Comment / By JJ / Nov. 3, 2011, 9:22 a.m.

Fascinating, thanks Ryan for an excellent article. I can’t wait to see Rob Arkley’s Humboldt Mirror blog response. I’ve found that whenever someone comments about Rob on that blog, it is quickly deleted, especially any comments that mention Security National’s pending bankruptcy. Very entertaining to watch them moderate to please Mr. Arkley.

Comment / By Dung Beetle / Nov. 3, 2011, 11:22 a.m.

I’m sure that the clever blogger behind the Mirror will photoshop Mr. Girard’s head onto a farm animal. That sort of cleverness seems to please his lord and master. Hugs!

Comment / By Montanna Jones / Nov. 4, 2011, 8:19 a.m.

A few years ago we tried to start a day care for infants. We had everything in place and then we hit the planning department. Six months later we still could not get a response from them. Needless to say the much needed infant care was never established. It is common knowledge that big companies have the planning departments ear. Little folks are unimportant. I guess we just don’t have the clout.

Comment / By brian / Nov. 4, 2011, 8:52 a.m.

The headline for this so called article should read “Ryan Burns Loves Krik Girard” This is the kind of slanted “reporting” one would expect from Fox News.

Comment / By Buzz / Nov. 4, 2011, 8:55 a.m.

The evidence for a “slanted reporting” is so often that one does not like what has been observed.

Comment / By Ester / Nov. 4, 2011, 9:06 a.m.

Brian gets his news from the Mirror, go figure

Comment / By brian / Nov. 4, 2011, 9:30 a.m.

Buzz; so if one likes what’s being reported, then it’s not “slanted”…. good luck with that. Ester; I get my “news” from “The Humboldt Herald”. Because, you know…. it’s fair and balanced…..

Comment / By Ester / Nov. 4, 2011, 9:40 a.m.

The Herald is about as fair & balanced as the Mirror Brian

Comment / By Buzz / Nov. 4, 2011, 9:55 a.m.

Brian interprets and expands upon what other people write and then argues with his conclusion.

Comment / By brian / Nov. 4, 2011, 1 p.m.

Ester @ 9:40 a.m.; Your right. Buzz @9:55 a.m. ; Back at you….

Comment / By Dr Martin / Nov. 4, 2011, 1:37 p.m.

This is why most builders avoid permits from Orleans to Southern Humboldt .They are rude and confrontational right from the start …We have talked about doing an undercover recording

Comment / By Patrick / Nov. 4, 2011, 8:20 p.m.

I was quoted in the article charging the Planning Department with an abuse of authority. My experience stems from this set of facts. In our town of Willow Creek, Planning Department has gone two miles up a dirt road to cite me for a nuisance for a 16 X 20 shed, timbers carved with a chain saw. They are scouring my property for “violations”. They want me to do engineering reports on rock quarries first dug in the 1950’s and always used lawfully to rock and maintain logging roads on our own property; rock was never for sale. In the great Blowdown of 1995, thousands of trees were broken off or uprooted on our properties as well as across the National Forest and throughout the wilderness areas. A decision was made not to clean up the woody debris in the wilderness, but allow nature to take her course. Nature, however, works over the ages and her first response to the blowdown was the massive Megram Fire in 1999 that burned catastrophically over more than 200,000 acres of wilderness around us. We, on the other hand, private forestland owners, did clean up blowdown, maintain the roads and reforested the affected areas with redwoods, cedar and fir. We constructed defensible firelines along ridgetops and along forest roads we planted sequoia there to someday slow fire. In the New Year’s Eve storm of 2005, winds in excess of 100 mph again struck our mountains, Again we lost hundreds of trees. Two large old growth fir toppled across Highway 299 and Caltrans implemented a $5.5 million experimental naildown project. They pounded 1,200 eighty foot long steel rods into the face of the ridge on the highway below our property. They hydraulic hammered all summer long. Four months after they finished their experiment, a 5.2 earthquake was epicentered within the project area. At the end of the following summer, a fire started by a homeless encampment burned 8 acres on property adjacent. Water trucks could not be utilized because the Caltrans experiment had pinched the old logging road and the trucks could no longer make the turn. We fought the fire with water tanks in the back of pick-ups and a cat. The fire did not enter the National Forest or burn outside the one property. Humboldt County Planning has decided that every activity that has ever taken place on the property now needs a permit. But when I study the Code I find it isn’t so. I’m being harassed with administrative penalties and ridiculous requests for expensive studies to punish me for asking a few questions no one wants to answer.

Comment / By Patrick / Nov. 4, 2011, 8:22 p.m.

Here are my questions: How is it that Danco gets building permits in Willow Creek when there’s been a building moratorium in Willow Creek for years because the septic leach fields are saturating the area above the community wells. The moratorium does not affect Danco. They put in their multi-unit development a scant few hundred yards above the community wells. They did a lot line adjustment with Tyler Holmes, the neighbor who works at Planning and serves on the WCCSD. Marc Rowley, former WCCSD manager buys the property from the Mormon Church next door to what is then announced to be the new Community Park, made possible after years of secret planning. His development of Coho Cottages also sails through Planning despite the building moratorium. Just to complete the circle, the WCCSD grants Brizard Company a gift of a right of way across the newly acquired park in return for the lease 99 year lease of a “lot” in the middle of the creek. I had a few questions. I’ve watched the Planning Department budget mushroom from $3.7 million in 2004 to $26 million in 2011. I’ve asked for a breakdown in the $21 million in Other Charges in the Planning Department budget. I was not worthy of an answer. I’ve called no names. I bear no hatred. I am not a developer; i am a treeplanter. I take exception to a politicized planning process used to punish political opponents.

http://www.tworiverstribune.com/2011/11/gross-domestic-happiness-overrules-all-in-bhutan/

Comment / By Insider / Nov. 5, 2011, 9:43 a.m.

