Thumbnail photo: The Veterans Memorial Hall served as one of the polling places for the June 2 Primary Election. | Photo by Monique Camarena
Chris Howard said he was ready for the “next leg of the adventure” after final election night results were posted Tuesday, though he lamented at the low voter turnout.
As the evening wound to a close, the Del Norte County District 3 supervisor was ahead of his challenger Lupe Gutierrez based on early results the Del Norte County Elections Office posted at about 9:50 p.m.
County Clerk Recorder Alissia Northrup and her staff will spend the week processing ballots, but Howard is already looking toward his fourth term.
Thumbnail photo: Del Norte County elections staff began a live-stream as they processed on Monday. | Screenshot
Chris Howard received donations from big local names as he seeks to keep his District 3 seat on the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors.
Howard, who’s running against retired educator Lupe Gutierrez, boasts four-figure donations from Nick and Lisa Rail, Green Diamond Resource Company and Adam Goldstein, an entrepreneur from Burbank who moved to Crescent City.
The amount of the donations Gutierrez received between March 1 and April 23 pales in comparison to her opponent. However, she has spent $6,634.76 in literature, campaign paraphernalia and research, according to her California Form 460.
Congressional candidates Tim Geist and Paul Saulsbury and Assembly candidate Michael Greer fielded questions from Redwood Voice producers Monique Camarena and Aisling Bludworth on April 23. | Photos by Jessica Cejnar Andrews
Michael Greer’s confident that Del Norte will vote for him — they have in the past and things haven’t changed, he says.
The Republican candidate for California’s Assembly District 2 is not only the current Trustee Area 5 representative on the Del Norte Unified School District Board of Trustees, he ran against incumbent Chris Rogers two years ago. Though he lost the district in November 2024, Greer received more votes in Del Norte County than his opponent. Greer said that Del Norte County voters know when he says he’ll do something, he’ll deliver.
“I’m a doer,” he said. “If I have something going through legislation, I’m going to push it and I’m going to do it until I get it done. It’s that simple.”
Del Norte County District 3 Supervisor candidates Chris Howard and Lupe Gutierrez sat down with Redwood Voice youth producers Monique Camarena and Aisling Bludworth for an evening conversation last week. | Photos by Jessica Cejnar Andrews
Lupe Gutierrez said she was surprised when people urged her to run for the District 3 supervisor seat.
They were adamant that it shouldn’t go unopposed, she said, which is why she’s challenging incumbent Chris Howard. She says she’s got the character to take on the job and one of her goals is to urge more youth to participate in the government process.
“I’m so disappointed when I look at the demographics and I see that they, the ages of 18 to 45, just don’t participate as much as the older people do,” Gutierrez said. “And sometimes I wonder about that and I know they’re disenchanted. I would really love to bring them back into the government so they can be effective in their own decisions because right now other people are making their decisions for them.”
Del Norte County voters will cast a ballot for two contested local races on June 2.
Incumbents Chris Howard and Joey Borges will each face challenges to their District 3 and District 4 seats on the Board of Supervisors, County Clerk-Recorder Alissia Northrup told Redwood Voice Community News.
The deadline to submit election paperwork was 5 p.m. Friday.
Image courtesy of County of Del Norte, California Facebook page
Voters still have options for weighing in on Proposition 50 if they haven’t dropped their ballot in the mail already.
With only one choice before voters in the statewide special election Tuesday, Del Norte County Clerk-Recorder Alissia Northrup said she has consolidated polling places for the county’s 19 precincts. If people are still not sure where to go, they can visit the Del Norte County Elections Office at 981 H Street, Suite 160 in Crescent City, Northrup said.
For precincts Nos. 1, 2 and 3, the polling place is the Del Norte County Courthouse, 450 H Street in Crescent City.
Thumbnail photo: Roger Gitlin (left) and Dan Schmidt (right)
Crescent City Harbor Commissioner Dan Schmidt was ready to go to jail for trespassing at Roger Gitlin’s house on Wednesday.
Schmidt, who last month bought the Del Norte Triplicate from Country Media, Gitlin’s previous employer, wanted to hand over his rebuttal to a now-rescinded recall effort against him. Gitlin wouldn’t answer the door, so Schmidt stayed on the porch for about half an hour knocking and ringing the bell.
“I guess Roger got tired of me being there so he called the police to have me arrested for trespassing,” Schmidt told Redwood Voice Community News on Sunday. He said the officer who responded gave him the choice of leaving or being arrested.
Thumbnail: Roger Gitlin told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that he has paused his recall effort against Harbor commissioners Dan Schmidt and Annie Nehmer until it can coincide with the November 2026 election. | Screenshot
Crescent City Harbor commissioners Gerhard Weber and John Evans have officially endorsed Roger Gitlin’s now-stalled campaign to recall their colleagues Dan Schmidt and Annie Nehmer.
Both confirmed that they had added their signatures to Giltin’s notice of intent to recall with Weber, the Board’s chairman, telling Redwood Voice Community News on Wednesday that he feels guilty for urging the local Republican Party to endorse Nehmer. He called her smart and hard-working, but said she’s focusing on “minute rule things” instead of directing her energy in a way that is more positive for the harbor.
Weber also said that Schmidt, who purchased the Del Norte Triplicate from its previous owners last month, had revealed information about Harbormaster Mike Rademaker that had, up until then, been stated in closed session meetings. Most recently, Weber said, Schmidt is now claiming in the Triplicate that Rademaker was accused of sexual harassment.
Thumbnail photo: Under new proposed Congressional District boundaries, Del Norte County would share a representative with Shasta, Siskiyou and Modoc counties, which are currently in District 1. | Photo courtesy of the Senate Election and Constitutional Amendments Committee.
Michael Greer made two unsuccessful attempts Thursday at getting his fellow school board members to officially oppose Proposition 50.
Greer’s resolution before the Del Norte County Office of Education Board of Trustees and a similar resolution before the Del Norte County Unified School District Board had the same outcomes — dying due to lack of a second.
“I brought this (forward) because I believe that local communities, local school boards, local county offices of education, the county Board of Supervisors and the city itself needs to take part in a political process especially when it affects our California Constitution,” Greer said during the DNUSD Board meeting after acknowledging that the resolution he presented before the County Board failed to get a second motion. “The proposition takes away the opportunity to have that community support.”
“This is not a normal time,” Del Norte County’s representative in Congress told his constituents on Sunday.
On the fourth day of a federal government shutdown, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman began a town hall meeting in Crescent City by addressing who he felt was responsible for 10 months of chaos. Yet it wasn’t only President Donald Trump’s tariffs, executive orders and military deployment to Los Angeles, Portland and other American cities Huffman was referring to.
“We’ve never seen so many of these executive orders from any president in history, and my colleagues in this Congress are comfortable with that,” he said. “They’re pretty comfortable with just yielding their Article 1 independent branch of government authority over to the president.”
