[00:00:06] Speaker A: Good evening and welcome to the local news. Today is Friday, August 22nd. I'm Sigurd Bjorn reporting for KMUT.
In tonight's news, Humboldt and Del Norte firefighters join efforts to put out the exploding picket fire in Napa County.
Carl Poly Humboldt opens the largest student housing project in its history.
Eureka City Council moves forward with shopping cart recovery fees.
Stay tuned. These stories and more coming up.
The picket fire in Napa county has exploded to over 2000 acres since it started yesterday and continues to grow under hot and dry conditions. Cal Fire has deployed significant resources including aircraft, bulldozers, engines and hunt crews in an effort to slow the fire's movement, build containment and reduce impacts on communities.
Among the 450 or so men and women battling the fire are two units from Kalfehr Humboldt du Nord Fire Captain Jordan Kilbury told our news partners at Red Headed Black Belt. His unit is joining others to form a strike team ready to tackle the most challenging parts of the fire. Shortly before newstime, the local Cal fire unit reported that the containment had been brought up to 5%, up from 0% containment this morning. Although a 100 degree heat is expected in inland valleys over the weekend, high winds are not expected in the area which could help with the containment.
Karl Poli Humboldt has officially opened its new student housing project, the largest one in its history. A ribbon cutting ceremony took place earlier today, attended by campus leadership, community partners and elected officials.
The complex, located just across Highway 101 from the polytechnic, comprises two buildings. The east, which was the first to open its doors, and the west, planned to open this winter. The two buildings will have 241 units with a capacity to house almost 1,000 students.
There are also study spaces, computer labs, community lounges, conference rooms and a gym. We'll come back to Carl Poly Humboldt not once but twice later in the newscast. But now, as reported by KMAT before, abandoned shopping carts are a regular feature in Eureka, leading the city's leadership to search for a solution to the problem. It now appears that they have one, although the decision did not receive full backing from the council. Daniel Mintz reports.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Eureka is about to step up action on getting stolen shopping carts off the streets. But there's debate on whether charging businesses a fee for doing so is double punishing theft victims.
Introduced earlier this month, an ordinance amendment on a new shopping cart recovery method got final approval at the Aug. 19 city council meeting. In a close vote, the amendment updates the city's system of handling abandoned carts.
They're either taken to the dump or to the city's public works courtyard. And although fees can be charged, they haven't been because carts aren't being tracked.
That changes with the amendment as a new system will include tagging and photographing recovered carts and uploading their locations and into a GIS database.
Under the new protocol, a $50 fee will be charged if carts are returned to businesses or if they're disposed of.
Councilmember Mario Fernandez reiterated his concerns about impacting small businesses and asked City Attorney Robert Black if the fine can be based on business size.
Black explained why that's a no go.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: The fee is a form of charge that is aimed to defray, offset or pay for a cost incurred by the city.
And due to how the law has evolved really since the 90s, you're not allowed to use a fee to generate revenues above and beyond the actual cost.
So what that means is you're not really in a position to single out one level of business and subsidize another level of business through differentiating on the basis of the size of the business.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Having confirmed that the cost of dealing with carts also includes staff time, council member Leslie Castellano said not charging a fee means the city is basically spending taxpayer money.
But Council member Renee Contreras deloach said business owners have told her they have carts with wheel locks but they can be disabled.
She described the fee as an anti business move.
[00:05:37] Speaker C: We have a situation where somebody who's just doing business is being victimized, right? They're being victimized by shoplifters or being victimized by people who are stealing their carts. And then we're like, we're going to charge you a fee for that.
The impression from some of the people that I talk to is that it is another move and a series of moves by the city that is not friendly to business and does not understand the pressures that they're under or what's happening to them and that they are dealing with and being victimized by crime pretty continually and that that's really significantly affecting their bottom line. And I think it's a fair criticism. I know there's, you know, limited amounts of stuff that we can as a council do about some of these things. Obviously, there's kind of like these broader things kind of going on, but seem like we're penalizing businesses for something that they, assuming that they've made precautions, have nothing to do with.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: But the city is under pressure too, as reflected in this exchange between Mayor Kim Burgell and Contreras deloach.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: I think I hear what you're saying about you don't want to target business owners that are being stolen from.