Dan Johnson is the anti-Arkley developer. That is why he gets permits so much easier than anyone else, especially those in tight with the Rotary & Chamber crowd. These people are use to getting favors, so when they feel cheated, they go on the offense.

Comment / By longwind / Nov. 5, 2011, 11:29 a.m.

Without judgement, people should understand that Dan’s pre-eminent business is building apartment units that enable the county to comply with state and federal low-income housing programs. He and Planning are two heads of one critter, whether it be Beauty or Beast. So it’s no wonder they talk and think the same. They are largely overlapping interests, getting and spending the same grants.

Ryan, the complaint I hear most vociferously against Kirk is that his retort to complaints that he or his staff have done something illegal/immoral/braindead etc is simply “Sue me.” So it’s no wonder that people do.

Suing is the official complaint procedure for the Planning Division. And that’s another complaint frequently heard from the interior of the county, except by our leaders, who can hear nothing from that quarter. It’s too confusing to listen to second-class constituents …

Comment / By Joe the Plumber / Nov. 5, 2011, 11:37 a.m.

Dan Johnson has a hidden past protected by the government. His transgressions have been placed underground.

Comment / By Buzz / Nov. 5, 2011, 12:16 p.m.

Always trust some clown named “Joe the Plumber.”

Comment / By Cain / Nov. 5, 2011, 6:05 p.m.

It’s easy to root for Dan Johnson when he competes against Kramer, G. Pierson & Rob A.

Comment / By Scott / Nov. 6, 2011, 8:54 p.m.

A building moratorium in Willow Creek? Never heard of it. Patrick, please do tell…The Building Department should know about this.

Comment / By Digging The Hole Deeper / Nov. 6, 2011, 9:08 p.m.

Girard, the Planning Commission and supervisors, should have been going on the offensive long ago, especially considering the contentious tenure of Conlon, by reaching out aggressively to media to keep citizens informed on planning issues that a tiny, landed minority is always whining about in every county in California.

It’s as if the state’s largely impaired and depleted wetlands, tributaries, rivers, and the diminishing biodiversity dependent upon them, hasn’t already happened throughout California; it’s as if developers haven’t already built our cities beyond infrastructure capacity for homes beyond the reach of 75% of local incomes; it’s as if moratoriums for one city after another wasn’t enough warning for our representatives to say NO MORE before the entire county faces a moratorium! And all we get from Arkley’s lobbyist Kay Backer, and her local speculator cheer-squad, is that we must continue the legacy of social engineering by the highest bidder for the love of property rights, God, Mom, and apple pie!!!???

Their “freedoms” to harvest the public’s infrastructure or to mine our headwaters, should have ended long before their activities repeated the same, predictable history of greed and its profound negative impacts upon the citizens subsidizing it.

Give ‘em hell Kirk, and thank you Mr. Burns.

Isn’t it about time for a NCJ follow-up on “Interested Parties” by John Osborn??

This is the ONLY mainstream article ever published in Humboldt County exposing the stranglehold our greedy development community maintains over local election financing.

Comment / By Anon / Nov. 6, 2011, 11:15 p.m.

here’s the story on Patrick Shannon: grading violation for putting an illegal road on a 60-100% slope 100 -150 yards above a trib of Willow Creek.

https://co.humboldt.ca.us/board/agenda/questys/mg214089/as214145/as214146/ai216077/do216078/bosagendaitem.pdf

At least half the people at the hearing calling for Kirk to be fired are people who’ve been busted violating county code.

Comment / By Indeed / Nov. 7, 2011, 10:19 a.m.

Thanks Anon.

What media in Humboldt County would dare to publish the violations of Good Ol’ Boys publicly testifying against Girard?

Their death grip on this county won’t change until they’re repeatedly shamed for their excesses.

Bonnie Neely helped insure that Ken Bareilles received his much deserved felony….at a huge political cost.

Comment / By Patrick / Nov. 7, 2011, 10:35 a.m.

Although i don’t usually engage in discussion with people with names like Anon or Indeed, i must say that the issue of a grading violation was in regard to a forest fire on my neighbor’s property, and was politically motivated punishment by the Planning Dept. The creation of the fire line and keeping the fire to 8 acres in steep terrain was heroic and accomplished by my Dad…This is the same kind of bs I’ve been getting from the Planning Dept, uh, is that where you work?.

Comment / By sas / Nov. 8, 2011, 2:25 p.m.

Great article! It is hard to fully understand how difficult Girard’s job truly is with balancing the interests of such a diverse county. I think the Lovelace quote captured it perfectly- land use planning is trying to navigate a balance between private property and public interest.

Thanks Burns for fair reporting.

Comment / By Rose / Nov. 8, 2011, 8:13 p.m.

I have personally heard Bill Barnam use some self described “provocative” words to describe Mr. Girard. No doubt Kirk is at the top of his shit list.

Comment / By Thirdeye / Yesterday, 4 p.m.

The elephant in the room is the sweetheart deal between Healthy Humboldt and Kirk Girard. Allow Healthy Humboldt to pre-empt the role of CACs in exchange for support of Supervisors who will protect him. He left when he saw the efficacy of that arrangement crumbling.