Framing Democracy: How We Defeated a Corporate Recall in Humboldt County

Saturday, March 3, 2012 Framing Democracy: How We Defeated a Corporate Recall in Humboldt County by Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough Institute You’ve heard of corporations sponsoring political candidates, athletes, stadiums, and even schools. But did you hear about the corporation that paid for a special election to recall a District Attorney who had sued it for fraud? That’s exactly what happened in Humboldt County, California, home to giant redwoods, endangered salmon, and a timber company called Pacific Lumber (PL). Fortunately, on March 2, 2004 we beat back the Houston-owned company’s attempt to recall Paul Gallegos, the county’s new DA. The margin of our victory—61 to 39—gave Humboldt County activists new hope that they could create an economic future free of control by big corporations. This is their story. The Headwaters Forest Deal In 1996 I was hired by activists in Humboldt County (population: 130,000) to help increase environmental protections for the Headwaters redwood forest. That work resulted in the Headwaters deal, finalized in 1999, in which the US and California governments paid an astounding $480 million for about 7,500 acres of PL’s old-growth redwood forest. In addition to the money, the Headwaters deal granted PL a “Habitat Conservation Plan” (HCP)—a provision in the Endangered Species Act that allows private landowners to destroy habitat critical for endangered species (in this case, other old-growth redwoods). One person who understood the complexities of the Headwaters deal inside and out was my friend, Dr. Ken Miller, a retired emergency room doctor who moved to Humboldt from the Bay Area in 1997. He and several other north coast activists founded the Humboldt Watershed Council to organize property owners whose homes had flooded due to PL’s logging. Along with the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), the Humboldt Watershed Council filed lawsuit after lawsuit against PL. In 2003 a judge ruled in EPIC’s favor against the timber giant, invalidating a major component of the Headwaters Deal—the “Sustained Yield Plan” —but rather mysteriously refused to penalize the company or slow the logging. Just when local environmentalists were beginning to despair, Paul Gallegos was elected District Attorney in March, 2002, in an upset victory over a 20-year incumbent. Gallegos took office in January, 2003. Within weeks he had discovered evidence that PL committed fraud as part of the Headwaters deal. Miller paid the 41 year-old DA a visit and became a key expert for the case. The DA’s lawsuit alleges that PL lied about the science so it could cut far more trees than is possible before Humboldt’s steep hillsides collapse—setting off mudslides and destroying watersheds that are critical habitat for endangered salmon and other animals. Gallegos’ deputies warned him that crossing PL would end his career. An avid surfer of Humboldt’s big waves, Gallegos told a local reporter about the time he realized a shark was circling him in the ocean, “Sometimes when you get afraid and you try to paddle out of danger, you paddle into worse danger. So you can’t let fear dictate your conduct.” Two months into office, Gallegos sued the company for fraud and deceptive concealment, seeking $250 million in damages. Recall Reaction Gallegos’ lawsuit hit like a tidal wave in provincial Humboldt County. Overnight Gallegos became a hero to some and a villain to others. A week after filing the suit a self-appointed representative of the “good old boy network” announced he would pay to gather signatures for a recall. Paul responded with an op-ed for the local paper titled, “Nobody is above the law.” Richard Salzman, a recent Bay Area transplant to Humboldt who had helped Gallegos raise money and run TV ads for his 2002 campaign, rushed to Gallegos’ defense. Salzman hired me to help start the Alliance for Ethical Business and defend Gallegos. We did a poll and discovered that while most people opposed the idea of a recall, the community was evenly divided about PL—about 40 percent were pro-PL and 40 percent were anti-PL. (Gallegos, who has a portrait of his hero Abe Lincoln hanging in his office, often referred to Humboldt as “a house divided.”) To avoid the traditional fault lines we focused our attention on the fraud—not the company’s environmental track record—and put forward a former PL logger to drive home the point that you can be pro-timber and anti-PL. We created special bumper stickers and ended each TV, radio and print ad with our new slogan: “Timber Yes, Fraud No.” (TV ads are extraordinarily cheap in Humboldt—$40 buys you a 30-second spot on Wheel of Fortune; $150 gets you on the local news). After a three month quiet period—just as people were wondering whether the recall would happen at all—Salzman discovered aggressive signature gatherers in front of the local supermarkets. He found out they were being paid a record-breaking $8 per signature to get the signatures in on time. Richard called the media and the local press played the story big. Not only was the recall election on, it was being financed almost entirely by Pacific Lumber. Competing Frames: “F is for Fraud” vs. “Soft on Crime” In late November Salzman become campaign manager for the anti-recall committee. We held a strategy retreat and invited a large group of supporters. Inspired by the documentary, “The War Room”, I encouraged Salzman to emulate Clinton campaign manager James Carville’s relatively open meetings to get everyone on message. During