[00:06:43] Speaker D: So do you feel like then, just.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: To clarify this, that the general population should be paying for that out of the general fund? Our taxpayers should be paying for that? I think that's a really good question. I think we already do in a lot of indirect ways with the expansion of law enforcement and other things like that that we need to do because of the amount of issues that we're dealing with. And so yeah, I guess in a lot of ways I see this as kind of a roll in. We are literally expanding different areas of law enforcement, specifically because we have some areas of our population that are really struggling.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Fernandez described the fee system as inequitable to the smaller businesses that are already trying to do right by this.
Contreras deloach asked about what the total cost is to the city for dealing with the issue, but the information wasn't readily available.
But Community Development Services Director Kristin Kenyon said recordkeeping is part of the new system and Council can be presented with reports on how many carts are being recovered, where they're being found and where they're coming from.
When it came down to a vote, the amendment passed 3 to 2, with Fernandez and Contreras DeLoach voting against it in Eureka For KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Earlier this week, Karl Poli Humboldt was recognized as a leader in sustainability by the Sustainable Libraries Initiative, not Carlos reports.
[00:08:09] Speaker E: On August 18th, Cal Poly Humboldt was recognized by the Sustainable Libraries Initiative as a leader in sustainability by becoming the fourth academic library in the country and the second in the California State University system to earn the initiative's award winning Sustainable Library Certification. The SLI was started in 2015 by the New York Library association when they passed the resolution on the Importance of Sustainable Libraries which acknowledged the major role libraries can play in the in broader community conversations about resiliency, climate change and a sustainable future. In 2018, the American Library association was recommended to partner with the SLI to bring the Sustainable Library Certification program to a national audience. In 2019, this work was elevated further when ALA added sustainability as a core value of librarianship.
K1 News spoke with Morgan Barker, the sustainability librarian at Cal Poly Humboldt, to further explain what SLI is and what the certification means.
[00:09:08] Speaker F: Yeah, the Sustainable Libraries Initiative is something that was started on the east coast to support libraries in sustainability. Specifically, higher education has all kinds of certifications for all kinds of other things, but SLI started just to support libraries in this specific work and they partnered with the ALA and They run a certification program that member library libraries can start and earn. It usually takes a library one to two years to run through the program.
We are currently the fourth academic library to have completed the program and the second CSU library.
[00:09:55] Speaker E: There are many standards that must be met to earn this certification as it recognizes sustainability practices in environmental stewardship, social equity and economic feasibility, known as the triple bottom line sustainability.
Barker explains what different standards were met to earn this certification.
[00:10:12] Speaker F: In the end, we ended up with a, you know, 20, 30 page report that covered all areas of sustainability.
And some of them include.
Let me get a list for you.
Some of the topics are things like campus involvement, community engagement, social well being, financial sustainability, our collections and services.
Again, real specific to libraries, the overall commitment of the organization, benchmarking we might have done, education and influence that we might have, and then into the functional aspects, things like water management, energy management and waste management, along with transportation management.
So, you know, as far as like global perspectives are concerned, they kind of hit every area that you could consider. Elements of sustainability within the Cal Poly.
[00:11:14] Speaker E: Library has been working towards this certification for the past two years. With funding from the Emeritus and Retired Faculty and Staff Association. Barker and staff worked with a sustainable library working group which offered varied perspectives that helped work towards building and implementing sustainability practices at the library.
Barker explains more how this process went.
[00:11:35] Speaker F: Yes, we had. I applied for a grant, an IRFSA grant. The Emeritus Faculty and Staff association provided some of the funding to do the certification. And then the library, my dean Sorel Oberlander, provided the rest of the funding.
We worked for two years with a sustainable library working group which included staff, faculty, a student intern, and then also community member.
And we just picked through all of the items that we were asked to look at over the two years.
It's kind of daunting. The group provides you with a mentor. So we had a mentor from Valencia College in Florida who was one of the few academic libraries that had already gone through this process.
And you can just imagine like the conditions in Florida as far as architectures and things like that are different than they are in California. So we have this like diverse perspective.
