Agonizing Over Apartments
County on the defensive for unproven state idea
Cover Stories
Are you “low-income”?
It’s complicated. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development calculates a “median family income” every year for every county in the United States. For Humboldt County, the 2011 MFI is $54,900. But that median changes depending on family size, so whether you are low income depends on how much money all the people living…
The Multifamily Myth
From Redway to McKinleyville, Humboldt county planners and an anxious public have been tying themselves in knots over tomorrow’s imaginary apartments. The zoning changes that would allow these apartments are supposed to satisfy the state of California, which decades ago settled on a curious idea: The more people live in one place, the cheaper it…
Keeping up with the Rezoneses
The cinnamon reek of portable toilets, ranked by color and brand on the north end of the lot, pervades each breeze. Staccato bursts of sharp sound punctuate the white noise of trash and recyclables being dropped off, sorted, crushed and baled. Crash, clatter, screech, scrape. Sniff deeper: diesel and rotting meat, bitter garden discards, sour…
Carnival’s A-Coming
The almost-annual carnival is back at the Eureka boardwalk. It runs from Friday thru Monday July 4.
Sweetback Out / Absynth In
The folks at the Arcata Playhouse found themselves in a bit of a bind today. As you may have read in the Hum last week, they’d booked a show for tonight with the NYC neo-honky tonk band, The Sweetback Sisters, who are coming west for this weekend’s High Sierra Music Festival. At least they thought they’d booked the band, via…
Eureka Stirs
Nearly 100 Eureka residents filled the basement of the Eureka Veteran’s Hall Monday night for a community forum scheduled to discuss the firing of former Eureka Police Chief Garr Nielsen. While praise for the changes witnessed under Garr’s tenure made up a significant portion of the sentiment, displeasure with the power wielded by City Manager…
![EPD Chief Garr Nielsen Fired [Updated]](https://i0.wp.com/www.northcoastjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/img1857_crop_upscale_q85.webp?resize=600%2C450&ssl=1)
EPD Chief Garr Nielsen Fired [Updated]
Eureka Police Chief Garr Nielsen was fired this morning. Initially reported on the Humboldt Herald blog, Nielsen’s termination was confirmed by the former chief himself in the Times-Standard. “It’s completely out of the blue,” he told the T-S. “It caught me completely off guard.” Nielsen had been in the running for the chief of police position…
Dusk
I write with perjured quill.Michelangelo, circa 1534I lived…
Droppers: America’s First Hippie Commune, Drop City
Drop City is the title of a 2003 fiction by well-known novelist T.C. Boyle about members of a 1970s Sonoma County commune. Boyle apparently appropriated stories (or legends) from a commune in Sebastapol, the Morning Star Ranch, and other communes in Marin County and San Francisco. But one place his novel is not about is…
Sculpting a Gallery
Until a few weeks ago, Jack Sewell worked as a part-time nurse at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Eureka while creating his award-winning sculptures in his spare time. He was approaching retirement age and looking forward to more studio hours when his life took an abrupt, unexpected turn. “I got a phone call from Dan Ollivier,…
The Veil
It is widely known that improvisational music is not exactly popular within the larger listening audience; in short, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But for brave souls with a wider palate and patient ear, it can be exhilarating, its immediacy coming in spontaneous blasts and delicate waves. In the hands of some of contemporary…
When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
The first time Shelly Fugate saw Riverdance on TV she just got up and started doing what the dancers on the screen were doing. What being the hyperspeed version of traditional Irish step dancing performed with preternatural precision. “My feet just started doing it. My heart led, but my feet were doing it,” said Fugate.…
Wells Deserved
At Dell’Arte this weekend, Bob and Lynne Wells are being honored for their acting achievements and contributions to local theatre over a generation. But the thread that ran through our conversation at the Plaza Grill in Arcata last Friday did not concern the past. It was all about the next show. That show will be…
OMG
Editor: I jst rd Barry Evans’ pce (“Feed Me, See More,” June 9) in NCJ. WTF does CUL! mean???? If I wuzn’t doing this rant, I mite B considered a Luddite (I never break things I don’t like, unless it’s by accident). Incidentally, I still keep the obit on the late, great David Anderson stuck…
The Brand
It’s all about the brand. Humboldt. And there’s a battle raging, brand warfare over what that word represents and how it’s spun in the world beyond the Redwood Curtain. On the one hand you have the Humboldt Convention and Visitors Bureau that sees Humboldt as synonymous with redwoods (see this week’s letters). The chamber has…
The Right to Gather
Rosie Clayburn pulled a yellowish razor clam from her bag and held it up to show the tribal members gathered around her. She wore rubber boots pulled up over her jeans, and the sleeves of her maroon Yurok Tribe sweatshirt were wet and flecked with sand. “I… don’t have a license,” she said nervously. “Good!”…
Green Cheese
Reviews: GREEN LANTERN. Every so often in the miasma of our local film offerings there is a brief moment of light. Such a moment occurred a week ago with Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. But, as is too often the case, the moment proved ephemeral, serving simply to create a bit of hope only to…
Into the Sea, Eventually
The fleeting nature of sand castles is such that they’ve become a metaphor for all things ephemeral. As Jimi Hendrix pointed out in song, “Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually.” If the tide doesn’t get them, they fall down anyway when they dry out. Why? Well, it’s basic physics, or perhaps not…
Get Made
In case there is any confusion about why something called the “Humboldt Made Fair” is being advertised as taking place during the week historically — dating back to World War II, anyway — reserved for your beloved “Redwood Acres Fair,” fear not. If you read the fine print, they’re — kinda — the same thing.…
Happy redwoods
Editor: Ryan Burns, in the article called Happyland (June 16), ably presented the musings of Internet branding guru Andrew Davis, who with bow-tie, bankers glasses and extremely kinetic overhead presentation generated quite a buzz during the recent Redwood Economic Summit. Kudos to the organizers for bringing him because, agree with him or not, he impresses…
Golden Age of Crystal Sets
“Radio Sweeping Country: 1,000,000 Sets in Use”-Variety headline, March 10, 1922 The history of commercial radio in the United States began when the Department of Commerce licensed KDKA Pittsburgh on Nov. 2, 1920, just in time for the Harding-Cox election results. Within a few years hundreds of transmitters were broadcasting to millions of receivers, as…
