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Local News 10 26 26 · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
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  Speaker B: Welcome to the KMUD News for the evening of Monday, October 26th. I'm your news Director, April Lewis, and I'm glad to be with you for this broadcast. This episode includes stories on so Hum Health, responding to Measure K opposition, and detailing plans for a new hospital in southern Humboldt, and the last part of our election guide for statewide propositions. But first, some local alerts. This is KMUD News, Starting off with news from Cal Fire in Shelter Cove a newly installed 2,000 gallon heli tank at the Willow Glen landing zone provides an auxiliary water source for firefighting helicopters responding to wildfire fires in the Shelter Cove area. Installed by the Shelter Cove Fire Department, the auxiliary DIP site is available for emergency use by Cal Fire's Firehawk helicopter, Providing another Water Source when coastal weather, terrain or distance limits access to traditional water sources, Shelter Cove presents unique challenges for wildfire response. The community includes approximately 700 homes and other structures across roughly 2,000 acres. With steep terrain, limited road access and elevations rising from sea level to nearly 2,500ft within a short distance, Fire Chief Nick Pape of the Shelter Cove Fire Department stated quote the way fires are increasingly burning into populated areas, fire agencies of all sizes can't afford to be reactive. Proactive projects like this help give our crews every possible advantage to keep fires small, protect our communities and prevent the next wildfire from becoming a local disaster. Coastal weather adds another challenge to aerial firefighting operations. While the Pacific Ocean serves as an important water source for helicopters, marine layer conditions can make ocean dipping unsafe or unavailable. Meanwhile, areas above the fog may remain significantly warmer and drier, increasing wildfire concerns. Located above the typical marine layer, the Willow Glen auxiliary dip site offers an alternative water source when ocean access is limited. Connected to Shelter Cove's gravity fed community water system, the 2000 gallon heli tank can help reduce travel time to more distant water sources, allowing helicopters to deliver water more efficiently during initial attack. Some alternate water sources can require approximately a 10 minute flight each way. Reducing that turnaround time can provide a significant operational advantage when firefighters are working to contain a rapidly developing wildfire
• 3:11
  Speaker A: from
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  Speaker B: the Cal Fire Mendocino Unit. Cal Fire Mendocino Unit will be conducting a vegetation management prescribed burn on Jackson Demonstration State Forest. This prescribed burn will treat approximately 150 acres of timber slash and timber understory in the Thompson Gulch Area area of Jackson Demonstration State Forest, creating a mosaic of variously burned vegetation and islands of unburned habitat. Jackson Demonstration State Forest is located on State Highway 20 between the towns of Willits and Fort Bragg. Burning will begin on Thursday, October 29th and continue through Saturday, October 31st. Burning will start at approximately 10:00am and conclude at approximately 3:00pm daily. Expect to see smoke and aircraft in the area, weather permitting. Next is an update from the California Department of Fish and wildlife. The 2026 adult chinook salmon fishing season will soon close on the Upper Trinity River. The closure comes as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife projections indicate that anglers will have met the Upper Trinity river adult Fall Run Chinook salmon quota for the season as of 11:59pm on Wednesday, Oct. 28. At that time, the adult Chinook salmon fishery on the Trinity river from the Old Lewiston bridge to Highway 299 West Bridge at Cedar Flat will be closed. This reach will remain open, however, for harvest of two year old Jack chinook salmon which are less than or equal to 23 inches. All adult chinook salmon caught must be immediately released. The quota for adult Chinook on the Upper Trinity this season was 536 adult fish. Anglers can monitor the quota status of opened and closed sections of the Klamath and Trinity rivers by calling CDFW's information hotline at 1-800-564-6479. And up next, our main stories. This is KMOD News. So Hump Health's CEO responded to Measure K opponents speaking on our airwaves with a public letter while the health district details plans for the new hospital. KMUD News reports as architectural plans are showcased for a new hospital. Southern Humboldt Community Healthcare District CEO Matt Rees is lobbying hard for Measure K and the future of the health. As a reminder, Measure K is the proposed bond package in Southern Humboldt that would result in $25 million in funding for a new hospital in Garberville. The bonds would be paid for over 30 years via yearly property taxes of approximately $80 per $100,000 of assessed home value. In the interest of transparency and journalistic integrity, I would like to once again disclose that my spouse works for the Southern Humboldt Community Healthcare District. Matt Rees sent KMUD a public letter last week responding to community members who spoke in opposition to Measure K on our Tuesday, October 20th broadcast. KMUD News does not oppose or endorse any candidate or ballot measure. The story on Measure K opponents happened because Daryl Czerny called us after we did a story with Soham Health highlighting Measure K. Darrell stated that we should have people opposed to the measure on our broadcast. We want to showcase a large range of viewpoints during any election cycle and don't want to close our airwaves to anyone. The opinions of the people we interview are their own and not of KMUD News. Matt's letter is appreciated and we want to relay some of his points on this broadcast. We also found two statements Matt made that could lead to potential corrections from our previous story and we are currently awaiting documentation from