And we were able, with their help, to start the task of doing all the things. And really we chunked the information, we laid it out so that the working group could kind of tick through each thing slowly. I mean, libraries are already natural places for sustainability. When you think about the whole borrow before you buy aspect that libraries are based on, and the fact that we're always a community hub for resources and programs as well, we are big on open access to information.
So those are the places we started. We started with the things that we have already been doing for a long time. Because again, libraries are just so apt to sustainability concepts.
[00:13:26] Speaker E: This certification ties into the second learning outcome listed in the university's website. Sustainability and Environmental awareness. This library certification is the most recent in a long line of sustainability initiatives launched on campus. Some of the most prevalent ones being the OSNAP Student Food Program, Campus center for Appropriate Technology, and the Waste Reduction and Resource Awareness Program.
[00:13:50] Speaker F: We have institutional learning outcomes, two of them specifically, that are on the topic of sustainability.
And then we also have things like the graduation pledge for Social and Environmental Responsibility.
Those are two campus things. But then when you look at higher education and campuses, most of us report to ace, the association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
And there are these things called STARS reports. STARS reports are sustainability tracking and assessment reports for each campus. Like in the csu, all of us have been asked to compile and submit STARS reports.
Well, one of the extra credit items in the STARS report is, has your university library done sustainable library certification?
And again, very few libraries have done this, but now we get to contribute that to the overall campus reporting and say, yes, we get extra credit because our library does have sustainable library certification on top of, you know, contributing to all of the campus learning outcomes and the integration of sustainability like across the curriculum.
[00:15:05] Speaker E: The role of a sustainability librarian is essential in advancing sustainability practices campus wide. The role was created to support the efforts made within the library and on campus and to be involved with the community to integrate sustainability into campus life. Barker elaborates more on this importance of community involvement in sustainability on campus.
[00:15:26] Speaker F: Biggest change was that we'd been doing this work for a long time and now we're articulating it or talking about it with one another or talking about it with our campus partners.
And maybe the change is that by articulating it, we can see some of those connections in clear ways that benefit our, I use the word curriculums because it's not just like what we do on campus here with college students, but it's like life work, who we are and like our habits, our being out in the community.
And I think that's one of the biggest changes, is now we can see how deeply powerful and the impact of the library is.
[00:16:17] Speaker E: More information can be found at the Cal Poly Humboldt Library newsletter, which can be accessed through the website Library Humboldt. Edu. This is Nat Cardos reporting for kmud.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: This Saturday sees a joint fundraising event take place at the Eureka Golf Course for the Cape Fund and the Betty Kwan Chin Foundation Betty Chin has been a fixture in philanthropy circles in Humboldt for years through her foundation, which runs a day center and Betty's Blue Angel Village in Eureka. Her latest venture is the Bayside Village on the outskirts of town that now houses more than 30 people who formerly camped along the Waterfront Trail.
Through her years of working with the homeless, Chin has met and risen to numerous challenges, including housing people from the Paco Marsh encampment in 2017. But speaking to Khmad, Chin says helping the former residents of the Waterfront Trail adjust to life indoors is her biggest challenge to date. Most of them, she says, have been homeless for so long that making the adjustment is enormously difficult.
Berichin is undeterred, though, and perseveres in her goal of helping the individuals at Bayside Village prepare for life off the streets. The village is a transitional dwelling. Residents are expected to move into a more permanent housing in a year's time with the help of Chin's foundation, the city of Eureka and the county's Department of Health and Human Services.
Funds raised during Saturday's event at the Eureka Golf Course will go directly to the Bayside Village. A minimum donation of $500 will secure you a place in the tournament, which tees off at 8:30am to book a spot, you can call 7074-4348-0870-7443-4808. If you are not a golfer but want to help, you can donate funds or items such as bedding and blankets on the Betty Qin foundation
[email protected] the other beneficiary of Saturday's fundraising is the Community Access Project for Eureka, or caep, which provides resources and quality of life programs and opportunities for all community members, regardless of living situation or income.
Up next is a quick tour across rural America with the public news services Yonder Report, which has stories on tribally run programs in South Dakota, wind and solar projects in Texas and shale drilling in Ohio.