that campaign, Carville held strategy sessions in large rooms and invited literally dozens of campaign volunteers to attend, trusting that the benefit of energizing campaign volunteers outweighed the risks of secrets leaking out. During the final three weeks of the campaign, Salzman held daily 6:15 PM war room meetings and conference calls so that activists from across the sprawling, rural county could participate. After the 15-minute meeting, volunteers would start phone banking. Tied to the volunteer effort, these War Room meetings dramatically expanded the number of people who felt like they were part of a movement. Realizing that PL would pull out all the stops, my wife and son and I moved up to Humboldt—about five hours from the Bay Area by car—for the final three weeks of the campaign. Shortly after we arrived, PL struck with a barrage of attacks: glossy, three-page direct mail pieces; full-page newspaper ads; wall-to-wall radio and TV ads; and calls from paid, out-of-state phone bankers to voters. The most disturbing aspect of the campaign was the way the local police unions jumped on board the recall bandwagon. They persuaded a veteran deputy DA to run against his boss. And they attacked Gallegos for having liberalized medical marijuana enforcement guidelines and for emphasizing the need for crime prevention. Gallegos was, they said, “soft on crime.” The label troubled me. I had seen how such a tag could hurt progressive politicians, from San Francisco District Attorney Terrence Hallinan to Michael Dukakis. The opportunity for our opponents was that plea bargains—which are a routine part of the DA’s work—sound like ways to let criminals off the hook. The truth is that every DA, however “tough” makes plea bargains based on the strength of the evidence and the circumstances of the crime. It’s easy sport for political consultants to dig up a plea bargain and blow it up into a major scandal. Our strategy was to frame the recall as PL vs. the DA whereas PL’s strategy was to frame it as Cops vs. the DA Aiming to get PL into the news as much as possible, our campaign filed a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission saying that because PL was funding more than 90 percent of the recall they had to change the name of the committee from “Safety Yes” to “The Pacific Lumber Committee to Recall Paul Gallegos.” We got no action out of the commission but the complaint generated headlines and reminded voters that this recall was all about PL. As expected, Pacific Lumber brought in top political professionals to create its TV ads. Its first ad was beautifully shot in a sun-lit warehouse. The ad started with a couple saying that “drive-by shooters” (teenagers who hadn’t injured a soul) had fired at their house and that “Paul” (they always referred to him by his first name) “did nothing.” The camera then cut to a mayor from a local timber town saying that cops arrested marijuana dealers in a safe-school zone and “Paul didn’t even file charges.” The next shot was of the head of the Eureka Police Officers Association saying that Gallegos had let a child rapist off the hook. In its closing seconds the ad had the spokespersons repeat, mantra-like, “We can’t wait. We can’t wait. We can’t wait.” The ad sent chills up my spine. As the father of a four-year old boy, if I had no other information than the ad, I would have voted to “recall Paul” right then and there. (Always good for a metaphor, Gallegos said this part of the campaign was “like a knife fight in a phone booth.”) Their ads got more and more gruesome. Towards the end they unleashed a series of rough attacks that focused on a Mexican immigrant father who had molested his daughter. The TV, newspaper, ads and direct mail pieces put the Latino man’s face underneath headlines that read, “This man raped a little girl 1,900 times and Paul let him off with one count.” The truth was that Gallegos prosecuted the particular individual with “one continuous count” so that, if the case went to trial, the eight year old girl in question wouldn’t have to be ripped apart by a defense attorney seeking verification of each count. Because the family members were Mexican immigrants in the country illegally, the DA’s office considered the victim child and her witness mother a flight risk. If the mother and daughter fled (fearing deportation) before trial, Gallegos would have had no case––and the molester would have gone free for lack of evidence. Gallegos actually got the toughest sentence possible for the man––16 years in prison. The challenge for us was, how do you answer such charges without allowing the frame to shift to whether or not Gallegos is “soft on child rapists”? For the year before the campaign I had been studying “strategic framing” with George Lakoff, a University of California linguistics professor introduced to me by Peter Teague of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. One of Lakoff’s axioms is that “negating a frame elevates the frame.” By going into the media to deny that Gallegos was soft on child rapists we would be elevating the frame “soft on child rapists” ––and thus perpetuate a discussion we simply could not win. We did two things. First, we emphasized that Gallegos has three young children and has their protection at the top of his mind at all times. We emphasized the Gallegos children at every opportunity. Second, we bracketed our defense of Gallegos by starting and ending our ads with, “This recall is a fraud” and “PL is lying about the DA.” It helped that the recall was listed as “Measure F.” In all of our ads we said, “F