The Garberville Town Square has received a number of attractive additions in recent years, such as two 39-foot-long arbors set at right angles to each other and adorned with climbing plants; a 12,000-pound blueschist boulder with a children’s slide carved into it; shade trees; commemorative bricks that serve as paving stones; and LED lighting to give the area a magical feel during nighttime events.

Last week the square got some new visuals that were decidedly less pleasant: An orange construction fence running around its perimeter that’s meant to block access to the privately held square; and no trespassing signs.

The square’s transformation from a community space to a space that’s off-limits happened late last Thursday afternoon. But the decision to fence it was made the day before in a unanimous vote taken by the town square’s governing board during its regular monthly meeting.

“It was a heart-wrenching decision for us,” one of the board members, Nancy George, related. “When we made that vote I was sick to my stomach,” added Donna King, another board member.

The decision was not at the board’s instigation. Instead, it was made in response to a six-page petition bearing the signatures of 82 community members, many of them local business owners, that called for “a temporary shutdown of the Garberville Town Square until a solution is found to make the area safe and respectable.”

“The town square has become an unsafe environment,” asserted the petition, brought before the board by Josh Sweet, owner of the Jacob Garber Square Building that borders the town square. “It has become a local hub for drug dealing and a haven for aggressive dogs and people who don’t respect the town or its ideals.”

“There have been multiple reports of fighting, all-night parties with loud music, use of alcohol and drugs and all-around bad behavior,” the petition continued. “We can and will make it what we had all dreamed it would be but until then we demand this action.”

Along with the petition, the board was presented with a written statement from longtime Southern Humboldt resident Ernie Branscomb. Branscomb wrote that a number of years ago, back when the square was just an idea, he argued along with some other folks that what was then just a gravel lot should continue to be used for parking.

Instead, a group of citizens bought the lot from Chris Brannan in 2002 for $220,000 and started laying the groundwork for a town square. Branscomb acknowledged that the effort proved a success. “The park [today] is beautiful and well-constructed. It is an asset to the community in many ways.” 

But he said warnings that the square would become a magnet for undesirables have proven true.

“We complained that the park would become an attractive nuisance, a place for bums, derelicts of society, dogs and drug dealers to congregate and would force out the kinds of people and children that the park was intended for.”

According to a Memorandum of Understanding with Sweet that was drawn up last week by the board, the owner of the property, the closure is for a two-month period only. “The fence will be removed in 60 days regardless,” the agreement states, making clear that Nov. 10 is the date by which the fence must come down.

The MOU also says that during the temporary closure period the fence would be removed for events, such as the weekly Farmers Market and the upcoming Harvest Fiesta. The cost of putting up and taking down the fence and of maintaining it would be borne by Sweet, the MOU adds.

When contacted late last week, Sweet declined to be interviewed. He later issued a statement that used similar wording to the petition in describing the reason for the temporary closure. The statement also warned that, “anyone who is not authorized to be [on the square] will be trespassing and prosecuted under the law.”

Board members said the closure was not influenced by the fact that, several hours prior to last Wednesday’s meeting, a man was badly beaten on the square—so badly beaten that he had to be transported out of the area to receive treatment.

“That was just a coincidental thing,” King said. She added that the petition had been placed on the agenda for last week’s meeting, which took place on the square, several days prior to the beating.

Of course, the fact that the petition request predated the beating doesn’t mean that the beating didn’t play a role in the board’s decision. Board member Robie Tenorio, who first found the blood trail on the square that led Sheriff’s deputies to the Garberville home of the two alleged attackers, said that while the beating wasn’t what persuaded the board to agree to close the square, it did confirm that the closure was necessary.

“We all were aware that the beating had taken place. It was an exclamation mark on how bad things are in town,” she said.

“We were pressured into it by the bad behavior of people [in general],” she went on. “We want to work with everyone else and find a solution. We don’t want the square to be contributing to the problem.”

Vagrancy in Garberville is obviously not limited to the town square. But the consensus on the board, and apparently out in the community as well, is that the square has developed into a hub for troublemakers.

“It’s become a gathering spot,” was the way Susan Mazur, a board member who was not present at last week’s meeting, put it.

“There’s bad behavior throughout the town, not just at the town square. But the people who signed the petition feel the town square is enabling a lot of it. And at night the square is out of control,” chimed in Tenorio.

Local businessman Steve Dazey, a signatory to the petition who has donated labor and roughly $4,000 toward the town square over the years, called the petition request “a wake-up call for the board.”

“They definitely needed to do something,” he said.

Like Dazey, Peg Anderson, who owns the old Chautauqua building on the square, signed the petition. “Because the square is dominated by loud behavior and drinking and drug [use], people are frightened,” she said. Throw in people getting accosted and periodic outbreaks of fighting, and “it got to be too much.”

“The fence is a statement,” she said. “We need to relook at this and start a conversation.”

Humboldt County Supervisor Estelle Fennell, meantime, called the board’s decision to close the square “dramatic,” as well as “practical and symbolic.”

Saying that the square was meant to be “a peaceful, beautiful place,” she said: “Maybe it’s time to think about how to keep that vision alive.”

“Like Steve Dazey, I support the town square and I’ve donated money to them,” she added.

In terms of what can be done to make the square a better place once it reopens, Fennell said she’s been asked by a number of community members to play a role in helping the town find solutions—particularly in terms of facilitating meetings.

“I like to bring people together. I’d be happy to try and put something together [here],” she said.

“This isn’t about the homeless or about transients. It’s about the community asserting its value and standards,” she continued.  “[They’re saying] enough is enough. Bad behavior is not acceptable.”

At the moment, there aren’t a lot of specific proposals about how to improve things on the square. However, the MOU does float one idea: That those who signed the petition pay “a monthly donation” to hire a security officer who would patrol not just the town square but all of Garberville.

Even though it was a painful decision, board members expressed the hope that the temporary closure would lead to positive changes. “We don’t want to be part of the problem. We want to be part of the solution,” was the way George put it.

They also indicated that getting others involved in coming up with solutions should take some of the pressure off the board. “Now it will be more of a community effort rather than just on the shoulders of the board,” Mazur remarked.

Jarred by a recent active shooter incident in McKinleyville, Humboldt County’s Board of Supervisors has approved a previously postponed $295,000 Measure Z funding request for an armored rescue vehicle.

The county Sheriff’s Office’s need to have an armored vehicle to remove people from the scenes of shooting events was reiterated at the board’s Sept. 6 meeting.

Last July, supervisors considered a Measure Z request for a BearCat rescue and recovery vehicle. At the time, Sheriff Mike Downey said that such a vehicle is necessary but supervisors asked him to investigate other funding sources and agreed to re-visit the request during mid-year budget talks.

But last month’s siege by a mentally ill active shooter at an apartment complex in McKinleyville prompted Board Chair Mark Lovelace and Supervisor Ryan Sundberg, whose district includes McKinleyville, to ask that the armored vehicle request be re-considered sooner.

The 17-hour McKinleyville confrontation ended with a Sheriff’s Office SWAT team killing the shooter. As the situation erupted, residents of the apartment building had to be evacuated with an armored vehicle provided by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Downey said that incident demonstrated the pressing need for a bulletproof rescue and recovery vehicle.

“There were bullet holes through the walls, into the adjoining apartments, where people went back in and said, ‘My daughter was just sitting there the day before yesterday,’” he told supervisors. “There were rounds that were expended, that were going all over the place so if we had tried to go in there with anything other than the vehicle that was provided to us by Mendocino, we would not have been able to successfully extricate those people.”

Downey added that Mendocino County’s vehicle was also important in a shooting incident in a residential area of Eureka involving District Attorney’s Office investigators and another in Shelter Cove, where a deputy wearing a bulletproof vest was fired at and hit.

He said that “an escalation of violence” involving powerful guns is an ongoing concern and demands the purchase of an armored vehicle. He emphasized that the vehicle “is not an armored tank” but one that would safely enable rescues.

Sgt. J.D. Braud, a member of the sheriff’s SWAT team, told supervisors that the McKinleyville incident required the rescue of seven residents endangered by the shooter.

“We were faced with one of the worst case scenarios you can possibly get,” he said. “We had someone in an elevated position with a rifle which had long range capacity and armor-piercing capability and we had a lot of innocent members of the pubic in the midst of where this person was and no safe way to get to them.”

Braud added that SWAT team members are trained to carry out rescues but “none of the training and what we have as tactics for that come close to what the Bearcat was able to give us.”

Supervisors agreed to approve $295,000 in Measure Z public safety tax funding for buying an armored vehicle, which will take six to eight months to build and deliver.

Downey said he will draft a policy on how the vehicle will be used.

