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March 2, 2006
THE TOOBY BLUES: The offices of Humboldt
County government that are fighting tooth-and-nail to roll back
the Tooby Ranch subdivision in southern Humboldt county received
yet another setback last week, as a state appellate court declined
to intervene in the ongoing case. Earlier this month, Judge Bruce
Watson of the Humboldt County Superior Court ruled that the county
could not reverse the 2000 subdivision of the 13,000-acre ranch,
one of many issues in the legal battle between local government,
landowners, developer Bob McKee and other interested parties.
The county had hoped that the appellate court would accept a
petition that would have taken the matter straight to the higher
court, but it declined last week.
Richard Hendy, a county attorney, said that the
move was not unexpected, as the appellate court generally only
accepts eight to 10 percent of such requests. "We knew that
was kind of an uphill burden on us," he said. But the court's
action didn't preclude an appeal on these issues further down
the road, after the remaining issues in the case have been decided,
he said. The case is currently in a holding pattern; parties
for all sides will get together later this month to figure out
a date for the remainder of the trial.
ATTACKERS SOUGHT, VICTIM SURVIVES: Kirk
Kelis, the 48-year-old homeless man who was savagely beaten last
Sunday by yet-unknown attackers, has been moved from the intensive
care unit at the Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding as
his condition has stabilized, according to Arcata Police. Last
week doctors told police that Kelis would likely not survive
his injuries. Kelis was found on the morning of Feb. 20, shortly
after 5 a.m., unconscious in the alley behind the Dollar Tree
store. Witnesses said they had seen the man earlier that morning
looking through a dumpster. APD Detective Gary Bates said he
has ruled out five young men who were seen in the parking lot
that night, and added that he is examining new leads. Bates plans
to talk with Kelis in Redding later this week as his condition
improves. Kelis suffered trauma to the head, torso and a punctured
lung. APD Chief Randy Mendosa said that the attack is currently
his department's highest priority case. Anyone with information
should call Det. Bates at 822-2427.
FIE, WOOD POACHER! Orick resident Ronald
Earl Vaughn thought he could get away with sawing up and removing
an old-growth redwood log in Redwood National and State Parks
last summer.
What was he thinking, doing that sort of thing
in a region where people will park their butts in old redwoods
for years to save them from felling? In a park owned by the public
and named after the sacred redwood, and whose rangers are on
the lookout for just such offenses (which, they note, are increasingly
occurring)? In a county whose Deputy DA, Paul Hagen, waxes outraged
and poetical about such incidents, as he did following Vaughn's
sentencing this Monday in Humboldt County Superior Court?
"The value of the redwood stolen from our
world-famous park lands is far more than any price one could
ever receive at the mill or any wood shop," Hagen said.
"A healthy redwood forest and all of its species needs these
centuries-old trees, and our citizens and tourists are being
cheated out of this beauty as well."
Well, of course, it's scooty the 38-year-old poacher
was thinking: Vaughn was selling the tree to Amarant Wood Products
in Crescent City, investigators discovered. From there, the redwood
likely would go to shingle bolts and fence posts. But in the
end it really didn't pay. Vaughn was convicted of felony Attempt
of Grand Theft and Judge Bruce Watson sentenced him to 120 days
in jail and three years probation. One term of the probation
is that Vaughn may not enter the Redwood National and State Parks,
except on a limited basis so he can commercially fish.
LAND FOR SALE: In another sort of wood poaching
-- so to speak -- the U.S. Forest Service has announced its intent
to sell 304,370 acres of national forest land -- including 79,825
acres in California, many in the North Coast forests -- in order
to raise $800 million over the next five years to fund rural
schools.
Since 2000, when the Secure Rural Schools and Community
Self-Determination Act was passed, the SRS has provided money
for schools (and road maintenance) to compensate for lost timber
dollars. The SRS expires Sept. 30. The Forest Service is proposing
the land sales in order to extend the act another five years.