is a Fraud” and “Vote No On Fraud.” Within the ad we had a local judge say that PL was lying about the child molester case. Amazingly, the more we were attacked, the more the grassroots responded. The campaign was flooded with volunteers asking to help phone bank and walk precincts. The money flooded in. Copying MoveOn.org’s email style, we raised about $28,000 on-line––over $3,000 per day toward the end of the campaign. We raised $240,000 in total––an unprecedented sum of money for a county with only 130,000 residents. There were a few scary moments. In the final two weeks of the campaign the Gallegos home was broken into twice. Nothing was stolen either time, but in the first instance the perpetrators raised the thermostat to 90 degrees––literally “turning up the heat” on the DA. PL was also sending private investigators to dig up dirt on all of our campaign spokespersons. A poll taken a week and half before election day showed we had lost 15 points since June and were in a statistical dead heat. The soft-on-crime attacks appeared to be working. Victory and Beyond On Election Day my stomach was tied in knots. If we lost I would share much of the blame with Salzman and Miller (all three of us had become public figures). But I was scared less of the finger-pointing and more of the possibility that Maxxam-PL would get away with it—and set a precedent. That afternoon I went for a long run along the Mad River and practiced what to say if we lost. The results were expected to come in between 8 and 9 PM. Hungry but unable to eat, we joined about three hundred other Gallegos supporters at the Eureka’s Lost Coast Brewery starting at 7 PM. At 8:15 PM I called the Elections office. Only the absentee ballots had been counted so far – and we were losing. I was upset, but I kept in mind that conservatives vote absentee in higher numbers than progressives. At 8:30 PM I called back. We were up—but just slightly. By 8:45 PM we were up by 60 percent. Other people were calling too, and a cautious whoop went through the crowd. Finally, at 9 PM, all the votes were counted and a supporter shouted from the balcony, “The recall has been defeated, 61-39!” The Brewery erupted. People jumped up and down, and literally started pounding the rafters. The building shook. The floor wobbled. People were screaming, laughing and crying—in some cases all at the same time. Flashbulbs were everywhere and people mobbed those of us in the campaign leadership. For about 15 minutes we felt like rock stars. It was time for Paul to make a victory speech. The whole brewery quieted down. From the balcony Gallegos thanked the crowd and said he was going to read a quote from Gandhi: “There are seven sins in the world: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality”… —at this last sin the crowd interrupted with applause and hoots before Gallegos finished— — “science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle." It may have been the first time any American politician had ever quoted Gandhi in a victory speech. Maintaining the Momentum We took almost no time to savor our win. The next day the campaign leadership met to figure out what to do with the grassroots energy the attempted recall had generated. (One astounding fact was that, thanks to the intensity of the campaign, over 60 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in Humboldt—twice the percentage that voted in the Bay Area). At the top of everyone’s list was stopping energy giant Calpine’s liquid natural gas plant—proposed to be built right on Humboldt Bay—which would have had a devastating impact on the marine environment. Rather than attack it on environmental grounds we decided to frame the proposed facility as unsafe and as a job-killer because of its expected impact on the fishing economy. Again our team came together. Five days before the Council meeting, Richard emailed his 2,000 person list asking them to call and fax Council members and show up at the March 16 meeting. Salzman’s email read: “Stop the Dangerous, Job-Killing LNG Plant.” And we released to the media a copy of a poll that found that six out of ten Eureka residents opposed the plant. Still high from our victory against the recall, over 1,500 Humboldt citizens turned out to the city council meeting to oppose the plant. The front page of the next day’s Eureka Times-Standard showed a picture of a man holding up a sign reading, “Cal-Pine’s LNG Plant = Job Killer.” Within hours of the paper hitting the newsstands, Calpine sent a letter saying it was dropping the project because of the public opposition. In the end, defeating PL and Calpine were small steps for corporate responsibility but giant leaps for Humboldt County. What we learned in Humboldt went beyond technical campaign skills. We learned that building a movement and framing a political debate require a moral imperative. By making a moral argument around justice, democracy and freedom, we both mobilized our base and appealed to swing voters. As Humboldt’s progressive community looks ahead, Salzman and other campaign leaders are fleshing out a Humboldt-specific strategy for sustainable economic development and crime prevention—the intellectual ground on which Gallegos and other politicians can stand to articulate a new politics grounded in old values. Michael Shellenberger is the president of Lumina Strategies (www.luminastrategies.com) and is executive eirector of the nonprofit Breakthrough Institute (www.thebreakthrough.org). He can be contacted at Michael@thebreakthrough.org. http://www.ega.org/resources/newsletters/sum2004/humboldt.html ---