Board Chair Mark Lovelace said that last July, he’d mentioned that there are “concerns of perceived militarization of police forces,” which he described as “a legitimate concern.” But he said there is “a high degree of trust” in Downey and a need to limit casualties during shooting events.

Supervisor Rex Bohn dismissed the validity of the concerns Lovelace referred to.

“I hate the words ‘the militarization of our police forces,’” he said, adding, “I think that’s the stupidest statement I’ve ever heard.”

Saying that “we do have a war out there,” Bohn called attention to the numbers of unregistered and stolen/unrecovered guns in the county.

He described police as “our civilian military that keeps us safe every day” and added, “We want them to fight the war on everything and yet we don’t want them to be militarized — and I think it’s derogatory to our military, too.”

 “Duly noted,” Lovelace said. “I’m conveying that that is a significant concern out there among members of the public.”

Supervisors unanimously approved the armored vehicle’s Measure Z funding.

Disagreement over how to address homelessness has strained communication between the county’s Board of Supervisors and Human Rights Commission but the two entities are working on closing the gap.

Ways to fix a disconnect between the board and the commission were discussed at the Sept. 6 supervisors meeting.

A presentation on the commission’s annual report was on the agenda and Nezzie Wade, who was the commission’s chair during the report’s time span, highlighted the year’s activities.

She said her group was “very committed” to lobbying for a shelter crisis declaration, which would allow the county to use its properties for emergency shelter and waive code requirements.

Wade said the commission wrote letters to the board asking for it to be put on a meeting agenda for discussion — including “open letters so the community would be aware” — but never got a response.

Individual supervisors were also asked, she continued.

“Though we were promised that it would happen, it did not happen,” said Wade. “So we were disappointed by that because homelessness is the quintessential issue we have in Humboldt County in terms of human rights and the violations of human rights that are happening on a daily basis.”

She added, “We hope that the board can do better with that and the Human Rights Commission can do better at holding you accountable for that.”

Supervisors discussed methods of managing communication without referring to the declaration request.

Jim Glover, the commission’s current chair, said there’s a need to “clarify the status of the Human Rights Commission — I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if that was clear.”

He told supervisors that communication between the board and the commission needs to be improved. “I just want to find a way to communicate better, to understand how we need to communicate with you so that we’re not in an adversarial situation all the time,” Glover said.

Supervisors skirted the shelter crisis declaration issue and Supervisors Virginia Bass and Estelle Fennell downplayed the idea of there being an “adversarial” relationship.

But Supervisor Ryan Sundberg directly responded to Wade’s comments on the declaration request.

“We got the letter and didn’t act on it, then there was another letter and then we saw letters to the editor,” he said. “And then you’re here today saying, ‘We’re going to hold you accountable’ — that can cause an adversarial relationship.”

Adding that “I felt that it was adversarial,” Sundberg suggested that a supervisor or two could come to one of the commission’s meetings and explain the reasons why a declaration hasn’t been pursued.

The discussion drifted back into process-oriented matters ranging from where the commission meets, its number of members and funding options for its activities.

Ultimately, County Administrative Officer Amy Nilsen said her staff will explore “ways to clarify the communication roles between your board and the (commission)” along with “the smorgasbord of other issues” that had been brought up.

In closing, Glover suggested that communication with Supervisor Rex Bohn is especially important.

“The only final comment I’d like to make is that I’d like to get to the point where Rex and I really agree on this issue and he sees the value in continuing this organization and recognizing the service that it does for the county,” he said.

Bohn didn’t respond directly to Glover’s comment.

In a unanimous vote, the governing board of the Southern Humboldt Unified School District approved last Thursday the hiring of a Eureka firm to install a new telephone and voice mail system at Redway Elementary.

The cost to the district of hiring the firm, Stewart Telecommunications, is $10,350. That includes over $8,000 for “materials” — the new system is made by Toshiba — and $1,400 in labor costs.

The decision was made during the board’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting, which took place this time around at South Fork High School in Miranda.

In the discussion that preceded the vote, District Superintendent Catherine Scott described the situation at the Redway school as “an emergency” given that the school at that point had been without a functioning telephone system for about a week.

The system failed after a regularly scheduled power outage conducted by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Redway Principal Paula Panfilio said that when power was restored — the outage reportedly lasted some 20 minutes — the lights came back on “but the phone system was kaput.”

“The brains of the phone system got fried,” was the way Scott described the malfunction to the board.

Board Member Thomas Mulder wondered whether the district could “make a claim against PG&E.” Scott indicated that the district would look into it. When Mulder wondered whether such a claim could be made online, District Staff Member Bambi Henderson said: “That’s the way to do it.”

Scott reminded the board that the phone system at Redway Elementary took a hit — literally — last school year when “a bird flew into a transformer.” But on that occasion, the system was able to recover.

“It was brought back to life. Now it’s officially dead,” Scott said.

Panfilio, in a brief interview outside the meeting room, said that the school has been able to limp along without a phone and voice mail system. For one thing, the school’s secretary has a landline that still works. And she said there’s still a functioning telephone in the school’s Family Resource Center.

“Our bell system works,” Panfilio added, explaining that it’s possible for the front office to ring a bell in each classroom. That’s one way to communicate. Another way is through cell phones, which Panfilio said are being “used more than normal.”

“We also have walkie-talkie radios,” she related, explaining that, “We always use the main [walkie-talkie] radio for the playground.”

In terms of when a new telephone and voice mail system will be up and running, Panfilio said she didn’t know for sure. But she said her expectation is that it would be “soon.”

On another matter, Susan Goodfield, a language aide at the district, gave a presentation to the board on the district’s English Language Learner Programs.

In a later interview, Goodfield explained that this school year there are seven students new to the district for whom English is not their first language. “Most are Spanish speaking,” she said.

She said that for the students whose language proficiency has never been tested, a written and verbal test developed by the state needs to be administered within 30 days “so teachers can be informed” about the students’ language skills.

Students who have taken the test before have until Oct. 31 to take it again. Goodfield said the average time it takes for students to complete the test is two hours, “but they don’t have to do it all at once.”

Goodfield, who administers the tests, said that of the seven students about half have received the test so far. She said the students are elementary age and in some cases have moved to Southern Humboldt from another state or even another country.

“I just finished testing someone who comes from Mexico,” she shared.

District-wide, she said there are roughly 30 students whose native language is something other than English.

“For the majority of them, their original language is Spanish. But I’ve had Hebrew, Chinese, Hindi and Portuguese [speakers] in the years I’ve been doing this,” Goodfield said, explaining that she’s been a language aide at the district for the past five years.

Goodfield keeps up to speed by attending a “collaborative” at the district office once a month “to learn the latest technologies and things to use and links to go to” to help her be a more effective language instructor.

She pointed to Duolingo, a free app that can be placed on a smart phone or a computer, as one way that students can practice reading, writing and speaking English. Another is by using a district-wide computer program called “English in a Flash.”

A third, one that Goodfield has just started, is through National Geographic. It’s “a hard-book that’s probably online as well. It [has an] English language learning program that’s embedded in it that will help with [meeting state] Common Core [standards] and strengthen in-class work.”

Finally, there’s BrainPOP ESL, an online animated educational site for English language learners.

Goodfield said the younger the student, the quicker they tend to learn a new language. “For the average student, it usually takes about three years to become fluent,” she added.

“I really love it,” she went on, referring to teaching the kids. “The children are here to better themselves. They have a great attitude [toward] learning.”

A fuel tanker that was traveling north on U.S. Highway 101 and overturned near the Salmon Creek exit last Wednesday has leaked 4,000 gallons of gasoline in an area above the South Fork of the Eel River, the California Department of Health & Human Services said in a press release issued this past weekend.

“There is currently no evidence that fuel has entered the water,” the release said, adding that cleanup efforts are expected to begin as early as Tuesday of this week.

Some of the fuel in the tanker, which had 7,000 gallons on board before the accident, was recovered after workers drilled into the top of the overturned tank and inserted a pipe. But the recovery operation was “complicated by the position of the truck and its location on [a] hill.”

The California Department of Parks and Recreation is heading up the cleanup effort with assistance from staff with the state Division of Environmental Health.

“We don’t believe at this time that the spill presents a threat to public health,” Susan Buckley, director of the Health Department’s Public Health Branch, was quoted as saying in the release.

A 22-year-old Redway man and a teenager were arrested for felony assault Wednesday after “brutally” attacking an individual on the Garberville Town Square, according to a press release issued by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office.

The assault, which took place at approximately 5:30 a.m., left the victim with “major life-threatening injuries.”

“Due to the severity of the injuries, the victim was transported to an out-of-the-area hospital for medical treatment,” the release, written by Sgt. Jesse Taylor, said.

Taylor said that deputies located the suspects by following a “blood trail” that led to a residence in the 600 block of Locust Street. There they found and arrested 22-year-old Zachary Brown as well as the teenage suspect, whose name is not being released due to his age.

