More Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment From Estelle Fennell

A few weeks ago I attended the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting to voice my opposition to Estelle Fennell’s latest proposal to criminalize Humboldt County’s impoverished underclass. She wanted County Council to explore the feasibility of imposing a countywide overnight parking ban. This is just Estelle’s latest cruel attempt to criminalize human need. First, she pushed through an ordinance to prohibit people from asking for help. Then she made it illegal to sleep outside. Now she wants to make it illegal to park overnight anywhere in the county.

Not that long ago, at Shop Smart in Redway, around 11pm, on our way home from somewhere, a woman stopped us to ask our advice. She had just driven all day with her six-year-old son to get to Redway. In the morning, she planned to attend an event at the Heartwood Institute. She’d been to Heartwood before, but it had been some time ago, and she didn’t feel confident about driving the remaining thirty miles or so of steep, narrow, twisted, poorly maintained, roads at night, in the rain. She asked us if we knew of a safe place she could park her mini-van overnight, so that she and her son could get a few hours of sleep before they drove the rest of the way in the morning.

We understood her situation completely. We’ve been to Heartwood, once. I wouldn’t try to drive those roads, at night, in the rain, if I could possibly avoid it. Hell, I wouldn’t try to drive to my place in the dark and rain if I didn’t know the way so well. I also wouldn’t drop thirty dollars on a campsite just so we could turn the engine off, climb in the back and get a few hours sleep before we drove the rest of the way in the morning. If we made $106,000+ a year, like Estelle Fennell, and had political motivation to patronize local businesses, we’d probably get a hotel room, but we survive because we don’t blow money on shit we don’t want or need, and we sure don’t need to be woken up and given a ticket.

We didn’t have a good answer for this poor woman and her son. We warned her that Locals on Patrol had a reputation for harassing people who try to sleep in their vehicles, and that a Sheriff’s Deputy or CHP officer might pay them a visit as well. We discussed the general lay of the land, and wished her luck. It was the best we could do for her.

At the Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Fennell showed pictures of the terrible fire that burned the Presbyterian Church in Garberville about a month ago. A fire in an RV parked next to the church, spread, and burned a portion of the church before being extinguished by firefighters. Estelle complained that the RV had been parked there for an extended period of time, and proposed that if we just ban overnight parking all over the county, we can prevent fires in campers from spreading to churches in the future.

Estelle also reminded us of one of her first ordinances that made life harder for people in Southern Humboldt, the one that banned overnight parking on the Sprowell Creek Rd. Overpass Bridge. That overpass was an ideal location for people who needed to get off the road for a little shut-eye. It has easy access to the highway, and all of the gas stations in Garberville, but it’s quiet, has very little traffic, and minimal impact on residential neighborhoods. Almost all of the RVs in town used to park there. If Estelle Fennell hadn’t pressed for that overnight parking ban on the Sprowell Creek Overpass Bridge years ago, the camper that caught fire probably would have been safely parked on that bridge, far from any structures. The Presbyterian Church would still be intact, and firefighters would have had a much easier fire to fight.

Further, the fire that started in the camper may well have been an act of arson. We have had a rash of such attacks recently. Arsonists in SoHum have torched numerous vehicles, including many campers and Rvs, on county roads in the last several years. You can still see the remains of a recently torched RV on Briceland Rd west of Redway. In February of 2015 Ron Machado and his belongings were set on fire in broad daylight in downtown Garberville. Additionally, Weston Coen, Joe Turner, and James Wallace, among others were all severely beaten on the streets of Garberville, in a wave of violence against the poor and homeless, and no one has been held accountable in any of these crimes. If Supervisor Fennell had done anything at all about the wave of vigilante violence and arson in Southern Humboldt, not only could she have saved lives, she might have saved the Garberville Presbyterian Church too.

Not only that, but if Estelle Fennell, and the rest of our Board of Supervisors had just listened to the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission, last Summer, when the Human Right Commission advised the Board of Supervisors to declare a shelter crisis in Humboldt County, most of the violence we’ve seen in Southern Humboldt, recently, could have been prevented. The HRC looked extensively at the facts on the ground, and determined that Humboldt County faces a real shelter crisis, and advised the Board of Supervisors to declare it.

