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December 20, 2001
County
settles complaint
Janelle Jackson, a single mother
and the first female deputy assigned to the Hoopa substation,
said she loved her job.
"Then I got a new sergeant,"
she said.
Jackson claims that when Sgt.
Dave Morey took over as her superior, he created a hostile work
environment and eventually fired her a month before her probationary
period ended -- and that made Jackson claim sexual discrimination.
Jackson, who picked up a check
for $30,000 this week as part of a mediated settlement of her
complaint against the county, said she would have been satisfied
with getting her job back, "but they wouldn't reinstate
me."
The official reason for Jackson's
termination was failure to meet the standards for a sheriff's
deputy. Jackson claims she was held up to different standards
than her male counterparts.
Neither Morey nor Sheriff Dennis
Lewis would comment for this report. Deputy County Administrative
Officer Kim Kerr said the settlement does not mean the county
is admitting wrongdoing and the complaint was resolved through
mediation before it could be judged on its merits.
Another facet of the settlement
stipulates that the county must provide the sheriff's department
with classes on how to avoid "a hostile work environment
and sexual harassment" for the next three years.
Jackson said she doesn't know
what her next step will be.
"It's a hard thing to get
in the door somewhere as a law enforcement officer" once
you've been terminated, she said.
March 5
election shapes up
The outcome of three key county
races March 5 could signal a shift in Humboldt County's law enforcement
priorities.
The county's two top law enforcement
officers, District Attorney Terry Farmer and Sheriff Dennis Lewis,
have drawn challengers. And a third race -- to replace 5th District
Supervisor Paul Kirk who represents an area stretching from Orleans
to the ocean and the Mad River to the Del Norte border --being
closely watched.
The March election will serve
two purposes: It is a primary for state and national races with
more than one candidate from a given party as well as a general
election for county offices, which are nonpartisan.
Eureka attorney Paul Gallegos
filed just prior to the deadline last week to challenge Farmer,
claiming the 16-year veteran DA spends too much time on what
Gallegos calls "victimless crimes," such as marijuana
possession. Sheriff Lewis will go up against a challenger from
within the ranks of his own department, sheriff's deputy Gary
Philp.
The contest in the 5th District
has turned into a northern Humboldt battle royale. The six candidates
are Jill Geist, John Corbett, Daniel Pierce, Victor Taylor, Ben
Shepard and Michael Harvey.
The outcome could potentially
have as much of an effect on some aspects of law enforcement
as the elections for DA and sheriff. The board's vote to accept
funds for the state's annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting,
for example, has been 3 to 2 in recent years. A new 5th District
Supervisor could represent the swing vote.
The large field nearly guarantees
that no one candidate will achieve a majority of votes, meaning
the top two vote-getters would face off in a runoff election
next November.
In county elections, only six
of the 13 possible seats are being contested. Incumbents who
drew no challengers are 4th District County Supervisor Bonnie
Neely, Coroner Frank Jager, County Recorder-Clerk Carolyn Crnich
and Treasurer-Tax Collector Stephen Strawn. Humboldt County Superior
Court Judges Marilyn Miles, J. Michael Brown and John Feeney
were all up for reelection, and all three will run unopposed.
The race for county assessor
pits Linda Hill against William Thomas; Assessor Ray Jerland
is retiring. The vacancy created by the retirement of Auditor-Controller
Neil Prince will be filled by either John Friedenbach or Michael
Giacone. Either Carl Del Grande or Garry Eagles will replace
retiring County School Superintendent Louie Bucher.
A primary will only be necessary
in two statewide contests. In the election for 2nd District state
senator, Dennis Purification of Vallejo is facing Peggy Redfearn
of Lake County for the right to run as a Republican against Democratic
incumbent Wesley Chesbro.
The election for the 1st District
State Assembly seat, being vacated by Democrat Virginia Strom-Martin
because of term limits, is considerably more crowded. Patty Berg
of Eureka, Bob Jehn of Cloverdale, Jim Mastin of Ukiah and Ed
Robey of Lake County all want to run as Democrats in what is
considered a heavily Democratic district.
Rob Brown of Kelseyville, Clay
Romero of Willits and Timothy Stoen of Ukiah are hoping to win
the Republican spot for Assembly on the November ballot.
