Eureka kazillionaire Rob Arkley made some surprising revelations yesterday in a radio interview on KINS radio. Here are the biggest ones: 1) What Marina Center? “Frankly it’s not my priority right now given the east-west rail,” he says. 2) Arkley’s company — not the City of Eureka — is the lead agency on the east-west […]
railroad
Posted inNews
FOUND: Rail Propaganda Data Source [Updated]
Update, 3:20 p.m.: In a follow-up email to the Journal, the Humboldt Bay Harbor Group’s citizen leader, Susana Munzell, confirmed that the data now being used to promote the east-west railroad project is from a 15-year-old study that operated under a very different set of hypotheticals: As I recall, the information came from a study […]
Posted inNews
East-west Rail Propaganda, Anyone?
A resolution on the agenda for tomorrow’s Eureka City Council meeting asks council members to swear allegiance to the riduculous controversial east-west rail proposal, and the resolution is preceded by an almost comically biased “summary” of the issue. (Read the full text in pdf form here.) The agenda item was prepared by members of the Humboldt Bay Harbor […]
Posted inNews
Committee to Study Something
At the end of six hours of testimony with nary a break for lunch Wednesday, the North Coast Railroad Authority board voted 6-0 to form a committee to study — something — just not what the Humboldt County Supervisors and State Assemblyman Wes Chesbro had requested. The “ask” from Humboldt leaders was to form a […]
Posted inNews
From the Publisher
(UPDATE 6/28: The second paragraph in this original post inaccurately implies that members of the Timber Heritage Association “agreed” on the final Bay Trail Plan. By “we” I was referring to the Bay Trail Advocates alone. By the time the plan was finalized, Don Banducci, a long-time member of THA, had joined Bay Trail […]
Posted inNews
Track Stars
A bunch of us concerned (and frustrated) citizens–35 by one count–did some serious blackberry and undergrowth clearing along the North Coast Railroad track between South G Street, Arcata and the Eureka Slough yesterday morning. The track is now walkable. Most of it. And we had a ball. Coordinator Rees Hughes (Rees.Hughes@humboldt.edu) is planning an inaugural […]
Posted inNews
The NCRA Gives Trail Proposal the Hairy Eyeball
What exactly was the point of the railbanking item at yesterday’s meeting of the North Coast Railroad Authority? Going into the meeting it seemed that trails advocate Chris Weston and his Eel River Trails Association had built up some momentum in the effort to adapt the long-abandoned stretch or railroad between Willits and South Fork […]
Posted inNews
Railroad Fanboys Dissed Again
Edition. The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors is poised tomorrow to deliver yet another slap to the cadre of railroad dreamers who have been hoping against hope, year after year, to restore freight service along the 10-years-dead Northwestern Pacific Railroad line and so develop the similarly stagnant Humboldt Bay into some kind of entrepot in […]
Posted inNews
New Blow for NCRA
New Blow for NCRA: Via Capdiamont: The California Attorney General’s office is threatening to block the North Coast Railroad’s plan to reopen service on the south end of the line until the authority fully complies with its 1999 agreement to clean up environmental problems the length of the line. The railroad was planning to reopen […]
Posted inNews
Bosco Dinged By FPPC
The California Fair Politics Practices Commission has fined Doug Bosco, chair of the state Coastal Conservancy, the grand sum $200 for failing to file his his 2007 Statement of Economic Interest in a timely manner. Bosco represented the North Coast in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1982 to 1990. He is currently a principal […]
Posted inNews
Another Bite at NCRA
Back in October, the North Coast Railroad Authority managed to settle a year-old lawsuit brought by the city of Novato. Novato had alleged that the railroad had violated California’s open government law — the Brown Act — as well as the California Environmental Quality Act. Initial rulings had gone Novato’s way, but the NCRA got […]
Posted inNews
A Town, Trains and Long-Awaited Development
The town of Bill, Wyoming is on one of the busiest train lines in the world in terms of tonnage. It’s also a crew-change station for the Union Pacific railroad. At 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, railroaders roll into town looking for a place to sleep. Nonetheless, since WW II the […]