Ben Mclaughlin for Humboldt County Superior Court Judge, JUNE 7, 2022 ELECTION

(As seen in the Mad River Union newspaper / May 3, 2022)

Dear Editor,

Right now the historic confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are underway--historical as she is the first Black woman ever nominated to sit on The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

What strikes me is that there is currently an African American, Justice Clarence Thomas, and there is the female Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, seated on the highest court in the land. Yet I don’t find that either of those attributes have engendered any sense of comfort that either of those two will look out for my rights, or those of many of my fellow Americans.

I celebrate Ms. Jackson being the first Black woman on The SCOTUS and, I stand with Cory Booker and second his sentiments on this matter (see 10 minute video at: cspan.org). However, what I find even more intriguing in regards to social justice, is that Ketanji Brown Jackson is also the first nominee in the history of The SCOTUS to have once served as a public defender!

That brings me to Ben McLaughlin, candidate for Superior Court Judge here in Humboldt County

Most Judges are former prosecutors, as is Ben. He served seven years as a Deputy District Attorney and during that time he had a 90% conviction rate. Impressive numbers, and one reason why he has earned the endorsement of so many in law enforcement, including Del Norte County District Attorney Katherine Micks, the retired police chief of Arcata Tom Chapman, and the retired chief of police of Eureka Steve Watson, Fortuna City Councilman and former Fortuna police officer, Humboldt County Deputy Sheriff and District Attorney Investigator Mike Losey, as well as the endorsement of former District Attorney Paul Gallegos. But, Ben has also been endorsed by the current Humboldt County Public Defender Luke Brownfield. 

