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Local News 01 19 26 · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:05
  Speaker B: Good evening and welcome to the local news. Today is Monday, January 19th. I'm Gabriel Zucker reporting for KMUD. In tonight's news, small town protesters join in on nationwide anti ICE protests in Garberville. Several acres of cannabis approved on eastern Humboldt parcel. Mendocino county extends deadline for LCP survey due to a strong community response. Stay tuned. Those stories and more. Coming up.
• 0:37
  Speaker C: Redwood Community Radio acknowledges that its transmitter sites are located on the unceded territory of the Sinkion, Wailaki, Wiat, Wilkot and Kato people. We honor ancestors past, present and emerging and acknowledge the ongoing cultural, spiritual and physical connection that these tribes have to this region.
• 0:58
  Speaker B: As discontent grows over recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, protesters make their voices heard in the small rural town of Garberville. Julian Jackson reports.
• 1:09
  Speaker D: As thousands of anti ICE protests erupted around America last Saturday, much local attention has been put on the large gatherings in Arcata and Eureka. The anti ICE protests were not limited to big cities either, though. In KMUD's particularly rural broadcast area, several small towns including Laytonville and Garberville took to the streets to have their voices heard, often not accounted for in the estimates of the growing number of nationwide protests. KMUD News went to the one in Garberville to speak with some of the 80 plus demonstrators, equivalent to about 10% of the town's 818 person population as registered in the 2020 census. One participant, Jesse Modic, shared about helping lead a focal point of the protest an hour of protest songs ranging from Solidarity Forever to an original parody about the infamous Portland protester in an inflatable frog costume.
• 2:16
  Speaker A: My name is Jessie and I've lived here for like 52 years, growing together. Organized the protest. Yeah, in the when it's good weather, we come out every Friday from 12 to 1. I mean, I think it's still started in about March. People started protesting here and I started bringing music to it in April and we started singing songs to make the time go by easier. And then it was like, we need to have words to these songs because we didn't know all these songs. So I started adding new songs every time. And now we have a band. Anyone can come and play today. We had bass and two guitars and a mandolin. No, we had bass and three guitars and a mandolin. Sometimes we have drums. It's just a really great way to protest, to stand out here and sing instead of just, you know, standing with signs. I've played music in different venues around here, sung with different people for years. A lot of these people are coming out and singing with us in the protest because we all don't like what's going on around here. It's really. It seems like protesting doesn't really do anything, but people can see that somebody is saying this isn't okay what's happening. This is really wrong what's happening.
• 3:33
  Speaker D: Jessie continued by explaining how as a long term activist, what she's advocated against has shifted but largely stayed the same.
• 3:43
  Speaker A: I think that all protests are really important and it's just really great to have songs in it because our songs are actually mostly from the 70s, mostly from the civil rights and Vietnam war era. But still they're good. Unfortunately, they're still relevant. I've been doing protest movements since I was a kid and it was the civil rights movement and then anti Vietnam War and then moved up here. Protests against spraying toxic chemicals, protests against US bombing Bosnia, protests against the Iraq war. There's always something to protest against. Unfortunately, there are always injustices and warmongering happening. Right now it seems worse because these ICE thugs that are grabbing people and killing them, even I don't remember that. But if I was a black person in the, you know, in the 60s or before, this would seem just the same. I'm just like shocked because I'm a white person and a white woman got killed. That is, you know, horrible. But hopefully that will open more people's eyes. So the protests have always seemed really important at the time and this one seems even more important than it ever has.
• 4:58
  Speaker D: Another activist, Kathy Hash, explained her reasoning for being there in simple terms of democracy and love, starting with the slogan on her sign.
• 5:10
  Speaker C: Let the warning ride forth once more. Tyranny is at our door and I'm out to fight for democracy.
• 5:18
  Speaker A: And yeah, love one another.
• 5:22
  Speaker C: That's the most important. Keep fighting, fighting for what is right. I think it's very important that everybody.
• 5:30
  Speaker D: Goes out and protests.
• 5:32
  Speaker C: Small towns, big towns, everybody should protest. Fight for what you think is right.
