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April 3, 2003
Target
yields to Coastal Commission
Giant retailer should
open Eureka store next year
by KEITH
EASTHOUSE
The plan to open a Target store on the north end of Eureka appears
to be back on track.
In a letter last month to the
Eureka office of the California Coastal Commission, the Target
Corp. agreed to modify the store to take into account the commission's
concern about possible impacts to Humboldt Bay.
In particular, Target has decided
to site the store so that a vegetated buffer zone at least 100
feet in width stands between it and the Eureka Slough, which
feeds into the bay and provides important estuarine habitat for
Freshwater Creek salmon.
That change will result in a
slightly smaller store than originally envisioned, 126,000 square-feet
instead of almost 131,000 square-feet.
Additionally, Target will reroute
a pedestrian path on the property -- currently occupied by an
abandoned Montgomery Wards store -- so that it comes no closer
than 50 feet to the slough. It is also discarding a plan to roof
the building with reddish brick-colored tile. Instead, it will
use a brown roof tile to better match the landscape. Finally,
it is reducing the height of two signs, one adjacent to Highway
101, the other along Y Street.
The modifications have met with
the approval of the Coastal Commission staff, which endorsed
them in a 65-page report dated March 28. The coastal commission
is expected to approve the changes at a meeting April 9. If it
does, Target will be granted a permit that will allow the project
to go forward.
Target's decision is a major
victory for the Environmental Protection Information Center,
which filed a challenge after the Eureka City Council approved
the project last December.
"We don't support big box
retail," said Christine Ambrose of EPIC, who wrote the appeal.
"And we have concerns that [the store] is going to hurt
small locally owned businesses. But at the same time [Target]
did dramatically improve the project and they did address issues
raised in our appeal."
Ambrose expressed satisfaction
at another change in the works: the likelihood that coastal commission
staff will review water quality data to ensure that treated run-off
from the store's parking lot is sufficiently clean.
In an e-mail sent out late last
week, Eureka City Manager David Tyson said, "we are pleased
the Target project may be moving forward." But he insisted
that the original buffer "had more than adequate mitigation."
He also claimed that "this
redesign was not what Target wanted to do, but what they felt
compelled to do to avoid further delays and get their project
approved."
Target officials were not reached
for comment.
Tyson said there is some anxiety
in the business community about the precedent this sets regarding
buffer zones for other development projects around the bay.
He also noted that now that
the Target project has been modified, it is not the same project
that was approved by the council. What that means in terms of
how the project proceeds after receiving the imprimatur of the
coastal commission is unclear.
Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy
Smith, in a letter on behalf of the board, expressed support
for the modified project. "Many Humboldt County residents
are looking forward to the opening of a local Target store. The
store fills an unmet need and will allow residents that shop
at Target stores out of the area to spend money locally.
"The store, as proposed,
will redevelop a blighted property," Smith added.
Like Tyson, however, Smith qualified
his endorsement by saying that the board "was in support
of the project as approved by the Eureka City Council."
When it was filed, EPIC's challenge
was ridiculed by city officials and others, who accused EPIC
of obstructionism. But the group was vindicated in February when
the Coastal Commission, at the urging of its staff, ruled that
the city did not adequately study the potential impacts of the
project on the environment and on wildlife.
The bone of contention was the
width of the vegetated buffer zone, which in the original conception
ranged from 40 to 250 feet. The city argued that while its general
guideline was for 100-foot buffers, those same rules allowed
buffers as narrow as 40 feet across as long as their environmental
impact was mitigated.
Commission staff did not dispute
that the city's guidelines allowed for flexibility. Instead,
it simply said that in the environmental impact report for the
project, the city had failed to adequately demonstrate that a
40-foot wide buffer would have no more impact than one 100 feet
wide.
Out
on patrol
Just another night for
a sheriff's deputy
by
ANDREW EDWARDS
"If I get shot, if I get
dead, just get in the car and drive away. Don't try and be a
hero," said Deputy Mike Campbell, handing over the extra
set of keys to his 2002 Crown Victoria. "Remember, you signed
a waiver, your family can't sue."
We were in the parking garage
under the County Courthouse, a sprawling concrete cavern of the
type common in the city, but rare way up here on the North Coast.