the Health District. In our previous piece, Daryl Czerny argued for the seismically non compliant Gerald Phelps Hospital to be renovated instead of replaced. In his letter to kmud, Matt Rees detailed why a renovation was not possible, stating in part we want to be very clear the existing structure cannot be retrofitted. No estimates were provided for retrofitting work because it cannot be done. Multiple licensed architects have stated that retrofit is not possible on the Gerald Phelps building on Cedar Street. There is no financially or architecturally feasible manner by which to modify the existing facility to meet current code and statutory requirements. Those comments on a lack of ability to renovate the current facility were echoed in a public letter by Doug Strout, lead architect for the proposed new Southern Humboldt Hospital. Doug's letter details undersized facilities, mechanical issues, obsolete systems and compromised workflow patterns, among other reasons as to why the current facility is ill suited for a retrofit. The current Garberville Hospital was not purpose built and was originally an expansion of founding Dr. Gerald Phelps home. The design for the proposed new hospital was detailed in a virtual presentation by Ratcliffe Architects and Soham Health last Thursday. Principal Architect Doug Stroud led off the presentation with comments speaking to the proposed new hospital's efficiency and site selection.
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  Speaker C: It is primarily a one story building. It has nursing units on an upper floor in the hospital side and future outpatient services on the clinic building side. And I'm just indicating that this is a nice sized plot of land to fit this and all the vehicular circulation needs to go around this. But from an architectural and planning point of view it's a nice location. We do a lot of these this kind of work and the fact that the district was able to find a site that was easily accessible from town, visible from Highway 101 that makes it perfect for a hospital because you need to easily get to it needs to be easily visible certainly for emergency services as well as all other healthcare needs.
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  Speaker B: Doug Strout also revealed that floor space had been shrunk from prior designs to minimize cost.
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  Speaker C: Architectural and engineering team first designed the building. We had a footprint. What you see on top here, this is the first floor and then we thought you know, we need to tighten this up as best as possible so at that time we actually reduced the size of the hospital at that floor by 24%. And so because we we want to minimize the expense and the investment to get still the same services and this would be best for the county and surrounding areas. So what we do to do that is we shift as much program into less expensive buildings as much as possible. And the clinic building part of this is less expensive than the hospital side. We also try to minimize spaces as much as the code allows while still making the space is very usable. Hospitals cost more money than outpatient buildings, but we only put in the hospital what had to be in a hospital, what's dictated by the state. So we are showing emergency services, imaging services, dietary materials management is deliveries and then clinical lab is also required. And fortunately the district has an agreement with a nearby hospital for surgical services and everything that supports that. So we didn't have to build that those services are available nearby. But for this structure we didn't have to include that in the program. So that saves a lot of money.
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  Speaker B: The continuing lack of surgical services in the new hospital is better assisted by plans for a dedicated helipad. So Hump Health COO Ken Scown explained the utility of the new helipad in response to an audience question on emergency care for those in Shelter Cove. In case of a major medical event,
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  Speaker D: you would be more than likely from Shelter Cove, picked up by helicopter and taken to a tertiary center. You would not be brought to Garberville per se, particularly in cases of a need for some kind of surgical intervention. So there would be assessments done based upon the circumstance each time. But the intent of the helicopter, the Helistop in Garberville specifically is not for people to be brought to the facility and cared for per se, but rather if you are in the facility and there is a need for you to go to a more advanced level of care, depending on your circumstance, you would be able to be transported much more rapidly than the current process.
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  Speaker B: Even with efficient plans, new hospitals are expensive. The total project is estimated at just under $100 million and measure K would represent around $25 million, or about a quarter of that total if passed by voters on November 3rd. Some additional funding sources for the new facility and the health district were detailed by Matt Rees in two interviews with KMUD News this year. In an interview on July 6, Matt Reese spoke about additional revenue generated from the health district's retail build out on Redwood Drive, revenue that is more resilient to government spending cuts for healthcare programs.
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  Speaker E: Diversified our services so that we can stay in business. And that opened up a pharmacy because it's not, it doesn't get cut like doctors and hospitals do. Pharmacy services haven't had those huge cuts and that especially to the pharmacies, the drug companies and all that have felt pressure, but the pharmacies haven't felt as much pressure. And so they're a retail provider and they fall in that retail category. And so they get out of a lot of these cuts and a lot of things that take place. And so same thing with optometry and that the Fortna Optometry is in the same bucket. It's more of a retail operation, not a provider operation like hospital and Clinic.
