‘Long Overdue’
Eureka pays $165K to cut ties with its city attorney, ending a costly and controversial tenure
Cover Story
‘Long Overdue’
In late 2013, Eureka City Councilmember Lance Madsen was dying, in the last stages of his battle with lung disease. But the former police detective was also pressing to close one last case — to get his fellow councilmembers the information he believed they needed to fire City Attorney Cyndy Day-Wilson. In an investigative report…
Supreme Court Pulls ‘Three Californias’ Measure From November Ballot
Well, it looks like voters won’t get to decide whether California should be severed into three separate states — at least not this year. The California Supreme Court ruled today, according to multiple news reports, to remove the measure that the California Secretary of State’s Office had already approved for the November ballot. According to…
Crabs Win Streak Comes To A Close
Any time the Pacific Union Financial Capitalists (generally called the Puf Caps, which always makes me think of Kirby, the video game character) we’re bound to see some good baseball. Funded by a Texas businessman, the Caps are a nationwide team of plucky youngsters all on their way to Division I programs on scholarship in…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, July 18
p>Fiddling founding father of The David Grisman Quintet, Darol Anger brings his newest virtuosic touring jam group Darol Anger and the Rockin’ Furies to Humbrews tonight at 9 p.m. Known for its well-honed string mastery and exciting technical theatrics, these Furies are a must-see for fans of the bluegrass side of the jam rock colossus.…
Jacks Football Over After 2018 Season
Just seven months after what seemed like a miracle save of the Humboldt State University football program, President Lisa Rossbacher announced today that 2018 will be the last season after all. In the announcement, Rossbacher describes the reversal of fortune for the Jacks team as an “unfortunate, but necessary, step in addressing the university’s structural…
Mountain Lion Sighting on Fickle Hill
The Arcata Police Department is reporting that a mountain lion has been spotted off Fickle Hill Road in the Arcata Community Forest area. While noting that such sightings are not usual, the department is asking residents and forest visitors to be “aware and alert” and reissued advise on what to do should an encounter occur,…
Music Tonight: Tuesday, July 17
p>Fresno and Bay Area rapper and one half of defunct duo The Cali Agents, Planet Asia rolls through Eureka tonight to jam at the newish Fifth Street venue Live in Humboldt. Joining him will be Boston rap duo N.B.S. as well as local promotion team Blo Som ‘Em Entertainment and Hiway 101. 9 p.m. ($15/$10…
A Folksy Affair (Slideshow)
More than 200 performers participated during eight days of music in the 40th annual Humboldt Folklife Festival across a variety of venues. A week of live music ending in a barn dance on Friday was followed by an all-Saturday free festival in Blue Lake that featured live music on two stages and Folk School workshops, ranging…
Eureka Council Slated to Hear HACHR Report Tuesday
The Eureka City Council is scheduled Tuesday to hear a presentation from a local syringe exchange program at the center of a public backlash against the practice, which some view as responsible for the needle litter scourge now rampant across the city. The Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction, known as HACHR, also submitted a…
Music Tonight: Monday, July 16
p>To borrow from the doxology, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, here is a recurring joint to liven up our sleepy Monday nights with. At Six Rivers Brewery you can be the star at 8 p.m. when DJ Marv rolls out the karaoke red carpet for all comers. Want…
Shark Bites Woman at Trinidad Beach
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Paul Savona has confirmed that a woman suffered a shark bite while standing in about a foot of water at Trinidad Beach. “She received non-life-threatening injuries,” he said. The incident happened around 2:15 p.m. and an ambulance was called to the scene to take the woman to the hospital. Few other…
Drafting Along with Whirligig Beetles
The other day I was talking on the phone with my fiance when I saw a large flying insect investigate a tree in my back yard. I made my excuses, set down the phone and got my camera. The critter in question was a Blue Eyed Darner (Rhionaeschna multicolor) dragonfly. Thankfully, they were both quite…
Any Port in a Storm? Not in Humboldt
Well, folks, it was a wild weekday series against the San Leandro Ports; but before I get started, I want to discuss something a bit more serious. On Wednesday, someone stole two beers from the Crab Grass Band. I’m having some difficulty accurately describing how wrong this is without using a slough of profanities. At…
Music Tonight: Sunday, July 15
The Broadway musical adaptation of P.L. Traver’s beloved Mary Poppins series finds its way to the Arkley Center for a 2 p.m. matinee in the midst of a 10-day run of shows. Fun fact: as a child I had an LP picture disc of the soundtrack from the Disney film which I would play at…
Chutes and Chaps
Polish your boots and buckles, it’s rodeo time in Fortuna. All year ’round the folks in the Friendly City ready themselves for the Fortuna Rodeo, happening this year from July 15-22. With a chili cook off, carnival, junior rodeo, parade, barbecue and multitude of other events, it’s more fun than you can shake a stick…
Music Tonight: Saturday, July 14
It’s the downtown Blue Lake neck of the Humboldt Folklife Festival going on for free all dang day with music by Bayou Swamis, Kingfoot, The Hossettes, and many more. Marimba and vibraphone percussion duo Easthama — comprised of Claremont, California’s Lindsey Eastham and Hiromu Nagahama from Fukuoka, Japan — is playing a concert tonight at…
No Other Pryors
If you haven’t seen Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip, what many consider one of the greatest stand-up comedy acts ever filmed, you’ll have a chance this Friday, July 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Eureka Theater ($10). Why is it considered one of the greatest? It encompasses all the ingredients of good stand-up.…
New Ban on Unsafe Target Shooting Approved by Supervisors
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors took what some might consider a long-overdue action Tuesday on the issue of shooting on unincorporated land, unanimously voting in favor of a county ordinance that would prohibit target shooting in any area that does not meet standards for safe shooting. Those standards require a 20-foot birm of packed…
What Are You Doing This Weekend?
