Garberville Business Owner Calls for Board of Supes to Provide Funding for Garbage Pickup in Public Areas

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Garbage overflowing onto a sidewalk on the main street through Garberville.

Garbage overflowing onto a sidewalk on the main street through Garberville. [Photo by Talia Rose]

Garberville has a serious TRASH problem! Our trash cans have overflowed all summer long as the receptacles provided are no longer big enough to handle the excess flow of garbage caused by trimmigrants and food trucks/ to go foods. It makes our town look like Garbageville. This is the first thing tourists see when they pull into town and it is a huge turnoff. Some tourists have stated they drove right through instead of stopping after seeing the trash piles. The citizen taxpayers and merchants are begging you to allot some funds to provide larger receptacles and more frequent pickup. Currently – we have Recology picking up as a FAVOR instead of paid pickup and a handful of volunteers who clean the excess and neither of these has made a dent in the piles of trash all over town. Recology only picks up what is in the cans – but the cans are far too small and boxes and bags of trash are always piled up beside them. If we are ever to become a tourist destination and save our flailing economy – we need to clean up our streets. Southern Humboldt provides massive cannabis tax dollars and those dollars should pay for trash cleanup which is in no small part caused by the trimmigrants and cannabis industry. In addition – our merchants and restaurant owners bring in tax dollars as well and deserve some of those dollars to be used keeping our town looking nice. Customers should not have to wade through piles of garbage to get into our stores. It is a health hazard as well as an eyesore. We are asking that you please find some funding for Garberville to have CLEAN STREETS. Thank you.

Talia Rose, Southern Humboldt Business Owner

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42 Comments
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Ernie Branscomb
Guest
2 years ago

“Garberville has a huge trash problem”. Garberville has a huge people problem. Trash happens.

Ernie Branscomb
Guest
2 years ago

Most of the trash is household trash. It is scattered all over anyway, look for names. Throw it back.

VMG
Guest
VMG
2 years ago

Honestly. “Garbageville”…

You said it… Wasn’t me!

There used to be a sign, hammered to a tree, on the way from Redway to the snarling metropolis of GBV. It said:

“Garbage is blowing from pickups”

And everywhere else…

Civic pride is not a concept which has penetrated far into Garberville.

I like the idea at the end of your letter though!

In SF, the “Start-up” companies have to pay an “extra tax”, presumably because they generate so much income because the VC’s buy and sell stock, and control values so that huge valuations allow huge new buildings to be built, Tesla S’s to be bought etc…

Anyhow, the wealthiest (on paper)(or somewhere in the SaaS), pay the most taxes! A wonderful idea, whose time has come, right along with the idea that stinking wealthy men shouldn’t be allowed to exploit women…

So, YES! Tax those gol-darn Pot Farmers, who are getting buried so deep in costs and taxes, that they ALL will have to go back to Guerilla Growing, so they can afford groceries at Ray’s!

Other than that, I have no plan that will save Garberville from itself, since it is one of the most inept, crooked and incompetent of settlements, with no employees, no laws, no cops, no place decent to live, no standards and a large population of touts, thieves, drug dealers, trimmers and bums… And SHCHD Admin…

Enjoy business in GBV, and either take up a collection and hire someone to clean up the streets (I thought they were hiring this job LAST year), and then buy a suitable truck and haul it yourselves, straight to the transfer station… Every day.

Last edited 2 years ago
Misguidedyouth
Guest
Misguidedyouth
2 years ago
Reply to  VMG

Gosh when was the last time you’d rolled down to the tenderloin… Makes garberville look pristine

VMG
Guest
VMG
2 years ago
Reply to  Misguidedyouth

I’ve actually been spending too much time in SF…

Drive out 16th between South Van Ness and Castro…

Or just about anywhere in the Bay Area…

Lived in Yuba City and Vacaville at times too…

Now, Lakeport is cleaner than The Mission, and the Lakeport police roust the bums, put ’em in handcuffs and search them, and drive them out past the City Limits…

Tolerance for “alternative lifestyles” is the problem, and, hey, they arrested a 30 year old woman North of Redding who allegedly started the Fawn Fire with her lighter…

Jeeze, ten miles off the Highway isn’t looking far enough out any more, but at least my neighbors aren’t living in tents and piling up their garbage…

A gal who lived near me, apparently had Cancer, didn’t tell anyone, and was subsequently found unresponsive in the home she had bought after retiring from a major corporation… She expired a few weeks later, but in the interim, when her friend showed up to look for her purse and cell phone etc, it was discovered that the inside of the house was trashed and stacked with boxes of her stuff, which was never put away. Bags of food not put away etc…

Eventually, apparently also Intestate, her heirs were located, an unbelievable stench was coming from her property, and when the heirs finally showed up after 5 months, they dug through her possessions, tossed cardboard boxes all over the place, and left. One presumes that anything
considered valuable was removed, and, now we are waiting for probate to clear so that somebody will come back, clean up, and sell the place…

So, it’s always something…

Last edited 2 years ago
Treated 9000
Guest
Treated 9000
2 years ago
Reply to  VMG

Trust your government and get vaxsinbated…We trust the man, and promote his story.