The seven candidates from the
larger parties are being joined by Doug Riley-Thron of Arcata,
running as a Green party member.
The
season's first flooding
Flooding along the Elk River
closed Berta Road to traffic last week. The river escaped its
banks after a record-breaking storm hit Humboldt Dec. 13. More
than 2 inches of rain were dumped during the 24-hour period.
Additional rainstorms worked
through the area over the weekend, and although none were as
big as the storm last Thursday night, "The ground is so
moist, anything can cause flooding or puddling," said Doug
Boushey of the National Weather Service.
Boushey said Eureka has already received 25 percent more rain
than average for December, with a week and a half left to go
in the month. While the rain has been severe, "It's not
unheard of," he said. "We do live on the North Coast."
Unemployment
up 1 percent
The unemployment rate for Humboldt
County, which has held steady at less than 5 percent in contrast
to rising state and nation rates, increased 1 percent last month.
The rise may not mean the county
is being swept into a wider pattern of recession, said Anita
Alexander, a labor market consultant for the Eureka office of
the state Employment Development Department.
"I think it may just be
a seasonal jump in unemployment, because the sectors that are
really down are construction and manufacturing," she said.
In Humboldt, manufacturing still mostly means logging -- and
timber harvesting, like construction, slows during the rainy
months.
It won't be possible to tell
if the jump in unemployment is related to the national economic
climate or the local weather forecast until next year, Alexander
said. "If we don't see rehiring after the typical seasonal
decline, that would shine some light on the subject."
Underlying the seasonal swings
in logging employment is a bigger trend, however. While the number
of people employed in harvesting trees is the same as at this
time last year, employment at Humboldt County's sawmills dropped
10 percent.
"The trend there has been
down for 20 years," she said.
Guadagno
bill passes House
Rep. Mike Thompson thought it
would be an easy thing to pay tribute local hero Richard Guadagno
by naming the recently completed headquarters for the Humboldt
Bay Wildlife Refuge in his honor. Guadagno, the driving force
behind the new building, was a passenger on United Airlines Flight
93, the hijacked plane that crashed on Sept. 11 in Pennsylvania.
In comments at a fund-raising
dinner at the Eureka Inn Monday night, Thompson said he discovered
that changing the name requires an act of Congress.
No problem. Thompson's legislation
passed in the House Tuesday by unanimous consent. It goes to
the Senate for consideration, with Sen. Barbara Boxer as a sponsor.
Barring complications, the building should be dedicated in Guadagno's
name in April.
Comment/no
comment
While Humboldt State University
officials won't comment on a lawsuit brought against it by three
faculty members in the Native American Studies department, the
institution did address concerns about the department's future
last week.
College of Arts, Humanities
and Social Sciences Dean Karen Carlton told students the department
will continue at current staffing levels, regardless of decisions
made about individual members.
Some students have expressed
fears that a recent recommendation by a personnel committee not
to reappoint two of the three teachers involved, Joseph Dupris
and Kathleen Hill, was part of a broader plan to cut the department's
size. That recommendation, by the CAHSS Personnel Committee,
came after the faculty members filed suit in September.
Hill, Dupris, and fellow NAS
faculty member Joseph Giovanetti allege they are the victims
of discrimination, retaliation and conspiracy.
Campus opinion about Dupris
and Hill is far from unanimous. Last week the University Faculty
Personnel Committee wrote a letter in support of the Hill and
Dupris. The university committee represents faculty from the
entire campus, not just the College of Arts, Humanities and Social
Sciences.
600 acres
for King Range
The King Range National Conservation
Area got an early Christmas gift this year: 600 acres of land,
some of it old-growth Douglas fir.
Two purchases, totalling $720,000,
were made by the Bureau of Land Management, the Save-the-Redwoods
League and the state Wildlife Conservation Board. They not only
will help protect old-growth Douglas fir but also consolidate
a corridor of protected land between the Conservation Area and
Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
Another
anthrax hoax
Another anthrax scare surfaced
in Eureka this week after a man with a grudge against his landlord
allegedly mailed her an envelope containing white powder and
a threatening letter.