[00:18:56] Speaker G: Native American tribes are finding ways to improve health care on rural reservations. For decades, the federal government's Indian Health Services controlled care in those communities, but that's changing. Geralyn Church with the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board says tribal sovereignty in health care makes a difference.
[00:19:14] Speaker F: What has been really exciting in the.
[00:19:16] Speaker C: Last few years is seeing our tribes in the Great Plains reevaluate what sovereignty.
[00:19:21] Speaker F: Means in the space of healthcare.
[00:19:23] Speaker G: In South Dakota, the tribally owned Oyate Health center does better financially than federal services while still expanding access and Church says a new cultural advisor helped add a community garden and brought in heritage foods like Buffalo that provide healthy lifestyle options based in tradition.
[00:19:41] Speaker F: It makes a huge difference when it's your own community members, your own tribal members running health care. I always say nobody loves our community like we do.
[00:19:52] Speaker G: By June 2020, three tribes directly operated more than three quarters of their health programs. The elimination of federal tax credits could impact future renewable energy projects and local infrastructure funding in rural Texas. Julia Tilton explains parts of Texas counting.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: On revenue from wind and solar will.
[00:20:11] Speaker F: Lose out if projects are canceled.
[00:20:13] Speaker D: Daily.
[00:20:13] Speaker C: Yonder analysis found that wind, solar and storage projects that have not yet come online are expected to generate over $4.7 billion in local revenue over their lifetimes. Jeffrey Clark with the state's Advanced Power alliance says that could hurt rural schools.
[00:20:28] Speaker G: When we show up with a $300 million solar farm or a wind farm, all of a sudden the school has utilities, new books, new technology, et cetera.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: The federal tax credits expire in two years. Lighthouse Solar CEO Stanley Pipkin says developers may bail when the numbers no longer work.
[00:20:45] Speaker G: People just leave, you know, we're not like martyrs.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: I'm Julia Tilton.
[00:20:50] Speaker G: Ohio counties promised economic benefits from shale drilling are still waiting. Beginning in 2010, the gas industry began investing billions in part of the state. But the Ohio River Valley Institute's Sean o' Leary says despite early hopes, the investment didn't pan out.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Those eight counties have seen more job loss, more population loss and less income growth than any other set of counties in Ohio.
[00:21:14] Speaker G: O' Leary says the industry is capital intensive, not labor intensive, with benefits mostly going to investors out of state workers and service companies. As the Trump administration expands fossil fuels to power artificial intelligence, o' Leary expects more of the same.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: And as ever, here is Ray Hamill rounding out our newscast with his Sports report.
[00:21:39] Speaker D: The 2025 high school football season is now just a week away, and excitement is building in the hdnl. Hello and welcome to this week's KMWOOD News Sports Report. Hi, I'm Ray hamel with humboldt sports.com we'll have more on the upcoming football season and what local fans can expect in just a moment as we take a look at all of the latest big local sports stories, including why this weekend will be an important one for the HDNL football teams, some College of the Redwoods football news, which local standout is returning to the north coast, and news of some coaching changes at South Fork. But first up, the new local high school football season is now just a week away and seven of the nine H HDNL programs will be in action on opening weekend, including a pair of all local showdowns here on the North Coast. Two of the nine local high school programs also will feature new head coaches this fall. At McKinleyville, Jason Benge has taken over from Fell Barlow while at South Fork, former Del Norte baseball coach Brandon Coburn is back in the HDNL and will take over the Cubs football program from longtime coach Carl Terrell, who stepped down after the 2024 season. Benge will with the Panthers when they open the season at home against Fort Bragg on Friday, August 29th. Also in action on the opening weekend of the season, the Fortuna Huskies will travel to play St Helena, the Saint Bernards Crusaders will host Clear Lake and Hoopa will travel to Crescent City to play Del Norte in an all warriors showdown. Rounding out a busy opening weekend, reigning state champs Arcata will open against the Eureka Loggers. The Ferndale Wildcats and Sound Fork Cubs will have a bye and open weekend with the Cats set to open their campaign the following week at Fort Bragg and the Cubs scheduled to kick off the new season against Hayfork on September 19th. Conference play for the Big Four and Little Four will begin in early October and will run for six weeks each with home and away format for both. The Del Norte warriors will be considered favorites once again for the Big Four after clinching five straight conference championships, including four outright last season. They won the league with a thrilling 33:32 win at Saint Bernards on the final week of the regular season.