• 5:38
  Speaker D: This was certainly not the last of such protests to come either. Not only are smaller ones held every Friday at noon by the clock tower in the center of Garberville, as Jesse said, but there is a nationwide mass Free America walkout being scheduled for tomorrow, January 20th at 2pm I'm Julian Jackson reporting for KMUD News.
• 6:07
  Speaker B: Humboldt county doesn't often get permit applications for new cannabis cultivation, but a batch of cultivation permits approved by the county's planning commission includes four acres of new farming. Daniel Mintz reports.
• 6:20
  Speaker D: Humboldt County's planning commission has approved a package of cannabis cultivation permits that spanned multiple acres on a single parcel east of bridgeville. At its January 15th meeting, the Commission approved four cultivation permits totaling about five and a half acres on an 812 acre parcel accessed by Highway 36 in Larrabee Valley in eastern Humboldt. The permits were considered as an overall project and all of them consist of outdoor cultivation, 4 acres of it new, along with ancillary nurseries. Senior planner Steven Santos described the irrigation water storage and power elements of the four permits.
• 7:04
  Speaker E: We have approximately 56,000 square feet of existing outdoor commercial cannabis and four acres of new outdoor commercial cannabis. Proposed total estimated annual water is 4.6 million gallons sourced from three existing ponds and one proposed rainwater catchment pond, as well as five existing and permitted groundwater wells. All of the wells were evaluated by a geologist who determined that they're all hydrologically disconnected. The overall water storage consists of 4.3 million gallons in ponds and an additional 402,000 and gallons in existing and proposed hard tanks. Processing on site, including trimming and packaging, is proposed for the existing cultivation and processing off site at a licensed facility is proposed for the new cultivation. Power is to be provided by a combination of solar and PG&E with generators reserved for emergency backup.
• 8:06
  Speaker D: Only the four farms in the project package are approved under conditional use permits, plus an additional permit for restoration work in one of the cultivation areas. There was no public comment during the hearing and only one written comment was received. The federal Bureau of Land Management has property adjacent to a corner of the parcel and the day before the meeting submitted a letter on its concerns about proximity of cultivation to its property and to northern spotted owl habitat, potential use of BLM access easements and cannabis being illegal under federal law. But Santos said the cultivation areas are far from the BLM property boundary and owl habitat and BLM easements won't be used for access. There was some discussion about use of wells as there's concern about over pumping. Planning Director John Ford described the challenges of determining hydrology.
• 9:07
  Speaker E: One of the struggles that we've had in dealing with cannabis in general is how to begin to grapple with the fact that our groundwater sources are discontinuous, they're fragmented, they're extremely hard to map. There's only a few actual basins in the county that are acknowledged and so understand the idea of over pumping and the danger of that. But I would also offer that what we're trying to do is look and use a reasonable standard of whether or not proximity depth of well elevation of water bodies in the area would cause the ability for it to even be connected or to pull from that Source.
• 9:59
  Speaker D: Eric Sordal, the applicant for two of the permits for existing cultivation, responded to over pumping concerns, saying his wells weren't activated prior to doing a hydrology report.
• 10:12
  Speaker E: I just wanted to clarify the well issue. When we did the hydrologic studies before we were, before we were able to use those wells, we had to get that study done. So it wasn't the wells weren't pumped or over pumped. They were never used until that report was done. And exactly kind of how Mr. Ford was saying with the geology of the well drillings and the different layers that the well report said in the well report, everything like from how far the creek and geology that all goes into that report. But I just wanted to really make sure that you knew that it wasn't open and it wasn't used prior to that report being done.
• 10:57
  Speaker D: The commission unanimously approved each of the permits in Eureka for KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.
• 11:08
  Speaker B: Mendocino county has extended the deadline for its coastal recreation public survey to January 23, following a strong response from the community. The survey is part of a broader effort to update the county's local coastal program, or lcp, an important planning document that guides coastal access, access, recreation and visitor serving facilities, and one that has not been updated since 1992. To better understand what the update involves and how public input will shape the future of the coast. K MUD talked with Mark Kleiser, a senior planner for the county of Mendocino's Department of Planning and Building. He explained the history of the LCP and how Mendocino is updating their policy for the first time since 1992.
