Good thing we don’t have tornadoes around here

This particular storm was accompanied by hot air and golf ball-sized bullshit.

Where is that wascally wabbit?

Several of our SoHum friends were quick to notice that Planning Commissioner Ralph Faust, the Bayside resident who is so vocal in his opposition to people living in rural areas like Bayside, ditched out on the big planning commission shindig down in Garberville on Thursday.

First he said he would carpool with other commissioners, then the story was that he would drive down himself, but in the end he didn’t show at all. What’s up with that?

Consider the answer to that question just one more gem from the You Can’t Make This Shit Up department.

So shortly after the board of supervisors meeting Tuesday, Faust approached county counsel to report that there had been a threat against his life. He believed he was in real danger, he said, he was afraid–and to be perfectly honest he would not feel safe going forward with the planning commission meeting in Garberville.

But what’s this he’s talking about? A death threat? Against a public official?? Holy crap!! This thing has freaky right-wing militia written all over it, does it not?

And Faust wasn’t just making this shit up. He had proof!! As evidence of the plot against him, he produced the doctored photograph and caption below which had appeared in this blog one day earlier.

Ah, now here's a classic scene from "The Christmas Story." Is it wrong of us to hope this Ralphie shoots his eye out?

How could you argue with that? We’ll be goddamned if that’s not him in that terrifying pink bunny suit. And that’s some scary-ass shit.

But Ralph–if we may–what with you being a lawyer and all, we’re assuming you can scrape up enough legal know-how to recognize that our repetition of a punchline from a clearly sourced Christmas movie does not by any standard constitute a threat, yes?

Besides, friend. If we were you, we’d worry less about the danger posed by a child’s Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing that tells time and quite a bit more about stepping on your own dick with laughably stupid shit like this.

Sure, Garberville didn’t miss anything by not having your genius in the room. But the thought of you playing this photo like a pair of aces just to get out of going down there–well frankly, that just tickles us pink.

Oh THAT explains it

Yeah. Guess who teaches the Coastal Commission about bias and conflicts of interest? They're definitely learning from the best!!

It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

Ah, now here's a classic scene from "The Christmas Story." Is it wrong of us to hope this Ralphie shoots his eye out?

Who says government isn’t efficient?

Peter Douglas, Bill Pierson and the now-infamous nooner. Smile, friends!!

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 think maybe the commission got some kind of head start on that, do you?

Hmm?

Couldn’t be.

Even if one appellant was the commission’s lawyer for 20 years.

Or if the commission’s chair previously gave the appellant a job.

Or the appellant’s daughter is a commission staffer.

Or another appellant employs the first appellant.

Or two other appellants are current commissioners.

Or the commission’s executive director is a personal friend of the man whose business would be most affected by the Marina Center development.

No, those factors just make their achievement that much more impressive: It’s amazing they get anything done with that massive circle jerk they’ve got going.

Ralph Faust asks Coastal Commission to stop cleanup of Balloon Track–with meaningless updates

Fuck all y'all.

And he reportedly did so, unlike in this photo, with a completely straight face.

Not that any of this is funny in the usual sense of the word. None of those pull-my-finger or naughty limerick jokes for him, the old coot.

No, with this appeal Faust definitely employs the stodgier ironic form–on multiple levels and to breathtaking effect.

We begin with the obvious: Faust, who works as an environmental attorney, is asking the Coastal Commission to prevent the cleanup of a contaminated former railyard from which toxins flow persistently into Humboldt Bay.

Then there’s the Coastal Commission itself, which was Faust’s employer for more than 20 years. He rose to the rank of chief counsel before a brief but memorably disreputable stint as Humboldt’s interim county counsel.

Handing him that gig on a golden platter was none other than Bonnie Neely, who now chairs the same organization to which Faust is appealing.

Which brings us to Faust’s self-righteous statements to his fellow planning commissioners just one week ago about recusing himself from discussion of three Arkley projects. Faust insisted he had always treated Arkley right but was selflessly stepping back from the projects to save the county time and money.

What a guy! Six days later he appealed the Eureka City Council’s approval of the interim cleanup which, if successful, would grind Arkley’s Marina Center development to a halt.

Have we left anything out?

Maybe just this: Faust, the man who purports to save Eurekans from the horrors of a nontoxic waterfront, carpetbagged his angry inch up here from San Francisco fewer than three years ago. He does not live–and in fact he has never lived–in or even near the city of Eureka.

Awesome!!

Meaningless Update 1: Today’s Times-Standard contains a longer list of appellants in a story we would link to if we could find it online.

Meaningless Update 2: Bastards finally put the story up online this afternoon. Read your merry ass off here.

Four years already?? And us without a cake.

Is the Faustian reference a Freudian slip? Regardless, get your prog on and spend an evening with Pete Nichols and his two great loves: asking for money and talking about himself. The cost is only $45 and your last shred of self-respect. Enjoy!!

