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Blog Jammin’ CRIME / BY THADEUS GREENSON / TUESDAY, FEB. 25 AT 10:08 A.M.
Standoff Ends Quietly with Bull Horn
An hours-long standoff with an armed suspect in Old Town Eureka ended peacefully in the early-morning hours of Feb. 25. Eureka Police Chief Andrew Mills said his officers responded to a call reporting a gunshot at Second and C streets shortly after 11 p.m. Mills said a 26-year-old male, later identified as David Geter, was at his residence and arguing with some people through his back window. It appears that, during the argument, Geter fired a round at the group. “One of them yelled, ‘I can’t believe you’re shooting at me,’” Mills said. Officers responded and set up a perimeter around the residence, Mills said, making multiple efforts to contact Geter, first by his cell phone, then through relatives and finally using a “good, old-fashioned bullhorn.” Once officers were able to contact Geter, Mills said he agreed to exit the residence peacefully and was taken into custody shortly before 2 a.m. “This is one of those things where our folks did a great job,” Mills said. “They slowed things down, didn’t rush in and took their time, and ended up with a good outcome.” Geter was arrested and booked into the Humboldt County jail. ●
JACK LINCOLN AND LEATHERFACE, TWO OLD TOWN TURKEYS.
GOVERNMENT / BY THADEUS GREENSON / MONDAY, FEB. 24 AT 3:59 P.M.
Eureka City Manager Panelists
After refusing to do so when asked by the Times-Standard Feb. 21, the city of Eureka recently released the names of private citizens who will serve on a panel interviewing city manager candidates. The citizen’s panel is comprised of Kurt Kramer, Heidi Benzonelli, Dale Maples, J Warren Hockaday, Jack Crider and Lorene Dunaway, and will sit down with the three unnamed candidates — one local and two from out of state — on Feb. 26. ● POLITICS / BY THADEUS GREENSON / SUNDAY, FEB. 23 AT 9:14 A.M.
Firpo Responds to Critics
The Elan Firpo for District Attorney campaign issued a press release Feb. 22 in response to criticism the candidate has received for a plea agreement she reached in a fatal Arcata stabbing case. “Some decisions are not universally popular,” Firpo states in the release. “It is the job of the District Attorney’s office to make tough decisions based entirely on the facts that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to all twelve jurors. That is what I did here. I’m not proud of this disposition, and it doesn’t feel like justice to the victim’s family or myself. Unfortunately, it is the reality of the situation under the law.” Earlier this month, news broke that 35-year-old Juan Ferrer had pleaded no contest to aggravated involuntary manslaughter stemming from the November stabbing death of Douglas AndersonJordet, a local chef, in downtown Arcata. Firpo, a deputy district attorney, negotiated the plea deal that will likely see Ferrer serve about two years in county jail. Backlash to the deal was swift, and to date two of Firpo’s three campaign opponents — former prosecutors Allan Dollison and Arnie Klein — have publicly criticized Firpo’s pleading a murder charge down to involuntary manslaughter in the case. In the release, Firpo offers her rundown of facts in the case and closes with a jab at her opponents, who she says are forcing a public airing of the case that Anderson-Jordet’s family had hoped to avoid. “They had hoped to avoid exactly this public forum discussion,” Firpo states. “Unfortunately, my opponents, who
are long on rhetoric and short on facts, have attempted to take advantage of this unfortunate case to their political advantage.” See previous coverage of the plea deal, a rundown of the known facts of the case, comments from Ferrer’s defense attorney and a breakdown of California homicide law at www.northcoastjournal.com/blogjammin. ● GOVERNMENT / BY THADEUS GREENSON / SATURDAY, FEB. 22 AT 5:24 P.M.
GPU Firestorm
It seems the Humboldt County Planning Commission kicked a hornets’ nest. Or, maybe it was just 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace. During its sixth meeting to take up the Conservation and Open Space element of the General Plan Update — recently dumped back into its lap by the Board of Supervisors — the commission voted 4-2 on Feb. 18 to eliminate language from the element supporting the creation of a countywide trail system. Despite a general community fatigue on the GPU caused by a seemingly endless, decades-long process, the vote immediately raised hackles and brought forth a flurry of accusations at the commission’s meeting two days later. The flurry seems to have begun with a call to arms from a certain supervisor. “Stop what you’re doing right now and watch in horror while the Planning Commission eliminates trails and open space from the General Plan Update,” Lovelace — who was on the short end of a 3-2 vote to send the element back to the Planning Commission in the first place — wrote on his Facebook page during the Feb. 18 meeting. “This is what’s happening, and it’s truly appalling.” Lovelace followed the post minutes later with another urging trail advocates to get down to Supervisors Chambers “NOW” to address the commission. The response to Lovelace’s call wasn’t immediate, but a host of trails advocates did descend on Supervisors Chambers for the commission’s Feb. 20 meeting and let their frustrations be known. Bayside resident John Olson got things started saying he was disturbed by what he’d seen a couple of nights earlier, saying the commission seems to be enacting a “unilateral inversion of the values system that was created by a previous public process.” But it also became quickly apparent
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10 NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, FEB. 27, 2014 • northcoastjournal.com