• 11:44
  Speaker E: The Coastal act was established in 1976 and it was a statewide coastal management policy and it required all cities, jurisdictions, counties to prepare a local coastal program specific to their jurisdiction that was going to implement this new Coastal Act. So that's sort of what the Coastal act is. We currently have one, but it needs to be updated. Ours was certified in 1992 by the Commission and it is time that we update it. And that is what we are currently doing.
• 12:16
  Speaker B: According to the Mendocino County's government website, the California Coastal act of 1976 requires that local government develop local coastal programs that can carry out policies of the California Coastal Act. At the local level, LCPs are land use planning documents that lay out framework for development and coastal resource protection within a city or county's coastal zone area. Coastal resources typically include wetland agriculture, cultural assets, sensitive habitats, scenic vistas, public access, fisheries, and so on. Each LCP includes a land use plan lup, which Contains policies and an implementation of plan which includes accompanying measures to implement the plan, such as zoning ordinances, zoning district maps and other implementing actions. LCP specify the appropriate kinds, location, intensity of uses of land and water in the coastal zone portion of a local government's jurisdiction, end quote. Kleiser explained the assessment Osino is taking right now to prepare for the updated LCP and why the survey is really important.
• 13:13
  Speaker E: We've got different staff that's being tasked with different sections of the LCP right now. We just finished on Monday, actually, we just finished inventorying all of our coastal access points. So we have some that are established and we have many that have, with a deed restriction for coastal development permits, a lot of property owners have established potential access on those properties. So we just finished inventorying all those. We're going to cross reference that with a list from the Coastal Commission and develop a new map that shows all these access points. And the access points are both vertical, which means to and from, like Highway 1, so you can get to the coast and then lateral access, which is up and down along the coast. The ideal would be to have a continuous trail that goes, you know, from southern Mendocino county all the way up through Northern County. We have a long way to go on that, but we're making a lot of strides for the survey itself. We really just want to get community input. So these would be to guide future planning for parks, trails, open spaces, recreational facilities up and down along the coast. And the feedback from the public helps us determine where that is needed. So for example, a lot of these coastal access points currently don't have any parking or they have very little parking. So, so we can, with the help of the public, they can identify which are the more popular points, which ones need more parking, which might need more access, more clearing of the trail. So that's what we're hoping to get from the survey.
• 14:55
  Speaker B: Kleiser explained that there are other steps being taken, including surveying for better access points, expanding parking, and even looking at long term housing along the Mendocino coast.
• 15:03
  Speaker E: We've also been given tasks specifically to look at. So one of those, of course, is access points. We're also going to be working with visitor serving facilities and that's our next survey to go out. So we'll be reaching out to hotel owners, resort owners to find out what their capacity is, can they expand capacity? We have to work on that survey yet we're going to reach out to them to provide more resort facilities for the public. We're trying to determine usage statistics and demand projections for day use and overnight visitor serving facilities. We are looking to reading up the task list here. Develop land use map designations, oh and corresponding zoning that will meet forecasted recreational demand. That includes any public agency acquisition that would help. So a lot of times with the access trail, those might be deeded from the property owner, but then we need to reach out to a public agency who will maintain that trail. So we're looking to up that. We're looking to develop deed restrictions to ensure visitor serving facilities remain visitor serving facilities. So for example, if one gets sold, it doesn't become a private entity, but it remains a hotel. We're looking to expand on parking. We're looking for alternative transportation for visitor serving facilities to cut down on traffic and just make it easier to get from point A to point B without using a car. Another interesting one is we've been tasked to provide recommendations to balance vacation home rentals and long term housing. We're hearing a lot from the visitor serving facilities there now that housing is difficult for their employees to find. So we're going to try to incorporate that into the LC somehow and come up with some. Not a policy, but just recommendations. And then another one that we haven't started yet is we're going to consider updates to the fishing village zoning designation. So that's Noyo harbor to allow for more visitor serving uses that are consistent with the needs of the fishing industry as it stands there now. So for example, currently the fishing village will only allow fishing related. What we're looking to is expand on that. So for example, if somebody has a use there where the fish come in and they can the fish on site, that that person might be allowed to also have a cafe that serves dishes based on the catch that they've got coming in. So that kind of stuff we're looking to expand on.