Editor’s note: With a weekend forecast of a balmy 70 degrees along the coast while hitting close to 100 inland, now seems like a good time to dust off our look at perfect summer trips from the spring 2014 Insider magazine. Weather aside: The National Weather Service Office in Eureka reports there is a slight…
Just Hear a Siren? No Worries, it was a Test.
If you heard a siren just a short time ago anywhere from King Salmon to Cutten — and perhaps beyond — not to worry. It was only a test. The Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services just sent out a Facebook post noting PG&E was performing a test on the King Salmon power plant and…
Lawsuit Challenges 3 California Ballot Measure
A lawsuit filed with the California Supreme Court this week is challenging the placement of a controversial initiative to divide the state into three on the November ballot less than one month after it was signed off on by the Secretary of State’s Office. According to a San Francisco Chronicle article, the Planning and Conservation…
Taste of Willow Creek
Enjoy a Taste of Willow Creek on Saturday, July 14 from 1-5 p.m. at Willow Creek’s Veterans Park (free admission, $25 wine tasting). This afternoon of family fun includes wine tasting, plenty of food vendors, merchandise and local community nonprofits’ booths, live music, a beer booth, children’s activities and raffle spot prizes.
Samoa All Bikes by the Bay
Check out the bikes at the Samoa All Bikes by the Bay bike show on Saturday, July 14 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at Samoa Drag Strip (free for kids 10 and under). In addition to all the chrome and leather, there’s a ton of fun for the whole family, including bike games, food, live music,…
Music Tonight: Friday, July 13
Humboldt Folklife Festival presents its Barn Dance tonight at The Arcata Vets Hall — not in fact a barn but let’s not get into semantics here — at 7:30 p.m. ($10/$5 HFF members/children ride free). Come check out this hoedown — again, don’t actually bring any farm tools with you — called by Lyndsey Battle…
Orick Rodeo
Get ready for a weekend of rodeo action at the 57th annual Orick Rodeo on July 14-15 at the Orick Rodeo Grounds ($9, $5 kids 5-12, free for under 5). The fun starts early on Saturday with the jackpot round-up at 8:30 a.m. followed by lots of fun all day, including quad racing, kids’ games…
Music Tonight: Thursday, July 12
Grant Earl Lavalley hails from the haunted region of Joshua Tree and his sound has been described as desert goth. What does that mean? You can find out tonight at 8:30 p.m. at the Miniplex where he will be joined by local heroes The Tweeners and Blackplate who will likely bring the fun and thunder.…
All for Tribalism and Polarization
Editor: As it says in the Bible and was sung by the Byrds, “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” America has experienced times before when we couldn’t just “agree to disagree,” times when we had to fight it out (“Tribalism and Polarization,” June 28). Remember slavery. Remember…
‘Deeply Concerning’
Editor: Thank you Jennifer Fumiko Cahill and Thadeus Greenson for your piece “Know Your Enemies” (July 5) concerning the shooting in Annapolis, Maryland, of staff at the Capital Gazette. The shooting deaths that have occurred in our country this year are very disturbing. And the shooting of journalists in a newsroom during the atmosphere of…
The Jury is In
The Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury released 11 reports in the last two weeks that delved into subjects as diverse as jail safety, animal control, water quality and the very future of Humboldt County. Every year the HCCGJ conducts lengthy and thorough investigations into issues related to county government; the agencies or departments identified in…
Dryads Live in Sitka Spruce
Not shy as tree nymphs are said to be not oak-dwelling, but Sitka spruce never worry about leaves leaving and not returning, like dawn-swept dreams. With Artemis, we see unseen hands hired to wrench Dudleya plants off their native North Coast. Bluff lettuce, pale green rosettes of fleshy leaves vermillion-tipped, erects a stem and blooms…
American Prometheus: Carnegie’s Captain, Bill Jones
Why did tycoon Andrew Carnegie keep Bill Jones’ portrait in his bedchamber? Gratitude? Because Jones, the engineering genius, made the Carnegie-owned Edgar Thomson Steel Works (ET) the world’s most profitable steel mill. Guilt? Just two days after Jones’ death, Carnegie’s business representative and attorney visited Jones’ grieving widow, Harriett. They persuaded her to sign over…
Haunted by the Music
Having missed my chance to see the new much-ballyhooed fright flick Hereditary at the Minor, I decided to feed my obsession with all things horror by doing a deep dive into one of my favorite films of all time: The Shining. After watching film theory videos on Rob Ager’s excellent Collative Learning YouTube channel and…