Campbell is the swing shift
(4 p.m. to 2 a.m.) "field training officer," the only
deputy a journalist participating in the Humboldt County
Sheriff's Department ride-along program can go out on patrol
with. But in 11 years, he said a reporter had never done so.
A few minutes before we had
been in the briefing room. There was a fridge, a sink, a sign
warning dire consequences if you don't clean up after yourself,
a bulletin board "Baby Roll Call" with pictures of
officers' kids tacked up and a TV and VCR cabinet with tapes
ranging from Top Gun to training videos to the Ultimate
Fighting Championship stacked underneath.
I walked in while the daily
briefing was in progress. Deputy Kerry Ireland, a young well-built
officer who's been on the force for just over a year, was just
beginning a story. Turns out cops all have stories, and according
to Campbell, better ones than the rest of us.
"So I busted this freak..."
Ireland said.
"Hey, watch what you say,
this guy is a reporter," Campbell growled. The whole group
looked at me.
Ireland continued. He had been
out on a patrol and seen a white pickup parked on the side of
the road. He pulled up to check and saw what looked like a meth
pipe.
"I was like, `Cool, felony,'"
he said. He got the guy out of the truck, an older man dressed
in a skirt and blouse, and I searched him. Apparently, he had
something in his sock. It was stuffed with Astro-Glide and condoms.
Further searching revealed two large black and white dildoes
and even more lube and condoms.
After the briefing everyone
filed out, but Ireland waited behind; he was going to go to coffee
with Campbell.
"So why are you doing this
ride-along?" he asked me. Campbell had disappeared and I
was waiting for him. "Business or pleasure?"
I said I didn't know. Why was
he a cop? Business or pleasure?
"Both." he said. He
said he had joined when he found out his girlfriend was pregnant
last year. He had been pretty good friends with a couple of cops,
and decided to try it as a career.
Campbell came back, a small,
black .38-caliber revolver in his hands. Apparently, a man who
had a restraining order against him that precluded his owning
firearms had dropped it off at the front desk. Campbell had decided
it probably wasn't good to leave an armed man at the counter
for long, so he'd decided to book it into evidence himself.
It was strangely matter-of-fact
the way he handled it. A gun. Most people don't have much to
do with guns, but for sheriff's deputies it's a way of life.
Humboldt County Sheriff's deputies
carry Glock .40- caliber automatic pistols in their basket-weave
print black leather belts, along with extra magazines, a collapsible
baton, radio and pepper spray. In addition, in their cars they
can carry a Vietnam-era M-16 and a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun.
He's had to pull his gun while
on duty more times than he could count, "way too often,"
Campbell said as we drove out on patrol, the sun setting. But
in a dozen years of service he has never had to shoot anyone.
That might have something to
do with the way the sheriff's department works. For the entire
county of Humboldt, there are only 21 deputies devoted to patrol.
Those 21 cover a beat ranging from Hoopa to Benbow, from Petrolia
to Whitethorn. They also police McKinleyville, a town rivaling
many of the local incorporated cities in size, but lacking its
own police force.
Such a large chunk of territory
means back-up is often miles away, so officers have to act with
finesse rather than force. Campbell would appreciate a partner
along sometimes. But other than that he wouldn't want things
any other way.
The first call of the night
came in over the radio at around 6:30 p.m. (18:30, actually,
as the deputies, like cops everywhere, use military time). It
was a call out to a house on Jacoby Creek Road, where a mentally
ill man was reportedly off his medication.
This was a "welfare check,"
seeing if the subject was a danger to himself or anyone else.
If so, he is classified as 5150 and is taken to the county mental
health facility, Sempervirens. It is the only code that strips
you of your constitutional rights.
The house was long and low with
a half-moon gravel driveway and a sprawling backyard. A knock
on the front door got no response so we circled round the back.
There, next to a porch cluttered with spinning lawn ornaments,
an old couple was unloading groceries.
Campbell said he was sorry to
intrude, and told them about the call. They said that it was
their 39-year-old son. As they were talking, he came out of the
house, in a flannel shirt and back brace. He looked tired but
not dangerous.
"You don't look like a
danger to yourself or others, so I'm just gonna go," Campbell
said looking him over. "Sorry for coming in the back like
that."