However, despite a very productive off season for the program, they will have their hands full trying to make it six straight conference titles. With all four Big Four teams poised to challenge this fall.
After struggling in the Big Four for a few years, the Eureka Lagers turned the corner in 2024 and re established themselves as a contender under first year head coach Sam Edmonds, the Lagers are confident they can continue to build program momentum this year and perhaps challenge for the conference crown. Likewise with St. Bernards and Fortuna who shared the league title with Del Norte two years ago. Both of those programs are always well coached with St. Bernard's Matt Tomlin and Fortuna's Mike Benbow respected as two of the very best head coaches in the entire north coast section, the Little Four should be every bit as competitive this last year. The conference championship was shared by both Arcata and Ferndale, each of whom would go on to make some noise in the playoffs. The Wildcats handed the Tigers their only loss of the season at Ferndale on the final day of the regular season before barely falling to eventual state champion Moreau Catholic in their NCS final. The Tigers would bounce back from their conference ending loss at Ferndale, winning five straight games on the way to the program's first ever state championship title. Remarkably, Arcata's state win was the fifth for HDNL football in a decade following the success of Saint Bernards in 2015 and 2019, Fortuna in 2017 and Ferndale in 2023.
While Arcata lost several key players from last year's team to graduation, senior quarterback Luke Lemke is back and looks set to close out his high school career with a bang. Ferndale returns several key starters including quarterback Tanner Pigeon and lineman Ethan Weitzel, each of whom enjoyed an MVP calibre season in 2024. The McKill Evil Panthers and Hoopa warriors will also be hoping to make some noise in this year's Little Four. The Panthers are coming off back to back winless campaigns in 2023 and 24, but Benge has a large roster available this fall and is hoping the program can turn the corner while the warriors have several key seniors back to lead the way. The Sound for Cubs, meanwhile, will play eight person football once again this fall as they look to challenge the best small school programs in the ncs. This weekend will be a big one for most of the local teams in their preparation for the upcoming campaign, with seven of the HDNL squads heading to McKinleyville on Saturday for the annual league preseason JV and Varsity Jamboree.
The JVS get the day's Action started at 10am Followed by the varsity teams at 12:30pm Arcata, Del Norte, Eureka, Ferndale, Fortuna, Hoopa and Saint Bernards will be there. Entry fee for fans is $5 for adults and $3 for students and seniors. The College of the Redwoods football team is also busy preparing for the upcoming college season, which also kicks off on the weekend of August 30th. Redwoods is making the jump from the American Division to the more competitive national division this fall, which means a more challenging schedule in store for the team while also opening the possibility of competing for a state championship. CR opens the new season at home against Sacramento city College on August 30th with the game set for 1pm at Cal Poly Humboldt's Redwood Bowl. In local basketball news, new Cal Poly Humboldt men's head coach D.J. broome, who took over the program in June, announced last week that former Big 5 MVP Brandon Bento Jackson will rejoin the team. Bento Jackson played for the Jacks right out of High School two years ago before transferring to San Diego City College last year. The standout guard appeared in 27 games down south and averaged 7.9 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists. And rounding out this week's sports report, there are some coaching changes in the air at South Fork High School as we get set for a busy fall schedule. In addition to Coburn taking over the Cubs football team, longtime girls soccer coach Anne Constantino has stepped down as head coach and will be replaced by Bet Anderson Taylor. Morrow also has left South Fork after a very successful few years in charge of the school's boys basketball team, including winning back to back conference championships. No official word yet on who will replace Morrow. And that's this week's KMUD News Sports Report. Until next time. I'm Ray hamel with humboldt sports.com that's.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: All for tonight's broadcast.
Thanks to our engineer, Viana Federico, and thanks to our reporters Daniel Mintz, Nat Cardos, Ross Brown and Ray Hamel, reporting for KMAT and Sieger Bjorn.
Thank you for listening.
[00:29:05] Speaker C: Kmart News is online. You can find us on Kmart.org and now streaming on most podcast platforms, including.
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