TESS the Planet Hunter
Last time, we discussed how NASA’s recently launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will spend the next two years surveying nearly the entire sky to search for planets orbiting nearby stars, up to about 100 light years distant. TESS’s four wide-field cameras will spend a month at a time staring at swaths of the…
On Tap
Ah summer, when us coastal elites celebrate several hours of partial afternoon clearing by staggering around in a sweaty haze. Heading inland to our innumerable, magical swimming hole is, of course, a Humboldt County custom that must be observed annually. (Before I go any further, I must urge every single person reading this to be…
Comic Book Movies Can Be Fun
Reviews Ant-Man and the Wasp. Based on my many overlong, one-note lamentations about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its unchecked consumption of cinema, one might reasonably expect that: 1) I wouldn’t particularly look forward to the prospect of another installment, regardless of the hero, but also 2) the return of Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man/Scott Lang might…
Dab Day and the Sacrament
Remember two years ago when, in these very pages, we quoted Emerald Cup founder Tim Blake dismissively noting in a Bloomberg interview that, “Nobody smokes flowers anymore,” and that good, old-fashioned joints taste “dirty” in comparison to all the concentrates and extracts flooding the market? Well, the sentiment is now part of a concentrate movement…
Hedda Gabler Breaks the Sisyphean Loop
The lights of the Redwood Curtain Theater go down and a woman’s voice comes out of nowhere, “I hear what you are saying, Tesman. But how am I to get through the evenings out here?” No, you aren’t two hours late for Hedda Gabler, you’re just in time for Jeff Whitty’s The Further Adventures of…
Ebb and Flow
A small show of photographs by Matt Filar, on view at the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center, reveals another side to an active and versatile local photographer who you might already know through his photos for the Humboldt Crabs and the Mad River Union, his work with the cooperative gallery Ferndale Arts and/or his tenure as…
Greens Galore
I never realized how much growing up on the North Coast influenced my eating preferences until I traveled overseas to Belgium. In that part of the world, they eat salad as lettuce with mayonnaise, strawberries with white pepper and radishes dipped in salt. New flavor combinations made me appreciate garden delicacies in new ways. Many…
Arts! Arcata
Arts! Arcata is Arcata Main Street’s monthly celebration of visual and performing arts, held at locations in Arcata. Visit www.arcatamainstreet.com, Arts! Arcata on Facebook, or call 707-822-4500 for more information. ALCHEMY DISTILLERY 330 S. G. St. Lynn M. Jones, linoleum prints. ARCATA ARTISANS 833 H. St. Elaine Y. Shore, porcelain work; Susan Morton, glasswork; wine…
First They Came for the Children
Editor: Don’t think that the separation of the immigrant children from their parents and their imprisonment in prison camps is something we can safely ignore (“Marchers Say ‘Enough is Enough’ at Families Belong Together Rally,” July 5). If the Trump administration can make people disappear into camps, they will not stop with “illegal” immigrants. If…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Your key theme right now is growth. Let’s dig in and analyze its nuances. 1. Not all growth is good for you. It may stretch you too far too fast — beyond your capacity to integrate and use it. 2. Some growth that is good for you doesn’t feel good to…
Counter
Editor: Last Saturday Eureka staged its own immigration protest. There were three counter protesters. (I was one) but you wouldn’t know it to read the Times-Standard or watch Channel 3 news. This was my first protest and it was a revelation. I found most (of) the crowd content to just wave their signs, apart from…
Save Katie
Editor: Katie Whiteside, KHSU’s program manager, was fired six weeks ago (Mailbox, July 5). The firing was not justified and reflects the hostile work environment created by General Manager Peter Fretwell. I wrote in protest to both HSU President Lisa Rossbacher and to Vice President Craig Wruck and received no acknowledgement. Since I have hosted…
Distressed by ‘Combat’ Energy at Fairy Event
Editor: I attended the Fairy Festival on June 30 at the plaza sponsored by Arcata Mainstreet, and commend the cause as a benefit for CASA (“Set it Off,” June 28). However, I was quite distressed by it on two counts. First, it was sad to see no children at the Storytelling Stage for two of…