The proposal caused conniptions in some quarters:
"I am outraged, and I don't think the public is going to
stand for it one minute," said Wilderness Society policy
analyst Mike Anderson, quoted in a Knight Ridder story. Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in the same news story called the
plan "crazy" and accused the administration of wanting
"to pass more tax cuts for the rich" and "sell
off public land" to pay the bill. The story provided counterpoint
with Jerry Taylor of the libertarian Cato Institute, who said
rather simplistically: "Private property will end up in
the possession of those who value it most."
Eh, what? But anyway -- at a news conference Tuesday,
the Forest Service elaborated on its proposal, saying it would
let local and state government agencies and nonprofit land trust
organizations have first dibs on the parcels, at market value.
A HECKUVA JOB: Yes, The Federal Emergency
Management Agency opened a field office in Eureka last week.
No, they don't want to hear a bunch of sob stories from proles
like you who may have suffered damage during the New Year's Eve
storms. In fact, they'd prefer not to see you at all. According
to a Virginia-based spokesperson, the unnamed and apparently
unnamable FEMA officials temporarily officed near the corner
of F and Wabash streets in Eureka are here only to talk with
local elected officials about the storms and disaster relief.
It seems that in FEMA-world, that requires renting local office
space and shipping a truckload of equipment (as featured in Friday's
Times-Standard) into an afflicted town. "No, no,
no," said FEMA's Russ Edmonston, when asked if a reporter
might drop by for a chat with some of his folks. "There's
really nothing to see." It's like the old saw about sausage
-- one glimpse of the manufacturing process can put you off it
forever. Perhaps Edmonston hopes to spare Humboldt County residents
a similarly shocking look at how their tax dollars are spent.
TOP
Please, Not in Our Back Yard
Even the very liberal don't want the Endeavor
in their 'hood
by HELEN SANDERSON
Allen Masterson, 81, has lived on F Street his
entire life. He remembers an Arcata where the sidewalks were
wooden, the streets were gravel and the highway was a hill stretching
toward the forest. He remembers working at the Piggly Wiggly
on the Arcata Plaza, delivering the Humboldt Times and
folding papers for the now defunct Arcata Union as a kid.
He remembers the first silent movie he ever saw, Tarzan of
the Apes. It was at the Minor Theatre.
Masterson also recalls his first encounter with
"bums" who would hop off the train in Arcata to try
to find work during the Depression. They'd come by his place
to stack wood or do other odd jobs.
Things have obviously changed, a lot. Nowadays
when houseless and/or jobless people stop by his place, they're
lying on his front porch drunk, or their dogs are making a mess
in his yard.
"Years ago they never would have put up with
this, but now we live in different times," he said.
Masterson, a retired mill worker, lives directly
in front of the Arcata Endeavor, the organization that has helped
low-income and/or homeless people get the basics -- food, showers,
employment and other services -- since the late '90s.
When the city originally proposed placing the service
center there, he and his wife, Arletta, went to council meetings
to oppose it. "But there was nothing we could do about it,"
he said. "They were going to put there no matter what we
said."
In the intervening years the Mastersons have learned
to live with the Endeavor the best they could. They've patronized
the car wash, donated food and clothes, and generally, Masterson
says, "I don't bother them so they don't bother me"
-- though relations have been, at times, tense.
Now that the Endeavor and the City of Arcata is
looking for a new piece of property to create a bigger facility
and a night shelter away from the downtown (and specifically
away from the Arcata Plaza), Masterson can breathe a sigh of
relief.
But at the same time, some Arcatans in outlying
areas of the city are holding their breath, fearing that the
homeless shelter and its oft-troubled clientele, known for panhandling
and public intoxication, is coming to their neighborhood.
Residents of South G Street, an area that has been
dubbed as the likeliest place for the new facility, are casting
a wary eye toward the service center and city staff, who they
say are chasing grant money without first insisting that the
Endeavor deliver a concrete management plan for its new facility.
Catherine DeSantis, a South G Street resident who
lives in the Marsh Commons, an eco-friendly, co-housing development
abutting the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, is afraid that
the homeless shelter will someday be directly across the street
from her place, where kids often play. Everyone in the Commons
development -- about 40 people -- signed a petition opposing
the relocation of the Endeavor to South G Street, DeSantis said.
