_{Thumbnail photo: Linda Sutter spoke with KFUG Community Radio as a candidate for Crescent City Harbor commissioner in October 2024. | Photo by Amanda Dockter}

Local activist Linda Sutter has filed another court complaint against the Crescent City Harbor District, this time accusing officials of violating her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Filed in the Eureka-McKinleyville Division of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California on Dec. 14, Sutter’s complaint included Harbormaster Mike Rademaker and commissioners Rick Shepherd, John Evans and Gerhard Weber as individual defendants. In her complaint, she accuses them of attempting to silence her when she speaks at public meetings and states that not responding to her requests for information under the California Public Records Act interferes with her “First Amendment news gathering rights.”

Sutter also states that Weber, who was chairman for much of 2025, used his position to suppress the speech of other women, namely Stephanie Abrams, Alicia Williams and Donna Westfall.

Sutter identifies herself as an investigative journalist working for the Crescent City Times. She told Redwood Voice that her latest complaint is the third she’s filed in court not counting complaints she filed against the Tri Agency Economic Development Authority, a now-defunct joint powers authority that the Harbor District was a member of. Sutter also ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Harbor District Board of Commissioners in the 2024 general election.

“They need to be spanked,” she said. “The federal court needs to step in. And now I’m suing for damages because of them violating my civil rights. (And) I observed them violating other women’s civil rights. Obviously they have a problem with women — that’s unacceptable.”

Sutter is demanding a jury trial, saying that if her case gets that far she hopes it’s tried at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. According to her complaint, Sutter is seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction against the defendants as well as an award of compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney’s fees. 

Sutter also accuses Rademaker of slandering her. According to her complaint, when she asked questions about a $450,000 California Coastal Conservancy grant-funded restroom project on South Beach as well as the harbormaster’s educational background at a May 13, 2025 meeting, Rademaker said that Sutter had been “profiling him.”

According to Sutter’s complaint, Rademaker stated that Sutter had been “calling my ex-wife and contacting my former work associates on a daily basis.” Sutter stated that the accusation was false, according to her complaint.

On Monday, when reached for comment, Rademaker told Redwood Voice that he had reasonable basis at the time to believe he made an accurate statement. But he also qualified that statement by noting that it was based on what he had been told and that he wasn’t certain that Sutter was the individual involved.

“While I was admittedly frustrated by what I perceived as an unusual fixation on me personally, it is difficult to see how that remark could plausibly constitute defamation, particularly given that she holds herself out as a reporter and investigative inquiry, or ‘profiling,’ in the ordinary sense of the term, is inherent in that role,” Rademaker told Redwood Voice via text message. “Even taken at face value, me drawing attention to that conduct does not appear capable of causing reputational harm to her, given her prolific blog posts about people in the community.”

Though he didn’t comment about Sutter’s allegations against Weber regarding his conduct as Board chair, Rademaker said CCHD views her claims as “lacking legal merit.”

At that May 23 meeting, Sutter was allowed to continue her comment following Rademaker’s statement. According to her complaint, she was emotional and responded by saying, “don’t down-talk me like that, I know what you look like with your clothes off and it’s not that impressive.”

At that point, according to Sutter’s complaint, Evans called for her removal, to which she responded by saying “call the police.”

“The meeting recessed for approximately 10 or more minutes while the district’s attorney, Ryan Plotz, advised that the plaintiff could remain,” Sutter’s complaint states. “Rademaker was never reprimanded for his slanderous statements. This was done under the color of authority and in their official capacities.”

Another instance of Sutter being threatened with removal from a Harbor District meeting occurred on Sept. 9 when the Board was expected to discuss the censure of their colleague Annie Nehmer. 

When Sutter stepped to the podium to ask a question about the potential censure, which had been removed from the agenda, Weber told her she couldn’t speak because the item was on the agenda. When Sutter disputed this and Weber told her to leave, he recessed the meeting so he could confer with the district’s attorney.

“Plotz initially stated that Plaintiff could not ask that question,” Sutter’s complaint states. “Commissioner Dan Schmidt clarified that the item had been removed from the agenda prior to the meeting. Plotz corrected himself and said: ‘she can talk about that.’ Plaintiff was only given two minutes rather than three.”

In the case of Abrams, at an Aug. 13 meeting, when she opposed CCHD retaining Sandy Moreno as its financial officer, Weber cut her off, saying the item she was speaking to wasn’t on the agenda. Weber cut her off a second time when Abrams attempted to argue that her comment was relevant to the discussion.

After cutting Abrams off a third time, Weber recessed the meeting for about five minutes, telling her she needed to leave. It was Evans who urged Weber to let Abrams have her say, ultimately making a motion to override his colleague’s director for Abrams to leave.

According to Sutter’s complaint, Abrams no longer attends Harbor District meetings because of the stress.

Sutter stated that she observed Weber deny Williams a chance to speak at a Sept. 24 meeting, ultimately asking two Del Norte County sheriff’s deputies to remove her.

Finally, Sutter said she was acting in her capacity as a journalist when Crescent City Times editor Donna Westfall attempted to speak at a Nov. 22 Harbor District meeting. According to Sutter, Westfall referred to an item in the Triplicate concerning a recall campaign former Triplicate editor Roger Gitlin was conducting against Nehmer and Schmidt, who purchased the newspaper from Gitlin’s employers.

“Gitlin, who was in the audience, screamed out, ‘DO NOT INVOKE MY NAME IT IS A RULE HERE,’” Sutter’s complaint states. “Chair Weber used the gavel to suppress her speech. Ms. Westfall asserted her First Amendment rights and reclaimed her time. Male disruption was permitted; a female speaker was suppressed. Men are commonly allowed to make outbursts and given extended time with their speech, without reprimand or asking for extended time.”

Sutter also alleges that the Harbor District is violating the California Public Records Act, stating that when he was chairman, Weber said the Harbor District wouldn’t fulfill CPRA requests “because their attorney told them not to.”

Rademaker said he doesn’t remember Weber making that statement and that the Harbor District continues to process CPRA requests, including ones that Sutter filed.

“Just last week, Sandy (Moreno) attempted to give a large amount of data to Linda, but she refused to accept it, stating that the font size was too small on some documents,” Rademaker told Redwood Voice. “Sandy is addressing that to make it easier to read. In short, our attorney has not advised us to stop responding to CPRA requests. We continue to fulfill them.”

On Monday, Sutter said she doesn’t believe Rademaker when he says during public meetings that he and Harbor District staff are being inundated with CPRA requests. One of her cases against the Harbor District, filed on Feb. 27, is based on a CPRA request Sutter said she submitted earlier that month. Sutter said she was asking for emails and texts between the harbormaster and harbor commissioners from Dec. 17, 2024 through Jan. 7, 2025. She said she initially received a five-page response Rademaker created that “summarized what he thought I should know.”

Sutter said she demanded screenshots of the text messages and emails instead and the Harbor District refused. 

“They literally said no, they don’t have to, ‘that’s creating new documents,’” Sutter told Redwood Voice. “It’s not. That’s not what the law says in CPRA. It says any format that is requested.”

Sutter said a hearing for that case has been scheduled for Jan. 13.

Sutter’s federal complaint also includes concerns she’s raised to the Harbor Board as well as the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors regarding the conduct of CCHD security personnel. After receiving a copy of the CCHD patrol logs, Sutter said that she found instances where patrolmen referred to an RV park resident as “shower Nazi” and others as “tweaky twacks” and “hoes” — statements she repeats in her federal complaint.