Ferndale native and former North Coast Congressman Don Clausen has died. He was 91. Clausen, a World War II veteran and a Republican who served from 1963 to 1982 in the U.S. House of Representatives, was described in a 2013 Santa Rosa Press Democrat story celebrating his 90th birthday as an ambidextrous baseball player (he […]
Politics
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Why Your Vote Matters
How we did it In November, Humboldt State University journalism professor Marcy Burstiner was in Spain. She didn’t get her absentee ballot until a couple of weeks before the election. The last of three seats for the Northern Humboldt Unified School District was decided by 21 votes, but her vote wasn’t included. Her ballot was […]
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Train Coming?
The Upstate RailConnect Committee got thrown quite a curveball at its recent meeting in Weaverville. The committee, a working group of representatives from Humboldt, Tehama and Trinity counties and other interested parties, has been working for a couple of years now on figuring how to cobble together some $300,000 for a massive study to determine […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Bay [T]rail Update No. 9 + CCT
I have a new favorite book. Well, it’s not that new and it’s not a real book. I just discovered online the 170-page report called “Humboldt County Coastal Trail Implementation Strategy,” published in January 2011. It’s about the dream of being able to transport yourself, sans car, along the California Coastal Trail in Humboldt County […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
#Buhneisback
If your pooch falls ill after devouring a bowl of imported chicken strips, don’t go blaming North Coast State Sen. Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa). A bid to allow “negligible” amounts of China-sourced chicken to grace Fido’s chompers recently suffered committee crib-death under Evans’s cold, unblinking gaze. “I’ve spent a lot of time researching this,” Evans […]
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And They’re Off
After rumor mongering, plodding, hemming, hawing, and perhaps some behind the scenes prodding, there will be a supervisors race after all. On March 7, former Eureka Councilman Chris Kerrigan announced his candidacy for the county’s 4th District seat via a short speech on the steps of the County Elections Office. Backed by several notable Humboldt […]
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Accountable
At 11:14 p.m. this past election night, Carolyn Crnich, the county clerk and registrar of voters, released her office’s “Election Night Final Report.” This report tallied the results from most — but not all — of the ballots cast, which was intriguing because one election in particular was a real nail-biter. In the race for […]
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Last Day to Apply for the Eureka City Council
Today’s the deadline to get your name in the running for Eureka’s Fifth Ward council seat. Lance Madsen announced last month he will step down once a replacement is named. At the council’s Nov. 5 meeting, councilmembers agreed unanimously to select a replacement for the Fifth Ward seat, according to the Times-Standard, thereby avoiding the $30,000 to $35,000 it […]
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Project Censored
This year’s annual Project Censored list of the most underreported news stories includes the widening wealth gap, the trial of Bradley Manning and President Obama’s war on whistleblowers — all stories that actually received considerable news coverage. So how exactly were they “censored,” and what does that say of this venerable media watchdog project? Project […]
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Beyond the Scandal
Voter enthusiasm for school board elections is typically pretty low — unless your board happens to have a raging plagiarism scandal. Such is the case in the Northern Humboldt Union High School District, where board members have spent the past four months dealing with fallout from fellow trustee Dan Johnson’s plagiarized speech at Arcata High […]
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Mack Lovin’
The upcoming off-year election is kicking up a bit of dust in McKinleyville, that unincorporated burg of 15,000 where horses, its motto proclaims, have the right of way. Four people are trying to squeeze into three seats on the McKinleyville Community Services District — three incumbents and one retired professor who hope to have a […]
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Local Students Vote For Obama
More than a thousand students from a dozen Humboldt County schools participated in a statewide student mock election, and the local voters of tomorrow preferred President Barack Obama to Republican challenger Mitt Romney by a landslide. Obama earned 58.1 percent of the vote (673 of 1,159) among participating students from local elementary, middle and high […]