Declaring a shelter crisis would make some public land available for camping and emergency housing, and relax certain housing regulations to make more structures available for habitation. Declaring a shelter crisis could have relieved a lot of pressure on downtown Garberville, and prevented numerous assaults on homeless people. Declaring a shelter crisis could have gotten all of the campers off of Garberville’s residential side streets, and onto a designated lot, preventing the fire at the Presbyterian Church, and declaring a shelter crisis would have saved people’s lives. Instead, because the Board of Supervisors ignored the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission, several people are dead, others were violently assaulted, many more lost their homes, and the Garberville Presbyterian Church burned.

Time was, the Federal prohibition on marijuana was the only law you needed to bust poor people, and push them around. Now that marijuana is legal, Estelle Fennell has risen to the occasion with a whole slew of new laws designed to keep cops busy harassing people who are just trying to survive, instead of investigating real crimes, like the ones her supporters commit. The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors has a responsibility to protect and serve the inadequately housed residents of Humboldt County, as well as the well-housed, and we have enough stupid laws already, more than we have resources to enforce.

I remember when Estelle campaigned against her predecessor, Cliff Clendennon, who had just voted in favor of an unpopular resolution to prohibit camping around the courthouse, because of the “Occupy” protests going on there at the time. Estelle said that she didn’t think she would support a law that limited people’s rights that much. Instead, once elected, she passed laws that violate people’s rights all over the county. These draconian new ordinances Estelle and her colleagues have dreamed up are exactly the kinds of laws that the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva condemns the US for, calling them “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” That’s what I call them too, and we’ve had more than enough of them from Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell, already.

 

Estelle Fennell Eliminates “Friction” at the HRC

Last week, I chased down 2^nd District Supervisor, Estelle Fennell to find out why she removed Chris Weston from the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission. Having been to a few HRC meetings, it was clear to me that Chris Weston actually cares about human rights. Most of the HRC commissioners seemed surprisingly indifferent to me. I mean, we have lots of “rights” fanatics around here, at least when it comes to property rights, the 2^nd Amendment, and privacy protection, but the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission has got to be the most tepid organization designed for the purpose of promoting human rights, ever, in the whole history of the civil rights movement. I doubt that butter would melt in half of the commissioners mouths.

Estelle told me, emphatically, that HRC Commissioners serve at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors, so you can bet that we have a weak Human Rights Commission, because that’s what the Board of Supervisors wants. Chris Weston came to the special meeting of the HRC in Garberville, to hear about human rights abuses in Southern Humboldt, from the people who suffer them. Estelle Fennell couldn’t be bothered. Chris Weston wanted human rights issues agendized and acted upon by the HRC. Estelle, apparently, didn’t. Therefore, Chris Weston had to be removed.

Just look at Estelle Fennell’s atrocious record on human rights: She worked to pass two new laws to criminalize poverty, one prohibiting people from asking for help, and the other prohibiting sleep, laws which fly in the face of the most basic of human rights. She supported Measure Z, which shifts the burden of taxation away from land-owners, who reap most of the benefits of county government, and onto the working poor and homeless, who can afford it the least, and to whom the county offers little more than evictions and jail time. Most recently, her decision to hire a poorly qualified new Public Defender with a weak record, a decision which demoralized the County’s well-respected Public Defender’s office, will only make it less likely that the County will respect the rights of indigent defendants. Considering her record, putting a commissioner on the HRC who actually cares about human rights would be out of character, so we shouldn’t be surprised that Estelle Fennell rescinded Chris Weston’s appointment.

I asked Estelle Fennell, directly, why she removed Chris Weston from the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission. She didn’t want to tell me. She told me that Chris knew why she removed him, and that I should ask him, so I did. I invited Chris Weston to appear as a guest on my radio show, the Memorial Day (May 29) edition of KMUD’s Monday Morning Magazine. On my show, Chris told us that the reason Estelle gave Chris for why she removed him, was that he created “friction” within the HRC.

“Friction!” We’ve got teenage kids beating homeless old men with baseball bats in Southern Humboldt, and she’s worried about “friction” within the HRC. A man was set on fire in Garberville, but she’s worried about “friction” on the HRC. As Chris Weston said on the air, “Human rights don’t get defended without some friction.” and “if it weren’t for ‘some friction’ blacks would still be slaves, and women would still be the property of men.”

I think it will take “some friction” to address our continuing problem with violence against the poor and homeless in Southern Humboldt. We have a serious human rights problem in Southern Humboldt, and ignoring it won’t make it go away. If Ron Machado were gay, the incident where he was set on fire would be national news, and the perpetrators would face federal Hate Crime charges, but because he was poor, white and heterosexual, in Humboldt County, he’s just good kindling. That’s a cultural problem and it’s a cultural problem caused, not by poor and homeless people, but by the people with six-figure incomes around here, like Estelle Fennell.