You see, Ben McLaughlin has also served five years as a Public Defender.  This is a significant distinction from his opponent in this race. As I reference when speaking of the current Supreme Court nominee, we want judges who understand both side of the courtroom. We want judges who understand the court room not just from the perspective of the most privileged, but also from the least empowered in our society. This experience has added to Ben's respect for all parties involved in the legal process. Including his time in private practice, Ben McLaughlin has 23 years of experience in the court room.

To me, this makes Ben McLaughlin the more qualified candidate for judge. 

Ben has the proven experience that creates respect for the process and for all parties. This is why we should elect Ben Mclaughlin Superior Court Judge on June 7th. 

You can visit his website: Ben4Judge.com to learn more, and he seems to respond to all email directly, which I think is pretty cool!

Richard Salzman

Arcata CA

Eureka’s criminalization of homeless is ‘counterproductive,’

Eureka’s criminalization of homeless is ‘counterproductive,’ grand jury report finds

Before Palco Marsh was evacuated there were 633 illegal camping citations; afterward it more than doubled

Sonia WaraichJuly 11, 2019
Times Standard

 A Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury report released Thursday found that the city of Eureka’s approach to homelessness, criminalizing it, is counterproductive and more costly than providing temporary housing. (Screenshots from Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury report)

Eureka’s criminalization of homeless people is costing taxpayers more than it would to provide housing and it is also failing to reduce the number of unhoused people, a grand jury report found.

Ordinances passed by the Eureka City Council since 2012, such as ordinances against camping outside of designated areas and sitting or lying on a sidewalk in a commercial area, have been geared toward managing the homeless community rather than helping members of that community get housed, according to the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury report, “Les Miserables: The Criminalization of the Homeless in the City of Eureka,” released Thursday. The total number of homeless people that were counted in Eureka during a point-in-time count conducted annually by the Department of Housing and Urban Development meanwhile rose from 513 in 2015 to 653 in 2019.

“Our investigation found use of law enforcement as a primary tool in dealing with homelessness is counterproductive,” a Humboldt County news release submitted by foreperson Joseph Kravitz stated. “In Eureka, evacuating encampments simply dispersed problems from a contained location to a wider area of the city. Citations and arrests of homeless have not resulted in reducing the overall number of unhoused people in Eureka.”

Most of those ordinances have to do with the homeless trying to live their daily lives, particularly sleeping, which is cited as illegal camping, the report found. Before the homeless encampment at Palco Marsh was dispersed in 2016, there were 633 incidents of illegal camping that resulted in citations or arrests. Afterward there were 1,363.

Continuing to cite or arrest the homeless for sleeping in public could land the city in trouble since the U.S. Justice Department warned against prosecuting the homeless for sleeping in public in 2015 because it violated the U.S. Constitution for being cruel and unusual. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also decided in September that it was cruel and unusual to prosecute people for sleeping in public when they had no other options.

The Eureka Police Department and members of the Eureka City Council were unavailable for comment by publication time.

Vernon Price, an advocate for the homeless, said he did a public records request that found “967 unhoused citizens were ticketed within 18 months.”

“That’s not right for any city or municipality,” Price said. “That is very counterproductive to addressing the root causes of homelessness.”

The longer it takes to address those root causes, the more likely a person is to develop a mindset associated with chronic homelessness, which is tougher to address, Price said. After being homeless for about two years, a person might have developed social anxiety, paranoia and mistrust because of how they’ve been treated.

On top of that, homeless people become an eyesore to the community during business hours, which starts to affect a person psychologically in terms of “how one is looked at,” Price said.

Though there is no local monetary comparison of how much more it costs to criminalize the homeless rather than house them, the report cited several studies that illustrate it is more cost-effective to provide housing. One of the studies cited — a 2013 report on homeless from Utah — found that emergency room visits and jail stays cost $16,670 on average for each homeless person while it only costs $11,000 to provide each person with a social worker and an apartment.

The report also cited the case of one homeless man who the city spent $13,400 prosecuting for illegal camping.

