I met Gerrianne through a picture taken on a camera loaned to someone for a birthday party in the summer of 2015. That fall I looked over a pot of pasta at the Bayshore Mall parking lot Services Faire and asked her if she knew my friend. She didn’t say anything, just looked at me […]
Devil’s Playground
Posted inArts + Scene
Contents Under Pressure: Graffiti at Piante
Everyone who knows about it is very excited to see what craziness I have agreed to this time,” gallerist Sue Natzler said with a laugh about the graffiti art exhibition opening this month at Piante Gallery. The installation was in the final stages of completion when I saw it and indeed, the place looked changed. […]
Posted inNews
Tent Cities: An Expert’s Opinion
In the lead-up to the PalCo Marsh vacation, city and county officials and members of the homeless working group, emailed around articles with suggestions for what worked in other cities and states. Among these was an article written by Iain De Jong, titled “Tent City: How to Respond Effectively.” De Jong, a consultant and professor […]
Posted inNews
The Devil’s Playground No More
The PalCo Marsh is looking a lot different these days. Not only was the marsh cleared of the city’s largest and most entrenched homeless encampment on May 2, but crews from Figas Construction have now started demolishing the old concrete lumber kilns that have long been dubbed the Devil’s Playground. For decades, the kilns have […]
Posted inNews
Numbers from the PalCo Marsh Cleanup
The Eureka Police Department has released some information from the May 2 and 3 cleanup of the PalCo Marsh, in which over one hundred homeless people were displaced and/or rehoused. According to the press release, more than 60 tons of trash were collected in the two-day operation. Dozens of sharps containers, used to safely store […]
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Evictions Ongoing in PalCo Marsh
There were more reporters, police and clergy than homeless people in the PalCo Marsh this morning as the City of Eureka made a final sweep of the area, forcibly evicting those remaining in the camps. As of 7:30 a.m. at least half of the residents remained, according to accounts, despite repeated warnings over the last […]
Posted inNews
A Morning Emergency in the Palco Marsh
It’s quiet. Despite its reputation as a chaotic place, the PalCo Marsh, also known as the Devil’s Playground, often is. A few dogs, tied in front of tents, bark. The motor of a fishing boat on the bay can be heard just out of sight behind the trees. Eureka City Councilmember Kim Bergel walks with […]
Posted inNews
City Mulls Shelter Crisis as Activists Protest Police Presence in PalCo Marsh
Tomorrow evening the Eureka City Council will meet to discuss two items related to the city’s homeless: the feasibility of a temporary, sanctioned camp and whether or not the city should declare a shelter crisis. City Manager Greg Sparks said a site has been identified as a potential temporary camp, a city-owned parking lot at […]
Posted inNews
City Revisits Plan for Sanctioned Homeless Camp
The Eureka City Council agenda for Tues. Dec. 15 went out yesterday replete with a vintage item: discussing the feasibility of a temporary sanctioned homeless camp. Within an hour, it was yoinked back via an emailed retraction, with the note that the item would be back on the table at the Jan. 5 meeting, when […]
Posted inNews
PalCo Marsh Update
Two nights of battering storms had given way to a clear Wednesday morning when Erin Powers-Taylor and Kim Bergel met in the north parking lot of the Bayshore Mall. Powers-Taylor, a volunteer with the Friends of the Marsh Group, which serves a free meal for the marsh homeless every Friday, handed Bergel, a Eureka City […]
Posted inNews
City Council to Revisit Open Space Property Management Ordinance; Housing Analysis Timetable Still Unclear
The Eureka Police Department, Humboldt County County Sheriff’s Office and City of Eureka visited the PalCo Marsh area behind the Bayshore Mall yesterday to remove traces of homeless camps. EPD recently announced officers would do less enforcement on a specific area of the marsh, just north of the Bayshore Mall. Campers were told that they must […]
Posted inNews
Homeless in Humboldt Update: Death, Drones and Rallies
A drone video of the PalCo Marsh, known to some as “The Devil’s Playground,” shows camps still firmly entrenched in the wooded area just behind the mall, an area where the Eureka Police Department is preparing to cite and arrest campers. EPD is encouraging people to move north, to the flat area adjacent to the […]