Craig and Lisa Smith are running out of time. They’re dying. He has congestive heart failure and a cancer eating at his kidney. She has a severe respiratory illness and spends her nights plugged into an oxygen concentrator. But that’s not what they’re talking about today, sitting in the bed where they spend most of […]
Betty Squires
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Squireses’ Properties? Going, Going, Gone?
The city of Eureka originally selected Santa Monica-based attorney Mark Adams to help bring more than two dozen properties owned by Floyd and Betty Squires up to code. Now he’s hoping to see them auctioned off — and he intends to buy them himself. If that were to happen on the scheduled Nov. 27 sale […]
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Eureka Condemns ‘Heroin Hilton,’ Displacing 20
UPDATE: Eureka City Councilmember Kim Bergel has informed the Journal via Facebook that she was told the city has offered all 20 or so displaced residents of the condemned buildings the option of staying at the local Motel 6 until Monday, when relocation funds are expected to be made available. The Journal hasn’t yet been […]
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Neighbors Successfully Sue the Squireses
Residents along a stretch of G Street say they had one main goal in mind when they grouped together to take Eureka’s most notorious landlords to court: They wanted their neighborhood back. Conditions at two buildings owned by Floyd and Betty Squires on the street had continued to deteriorate, becoming magnets for drug activity and […]
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Squires Tenants File $25K Claims Against City
Seven former tenants of Floyd and Betty Squire’s Blue Heron Lodge have filed nearly identical claims for damages against the city of Eureka, arguing the city unlawfully evicted them, violated their civil rights and intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon them when the city moved to condemn the lodge earlier this month. Each of the claims […]
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Fire Breaks Out in Squires Building
February is shaping up to be a bad month for Floyd and Betty Squires. First, last week, the city of Eureka shuttered the couple’s Blue Heron Lodge, arguing the 15-unit building was operating in violation of the city’s problem motel ordinance. Then, early this morning, fire broke out at the couple’s apartment building in the […]
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Eureka Closes Blue Heron; Squireses File Claim for Damages
Eureka officials shuttered the Blue Heron Lodge this morning, boarding up the dilapidated blue building after working to help tenants find temporary housing assistance. The city contends that the property’s owners, Floyd and Betty Squires, have failed to secure a lodging permit for the 15-room on Broadway for this year, after operating without one for […]