“Evidence indicates that criminalizing the human activities of the unhoused is far more costly than providing transitional and permanent housing and support services,” the grand jury wrote. “Creating more debt through fines and criminal records through arrests erects steeper barriers for the homeless in finding work and qualifying for housing in an ever-tightening rental market.”

A Eureka Police Department survey of 190 homeless people found 44% of respondents had experienced homelessness for three to 10 years, 57% of respondents had a mental illness and 71% indicated that they had drug or alcohol abuse problems.

“This does not paint a portrait of a population that would respond well to citation, arrests, and constantly being moved from place to place,” the report reads. “From our interviews with the homeless and people who work with the homeless, law enforcement efforts only create more exhaustion, mental anguish, and the need for drugs to mask those states.”

The report recommended that representatives from the Eureka City Council, the police department, homeless groups and the homeless community form a committee and review the ordinances that homeless people have no choice but to violate if they want to live their lives. It also recommended that the city stop enforcing those ordinances and start collaborating with the county to:

• Provide storage sites at strategic locations for the homeless to use;

• Provide additional public restrooms throughout the community and to extend existing facilities’ operating hours;

• Increase affordable housing;

• Develop a plan to set up and finance short-term shelters and transitional housing;

• Conduct meetings at least once a month to address homelessness.

The report recommended that Eureka specifically needed to find ways for the homeless to have citation fees reduced or waived through community service, and the City Council needed to allocate more funds to the police department’s Mobile Intervention Service Team for additional law enforcement members.

More data on the homeless also needs to be collected, it stated.

While more permanent housing is the main goal, Price said immediate solutions need to be put in place to help the homeless now. Tent cities and tiny home communities have also proven to be successes and give people a much-needed sense of community.

Providing storage space for people during the day was also critical, Price said.

“How can you fill out job applications when all of your stuff is with you,” he said.

As the city moves forward, it’s important for the homeless and formerly homeless to have a seat at the table, Price said, because lived experience can help guide policy solutions in a more effective direction.

“It starts building positive lines of communication instead of battering someone psychologically,” Price said. “That begins to rebuild trust on both sides. It’s a win-win situation.”

Sonia Waraich can be reached at 707-441-0506.

Donald Trump Out of Humboldt County!

President Trump directs homeland security secretary to deputize local law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws as ICE agents NOT ON OUR WATCH!  Add your voice now, tell elected officials in Humboldt County to stand up to Donald Trump. Add your name at OurWatchHumboldt.org PETITION TO HUMBOLDT COUNTY'S BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, CITY COUNCILS, AND THE HUMBOLDT COUNTY SHERIFF Endorsed by: Centro del Pueblo Humboldt Civil Liberties Defense Fund SURJ Humboldt (Showing Up for Racial Justice) Humboldt Center for Constitutional Rights Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Humboldt Branch) PETITION TO HUMBOLDT COUNTY'S BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, CITY COUNCILS, AND THE HUMBOLDT COUNTY SHERIFF We, the undersigned, do hereby petition all law enforcement agencies and governing bodies of Humboldt County to cease collaboration with Federal Immigration Officers in all local law enforcement matters unless explicitly required by law, including but not limited to not sharing jail release dates, not sharing personal information, and not using ICE agents (or other immigration officials) as interpreters. Furthermore, we implore local law enforcement to diversify their forces to ensure that Spanish speaking officers, as well as officers of color, are represented on all departments and task forces. We also petition our local representatives to fully support California SB 54, which would repeal existing Section 11369 of the Health and Safety Code, which provides that when there is reason to believe that a person arrested for a violation of specified controlled substance provisions may not be a citizen of the United States, the arresting agency shall notify the appropriate agency of the United States having charge of deportation matters. (add your name at OurWatchHumboldt.org)

Economic growth for Humboldt County based on evidence, not nostalgia.

Building on our rural creative class economy a better bet

By Dave Spreen of TransportationPriorities.org.