Littlefoot
Guest
Littlefoot
2 years ago

They should hire someone to pick up all the vagrants sleeping around Ray’s.

I like stars
Guest
I like stars
2 years ago

Time to incorporate and pay some taxes to provide public services?

dawni
Guest
dawni
2 years ago
Reply to  I like stars

So who gets to pay for incorporation? I see my neighbors that don’t live in Garberville proper spouting this theme a lot lately.
Will it be the property owners in GBV proper that pay? Who gets to vote on that incorporation? All of Southern Humboldt? Distrist 2? What about our Northern Mendocino friends calling for this action?
I say we start to look at our inclusive relationship with all the trash our area is generating. It’s not just the households and travelers responsible for what our local trash relationship is with the environment.
Without local CRV buyback we are seeing problem that exists the world over. Taking our trash to the dump or having it picked up at our homes and forgetting about it does not solve the bigger trash future we shuould be having a dialog about.
This problem is a message to humanity = Get Your Act Together.

Non-fiction
Guest
Non-fiction
2 years ago
Reply to  dawni

Generally, City Incorporation Proposals follow along reasonable boundaries where the proposed city can reasonably expect to provide services expected from a city.
Water, sewer, police, fire, roads, etc.

Ed Voice
Guest
Ed Voice
2 years ago
Reply to  I like stars

I like stars, actually, the Garberville Sanitary District was looking into that, asked by Board member Rio Anderson, is having Ralph Emerson looking into that very possibility, at the last two GSD Board meetings. Until they saw how much time and money it would take to incorporate, now they are just looking at becoming a “Community Services District” and that could include a town trash collection service…

See agenda item B.5, pages 15-17 for CSD

https://www.garbervillesd.org/files/db761c3d5/BOD+Meeting+Agenda+Packet+August+24%2C+2021.pdf

See agenda item B.7, pages 27-28 for Incorporation

https://www.garbervillesd.org/files/2e7f74c23/BOD+Meeting+Agenda+Packet+July+27%2C+2021.pdf

Last edited 2 years ago
yesmeagain
Guest
yesmeagain
2 years ago
Reply to  I like stars

Back around 2011 there was a movement to incorporate Garberville, Redway, and other areas of SoHum as one city. Lots of people were enthusiastic, but when it came to actually raising money and doing the work to get the process going, the interest melted away. Incorporation is a long, tedious, and expensive process, but so it running a city government. How many people would be willing to put in the time and effort to do the work of actually governing? If people are unable or unwilling to run for the local boards that already exist — fire department, school district, service districts — how exactly is “government by the people” going to work? Being vocal about ideas or criticism is only the beginning of the process, and — alas — often it’s the end of it, too.

Ed Voice
Guest
Ed Voice
2 years ago
Reply to  yesmeagain

You are very correct, it was going to be called:

https://www.dailydemocrat.com/2011/05/31/new-emerald-city-in-humboldt/

And one before that, 15 years earlier called Sequoia County.

Entering a world of pain
Guest
Entering a world of pain
2 years ago

Garberville as a “tourist destination to save our failing economy”. That’s hilarious. What exactly does gville have to offer. It’s a place I go to when I have to. I love the redwoods & the river but gville is shithole and has some of the rudest most self-centered/self-entitled people in the entire triangle

I like stars
Guest
I like stars
2 years ago

That’s a pretty rough way to say it but you are mostly right.

William Shakespeare
Guest
William Shakespeare
2 years ago

Garberville has gotten worse since Michelle Bushnell was elected.

