Category Archives: Community News

Library Director Fights To Maintain Access

Phyllis Goodeill sidles around the desk in her office at the back of the Del Norte County Public Library, stepping between cardboard boxes as she does. Her desk is a mess. Piled high with binders, papers and books, it looks exactly how you’d expect the desk of a busy library director to look: Like there are other things more important than an orderly workspace. 

“At this point,” Goodeill says, “I don’t have any answers. We’re all just waiting to see what the fallout will be.”

Goodeill, like many others in the world of non-profit, quasi-government agencies, is waiting for the funding waters to clear. Back in Washington, D.C., programs are being cut with abandon, entire agencies shuttered at a moment’s notice, and it’s up to people like Goodeill to translate all the budget slashing into realities on the ground in the often poor, rural communities where the funding cuts will be felt the most. 

“It’s concerning,” Goodeill says, taking her seat behind the desk. “Of all the things they could monitor or investigate, why the libraries? Why the museums?”

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Crescent City To Add New Tank To Water System, Plans To Dismantle 68-year-old Elevated Tank

Crescent City will add a new component to its water system that will regulate water pressure more efficiently and, eventually, lead to the dismantling of the 67-year-old elevated tank near Wonder Stump and U.S. 101.

The City Council approved a $694,000 contract with Humboldt County-based Wahlund Construction to build a 6,000 gallon pressurized tank. The new tank will be across the street from the Ranney collector, which takes in water from the nearby Smith River, Public Works Director David Yeager said Monday.

The new tank, which will include a bladder that runs on an air compressor, will be able to absorb additional pressure in the event of a surge in the system, Yeager said. It’s also closer to the Ranney collector instead of a mile and a half away — the distance from the Ranney collector to the elevated water tank, he said.

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Crescent City Council Roundup, April 7, 2025

Thumbnail photo: Crescent City Police K9 Sgt. Murtaugh keeps the streets safe in this Dec. 22, 2024 photo. CCPD and the Del Norte County Office of Education are partnering together to fund a school resource officer for the schools within city limits. | Photo courtesy of Crescent City Police Department

Among the items discussed at Monday’s Crescent City Council meeting:

School Resource Officer: Crescent City and the Del Norte County Office of Education will share the cost of a school resource officer when grant funding for the program expires in June.

The Council’s decision to enter into a two-year agreement with the DNCOE was unanimous. The school resource officer, an employee with the Crescent City Police Department, will work 40 hours per week providing services to Crescent Elk Middle School, Del Norte High School and Joe Hamilton Elementary School. They’ll also be available for after-school activities.

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Curry County Hosts Cybersecurity Summit Two Years After Ransomware Attack

Thumbnail courtesy of Curry County

Curry County is hosting a cybersecurity summit that will feature information from experts who helped the county get back on its feet from a ransomware attack that crippled its network about two years ago.

Chief Information Officer Phil Dickson told commissioners on Wednesday that he invited representatives from special districts within Curry, Coos and Del Norte counties to attend. In addition to providing information about multi-factor authentication and good backup practices, the summit hosts will conduct an assessment of every attendee’s network, he said.

“It’s not something to get you in trouble or go, ‘Oh, gotcha!’” Dickson said, adding that about 40 participants have registered to attend so far. “This is going to be a moment where we can have a baseline. What these professionals are going to do is spend 10 to 15 minutes with each individual district and say, ‘This is what I recommend you look at first, this is what I’d recommend you look at second…’”

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Del Norte County Board of Supervisors Roundup, April 8, 2025

Thumbnail photo by Paul Critz

Among the items discussed at Tuesday’s Del Norte County Board of Supervisors meeting:

Salary Issues: Norma Williams, president of the Del Norte County Employees Association, took issue with proposals to hire Department of Health and Human Services employees at a more advanced step in the salary schedule.

The proposals to hire two medical records clerks and a behavioral health specialist at Step C rather than Step A appeared on the consent agenda. Supervisors approved them without discussion.

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Curry Commissioners Cite 2007 Oregon Appeals Court Ruling When Discussing Dispute With Sheriff

Thumbnail: Screenshot

Though the outcome of a declaratory judgment against the sheriff is still pending, Curry County’s newest commissioner told his colleagues of a 2007 Oregon Appeals Court ruling that may apply to the current situation.

Referring to an ongoing dispute between the Board of Commissioners and Sheriff John Ward, Commissioner Patrick Hollinger said he and Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald received information about Daniel v. The Board of County Commissioners for Josephine County.

“A lot of the back and forth, or the lack of back and forth, between the commissioners and the sheriff is [about] who has authority over what and why,” Hollinger told his colleagues Wednesday. “And as we all know, we have a declaratory judgment that we’re still waiting to have happen, but this covers a couple of those items within our declaratory judgment. And that would be positions within the sheriff’s department and who picks and chooses those positions and how those positions are funded.”

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Hands Off Protest Draws Hundreds

Between three and four hundred people, most waving homemade signs, lined the sidewalk in front of the Del Norte County Fairgrounds on Saturday. The gathering was part of a nationwide series of events – a day of action, organizers called it – collectively called Hands Off. Across the nation there were more than 1,300 individual demonstrations coordinated by a coalition of groups headed by MoveOn!, and including the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, among others. The events were meant to protest what the participants and organizers see as the decidedly authoritarian bent of the second Trump presidency.

Standing in the shade outside Java Hut, Crescent City Councilmember Candace Tinkler explained why she was attending the event: “I’m here because it’s my job, it’s all of our jobs, to make the world a better place for the next generation, and I’m not seeing it going that way. I’m here not so much for me, but for every young person in this community.”

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HANDS OFF OUR COOKIES!

Keven Bingham operates the “Glen’s on 3rd” food trailer that serves as a pop-up mobile storefront from which he sells baked goods to the masses. This small business is the most recent incarnation of a long-standing community institution known to locals as “Glen’s Bakery”. 

“I have folks from all faiths and political affiliations who come,” Bingham told Redwood Voice.

”Cookies are not political.”

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Discovery of Lead Paint on Bunk Beds Force Curry County Commissioners To Reduce Jail Capacity

Thumbnail photo: Ken Lund via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons License

Lead paint on bunks at the Curry County Jail prompted commissioners to temporarily reduce the facility’s capacity, cutting its number of beds from 35 to 16.

The Curry County Sheriff’s Office will be more judicious about who they accept into the jail as a result, according to Lt. Jeremy Krohn. But it’s the less drastic of two options he presented to commissioners at an emergency meeting on Friday. The alternative was to completely evacuate the jail, he said.

Some staff have already been relocated, Krohn said.

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Curry County Commissioner Brad Alcorn Announces Resignation Effective May 1

Thumbnail photo: Brad Alcorn.

Curry County Commissioner Brad Alcorn announced his resignation on Wednesday, telling his colleagues that he had “personal things” he needed to focus on requiring him to be gone for extended periods of time.

“I know that not being present here every day would certainly not be fair to the people of this county, but it also would not be fair to either of you,” he told commissioners Jay Trost and Patrick Hollinger at the end of the Board’s regular business meeting. “You guys show up every day. You work hard trying to solve this county’s problems, and you need someone, a third person, that’s going to be doing the same.”

Alcorn said his resignation will be effective May 1 and the Board’s April 15 meeting will be the last time he serves as its chair.

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