Monthly Archives: August 2025

Articles, Local Government

Del Norte County DA Says She’s Down Three Deputies And A Chief Investigator

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Thumbnail photo: Del Norte County District Attorney Katherine Micks discusses her department’s budget with the Board of Supervisors on Aug. 5.

A year after he froze positions to increase salaries, Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott said the vacancy rate in his department has gone from 55% in 2024 to 12.5% currently.

It’s an accomplishment the Board of Supervisors commended Scott for during the second of a two-day budget workshop last week. But, while she also applauded him, District Attorney Katherine Micks said salary increases in the sheriff’s office have made it challenging for her to recruit her own investigators.

“The DA investigator, that’s supposed to be kind of a promotion, right?” Micks said. “In other counties, people want to go from the sheriff’s office to the DA’s office because there’s a bump in pay and here it’s not that way at all. And so I have zero interest from local law enforcement wanting to come over because it’s not a promotion.”

Continue reading Del Norte County DA Says She’s Down Three Deputies And A Chief Investigator →
Articles, CC Harbor, Emergencies, Infrastructure

Moffatt & Nichol Engineer Discusses Next The Harbor’s Steps On Tsunami Recovery Road

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Thumbnail photo: Crescent City Harbor’s H Dock took the brunt of the impact from the Kamchatka tsunami on July 30. | Photo courtesy of the Crescent City Harbor District

Though a 10-day window for an emergency declaration is drawing to a close, coastal engineer Rob Sloop urged Crescent City Harbor commissioners to factor the area’s vulnerability to tsunamis into their losses following last week’s surges.

“You’re suffering now from a long-term bias that this is a dangerous harbor so that needs to go into your equation of loss,” he said Friday. “When we talk about how much this may cost, there’s the structure. But there’s the people and then there’s the loss of revenue — all of those things compound.” 

Sloop, vice president for Moffatt & Nichol, the architect firm spearheading the rebuild of Citizens Dock, sought to help harbor commissioners figure out their next steps after the magnitude 8.8 Kamchatka earthquake produced a tsunami that barreled into the harbor in the wee hours of July 30.

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Articles, CC Harbor, Infrastructure, Local Government

Though One is On The Table, Commissioners Seek More Proposals for RV Parks

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Thumbnail image: An example site plan from the Harbor District’s request for proposals packet for Bayside and Redwood Harbor Village RV parks. | Courtesy the CCHD

Crescent City Harbor commissioners said they wanted to continue seeking other options for redeveloping the port’s two RV parks despite a warning from Harbormaster Mike Rademaker that doing so might put an existing proposal in jeopardy.

Rademaker said he was worried that the Board of Commissioners was turning its back on Orange County-based developers Sean McGraw and Scott Lawhon, who had presented a plan for revitalizing Bayside and Redwood Harbor Village RV parks on June 25.

Rademaker was especially concerned about a potential performance bond that may be included with the Harbor District’s request for proposals, though it’s not finalized yet. He suggested making the inclusion of a performance bond in any proposal to redevelop the RV parks optional.

Continue reading Though One is On The Table, Commissioners Seek More Proposals for RV Parks →
Articles, Curry, Local Government

Oregon State Bar Dismisses Sheriff’s Complaint Against Curry County Counsel

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From left to right: Former Curry County Commissioner Brad Alcorn, Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald and current Board Chairman Jay Trost. | Courtesy Curry County

The Oregon State Bar Association has cleared Curry County Counsel Ted Fitzgerald of professional misconduct and told Sheriff John Ward it would take no further action related to the complaint he submitted nearly a year ago.

Curry County Board Chairman Jay Trost announced the outcome of the State Bar Association’s investigation into Ward’s allegations in a press release Wednesday. According to the release, the State Bar informed Ward of its decision in a letter on July 3. Trost said he and his colleagues on the Board of Commissioners wanted to wait until an appeals window had passed before making the outcome public.

Sheriff John Ward

“We’re happy to find a resolution,” Trost told Redwood Voice Community News. “This has been going on since September.”

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Articles, Local Government, Youth

Staff Vacancies, Increased Detention Costs, Relocation of Juvenile Services Pose Challenges to Del Norte Probation, Chief Says

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Thumbnail photo courtesy of the Del Norte Probation Department

Though his department has an overall vacancy rate of 33%, Lonnie Reyman said Del Norte County probation will be screening more than 20 potential new recruits.

The county’s probation chief offered this ray of optimism as part of an otherwise complex budget report to the Board of Supervisors on Monday. 

Probation and Re-entry Services, which includes the Youth Opportunity Center and detention services, is also expecting an uptick in the number of juvenile offenders that are in custody and are expecting the cost to house them to increase, he said.

