WEEKEND EDITION
FRIDAY, February 7, 2020 S E R V I N G O U R C O M M U N I T Y S I N C E 1 8 7 9 • W W W. T R I P L I C A T E . C O M
Crescent City applies for HGTV’s ‘Home Town’ makeover By Jessica Goddard and David Hayes Staff Writers
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egular viewers of HGTV programming are familiar with home designers Ben and Erin Napier’s makeovers of houses in their home town of Laurel, Miss.
Now the duo is taking their concept on the road for their new series “Home Town Takeover” and residents of Crescent City want to get in on the makeover action. Bran and Tim Makowsky found out about the HGTV “Home Town Takeover”
application on Facebook and thought Crescent City was a perfect fit for the show. “We just got together with a bunch of people and started a Facebook group, and we had a meeting at Bellanotte’s and decided that this is what we wanted to do,” Bran said.
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The requirements of the application are that the community be 40,000 people or less and have a main street that could benefit from a facelift as well as interesting architecture and story to go with it. More Makeover on Page A2
More than 100 community members and city staff pose for a group photo Monday to include in the application to be on the HGTV show ‘Home Town Takeover.’ Photo by Jessica Goddard.
Motorpool deepens
By David Hayes Staff Writer
he City Council gave staff its final directions Feb. 3 to prepare a draft commercial cannabis regulation for Crescent City, although not by unanimous vote. Council members disagreed on which facilities to impose a 600-foot setback for potential new cannabis businesses. Council members Jason Greenough and Isaiah Wright wanted to stick with the state guideline of setback requirements near schools, youth centers and daycare centers. They were outvoted by Mayor Blake Inscore, Mayor Pro Tem Heidi Kime and Councilmember Alex Fallman to keep the limitations near schools and daycare centers. Kime and Fallman initially only wanted setbacks on schools, but Inscore proposed the compromise vote. During public comment, Darrin Short, running for Del Norte County Supervisor District 1 seat, said the City Council needed to err on the side of caution and include all three youth facilities. “As I was reviewing Prop. 64 (the voter initiative passed in 2016 to legalize cannabis), reading the intent of the laws, it talked about schools, youth centers and daycare centers,” Short said. “It also mentioned ‘any other place children gather.’ The intent is to keep this away from kids. In my opinion, a youth center is full of those kind of kids this idea is meant to protect.” For most of the City Council members, including all three was overkill. “If the conversation is about protecting children, the youth centers and daycares are overseen by adults,” Kime argued. “To me, it seems unnecessary and a bit of an overreach to include those. Schools you have children walking to and from school without supervision. While they’re at school, they’re protected. To me, that’s the only location that deserves a setback.” While Greenough agreed to disagree with Kime, Inscore said he felt safety would be built into the process. “I’m not concerned a grade-school aged student is going to be walking by and happen to find their way into a cannabis More Cannabis on Page A6
The ‘new’ 2002 Pierce Pumper arrived at the Smith River Fire Protection District Jan. 21. Courtesy photo.
Pumper fire truck arrived at fire station on Jan. 21 Editor’s Note: We ran the incorrect story in this space in Tuesday’s edition of the Triplicate. We are running the correct story and photos in today’s edition. By David Hayes Staff Writers
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he Smith River Fire Protection District has its first addition to its aging fleet of emergency vehicles since 2001. On Jan. 21, a 2002 Pierce Pumper arrived at their fire station to replace the aging 1969 Kenworth. Fire Chief Ron Simpson said the district purchased the 2,000-gallon tanker
for $129,000 from a station in Houston, Texas. He said a brand new tanker would have come with a ballpark price tag of $600,000. He added the volunteer firefighters were excited for their new addition to their fleet. “They love the new truck. It has so many newer features than the older truck,” Simpson said. “We usually drill on Tuesday nights, when we’re supposed to have training, but they were too busy crawling on the truck and outfitting it
with hoses and other equipment.” Simpson said the problem with their aging fire trucks isn’t the mileage. “For the amount of miles we put on trucks, it’s more about they ‘age out’ on us,” Simpson said. “Our 1969 Kenworth, when it finally went out of service, it only had 33,000 miles. So milage is not a big thing for us. It’s a parts issue.” More Fire Truck on Page A2
First month of Dungeness crabbing disappointing Quality and size is ‘really, really good’ By Jessica Goddard and Brian Williams Staff Writers
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Crescent City’s harbor is housing fewer crabbing boats this winter. Photo by Jessica Goddard.
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he Dungeness Crabbing season is off to a slow start in Crescent City and Brookings, Ore., this year and the recent turbulent weather has only complicated matters. “We’ve had a lot of bad weather, not too many days out fishing,” said Russ Burkman, owner of Pacific Ocean Harvesters in Brookings. But what is being caught “the quality is awesome. It has been really, really good,” Burkman said. Fishermen were anxious to begin crab fishing when the season opened on Dec. 31, after being delayed twice
due to the crab quality. So far, the season has been disappointing, yielding a low overall poundage of crabs, according to Crescent City Harbor Commissioner Rick Shepherd and Burkman. It is not the worst year Crescent City and Brookings has seen, but it’s certainly not the best. “It’s not a horrible year, but it’s not a banner year by any means,” Burkman said. “Not as many crabs as in past years.” Burkman did not know exactly why there were less crabs in the region adding that “it’s just different from year to year.” Despite this, since many boats went down the California coast to avoid the season
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delay, fishermen who stayed local may catch the amount they would on an average year. Without the common fleet of 200 crabbing boats, the smaller numbers have raked in close to their usual share, or at least the larger boats have. “If we had a whole bunch of boats, nobody would have caught anything, but this is the least amount of boats I ever can remember,” Shepherd, who has fished in Crescent City for 40 years, said. In the past, fishermen could find the crabs closer to the harbor, but this year, the crabs were farther out in the ocean and more difficult to reach. With the King Tide waves and stormy weather
this January, mostly larger crabbing boats have been able to brave the elements to pursue their catch. “Weather has been really bad, so that hurts some of the smaller boats. Some of the large boats might have a better season because they’ve had been allowed to fish,” Shepherd said. Another issue fishermen are facing this year is the price of the crab. Though the price increased slightly this week – most likely for Chinese New Year, a big seafood holiday — it has remained stagnant. Usually, when crab production, the amount More Crab on Page A6
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