Our patrol route that night
followed a loop running from the Sheriff's office across the
Samoa Bridge, through Arcata, down Old Arcata Road to Myrtle
Avenue and back into Eureka.
Part of the reason Campbell
got into the job in the first place is that he likes the driving.
He said he'd checked out one of the newer Crown Vic's in the
fleet because he knew I was coming along, but what he really
liked was the old Chevy Caprice, which he considered one of the
best patrol cars ever made. But to drive it well you had to know
how to drive well; it didn't have all the new features like automatic
traction control for tight cornering that come standard on the
new Fords.
When he was young, he'd been
a bit a of a hell-raiser -- fast cars, pierced ears, all the
cops in his Sacramento-area home town knew him by name -- but
he'd always wanted to be a cop.
Now, at age 34, he's been a
cop for 12 years, most of his adult life. He said the job changes
you.
"On this job you get callous,
you have to to survive," Campbell said. "What makes
you successful is the ability to turn it on and off when you
need to."
He said that sometimes you needed
to be sensitive, for instance with a rape victim, but when you
walk into a room where a kid's had his face blown off you have
to shut down some part of you just to function.
And when cops go home and take
the uniform off, they have to come to grips with the fact that
it is just a job -- a hard thing for younger officers.
"When I was young this
job was my whole life," Campbell said. "I'd leave the
scanner on at home; I was always thinking about it. Now, when
I'm home, I'm on my time. I go to barbecues. I spend time with
my kids -- I don't think about this job."
In Arcata we did a traffic stop
-- a broken headlight -- just so he could show me what it's like.
I could get out and watch just so long as I didn't ever get between
Campbell and the driver: a cardinal rule. He ran 27-25, a check
for license and registration and any outstanding warrants. Finding
nothing, he let the driver go with a warning.
Most officers prefer warnings,
Campbell said, so long as people don't talk themselves into a
ticket. They'd rather have you spend your money fixing the problem
than paying a fine.
This was a Wednesday night patrol,
Campbell's Friday, and was actually a lot more interesting than
usual. If you want the deck stacked for action a swing shift
on Friday or Saturday is the way to go.
Driving through Eureka a call
came from dispatch for S-18, our call number, about a burglary
report in Arcata. So back we went. First we stopped at the burgled
house and found it empty. After a brief call, we learned where
the owner was, at another of her rental properties on K Street
in Arcata.
It was dark when we pulled up.
After a loud rap at the door -- Campbell announcing "sheriff!"
-- we were let in. For some reason the living room was full of
people; they had their "there's a cop in the house"
looks on, hands folded in laps looking straight ahead.
In the kitchen was the owner.
She described the china hutch and piano that had been stolen.
She'd gotten in the habit of leaving the back door unlocked,
not thinking that people would steal such large, obvious items.
No such luck.
After a brief conversation we
drove back out to the scene of the crime to investigate with
flashlights. There were deep ruts in the driveway, like from
a truck carrying a lot of weight, but inside there was nothing.
Just a cat, hardwood floors, and an empty attic.
Back at the station, after a
false security alarm at the local animal hospital, Campbell got
down to about half of what police officers do. Filling out paperwork.
Deputy Matt Helm came in to
say that the gun Campbell had collected earlier belonged to a
confessed child molester he'd investigated who was awaiting trial.
"Fucking scumbag,"
Campbell said, leaning over the keyboard of the new Dell.
Then it was dinner at Adel's
with Helm and Deputy Marvin Kirkpatrick, who had led the briefing
earlier, and back on the road.
We drove across the Samoa bridge
and then turned onto Vance Street, a popular late night spot
for prostitutes to meet their johns and transients to park for
the night.
A white Saturn was parked off
the side of the road at the first gravel turn-out. The seat was
back. A woman leaped up. Campbell went over to investigate, shining
his flashlight into the car.
"It's a familiar name,"
he said of the man, calling in a 27-25 to dispatch.
How many names are familiar?
"Thousands," he said.
"I'm not being facetious, there's a huge amount of the population
that we see here all the time."
It came back that the man was
wanted on $50,000 bail for grand theft, and the woman had a trial
date for charges of meth use.