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  Speaker B: In our October 8th Measure K discussion, Soham Health CEO Matt Rees detailed how 40% of the new Southern Humboldt Hospital project could be paid for through reimbursements from Medicare.
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  Speaker E: Since we have the designation as a critical access hospital, our reimbursement with Medicare is going to increase since about since right around 40% of our patients are Medicare patients, we will get additional 40% reimbursement from Medicare for this project. So it's going to be paying off about 40% of the project. Like when you do taxes, the IRS is either going to pay you or you're going to pay them based upon what your liability is for the year. We turn in a cost report to Medicare, which is like a giant tax return, and the tax return basically says lists all the costs out and it'll say, okay, you had, you had $100 million of cost just to round, to use round figures, 40% of your patients were Medicare patients. So we're going to pay you $40 million. And then when we turn the cost report in, we say, okay, for all the services we offered, you paid us 30 million. So Medicare, you owe us 10 million more. Or if they paid us 50 million, then we owe them 10 million. And that. So it brings their. Our reimbursement to take care of Medicare patients to cost. And so it's going to pay for 40% of the project because 40% of our patients, our Medicare patients.
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  Speaker B: Ultimately, southern Humboldt voters will have to decide whether to add $25 million from property taxes to the diversified funding pool proposed to build a new hospital in Garberville. The measure K bond package will need over two thirds of the vote inside the Southern Humboldt Community healthcare district on November 3rd to pass. For KMUD news, I'm April Lewis, foreign. For the last part of the KMUD News election guide, here's our assistant director Bridget Carstensen. On statewide propositions 40 through 45.
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  Speaker A: As part of our ongoing coverage of the November 3rd election, KMUD News is dedicated to bringing you information on the important issues on your ballot today. We'll finish the statewide propositions with 40 through 45. The first three are connected. Props 41 and 42 were put on the ballot by opponents of Prop 40, and if either one gets more yes votes than Prop 40, the billionaire tax would be canceled even if it also passes. Prop. 40 Brilliantaire tax Prop 40 would impose a one time 5% tax on the net worth of Californians worth more than $1 billion. It would apply to people who lived in California as of January 1, 2026 and could be paid in five annual installments. 90% of the money would go to health care, mainly medi cal, and 10% to education and food assistance. The state's analyst estimates it would raise tens of billions of dollars over several years, though some billionaires leaving the state could reduce income tax revenue going forward. It was put on the ballot by the healthcare workers union, seiu unitedhealthcare Workers West Supporters say it's needed to offset federal cuts to healthcare and nutrition programs. Critics, including governor Newsom, say a California only wealth tax would drive the wealthy out of the state and hurt its finances. Locally, Medi Cal covers roughly one in three Californians, and our region's clinics and hospitals rely heavily on it. Most of the money would go toward backfilling those programs as federal funding declines. Prop. 41 audits of new taxes Prop. 41 would require the state auditor to review the programs a proposed special tax would fund before it goes to voters. It would also bar new state taxes from being exempt from the state's spending limit because the billionaire tax is set up that way. Prop. 41 would cancel Prop. 40 if it receives more votes. Supporters say it adds transparency and accountability to new taxes. Critics led by the union behind Prop. 40 say it's designed to trick voters into blocking the billionaire tax. Prop. 42 ban on new personal property taxes Prop. 42 would ban new state taxes on owning personal property, meaning everything people own other than real estate, including investment and retirement accounts. It would also limit retroactive taxes like Prop. 41. It would cancel Prop. 40 if it gets more votes. It would not change property taxes on homes or land. Supporters say Californians shouldn't be taxed for simply owning savings, retirement accounts or possessions, and warn that retirement accounts could someday be taxed. Critics say it's a way for billionaires to avoid the one time wealth tax. Prop. 43 2/3 vote for local special taxes Prop. 43 would require 2/3 voter approval for local special taxes placed on the ballot by citizen petition, the same standard that already applies when local governments propose them. Right now, citizen led measures need only a simple majority. The change would begin in 2027 and wouldn't affect taxes already passed. The legislature placed it on the ballot as it compromised with anti tax groups. Supporters say taxes should be harder to pass in a high tax state and that special interests have used low turnout elections to pass taxes by simple majority. Critics say it would make harder to fund local services locally. Any future citizen led tax measure for a specific purpose, such as fire protection, libraries, parks or roads would need 2/3 of the vote instead of a simple majority. Prop 44 community clinic spending Prop 44 would require nonprofit community health clinics serving low income patients to spend 90% of their revenue on patient care and related services. Clinics falling short would pay a penalty equal to the difference. According to the state's analyst clinics