The Last Days of the Budget Motel
David Kushwaha and the cockroaches, desperation and police calls that define his properties
Cover Story
The Last Days of the Budget Motel
It’s a balmy Friday morning, and Ken Booth is sitting on a step outside the Budget Motel. All his worldly possessions are being stacked around him before they are packed into a rusted out blue 1980s Buick Regal sedan. Booth says he’s lived at the Budget for about six years, having moved there from a…
Early Prospects for Crab Season Look Good
So far, so good. That’s the early word in today’s extensively titled forum, “Crab Season Outlook for 2016-17 and Modern Aquaculture in California by the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture” taking place right now at the University of California Davis Marine Lab in Bodega Bay. Convened by the North Coast’s own state Sen. Mike McGuire,…
Inside and Outside the Lines
Saturday’s annual Pastels on the Plaza event, benefiting North Coast Children’s Services, brought out artists, dabblers and kids of all ages to draw and view vibrant sidewalk masterpieces. The Arcata Plaza was ringed with sponsored squares and rainbow-stained fingers. Photographer Mark McKenna was on the plaza (and up on the firetruck ladder) getting shots of…
HuMMAP, County Headed to Court
According to an email from Robert “Woods” Sutherland, spokesperson for the Humboldt Mendocino Marijuana Advocacy Project, the group is filing a lawsuit today against Humboldt County, alleging the county violated a settlement agreement the two entities signed June 29. HuMMAP is alleging that the county violated the terms of their settlement, which called for the…
HumBug: Black Widows
I spend a lot of my outdoor time looking for and at bugs. Especially ones that are dramatic looking or interesting to photograph, so when I noted a medium sized spider on the front of the Carlotta post office, I automatically got closer, tilted my head to use the reading portion of my bifocals and…
Fire Up the Chainsaws: Oak Woodlands Restoration Bill Signed
On Sept. 24, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1958, paving the way for landowners with conifer encroachment on oak woodlands to remove the invasive trees without replanting. The bill comes after more than a year of advocacy from small landowners and environmentalists who argued the existing rules by the state Board of Forestry were…
Eureka Takes Police Video Fight to the Supreme Court
The city of Eureka is trying to keep its recent appellate court loss from setting a statewide precedent. In July, the First District Court of Appeals rebuffed the city’s effort to block release of a video depicting the arrest of a 14-year-old suspect, ruling that the video — and others like it — could not…
When Bacon is Your Jam
There is nothing like the crushing disappointment of sharing intel on a favorite hole-in-the-wall — the labyrinthian directions! the semi-sketchy location! the limited hours! — only to find your confidante has already eaten there. Sniff out whether or not members of your carnivorous inner circle have hit up BullDoggies hot dogs yet (1125 Summer St.,…
Black Widows Found at Carlotta Post Office
Officials are investigating an apparent infestation of poisonous black widow spiders at the Carlotta Post Office. Carlotta resident, Journal columnist and bug enthusiast Anthony Westkamper was picking up his mail on Saturday when he noticed a black spider by the post office entrance and, being a bug enthusiast, took a closer look. He spotted the…
Village People
Things are about to get medieval on our grasses. Shake out your chainmail. Wear some flowers in your hair. And head out to Christie’s Ranch and Pumpkin Patch for the Medieval Festival of Courage, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 1 and 2 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ($5, $3 for kids 12 and under). The…
Grants Bring Bay Trail Closer to Completion
Efforts to link a series of trails to create a 13-mile-long recreational waterfront corridor between Eureka and Arcata took two steps forward this week with nearly $1 million in grants being awarded to the cities. In the works for years, the $550,000 California State Coastal Conservancy grant awarded to Arcata on Thursday, coupled with the…
Season of the Witch
If you can’t keep it together and wait for Halloween (we all have that one friend), throw on some heels and drag the season of Samhain out of the closet Friday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. for Hedwig & the Angry Inch playing at the Eureka Theater ($5). The story about a transgender/genderqueer punk rock…
Change the System!