The newspaper headline read “Port seen as key to economy” and went on to report that after a roundtable discussion about ways to improve the local economy, the group of College of the Redwoods Administrators and area business owners came to a consensus that “developing Eureka’s port to increase commercial shipping traffic” was the answer.

Unfortunately, that headline was from February 1988 — over 27 years ago. We have spent hundreds of millions pursuing that goal, yet we are basically no closer. It’s not too late to change course, but if Caltrans’ Richardson Grove Highway 101 and the Del Norte Highway 199/197 road “widening” Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA) oversize truck access projects are not cancelled, the international freight “port with rail” dreamers will continue to be a drain on public resources that could be better utilized elsewhere.

Opponents have suggested a smaller scale model. For example, Port Townsend, Washington, where 30 years ago folks there calculated that the train was not likely coming back in their generation, if ever, so they chose to accept that and build on local strengths. The Wooden Boat Foundation was created to attract craftspeople to the Port Townsend area and over time, rebuilt their community. By 2008 the Foundation was serving 150,000 people annually in its educational programs, events, and services at which time the Northwest Maritime Center was built on property previously owned by an oil company. Local and regional maritime enthusiasts, marine trades, local organizations, visitors and thousands of visiting schoolchildren from around the region use the center. The maritime center serves as an economic anchor for the port and community.

Locally, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District’s list of state and federal legislative priorities for 2015 includes “funding to develop a National Marine Research and Innovation Park,” which, along with the district’s short-sea-shipping initiative represent feasible projects to stimulate desirable economic growth and doable international shipping solutions without massive taxpayer subsidies.

Supporters of an international port with rail and oversize STAA trucking have for too long followed a locally unsuitable economic model that holds that industrial port development must be the primary economic driver for creating jobs and generating income for recreation and conservation improvements. The empirical evidence certainly does not support that model.

As reported in Dennis Mullins’ “Business Sense” column, “... the county continues to add jobs, has lower unemployment than about 40 of California’s 58 counties and is growing entrepreneurs at a faster rate in comparison to other rural counties.” (“Humboldt’s unemployment rate continues downward,” Times-Standard, July 19, Page D1.)

How could this be? Well, consider the newly released study by Department of Agriculture economist Timothy Wojan, which looks at the role of the “creative class” and natural amenities in rural counties’ performances during and after the Great Recession.

From the study overview: “The creative class thesis — that towns need to attract engineers, architects, artists, and people in other creative occupations to compete in today’s economy — may be particularly relevant to rural communities, which tend to lose much of their talent when young adults leave.”

In an article for CityLab.com, Richard Florida writes: “Two kinds of rural counties are experiencing growth, according to Wojan’s analysis. The first are nonmetro creative class counties close to major metros. The second are rural creative class counties that are home to colleges and universities, which are themselves knowledge economy hubs. This proximity effect is likely to become more important, as larger metros and knowledge economy hubs play an increasingly important role in driving economic growth across the nation.” (“The Fall and (Partial) Rise of the Rural Creative Class,” Nov. 11, 2014.)

Instead of turning the Humboldt/Del Norte Highway 101 corridor into I-5 Coastal, we should be renaming it “Redwood Coast Highway” and restricting it to California legal trucks only. Can you imagine anywhere on the coast south of us even suggesting STAA oversize truck access on Coast Highway (State Route 1) would be key to their economic development?

The Times-Standard reported that Humboldt was ranked second best county in the U.S. by the “natural amenities index.” (“Second best county in US,” Aug. 19, Page A3.) When two paths diverge in the woods, you can’t take both. Let’s direct transportation resources to enhance development of our rural creative class economy, not through-route access for oversize trucks in a futile pursuit of unsustainable goals.

Dave Spreen, a Kneeland resident, is spokesman for the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities. For more information, visit www.TransportationPriorities.org.

please add your comments online here.