• 17:38
  Speaker B: The process will take multiple steps. The survey is the first of many Mendocino's Department of Planning and Building will have before the LCP is complete.
• 17:46
  Speaker E: So the process by which this is going to happen is multifold. So right now we are gathering the information. Once we have the information, we are going to update the policies and the narrative language that will reflect that information that we've gathered. We're going to provide drafted update policy narrative language to the Coastal Commission for their review so they have to approve it. We also need to go to the the board of Supervisors with these recommendations and we have to take this to the Planning Commission. So there's multiple steps that we have to go through and the public with each step will have an opportunity to offer their opinions.
• 18:25
  Speaker B: Kleiser explain the process will take over a year to complete because of the many steps that need to be taken before they are able to break ground on the project.
• 18:33
  Speaker E: It's going to be a long process once we gather all this information and we're talking. Right now I'm just paying attention to two things and that public access and visitor serving facilities. We have people that are working on sea level rise. I can't think of the others off the top of my head, but there's different elements of the LCAP that we have different teams working on. So I've been asked to address these tasks and have this information gathered and offer the updated policy and narrative language by the end of March, beginning of April. And those are just going to be those drafts. But to see all of this implemented, I'm guessing a year and a half to two years.
• 19:17
  Speaker B: He explained how anyone can participate in.
• 19:19
  Speaker E: The survey Navigate to our home site, so that's mendocinocounty.gov on the top. They go to departments and Planning and building services and they can scroll down down to Planning and Building Services and there the third bullet down says Coastal Recreation Survey. There's a link there that says gathering community input. If they click on that it will take them right to the survey. And it's a 15, 20 minute survey depending how in depth you want to get and a lot of opportunities to not only just answer multiple choice questions but offer your own recommendations as well. And so far it's been very popular. We have approximately 320 responses and we've been asked to extend it until January 23rd.
• 20:12
  Speaker B: The Coastal Recreation Public Survey will remain open through January 23rd, giving residents and visitors additional time to share feedback on coastal access, parking, trails and visitor facilities. According to Kleiser, the information gathered will help shape updated policies and recommendations that must go through the Planning Commission, Board of Supervisors and California Coastal Commission before implementation process expected to take one and a half to two years. Community members with questions are encouraged to contact Mendocino County Planning and building Services at 707-234-6650. In state news, Fight for Our Health Rally calls on lawmakers to soften Medi Cal cuts public news services Suzanne Potter.
• 20:53
  Speaker C: Reports this week, dozens of health care advocates rallied in Sacramento, asking lawmakers to find ways to shield Californians from massive federal cuts to Medi Cal. Republicans passed a huge budget bill called HR1 last summer, which cut $1 trillion from Medicaid nationwide. Assemblymember Mia Bonta is chair of the state Assembly Health Committee. It means over $30 billion every single year have been ripped out of the hands of medi Cal recipients 3.4 million Californians. Republicans defended the cuts as necessary to fund other administration priorities, including tax cuts and increased immigration enforcement. Governor Gavin Newsom's January budget proposal continues limits on Medi Cal for undocumented people and some lawfully present immigrants, while adding some additional restrictions to immigrant care. Lawmakers start negotiating the state budget next week. Amanda McAllister Walner, executive director of the nonprofit Health Access, says lawmakers should raise revenue from big companies in order to mitigate the worst federal cuts. HR1 wasn't only a cut to health care. It was the largest redistribution of wealth in American history, cutting services for the most vulnerable in order to put money in the pockets of the richest Americans and most profitable corporations, many of whom live and do business right here in California. Rachel Lynn Gish, also with Health Access, says there are things California can do to ease HR1's work, reporting requirements and eligibility checks, calling them burdens designed to force people off of Medi Cal. However, she adds, those charges alone won't keep many Californians from falling off care.
• 22:39
  Speaker E: We are on the precipice of a.
• 22:40
  Speaker A: Huge public health crisis.
• 22:42
  Speaker E: If our state does not take action, it will be in the state that these decisions about whether to cut our care or protect our care are going to be made.
• 22:51
  Speaker C: For California News Service, I'm Suzanne Potter. Find our trust indicators@publicnewsservice.org.