About 200 people in all signed the petition.
"I've got a [9-year-old] daughter, for crying
out loud," DeSantis said. "There will be whole contingency
of males, mainly ages 18 to 35, over there. You don't know where
they're coming from, you don't know where they're going to.
"We're not concerned about Pete or the guy
with the blond dreadlocks," she added, mentioning two well-established
personalities about town. "These new disenfranchised 20-
and 30-somethings are different. It's not a person who is all
kindness and love, like the travelers used to be. It's the kind
of traveler who's going to knock our windows out." (DeSantis
claims that a few years ago homeless campers displaced from the
Marsh knocked out the car windows of Marsh residents, including
hers, to retaliate.)
Illegal camping is another issue troubling DeSantis
and other Commons residents. Homeless people already camp in
the Marsh, she said, though the problem is not as bad as it once
was now that the area is patrolled by a ranger. She imagines
that when the shelter fills up, those who don't get in will walk
into her backyard, so to speak, the Marsh, and camp out.
"A lot of us are peace activists, a lot of
us volunteer, all of our politics are definitely left, but at
the same time we've worked really hard to build a peaceful place
where we can live in harmony with the environment here."
If the city can find either a willing seller or
an appropriate city-owned parcel for the homeless shelter, it
can receive a $500,000 from the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG) and possibly $1 million more from the Emergency Housing
Assistance Program (EHAP). About 10 parcels have been considered
over the past year and most have since been disregarded, including
a parcel in Valley West where there was a resounding outcry of
opposition from merchants and residents.
Whichever site is chosen, the city needs to strike
a deal with the property owner and fast in order to qualify for
the block grant. Once the parcel is obtained the facility is
required to be operational by Dec. 31, 2007.
Two property owners in the South G area have reportedly
stepped forward to sell their parcels, while Rick Slack, owner
of an 11-acre site off Samoa Blvd., has publicly declared that
he will not sell his land to house a homeless shelter.
City Manager Dan Hauser, who retires April 30,
said on Friday he was not prepared to identify "which site
or sites" the city is considering, nor which sites the city
has ruled out.
However he said that "there might be an acceptable
building already on one of the sites that would need minor modifications
for utilization as a service center."
If and when the service center moves, Hauser said
the current site will become a police substation temporarily
"so the folks that are used to frequenting the facility
understand that things have changed."
Jane Holschuh, formerly the lead consultant hired
to draft the Homeless Services Plan, said she's skeptical
that the city's plan to find a new site will come through.
"I'm wondering if this is even going to happen,
if they are going to have the money to run it," she said.
To be eligible for the $1 million EHAP grant a
facility is required to have sheltered homeless people for at
least one year, something the Endeavor has never done.
"My general experience is that you have to
meet the criteria for the grant or you're excluded," Holschuh
said.
Meanwhile, the Endeavor has more obstacles ahead.
Already, its draft operations plan for a new facility has been
called flimflam.
Peter Starr, another Marsh Commons resident, called
the plan the Endeavor presented to the city "amateurish,"
likening it to a "college dormitory rule book" more
focused on behavior of the clients than on finance, management
and infrastructure.
Starr, one of the founding developers of the Commons,
says he doesn't mind being labeled a NIMBY. As a docent at the
Arcata Marsh, he has other objections to siting the service center
on South G Street, including the possibility that the homeless
will free their cats and dogs into the wildlife area, disturbing
the birds.
"To attack NIMBYism or to judge NIMBYism negatively
ignores the value of stewardship," he said. "Who's
going to steward the land other than the people who live and
love on it. NIMBYism is a false criticism."
And like Allen Masterson, Starr feels that the
city will do what they want regardless of what he says.
According to DeSantis the city should stop its
plans while. "I think it's crazy they're pursuing it at
all," she said. "No matter what neighborhood it's in,
who's going to pay for it 10 years down the road?"
Hauser said that the site chosen for the new Endeavor
would likely be announced in mid-March.
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