Continue reading Staff Vacancies, Increased Detention Costs, Relocation of Juvenile Services Pose Challenges to Del Norte Probation, Chief Says →
Articles, CC Harbor, Local Government

Chris Howard Asks About Harbor’s 2% TOT Allocation And Whether Del Norte Could ‘Take It Back’

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Thumbnail photo: A voter-approved transiency occupancy tax measure back in 2018 allows the Crescent City Harbor District to continue to pay off the USDA loan that funded the inner boat basin rebuild following tsunamis in 2006 and 2011. | Photo by Gavin Van Alstine

After learning that Del Norte County could see more than $1 million in revenue from transient occupancy taxes, District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard brought the Crescent City Harbor District into the discussion.

Does the county have to give 2% of its overall 10% TOT to the harbor even though voters in 2018 stated that it should, Howard asked county Treasurer/Tax Collector Barbara Lopez on Monday.

“Is it to the point where we couldn’t take back that allocation?” Howard asked. “It’s a question that was brought up to me recently given all the stuff going on down there.”

Continue reading Chris Howard Asks About Harbor’s 2% TOT Allocation And Whether Del Norte Could ‘Take It Back’ →
Articles, Curry, Elections, Local Government

Recalls Filed Against Hollinger, Trost; Petitioners Claim Curry County Commissioners Created a ‘Culture of Fear’

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Friday’s special Curry County Board of Commissioners meeting

Jay Trost and Patrick Hollinger went on the offensive against the chief petitioners seeking to oust them from the Curry County Board of Commissioners.

After spending about 45 minutes of a special meeting Friday touting their accomplishments, Trost and Hollinger went through each petition, taking issue with both the grievances they raise and the individuals raising them.

Trost said he viewed the petition against him, filed by Curry County jail commander Lt. Jeremy Krohn, as opposition to the Board’s “not adhering to a mentality of status quo.”

Continue reading Recalls Filed Against Hollinger, Trost; Petitioners Claim Curry County Commissioners Created a ‘Culture of Fear’ →
Articles, CC Harbor, Community News, Emergencies, Infrastructure, Local Government

Del Norte OES Manager Says Gasquet Neighbors Group Stepped Up During Tsunami Emergency; Scientists Start Collecting, Analyzing Data

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Thumbnail photo: Wednesday’s tsunamis lifted H Dock off its pilings, temporarily submerging it, resulting in separation of its segments. | Photo courtesy of the Crescent City Harbor District

Two days after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake near the Russian Far East sent tsunami surges into the Crescent City Harbor, Del Norte County’s emergency services manager posted a big thank you on Facebook.

Deborah Otenburg praised first responders, local law enforcement, the city, school district and tribal partners as well as the county health and human services and building maintenance departments, which set up a temporary evacuation point at the Veterans Memorial Hall in Crescent City.

Otenburg also lauded the Gasquet Neighbors Helping Neighbors group and the Gasquet American Legion Hall — unusual recipients of her thanks when the only areas in immediate danger for most of Wednesday were the harbor, beaches and the Elk Creek, Klamath and Smith River mouths.

Continue reading Del Norte OES Manager Says Gasquet Neighbors Group Stepped Up During Tsunami Emergency; Scientists Start Collecting, Analyzing Data →
Articles, CC Harbor, Local Government

Local Activist Raises Concerns Over Inappropriate Language in CCHD Patrol Logs

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Thumbnail photo by Gavin Van Alstine

Updated at 1:32 p.m. Saturday to include more information about how Linda Sutter and Redwood Voice obtained the patrol logs and to remove the names of the individual patrolmen named in the logs from the article. To view the Harbor District Patrol logs for December 2024 2025, click here.

Linda Sutter says she was acting on a tip when she requested copies of the Crescent City Harbor patrol logs under the California Public Records Act. 

What she found prompted her to not only inform harbor commissioners, it was enough to take her before the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors.

“I pulled a random log for the month of December,” said Sutter, a community activist, frequent public commenter before both governing bodies as well as a 2024 candidate for the Harbor District Board. “I wanted to read how they write their reports.”

For three minutes on June 22, Sutter, naming names, told supervisors that CCHD patrolmen regularly call a Bayside RV Park tenant “shower nazi” in their reports with one employee saying he told her that he was “checking for skin walkers.”

Sutter recounted the patrolmen’s disgust with the sea lions on the old U.S. Coast Guard dock, with one member in the logs saying they should be arrested for “malicious fecal distribution.” She also took issue with other language patrol staff used in the logs, including “tweakie—twack” and “noisy hoe.”

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