According to police reports,
Roger Hudnall sent an envelope marked "return to sender"
to the FBI offices in San Francisco. The return address turned
out to be his former landlord's residence. When she opened the
letter, a white substance later identified as talcum powder spilled
out.
Hudnall was arrested Dec. 7
for using the mail to deliver a threat, a crime punishable by
fines and up to five years in prison.
It isn't the first time Hudnall
has been accused of using the FBI in an attempt to intimidate
his landlord. In July he was discovered trying to impersonate
an FBI agent as part of a scheme to prevent himself from being
evicted. He reportedly tried to convince the landlord that his
eviction would interfere with a undercover operation.
Sturgeon
endangered?
The green sturgeon may be endangered
and in need of protection in Humboldt County rivers, according
to a finding by the National Marine Fisheries Service released
Dec. 14.
That finding is the first step
toward listing the fish as endangered under the federal Endangered
Species Act. It comes in response to a petition filed by the
Environmental Protection Information Center in Garberville and
the Center for Biological Diversity, located in Tucson, Ariz.
Green sturgeon are large, reaching
up to seven feet in length and 350 pounds. An ancient species
that has remained evolutionarily unchanged for 200 million years,
the fish is thought to be especially susceptible to overfishing
because it reproduces late in life.
The species, which uses the
Klamath and Trinity river systems, is also very likely suffering
from habitat loss, the service said. The finding means NMFS will
investigate the fish's condition more closely and issue a preliminary
finding next summer. A final ruling could come in 2003.
Airport
fence out to bid
A controversial deer fence at
the Arcata-Eureka Airport has been approved by the last regulatory
agency.
Deer, which run out onto the
runway and into the path of planes, have posed a serious problem
for the airport for years. Attempts have been made to control
the deer population by shooting them, but plane-damaging collisions
continued.
The California Coastal Commission
on Dec. 14 unanimously approved a chain link fence topped with
three strands of barbed wire. Nearby residents had opposed the
fence, claiming the bluffs on which it would be built are unstable.
The fence, which will also help
increase security at the airport, has already been put out to
bid. The Dec. 17 issue of the Humboldt Builders' Exchange bulletin
contains a request for bids, with the project's estimated price
at $564,000.
New services
for women
Health services for low-income
women are expanding, thanks to two new government programs.
A residential drug and alcohol
treatment facility for women who are pregnant or have young children
will open in February as part of the county's Healthy Moms program.
The facility, which is being
funded by $425,000 from the federal government, will allow women
to remain in the area and near their family support networks
while they undergo intensive treatment. The treatment center,
which will accommodate up to five women, will be administered
by the county in cooperation with Redwood Community Action Agency's
Family Service Division.
In other health news, women
without health insurance no longer have to go without treatment
for breast or cervical cancer under a new statewide program.
California already provides
free cancer screenings to low-income women. But until now, there
was no guarantee that the women diagnosed with cancer would be
able to afford treatment. The new program will provide free or
low-cost treatment to women earning less than $1,432 per month.
Call 1-800-942-1054 for more
information on subsidized cancer screening and treatment.
$2 million
from Forest Service
Humboldt County got a shot in
the arm last week from the U.S. Forest Service: $2,037,852 was
transferred to the county under a 2000 adaptation of a 1908 law.
The original 1908 law mandated
that 25 percent of the revenues from logging, grazing, recreation
and mining on national forests would be filtered to the counties.
But as revenues from National
Forest logging along the North Coast declined over the last 10
years, that annual payment began to dwindle. Under a 2000 law,
the payment amount became based on historic high amounts, independent
of the current Forest Service land use receipts.
Counties to the north and west
of Humboldt with even more public land received even greater
benefits: Del Norte county netted almost $3 million, Siskiyou
about $9 million, and Trinity more than $7 million.
Sales tax
increase Jan. 1
Retail prices may be discounted
after Christmas, but the "governor's cut" is growing.
The statewide sales tax will increase a quarter of a percent
on Jan. 1 to 7.25 percent.
The tax is an important source
of revenue for the county, but the increase won't bring any extra
money our way, said Humboldt County Auditor Neil Prince.
"It's making up for a reduction
in the state's share" that happened during the days of a
flush state budget, he said.
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