Can Humboldt County Solve Addiction?
Where our resources lift addicts up, and where they let them down
Cover Story
Can Humboldt County Solve Addiction?
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series looking at addiction on the North Coast. The first installment (“What’s Killing Us?” Sept. 10) analyzed the theories of addiction and its causes. The first thing you see when you walk into detox are the names of the dead. A wooden plaque on the wall…
UPDATE: Man Killed on 101 Identified
UPDATE: The Humboldt County Coroner’s Office has identified the man killed on U.S. Highway 101 on Sept. 27 as William Emery Seekins, 29, from Eureka. Previously: A pedestrian was killed on U.S. Highway 101 early Sunday morning, the California Highway reports. According to a press release, the man’s identity is unknown. He died while being airlifted…
Impact of Shaded Parcels Settlement Remains Shaded
After three years of litigation over the county’s practice of “shading parcels,” the property rights group HumCPR and the county of Humboldt recently announced they’ve reached a settlement. What that means, however, is far from clear. “We’re grateful to settle, but we’re concerned,” said County Planning and Building Director Kevin Hamblin, adding that he and…
Two Double-Murder Trials Begin
For the first time in recent memory, the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office is in the process of simultaneously trying separate double-murder cases. Prosecutors gave opening arguments Sept. 24 in the case against Jason Michael Arreaga, the 30-year-old Lucerne man with a violent past who stands accused of gunning down Harley Hammers and Angel Tully…
Humboldt Revs up the Style
If you think Humboldt’s all Carhartt and hoodies, and bikers are all leather, all the time, well, you should have caught the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride on Sunday. If you had seen the dozens of dapper folk on motorcycles weaving their way through Eureka, the Samoa Peninsula and out to Blue Lake, you’d know Humboldt’s got…
HumBug: New Spirals
I think the best and most frustrating thing about nature study is that one thing almost always leads to several more, and each one of those leads to still more. I have a particular fondness for glowing things, especially our local glow worms, Pterotus obscuripinnes. Studying them I learned they feed almost exclusively on small…
Big Turnout for Tiny Homes
The parking lot of the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bayside was full within an an hour of the Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives (AHHA) Tiny House Expo, held Saturday. Cars parked on the narrow shoulder of Jacoby Creek Road as people walked onto the church grounds to take in music, eat a free meal, attend…
Fuggeddabocce!
These days you can’t throw a bocce ball without hitting, well, a bocce ball. Might as well join ’em. Have a ball this Sunday, Sept. 27 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sons of Italy Italian Festival at Redwood Fields Bocce Court in Cutten (free admission). This family friendly festa features a bocce…
Hoopa PD No More
The days of Hoopa having its own police department may be over. Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Downey announced Thursday that he was revoking the power of tribal police officers to enforce state law and suspending a memorandum of understanding that had been in place between the tribe and the county for almost two decades. The…
Class by the Glass
The beautiful Fieldbrook Winery (so we’re a little biased) is the setting for Fieldbrook School’s largest annual fundraiser, the Fieldbrook Art and Wine Festival on Sept. 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (free admission, no pets, please). With the late September weather as gorgeous as it can be in Humboldt, and picturesque Fieldbrook Valley…
The Wurst of Times
Shake out your lederhosen, dust off your dirndle and get to Fortuna this weekend for Oktoberfest on Saturday, Sept. 26 at Rohner Park from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (free admission, $20 dinner, $5 beer, $5 dinner for kids 12 and under). The fundraiser for Fortuna Senior Services features a traditional German-style dinner where damen…
Us
Editor: This is a thank you to Linda Stansberry and the NCJ staff for their work and publication of the first part of “What’s Killing Us?” (Sept. 10). I appreciate the thoughtful approach to the exploration of what is most often the cause of addiction for people. Too often (especially as of late) I hear…
All Ears
A decade ago, I watched the media world consolidate so fast I thought it wouldn’t be long before two companies owned all the radio on my dial. But now local radio is springing up like native grass. The consolidation craze first started when President Bill Clinton signed into law the Telecommunications Act of 1994, which…
Murky Waters
The Yurok Tribe has remained silent since announcing on Sept. 15 that it is withdrawing its support for the historic Klamath Agreements, a hard fought compromise reached five years ago aimed at removing the four dams that dot the Klamath River. The tribe’s exit from the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and the companion Klamath Hydroelectric…
The Reluctant Cyclist
Part 6 Number of miles ridden: 7.5 Number of times feared for life: 1 Number of times stopped to admire the beauty: 2 Number of unicycles shared an intersection with: 1 Look, I’ve missed it, okay? And people have started asking me, “Hey, did you ride your bike today?” Guilt colors my voice every time…
For Sid Dominitz
“Coming Down” comes the call Brooklyn in the voice The ball works its way around the infield Back to Sid on the mound. We used to joke the only way we’d get to pitch was if Sid … But those games are over and it’s too lofty a perch now, anyway, for pretenders, mere mortals.…
You Never Give Me Your Money
Sometime this past week I was chatting with some of my musician friends. Not surprisingly, we discussed many topics of grave importance. Which album by which artist was their best; how this or that band really went downhill after they brought that new guitarist on board; and that if bands want to land local outdoor…
Sauerkraut
Some of our favorite foods are fermented, such as beer, wine, bread, cheese, pickles, salami, yogurt, tempeh, vinegar, kombucha, kimchi and many more. And whether you are a devoted foodie with a well-stocked fermentation station on your kitchen counter or just somebody who loves a Reuben sandwich, one of the simplest and most satisfying fermented…
Infusions
A recent report by the Guardian shows that alcohol sales in Colorado grew in the years after the state legalized recreational pot, seemingly dispelling an argument that pot advocates have made that alcohol consumption would decrease with easier access to marijuana. It’s unclear if possible alcohol temperance was a selling point for Colorado voters, but…
You Never Give Me Your Money
Sometime this past week I was chatting with some of my musician friends. Not surprisingly, we discussed many topics of grave importance. Which album by which artist was their best; how this or that band really went downhill after they brought that new guitarist on board; and that if bands want to land local outdoor…
Ice Age in 2030?
A British scientist recently warmed the hearts of climate-change deniers the world over. According to press reports following her presentation to the Royal Astronomical Society’s annual meeting in Wales last July, Dr. Valentina Zharkova predicted that a mini Ice Age would begin in 2030. If true, this would make a mockery of decades of meticulous…
Like a Boss
Reviews BLACK MASS. Scott Cooper makes movies I think I should love. His style, a little loose but still atmospheric and inventive, creates a unified visual identity for the settings of his stories. He then populates these backdrops with boozers, bare knucklers, broken down brothers, speed freaks, murderers and musicians. It’s my kind of Americana…
Keeping the Story Straight
When Sir Walter Scott wrote, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” he was no doubt thinking more military than marital battlefields, but Neil Simon’s Rumors, written almost two centuries later in 1988, is still as relevant today in reminding us that, when we first practice to deceive, we still need to be able to…
Never Surrender
Editor: The Journal’s silver anniversary rehash was off base when it came to timber (“Then and Now,” Sept. 17). Thadeus Greenson credits the Redwood Summer protests, in 1990, with “kicking off the timber wars.” But this war began in 1986, with three large demonstrations against Maxxam in San Francisco, Arcata and Scotia. Over the next…
