Taking Charge in Loleta
Amid school discord and racial differences, community group finds its voice
Cover Story
Taking Charge in Loleta
If you were to miniaturize Humboldt County, shrink it down to about 10 percent of its size and population, you’d wind up with a region that looks a lot like the 95551 zip code. Rural and low-income, this coastal community marries agriculture and small-town values with a natural beauty that’s almost dizzying. Atop Table Bluff,…
Humboldt Sign Of The Apocalpyse: Bohn/Lovelace Old Town Bromance
Think the all the hoopla surrounding the impending end of the Mayan calendar is a bunch of malarkey? Not so fast, skeptic! While we haven’t seen any lions loungin’ with lambs just yet, check this out this piece of local visual WTF-ness. The Journal’s secret Old Town telephoto lenses picked up some shared supervisorial sentimentality…
![Ancient Study Returns from the Dead [Updated]](https://i0.wp.com/www.northcoastjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/spice-girls.webp?resize=200%2C150&ssl=1)
Ancient Study Returns from the Dead [Updated]
UPDATE: On Tuesday the board voted to support the resolution 3-2, with Supervisors Lovelace and Clendenen opposing. Public comment was almost unanimously in support of the resolution, though Harbor Commissioner Richard Marks said he had “some issues” with it and wished it had been brought to the harbor district first. Lovelace and Clendenen said they…
Pedreros to be Hospitalized
Claudia Pedreros will be sent to a state mental hospital next month, her attorney said Tuesday, after being found not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday in the death of her daughter. Pedreros was accused of drowning the 2½ -year-old girl in the Trinity River in 2011. (See “Robert’s Vow,” in the North Coast…
It’s Totally Snowing in Humboldt
Humboldtian Amy Barnes chronicled some real, legit snow outside her window in Fieldbrook Tuesday afternoon. So there. Dottie Simmons sent us this picture from a bit farther inland in Dinsmore. Uh, this is what snow looks like when it sticks, coastal dwellers.
Mumps! (Update)
UPDATE: There are no confirmed cases of mumps in Humboldt County. While saying he could not speak about any specific cases, public health nurse Eric Gordon, with the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services, says that locally, from 2003 through the present, the county has had only one confirmed case of mumps reported…
Just in Time for Last Minute Shoppers
The New York Times comes out with a scathing indictment of Walmart bribery in Mexico: “The Times’s examination reveals that Wal-Mart de Mexico was not the reluctant victim of a corrupt culture that insisted on bribes as the cost of doing business. Nor did it pay bribes merely to speed up routine approvals. Rather, Wal-Mart…
Hoopa Cash
The post office and banks in the Hoopa Valley were inundated today as Hoopa Valley tribal members lined up to get their mail and then deposit their fresh-cut $10,000 checks. Outside the post office, the Hoopa Tribal Police posted a guard to keep things orderly. The checks are part of a $49.2 million settlement reached…
John (Still) Says “Forgive”
A small plaque has appeared on the white wall of the Clarke Museum near where John Tutuska used to sit meditating in the sun. Tutuska, well-known and beloved by many in town, died in October, and Clarke Street Plaza overflowed with mourners several weeks after. One of his dying requests, says his friend Lynna Ridgeway,…
Pain Doc Loses Her License
Effective at 5 p.m. today, former Eureka doctor Fran Day will not be allowed to practice medicine in the state of California. The doctor’s license already had been suspended for more than two years. Today the Medical Board of California officially revoked it, after Day, who specialized in pain treatment and psychiatry and practiced medicine…
Guarding Hoopa
The Hoopa Valley Tribe is forming a national guard, of sorts, to protect the land and tribal members from the human dangers that lurk in its woods, the Two Rivers Tribune reports. The new Hoopa Tribal Citizen Corps arose in response to “months of incidents caused by non-tribal members trespassing on tribal lands.” The Tribune…
Arts! Arcata December 2012
1. ABRUZZI 780 Seventh St. Live music. 2. ARCATA ARTISANS COOPERATIVE 883 H St. Featuring silk screens by John Wesa, paintings by Mimi LaPlant and ceramics by Natalie DiConstanzo. Wine served to benefit the Humboldt Community Breast Health Project. 3. ARCATA CITY HALL 736 F St. “Who You Gonna Call?” Portraits of city of Arcata employees…
