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January 24, 2002
Gov. picks
Woolley again
John Woolley, 3rd District Humboldt
County Supervisor, has been reappointed to the Coastal Commission
by Gov. Davis for a second two-year term.
The Coastal Commission, created
in 1972 by a voter initiative, regulates all land-use activities
on the coast. Its 12 members are appointed by the governor and
the Legislature. Davis used one of his four picks on
Woolley.
Woolley, who lives in the coastal-zone
town of Manila, said working for the commission is rarely fun
but often rewarding. "It is like a five-day marathon planning
commission meeting," he said. "It has moments of joy,
but it is always work."
Cellular
tower in the Bottoms?
A good site for a cellular telephone
tower is hard to find. You need a willing landowner and a spot
that will provide good coverage to your service area -- a rare
combination.
You also need the approval of
local government, something that a new cellular tower proposed
for the Arcata Bottoms may not have.
U.S. Cellular is proposing to
construct the tower at the former Simpson lumber mill site, now
owned by Sun Valley Floral Farms. The Arcata Planning Commission
has voted unanimously to recommend the application be denied
because the tower would disturb the rural character of the surrounding
agricultural landscape.
The commission and the city
won't have the final say on the issue, as the property is outside
city limits. But because the property is part of the city's sphere
of influence, Arcata will have input into the county's decision.
"They have to take the
aesthetic impacts on the landscape into account, and a 150-foot
tower with six satellite dishes on it could be pretty ugly,"
said Kathleen Stanton, an Arcata resident who enjoys walking
the Bottoms.
But Gary Gundlach, North Coast
manager of Cal-North Cellular, said that questions of aesthetic
impact were subjective. "I feel it would be an insignificant
addition in the long run -- certainly less obtrusive than the
mill that has been there for years and years," he said.
And the tower is needed to provide
coverage to cellular users, Gundlach said. His company uses U.S.
Cellular towers and there are several "holes" in Arcata
where service is poor. "Humboldt State University, Giuntoli
Lane, downtown -- they do not have good coverage," he said.
The Humboldt County Planning
Commission is scheduled to begin its discussion of the cell-tower
issue at its March 21 meeting.
Trade zone
taking shape
The governing board of Eureka's
foreign trade zone held its first meeting Jan. 16, creating an
outline for what many hope will be a new engine for job growth
on Humboldt Bay.
The foreign trade zone was approved
last April by U.S Customs. It includes Dock B in Eureka, the
Arcata Airport and parts of Fields Landing and the Samoa Peninsula.
"The bottom line is that
we are trying to create new jobs," said Charles Ollivier,
foreign trade zone board member and Humboldt Bay harbor commissioner.
That can happen when business
decide to locate in the zone because of savings in trade tariffs,
Ollivier said. The zone works as a tariff-free area where importers
can store or manufacture items without paying duties until the
goods leave the zone.
The trade zone has many benefits
for industrial companies. If a car manufacturer imports mufflers,
for instance, the tariff on the shipment would be 4.5 percent.
If, however, the mufflers were imported into the zone and then
put into a car, they would be considered part of an imported
automobile -- and cars face only a 2.5 percent tariff.
"The idea is to bring in
products that you can use here and create jobs and tax revenue,"
said Stanwood A. Murphy Jr., president of Humboldt Bay Forest
Products and a board member.
His company, located at Fields
Landing, imports logs from other countries for local mills. He
said he could see a mill wanting to locate in the zone, because
they would not have to pay a tariff on logs until after they
had been manufactured into consumer products. The longer a company
can wait to pay a tariff, the better, he said, because that money
can be used for other investments in the meantime.
The zone's board has discussed
borders and the fees that would be charged to businesses that
wanted to locate in the zone. Now the board just has to find
some customers.
"We're just starting the
search for tenants," Murphy said.
Presbyterians
vote on gay clergy
A gathering of North Coast Presbyterian
ministers voted in Napa Jan. 18 to allow homosexual members of
the church to be ordained as clergy, putting themselves in the
minority on an issue that threatens to split the denomination.
