Where Did Everybody Go?

Look at that! I can’t remember the last time I saw the Redway Shop-Smart parking lot so empty. It’s at least 9:00 am. They should be open. Oh, sure enough, they are. The situation in Garberville only gets stranger. I have my choice of six or eight open parking spaces right across from the Credit Union.

“Did we miss the evacuation order?” I wondered aloud. Usually, I’d only find a spot there if I saw someone with their backing lights on, and waited in the road for them to back out, before I took their space. “I don’t think so.” My partner Amy replied.

It’s been pretty quiet in our neck of the woods too. The constant rumble of trucks up and down our road, that we endured all last year, has disappeared. If I hear a vehicle on the road these days, it provides brief, appreciated reassurance that the road remains open, but it happens very rarely of late. I haven’t heard a generator in months. What a relief!

I love SoHum in the Winter. The rain makes everything green and the trees glisten like emeralds in the fog. It’s too beautiful for words, and this place is so much nicer when the dope yuppies are gone. Apparently the green-rushers don’t like the rain any more than the dope yuppies, because it looks like they left too. Good riddance!

It always clears out a bit around here, about this time of year, but the exodus seems especially dramatic this year. Maybe the excessive noise and traffic we endured this past year makes us appreciate the peace and quiet more. Maybe the flooding, road closures, and the long rainy winter have combined forces to keep more people at home, and drive more people away. Whatever caused it, we appreciate it. Thanks! Keep up the good work, all summer, if possible.

If you want to know what the community of Southern Humboldt really looks like, look around SoHum right now. Anyone who has stuck it out, through the atmospheric rivers, the mudslides, the slip-outs and the flooding, and seems cheerful about the prospects of a couple more months of it, those people belong here. They will be here next February. Remember the people you see here in February, because if you didn’t see them here in February, they’re probably tourists, transients and/or carpetbaggers.

A friend told me recently that every one of her friends who owns property around here is moving and selling out. I’ve seen a fair amount of turnover in our neighborhood also. Of course, these properties sell for many times what working people around here can afford. Buyers come from all over to get in on the greenrush. They pay a huge premium for some of the steepest, shakiest and most inaccessible land in the country, where one acre out of forty might be flat enough to grow weed on. What are they thinking?

Even if Trump keeps the black market rolling along for another four years, I don’t see how people who buy-in at today’s land prices, expect to make that kind of bread growing weed at today’s cannabis prices. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they expect to grow weed for a while to pay their note, but then flip the land, at a profit, to some silicon valley billionaire looking for a survivalist bug-out. One Manhattan Beach investor told me that was his plan, anyway, but things didn’t work out like that for him.

Who is crazier, the tech billionaire who spends millions to buy remote forest land, in case of a breakdown in law and order, which would, effectively, nullify his title, or the speculator who pays a premium for forest land, because they could get a permit to grow pot on it, even though they don’t grow pot, just so they could let some tenant sharecropper trash it, until that paranoid tycoon with no common sense comes along? How do people this crazy end up with so much money? Why do they seem bent on using it to ruin my neighborhood, even though they don’t like it here, and haven’t a chance in hell of turning a profit? How much money do people have to lose before they realize what a stupid, outdated fantasy it was to come to Humboldt County to grow cannabis?

Humboldt County is not a brand; Humboldt County is remote, wild, unpredictable and dangerous, and not at all a safe investment. Maybe people will learn their lesson. Certainly the landslides, flooding, falling trees and road damage should help teach that lesson, but some people never learn. I guess we’ll see what happens around here in a few weeks.

The County’s New Public Defender

Thadeus Greenson wrote a good piece in last week’s North Coast Journal about the skewed panel assembled to vet candidates hoping to replace Kevin Robinson, who retired recently, as County Public Defender. The panel consisted of the County’s three top law enforcement officers: District Attorney Maggie Flemming, Under-Sheriff, soon to be Acting Sheriff, William Honsel and Probation Chief, Bill Damiano, as well as two other county bureaucrats. Law enforcement officers clearly dominated the panel. Notably absent from the panel: retired Public Defender Kevin Robinson, or anyone with experience as a defense attorney.

Letting law enforcement officers choose the Public Defender is like letting a boxer decide who he wants to fight for the big-money title fight. Who would you rather fight, Mike Tyson, or Michael Moore?

