Here’s a nice piece of gasoline trivia. In a year when the Natural Resources Defense Council reports that gasoline retailers make an average of around 4 cents a gallon, a broker trying to sell two Arcata gas stations says that they routinely rake in 35 cents a gallon. “Due to high margins in this area […]
Carrie Peyton Dahlberg
Carrie Peyton Dahlberg was editor of the North Coast Journal from June 2011 to November 2013.
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Top 10: Swapping Supervisors
The grumbled buzz about who’s in whose pockets got some new names to speculate about in 2012. Rex Bohn, who won a three-way race in June to succeed retiring Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith, was sworn in early, in August, so that Smith could step down and focus on his health. Estelle Fennell, who […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Top 10: Free Expression
Government efforts to tidy up the messiness of life can run smack into free expression, and at least once this year, free expression won. That came in September, when Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Dale Reinholtsen ruled that big chunks of Arcata’s anti-panhandling law violate the state and federal constitutions. Courts do need to balance […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Paying for Redevelopment’s Funeral
All three of the Humboldt county cities that once had redevelopment agencies have been tussling with the state over how much money they should have to hand over and when, with millions of dollars at stake. Arcata was told it owes $2.4 million, and it has only paid a little over $300,000, the Arcata Eye […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
One Big Billing Dispute
The city of Arcata is being dunned for just over $2 million by the state of California for improperly winding down its redevelopment agency, the Arcata Eye is reporting. The city has made a preliminary payment of $300,000 and is looking into ways of dealing with the rest, with Mayor Shane Brinton arguing the city […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
One Little Doomsday and How It Grew
It was an obscure dating system of a long-dead civilization. Then one paragraph in a 1966 book. Then a foreign film. A U.S. television special. More books and a flurry of magazines. A worldwide harmonic convergence. And in retrospect, that was the small stuff. After the Internet hit, and social networks showed how quickly panic […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Pedreros to be Hospitalized
Claudia Pedreros will be sent to a state mental hospital next month, her attorney said Tuesday, after being found not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday in the death of her daughter. Pedreros was accused of drowning the 2½ -year-old girl in the Trinity River in 2011. (See “Robert’s Vow,” in the North Coast […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Just in Time for Last Minute Shoppers
The New York Times comes out with a scathing indictment of Walmart bribery in Mexico: “The Times’s examination reveals that Wal-Mart de Mexico was not the reluctant victim of a corrupt culture that insisted on bribes as the cost of doing business. Nor did it pay bribes merely to speed up routine approvals. Rather, Wal-Mart […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Dear School Trustees
Please understand that I’m writing with deep affection. In more than 30 years as a voter, I can’t recall ever voting against a local school bond. I’m enduringly grateful for a state college system that once had tuition so low I graduated without a dime of debt, just by working weekends and summers. Schools […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
The Big Borrow
If the roof is rotting, the windows are rattling and the technology capabilities are prehistoric, just how badly will a school district want to upgrade? Badly enough to take $7 million right away with a promise to pay back $71.6 million later? Yes, that badly, McKinleyville Union School District trustees decided last year, although […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Two More School Districts Facing Debt Decisions
Update Friday Dec. 7: Make that at least three school districts getting ready to issue new bonds with so-far-unknown structures. The McKinleyville Press blog reports today that the Northern Humboldt Union School District is scheduled to vote Tuesday night on issuing more bonds. (Voters approved that borrowing in a 2010 election. The two districts mentioned […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Memorial for Family Swept into Sea
A memorial is planned for 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9 at Arcata High School for 16-year-old Gregory “Geddie” Kuljian, his father Howard Kuljian and his mother Mary Elena Scott, the Times-Standard reported over the weekend. The family was caught up in heavy surf, which pulled first their dog, then Gregory, and then his parents […]