We call it a “community” here in Southern Humboldt, but what goes on here is more like a casino. As long as you have money, we don’t care who you are, or where you got it; you’re welcome to stay and play. If you don’t have money, on the other hand, you’d better scram, even if you were born and raised here, even if you have a job and work here, even if you think you are part of the community here. To the rich people around here, like Estelle Fennell, you’re not a contributing member of the community, you’re just a loser, and you are taking up valuable real-estate, so move on. That’s how a casino operates, but you can’t build a community that way.

We don’t make “community” a priority, here in Humboldt County, we make money our sole priority, and ignore the social, cultural and human consequences of that decision. Our current Board of Supervisors has created an atmosphere conducive to gamblers, that lures shady business-people, and outright criminals into our community to loot us of our quality of life, ruin the environment, and exploit us economically, while it sweeps the social problems their policies create for our community, under the rug, or out the door.

They ignore the housing crisis. They ignore the addiction problem. They ignore the dead bodies. They ignore the violence against the poor and homeless. They ignore the sex trafficking, and they ignore the people in our community who are suffering. All they see is money. Everything else, they just brush off, throw away, or pretend it doesn’t exist. Of course, they can get away with that now, because there’s so much money around, but when this casino stops paying, the high- rollers will be gone, along with the money. All that will be left is the wreckage, and the losers. That is, the environment and the community.

It’s happening already. The smart money is getting out while the getting is good, leaving the suckers to lose their shirts on the downhill slide. Meanwhile, large scale organized crime has become entrenched in the area, institutionalizing hard drugs, sex trafficking and other crimes in Humboldt County while honest working people live in their cars or sleep under bridges because drug dealers have taken over most of the available space. That’s what’s happening to our community, and to our home, here in Humboldt County, thanks to our current Board of Supervisors.

The housing crisis here is literally killing people in Humboldt County, and Housing First won’t begin to address it. Our whole economy is based on dealing drugs, but we have almost no treatment for addiction, and we die from drug use at ten times the state average here in Humboldt County. The housing crisis forces people into the drug economy, and the drug economy drives addiction. Addiction leads to poverty, crime, hopelessness, and death. This is no accident. This is being done to us intentionally. This is how greedy parasites suck the life out of a community, and our current Board of Supervisors invited them here to do it. Now that Estelle Fennell has eliminated the “friction” at the HRC, I guess it will just be smooth sailin’ from here.

The Black Hole We Call “The Humboldt County Human Rights Commission”

I spoke to Humboldt County Human Rights Commission Chairman Jim Glover twice this past week. I called him last Friday to invite him to be a guest on my radio show, Monday Morning Magazine, airing Monday, May 29 from 7-9am on KMUD, Redwood Community Radio (streaming live, and archived, at http://www.kmud.org ). I called because I wanted Jim to talk about the work that the HRC does on behalf of the Board of Supervisors. Having been to a couple of their meetings, I’ve gotten a sense of how the HRC operates, and in one sense, I think they do a great job, for the Board of Supervisors.

On the other hand, I don’t think the HRC does a very good job at all for the people of Humboldt County, and they do a tragic disservice to people who have been victims of human rights abuse. I became aware of the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission after a wave of vigilante violence swept Southern Humboldt last Fall. We had several mysterious deaths. One man was beaten so severely that he spent weeks in the hospital. He will probably never recover completely. Several others were assaulted, robbed and terrorized by vigilantes who, victims allege, identified themselves as “working with” the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, and handed out eviction notices bearing the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department logo.

Multiple victims came forward with physical evidence, corroborating stories, and names of perpetrators, but deputies in the Garberville Substation of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department refused to take a report from at least one of the victims. Because the perpetrators identified themselves as working with the Sheriff’s Department, and the Sheriff was not at all helpful to the victims, the victims, terrified of reprisal from both local vigilantes and law enforcement, turned instead to the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission.

In retrospect, you would have to say that reporting these crimes to the HRC was a waste of time, at best. “At best,” because these reports did not get shared with the commission for several months, but were almost immediately leaked to 2nd District Supervisor, Estelle Fennell, a clear violation of the confidentiality agreement in which these reports were filed. Nezzie Wade chaired the HRC at the time. She was so shocked and appalled that the HRC’s own rules on handling correspondences had been completely disregarded and that a severe breach of confidence had occurred, that she refused to participate in the HRC any further, and walked out in the middle of the meeting.

