It looks like the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will have some tough decisions to make in the coming months. The board is slated to receive its mid-year budget update Tuesday, and the news is pretty grim. According to the staff report, County Administrative Officer Phillip Smith-Hanes is expected to tell the board that the […]
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A Quarry Quandary
A recent decision by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors left environmental groups fuming and a local landowner feeling he’s been singled out amid a flurry of allegations of hypocrisy, dishonesty and good old boy politics. Playing out over two meetings spread across two months, the board ultimately voted 4-1, with 3rd District Supervisor Mark […]
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Supes Call a GPU Element Do-over
The Board of Supervisors voted this afternoon to return a much-debated element of the county’s draft general plan back to the Planning Commission for review — the latest twist in the general plan update saga. After some discussion of state requirements for general plan updates, the board voted 3-2 (with 2nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell […]
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Developer Group Seeks to Rewind General Plan Update
In the wake of the recent rewrites of the guiding principles for the county’s general plan update, a politically active contractor association is asking the county to rewind the entire update process by sending the plan back to the county planning commission, a body that’s been stacked with the group’s political allies. The Humboldt Builders’ […]
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Estelle Fennell Recovering from Food Poisoning
Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell is coming out of the hospital today after a particularly nasty bout with E. coli. In a statement released today, Fennell said she’s one of five people in the county who came down with a “virulent E. coli strain” infection, which is not being considered an outbreak by Public Health […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Straw-vote Gang of Four
Forget it, Humboldt County. Since Estelle Fennell and Rex Bohn were seated on the Board of Supervisors last year, joining Virginia Bass and Ryan Sundberg — all elected with the help of the same deep pockets of money — the direction of good planning and land use in this county has gone from first-gear forward […]
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Disputed Principles
When it comes to the much-debated guiding principles in Humboldt County’s General Plan Update process, it looks like the spirit of compromise was just a one-evening anomaly. Two weeks ago on Sept. 23 the Board of Supervisors held a rare evening session to tinker yet again with the language of the guiding principles, a list […]
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The County’s Guiding Principles in Time-Lapse
Arguments at the county government level don’t get much more fundamental or important than the ongoing debate over the guiding principles in Humboldt County’s General Plan Update. In essence it’s an argument about priorities for future land use. In planning for the next 20-odd years do we want to emphasize environmental protections and productive resource lands […]
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Supes Rejigger Guiding Principles Again
At last night’s general plan update hearing, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors once again tinkered with the language of the update’s guiding principles, largely by blending the original language with new versions drafted in June by 2nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell. Seven more principles remain to be discussed, and those seven contain some of Fennell’s […]
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Supes to Take One Last Look at Guiding Principles
On Monday evening, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will revisit the highly contentious issue of guiding principles in the (on and on and) ongoing general plan update. Back on June 6, as you may recall, the board voted 4-1 to swap out the existing list of 12 guiding principles, which had been developed through […]