Sixty days after it started, a hunger strike organized by inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison to protest prolonged solitary confinement ended today, according to state prison officials and various media reports. Lawmakers have reportedly agreed to hold hearings to further review conditions in the Security Housing Units, or SHUs (seen above). The strike began […]
Government
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Liberate Your Growler
Freedom to enjoy your favorite beer — that’s Wes Chesbro’s (D — North Coast) vision of California. He’s calling for Gov. Jerry Brown to end the persecution against owners of growlers — those 64-ounce beer bottles — who just want a refill. Growlers are an increasingly popular way to get fresh-brewed craft beer home. Even […]
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Feeling Nosy?
State Controller John Chiang is up to his old good government tricks again, updating all that government salary info that some of us love to snoop into.The state site has useful big picture data on cities, counties, state government and the state university system. HSU, it tells us, had 3,656 employees in 2012 and paid […]
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Former State Senator Pat Wiggins Dies
Pat Wiggins, who represented the North Coast in the state senate from 2006 to 2010, died this morning, a staffer with the Senate Democrats has confirmed. She was 73. Wiggins served on the Santa Rosa City Council before moving on to the State Assembly, where she represented the 7th District (Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties) […]
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Update: Safety Corridor Bike Lanes Widen This Week
Update: Caltrans spokesman Scott Burger said while traffic lanes will be slightly narrowed, most of the extra space for the bike lane will come from narrowing the left-hand shoulder. The Safety Corridor has been all a-bustle lately — earth movers, dump trucks, surveyors and pickups galore. Last week signs popped up at the Samoa Boulevard, […]
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UPDATED: Harbor District Board to Consider Acquiring Pulp Mill for Free at Monday Meeting
Update: It’s a done deal. The board voted unanimously Monday evening, with Commissioner Aaron Newman absent, to acquire the former pulp mill. Next comes lining up some tenants and figuring out what to do with all those nasty pulping liquors. Original post: Negotiations have been going on for months now, but it looks like the […]
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Attorney General Makes Drug Sentencing Slightly Less Insane
In a possible departure from the Obama administration’s drug war reversals and doublespeak, Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that some low-level, nonviolent drug offenders will no longer face long, mandatory minimum sentences in federal prisons. Speaking in front of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates in San Francisco, Holder was quoted as saying, “Too many […]
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Construction Workers Shorted Nearly a Quarter Million Dollars on Eureka Holiday Inn Project, Says State Labor Commissioner
You’ve probably seen it on your way to Costco — a new Holiday Inn Express going up on the southwest corner of Broadway and West Wabash in Eureka. Well, according to California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su, the construction workers erecting the hotel have been shortchanged wages totaling $247,681. Su is filing a mechanics’ lien […]
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Draft Reports Calls for Supes to Repeal Emergency Ordinance
A new draft report from the Human Rights Commission calls for the county to repeal its emergency ordinance, which restricted demonstrating in front of the County Courthouse in response to Occupy protests last year. The report, completed this week by a Human Rights Commission subcommittee assigned to focus on the ordinance, recommends that the Board […]
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Judge Denies Ranchers’ Bid on Upper Klamath Water
Ranchers facing water shut-offs in the Upper Klamath Basin lost a bid to keep their water rights intact while they appeal a state decision that granted Klamath Tribes senior water rights earlier this year. Klamath Falls Judge Cameron Wogan declined to put the state’s recognition of tribal rights on hold, the Associated Press reports, because an appeal could take 10 […]
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Coastal Commission’s Disapproval of Indianola Interchange Could Be Good for a Bay Trail
Eureka-Arcata trail advocates may soon have a new ally in Caltrans, after the Coastal Commission dealt a blow to Caltrans’ safety corridor plans in a report the commission released at the end of June. Caltrans’ preferred plan (it has come up with six alternatives) included an interchange at Indianola Cutoff, a signal at northbound Airport […]
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Hunger Strike Resumes at Pelican Bay [Updated]
UPDATE: The Bay Area group Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity released the above video yesterday, which gives a brief recap of the issues that sparked the original hunger strike and calls for public support. Original post: This morning at 11, prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison began their third hunger strike in the past two years […]