Up for vote was Amendment A,
which would strike the section in the church's guiding document
that states that Presbyterian ministers and elders must adhere
to a life of "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between
a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness." The Presbytery
of the Redwoods voted 102-49 to pass the amendment.
That does not mean North Coast
churches will have gay pastors in the near future. The decision
about allowing gay and lesbian ministers in the church is made
on a nationwide basis and the overwhelming majority of American
presbyteries that have voted are against allowing those with
alternative lifestyles to the pulpit.
The denomination's churches
are organized into 173 regional groups or presbyteries. So far,
only eight have voted to allow homosexual members to be ordained
while 35 have voted not to. The remaining 130 presbyteries have
until June to vote.
"To be honest, we are tired
of discussing it," said Timothy Doty, who leads the Arcata
Presbyterian Church. "I, as a pastor, and we as a congregation
are not interested in taking strong, high-profile political stands
on social issues."
But he has been forced to. The
Presbyterian structure demanded that Doty cast a vote on behalf
of his congregation and conscience, because gay clergy ordained
at a church in Marin would be entitled to recognition as clergy
at churches in Mississippi, Idaho and Ohio.
Doty said the issue of gay clergy
would at best distract attention from his spiritual mission and
at worst carry the potential to split the 2.5 million-member
church.
"Denomination-wide, this
is a dangerous issue. I strive for it not to be, but it is."
Doty said he has argued for tolerance of different ideas, as
"sincere, dedicated Christians find each other in conflicting
positions on the issue."
"If my fellow pastors want
to [ordain homosexuals], I want to support them in doing that,
and if other pastors do not, I want to support their right not
to."
While that attitude is hardly
radical, is often portrayed as a "stand in favor of gay
rights," he said, "because the issue has been polarized."
He declined to comment on how
he had voted, saying that it could only further strain his congregation
over an issue that has already been discussed to the point where
few will be convinced.
"Our denomination is almost
equally divided on this, slightly leaning against," he said.
As an individual -- outside of his role as the church's representative
-- he leans slightly in favor, he said.
"Part of being a Presbyterian
has been to allow liberals and conservatives to be together,
organizing together and loving each other. But this issue may
not make that possible."
Fewer
clients, bigger problems
When Proposition 36 was first
implemented last July, members of the treatment and criminal
justice communities believed it would completely change the way
law and rehabilitation interact. Now, more than six months into
the measure's implementation, those same communities are expressing
surprise at how few new drug treatment clients the law is producing
-- and how severe their problems are.
The law, which gives nonviolent
drug offenders the choice of going into treatment rather than
incarceration, has not produced many potentially clean and sober
converts. Those who have availed themselves of Proposition 36
are "older, with much higher levels of drug and alcohol
problems and a lot more criminality," said Bill Damiano
of the Humboldt County Probation Department.
Most are reporting that methamphetamine
was their drug of choice, he said, and most require intensive
treatment. Only 5 percent of those in the program were suitable
for the least intensive, education-based therapy approach.
"We expected the majority
could be assisted with a treatment program, but they have higher
level problems and require more treatment," said Ann Lindsay,
Humboldt County's public health officer and an Arcata physician.
A fringe benefit is that the
treatment community prepared itself for more hardcore users and
has the space to treat them, she said.
"There was a tremendous
response after Prop. 36 was passed. The treatment capacity increased
by about a third in anticipation of the new clients," Lindsay
reported.
But first you have to get the
hardcore users into treatment -- and that is proving hard to
do. Only 50 percent of those referred to treatment under the
measure actually show up at their assessment meeting, Damiano
said.
That poor follow-through has
a lot to do with language in Proposition 36 that puts some valuable
tools out of reach. Mike Goldsby, director of Family Recovery
Services at St. Joseph Hospital, said the new program had weaker
systems of reward and accountability than Humboldt's established
drug court.
Humboldt County already has
a specialized court for drug offenses. When that court sentences
an individual, they are regularly subjected to urine tests. When
those urine tests come up positive for drugs, the addict gets
shuffled back to jail. If, however, urine screens come up clean,
the offender can earn more lenient probation terms.