The Public Defender is a sworn enemy of law enforcement. A good Public Defender knocks down a DA’s conviction rate. Maggie Flemming campaigned on her conviction rate, and will likely have to do so again.

A good Public Defender exposes lying cops, police corruption and abuse. Here’s an example of how a good defense attorney keeps cops honest. Recently, a murder suspect in a SoHum shooting, hired himself a pretty good lawyer. The lawyer discovered a discrepancy in the Sheriff’s Deputy’s report. Apparently the Deputy, Deputy Swithenbank, confiscated some pills from the suspect. The Deputy made no mention of the pills in his report, nor did he turn them in as evidence. Instead, the pills ended up in Deputy Swithenbank’s private locker.

Whether or not his client is guilty, this attorney’s good work uncovered a problem within our Sheriff’s department that we deserve to know about. It is the Public Defender’s job to make law enforcement look bad, so of course, law enforcement wants the weakest possible Public Defender, which is why they were the wrong people to recommend one.

Several people have now come forward to question, or outright condemn this whole process of allowing County law enforcement to pick the new Public Defender. To placate this controversy, 2^nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell pointed out that, she, along with the rest of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, not the skewed panel, made the decision to hire the guy with the sketchy resume, who’s little experience in the field seems clouded by poor judgment and laziness. At least that’s the impression I get of our new Public Defender, David Marcus, from the dirt Thadeus Greenson was able to dig up on him.

The fact that the Board of Supervisors made the decision to hire Marcus does not make me, nor should it make you, feel any better about it. Clearly, the Board of Supervisors wants a weak Public Defender. The Board of Supervisors have demonstrated their contempt for justice, civil rights and human rights again and again. They’ve concocted new, unconstitutional, laws to criminalize poverty, and outlaw sleep, and they’ve made harassing the poor and homeless a top priority.

Our current Board of Supervisors works for the greedy cadre of drug dealers and real estate moguls who financed their campaigns. Those people don’t care about justice either. They don’t even care about reality. All they care about is money, and in their world, looking poor is crime enough. These puppet-masters want the County to focus on projecting that appearance of bland, harmonious prosperity that investors find so appealing, and they don’t really care if cops rape homeless women or if the DA railroads innocent defendants just to enhance her statistics.

This decision is just the latest attack on the civil and human rights of Humboldt County’s most vulnerable. We must assume that the Board of Supervisors went looking for a weak Public Defender, since the Board of Supes passed over two experienced, well-qualified candidates from within our current Public Defender’s office, and instead opted for an undistinguished, out-of-state candidate with very little experience. This decision will likely demoralize the Public Defender’s office.

Becoming a Public Defender is probably the most noble thing an attorney can do with his education. The workload is overwhelming and the pay is low, by attorney’s standards. The people who choose to make their career in the Public Defender’s office, do it because they believe, passionately, in justice for all. The injustice of this decision will not be lost on them. It would not surprise me if many of the excellent defense attorneys now working in our Public Defender’s office, decided to look for other avenues to further their careers.

The Public Defender is the poor defendant’s only advocate against the entire law enforcement bureaucracy. A good Public Defender keeps cops honest and makes the DA do their job. A weak Public Defender denies justice to the whole community because they let cops cut corners, and let the DA railroad innocent poor people to pump up their stats. A weak Public Defender weakens civil rights and undermines public trust.

Once again, by intentionally choosing a weak Public Defender, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors has demonstrated the contempt for justice, human rights and civil rights that has darkened this County’s history for so long.

You Call This an “Emergency”

It’s been a little bit rainy lately. I almost forgot what a rainy winter can be like around here. Twice already, the county has declared an emergency and made special funds available to keep the roads open. What’s the big deal? It’s just a little rain. I know people are upset because their road is out and they can’t drive to town without hitting a bunch of potholes. Sure, the rain caused some property damage. So what? Was anybody killed?

We have been asking the Board of Supervisors to declare a shelter emergency in Humboldt County for years, because people are dying out there. The lack of affordable housing is destroying lives, traumatizing children, and killing people in our community. Every day, people, our neighbors, endure impossible conditions, suffer tremendous hardship, and every year the death toll rises, because the Board of Supervisors refuses to admit that we have a shelter crisis.

