Thankfully, it’s rare a local item appears on our ballot here in Humboldt County that so perfectly encapsulates so much of what’s wrong with our politics. But enter Measure F, the initiative embodiment of deep-monied special interests, scorched earth tactics, deceitful ad campaigns and the politics of petty vengeance.
In the strongest possible terms, we urge the Eureka electorate to vote no on Measure F, the brazenly misnamed “Housing for All and Downtown Vitality” initiative. Let’s talk about why.
First and foremost, it would be bad for Eureka, a city with a critical housing shortage and disproportionately large homeless population, which sits in a county with a critical housing shortage and a disproportionately large homeless population, which also sits in a state with a critical housing shortage and a disproportionately large homeless population. The bottom line is we desperately need more local housing, and Eureka is one of the few entities taking large initial steps toward accomplishing that, despite being surrounded by a deep sea of inertia.
Over the past handful of years, the city went through a public process to figure out how to meet local needs and state mandates by getting more housing units built in the city. Figuring the long-standing practice of sitting by and hoping the private sector would fill the void and develop housing on residentially zoned land was not working — because it clearly was and is not — the city took a bold step, coming up with a plan to lease or sell municipally owned parking lots in Old Town and downtown to be developed into multi-family housing. It has since approved projects on six lots, leading the state to designate Eureka as one of seven pro-housing communities.
Measure F would negate these established plans to build a minimum of more than 120 housing units in a city desperate for them, plans years in the making. Specifically, the measure would create a zoning overlay requiring that any development of these sites include parking garages to both make up for lost spots and provide new ones, rendering the projects financially impractical. The measure promises to make up for these lost housing units by rezoning the former Jacobs Middle School site south of WinCo for residential development, though there are no assurances that property would be used to build housing. The site is, in fact, owned by a local government and seems likely to be sold to a state government that is not bound by local zoning designations and wants to build a California Highway Patrol headquarters there.
So Measure F would effectively spike existing plans to build more housing and do nothing to replace them. Worse yet, if that happens, it would put the city’s housing element out of compliance with state requirements, potentially leaving the city facing state fines, making Eureka ineligible for grants and other funding streams, and subject to a provision of law that would strip the city of much of its local control over future housing projects.
All that obviously sounds bad, right? So you might be wondering why the push for the so-called “Housing for All and Downtown Vitality Initiative?” At its heart, Measure F is an effort to protect those previously mentioned parking lots and their combined 211 spaces. Robin Arkley II — whose Security National corporation has almost exclusively bankrolled Measure F — has been very clear about his beliefs that parking is the lifeblood of Eureka’s business community, that low-income housing brings crime (it does not) and that development of a parking lot near his company’s Eureka offices into a housing development would put employees — specifically female employees — at increased risk of becoming victims of violent crime. Arkley is in the midst of a now years-long temper tantrum over this looming loss of parking. He and his company have funded dubious lawsuits in an attempt to thwart the city’s plans, he’s reportedly berated local officials, acquired the parking lot adjacent to Eureka City Hall only to block it off with concrete barriers and threatened to move his company out of Eureka should the city’s plans move forward.
And that brings us to what else is wrong with Measure F.
Seeing that his threats and lawsuits were not going to alter the plans the city enacted through a public and democratic process, Arkley — a nationally known conservative mega-donor — turned to the initiative process. Through his company, he’s now poured more than $1.2 million into the Yes on F campaign, a staggering amount for a local election. Almost all that money has been spent outside of Humboldt County: on high-priced consultants, spokespeople, polling firms and printers. Likely realizing that “parking for all” was a losing message, the Measure F team crafted a sales pitch that’s entirely disingenuous in what can only be considered an effort to fool the local electorate into voting for a future that will never be.
As if all that weren’t enough, there’s also the debacle of a failed property exchange agreement with Eureka City Schools for the former Jacobs Middle School site. The district agreed to break off negotiations for a $4 million sale of the site to the CHP to enter into a murky deal with a mystery developer. In that deal, the district agreed to “trade” the site for a small residential property on I Street and $5.35 million in cash, the nominal trade allowing it to sidestep state requirements for the sale of surplus publicly owned land. Of course, that deal fell apart amid increasing public scrutiny. As revelation after revelation pointed to Arkley’s involvement in the scheme, he and the mystery LLC involved repeatedly insisted he had nothing to do with it or the repeated delays in closing escrow pushing closer to elections. The way the deal came together and fell apart leaves us with the strong belief that those behind it never intended to see it to completion, but rather just needed to create a mirage to bolster Measure F’s false promises about using the Jacobs site for housing.
Such deception is not harmless. In addition to the local voters it may have fooled with its mailers and TV spots, it also led to real losses for Eureka City Schools. The cash-strapped district reportedly had the $4 million offer on the table from CHP when it cut off negotiations to agree to the now defunct exchange deal. Almost a year later, CHP’s bid of $4 million could have generated tens — if not hundreds of thousands — of dollars in interest or investment income for the district, not to mention how much staff time the mystery LLC deal wasted and the real possibility CHP has moved on and is no longer interest in the site.
So yes, Measure F is the very worst of our politics, pushed forward by the engine of a man’s spite, grievance and irrational fears, a man who, when he didn’t get the outcome he wanted from a government process, has repeatedly used his money and power to mislead the local community and bend it to his will. Don’t let him. Vote no on Measure F.
This article appears in Combating the Barred Owl Invasion.