Brown was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility while the teen was taken to Humboldt County Juvenile Hall.

Anyone with information can contact the Sheriff’s Office at 707-445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Tip Line at 707-268-2539.

So far at least, the killing of 52-year-old Redway resident Stephanie Gawboy last month is shaping up as something of a murder mystery.

“This case is very unusual,” Detective Jenn Turner of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office commented last Friday. “Usually when you have a homicide it’s apparent from the get-go what the motivation [was]. But with this one [the motivation] is not there.”

One thing out of the ordinary, at least for a murder investigation in Southern Humboldt, is that marijuana does not appear to have played a role.

“I don’t believe drugs were a factor,” Turner remarked. “I could be wrong. But based on things found or not found in the house, I don’t believe drugs were a factor. I believe it was something more personal.”

Also strange is the apparent lack of likely possible perpetrators.

“Pretty early on it’s usually easy to figure out suspects. But this is different,” Turner said. “I’ve been involved in [investigating] lots of homicides, and this is by far the most difficult one, the most mysterious one.”

While Gawboy was found dead in her home on Aug, 17 — she was lying face down on a massage table — she was actually killed a few days before. “She was in a state of decomposition,” Turner shared.

As for cause of death, Turner said: “She was shot more than once.”

One odd thing is that the person who found her, Jordan Jumpshot — who reportedly went to her home in the first place to take a shower — did not immediately call police. Instead, Turner said he went and had a cup of coffee before going to KMUD radio, where he had once worked, and telling people there.

It was station manager Jeanette Todd, according to Turner, who then informed police.

“It seems weird,” Turner agreed, referring to the fact that Jumpshot didn’t simply call 911. “He thought she had committed suicide and didn’t want to disturb her in her death.”

When asked if Jumpshot was a suspect, Turner said: “Not at this point.”

Another acquaintance of Gawboy’s, William Rodriguez Morseth, better known as “Coffee,” was arrested in Garberville in the days following the discovery of Gawboy’s body. But Turner said Morseth, who sports red facial tattoos, was “not in custody in relation to Stephanie Gawboy’s homicide. He was picked up on an outstanding warrant from out of state.”

Nonetheless, she said Morseth was “interviewed” in connection to the murder.

“We’re not willing to rule him out as a suspect. But there’s no concrete evidence to arrest him for [the murder],” Turner explained.

As for the warrant, Turner said it had to do with a parole violation for a drug-related offense.

Finally, there have been reports that Gawboy was seen with a man of either Mexican or Samoan descent in the days before she was killed. Turner said she was aware of the reports but hasn’t been able to confirm them.

“At this point I haven’t been able to speak with anyone to give me the information first-hand that she was hanging out with someone matching that description,” she said.

Despite the fact that things at this point seem puzzling, Turner emphasized that that could change — particularly since the investigation is still in the evidence-collection phase. She said Gawboy’s phone records are being looked at and that “things” from her house have been sent to the Department of Justice for analysis.

“We’re hoping to find fingerprints or DNA,” Turner said.

She said that while there “were personal effects missing” from Gawboy’s house, “I have no reason to believe she was robbed.”

“We believe [the personal effects] were taken after the fact,” she remarked, explaining that the door to Gawboy’s house was unlocked.

She confirmed that a neighbor or two had reported hearing “a loud bang-type sound” at some point prior to the discovery of Gawboy’s body. “But they didn’t necessarily attribute it to a gun. They weren’t sure what it was.”

The fact that Gawboy was something of an activist, particularly in terms of issues connected to GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) agriculture, has led to speculation that she was done in for political reasons.

Turner said that the Sheriff’s Office has gotten calls from people urging investigators to “check Monsanto.” But she indicated there’s no evidence that Gawboy’s GMO activism had anything to do with her murder.

Turner said she’s been struck by the number of people who’ve described Gawboy as “a good person, a nice person, someone who was well-liked.”

“A quote that someone said has stuck in my mind: ‘She opened her home and heart to everyone.’’’

In one sense, that just deepens the mystery. As Turner put it: “Why would someone want to do this to her? What was the motivation?”

On the other hand, perhaps she was too trusting. “She took anyone into her home. I don’t think she would turn someone away because of their appearance or background,” Turner commented.

A letter from the owner of a business that seeks to provide “educational and fun cannabis-themed tours of the Emerald Triangle” has motivated the county to explore how such operations should be licensed.

The questions surrounding the licensing of medical marijuana farm tours were discussed at the Sept. 1 Planning Commission meeting.

The discussion responded to a letter to the Planning Department from Matt Kurth, the owner of Humboldt Cannabis Tours.

In his letter, Kurth informs that his business only involves tours of the county’s marijuana farms and not buying or transporting the actual product.

“I have one difficult hurdle to get over,” said Kurth in his letter. “My business license is held up at the Planning Department because they consider us a cannabis business.”

His business’ link to cannabis is “only in name,” he continued, but “Humboldt Cannabis Tours has been lumped in with applications for transporters, of which there are many.”

He added that “I do not want or think I need a cannabis transportation license” and 25 potential farm group tour stops have been turned down due to the lack of licensing.

Senior Planner Steve Werner said the letter had only been brought to his attention that day. “I think we’ll see more of this as this industry comes out of the shadows and becomes more and more a part of our everyday lives,” he told commissioners.

He added that owners of conventional farms may have concerns about tour buses travelling on private roads to access stops. Werner also said state law does have a license category for so-called “bud and breakfast” businesses but patients are required to obtain medical marijuana from dispensaries.

He said mere observation of marijuana farming seems to fall “somewhere in between” the county’s current farming-related business activities.

“Staff would like to take this matter under review and come back with some additional guidance to your commission and to the applicant as well,” Werner told commissioners.

Commission Chair Bob Morris said any issues with Kurth’s proposal are likely linked to his business’ name. “If he hadn’t had the word ‘cannabis’ in there, it might have gone right on through,” he said.

Commissioner Noah Levy said Kurth’s letter “makes a persuasive case.” He also noted Kurth’s mention of licensed tour buses from other counties travelling to Humboldt for marijuana farm visits.

“What would happen if we learn that there’s a Sonoma County tour operator that’s deciding to take folks from down there to view Humboldt cannabis farms?” Levy asked Werner. “What would be the issues that arise under our cannabis ordinances as you understand them?”

Werner reiterated that the matter needs to be reviewed by staff, particularly in regard to what kind of license a tour operation would need.

Commissioner Ben Shepherd suggested that a marijuana farm tour should be treated like any other type of tourism. “We need to look at this from the perspective that this is now a legal thing,” he said. “This person is a business person asking for what I think is a very simple thing.”

Buying and transporting issues aren’t relevant to Kurth’s proposal, Shepherd continued.

It’s a business idea that’s in broader development, he said, adding that “I am aware that there are people from Europe already contacting areas here, who want to do tours.”

Shepherd said if Humboldt doesn’t license local touring operations, out-of-town businesses will control the marijuana tourism market.

“We all have to get over this,” he continued.

But the conversation abruptly ended when Commissioner Kevin McKenny pointed out that the Board of Supervisors has advised the commission not to take up issues that fall outside of land use.

Morris agreed and the commission moved to another agenda item.

If Dale Borglum’s name sounds familiar, it might be because Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore, was a relation of his — his grandfather’s cousin, to be precise.

Or maybe it’s because Borglum is well known in his own right: As a pioneer of the conscious dying movement of the 1970s.

A pioneer, it should be said, along with such luminaries as the Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of the groundbreaking 1969 book “On Death and Dying;” the poet, author and teacher Stephen Levine, who passed away earlier this year; and Ram Dass, the Harvard professor who hung out with psychedelic drug researcher Timothy Leary during the 1960s and eventually became the leader of a spiritual movement, the mantra for which was “Be Here Now.”

For Borglum, who’s heading up a workshop in Garberville later this month titled “Conscious Living/Conscious Dying: The Boundless Heart of Great Compassion,” Ram Dass in particular was an influential figure.

“He was the first person I met who could talk about [spiritual matters] in an intelligent way,” Borglum recalled during a telephone interview last Friday.

Noting that Ram Dass — the son of a Jewish family in Massachusetts whose original name was Richard Alpert — taught psychology, he added: “He understood the interface between Eastern spirituality and Western psychology.”

Borglum was so “inspired” that he set aside his own career pursuits — he ended up with degrees in mathematics from both Cal and Stanford — and followed Ram Dass to India, where he met the man who was Ram Dass’ guru and would soon become his own: Neem Karoli Baba, better known as Maharaj-ji.

What bowled Borglum over about Maharaj-ji was that he “was someone who loved me no matter how neurotic I was.”