If you think this Winter was rough on your road, imagine what it must be like in a tent, or under a bridge, or huddled in a doorway. Imagine having your tent slashed, and your medications stolen by vigilantes, knowing that if you report it to the police you’ll probably go to jail. Imagine trying to raise children, in a car, through these storms, while you work a full time job. Too many people in Humboldt County face those realities, and worse. How bad does it have to get?

The Board of Supervisors just turns a blind eye. Life is cheap in Humboldt County and only landowners lives matter, to them, at least. Landlords love the situation. They don’t even have to maintain their rental properties anymore. Around here, landlords expect new tenants to clean up after the old ones, before they move in, maintain all of the amenities, for the duration, and renters know that a single complaint will likely result in eviction. Landlords laugh all the way to the bank, meanwhile the Board of Supervisors concocts new laws to criminalize the people who have been squeezed-out of their homes, for just trying to survive. It’s a fucking crime.

 

This past Superbowl Sunday I attended a meeting of the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission at the Redwood Playhouse in Garberville. Instead of seeing Lady Gaga’s breathtaking leap from the Superdome, I watched Byrd Lochte scribble down all of our concerns in multi-colored magic marker on a big pad of paper, and instead of the Tom Brady’s thrilling, come from behind, victory, I heard one of Southern Humboldt’s houseless individuals, Okra P Dingle, explain, articulately, in very polite and civil terms, how difficult it is for working people to survive around here, and why it is so important to declare a housing crisis, right now.

Okra wasn’t the only person to speak, but he sure gave them an earful. Everything the Human Rights Commission heard that night related to the lack of housing. Concerns included: untrained vigilante groups who illegally evict people from private and public property, with the Sheriff’s blessing, property damage and theft by vigilantes during those evictions, violent crimes against homeless people on the streets of Garberville, and harassment, by merchants and law-enforcement, of people perceived as “homeless.”

People told their stories about how many months, or years, they lived in their car, or camped-out, while working a local job and hunting for a place to rent, before they ever found a place to look at. People also talked about how they got pushed into the marijuana industry, because pot jobs often include a place to live, and how much more vulnerable workers are, when their boss is also their landlord, and everything is “under-the-table.” I, of course, brought up the impact of the War on Drugs on our local housing situation, and how much of our residential housing has been taken over by marijuana growers, who displace honest working people from the available housing.

The HRC Commissioners themselves were cordial and welcoming. They brought cookies and coffee, but they reminded us, repeatedly, that they have no authority. They can take down our concerns, relay them to the Board of Supervisors, and make recommendations, but they cannot compel anyone to do anything. In fact, the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission has already recommended that the County declare a shelter crisis, but the Board of Supervisors declined to take action.

When asked, on a recent radio interview, about the number of vacancies on the Human Rights Commission, and why they have no budget, 2^nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell pointed out that at least we have a human rights commission. A lot of counties don’t. I think it’s important to remind her, and ourselves, that the reason we have a Human Rights Commission is that we have a long, rich, history, and culture, of human rights abuse here in Humboldt County. We did genocide here. Big time. Not that long ago.

No one was held accountable. The people who committed those atrocities remained pillars of the community. They raised families and passed those beliefs and attitudes on to their progeny. Those attitudes and ideas continue to poison our culture to this day, and we can see those attitudes reflected in our current Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, and in prevailing attitudes towards the poor.

We have a Human Rights Commission to make recommendations about how decent human beings should treat each other, because, and only because, we have demonstrated, violently, repeatedly, and dramatically, a distinct lack of respect for human rights, as a community. We don’t respect human rights here in Humboldt County. We take advantage of people, push them around, and take whatever we want from them, because, who is going to stop us?

That’s just the kind of people we are. We don’t really even understand the concept of human rights, let alone know how to respect them. That’s why we have a Human Rights Commission, and why anyone who does respect human rights, should insist that the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors heed the recommendations of the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission, and declare a shelter emergency in Humboldt County, now.

Casualties of the Greenrush in Humboldt County

Cannabis prohibition is a ripoff, disguised as a scam, concealed within a hoax, and the people who go into the black market tend towards the sneaky, scammy, and opportunistic. I don’t really have much sympathy for the johnny-come-lately greenrushers, who pay premium prices for ramshackle dumps so they can grow weed in Humboldt County, while so many of the people who live and work here, go homeless. Still, I can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for them when I see how much the dope yuppies take advantage of them.