He got the man out of the car,
searched his pockets and found a screwdriver, $113 and an apparently
legitimate stash of medical marijuana. The woman, a leathery
faced type with high feminine voice, at first wanted a ride back
to town, but when Campbell said he'd have to search her before
she got in the car she decided to walk.
We drove to the jail. I asked
our passenger how he was doing.
"Could be better,"
he replied behind the screen. "I ain't stoled a fuckin'
thang."
He was booked into jail, and
Campbell decided to call it quits. Not much had happened, but
that's the life: Anything can happen and nothing much ever does.
But when something's going down, the sheriff's department has
to be there, like or not. Campbell said that, considering, it
had been a pretty interesting night. After all, it was just a
Wednesday.
Taylor
bests PL again
Pacific Lumber Co. had no grounds
to sue Petrolia resident Ellen Taylor for monetary damages it
incurred during logging protests two years ago, a state appellate
court has ruled.
Taylor, 60, was hit with a SLAPP
suit in April 2001 after she participated in protests against
logging in the Mattole and spoke on KMUD radio about the issues
involved. SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation)
are often used by large companies to silence their critics. Pacific
Lumber, along with Steve Wills Trucking, Lewis Logging, Columbia
Helicopter and other logging concerns, sued her for trespass,
intentional interference with business relationships, waste and
unfair competition.
A Humboldt County Superior Court
judge ruled that PL had no basis for its suit, but PL appealed.
A three-judge Court of Appeal panel in San Francisco affirmed
the original ruling on March 25.
The suit against her prompted
many of her fellow protesters to stop their activities for fear
of similar reprisals, said Taylor, who co-owns a cattle ranch
in the Mattole area. "They [PL] were trying to say that
anybody who supported protests, even to the extent of giving
a candy bar to a protester, was part of a conspiracy to disrupt
the course of a legal business," she said. "It was
extremely chilling."
Pacific Lumber did not return
a call for comment.
Bank
seeks charter
A proposed new state bank based
in Eureka, called Redwood Capital Bank, moved one step closer
to reality last week when a charter application was filed with
federal regulators.
The charter approval is expected
to take three to four months at which time the bank will seek
investors through the sale of stock.
The proposed board of directors
was also revealed in the announcement. They are: Stephen P. Arnot,
attorney; Karen Ann Brandvold, CPA; Russell N. Britt, president
of Britt Lumber Co.; John E. Burke, dentist; Larry A. DeBeni,
developer; John J. Gierek, Jr., owner of Humboldt Moving and
Storage; J. William McAuley, CPA; Craig. L. Perrone, owner of
DelReka Distributing; John (Jack) R. Selvage, retired president
of SHN Engineering; and Steven M. Strombeck, developer. John
Dalby is the proposed CEO and will also serve on the board.
Dalby, who was president of
Humboldt Bank from 1999-2001, said in announcing the formation
of the bank last September that the bank founders wanted to bring
"community-based banking" back to the North Coast.
Dalby said Humboldt Bank and
Six Rivers Bank, both launched in 1989 in Eureka, are no longer
local in terms of ownership or management.
Humboldt Bancorp, owner of Humboldt,
Tehama and Capitol Valley banks, merged all three bank charters
into one in 2002 and moved its top administrators from Eureka
to Roseville, Calif.
Six Rivers Bank sold in 2001
to North Valley Bank of Redding.
A specific site for the new
Redwood Capital Bank has yet to be chosen.
An
EPIC legal battle
Four years after filing a legal
challenge, the Garberville based Environmental Protection Information
Center finally had its day in court with Pacific Lumber Co. and
its state regulatory agency allies last week.
The case before Humboldt County
Superior Court Judge John Golden has to do with the company's
Sustained Yield Plan, which regulates logging on PL timberlands
for the next 100 years. The SYP, as it's known, was a key part
of the 1999 Headwaters deal.
EPIC's contention is that public
input was not adequately factored into the plan and that it fails
to protect the habitat of endangered species such as the marbled
murrelet, a seabird that nests in old-growth redwoods.
"They thought that because
they had a deal they had a right to break the law and ignore
the law," said EPIC spokeswoman Cynthia Elkins.
In addition to PL, the defendants
include the California Department of Forestry and the state Fish
and Game department, both legally bound to uphold the Headwaters
agreement.