“I had very loving parents but they were human beings. When I was weird enough [they would say something],” Borglum recalled. With Maharaj-ji, “no matter who I was it was just love — love so thick you could swim in it.”

Raised a Christian, Borglum after going off to college “got tired of the Lutheran Church. It seemed dry and dead.” And then, lo and behold, he “met someone who was the embodiment of the love” that the Bible had talked about. “He brought me back to God,” Borglum summed up.

His experience in India was so life-changing that Borglum ended up abandoning his mathematics career — no small decision considering that had he stayed the course he would have been at the forefront of the computer revolution.

“I was programming computers in the late 1960s. I could have been a multi-millionaire,” he related matter-of-factly.

One element in his decision was that after Ram Dass and Maharaj-ji, the people who had been his mentors no longer seemed so impressive. “I was taught by the best people in the field, yet they were not happy,” he explained.

More to the point, Borglum had found himself. “I saw that love was possible. Now my job was to find that love in myself and bring it to the people around me.”

After a stint as a vegetarian chef and as the manager of a musical group, Borglum along with Ram Dass and Levine established the Hanuman Foundation, a non-profit based in Santa Fe, N.M. The foundation’s “The Dying Center,” as it was called, “was the first residential facility in the United States to support conscious dying,” Borglum said.

Currently the executive director of the Living/Dying Project headquartered in Marin County, Borglum, it’s safe to say, has a different take on dying than most of us. Rather than being some horrible thing we must all endure because we are mortal, he says it’s an opportunity to realize that our true essence isn’t physical but spiritual — and that the spirit survives death.

We’re not bodies, in other words, we’re energy. We’re not separate from other people and other life forms. We’re all one.

More than once in last week’s interview, Borglum emphasized the spiritual aspect of dying.

“Until you come into intimate contact with death, all of your meditation practices, all your spiritual practices, will have the quality of you being a dilettante. You can meditate until your knees fall off, but until you know you will die you’re just working around the edges.”

Borglum, it should be made clear, isn’t sugarcoating the dying process. “I’m not saying we don’t have illness, or [that people who are dying] are not anxious, or confused or that they’re not in pain,” he emphasized.

But while he’s not ignoring the fact that people who are dying suffer, he is saying that there’s something beyond suffering.

To illustrate his meaning, he used the example of a person who’s on his deathbed and in pain.

“When you have pain that will never go away, then you ask yourself: ‘Who am I? Am I this pain? Or am I something else?’”

Borglum’s answer is that we’re something else. Which means that the pain, as bad as it might be, is something of a paper tiger.

“There’s a difference between pain and suffering. I can relax and feel a painful sensation but not suffer. It’s not pain but resistance to pain that causes suffering,” Borglum explained.

Given that perspective, it’s easier to make sense of Borglum’s view that there’s a good side to dying. You can be “writhing in bed in pain [and yet say] ‘I’ve never been better in my life.’”

Why? Because “you realize you’re not a body. You realize [you’re a soul or spirit.]”

In addition to there being something holy about the dying, they are ennobled in another way as well — their suffering can free them of bias.

“The most beautiful Americans I’ve ever been around are people who are almost dead,” Borglum offered. “That’s because they’re no longer saying, ‘I’m black or white, fat or thin, rich or poor.’ All [such] identities are irrelevant if [you’re only going to be breathing] for another few minutes.”

“It’s a privilege to be around them,” he added.

As for the workshop, which is happening on Sept. 17, Borglum said it would be “as experiential as possible.”

“We’ll be exploring together ideas, meditative processes and spiritual exercises,” he shared, explaining that one aim is to learn “how to find the strength of mind and heart that allows us to be someone who is not afraid of death.”

“All fear is the fear of the other, of something out there. We’ll work with the fear of death [in the workshop] so we can be awake and not afraid to love,” he added.

Another goal will be to help people be more at ease when they’re around the dying. “In the workshop we’ll explore how to cultivate compassion, how to meet suffering with an open heart rather than automatically pulling back from it.”

If you’re wondering how it came about that Borglum is holding a workshop on dying in Garberville at all, the answer is that he was invited to come here by SoHum resident Gretchen Anne, who met him at a workshop in Santa Rosa following the death in 2013 of her longtime partner, a man named Daniel.

Anne said Borglum helped her through the grieving process, which entailed, at least in part, connecting with her own spirituality. “What I keep coming to is that there is something more than a physical form, there is something that exists beyond birth and death. Some call it God, some call it everlasting life,” she related.

Whatever the term for it, she described it as both “a dynamic energy force, a dynamic aliveness” as well as a profound peace. “It’s almost like a stillness at the bottom of the ocean while at the top there are waves, choppiness, movement.”

“If we cultivate awareness, it’s there for us,” she said.

These days Anne serves as a volunteer with Heart of the Redwoods Hospice. She also makes it a practice to regularly visit dying patients at the skilled nursing facility at Jerold Phelps Hospital.

“They’re facing this now. They’ve become my teachers,” she said.

Among her current favorites is a “90-year-old gentleman who has found a great deal of acceptance and gratitude,” as well as an 88-year-old woman who is evidently not going gentle into that good night.

“It’s a struggle for her but her dogged determination to live is quite an inspiration,” Anne said.

The upcoming workshop, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., is taking place at the Redwood Playhouse at 286 Sprowel Creek Road. The cost is $75 per person, which needs to be paid in advance. To reserve a place, contact Anne at 707-223-0440.

The Humboldt County Fire Chiefs’ Association’s annual report to the Board of Supervisors highlights the challenges of out-of-district responses and the benefits of the first year of Measure Z tax funding.

At their Aug. 23 meeting, county supervisors were given a summary of firefighting and emergency services for 2015. Detailed in a department-by-department annual report, the responses, training and maintenance work of the county’s 650-plus volunteers absorbed a total of 102,862 service hours.

The report describes last year’s $2.3 million in Measure Z sales tax funding as “vital to our county fire service.” The revenue was used to pay for self-contained breathing apparatuses, dispatch fees and a countywide planning effort to “address the mismatch between fire related district boundaries and where services are actually being provided.”

Board Chairman Mark Lovelace said expanding fire district boundaries is fair and necessary.

“There are areas outside of those places where people are getting the benefit of fire response without paying for those districts,” he continued, describing assessment expansions as “an equity issue.”

The Garberville Fire Protection District responded to 282 incidents in 2015, representing a total of 1,080 volunteer response hours.

The district identifies “working toward closure of a multiple-year-long process to redefine boundaries for the district” among its “challenges and needs.”

Expanding district boundaries would “increase the number of potential volunteers, improve service and response times and is expected to provide additional funding for resource and training improvement,” according to the report.

The Redway Volunteer Fire Department responded to 165 incidents, with 724 hours of volunteer work. “Providing adequate training facilities” is cited as an ongoing financial challenge.

Shelter Cove’s volunteer department responded to 119 incidents with 899 volunteer response hours and Petrolia’s department responded to 37 incidents and logged 1,000 volunteer hours.

Developing the district’s financial ability to replace two engines and “convincing absentee property owners to reduce the fuel loads on undeveloped lots and clean up and prevent illegal grows that become toxic dumps when abandoned” are named as goals.

SoHum’s numerous smaller departments were also active. The area’s firefighting activity included 54 responses for Alderpoint, 81 for Briceland, 98 for Miranda, 75 for Myers Flat, 50 for Phillipsville and 62 for Weott.

Supervisor Estelle Fennell sponsored the report presentation and she highlighted a new aspect of this year’s report — giving each of the county’s departments the opportunity to detail their challenges and needs.

She said doing so is important “so people understand just what the challenges are” and added that Southern Humboldt fire departments are working hard to address them.

“There are some companies along the Avenue of the Giants, for instance, that are having a really difficult time actually finding volunteers or making things work and funding it,” Fennell said. “To see how dedicated people are is just phenomenal.”

During the presentation, Association President Jeff Robison told supervisors that county departments are now fighting wildfires and numerous engines are also assisting with out-of-the-area wildfires.

Association vice-president Bill Gillespie said wildland fuel moisture is now at mid to late October levels, which he described as being “unheard of.”

The report is dedicated to former firefighters who died in 2014 and 2015, including longtime Redway Volunteer Fire Department members Harrell Snodgrass and John Van Meter.

Also honored is Howard Phun, a founding member of the Telegraph Ridge Fire Department and former assistant chief of the Telegraph Ridge Fire Protection District.

The report notes that Phun “continues to serve the community” even after his death, as the Telegraph Ridge Fire Department’s headquarters is located on his property under a long term lease.

A significant beefing up of its in-house workforce is the latest sign of change at the Southern Humboldt Community Healthcare District.

The “hiring surge,” as it was termed during last week’s regular monthly meeting of the district’s governing board, has played out over the past month. During that time, six people have been brought on board to fill nursing-related positions previously handled by contract workers hired through agencies.