My neighbor recently rented out her backwoods homestead to a greenrusher from NJ that she found on Craigslist. It took her nearly two years to find someone desperate and foolish enough to pay the ridiculous sum she was asking. She had friends who were homeless, mind you, and lots of people around here need a place to live, but no one who could afford what she was asking, would ever live in such filth, and no one who would tolerate the conditions, could afford what she was asking. Eventually, Craigslist brought her a live one, and he signed a lease with her.

 

The first time he asked me for help, he needed a jump-start, because he left his lights on. What are neighbors for? I helped him out a few times, and was friendly about it. We live pretty far out in the sticks and I do my best to cultivate good relations with our neighbors. Around here, you never know when you’ll need them, so I got to know my new neighbor a bit.

He is about the same age as me, and hanging out with him felt like hanging out with friends in college. We’d puff fat joints while we talked about music, old TV shows and marijuana. He was obsessed with marijuana. He watched a lot of TV too, but he was obsessed with marijuana. He told me how much he was paying in rent. I’m sure it added up to more than my previous neighbor ever made off her crop in her best year. “Am I an idiot?” he asked me.

“Can you make it work?” I asked, in an attempt to politely avoid blunt honesty.

“Yeah, I think so.” he replied. As it turned out, he was wrong.

He had never grown anything before, let alone cannabis, and his ineptness at gardening was only exceeded by his ineptness at business. I’ve never seen anyone spend more money on grow supplies than he did. For awhile, he had a crush on one of the girls who worked at Dazey’s Garden Supply and I think he bought a lot of stuff just to impress her. His mother paid all of his bills, and sent him credit cards, so it was no skin off of his nose.

 

Still, he didn’t need six seedling heater mats or eight T-5 fluorescent lighting fixtures or five generators to run them all. He hated being out in the sun, and couldn’t take the heat. When he installed an air conditioner, I knew I knew he wouldn’t last. I also knew that we would get no peace until he moved. His generators ran constantly for the duration of his three year stay.

He hated to work too. I can’t say I blame him for that, but he brought in a partner to do the grunt work, that I really didn’t like. While hanging out with my new neighbor was like talking to friends in college, being around this other guy was like Jr. High. I found him crude, obnoxious and insufferable. Fortunately, he wasn’t there that often. He lived on the East Coast, and commuted to Humboldt County. He must have flown back and forth across country at least a half a dozen times over the course of the growing season, which means the pot they grew together, here in Humboldt, under the sun, has a bigger carbon footprint than any indoor pot you’re likely to find anywhere.

Together, they may have grown the most expensive marijuana ever produced in Humboldt County. They couldn’t have made money on it. In fact, they must not have made money on it, because now they are both gone. Humboldt County turned out to be an expensive mistake for both of them, but that wasn’t enough.

Their little adventure in SoHum also took out two younger guys, who diligently trimmed weed for my new neighbor. These trimmers took their pay in product, in hopes of selling it for more money, out-of-state. After leaving here, the two set out across country, by car, but didn’t even make it to Reno. A Nevada State Trooper pulled them over for tailgating a semi, smelled weed, searched the vehicle, found fifteen pounds of weed and arrested them both.

These four guys all lost their shirts in the greenrush, on just this one property in SoHum. This must happen all over Humboldt County. I’m sure that not all of the greenrushers are as dumb as these guys, but I’ll bet they’re not that far from average. The NCJ just reported, this week, that the wholesale price of cannabis continues to fall. Can the “green-flight” be far behind?

None of these guys really wanted to live here. None of them cared about the forest. They all came here with dollar signs in their eyes and greed in their hearts, lured by the sweet scent of California sinsemilla, and the prospects of making a quick buck. When all was said and done, their whole endeavor turned out to be a complete waste of time, money, energy and resources. They would have made more money working in a fast-food restaurant. They would have all done better, at almost anything else, almost anywhere else.

The only winner here is my former neighbor, now enjoying her retirement in Mexico. Almost none of the money earned off of her land, since she moved, stayed in Humboldt County, but all of the mess did. My neighbor left 30 years of garbage when she moved, and these guys just added to it. Together they turned a beautiful forest into a complete dump, for no good reason. Really, if you’re thinking of coming to Humboldt County to grow weed. Save yourself a lot of trouble. Don’t.