Editor: There is a saying: “All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing”. I define evil as that which is deliberately designed to make others suffer for the benefit of the perpetrator. Right now, without an ordinance to stop them, investment corporations and greedy owners are unfairly and unsustainably…
Warning: This Column Contains Objectionable Material
I won’t watch violent movies or television shows alone. That’s because when I know that an act of extreme violence is about to happen, I close my eyes and turn away. I’m a weenie. I can’t handle it. I rely on other people to describe the action. Hollywood productions provide amped up music or silence…
Ho Ho, No
No, say several residents of the North Pole. No to pot businesses. On Oct. 4, residents of the Fairbanks, Alaska suburb will vote on Proposition 7, which would effectively ban marijuana-related businesses from the town. Councilmember Elizabeth Holm, who gathered the signatures required to add the proposition to the ballot, cited the “family friendly” atmosphere…
Humboldt on Tap
Bent over his field, scythe in hand, Jacob Pressey moves across the barley like a farmer from some lost impressionist painting. Sunlight burnishes the dry stalks. A haze of golden fluff rises with each stroke. Behind him, a friend rakes mounds of felled barely. It is harvest day at Humboldt County’s only beer farm, two…
Forum Fisticuffs in the Fourth
At their first debate, the two council candidates vying for a seat representing Eureka’s 4th Ward made very clear they have something in common: They both love Eureka. That’s love, not the placid like that’s slapped on stickers and hats all over town these days. Where candidates Austin Allison and John Fullerton diverge is in…
What Lies Beneath
“Turf Spiral” occupies the front room of Humboldt-based land artist Becky Evans’ new show Water Lines at Piante Gallery. It makes an impression there — it’s not what you expect to see, this mute obdurate hillock in the middle of gallery space, rolled inside out with its brown earth crust on display. The human concept…
For Lavish Reynolds
Pulling over out the car the phone Telling the officer world what’s going on happening Smelling the fear blood when the gun appears fires four shots Understanding every time today is possibly actually the end. Showing telling Screaming yelling Asking answering Is he is dead.
Arts Alive!
Presented by Eureka Main Street. Opening receptions for artists, exhibits and performances are held the first Saturday of each month. For more information, call 442-9054 or go to www.eurekamainstreet.org. ADORNI CENTER 1011 Waterfront St. New artist, Erica Botkin, photography; Paul Rickard, watercolors; Barbara Saul, pastels. ALIROSE 229 F St. Susan Strope, floral paintings. AMERICAN INDIAN…
Blue Steel
This past weekend I had the pleasure to see and hear from the Blue Dragon Steel Band while up in Blue Lake. Comprised of students from Blue Lake and Trinidad, the kids not only learn how to play the steel pans in school, but get to gig around town once in a while. Some of…
Language: Innate or Invented?
Is language innate to humans? Are we born “pre-wired” to spontaneously speak whichever language we hear in the first months of our lives? That is, are our brains equipped — at least metaphorically — with some sort of language organ, the hardware on which the software of our parents’ and tribe’s language runs? Noam Chomsky,…
Playing Cowboy
Reviews THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. As my wife sometimes gleefully points out, I spent my early youth enchanted by the trappings of cowboy culture. Given the choice, I would almost invariably dress myself in a hat, boots (spurs, even!), jeans and vest, with a toy gun-belt as embellishment. It’s all terribly gender normative and regressive and…
Calcutta to Eureka
Editor: I picked up the Sept. 15 edition of the Journal in Fortuna yesterday and tonight read in completely. What a great article on Betty Chinn and her outreach programs (“Prove them Wrong”). I could only think that Calcutta had Mother Theresa and Eureka has Betty Chinn. Amazing to read the journey of her life from…
‘It’s Infuriating’
Dear Editor, It is with great frustration that I write in about the proposed closure of the skilled nursing homes in Humboldt (“What Will Happen to Ma and Pa?” Sept. 15 and “Profits Over People?” Sept. 22). It seems like this discussion of taking proper care of our elderly goes on and on, and on,…
A Service Gap
Editor: Thank you to Kimberly Wear for the interview/article regarding Eureka City Councilmember Heidi Messner (“Service Call,” Sept. 22). Could you please fact check if this quotation was incorrectly reversed from said councilmember: “Hopelessness is what leads to homelessness?” If this statement is correctly quoted, it is frightening to me because Councilmember Messner seems delusional…
Missing Something
Editor: Regarding Barry Evans’ take on cooking and the human story (“The Cooking Ape,” Sept. 8 and Sept. 15), shouldn’t it be the hungry men stealing food from the women, etc. …? Monogamy is not the human norm. GT Buckley, Eureka
Positivity, please?
Editor: I have and will be running only a positive, upbeat campaign for Eureka City Council. I will focus on my long record of leadership, experience and community involvement. Unfortunately, my opponent and his inner circle have decided to do the opposite. They have been running negative and untrue letters to the editor filled with…
Fresh Face, Fresh Ideas
Editor: Our county and city leadership has too often been dominated by poster boys (and girls) for the good-old-boy network. These decision makers have given too much weight to the interests of their cronies — with little regard for working people or the environment. John Fullerton falls squarely into this category — an old-school conservative…
