The Defender
If you cannot afford an attorney, Heidi Holmquist may be provided for you
Cover Story
The Defender
Inside the drab, weather-beaten shingled public defender’s office — which could be described as the architecture of obscurity — is a windowless office that public defender Heidi Holmquist has turned into a little beacon of buoyancy. In her pink-striped office, she sits at a desk piled with stacks of criminal case files, the records of…
North Coast Open Studios 2016
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Her Rutabaga Highness
On Saturday, May 21, the Kinetic cognoscenti gathered for the annual Rutabaga Ball at the Arcata Community Center. There, royal hopefuls competed in lavish costumes, singing, dancing, skating and bribing judges for a chance to join the ranks of the Rutabaga Queens and preside over the impending Kinetic Grand Championship this weekend. The queens —…
UPDATED: Former Supervisor Jimmy Smith Dead at 67
UPDATE: A memorial service has been scheduled to celebrate the life of former 1st District Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith at 5 p.m. Friday, May 27, at the Jimmy Smith Fields Landing Boat Launching Facility. PREVIOUSLY: Former 1st District Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith has died. He was 67. Smith, who tirelessly served the 1st…
HSU Softball Stopped One Win Shy of National Title
The Lumberjacks entered Saturday needing just one win to become national champions. It wasn’t meant to be. The Humboldt State University softball team dropped both its games Saturday to lose the best of three NCAA Division II national championship series in Denver to the University of North Alabama. HSU got off to a good start…
HumBug: Bugs at the Refuge
After dropping off 20 years worth of household hazardous wastes, I rewarded myself on the way home (camera in hand of course) with a stroll through the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The neatly laid out and maintained gravel paths offer a great place to relax and soak up a bit of nature. There were…
The Small Things
We are not so much spoiled for choices as crushed by the never-ending waves of them. It never occurred to me as a child, for example, that I would one day find myself behind on watching TV. It is with the same Netflix-esque overwhelm that you sometimes open a Mexican menu, fold after fold, until…
Stand and Deliver
When TED talks, people listen. The fourth annual TEDxHumboldtBay takes the stage Sunday, May 22 at 1 p.m. at the Arcata Theatre Lounge ($20). A dozen local presenters — including poets, artists, a yoga instructor, a theater maker, a data lover and a teacher — will share personal experiences on this year’s theme: “Incite >…
Crowning Around
The Ball is in Arcata’s court — the one named for a turnip-like vegetable, that is. This Saturday, May 21 at 7 p.m., the Arcata Community Center hosts one of Humboldt’s grandest (and ka-ray-ziest) parties benefiting its grandest annual event. The 2016 Rutabaga Ball ($10, $7 if you bring your own cup), the royal counterpart…
Officers and Suspect in Arcata Shooting Identified, Updated with Photos
The identity of the man shot by Arcata Police officers on May 17 has been released. Joshua Adelynia Hoffman, 26, of San Diego, was shot four times in the Shell gas station at 14th and G streets. APD also identified the two officers involved in the incident: Matthew O’Donovan deployed his taser and Don Arminio discharged…
Bye Bye Stars and Bars?
A ban on using federal taxpayer funds to fly Confederate flags in military cemeteries is one step closer to implementation. North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman’s office announced today that the amendment he helped introduce to the 2017 Veteran’s Affairs funding bill has been passed through the House of Representatives. Many Southern Republicans balked at a…
The Thrilling 3rd
Humboldt County’s 3rd District covers a portion of the county north and east of Humboldt Bay and includes the cities of Arcata and Blue Lake, as well as the unincorporated communities of Freshwater, Kneeland and Manila. With sitting 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace’s decision not to seek re-election, two contenders have thrown their hats in…
Brew pub window
I lean into the brew pub window festooned with redwood burl Warming a barstool, drawing water figure 8s on the table A greying coonhound stares at me through the window panes His is a throne of vigilance in the bed of a monster pickup A cobalt blue Ford with a suitable amount of mud I…
The Sound of Silence
It’s the first official weekend with most of HSU’s students out of town. Many of us (underemployed alumni ourselves) get to breathe a sigh of snobbish relief. Arcata returns to normal — whatever the hell that means — and we are spared the constant reminder of how innocent and carefree our lives used to be…
Dude, Where’s My Impairment Test?
The American Automobile Association’s name cropped up in several articles this month on the topic of driving while under the influence of marijuana. On the basis of headlines alone, the organization, which often weighs in on issues effecting motorists, appears to have added its influence to a conflicting array of opinions. Tests that examine marijuana…
Humboldt on Tap
It’s quiet inside The Local Beer Bar in Eureka, where co-owner Darren Cartledge is getting ready for Sour Beer Night. The crowd will come later. Right now it’s a couple of hours before opening, and Cartledge has been readying the taps and putting up colorful chalked skateboard signs describing sour after sour. Sour beers, he…
Eureka Gets Squirrely about Handing over Public Records
As a reporter who’s worked in Humboldt County for more than a decade, the Eureka Police Department’s May 2 clearing of the PalCo Marsh was something to behold. Chief Andrew Mills made sure there were independent observers, local clergy and a swarm of local media on site, all of them with unfettered access to roam…
The Good Old Days?
Writing about 700 BC, the Greek poet Hesiod waxed nostalgic for “the good old days” as he imagined them: “They lived as if they were gods, their hearts free from all sorrow … The fruitful grainland yielded its harvest to them of its own accord.” In reality, his — and our — good old days…
Downsizing
Reviews A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING. The Tom Hanks of bygone days, of The Money Pit (1986) and Dragnet (1987) and The ‘Burbs (1989), the long-suffering everyman with impeccable comic timing and no luck whatsoever, is a Hanks we likely will not see again. That Hanks existed in a specific point in cultural and commercial…
Thesis Pieces
Incoming MFA students at Dell’Arte embark on a journey that takes them from learning physical awareness and responsiveness, voice, movement, improvisation and ensemble play, to using those techniques toward character, adaptation and tragedy projects, and eventually to an internship with the Dell’Arte Company. Along the way, they undertake a week-long rural residency, a community-based arts…
Mmm, Melons!
If you’re a North Coast gardener and you feel like melons are easy to grow, please, message me! I want to learn your methods. I have found this crop to be one of the most challenging of annual vegetables. If it were anything else, I’d probably have given up by now. But nothing can replace…
Vote!
Editor: As a longtime resident of Humboldt County, I would like to express my support for Estelle Fennell’s re-election for Second District Supervisor. Estelle has an acute awareness of the challenges confronting our neighbors and institutions throughout the Second District. And for many of these issues she has demonstrated her ability to identify, answer and…
Stumpin’ the 2nd District
Like most political races between incumbents and upstarts, the scrimmage for the 2nd District is a tug-of-war between vision and experience. In one corner, there’s Bud Rogers, the banjo maker and KMUD DJ whose platform is the hyper-localization of commerce, legislation and food. In the other corner is Estelle Fennell, also a KMUD alum, who…
