Editorial

Reading her ruling overturning the firing of Humboldt County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Daniels, it’s clear arbitrator Bonnie Prouty Castrey considered many things (“Embedded in the Culture,” March 31). She reviewed the pertinent sheriff’s office policies and procedures, as well as the county’s sexual harassment policy, considered Daniels’ “many awards” and “record of accomplishments.” She took […]

”Access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.” So reads the California Public Records Act and it sounds simple enough, right? Well, as Sunshine Week — that annual reminder of the importance of freedom of information — bore down upon us […]

“We’re all going to get it.” I keep hearing the phrase. Sometimes, it’s said with a sigh by someone who has no choice but to work face-to-face with the public, resigned to what seems inevitable when depending on strangers to consider their safety. But more often, I hear it spoken or see it typed in […]

In the aftermath of a highly controversial split vote to temporarily ban spectators from high school sporting events, local superintendents are seemingly doing the unthinkable: treating colleagues with respect and deference. Not one superintendent has publicly accused another of fascism, power grabs or fake science. Not one has gone rogue, announcing that while other districts […]

A can of chewing tobacco, a Sprite and the promise of a meal — that’s what it took to bring an hours-long standoff with an armed fugitive to a peaceful end. Well, that and an abundance of patience and calm, underpinned with the steady resolve to give the man every last chance to make the […]

If you simply look at COVID-19 as a stress test, there’s no denying that Humboldt County, as a community, is failing. It’s not just the numbers, which are awful. After all, the county confirmed more COVID-19 cases in August than it did in its two previous record months — the post holiday surge of December […]

The woman’s voice was unflinchingly confident as she spoke, addressing the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors during public comment. “It is unscientific,” she said of the creation of three different COVID-19 vaccines, each of which built upon decades of research and underwent months of rigorous trials, and the near unanimous recommendation of health officials across […]

By now, most have heard the ominous line from a leaked internal document of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control warning about the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19: “The war has changed.” A year ago, in the last week of July of 2020, Humboldt County recorded 28 new cases with a test-positivity rate of […]

To many of us, it feels like spring in Humboldt, like almost overnight everything has come to feel brighter and warmer. But instead of emerging from winter into a world that feels new, we’re emerging from a pandemic-induced isolation into a world of old habits, in which we can once again hug our friends, host […]

We’ve seen enough — enough to know that Eureka Police Department Sgt. Rodrigo Reyna-Sanchez and officer Mark Meftah have no business wearing a badge and holstering a gun; enough to to know there’s a cancerously toxic culture in at least one of EPD’s units; enough to know the trust has been irrevocably broken. Now, we’re […]