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March 15, 2001
Dump
those road projects?
California Department of Transportation
officials are dusting off three expensive plans to bypass the
narrow twisting section of U.S. Highway 101 in Richardson's Grove
State Park. They will present ideas and take public comment at
a meeting in Eureka March 20 from 4:30-7 p.m. at the Wharfinger
Building at the Eureka Public Marina.
But don't expect groundbreaking
any time soon.
"We have a certain number
of projects that are `shell' projects. They're on the books but
not funded," said Caltrans spokesman Friday Ululani.
"Our intent is that if
the projects are not feasible due to cost and large environment
impacts, maybe they should be dropped. At that point, we can
go back and look at the underlying issues and see other ways
we can address them," he said.
Those issues may include straightening
some curves to accommodate large interstate trucks and the new,
larger tour buses, and increasing bicycle and pedestrian safety.
All three options involve constructing
a four-lane bypass on the east side of the river and one of those
options involves building a mile-long tunnel. The projects range
from $100 million for the least expensive alternative to $500
million for the tunnel proposal.
Also on the agenda for discussion
are plans to upgrade a section from Leggett to Confusion Hill
in northern Mendocino to four lanes.
For more information, call Caltrans
at 441-5793.
That same evening at 6:30, a
meeting will be held at the Eureka City Hall Council Chambers
to discuss the South Broadway Congestion Relief Project, a city
project designed to alleviate traffic on Broadway.
Fire management
plan eyed
Six Rivers National Forest is
hosting a series of meetings to present its draft fire management
plan. The plan includes wildland fire suppression strategies,
wildland fire use and fuel management options.
The meetings are March 21 at
the Orleans Ranger Station, March 22 at the Veteran's Hall in
Gasquet, March 27 at the Six Rivers National Forest Supervisors
Office in Eureka and March 28 at the Trinity Valley School in
Willow Creek. All meetings are from 7-9 p.m. A meeting at the
Ruth Lake Community Services District is tentatively scheduled
for March 29.
The meetings outside Eureka
will focus on the local ranger districts. The meeting in Eureka
will address all four districts.
Woman of
achievement
Blanche Blankenship of Orick
was honored Tuesday by the Humboldt County Commission on the
Status of Women as its 2001 Woman of Achievement.
In 1939 Blankenship was one
of the first Yurok women to graduate from college and she was
the first woman president of the Humboldt County Farm Bureau.
The award, presented at the
meeting of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, is part
of the national Women's History Month theme, "Celebrating
Women of Courage and Vision."
Pot busts
in SoHum
"They're still counting
up the plants, but we're at over 25,000 at this point,"
said Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis, following a bust of
indoor marijuana cultivation facilities in southern Humboldt
and northern Mendocino March 5.
A total of 11 buildings were
raided, three in Humboldt and eight in Mendocino. Evidence found
at the site led to at least one additional raid in Humboldt County.
It did not appear that the 11
sites were part of the same operation, said Jocelyn Barnes, public
information officer for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration,
which oversaw the operation.
"They were connected by
location and the method of using commercial buildings to grow,"
Barnes said.
There has been a shift to indoor
marijuana cultivation as a result of increasing law enforcement
efforts against outdoor marijuana gardens, Lewis said.
Three years ago a similar operation
in the Three Creeks drainage near Berry Summit was raided revealing
a massive indoor plantation inside a shell of a house. The structure
had painstakingly been made to look as if a family lived there
-- including flowers in the window and on a deck and children's
toys strewn on the lawn.
Indoor grows bring a new wave
of environmental problems with them. Diesel generators used to
power grow lights often leak fuel or oil into the groundwater.
At one of the sites in the March 5 raids, three 500-gallon water
tanks were being used to store diesel fuel. The plastic tanks
are susceptible to the disintegration by the diesel and could
have ruptured, Lewis said.
Medigap
insurance available
According to a new state law,
people who are under 65 and on Medicare -- usually disabled --
are now eligible for "Medigap" insurance plans that
provide supplemental insurance. The law stipulates that insurance
providers must sell such policies to disabled individuals, regardless
of their state of health.
"Prior to this bill, these
people didn't have any guaranteed rights," said Sally Cater,
a counselor with the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy
Program. Seniors on Medicare already have similar privileges,
Cater said, and this law "is a major step toward giving
disabled people on Medicare the same coverage."
Open enrollment ends March 30.
For more information call HICAP at 443-9747.
Credit union's
50th
Bill Jackson, founder of the
Jackson and Eklund Accountancy Corp. and a Humboldt State University
professor emeritus, will be honored Thursday by the California
State and Federal Employees Credit Union No. 20.
The credit union is celebrating
50 years in operation and honoring Jackson, its No. 1 member.
Jackson helped found the financial institution and also served
as its first board president.
There will be a cake and coffee
reception at 10 a.m. Wabash and E streets in Eureka March 15.
Foodworks
center sold
The Arcata Economic Development
Corp. is negotiating the sale of the Foodworks Culinary Center
to the city of Arcata. The center has successfully served as
an incubator for up to 40 small food producers including the
Tofu Shop, Smoky Jim's Barbeque Sauce and others over the last
10 years. But the center continues to lose money.
"We looked at the long-term
history of the business and recognized we had already put $600,000
into the project, and there was a continuing annual subsidy we
were spending," said Jim Kimbrell, executive director of
the AEDC. The AEDC board decided it couldn't continue the support
and began to look for buyers.
The subsidy comes primarily
in the form of artificially cheap rent. Foodworks provided a
space for new culinary enterprises that included a kitchen approved
by the Food and Drug Administration and the chance for communication
with other food businesses. Kimbrell said the businesses that
use Foodworks' professional-grade culinary workspace pay about
55 cents a square foot while the market value of that space is
more than $1 per square foot.
The primary mission of AEDC
is to provide low-interest loans to starting and growing businesses.
The interest paid on those loans provides a revenue stream. Outright
subsidies, Kimbrell said, were never part of the AEDC plan for
Foodworks.
In 1990, when the project was
first conceptualized, cooperative ownership was emerging as a
viable business model due to the success of the North Coast Co-Op.
"The original plan was
that within five years of the program's start, the three to five
members of the initial group would grow large and financially
secure enough to purchase the building from us and run it as
a cooperative."
When the first two businesses
strong enough to carry the project -- Fish Brothers and Tomaso's
-- decided they'd rather move out on their own and find new space,
the center's underlying philosophy underwent a fundamental change.
It became what Kimbrell called a "graduating incubator,"
where businesses would be allotted about four years to grow to
a point that they could survive on their own.
Mayor Connie Stewart said, "The
city should do whatever it has to make the center economically
viable," including financial support. ... There's 63 jobs
there now. Jim estimated it was bringing $3 million to $4 million
a year in income, and Lord knows how much money and how many
jobs it has created."
City staff is working on a reasonable
scenario for the city's ownership of the facility. Options include
grant funding or using low-interest redevelopment funds to continue
operations.
-- reported by Arno Holschuh
and Judy Hodgson
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STORY | CALENDAR
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