Measuring I
Oh, maps. By now, after a year of being inundated by the red state/blue state visuals, you may have reached your map-intake limit. We get it. But, by golly, this past week the Humboldt County Elections Office released the final precinct-by-precinct voting results, meaning how you voted is just slightly less secret now. What this…
Ah, Hell, Numbers
Editor: A few articles appeared in local newspapers/blogs this past week regarding the sale of bonds by school districts (“The Big Borrow,” Dec. 6). I want to report the facts as they relate to Southern Humboldt Unified School District. The numbers represented in the article in the North Coast Journal regarding Southern Humboldt are…
Dear School Trustees
Please understand that I’m writing with deep affection. In more than 30 years as a voter, I can’t recall ever voting against a local school bond. I’m enduringly grateful for a state college system that once had tuition so low I graduated without a dime of debt, just by working weekends and summers. Schools…
Wake Me When It’s Over
Reviews PLAYING FOR KEEPS is the sort of mild, inoffensive dramedy audiences can’t seem to get enough of. Filled with recognizable faces, plotted by focus groups and shot without any sense of style, it will likely make piles of money on its long, unexceptional journey to the hall of half-remembered Hollywood pabulum. Everything I look…
The Return
Bob Weir was a teenager hanging around at the local music store in Palo Alto when he met Jerry Garcia. The two guitar players ended up forming a folk/blues combo with Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and they called it Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. That band would eventually add new players and change its name…
Collegiate Honor Food
Editor: Though I am new adjunct faculty at College of the Redwoods, I was taken aback by the letter headlined “Lower Class Food,” (Mailbox, Nov. 22). I’ve been more than surprised by how tasty, nutritious, and affordable the food actually is at CR. All entrees and a la carte items are priced below $5, and…
Clarification
In an article about school bonds last week (“The Big Borrow”) the Journal didn’t include all charges paid by investors for two bonds. So although the Northern Humboldt Union High School District did get about $52,000 for a bond that requires it to repay just over $1 million, the investor in that bond paid more…
Overheard in Eureka
Overheard in Eureka
A Brief History of Hell
In order that the happiness of the saints [in heaven] may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned [in hell]. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica The invisibility of the ground beneath our feet has led…
Envelope
It just wasn’t good something didn’t seem right, there was a Dark Envelope that condensed amongst the Hills. Everything is really just amazing, the best it’s ever been, it really couldn’t get any better. And, as the Cat walked into the kitchen, flowers would yield nothing else than explosive fragments of salvation.
The Rise of Nuclear Fear
For readers born since 1990, nuclear fear may be a concept hard to access. Thermonuclear war is something out of cheesy old movies or video games, and nuclear power is a running joke on The Simpsons. Even older generations that saw those movies without irony — on any given day nuclear apocalypse was possibly…
Brown Sugar
I super heart brown sugar, especially in fall, when rich stews, pumpkin pie and dark, caramelly flavors seem cozy and appealing (ditto thick sweaters and Maine accents). I adore sweet things in all forms, but particularly anything dark and caramelized. Why does white sugar even exist? What isn’t improved by the rich, butterscotch hug of…
Songs for the Season
You don’t hear The Babes often. The group of 25-30 women singers only does a couple of concerts a year, one in the spring and another around Christmas time. Carol Ryder, musical and artistic director of the Humboldt Light Opera Company, leads the ensemble. “We call ourselves The Babes, although officially we’re the Humboldt Light…
We Got the Cup!
For those who would seek to downplay Humboldt County’s long, celebrated, profitable marriage with marijuana, this has been a month that might make ’em wanna burn one down. As we’ve all seen by now, our beloved Humboldt State University incurred something of a PR nightmare when its announcement that it was firing up an…
