Re: “The Case of the Eureka Glue Bandit”

UMM:

In answer to some of your comments, reviewing two weeks of footage would take many many hours, if you review at a slow enough speed to recognize anything that is. It seems that would not really be a good use of time since the individual glued three different business doors shut in the building, why would he do that if he was only "pissed" at one business?

I can propose a different motivation, instead of "being pissed" at just one business. The Northcoast Journal informed me that they received a tip that someone wearing the same jacket and hat was spotted in the Occupy group in front of the Eureka Courthouse the morning after...

Your comment about HD cameras is appropriate, we purchased the current system years ago. We had already started getting quotes on a replacement system before this happened. Unfortunately, we are a non-profit organization, these systems cost thousands of dollars, and funding for things like security cameras is hard to come by, (want to make a tax deductible donation HMM?) :)

Nonetheless, we are working on getting a better system and cameras. Apparently, none of the other businesses on our street have security cameras. We were in contact with a business we know in old town that does has security cameras on 2nd st., but the suspect did not walk up or down 2nd so their footage did not help, although we REALLY appreciate them taking the time to check their footage for the morning of the incident for us.

Re: “Humboldt County Has Received $121M in Recovery Funds”

Ryan:

There is a basic flaw in the statistics that are collected for the ARRA grants, and are further quoted in this Northcoast Journal article. For example, while the Northern California Indian Development Council (NCIDC), whose headquarters is in Eureka California, did indeed receive over 3 million dollars in ARRA funding, the vast majority of these funds were for a Statewide project. These funds were split up among over 100 tribes and 57 counties within the State for a wide array of Indian programs, with NCIDC simply acting as the “pass-through” agency for the Federal and State funding sources. Most of the funds reported for NCIDC were not allocated to or spend within Humboldt County.

The ARRA statistics the Federal government collected did not account for where the funds were allocated or spent, but rather just where the headquarters of the funding agency was located. This aberration in the statistics collected was pointed out to the State and Feds during the course of the ARRA grant, but the Feds chose not to make any changes to their statistical collection methods.

Further, if you look at the detail for the jobs created on the federal recovery.gov web site, many Grants have “zero” jobs noted, which is an error in the federal database, and does not reflect the data reported by this agency or many others.

Also, “jobs created” is only one of many services provided and reported on for the utilization of funding through this program. By only using the "jobs created" statistic and dividing this by total funding, a completely inaccurate picture is painted of the many services provided. This does not take into account any of the emergency services for food or shelter. It does not factor in community health and tobacco abuse/prevention programs that were funded, or youth and education program services provided. It completely ignores the child care services that were funded, and many other program services too. In short, dividing the total funds by the number of full time equivalent (FTE) jobs created is a meaningless mathematical exercise that may make for more page hits on your blog, but has no basis in reality when analyzing the total service provided by the ARRA funds.

I know you follow me on Twitter, you work across the street from me, and you have my phone number. The next time you are doing an article on a subject that includes information about a program under my direct control, I want to encourage you to tweet me, call me, or walk across the street to my office for “the rest of the story” before you post your article.

All best Greg Gehr Assistant Director, NCIDC