Jail time isn't part of the
Prop. 36 process and urine screens are specifically excluded
from the program's funding, Goldsby said. "There seems to
be much less of a stick and carrot here," he said.
But Goldsby, Damiano and Lindsay
all said they remain hopeful the program will blossom into wider
application as the county becomes more familiar with it.
"I think they're working
out the bugs and will get more referrals soon," Lindsay
said. And even at its present level, the program is still bringing
treatment to some people in need.
"Anytime people get into
treatment for their substance abuse problems, I think that's
a good public health result. We're just learning how to make
it happen."
More firefighters
needed
With job losses mounting across
the country and in Humboldt, it's good to know there's at least
one area left where there's substantial job growth -- wild land
firefighting.
The number of employees in his
jurisdiction has more than doubled in two years, said Rob McClellan,
fire management officer for Six Rivers National Forest's Lower
Trinity Ranger District.
"We'll even be putting
a fire engine here in Willow Creek," he said. "We haven't
seen that since before the days of [President] Reagan."
The hiring process for next
year has already begun with a national search for able bodied
individuals. The qualifications are basic: sound body and mind,
U.S. citizenship and 18 years of age or more.
That's not to say that the application
process is easy. Would-be firefighters have to undergo a physical
readiness test, carrying a 40-pound pack three miles in 45 minutes.
"Well, you do have to be
in pretty darn good shape to fight a fire," McClellan said.
Interior
chief in Humboldt
Interior Secretary Gale Norton
visited Humboldt County Sunday, touring the Humboldt Bay National
Wildlife Refuge.
Norton has come under fire from
some in Humboldt County for her handling of river issues. She
expressed sympathy for farmers in the Klamath basin who tried
to claim water for irrigation that was legally committed to endangered
species of fish, including Klamath salmon. She has also been
less than enthusiastic about returning water to the Trinity River
under a decision made in the closing days of the Clinton administration.
Her visit last week was centered
on a less controversial topic, however: Richard Guadagno, the
Humboldt Bay Wildlife Refuge manager killed Sept. 11 in the crash
of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. President Bush
signed a bill Jan. 16 naming the refuge's new headquarters after
Guadagno.
New ordinance,
old problem
The Eureka City Council took
up a new seismic ordinance that would extend the deadline to
strengthen buildings for another two years at its Jan. 22 meeting.
Previously the deadline to renovate
unreinforced masonry buildings to earthquake safety or have them
demolished was Jan. 1, 2003 -- already an extension of a 2000
deadline set in a 1990 ordinance. When it became clear that many
of the remaining 16 such buildings in Eureka would not meet the
deadline, a new ordinance was drafted to delay.
The ordinance was introduced
at the Jan. 15 meeting and was up for adoption Jan. 22, after
press time.
There is little doubt that the
council will end up giving building owners more time, said developer
Kurt Kramer. He has been dealing with the problem of earthquake-retrofitting
the unreinforced masonry in the Professional Building, and knows
how difficult it can be: It's a $500,000 investment that no bank
will loan you money to complete.
"You just don't get banks
to fund them, because they are a major liability. In the event
something would happen to the building -- like an earthquake
-- the lender's main asset is gone." The bank would have
nothing to foreclose on but a pile of rubble.
Kramer has to finance the Professional
Building project -- "out of my back pocket," as he
put it. To make matters worse, a retrofit usually means that
the interior has to be gutted to complete the work, meaning that
tenants and rental income disappear.
The city's redevelopment agency
has responded with a seismic retrofit loan program. Kramer is
participating and will receive a low-interest loan for $300,000.
He said the program isn't a panacea.
"It isn't like they just
cut me a check. I have to do all the work, about half a million
bucks worth and then at the end, without any space tenanted and
just a shell of a building, I get a loan," he said.
Kramer still supports the ordinance
to force developers to retrofit. "The reality of the situation
is as follows: If you have a plane but cannot afford to do regular
maintenance on it, do you fly it? No."
Enforcing an earthquake ordinance
is only fair to landlords like himself, he said. "Here I
am spending all this money to add capital to these buildings.
If there are no teeth to these ordinances, why am I doing this?"
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