Two additional individuals, meanwhile, have been chosen for newly created management jobs. One is Patrick O’Rourke, who started as the district’s Foundation Director and Public Relations director two weeks ago. The other is Jason Dockins, who beginning next week will handle information technology matters along with Chief Operating Officer Kent Scown.

And there’s more. Judy Gallagher took over the reins of an already existing administrative position on Aug. 15 — that of Chief Nursing Officer and Director of Patient Care Services. Less than two weeks later, Troy Heatherwick, a clinical laboratory scientist, became the district’s latest laboratory manager.

“We’ve had lots of hires in the last 30 days,” Hunter Tucker, the district’s human resources manager, summed up during last week’s meeting.

Given that the district had 80 staffers a month ago, the 88 that it has now represents a 10 percent increase — not a small amount. The boost in personnel comes roughly five weeks after the district announced the departure of one physician — Dr. Marcin Matuszkiewicz is leaving next month — and the hiring of two others to take his place.

Dr. Tawfik Shabana is slated to start at the beginning of October, while Dr. Yousri Gadallah is expected to join the team at Jerold Phelps Community Hospital later in the year.

The driving force behind the changing nature of the district’s workforce, Chief Executive Officer Matt Rees, is of course still relatively new to the district himself. While Rees initially joined the district as interim chief financial officer last year, he wasn’t named CEO until this past February.

Speaking last Friday, Rees cited a number of reasons for the move away from hiring nurses on a contract assignment basis. One had simply to do with cost-cutting, in particular gaining more control over the amount of overtime the district has to pay along with reducing the amount it pays to the agencies providing the nurses.

Another had to do with the temporary and sometimes problematic nature of the contract nursing workforce.

“When you have temporary people or agency people, they tend to bring in their problems and issues. You get those resolved and then the next person comes in and it starts all over again. So you’re constantly working on problems instead of [on improving the quality of patient care,]” Rees explained.

Having nurses on staff instead “really helps in stabilizing the quality of care patients receive,” Rees went on, adding that it also pays dividends in terms of morale. “You get a happier, more teamwork-oriented atmosphere,” he said.

Rees indicated that the IT manager’s position — the job Dockins is filling — should take some of the load off Scown, a load that he said only promises to get greater once the district has a CT scanner up and running.

“I don’t want to have him put in more hours. He already puts in 40 hours a week,” Rees commented. “It could put the hospital at liability if [he’s] working 60 hours per week.”

As for the CT scanner, the initial hope was that it would be in place and operational before the end of the year. Last week, however, Rees gave April or May of next year as the likely start-date.

The scanner, an important diagnostic tool, will be housed in a modular facility located near the Emergency Room at Jerold Phelps Community Hospital.

In terms of O’Rourke’s job, Rees said that the basic reason for creating the position was “to help us raise money for a new facility.” Toward that end, he said O’Rourke will be charged with breathing some life into an important fund-raising tool: The hospital’s foundation.

“The hospital has a foundation but it’s been inactive for years,” Rees explained.

O’Rourke’s job will be critical given that the district needs to build a new hospital by 2030. Otherwise, it will be out of compliance with state seismic codes.

The 61-year-old O’Rourke, who has an extensive background in the management of nonprofit organizations but hasn’t done healthcare philanthropy before, confirmed Friday that “raising money for the new hospital will be the main thing eventually.”

But he said: “The first gig out of the box is to develop relationships throughout the district.”

“I’m going to be doing a lot of outreach” with organizations such as “community service districts, fire districts, water boards and sanitary districts,” he added.

When asked, he estimated the cost of a new facility “in the $40 million to $50 million range.”

“It increases by $1 million every year you wait,” he added.

While O’Rourke pointed out that the district plans to finance the building of a new hospital through a rural development loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said money needs to be secured from other sources as well.

“I guarantee it will happen. The motivation and intent is there and [the district] has put together most of the steps needed.” But he said something important is lacking: “An existing donor base.”

“The healthcare district is funded mainly by a parcel tax, so there’s been no organized philanthropy effort at the hospital. Developing those relationships can take [time] depending [on what you’re asking for],” he explained.

O’Rourke said that a typical approach “would be to set up a system where folks can give on an annual basis or give mid-size or significant gifts.”

“We’re starting from scratch in this area at the hospital district,” he added.

Given the rate of hiring at the district lately, it’s reasonable to wonder, given the housing shortage in Southern Humboldt, where all the new folks will be living. Tucker had a partial answer to that, saying that the district recently signed a lease agreement for four new apartments on Melville Road in Garberville.

“So we can sublease [those apartments] to some of the new employees,” she said.

When asked, she said that a couple of the new hires would likely not have accepted their job offers if these apartments had not been available.

As for whether the hiring binge is over, Rees said: “This is it as long as we can get people to stay.” Aside from the need to get a medical assistant in the not-too-distant future, Rees said: “Staffing should stay the same until we get the CT scanner.”

Then, he said, the district will need to hire someone “to do prior authorization paperwork” related to patients receiving CT scans.

In a unanimous vote taken at its regular monthly meeting last week, the governing board of the Garberville Sanitary District approved a new three-year contract with the district’s general manager, Ralph Emerson.

The contract, which runs through Sept. 1, 2019, calls for a series of pay raises, beginning with an immediate hike from the $78,000 a year that Emerson has been making to $102,000. On July 1 of next year his annual salary will receive another boost — to $114,000. In July 2018 it is scheduled to get kicked up even higher — to $120,000 a year.

Board member Gary Wellborn said on Monday that Emerson, who came to the district over two years ago after serving as operations manager at the Murphy’s Sanitary District in the Sierra Nevada foothills, has been due for a raise for some time.

“In my opinion he’s been underpaid,” he said.

Wellborn should know. He holds a drinking water treatment license and often receives notices in the mail from water districts looking for qualified technical staff. “The going rate for a beginning water operator in the Sacramento water district is in the $60,000 range,” he pointed out.

In an interview last Friday, Emerson made clear that the district’s one-and-a-half-year-old drinking water treatment plant, located just northeast of the Southern Humboldt Community Park, has been one of his bigger challenges.

The plant, which was in the works when Emerson came on the job, has been dogged by a series of operational problems.

“It was poorly designed. It wasn’t working correctly and the equipment was not compatible,” Emerson explained, describing the situation when he came on the job.

A fundamental flaw was that because two different computer systems operated different parts of the plant, there were software interface difficulties.

“The computers didn’t communicate well. If one computer doesn’t speak to another, you have a problem,” Emerson said.

In terms of specific malfunctions, Emerson said that for a time the plant’s “chemical feeding equipment was not working right.” He also pointed to an episode last summer in which the treatment plant shut down due to hot weather.

The cause had to do with the fact that the plant’s electronics and panels are located on a west-facing wall and that the plant building had no insulation and no cooling system. The fix was to install a cooling unit inside the panel that overheated.

Another improvement that was made was to build an office at the treatment facility for the plant’s operators. “It’s extremely noisy with the motors running, so it’s a way to get out of the noise,” Emerson said.

To hear him tell it, the plant today runs more smoothly than in the past. “As time has gone by, we’ve been able to isolate problems and figure out solutions. It’s taken more time than it should have, but we’ve found ways to work through it.”

He emphasized that the plant, which draws water from the South Fork of the Eel River, provides “very efficient, high quality water.” But he didn’t deny that the plant remains something of a difficult child.

“The plant is not hearty. It’s very temperamental [in an electronic sense.] The slightest voltage increase will cause a breaker to trip.”

“It operates on pressure and one change in pressure will shut the plant down,” he added.

Wellborn, for his part, praised Emerson for handling a problematic situation. “He’s done a good job with what he’s working with. They’ve learned to work around it. [The facility] takes a lot of effort to babysit.”

Like Emerson, Wellborn said that the plant, despite its drawbacks, produces good water. While it’s considered surface water, Wellborn said the water the plant treats is actually drawn from the South Fork’s underflow — in other words, the portion of the river that flows under gravel and is not visible.

“It runs through gravel for miles, so it’s clean to start with,” he remarked.

Humboldt County’s Board of Supervisors wants to make government more efficient but one proposal has been taken off the table after failing to draw support from department heads.

A series of departmental re-organizations was proposed when supervisors considered this year’s budget. One of them — to re-institute the county’s General Services Department — was rejected at the Aug. 23 supervisors meeting.

The re-organization proposal would have removed administration of the county’s motor pool and facilities maintenance from the Department of Public Works (DPW). Those functions together with the Information Technology (IT) and purchasing departments, which are now managed by the County Administrative Office, would have been shifted into a resurrected General Services Department.

County Administrative Officer Amy Nilsen said the benefits of the proposal include centralizing county departments that operate on a cost per service basis.