• 23:01
  Speaker B: In National Native News, Antonia Gonzalez reads today's headlines.
• 23:06
  Speaker C: This is National Native News. I'm Antonia Gonzalez. Alaska is launching pilot programs in Anchorage and Juneau to offer addiction treatments and mobile care units. Emergency responders will give people medication to help them survive after an overdose. Indigenous Alaskans die of overdose at about three times the rate of white Alaskans. Alaska Public Media's health reporter Rachel Cassandra has more. Dr. Jennifer Pierce shows off a new SUV. It is not really marked for the Anchorage Fire Department's pilot program. We want people to see us as a beacon of help. Piers has a simple mission to treat Anchorage residents who overdose and connect them with care afterwards. For the first time in a mobile unit in Alaska, responders can give patients the medication buprenorphine for when we respond on scenes. We can provide that very quickly, which reduces withdrawals and can get patients on the road to recovery. We don't want people to fall through the cracks. Narcan or naloxone is used to reverse overdoses, but it puts people into withdrawal. And research shows that offering that second medication, buprenorphine, makes it more likely patients will enter a long term recovery. But Pierce says even if people don't continue treatment, the medication reduces the risk of a second overdose in the days immediately following a dangerous window, according to research. She hopes the program saves lives, even if it's just one life. We're saving lives out there and preventing individuals maybe from overdosing the next day or overdosing again later and dying. Pierce visited successful programs in Texas and Washington for ideas and best practices to replicate. In Alaska, Dr. Quigley Peterson says he's seen the healing benefits of buprenorphine. He's an emergency room physician heading Juno's mobile pilot program. He says he's confident it will do well, partly because he's seen how helpful the medication can be in the emergency room.
• 25:04
  Speaker E: We have something that can help engage people that's super safe and it's cheap and that it works.
• 25:10
  Speaker C: He says they'll collect data over the year to see what happens to patients after they're given buprenorphine for an overdose. His hope is that it reduces emergency room visits and calls for emergency medical care. In Anchorage, I'm Rachel Cassandra. A Navajo man was facing the tribe's criminal justice system after allegedly driving drunk and killing a three year old boy at a Christmas parade on the reservation. As KJZ's Gabriel Pietrazio reports, US authorities are now stepping in to prosecute him in federal court. 67 year old Stanley Begay Jr. Was charged with vehicular manslaughter and could have faced up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. Now a grand jury in Arizona is handing him three counts, including second degree murder stemming from the death of three year old Carson Apodaca. The agency's Phoenix field office is seeking photos and videos from that incident that can be used in the case against Begay, who has been assigned a Flagstaff attorney. He could face up to a life sentence. For National Native News, I'm Gabriel Pietrazio. Following this year's State of the Tribes address In South Dakota, Governor Larry Roden met with more than 50 dignitaries from eight of the state's nine tribes. He says he left the private meeting feeling optimistic about the future of state tribal relations.
• 26:30
  Speaker E: There were things that we, you know, we were palms up with them as far as some of the concerns, some of the areas that we disagreed on and we agreed to disagree and we had more conversation as we walked out of the room. We had built a relationship and I.
• 26:46
  Speaker B: Think we'll continue to build on that.
• 26:48
  Speaker E: It was it was a product of just open, honest conversation.
• 26:52
  Speaker C: State tribal relations effectively collapsed during the administration of former Governor Kristi Noemi, who was at one point banned from every reservation in the state. I'm Antonia Gonzalez.
• 27:20
  Speaker E: Native voice one, the native american radio network.
• 27:29
  Speaker B: That's all for tonight's broadcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks to our engineer, Javier Rodriguez, and thanks to our reporters, Daniel Mintz, Julian Jackson, Suzanne Potter and Antonio Gonzalez. KMUD News is online. You can find us on kmud.org and now streaming on most podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify Spotify, where you can download our stories and newscasts for offline listening during your rural commutes. You can also follow us on social media. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can give us a call at 707-923-2605 or send an email to newsaymud.org Redwood Community Radio, Inc. Is funded by Press Forward, the national movement that strengthened communities by reinvigorating local news. Learn more more at PressForward News. Reporting for KMUD, I'm Gabriel Zuckerberg.