The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office has identified the woman who died in custody at around 3 a.m. this morning as Colleen Marie Branch, 36, of Eureka. Branch was in the jail’s medical unit to detox off an undisclosed substance, according to Lt. Mike Fridley. She was discovered by a staff member at around 2:45 a.m. […]
Linda Stansberry
Linda Stansberry was a staff writer of the North Coast Journal from 2015 to 2018. She is a frequent contributor the the Journal and our other publications.
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Alleged Energy Scam Has Eureka Residents Up in Arms
A video of a Humboldt Hill resident chasing two alleged scammers down the street while exchanging insults has generated more than 15,000 views on Facebook. The video, posted Tuesday evening by Bill Yeater and shared on several crime-oriented Facebook groups, shows a young man and woman walking rapidly away from Yeater, who is holding two […]
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Causes and Conditions
Humboldt County’s children are not being afforded the protection they deserve. This is the conclusion of the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury, which recently released two reports about our child welfare system. One, about response times for “at risk” children, includes a triangle of finger-pointing between the three entities most responsible for responding to signs […]
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Fatal Collision on SR 36 is 15th of 2017
The death of Wende Dolores Carroll, a 58-year-old Bridgeville resident, marks the county’s 15th traffic fatality of the year. Carroll was driving westbound on State Route 36 at 10:58 a.m. yesterday when her pickup crossed into the eastbound lane and she overcorrected, leaving the road and colliding with a redwood tree. The California Highway Patrol […]
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Up and Down Old Town with Officer Crnich
Eureka Police officer Cory Crnich’s beat stretches from Eureka’s Fourth Street north to the bay, from East Commercial Street to the library. Being the Old Town officer is a specialty position, one Crnich applied and reapplied for. He took the job in May of 2016, one week after the PalCo Marsh eviction. There’s no pay […]
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TL;DR: Our Favorite Quotes From This Week’s Cover Story
Hey readers, we know that reading 4,500 words can be a slog for some in the fast, digital world. Even if that 4,500 words is about something as fascinating as the city of Eureka’s many, varied attempts to address the entrenched homeless camp in the PalCo Marsh and the accompanying emails we obtained from public […]
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Tent Cities: An Expert’s Opinion
In the lead-up to the PalCo Marsh vacation, city and county officials and members of the homeless working group, emailed around articles with suggestions for what worked in other cities and states. Among these was an article written by Iain De Jong, titled “Tent City: How to Respond Effectively.” De Jong, a consultant and professor […]
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EPD Pitches Homeless Day Center
A recent entry by Eureka Police Department Chief Andrew Mills on the EPD blog addresses the issue of people loitering around the St. Vincent de Paul dining facilty at Third and Commercial streets. Local business owners have complained about an increase in vandalism, drug use and camping in the area. EPD data obtained by the […]
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Swept
Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series looking back at the May 2, 2016, clearing of homeless encampments from the PalCo Marsh. Part one is “Prelude to a Sweep.” For a brief guide to the key players involved in this story and the thousands of documents that made it possible, click here. The problem […]
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Prelude to a Sweep
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series looking back at the May 2, 2016, clearing of homeless encampments from the PalCo Marsh and what led to it. In 2011, Miles Slattery, then a project manager for Eureka’s Parks and Recreation division, hiked a group of potential grant funders through the tangle of […]
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No Homeless People in Southern Humboldt?
The Humboldt Housing and Homeless Coalition has sent out a press release with information about the most recent Point in Time Count, which took place in late February. The press release charts a general decrease in homeless people tallied across the county, dipping from 1,180 to 618 in the last two years, a drop of […]
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Ocean View Cemetery Workers Accused of Golfing on Graves
A video of what appears to be maintenance workers golfing in the veteran’s section of Ocean View Cemetery has stirred up some controversy. The Newtons, a vlogging family whose YouTube channel features stories of dog rescues, vegetarian cooking and kids’ Christmas hauls, all here in Humboldt County, uploaded the video on May 17. In it, […]