This may be indicative of a lack of the larger imagination, but we have a hard time with "party of the year" and Ralph Faust in the same thought. Is it just us?

Marina Center cleanup moves forward on 3-2 vote

What? It could happen.

The cleanup is now set to begin, after more than 200 people packed Eureka city hall Tuesday night to urge the council’s approval of the Marina Center Environmental Impact Report.

Public comments weighed overwhelmingly in support of the site cleanup and subsequent development. Some talked about the jobs the project would produce and the much-needed boost to the local economy. Others complained about environmentalists who “think their job is done when they’ve complained loudly enough and filed enough lawsuits.”

One commenter said, “We have an opportunity to take an eyesore and an embarrassment and turn it into something we can be proud of.”

Another asked, “We have a toxic wasteland in our city. Why wouldn’t we want to clean that up?”

And our fave: ‘Nobody cared how dirty the property was until someone offered to clean it up.”

Dozens of residents expressed their support for the project before Ralph Faust used his three minutes to threaten to sue to stop it. A woman representing EPIC and the NEC said those organizations would also sue. Not to be left out, CREGster Larry Evans threatened to sue as well.

That’s what the enviros brought to the discussion–unless you count the genius Arcata resident who said he had to attend a public meeting for a class at HSU and took the opportunity to sagely instruct attendees that they shouldn’t settle for anything but the best on the Balloon Tract. He didn’t present any thoughts as to what the best might be or who might pay for it. Maybe he’ll get to that next semester.

There were numerous demands for Larry Glass to recuse himself from any action related to the development because of his longstanding personal animosity toward the Arkley family. That didn’t happen, of course, but he and co-obstructionist Linda Atkins got all kinds of defensive about how they love jobs and love the city and didn’t stall anything right before they voted to, you know, stall.

The council’s vote means the EIR will be brought back Oct 27 with a staff recommendation to approve it. The Coastal Development Permit is scheduled to be approved November 3rd.

But keep in mind this isn’t the end. It’s advantage Eureka, but the progs knew all along they would lose here. They’ll make their stand at the Coastal Commission and in the courts.

The end will come when a polluted property is cleaned, hundreds of jobs are created, sales tax revenues rise, 11 acres of wetlands are added–and affordable building supplies are for sale in the city.

Quadratics, linears and complete morons

For those of you who have not yet drunkenly stumbled onto our Data page, the graphic below is the sort of thoughtful analysis our Vital Statistics Department will be posting there. This graph, for example, shows a propensity among our readers for hard-hitting journalism and soft-core pornography, although not necessarily in that order. And check out our math!! It’s not that good. But click the Data tab at the top of the page once in a while. If the staff aren’t out carousing with the Graphics Department, we’ll have new and increasingly irrelevant information for you to read. Enjoy, friends!!

Damn. And all this time we thought people read the Humboldt Mirror for the articles.

The tragical history of Dr. Faust

Remember Faust? No, sillies. The other Faust. Goethe and Marlowe’s Faust, that German fellow with the awkward syntax who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for–well, something. We forget what. Knowledge. Power. An extra two inches. Does it matter?

The story itself is your standard-issue dog turns into a devil, offers to serve Faust on earth if he promises to return the favor in hell, and after the deal is inked in blood our protagonist commences the illicit banging of a hot chick who kills her mom so as to facilitate additional banging before getting predictably pregged and her brother dies defending her honor and she drowns her baby in the river, etc., etc.

Bo-ring, really, but the arrangement clearly turned out none too well for anyone, including Faust, who after that odd jumble of plot elements still had to follow through on the whole burning-in-hell end of things.

But the story has been notably cheerier for the other Faust–Ralph, whose narrative goes something like this: A lawyer of enormously so-so abilities is recruited by Bonnie Neely to Humboldt County where he is named Interim County Counsel and advises the board during the drafting of the General Plan Update, after which he is appointed by Mark Lovelace to represent the Third District on the Planning Commission while it considers and revises the General Plan Update, while at the same time providing legal counsel to the Northcoast Environmental Center, an organization which, on its own and as part of the Healthy Humboldt Coalition, actively lobbies both the Board and the Planning Commission to achieve its preferred outcome to–you guessed it–the General Plan Update.

That Mr. Faust as Interim County Counsel generously if improperly released dozens of GPU-related documents to Mark Lovelace–before the latter was elected, before he was even a candidate to be Faust’s future appointer–well that’s just another thread in the web.

But here’s one important difference between the two Fausts: No one’s suggesting ours sold his soul to anyone.

Honestly. Who would buy it?

He suits me not at all, our new-made Burgermeister!
Since he’s installed, his arrogance grows faster.
How has he helped the town, I say?
Things worsen,—what improvement names he?
Obedience, more than ever, claims he,
And more than ever we must pay!

-Goethe

Oh, you decide.