spend about 80% on average now. It's sponsored by the same union behind the billionaire tax. Supporters say clinics should spend more on patients and less on executive pay and overhead. Critics say clinics are already heavily regulated and that penalties could force them to cut services or close locally. This one hits close to home. Community health centers in our region include Open Door Community Health Centers, Redwoods Rural Health center in Redway, Southern Trinity Health Services in Mad river and Long Valley Health center in Laytonville. For many rural residents, these clinics are their main source of care. Prop 45 Environmental Review Changes Prop. 45 would set a 365 business day limit on environmental reviews under the California Environmental Quality act for projects it calls essential, including housing, roads, water broadband and wildfire prevention. Courts would have to rule on related lawsuits within 270 days and public comments would face a strict 45 day deadline. It's sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce. Supporters say lengthy reviews and lawsuits drive up costs and slow construction. Critics, including environmental groups and some labor unions, say it would weaken environmental protections and limit the public's chance to weigh in locally. Wildfire prevention projects like forest thinning along with rural roads and broadband would all move faster. Residents who comment on local projects could also face tighter deadlines. Information in this report comes from CALmatters 2026 voter guide and the official State Voter Guide. For more on each measure, visit calmatters.org or the Secretary of State's website. Thank you for tuning in to KMUD News ongoing coverage of the November 3rd election. Stay with us for live coverage on election night. Reporting for KMUD News, I'm Bridget Carstense.
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  Speaker B: Everyday Courage, a big event in Los Angeles next month, will celebrate a number of pillars that keep society connected, including arts and culture, history and the humanities. Suzanne Potter has the story Everyday Courage,
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  Speaker F: a big event in Los Angeles next month, will celebrate a number of pillars that keep society connected, including arts and culture, history and the humanities. During the program, the nonprofit California Humanities will present its Spirit of the Humanities Awards. State Senator Ben Allen will be honored as legislative champion for his support of the film industry and arts education, and Ann Burroughs, who leads the Japanese American National Museum, will receive the award for courageous leadership. The evening's featured speaker will be playwright and filmmaker Luis Valdez, founder of El Teatro Campesino, which helped spread the word about strikes and marches by Chicano farm workers in the late 1960s.
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  Speaker G: In the Great Strike, it was important for us to use theater to satirize the people that we were confronting, not just the growers, but also the goons and the racists that were out there trying to keep the workers in their place.
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  Speaker F: California Humanities helped support a new documentary on PBS called American the Legend of Luis Valdez, which traces his work from the farm workers theater to the films Zoot Suit and La Bamba. Valdez speaks to the importance of the humanities and helping to support artists and
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  Speaker G: storytellers, literature, painting, the performing arts, music. It is the purest expression of our humanity. That's why every civilized culture has to encourage art.
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  Speaker F: The Everyday Courage event takes place Nov. 10 at the Mark Taper Auditorium in downtown LA. For California news Service, I'm Suzanne Potter. Find our trust indicators@PublicNewsService.org.
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  Speaker B: And last for today's broadcast, a plea to our listeners. KMUD is currently in the middle of our fall drive, which lasts until October 30th. Needless to say, with no federal funding, we need money to keep the news going. If you care about your nightly newscast, if you care about the station's emergency alerts run by the news department, it's time to donate and keep your local news and fire alerts on air. Donate@kmud.org or call 707-923-3911 and become a station member or Swing Bar Studios in Redway at 1144 Redway Drive. That's all for our news broadcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks to our rotation of broadcast engineers Dennis Marr, Katie Phillips, Bianna Federico, Michael McCaskill, Larry Lashley and Javier Rodriguez. Also thanks to our assistant director, Bridget Karstensen, KMUD News is now on streaming platforms including Apple Podcasts and Spotify you can download our stories and newscasts for offline listening. You can also follow us on social mediamudnews, including Facebook and Instagram. Do you have issues important to you that deserve more attention? Are there stories we're missing or that you're curious about? You can give us a call at 707-923-2605 or send an email to newshema.org Redwood Community Radio Incorporated is funded by Press Forward, the national movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news. Learn more at PressForward News. Redwood Community Radio acknowledges that its transmitter sites are located on the unceded territory of the Sinkyon, Wailaki, Wiat, Wilkut and Kato people. We honor ancestors past, present and emerging, and acknowledge the ongoing cultural, spiritual and physical connection that these tribes have to the region. I'm April Lewis. Stay tuned. In.