This time last year, I thought that I’d probably never work for another newspaper. I’d had a long career, and figured I was going to be happier freelancing. Then I met Heidi Walters, Ryan Burns, Andrew Goff, Bob Doran, Holly Harvey, Judy Hodgson, Carolyn Fernandez and the whole amazing crew who make the North […]
Carrie Peyton Dahlberg
Carrie Peyton Dahlberg was editor of the North Coast Journal from June 2011 to November 2013.
Posted inNews
Every Sperm Is Sacred
Pregnant women who want their tubes tied after delivery could soon find that their hospital options have dropped sharply. Both St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial could put a halt to such elective sterilizations, which — depending on whom you ask — violate the teachings of the Catholic Church. That would leave just Mad River […]
Posted inNews
Joe Mark Leaving St. Joe’s
A couple of hours after word hit the Humboldt rumor mills, the St. Joseph Health System confirmed Wednesday afternoon that top boss Joe Mark is leaving, effective June 30. In a press release, St. Joseph and Redwood Memorial hospitals said Mark and his wife want to spend more time with their young granddaughter in Ohio. […]
Posted inNews
Billboard Blight
Bordering Highway 101, as if inviting a monkey wrench daydream, are 30 or so billboards that block views of Humboldt Bay and its surroundings. They intrude on vistas of shimmering tidal flats where shorebirds poke their beaks into the mud, or on green, gleaming wetlands where cattle graze. And they endure. Wes Chesbro and Dan […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
NCJ’s Ugliest Billboard Contest
Which billboard or other signage do you think uglies up 101 along the bay more than any other, either because of where it is or what it looks like? Take a gander at the candidates below. Then click HERE to cast your vote. (Voting ends at 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 4, 2012). Click HERE to […]
Posted inNews
Shooting Probe Could Be Swift
One Fortuna police officer involved in a deadly shooting is already back on the job after three days of paid leave, and a second officer could return to active duty within a week or so, Fortuna Police Chief Bill Dobberstein said today. “We’re hoping to have everything wrapped up by the end of this week,” […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Behind the Redwood Door
Outside the bar, a woman screams. Inside, conversation stops, a bartender mutes the TV, and Guy Mallon exchanges glances with his wife before shouldering his way out into the mist. His friend sits propped against a dumpster, throat slashed. “His sequoia-green sweater was soaked with black blood.” In Mallon’s mythical Jefferson County the bar is […]
Posted inNews
Default Lines
On the southeast corner of the Arcata Plaza, the doors of Plaza Design are locked now, and the windows are obscured by taped-up sheets of brown paper. The place has been shut down by the Arcata Economic Development Corp., whose executive director, Ross Welch, led the team that walked in earlier this month, ushered customers […]
Posted inNews
Competition Dreamin’
Wow. June? We might bust outta the one-airline airlock as early as June? That’s the word from Jacqueline Debets, Humboldt County economic development director, who says yesterday’s special Headwaters Fund board meeting was held in a rush to speed up negotiations for a fiscal guarantee. “American Airlines is saying, ‘Can you do this now?’ They […]
Posted inNews
Plaza Design Lockout
UPDATE March 5: Woodworkers, artists and others who left consignment goods at Plaza Design will get their unsold pieces back, Ross Welch, executive director of the Arcata Economic Development Corp., said Monday. What about people with gift certificates, or those who made deposits on furniture they ordered? “I don’t know yet,” Welch said. ORIGINAL POST: […]
Posted inNews
Going Once
The elevated walkway into Humboldt County’s Courthouse seems suspended in air, one flight of stairs above the homeless, the occupiers and the rumble of Fifth Street traffic. This pale patch of concrete is where hopes disintegrate and homes are lost. Almost every weekday morning, as precisely as if they were figures from a mechanical clock, […]
Posted inNews
Design Undone
Plaza Design co-owner Jane Labes was at the former site of her store in Old Town Eureka this morning, supervising as the last couch and shelves were gathered up and store equipment was loaded into U-Haul vans parked outside. Some of the merchandise is being transferred to her flagship store on Arcata’s Plaza, which is […]