In her resignation letter, Nezzie Wade puts it like this, “At the November regular meeting I stated my intention to resign from the commission and left the meeting experiencing great frustration due to the continuing improper conduct of business. I have struggled with my frustration and participation on the commission over this lack of consistency and follow through with protocols, since my appointment to the commission.”

She sites the handling of these reports of vigilante violence in Southern Humboldt specifically: “It was in relationship to the message line calls and email communications retrieved by a commissioner acting as the courier for the commission, that I became extremely inflamed over the course of two consecutive meetings (October and November) in which the reports and communications sent to the commission describing instances of vigilante violence in Southern Humboldt reported to the commission via the phone line and email were not revealed to the commission in a way that allowed the grave situations described in these communications to be disclosed to the commission. A violation of privacy and confidentiality occurred when the commissioner acted upon the information in the communications without authority from the originators or the commission, by disclosing the names of complainants and their issues to parties outside of the commission thus compromising the investigation and the ethical standing of the commission in the community.”

She added, “A real travesty occurred when the actual situations of violence were minimized and reported in their entirety as ‘possible vigilante activity’ rather than actual occurrences with the documentation. The standard forms for intake on the message line were never submitted to the secretary nor email declarations of the victims of vigilante violence as clarified when I requested copies of them from the secretary, received no response prior to the November meeting, and was informed by the secretary that the commission did not have them; thus, no one had access to the information except the commissioner acting as courier at that point, nearly two months beyond the initial reports. It was in this context that I stated my intention to resign which I am now acting upon.”

“All of the above highlights the ongoing lack of following appropriate protocols and my great frustration with the Human Rights Commission. One need only review the meetings, comparing the agendas for each meeting with the post meeting minutes. There are many inconsistencies, and the motions are not recorded or business is conducted without following the required processes. Much is omitted. The commission clearly needs training in how to do business. In addition, the lack of term limits has resulted in an atmosphere in which groupthink is pervasive and new members of the commission are often led into following poor methods of handling commission business;for example, the way in which message line calls are taken in, responded to and reported upon.”

Accompanying her letter of resignation, Nezzie Wade submitted a list of changes to the HRC that she’d like to see implemented. In it, she gets to the heart of why most people think the HRC helps victims of abuse, when in reality, they mostly produce resolution copy for the Board of Supervisors. She begins by quoting the purpose, responsibilities and obligations of the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission, as they appear in the Humboldt County Code:

The purpose of the HRC is to promote tolerance and mutual respect between all persons, and to
promote positive human relationships for the purpose of insuring public peace, health, safety and the
general welfare (Ord. 1023, § 5, 4/22/75; Amended by Ord. No. 2294. 2/25/03)

The responsibilities of the Human Rights Commission are enumerated in Humboldt County Code
Section 228-6 (Ordinances 1023 and 2294) and Article VI of the HRC Bylaws
1. To foster mutual respect and understanding among people, including people subject to prejudice
and discrimination due to race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental
disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, civic interest, or any
other factors.
2. To make any studies in any field of human relationships in the County as, in the judgment of the
Commission, will aid in effectuating its general purposes.
3. To inquire into incidents of tension and conflict among or between people, including people
subject to prejudice and discrimination due to race, religious creed, color, national origin,
ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation,
socioeconomic status, civic interest, or any other factors, and to take action by means of
conciliation, conference and persuasion to alleviate such tensions and conflict.
4. To conduct and recommend any educational programs as, in the judgment of the Commission,
will increase good will among inhabitants of the County and open new opportunities into all
phases of community life for all inhabitants.

The Human Rights Commission shall discharge the following obligations as enumerated in Humboldt
County Code Section 228-7 (Ordinances 1023 and 2294) and Article VII of the HRC Bylaws.
1. To hold conferences and other public meetings in the interest of the constructive resolution of
tensions, prejudice, and discrimination among or between groups of people, including people
subject to prejudice and discrimination due to race, religious creed, color, national origin,
ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation,
socioeconomic status, civic interest, or any other factors.
2.To issue any publications, recommendations and reports of investigation as in its judgment will
tend to effectuate the purposes of this chapter.
3. To enlist the cooperation and participation of a variety of people, including people subject to
prejudice and discrimination due to race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry,
physical disability, mental disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic
status, civic interest, or any other factors, industry and labor organizations, media or mass
communication, fraternal and benevolent associations, and other groups in an educational
campaign devoted to fostering among the diverse groups of the County mutual esteem, justice
and equity.
4. To encourage and stimulate agencies under the jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors to take
any action as will fulfill the purpose of Humboldt County Code Section 228-6 (Ordinances 1023
and 2294.)
5. To submit an annual report to the Board of Supervisors.

