Pierson bestie to step down from Coastal Commission

Peter Douglas, the polarizing executive director of the California Coastal Commission and frequent Bill Pierson lunch date, announced he will retire at the end of November. Read the San Francisco Chronicle article here.

The Biggest Loser

Even though it’s still a sore subject over at the Big Hammer headquarters, it’s worth mentioning again which local millionaire shelled out the dough in November’s election. The November election showed that big donations don’t always guarantee a win in Eureka. Bill and Elizabeth Pierson filed a major donor expenditure statement, indicating they donated $44,000 [...]

Afterhours video surfaces from Elections Office security cam

  The official and final vote tally is supposed to be released today, according to the top Elections Office honcho Carolyn Crnich.

Kuhnel goes on the Pierson payroll

  After weeks of declining to state publicly his opposition to the Marina Center, Third Ward city council candidate Ron Kuhnel made his stance refreshingly clear when he accepted a $2,000 campaign contribution from the man who stands to gain the most from the project’s continued obstruction. Bill “the Big Hammer” Pierson previously ponied up two large for First Ward incumbent Larry Glass [...]

Judge deflates Baykeeper Balloon Track lawsuit

With nary a peep from any of the normally vocal environmental groups since his ruling last week, U.S. District Court Judge Jeff White dismissed the Humboldt Baykeeper’s major claim in its lawsuit against Eureka’s Balloon Track owners. Baykeeper and its parent organization, the equally litigiously crazed Ecological Rights Foundation, filed the suit in 2006 claiming, [...]

Democracy cockblocked?

After months of telling us a Marina Center ballot measure would be meaningless, local progs have shifted course and decided instead that Measure N is so important they must sue to prevent voters from considering it. Their logic? What else? That the electorate is too stupid to understand what the measure is all about. Quoth Humboldt Paykeeper [...]

Neely finally infiltrates T-S staff

Bonnie Neely, the Fourth District Supervisor and California Coastal Commission chair, writing “for the Times-Standard” reminded voters today that during her quarter century in office she’s done virtually nothing as the representative of the relevant jurisdiction with respect to the Balloon Track property, it’s cleanup and any hopes of generating jobs through its conversion to [...]

Neely groundswell continues

Fourth District harpy Bonnie Neely’s latest round of campaign filings contains a few interesting items. Her FPPC form 460s show that recent contributors include: two Coastal Commissioners Pierson Building Supply (shocker!!) Blue Lake Rancheria (another $10 grand from those Fourth District folk) her estranged husband Terry Farmer her brother-in-law Neal Sanders Add that to the [...]

When life hands you lemons….

As District Four Supervisor Bonnie Neely parlays her position as chair of the California Coastal Commission into some tidy stacks of campaign cash, her campaign finance filings indicate the true depth of her popular support. Call us cynical, but this looks like something less than an outpouring of grassroots enthusiasm.

Can we get some fries with that shake?

Substantial B.S.

So, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that all of the power drunk California Coastal commissioners agreed during their meeting today that there were “substantial issues” raised in the EPIC, Paykeeper, NEC and Ralph Faust appeal of the phase one of the Marina Center project’s local coastal plan amendment approved recently by the [...]

George Clark: Still kind of a dumbfuck

In yesterday’s Times-Standard, failed city council candidate George Clark articulates some of the genius that sent his campaign straight down the ol’ crapper last fall. A few highlights: If 75 percent of residents cannot afford home ownership, give them no jobs. That will help. If the Balloon Track is “essential for growth that actually begins [...]

Who says government isn’t efficient?

Within 24 hours of the filing of the last of three appeals challenging the city of Eureka’s approval of the Balloon Track interim cleanup plan, the California Coastal Commission published a surprisingly thorough 82-page legal and environmental analysis of the plan, along with the expected recommendation that the appeals be heard. Weird, huh? You don’t [...]

Pierson hearts Ash. A lot.

Harbor District candidate John Ash’s campaign finance filings are late again, but when they finally do appear, it’s unlikely his moderate and conservative supporters are going to be thrilled about that $3,000 contribution from Bill Pierson. It might not be the largest amount ever raised by a candidate for one of the unpaid commission seats, [...]

We’re surprised it’s not flying at half staff