Jake
Guest
Jake
2 years ago

Garberville has been circling the drain for years as the price per pound plummeted over the last 5yrs… has nothing to do with Michelle

Juanita
Guest
Juanita
2 years ago
Reply to  Jake

I think you might want to do a little investigating on THAT

Farce
Guest
Farce
2 years ago
Reply to  Jake

Well…the sad part is that Garbageville had at one time- and for a couple decades- so much money flowing in that it could have done many great things. All that hippie talk and all that crazy weed cash resulted in…not much. Homelessness actually increased along with the hard drug and mental health problems. The place got more wretched by the year. And what did the uber-rich progressive-talking “community community community” people do? Built McMansions and private fiefdoms out in the hills while letting town go to hell. Somebody honest should write a book about the disgusting turn of the hippie heaven as a cautionary tale for others. You’d have to include Reggae and The Mateel and a huge cast of self-righteous headier-than-thou charlatans along with a community that thought it was better than all the others and so karmically correct. The garbage spilling out on the sidewalks is only the physical manifestation of the town’s soul. Garberville- you had everything! Look at you now.

Guests
Guest
Guests
2 years ago
Reply to  Farce

All this blaming when the people to blame are the bums and drug addicts that are the actual problem either put them in jail or a mental institution or a housing facility that’s government provided. Sleeping and standing and crapping on land that isn’t yours should be illegal no matter where it is. More garbage can pick ups and fine people a thousand dollars for not picking up dog shit. Quit coddling the problem makers and aim your attention at them. The police will need to enforce the rules. But e everyone will complain about that too. It comes down to that we can’t make everyone happy so the best route we can take is to punish the problem makers.

Redwoodninja
Guest
Redwoodninja
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Not to mention whale gulch school wich is absolutely beautiful

VMG
Guest
VMG
2 years ago

The fact that Michelle Bushnell was elected Supervisor (the least poor quality candidate from a set of VERY poor choices) is a good indication of the fact that there isn’t a lot of hope for this settlement… There is no “town” at all to form a government, just a collection of grubbers trying to scam a living off the Pot-Fallout…

The fact that the Motels are the centers of Cannabis Commerce, and that such Restaurants and Stores as exist post “Cash Only” signs, is a good indication that even if there was Incorporation, barely any taxes at all would be collectable…

It is what it is, but, someone always feeds feral cats, and, someone travels with plastic bags to collect the garbage…

There’s good people, and “not so good people”…

Which are you?

VMG
Guest
VMG
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

I’m kinda busy, with important retired-guy stuff, stringing beads, stacking firewood, gotta wash that car this year sometime, and traveling to support my own cancer patient, but, I swear, I’m gonna visit Garberville and take care of my business with SHCHD and wander the town, before proceeding to visit folks in Hoopa, Weaverville and beyond…

COVID and all that…

Be safe, be well!

Karl Verick
Guest
Karl Verick
2 years ago

There seems to a cultural faction of people here that has learned to avoid going to the dump at all costs. It has not been an encouragement that the Dean Creek site has steadily raised both prices and minimum weight fee; so you pay the same about for 40 lbs as you do for 120 lbs. Maybe Recology would consider a once a month ‘Small Load Day”. Anyone found in the act of dumping household garbage should be fined severely, same as for littering. I look forward to trials with colored 8″X10″ photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one. People should be fined $500 and given community service to pick up the garbage. If the draft is ever re-instituted these people should be made to sit on the Group W Bench and barred from the military, because, “We don’t like your kind”.

Non-fiction
Guest
Non-fiction
2 years ago
Reply to  Karl Verick

Littering is already a $1000 fine.
$500 sounds less than motivating if $1000 isn’t doing it

Den mom
Guest
Den mom
2 years ago
Reply to  Non-fiction

Do you realize that to enforce those litter laws that LEO has to see you do it?
There once was a garbage man that left piles of garbage on the side of the road with awful signs for weeks at a time to raise $ to supply his bad habits.That went on for 8 years until the CHP finally caught him in action and gave him a cease and desist or jail!

yesmeagain
Guest
yesmeagain
2 years ago
Reply to  Karl Verick

I agree with your sentiment, but we have the same littering and trash problem here in my town in Lake Co., and in spite of much effort on the part of concerned folks and an attempt to make garbage pick-up mandatory (which failed, inevitably), the littering and dumping problems, along with huge amounts of various kinds of garbage accumulating in abandoned cars and boats and even yards, continues….

hopeful
Guest
hopeful
2 years ago

Does anyone know about the Gateway Project? I heard that it would provide funds to re-do main street and put in new sidewalks. That doesn’t solve the trash problem, but it would be helpful for the appearance of town.

