Another county supervisor primary election has come and gone, and soon unwanted political signs will be piled on the curb like leaves in the fall. The blizzard of cash has finally settled, and it’s easy to see all the strange and striking footprints left by donors. Thousands of people gave to the seven supervisorial campaigns, […]
Zach St. George
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Super Donors
More than 900 people donated at least $100 to the seven county supervisorial races. Candidates submitted names, occupations, addresses and donation amounts for each of those people who donated through May 24. (Plus, they disclosed any additional $1,000-plus gifts up through election day.) We transcribed every one of those entries into spreadsheets. That’s, like, thousands […]
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Sticky Jared
Last night I moved into my buddy’s place, where I’ll be staying for the summer. He works for 2nd District congressional candidate Jared Huffman. So there I am, brushing my teeth like I do most every night, and I spot a note on the counter: Sweet. Seems like a nice guy. Good penmanship too. But why […]
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Fill in the Blanks
Getting money from people is fun. Filling out disclosure forms about those people is a pain. It’s also a legal necessity, meant to keep things transparent. Political candidates must submit donor disclosure forms, which list donors’ names, addresses and occupations, every few months during the early months of the campaign, and as frequently as every […]
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District Soup
County Supervisor Jimmy Smith held up a legal pad he uses to remember which phone calls he made on which day. “Today we’ve got …” Smith paused and flipped the pad back around to read it. “Department of Conservation … someone worried about illegal parking on their street … a St. Joseph Hospital official […]
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Vote for Me – But This Isn’t a Political Sign!
It seems like a simple thing to label an advertisement as political or not. There’s the message — on a political sign it usually goes something like, “Elect so-and-so for whatever.” Then there’s the color scheme — red, white, and blue seem to show up a lot. Last, take a look at the image on […]
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Bad Neighbors?
A couple of weeks ago, after we reported on an apartment fire at the corner of Church and Pine streets in Eureka, some readers commented that the fire was no surprise. The building, they claimed, was a blight, filled with drug-using, music-blaring, trash-dumping delinquents, all overseen by an absentee landlord who didn’t much care. The […]
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Burned by the Wait
Five minutes from the judge’s house, Eureka police detective Todd Wilcox got a phone call. Hurry it up, the caller told him — the fire had restarted. The firefighters needed to get back inside while there was still a building to save. Hours earlier, firefighters had all but extinguished the fire in Apartment Three of […]
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Drug Money
Late in the afternoon, on Nov. 19, 2010, seven agents from the Humboldt County Drug Task Force checked in to seven rooms at the Anaheim Hilton. The elegant, glass-covered hotel sits directly across the street from Disneyland. The suites — four with king beds, three with a pair of queens — were on the fifth […]
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The Dirt
Chad Waters and Chip Baker wander around a sprawling complex behind the Murphy’s Market on Glendale Drive in Blue Lake. They point out a pile of compost, a plastic earthworm farm, a heap of coco fiber. Forklifts and loaders lumber past, puffing white exhaust in the crisp morning air. They are the microbrewers of soil, […]
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Where Will Arcata’s Recyclables Go Next?
With the Arcata Community Recycling Center planning to close its doors in January, it’s unclear who will get Arcata’s coveted recyclables. At its next meeting, the Arcata City Council will discuss the Humboldt Waste Management Authority, and in particular the joint powers agreement that created the authority more than a decade ago. “I would like […]
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Becalmed
The sun is out. There is a gentle breeze. It would be a fine day to take a ride on the water. Captain Tim Petrusha and Captain John Powell, however, are spending Friday inside, doing paperwork. They’re bar pilots for the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, a small government agency tasked with […]