--

More info on successful economic development strategies for rural communities:

www2.epa.gov/smartgrowth/smart-growth-small-towns-and-rural-communities

http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/files/thenewcitystates.pdf

www.nado.org/vibrant-rural-communities-case-study-series/

www.sitka.net/Downloads/Small_Towns.pdf

---
Notes on development of Humboldt Bay as a cargo shipping port:

While an active shipping port would have once been a source of numerous living wage jobs, modern automated ports create few jobs. Meanwhile frequent cargo ship traffic could seriously hinder commercial fishing, an industry that defies automation and instead still requires skilled workers. Large ships traffic will also impeding sport fishing, a proven source of local revenue (not to mention a cherisher activity for many us Humboldt residents!).

Here's a few footnoted quotes:

...Automation began to significantly decrease longshore jobs in the early 1960, ...the number of employed longshoremen declined from over 50,000 in 1953 to 23,000 in 1967. Since then the number has dropped to under 16,000. The cuts on the West Coast have been equally dramatic. There are now fewer than 10,000 regular longshoremen in all thirty-two ports of the West Coast. ...The loading and discharge of ships now involves ever-fewer humans… ...Longshore work will increasingly decasuaIize and more resemble warehouse or factory work: source

---
...“If the port doesn’t automate, it will not be competitive,”

... equipment that moves containers from ships to shore cranes and trucks with minimal human labor. .. The technology at TraPac’s terminal at the Port of Los Angeles is likely to reduce the number of workers needed per crane by about 53 percent, and at transtainers — the hoisting devices for loading and unloading cargo from rail cars or trucks — by 85 percent, according to the Los Angeles Harbor Department report… source

However discouraging the job outlook for many persons “automated” out of work now or in the near future, some students of the problem insist that the long-range employment prospect is not as gloomy as it is often pictured. Assuming that automation will lead eventually to a general reduction in working hours, they point out that the resulting increase in leisure time will probably create new occupations and thus accentuate the established trend toward expansion of the service industries... It has been suggested also that additional leisure time may bring about “an increase in the demand for artists of every kind and for others catering to cultural requirements source

12 Years a DA

Undefeated in 4 out of 4 elections Paul Gallegos steps down after 12 years as DA

Restore the General Plan Update

We believe meaningful public participation is the foundation of good government. There are several requirements to empower and support meaningful public participation. The recent special review by the planning commission did not meet these requirements. The changes made are not reflective of our goals for the future of Humboldt County.

Today we are asking you to take steps to restore the role of public input in the General Plan Update process. We are asking that you do four specific things:

• 
  Protect our supply of clean water by restoring reasonable protections for streams and wetlands. Protecting clean water is critical to our quality of life, the health of our economies, and critical to the goal of recovering local salmon runs.
  


• Honor our communities intent to build a regional (county-wide) trail system. Restore the language in CO-G4 to read:
  
  

  "Parks and Recreation. Well maintained and accessible parks offering a range of popular recreation opportunities and a countywide trail system that meets future recreational and non-motorized transportation demands."
  

  
  


• 
  Prioritize acquisition of land for community forests. Restore the language of OS-P1xx to read:
  
  

  "Open Space Acquisition. The County shall seek opportunities to acquire high value open space lands, including community forests, and open space conservation easements. Full-fee acquisitions shall only be from willing sellers."
  

  
  


• Do not direct the Planning Commission to re-review any more of the General Plan at this time.
  

The last several weeks have been divisive, wasteful, and ineffective. We are asking you—our elected representatives—to take responsibility for this unfortunate situation. In order to participate effectively we require:

advance notice of meetings

clear agendas and a clear understanding of the process

time to review changes made between meetings

In order to honor and respect the public input received over the last decade we request that you clearly focus your attention—and the work of the planning commission—on only the “shortlist.”

Now is not an appropriate time in this update process to be be rewriting or making dramatic changes to the existing draft. Please restore the General Plan process by honoring and protecting public input from the past, in present decision making, and in all future deliberations.

[emailpetition id="2"]