Sirilacuellar
Guest
Sirilacuellar
2 years ago
Reply to  hopeful

There is dog waste all over all the sidewalks streets, there are people blocking the sidewalks because they have a lot of items with them plus a dog. Yeah poor old Garberville looks pretty trashed out. I don’t think incorporation will fix anything, it will just add more to taxes. By the way the dump is making a ton of money, they need to give give back to the community

Connie DobbsD
Member
2 years ago
Reply to  Sirilacuellar

They already take your garbage…

Ed Voice
Guest
Ed Voice
2 years ago

It would seem, you need to contact the Southern Humboldt Chamber of Commerce, since they state on their website:

“The Southern Humboldt Chamber Mission is to enhance our quality of life & environment by promoting tourism & assisting local businesses to expand and prosper.”

“The Chamber also functions as an advocate for Southern Humboldt at the County, State and Federal Levels.”

“The Chamber of Commerce is here to serve the businesses of our region by connecting them to area residents, visitors, and other businesses, supporting and enhancing both our vibrant local economy and our outstanding quality of life.”

https://garberville.org/about/

Ed Voice
Guest
Ed Voice
2 years ago

Or, pay the Eel River Clean Up Project to do a weekly pick up, while driving from encampment to encampment…

Legallettuce
Guest
Legallettuce
2 years ago

I was there yesterday morning. I saw no trash and only two people look’in ruff. I walked from rays to the smoke shop then over to pick my food up at the diner. I guess it’s how you invision your surroundings honestly. I have not been asked for a smoke or money in over two years and I go to town often. Now, if you were to see me walk’in around town ya might say there’s the third person look’in scraggly in town. Honestly, if ya don’t like it, stay away, we don’t need your city bullshit of how we should be. Usually, someone in the community or the community will clean up eventually.

Legallettuce
Guest
Legallettuce
2 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

I agree there is a lot of trash but I was just there and didn’t see any in Garberville proper. Actually have been quite surprised at how it’s changed (cleaner) since last year in a positive way. Also, I am usually there in the mornings before 10AM so that might skew things.

The city comment is about perspective. You can sit at the Ruth store and comment about the view accross the street or ya can drive three minutes away and be in tranquility where trash ain’t on your mind. lol, I say the same damn thing every time I bend over to pick up a cigarette butt or wrapper in town.

Yes, I do a lot for the community especially the southern region of both Humboldt and Trinity. Not cleaned up trash so I can definately expand. Anyone who works for me hauls trash anytime they gotta go down the hill, always.

Last edited 2 years ago
Melissa
Guest
Melissa
2 years ago

Complaining makes you part of the problem. Action makes you a problem solver. I recommend you put up a camera and if someone is caught littering or illegally dumping, call the cops. When people illegally dump at my store, I put on a pair of gloves and pick it up and put it in my garbage cans unless it’s an obscene amount of garbage or 300 pounds of rotting, decomposed, liquified animal carcasses, like somebody left in my parking lot a couple weeks ago, then I call the cops.
Clean your own sidewalks. Do your part to keep your block clean. Kick some ass if you have to!
Melissa Burger, Southern Humboldt Business Owner

BS Bushnell
Guest
BS Bushnell
2 years ago

Hey , for years our community has pleaded with michelle bushnell to clean out her properties north of Redway and keep the tweekers from living, shitting and starting fires , drug dealing overall trashing our beautiful area, but she refuses. Now that she’s “supervisor” she’s even worse . All she cares about is serving herself and spends her time trying to get the Garberville sanitary District to do a back room deal to give her water to her 50,000 square-foot mega grow in Kimtu. Even though we’re in a drought and the price of pot has collapsed, she just keeps trying to ram her own project through. What a conflict of interest to say the least , What a worthless piece of crap.

Big Bang
Guest
2 years ago

REALLY KYM? How about you can’t leave your rig at the put in or take out for a steelheelhead driftboat trip. Or rent a fucking motel room without a bunch of drug dealing, screaming, violent, thieving junkie bums “popping the window of your brand new truck for the change in your console. How about walking to the Branding Iron or the Blue Room for a cold one, without being yelled at/ hassled at/stabbed at? Fuck the pot culture, you, and your ilk ruined that town, and in your mind, you think fucking weed doesn’t hurt a thing. Ask anyone (non pot heads) in town, they hate your guts. I can’t say as I blame ’em and I have lived here a lot longer than you have. Garberville has ONE problem. And that problem is goddamn drugs.

Treated 9000
Guest
Treated 9000
2 years ago
Reply to  Big Bang

Dang. I always try too, try and respect her, however I think she just collects data, and agitates so , at least my comments, out of frustration, goes in my file, so I get sent to the re_ education/ fema camps. I tried to converse with her, and she is so set on being righteous that she is easy to hate, however deep down I actually feel sorry for her, because she hasn’t found God and gets played by people.