One surprising revelation produced
by the proceedings last week was that the Sustained Yield Plan
didn't even exist as a physical document until December, when
it was cobbled together after Golden repeatedly demanded to see
it.
Elkins feels confident in the
case, if not the court.
"If there's any justice
in world today we will prevail," Elkins said. "The
question is: Is there any justice?"
If the case succeeds some or
all of the "incidental take" permits that allow PL
to log in the habitat of endangered species would be invalid,
though Elkins expressed skepticism that that would ever happen.
One way or another, after four
years, she said it feels good just to have had a chance in front
of a judge.
"It felt like a victory
just getting that far," Elkins said.
PL, for its part, had nothing
to say on the matter.
"I have no comment for
you," said PL director of communications Jim Branham Tuesday.
While the courtroom trial is
over, Golden isn't expected to actually issue a ruling on the
case for months.
Thompson
wilderness bill
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa,
has introduced a bill that would protect 300,000 acres of federal
wilderness in Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino, Lake, Napa and
Yolo counties -- including the Lost Coast.
Thompson's legislation, known
as the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act,
would protect certain federal lands from future development and
commercial activities. Other activities, such as horseback riding,
fishing, hiking, rock-climbing and canoeing, would still be allowed,
though off-road vehicles and mountain bikes would be prohibited.
Environmentalists said the bill,
introduced March 27, would help protect several endangered species,
including the bald eagle and the Chinook salmon. A companion
bill was introduced in the Senate by Barbara Boxer.
Meanwhile, a little-known regulation
adopted quietly by the White House in January may open areas
previously closed to motorized vehicles, such as the King Range's
Black Sands Beach on the Lost Coast. The regulation would allow
right-of-way claims across thousands of miles of federal land
under an 1866 law passed to encourage development of the West.
Animal
shelter setback
With only 14 months until the
Humane Society's contract expires, the county's new animal control
facility is back at square one.
The county has had to abandon
plans to build a new state-of-the-art facility on Hilfiker Lane
in Eureka because of coastal zoning problems, so once again the
hunt is on for a suitable piece of property.
"Fourteen months from not
finding a piece of property to construction? Try that,"
said Humboldt County Agricultural Commissioner John Falkenstrom,
who oversees animal control.
The county has been searching
for a site for the last two years so that it could take over
important animal control functions from the Sequoia Humane Society.
The society has been wanting to focus more on spaying and neutering
rather than housing strays and euthanizing them, but has been
stymied by the county's lack of an alternate facility.
Making
Mendosa official
This week the Arcata City Council
is expected to approve a contract officially making Randy Mendosa
Arcata's new police chief.
Mendosa has been serving as
interim chief ever since Chris Gallagher resigned from the position
in January after being told that his contract would not be renewed
in March.
Tree-sitting
lull
The flurry of climbing, demonstrations
and high emotion in the woods of Freshwater seems to have died
down. Besides a brief visit to cut traverse lines on Saturday
morning, Pacific Lumber's team of tree climbers was seldom seen
last week.
Loggers, however, cut ever closer
to treesits on Greenwood Heights Road, at one point felling a
tree that was roped between two others that had tree-sitters
in them.
The tree leaned, blew back in
forth in the wind, but stayed standing, held up by the lines.
The situation led to frantic negotiations between the sitters
and the loggers on the ground, who were unsure where the dangling
trunk was going to fall.
Eventually an agreement was
reached where the sitters would cut the lines holding up the
tree if the loggers would pack up and leave for the day.
Activists expressed outrage
that a tree known to be tied to inhabited trees would be cut.
"We've been very open with
what trees were tied in; there's no way they couldn't have known
about it," said long-time sitter Remedy, speaking from the
ground by phone Tuesday. Two weeks ago, Remedy was hauled down
from the tree she had occupied for nine months and arrested.
The PL contractor that was reportedly
involved in the incident, Steve Will's Trucking and Logging of
Hydesville, was reached, but declined to comment.
In other news, several small
demonstrations were held in front of PL climber Eric Schatz's
house in Elk River last week, prompting at least one call to
the authorities. According to activists, officers that arrived
on the scene did not arrest anyone.
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