But staff from Nilsen’s office and the DPW support the status quo, she continued. She said both IT and purchasing rely on her office for assistance.

Nilsen added that the re-organization would add costs rather than reduce them, as an additional department head would have to be hired along with additional support staff.

Nilsen said both she and Public Works Director Tom Mattson recommend against the proposal. Considering that, supervisors agreed to reject it.

But Supervisor Ryan Sundberg said re-organization ideas involving the Department of Public Works should still be pursued.

“We should not just stop here, there have to be some ways to integrate the departments that people have to deal with when they want to get a permit,” he continued.

Nilsen said that other proposals are indeed on the way for consideration, including one for combining permit-related functions of Public Works and Planning.

Board Chair Mark Lovelace said that pursuit of efficiency will involve various approaches and some of them won’t pan out.

“Looking at those things are important but we shouldn’t have a presumption that re-organization is always the solution nor that something such as moving two departments together is the only way to do that,” he said.

Supervisors unanimously agreed not to pursue re-creation of the General Services Department.

There may be further consideration of changing how the county administrates its vehicles, however. Supervisors Virginia Bass and Rex Bohn noted that when they use county vehicles for out-of-town travel, it costs more than it would to use rental cars due to maintenance and administration expenses.

Stephanie Gawboy, the 52-year-old Redway woman whose death earlier this month is being investigated as a homicide, was remembered by those who knew her as a dedicated and articulate activist, a spiritual seeker and a skilled massage therapist.

She was also, apparently, something of a character.

“She had a unique view of the world and of reality. She saw things differently,” recalled Al “Owl” Ceraulo, a local actor and playwright who was a neighbor of Gawboy’s and “went with her,” as he put it, for a couple of years in the 1990s. “If a problem presented itself, she’d get a unique view on that problem.”

Sometimes her take on things would get expressed in sober terms, such as when she was writing a letter to the editor on the issue that had most concerned her in recent years — GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) agriculture.

Other times, like when a client would come to her badly needing a massage, she would adopt a lighter approach.

“She’d say: ‘You’ve got a bunch of little alligators in there. Let’s let them go.’ She had a playful nature but she was also super-serious,” Ceraulo explained.

On the unorthodox side, Ceraulo recalled the time he took a walk with Gawboy next to the South Fork of the Eel. While Ceraulo walked alongside the waterway, Gawboy walked in the river.

“She had a dress on and went from pool to pool like a water nymph. She talked to me as she was wading,” Ceraulo related. He said the walking conversation went on in this manner for 40 minutes or so, an impressive amount of time to spend partially immersed in the Eel considering that it was spring and the water was cold.

Taun Moondy, a good friend of Gawboy’s back in the 1980s and 1990s, said Gawboy was part of “stable slopes activism,” an effort to rein in aggressive logging practices by the Pacific Lumber Company that were resulting in landslides.

Moondy pointed to the forested ridge that rises above the South Fork Eel between Garberville and Redway as a place that was saved from logging thanks in part to Gawboy’s activism, which included taking part in town hall meetings, writing letters and staging tree sits.

Ceraulo confirmed Gawboy’s role in the battle. “Her and six other activists did all they could to stop PL,” Ceraulo related, saying that the effort, which played out over some seven years, included recruiting experts, such as biologists and geologists, to strengthen the case against logging the area.

Had the battle been lost, Ceraulo said the forested ridgetop, visible from the road running between the two towns, would have been transformed into “a stark landscape with stumps.”

“She was an important part of that. She definitely left her mark,” he said.

Well-known activist Darryl Cherney said that Gawboy helped fight another battle that was ultimately successful: The protection of the Headwaters Forest southeast of Eureka.

While Cherney stopped short of calling her “a foot soldier” in that fight, he said she did do some organizing along with “some grunt work as well.”

Not all of the activist battles she fought ended up victorious. Her efforts in terms of GMOs, for example, didn’t prevent voters from rejecting a 2012 initiative that would have made California the first state in the country to require the labeling of genetically engineered food.

Nonetheless, longtime acquaintance Richard Gienger called her GMO activism “fantastic.”

“She got real articulate about it,” he remarked.

Activism aside, there was another aspect to Gawboy’s character that was striking: Her spirituality.

“She was a spiritual seeker. She always had some spiritual practice that she was looking into. That was a very important part of who she was,” Cherney remarked.

While “she didn’t join any cults,” she did “try a number of things out,” he said.

Moondy said something similar, calling her “eclectic spiritually.”

The practices she looked into ranged from Native American spiritualism to Buddhism to modern paganism. “It was a real blend of lots of spiritual practices,” Cherney summed up. “She was a person who deeply contemplated her role on the planet.”

She was also, friends said, a single mother who raised a daughter and someone who grew her own food. In addition, she gardened.

In terms of the circumstances of her killing, a press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said the cause was “a gunshot wound” and that death occurred a number of days before the body was found last Wednesday.

“The coroner determined the death was not a suicide,” the release added.

On Monday, Lt. Ernie Stewart of the Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Gawboy’s death was being investigated as a homicide. Beyond that, he declined to discuss details of the case.

After recent approval of a mobile home rent control ordinance for the November election ballot, Humboldt County’s Board of Supervisors has advanced further help for mobile home owners by extending eviction notifications and requiring relocation assistance.

Mobile home park owners who convert their parks to other uses will have to do more for their tenants under a new ordinance approved by supervisors at their Aug. 16 meeting.

State law already requires that assistance be provided to mobile home park tenants when their landlords evict them due to conversion or closure. A former version of the county’s ordinance required that the tenants be given 60 days notice of conversion, but that’s been extended to nine months.

The ordinance also requires that tenants be given six months to vacate once a use conversion permit is approved by the county’s Planning Commission.

Mobile home park owners are also required to pay all costs associated with moving tenants’ homes to other locations and offering compensations to tenants whose homes cannot be relocated.

Residents of the Bigfoot Mobile Home Park in Willow Creek were at the meeting to support the ordinance. They said they’ve heard that the park is being converted and one resident told supervisors she’ll be in a challenging situation without assistance.

“I thank God for government — for you people — who can help people who need help,” she said.

Supervisor Ryan Sundberg’s district includes Willow Creek and he said he’s talked to the owners of the park. “Right now, there’s a lot of concepts that they’re going through and they also let me know that if there was anything that was converted, they’re going to make sure the residents have somewhere to go and that they’ll take care of them,” he said.

It was a claim that drew reactions from the mobile home park residents in the audience. “That’s a bold-faced lie,” said one man.

Sundberg proposed having a meeting between himself, the owners and the residents.

Applying similar rules to RV park owners has also been considered but since those tenants are often short-term visitors, supervisors held off on including RVs.

Supervisor Estelle Fennell said the board can consider rules for RV parks but mobile home park issues are separate and should be addressed first.

Supervisors unanimously approved inland and coastal versions of the mobile home park ordinance. They expressed interest in considering similar assistance for long-term RV park residents but didn’t make any decisions on it.

Call it a cautionary letter.

In a two-page missive dated Aug. 15, the insurance carrier for the Southern Humboldt Unified School District issued what amounts to a warning: It will not cover any claims that result from the use of Automated External Defibrillators, or AEDs, at the district’s school sites.

Used properly, the portable electronic device can diagnose and treat the potentially life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias known as ventricular fibrillations. It does so through the application of an electrical shock that allows the heart to reestablish its normal rhythm.

The letter, signed by Stacy Lane, executive director of the Eureka-based North Coast Schools’ Insurance Group, was in response to questions raised by Superintendent Catherine Scott in light of a state law that took effect last year that allows school districts to buy or accept donated AED units.

Another state law that took effect at the beginning of this year revised the rules that school districts and other entities must follow to obtain immunity from civil liability in the event of the use of AEDs.

“The potential implications to a school district that did not follow the yet-untested law could be financially catastrophic for both the district [and the insurance group],” warned Lane, who earlier in the letter had explained that the decision not to provide coverage to “any member district” was made by the district’s governing board in a unanimous vote taken in March.

The issue of AEDs and insurance coverage came up during last Thursday’s regularly scheduled meeting of the district’s governing board, held at Redway Elementary.

School districts are not required to have AEDs on hand but since they can legally obtain them the topic at issue was whether the district should do so. While the subject generated some discussion, the board took no action.

Scott told the board that certain other school districts, such as Ukiah Unified, have policies in place regarding the use of AEDs. She also made clear that, in light of the warning from the insurance carrier as well as advice from legal counsel, SHUSD currently has no AEDs.

The legal advice Scott was referring to is contained in “Legal Update” that was sent out in November 2014, two months before the law allowing school districts to purchase and maintain AEDs took effect. The memorandum, by Frank Zotter, Jr., a lawyer with School and College Legal Services of California, said “districts should very carefully consider” whether or not to acquire AEDs.

