company’s business is overseas, and the weak dollar helped. “That was great for us,” Samuels said at a recent meeting of the Humboldt County Workforce Investment Board. The WIB’s executive director, Jacqueline Debets, said Marimba One exemplifies how Humboldt’s story has changed. Used to be we sank or swam on the tides of fishing and timber. As they’ve faded, we’ve diversified, creating new jobs in health care, specialty foods and niche manufacturing, among other “targets of opportunity” identified by the WIB as showing significant growth over the past 15 years. And we’ve done it by reaching out to the world at large.

The result? “This is the most resilient economy we’ve ever had,” Debets said. “For the first time since timber was king, our unemployment rate is lower than the state average.” At 7.5 percent (compared to the state’s 8.2), it’s also lower than it was during the recessions of 1973 (12.7 percent), 1980-82 (16.7 percent) and 1990-91 (8.7 percent).

For the men and women laid off from the mills, the Eureka Reporter, Mervyn’s and McMahan’s, to name but a few, finding new employment won’t be easy. We’re probably all in for tougher times ahead. Still, we held our own in 2008, not by moving toward isolationism or pining for our industrial past, but by expanding our search for opportunities and piecing together a multifaceted new identity for the 21st century.

— Ryan Burns

2. TIMBER WAR ENDS?

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