continued from previous page out of a job. David Neyra, one of a shrinking number of Arcata Main Street board members, said that while Koopman had done great work over the years, the board voted unanimously to let her go as part of a restructuring plan and in order to “change the face of Arcata Main Street,” particularly after the public relations nightmare that was the fence. Koopman’s firing led to the resignation of board member Travis Turner, who was absent from the vote and who accused Neyra of using her as a scapegoat. For now, Greenway Partners has taken over the day-to-day operations of Arcata Main Street — Arts! Arcata, holiday events — as it prepares for that restructuring. — Jennifer Fumiko Cahill
aquaculture business park with fish-raising raceways, oyster-growing beds and an aquaponics greenhouse; renewable energy and marine research labs; a water bottling plant; brewery; wave energy power conduit and more. The good news is — aside from the entrepreneurial vigor this mill site always seems to incite — there’s plenty of water for the site, and a water treatment facility. And the EPA has already begun helping with some of the cleanup. The cautionary news: the cost, and the race against time before one of those leaky tanks dumps a bunch of that liquor — which is used to digest pulpwood — into the bay. — Heidi Walters
Free Pulp Mill
Dan Johnson’s Plagiarized Speech
OK, maybe it cost a dollar. Oh, and it could cost millions to clean the place up and remove the 4 million gallons of toxic pulping liquors lurking inside leaky tanks. But as of August, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Conservation and Recreation District is the proud owner of the former pulp mill in Samoa. The mill, which once employed 215 millworkers and cranked out 200,000 metric tons per year of kraft pulp, died in 2008 after its owner, Evergreen Pulp, went broke. There was brief hope of resuscitation under new owner Freshwater Tissue Co., which wanted to convert it into an eco-toilet-paper mill. But Freshwater couldn’t rally the funds and, finally, shuffled the mill — and all of its troubles and potential joys — over to the harbor district this year. The district’s got enormous, enticing dreams for the joint, including an
According to Dan Johnson’s supporters, the construction magnate’s plagiarized Arcata High graduation speech shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. And it might not have been. With a quick and sincere mea culpa, this unfortunate little episode might have been dismissed as simple ignorance or an unfortunate lapse in judgment. Instead, Johnson stood defiant, even in his belated and belittling quasiapology, and the incident snowballed into the scandal of the summer. Community members fretted over what Johnson’s behavior was teaching students. And as the scandal dragged on, it grew in both scope and volume. Critics angrily demanded his resignation from the school board; supporters said he was being persecuted for his politics and wealth; and Johnson himself finally lost his cool,
RENDERING OF A PROPOSED RESEARCH PARK AT THE OLD PULP MILL. JULIAN BERG DESIGNS
12 NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, DEC. 26, 2013 • northcoastjournal.com
ordering a snickering teacher to “go stand in the hallway” during a school board meeting. Ultimately it was the students of Arcata High’s student newspaper, the Pepperbox, who displayed the most class. In the first issue of the new school year the young journalists examined the issue from a variety of angles, displaying maturity, intelligence and a refreshing dose of selfreflection. As Editor-in-Chief Piper Bazard wrote, “We have a responsibility as young scholars to participate in the ongoing dialogue surrounding not just a key community figure, but the overarching topic of plagiarism.” — Ryan Burns
Council voted unanimously to move in the same direction. This was also the year that recreational pot went legal in both Washington and Colorado, and polls in California suggest that we’re not far behind. But until then, local governments are still caught between contradictory state and federal laws, not to mention mixed messages from the Obama administration. Last month the Board of Supervisors extended a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries until it can finally implement a formal ordinance on the issue. Meanwhile, Eureka, which does have an ordinance in place, opted to let its dispensary ban expire. — Ryan Burns
Pot Laws
Regime Change in Eureka, Sort Of
Go ahead and roll your eyes: “Marijuana again?” Well, yes, and for good reason. After years of frustration over the social and economic destruction wrought by indoor marijuana grows, Arcata finally figured out a brilliant counter-move. Well, technically the city figured it out last year, when voters approved Measure I, commonly called “the marijuana grow tax.” This tax effectively levies a big overage fee (45 percent) on any house using more than triple the average amount of energy — an amount easily accomplished running 1,000-watt horticulture bulbs. The tax finally went into effect last month, and now other local jurisdictions are looking to follow suit. Worried that indoor growers would flee Arcata’s taxman, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors has begun working with PG&E to set up a similar system in the county’s unincorporated areas, including McKinleyville. And last week, the Eureka City
DAN JOHNSON
PHOTO BY CHUCK JOHNSON
It was a big year in big-name leadership changes for the city of Eureka. New hires stepped into the city’s manager and top cop positions, and just last week a lawmaker was replaced. Where to begin? David Tyson’s 12 years as city manager saw a slew of controversies, most notably his disputes with former police Chief Garr Nielsen and the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the city to investigate and pay out claims surrounding those disputes. So some Eureka residents welcomed the news that Tyson would retire at the end of 2012. In charged Bill Panos, fresh from a public works and port director job in West Sacramento, who by most accounts was ambitious, clever and levelheaded enough to tackle Eureka’s policing, development and fiscal problems. Perhaps too ambitious. It was in September — nine months