“By acquiring an AED, a district will be accepting various responsibilities — which may not be covered by the immunity if all obligations are not met,” Zotter wrote.

That fact that SHUSD doesn’t have AEDs didn’t sit well with Crystal Salomon, a member of the audience who said that her school-age son has a heart condition.

She said that other districts and other schools have obtained AEDs, including Whale Gulch Elementary, which she said has an AED that was provided by the Humboldt Area Foundation.

“I don’t see why we’re not doing it. If someone collapses on the basketball court, we’re liable,” she asserted.

She pointed to a Florida case in which she said a school district was sued after a student-athlete collapsed during a soccer game. While she said that emergency personnel arrived and used an AED to revive the student, “the school was sued for not having an AED in the first place.”

Scott, in response, told the board: “I’m not opposed [to obtaining AEDs]. I’m just trying to give information.”

That information, obviously, includes Zotter’s memo as well as Lane’s letter warning of “loopholes and inherent liability,” as Scott phrased it, in existing law.

“If someone dies because [an AED wasn’t] used properly, or because it wasn’t checked regularly, or if it was [locked] in the principal’s office [when it was needed], that creates liability,” Scott said.

“But every time you’re opening the school you’re creating liability,” Salomon retorted. “So the risk of [AEDs] being misused doesn’t outweigh [the risk] of not having them.”

As for Lane’s letter, the author cited examples of “how easily the district’s immunity could be waived for failure to comply with the letter of the law.”

One way, she wrote, would be if “the staff member responsible for maintaining and testing the AED accidentally inspected it one day past the required timeline.” Another would be if staff failed to provide the proper notification when an AED was moved from one school office to another.

“The board, as well as our attorneys, feel that the way the law is currently written, there is a very high probability of the district’s immunity not being upheld in the case of a claim or a lawsuit,” Lane told Scott in the letter’s penultimate paragraph.

“For that reason, they felt it was in the best interest of all members to exclude coverage for all districts until such time that the law is changed or offers a higher level of immunity for those that choose to use AEDs on campus.”

Speaking the day after the meeting, Scott said the situation amounted to “another example of a poorly written law in Sacramento.”

Because the law “doesn’t adequately spell out [details],” Scott said “it puts us in the position of being responsible” without providing adequate protection from liability.

On another matter, a written “Project Status Update” by Guy Fryer of Siskiyou Design Group, the architect for the district’s ongoing modernization effort, was discussed.

According to the update, drawings regarding planned construction work on the South Fork High School gymnasium complex have been completed and are currently before the Department of State Architect. “Plan approval is anticipated on Sept. 7,” Fryer said.

He also said that the contractor, Dinsmore Construction out of Fortuna, is bidding the project this month, “and should have cost information by the latter part of September.”

What it all means, Scott told the board, is that construction should commence at the beginning of October.

“It’s really exciting,” she remarked.

The flaring up of a controversy on the eve of the event followed by a relatively trouble-free four days more or less sums up the 32nd edition of Reggae on the River.

As usual, the enduringly popular music festival, held at French’s Camp from Aug. 4-7, was packed. “We were a little shy of sold out,” Justin Crellin, general manager of the Mateel Community Center, said last week, explaining that Saturday was the biggest day crowd-wise. “It was lighter on Friday and Sunday, which is typical.”

“It was the biggest Thursday we’ve ever had,” he added, attributing that to “the talent we had that day and to a desire by people to get [to the festival] early.”

While he didn’t cite precise attendance figures, Crellin said the crowds were about the same as last year. “We’ve been pretty much on a static track of being consistent with our numbers annually. It’s a smaller show than years ago. But we’ve maintained a pretty standard attendance level in recent years,” he remarked.

When asked how much money Reggae generates for the Mateel, Crellin declined to be specific. But he did say this: “It’s our largest annual fund-raiser. It covers the bulk of our operating expenses for the year [along] with [the] Summer Arts [& Music Festival].”

As for the controversy, it had to do the man who headlined Saturday night’s show: Sizzla Kalonji, a major reggae star known for his commercial success as well as his productivity—he has released more than 70 solo albums.

Unfortunately, the 40-year-old Sizzla is known for something else — some of his recordings contain anti-gay lyrics. That fact has led to protests and even the cancellation of some of his concerts.

When the Mateel announced its lineup for Reggae earlier this year, there was no stir locally about Sizzla, at least not in a negative sense.

“Everything was all positive. Sizzla is a big name, someone famous. We were super-excited about [getting him],” recalled Crellin, who added that because Sizzla hadn’t performed in the U.S. in close to nine years, landing him seemed even more of a coup.

“The fact that he hadn’t been in the States for a while was a factor in the excitement,” Crellin explained.

The excitement turned a bit sour when, just one day before Reggae, news of Sizzla’s controversial past hit the local media. The dust-up, which included calls from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group Humboldt Pride to cancel Sizzla’s performance, caught the Mateel off-guard.

“We went public with the lineup five months before, so we were surprised by it,” Crellin commented.

It also caught event organizers at an awkward time. “It hit a fever pitch on Wednesday when we were on-site and in full production mode. So there were not a lot of options,” Crellin said.

A statement was issued indicating that the plug would literally be pulled on Sizzla’s performance if anything untoward occurred. “We notified Sizzla’s management that under no circumstances would we tolerate derogatory speech from the stage,” related Crellin.

In response, his handlers provided assurances. And when the big moment came on Saturday and Sizzla was in the spotlight, Crellin said all went well. “No derogatory language was spoken from the stage,” he said.

“This event is about peace and love and global unity,” Crellin went on, referring to Reggae on the River. “That was the message from the stage [throughout the festival], including the Sizzla set.”

To stem the damage, the Mateel posted a “values statement” at the artist’s merchandise booth that attendees were encouraged to sign. Crellin said it described “what our values are and what we expect from our artists,” and was aimed at “trying to further tolerance.”

It also announced that funds from the 2016 Ambassador Program, which funnels 10 percent of funds from Ambassador ticket sales to global charities related to reggae culture, would go toward supporting the work of a nonprofit in Jamaica that is working on behalf of the LGBTQ community.

Even though Sizzla has now come and gone, “more dialogue,” as Crellin put it, is on the horizon. In particular, this Thursday Crellin will be taking part in a discussion with members of Queer Humboldt on KMUD radio. The program, hosted by Eric Kirk, begins at 7 p.m.

Looking back on it, Crellin said that booking Sizzla “was a decision we wouldn’t have made if we had been aware there would be this feedback.”

“We’re a community entity. We need to be responsive to these concerns,” he added.

In terms of booking artists for Reggae in the future, Crellin said: “We need to be hypervigilant. We’re not looking to alienate anyone in the community.”

“It’s about global unity, peace and love,” he said, referring to Reggae. “That’s at the heart of why we’re doing this event. It’s not about being a platform for someone’s hate speech.”

Aside from the Sizzla episode, Crellin said things went smoothly. “Operationally, it was our strongest event since being back at French’s Camp.”

About the only thing that created problems was the river, which was higher than in recent years and had changed course in a couple of places.

“In South Beach, the river moved toward the venue considerably so we lost some real estate. It encroached more toward the festival venue,” Crellin said, explaining that that had an impact on parking.

“We used auxiliary parking lots more than in the past,” he said.

With three months to go before voters decide the matter, the California Growers Associations remains divided over the statewide legalization initiative known as the Adult Use of Marijuana Act.

“Thirty-one percent say yes, 31 percent say no and 38 percent are undecided,” Hezekiah Allen, CGA’s executive director, said last week in reference to the group’s latest online survey of its membership.

“There’s no real indicator things have changed” in terms of the organization’s stand on the initiative, also known as Proposition 64, he added.

While CGA is a statewide organization, the bulk of its roughly 700 members — who include cultivators, manufacturers and retailers — come from three regions: The North Coast, with 161 members; the Sierra Foothills, with 145 members; and the Bay Area, with 145 members.

“Our membership [includes] the smaller, independently owned, value-added operations. We want a marketplace for those types of businesses,” Allen explained in an interview earlier this year.

The fact that there are provisions in Prop. 64 that are seen as overly friendly to big business interests and not friendly enough to small farmers lies at the heart of the doubts some members have about the measure.

Those favoring Prop. 64, meantime, say its passage would create new, and fully legal, economic opportunities.

“It would expand the size of the regulated marketplace. There would be more marketplace opportunities for businesses that get regulated and follow the rules,” was the way Allen described it.

It boils down, in other words, to a debate over growth and sustainability, to an argument between those who give greater weight to enlarging the cannabis industry and those who attach more importance to protecting existing businesses.

A sign of the dilemma can be seen in the response CGA members gave when asked to rate their level of support on a scale of one to five, with one indicating strong opposition and five indicating strong support.

