Thumbnail photo: A $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation will allow Crescent City to finish the Tolowa Interpretive Trail, city officials said Wednesday. | Screenshot
Crescent City received a $2 million grant that officials say will extend the Tolowa Cultural Trail in Beachfront Park to Battery Point where many Tolowa were imprisoned in the 1850s.
Councilors unanimously accepted the grant from the Mellon Foundation at a special meeting Wednesday. They also approved an agreement with T.B. Penick & Sons Inc. to install lithomosaic basket patterns at the entrance to the visitor center and as a welcome to the Tolowa Cultural Trail.
T.B. Penick & Sons will also create a special lithomosaic pebble pattern at the Tolowa Cultural Trail welcome station, City Manager Eric Wier said.
Thumbnail photo: Crescent City Fire and Rescue held its annual Fourth of July water ball tournament on Friday. | Photo courtesy of Crescent City Fire and Rescue
Among the items discussed at Monday’s Crescent City Council meeting:
Crescent City Fire & Rescue’s 125th anniversary:
After his dad, Rich Wier, accepted a proclamation from the mayor commemorating the local fire department’s 125 years of service, City Manager Eric Wier urged people to take a look through the fire station windows.
“You’ll be able to see some of this legacy,” Wier said. “You’ll be able to see the pictures of the chiefs on the wall and there’s only six — six in 125 years. You’ll be able to see an old fire pump that actually has the two handles where you had the firemen on either side pumping from a cistern. We’re talking 1900 protecting this community. It really says a lot when you say the heart and soul of this is the volunteers.”
Crescent City councilors backed a proposal to recruit local human resources professionals rather than continuing to rely on a third-party consultant after their city manager called the current arrangement effective but not ideal.
The city has had a contract with a Sacramento-based human resources provider following a resignation in December 2023, City Manager Eric Wier said. While that provider was able to meet the city’s HR needs, Wier said the distance proved challenging.
“HR does so many different functions for us as a city,” he said. “Employee relations and having the employees have the ability to go to that person and ask questions about the various HR topics that they might have and having that relationship is very important.”
Crescent City is turning to Red Sky Roofing to fix the seagull problem at the Fred Endert Municipal Pool.
Four month after Public Works Director Dave Yeager told them that the birds had poked hundreds of pinholes in the roof, councilors unanimously approved a contract with the Crescent City-based business to replace it. According to Yeager, Red Sky will replace the asphalt roof that was installed about a decade ago with a steel seam roof “so we don’t have this problem in 10 years.”
“Hopefully it should last 30 to 50 years,” Yeager told councilors on Monday. “It’s the same material that’s on the Cultural Center [and] it’s the same on the wastewater treatment plant.”
Curry County commissioners took the advice of their director of operations Wednesday and finalized an agreement with the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, which will provide third-party oversight to their finances.
Ted Fitzgerald compared the services RVCOG can offer Curry County to the services it received when it worked with the Lane Council of Governments following a ransomware attack in 2023. The county did just hire a new employee in its finance department and the department is getting stronger, Fitzgerald said, but he still wanted professional oversight “to make sure we’re doing things right.”
“The different specialties that exist within the Rogue Valley Council of Governments will be able to help us on a variety of levels,” he told commissioners. “I think it’s going to be a thing [where] we learn how much we need them as we go along, but I want to be sure that we really give it a good chance because every time we have reached out for help from outside entities we’ve gotten it.”
Two days after they adopted the county’s 2025-26 budget, Curry County commissioners wanted to get started on finalizing job descriptions and finding people to fill those positions.
New positions include a public works director, an investigator in the District Attorney’s Office, a community resource officer in the Sheriff’s Office and a part-time civil processor and animal control officer, according to Board Chairman Jay Trost.
Added on as a last-minute agenda item on Wednesday, Trost said he wanted to get a consensus from his colleagues to allow human resources to create those job descriptions and bring them back to the Board by its next meeting in July for approval.
An investigation is underway to rule out homicide after human remains were found near Cooper Avenue and J Street in Crescent City on Wednesday.
Crescent City Police Chief Richard Griffin said the body of a male subject was found about 200 feet into the brush toward the cemetery. The subject had been wearing a hospital bracelet, Griffin said. Officers are working with the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office Coroner to identify the individual, Griffin told Redwood Voice Community News.
There was also evidence that animals had disturbed the body, Griffin said.
Though tensions continued on Tuesday with Curry County’s newest commissioner telling John Ward that his constituents have been fearful for the past year, both sides were able to compromise on staffing for the sheriff’s office.
Both sides agreed to staff a lieutenant in the patrol division who would oversee four deputies, a forest deputy, a marine deputy and a community resource officer. There would also be a part-time civil service deputy working for the sheriff’s office as well as two sergeants working under jail commander Lt. Jeremy Krohn.
The part-time civil service deputy would also handle animal control cases for the Board of Commissioners, according to Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald.
Crescent City Fire Chief Kevin Carey said his department will be the eyes for law enforcement as the community seeks to curtail illegal fireworks this Fourth of July.
Speaking to the City Council via Zoom on Monday, Carey said he expects to have 25 volunteers and five of his battalion chiefs on duty. The fire department will divide its efforts into north, central and south divisions and plan with the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office, Crescent City Police Department and Del Norte Ambulance in case there are any large emergencies.
“We will be out and about doing patrols and following up on reports and smoke incidents,” Carey said. “And we’ll be reporting that to the PD and deputies as we need to do so we can produce a more safe Fourth of July in our area.”
Among the items discussed at Monday’s Crescent City Council meeting:
Reserve Officer Program:
Councilors gave their blessing to a program that will rely on volunteers to boost the Crescent City Police Department’s roster.
Police Chief Richard Griffin said two candidates have expressed interest in the program. One is a former CCPD officer who’s looking to maintain her police academy training and police officer status. The other candidate is a former corrections officer who wants to help out with the police department’s negotiations team, Griffin said.
The Council’s unanimous approval of an ordinance creating the reserve officer program will allow volunteers to be 24-hour peace officers depending on their level of expertise, the police chief said. They would be available to cover a shift when a career officer calls out sick and could fill in during an emergency. Their primary duties could also include helping out with traffic enforcement during major events like the Fourth of July celebration, acting as a public information officer, Griffin said.