As anyone who reads the Humboldt County Code can see, the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission has a lot of responsibilities and obligations to the people of Humboldt County, even though they only serve an advisory role to the Board of Supervisors, and have no budget. From watching them in action, I can see that they take their role as advisers to the Board of Supervisors very seriously. Conversely, I also see that they fail miserably in their obligations and responsibilities to the people of Humboldt County. Nezzie Wade put it this way:

“While the statement of purpose focuses on the Commission as an organization to promote tolerance and mutual respect between all persons, and to promote positive human relationships for the purpose of
insuring public peace, health, safety and the general welfare, as a human rights organization the HRC
has been unable to truly effect a positive outcome in this regard because it has been absorbed
essentially with promoting ‘nice’ relationships with the BOS and others by keeping any conflicts at a
minimum and marginalized, thus not allowing for the expression of the discord within our community
as presented to the Commission in various ways, highlighted recently by the inappropriate handling of
communications received from members of the Southern Humboldt community regarding several
incidents of vigilante violence towards the homeless, which in no way has served to create an
atmosphere of mutual respect or public peace, safety and the general welfare.”

Basically, we had a series of violent crimes, with victims, evidence and witnesses to back them up, that implicate individuals within the Sheriff’s Department and respected community members, but rather than being investigated by law enforcement and prosecuted by the DA, these cases have been sucked into the black hole we call “the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission,” never to be heard from again, except in leaks back to the perpetrators. These crimes remain uninvestigated, and the perpetrators walk among us today.

Fast-forward to April 25 2017, Chris Weston, a recently appointed HRC Commissioner, called County Council’s office to inquire as to whether a particular email, sent from HRC Chair Jim Glover, to other HRC Commissioners only, was compatible with the Brown Act. Like Nezzie, Chris Weston had become frustrated with the obstructionism, unprofessionalism and lack of protocol on the HRC, and with Chairman Jim Glover in particular. On April 24, Weston talked with Glover about the email in question, and encouraged Glover to report the incident himself, but received no response. So, Commissioner Chris Weston felt obligated to report the email, which he said: “appears to intentionally hide a ‘back room deal’ among HRC members absent public knowledge,” to County Council.

Within two hours of placing that call to County Council’s office, Chris received this text message from Estelle Fennell: “effective today’s date April 25 2017 your participation on the commission is no longer required and I am rescinding your appointment.” Chris Weston was removed from the HRC by Estelle Fennell, less than two hours after reporting a probable Brown Act violation to County Council. It looks suspicious.

Here’s how Chris described it in his letter to District Attorney Maggie Flemming, dated April 28th: “If a commissioner is fired without prior discussion of any concerns or opportunity to rectify any shortcomings, it can easily be construed as unfair and inconsistent with the most rudimentary standards of free speech (First Amendment) due process (Fifth Amendment), powers (Ninth Amendment), Rights (Tenth Amendment) and Equal Protection Under the Law (Fourteenth Amendment) enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. If a commissioner appears to have been fired for inquiring about consistency of certain actions with the Brown Act, it sends a powerful message to all commissioners and society in general that the Brown Act is not seriously the law and flouting the Brown Act is allowed and protected by the powers that be in Humboldt County.”

It just gets darker, and deeper. HRC Chairman Jim Glover called me back on Monday, to decline my invitation to be a guest on the radio show, saying “It wouldn’t be proper” as though he were declining the interview on principle. I called him on it, citing the statement he made to the Times-Standard, asking why KMUD listeners don’t deserve the same consideration. He asked me who else would be on the show. I told him, that Chris Weston, Nezzie Wade and Debra Carey, would also be on the air live with him. At that, Jim Glover resolutely declined my invitation.

I have invited 2nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell to join us live on the air for this discussion as well. Estelle is a regular, if somewhat erratic guest on Monday Morning Magazine, and I do hope she will join us. After all, these violent crimes happened in her district and she appointed Chris Weston to the HRC to begin with. I’d think she’d be very interested in this, and I know that she could answer some important questions. I hope you’ll join us for an hour long discussion of , from 8-9am Monday, May 29, live on Redwood Community Radio, KMUD.