The average rating was just 2.4. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement. On the other hand, it’s close to the middle of the one-to-five scale, so it’s not a clear condemnation either.

A stronger signal was sent when 74 percent said they favored limits on the size of cultivations. Currently, Prop. 64 allows for a license category, known as a Type 5 license, that would contain no limits on cultivation size after a five-year period.

Fifty percent, meantime, said restricting cross-licensure to prevent vertical integration — in other words, domination of the market by a single business — was a top priority. Prop. 64 according to Allen doesn’t contain such a restriction.

“So people don’t like unlimited size licenses and they don’t like that businesses can hold [multiple] licenses,” Allen summed up.

On that last point, Prop. 64 stands in contrast to the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, a statewide regulatory and licensing program that was signed into law last fall and took effect on Jan. 1.

“MMRSA is built on a three-tiered model where there is independent distribution. It has strict controls on vertical integration,” Allen explained.

In general, he said the licensing system set up by MMRSA is “a protective regulatory framework” that is “mostly friendly to small businesses.”

“Prop. 64 would undo a number of those protections,” he said.

While he noted that in developing Prop. 64 a number of things were “cut and pasted” from the MMRSA, he said that “in fundamental ways Prop. 64 takes a different path.”

If Prop. 64 becomes law, the State Legislature would need to reconcile it with the system set up by the MMRSA. How that might play out is anybody’s guess.

What Allen says he knows for sure is that lifting the cap on cultivation size would not be a good thing for small farmers.

“It would open the floodgates to consolidation,” he declared. “We’d rather have 25,000 half-acre operations” than a small number of giant farms “where there would be no market share for anyone else.”

Officially, CGA’s position on Prop. 64 is “neutral with concerns.” But when asked last week if a more accurate description would be “neutral leaning against,” Allen responded in the affirmative.

“Folks are supporting it because it’s the only [legalization] option on the ballot. I don’t hear lots of people who love it. It’s the Hillary Clinton of cannabis legislation.”

“‘It’s better than prohibition’ is about all that I hear from folks who support it.”

And where does Allen himself stand? He says he’s not sure.

“Even with all the concerns I have, personally I am undecided,” he said.

A big reason for his uncertainty is that, after 20 years of marijuana’s quasi-legal status in the state, there’s now a chance for full legalization.

“It would be really difficult to vote no. It’s difficult and frustrating to be in a position where I’m not sure. I wish [Prop. 64] were a home run, that it was something we could all agree on. But it hasn’t proven to be that.”

Adding to the frustration is that coming out against Prop. 64 would place CGA members in the same camp as the law enforcement-driven opposition to the measure.

“We don’t agree with the opposition any more than [with] the proponents. Our members don’t have a voice,” Allen lamented.

Given that legalization has won voter approval in other states recently, such as Colorado and Washington, there’s reason to believe that Californians aren’t likely to give legalization the thumbs down. Prop. 64, it would seem, has something very important on its side: Momentum.

But Allen said there could be factors working against it. One is simply that the ballot this year is crowded with such a large number of different measures — 18, to be precise — that voters may be disinclined to give many of them their imprimatur.

“Californians often don’t view favorably” a complex ballot, Allen remarked.

The fact that Prop. 64 itself is long and complex might also bode ill for the measure.

Finally, there’s the fact that former Facebook President Sean Parker has poured millions into the Prop. 64 campaign.

“Californians often reject [initiatives] when they are associated with a single big donor,” Allen asserted. “So I don’t think it’s a sure thing. I think it’s more of a tossup than the polling suggests.”

A statehouse fisheries committee has been told that toxic algae blooms and impacts to the Dungeness crab fishery probably reflect long-term trends.

The state legislature’s Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture reviewed the causes, effects and management processes of the toxic algae situation at an Aug. 10 statehouse hearing.

Algae blooms and the associated presence of the domoic acid toxin drastically delayed the state’s 2015 to 2016 Dungeness crab season. The loss of several months of crabbing led to requests for federal disaster assistance.

Senator Mike McGuire, the joint committee’s chairman, reported that the crab season netted $37.6 million in total value for fishermen. That result is better than expected and is beyond the standard that automatically triggers a disaster declaration.

But McGuire said many fishermen are bearing significant income losses and the federal government has been slow to react with a disaster determination.

“It’s disheartening that the only thing we’ve heard from the Department of Commerce, which is charged with declaring a disaster, are crickets,” he continued.

McGuire added that the department has “finally initiated the determination process” but it could take several months.

He highlighted the “bright points” of the situation — there were no reports of illness due to domoic acid and McGuire credited state agencies and the fishing industry with working together to “make sure the public was protected.”

As the hearing progressed, it became clear that the effort may have to be repeated at some point because warm ocean water temperatures that encourage algae blooms are persisting.

Though ocean temperatures are down from the peak of an El Niño pattern, Dr. Raphael Kudela, professor of ocean health at the University of California Santa Cruz, reported that water temperatures are still three to four degrees above normal.

McGuire noted that warmer ocean temperatures are being described as a trend in news reports. “The question will be, is this California’s new normal?” he asked.

“We are seeing these long-term trends and everything that we’ve seen is consistent with the California current being in this warm phase,” Kudela responded. “We’re already into the third year of fairly warm conditions and unusual blooms — my personal opinion is that three years in a row is basically the new normal.”

Noting the warmer water temperatures are persisting beyond the El Niño phase, he added, “Everything is consistent with this being a type of pattern that we’re going to see into the future.”

Kudela added that although near future algae blooms probably won’t be as widespread as seen in 2015, recent water toxin readings in Trinidad, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara are “consistent with what we saw last year also” and “conditions are generally right” for toxin production.

Tim Sloane, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, said the crabbing season that ended in mid-July did yield income, but “I’ve been hearing from my members that that good fortune isn’t exactly spread out equally across the fleet.”

Explaining that “some of our guys never got out of the red and some of our guys ended up with decent seasons,” Sloane said the need for disaster relief is acute in some cases.

“One of the problems was that guys were losing crew, losing vessels, losing homes before the season ever started — they never got a chance to fish,” he continued.

Summarizing the hearing’s takeaways, McGuire said that in addition to supporting a federal disaster declaration, the joint committee will work with the fishing industry to push for consideration of issuing advisories in some areas instead of total fishery closures.

The committee will also support enhanced forecasting of upcoming toxin events, early testing, and uniform safety and closure standards among West Coast states.

McGuire also called for creating a budget to pay fishermen for collecting crab samples, an effort that was done on a volunteer basis last season.

Humboldt County’s Board of Supervisors has approved placement of a mobile home park rent control ordinance on this November’s election ballot.

Along with that action at their Aug. 9 meeting, supervisors directed county staff to analyze what the county’s administrative costs will be if the ordinance is approved by voters.

Advocates of controlling mobile home park rents — which are paid not for the mobile homes themselves but for the land they sit on and associated facilities — have lobbied for county government action on an ordinance. But with no movement on that effort, they sought signatures for placing an ordinance on the Nov. 8 election ballot.

The signature gathering effort succeeded. But during a public comment period, Armin Woolski, whose family owns Thunderbird Mobile Estates in McKinleyville, said the ordinance’s provisions will impact park owners who have avoided increasing their rental prices.

“Now with our rent bases very low, this rent control creates an initiative that will punish us,” he continued. “This initiative is going to punish us for being compassionate, for having our rents so low, for being considerate — this is really going to affect the future of our park.”

But supporters of the ordinance said it’s not the so-called “mom and pop” owners that are problematic, but the corporations that buy them out and proceed to churn profit. An elderly mobile home park resident said her rents were reasonable until the family-owned park she lives in was sold to a corporate chain.

She told supervisors that for the first five years she lived in a senior mobile home park, annual rent increases averaged 2.25 percent. “Then, a year ago, the park was sold to a national chain and in this one year alone, my increase has been 9 percent,” she continued.

The proposed ordinance does allow rent increases that correspond to consumer price index increases. It also sets a rental fee of up to $5 a month to reimburse the county for its administration and enforcement of rent stabilization.

Supervisors had the choice of putting the ordinance to the vote or approving it outright themselves. Supervisor Rex Bohn’s motion to put the ordinance on the ballot and to have county staff analyze costs gained support.

Board Chair Mark Lovelace supported the motion but said his preference is for the board to approve the ordinance without a ballot vote.

He likened the ordinance to Proposition 13, which limits property tax increases to two percent a year. “Here we have people who own their own homes but don’t own the land those homes sit on,” Lovelace continued. “And yet they don’t have that same kind of protection.”

Lovelace nevertheless joined the unanimous vote in favor of Bohn’s motion.

The proposed ordinance will be voted on by residents of cities and the county unincorporated area but will only apply to the county area.