Meet the Candidate: Rex Bohn

In partnership with KMUD News, Redheaded Blackbelt is publishing a Meet the Candidate interview series with the candidates and incumbents running for Board of Supervisor in the First, Second, and Third Districts of Humboldt County. Each candidate, interviewed by the KMUD News Department, was asked the same series of questions. None were given the questions in advance, and each were allotted 15 minutes to answer all five questions and provide their closing statement. 

KMUD aired the candidates’ answers in rotating alphabetical order by district. We will be featuring one candidate per day, and in the name of fairness, in reverse alphabetical order. Today we are featuring First District Board of Supervisors incumbent, Rex Bohn. 

First District Board of Supervisor incumbent, Rex Bohn.

KMUD News: Introduce yourself and share a little overview and background on who you are as a person and who you would like to be as a candidate. 

Rex Bohn, lifelong, well, 67-year-resident of Humboldt County. [I] grew up in a family-owned, corner grocery store in the First District. [I’ve] Lived most of my life in the First District. I’ve been involved in youth sports since, I think, high school, coached my first youth basketball team when I was 17, and have been involved with a lot of charity, a lot of public events.  [I] probably have raised about $15-18 million through charity events over the last 35 years, 40 years, doing auctions and things like that; and then I helped organize a whole bunch of community members to build Redwood Field, which is a youth-oriented recreation complex out in Cutten… besides other things.

KMUD News: What inspired you to run for the First District’s Board of Supervisors position? 

Well, it’s kind of funny: I thought I was going to do one term, I was getting ready to retire. And somebody brought it up and I’d gone and talked to Jimmy Smith and thought there was some things that were going on with the general plan and …a lot to do with property rights, a lot to do [with] things like that. So I decided to kind of pay attention, and I’d always been to a lot of meetings and started paying attention more, and had actually built a few gas stations. and dealt with the public Building and Planning Department, and dealt with them a lot when I was building the ball fields, and [I] just thought there might be an easier path for people. I don’t know if I’ve accomplished that at all, but [I] decided to run.

KMUD News: What do you think are the top five issues facing Humboldt County? And how are you hoping to address them if elected?

Well, you say the top five, and it’s hard to narrow out the top three – I mean, …obviously, …the drug use, which ties into the homeless issue, is a top priority. Infrastructure is big. …That’s huge, you know, …that’s a big thing. And then …we kind of built the cannabis division, …we built the plane as we were flying it. …We’ve done the first and then we did point, you know, cannabis one cannabis two and there’s probably can be some more adjustments to it. So as we move forward, …these are the top priorities we have. And we’ve made a lot of headway on homeless, I think in the last six years, I think we’ve provided 375 housing units that our health department’s been involved with. We have our MIST team [Mobile Intervention Services Team], we have a lot of efforts going forward on that. 

So we’re making headway, but now we’re running into another budget deficit time, which will be hard to get things accomplished. 

The great thing about being a supervisor here, I’m surrounded by very, a lot of very, very smart people, department heads, staff, that pour over a lot of details. 

You know, I’ve been on our RCRC, the rural counties group for 11 years, and we share a lot of information, things that work and don’t work in the rural counties, because a lot of these things are grant driven, and we don’t have a grant writer on staff. We kind of just have to do it, you know, from the wing. And then you go to a county like LA and they have 30 grant writers on staff. So it’s competing for the dollars that are out there. And what we have to do is do a better job of competing and we’re getting better at that if you’ve noticed, we are getting some grant monies.

KMUD News: Can you share an overview on how you plan to engage with the community if elected?

Well, …it’s kind of funny, Senator Mike McGuire calls me the hardest working supervisor on the North Coast, and I don’t know if that’s a true statement, but I do get out there. I’m kind of known as being everywhere, because I like to know what’s going on. I pretty much put in six or seven days a week, I’m starting early in the morning, I was here this morning at quarter to six. And …I’ll have meetings tonight, probably. So I put the time in, you put the effort forward. 

And I like the job. 

And, you know, it’s kind of like doing my events for the community–I’ve been doing those for 45 years, longer, you know, and so, … I love Humboldt, that’s my tagline. But I really enjoy the people of Humboldt, …and we can get to where we want to be. This is a great place to live. I mean, …there are issues we have to face, but at the end of the day, you’re not going to find a better place.

KMUD News: What makes you the ideal candidate for this job? And do you believe you would do a better job than the other candidates?

I don’t know if there’s an ideal person. …I think my connectivity. …I was just appointed Vice Chair of the rural action caucus for NACo, the National Association of Counties, and there’s about 3100 counties in the United States, and about 70% of them are rural. So getting appointed to this–I think there’s only two on the West Coast that are appointed to it—and so that’s a pretty big deal. I just had to go back to West Virginia for a three day meeting, and it’s enlightening, and it’s finding out how many different places do things different[ly]. It’s amazing how some areas outside of California can do things [that] are a little more streamlined than we are. 

But as we move forward, the most important thing we [can] do, is to do what’s best for our area, and for all people involved.

And right now …it’s going to be tough. You know, …I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, it’s gonna be tough the next few years, because, much like 2008-2009, we just got announced that we have a $69 billion deficit on the state level, $69 billion! …You got to understand, three years ago, we [had] a $27 billion surplus. So we’re finding out, the first of January, they just enacted the ‘health care for all’ for illegal immigrants between the ages of 25 and 49, which is going to cost the state $3.1 billion, …they estimate. Well, …that’s a lot of money. And that was planned for two and three years ago, when we had a surplus. Now we’re going to have to adjust and they’re gonna have to find …cuts to make these kinds of programs available. 

So usually, what happens is our smaller counties usually get hit the hardest.

KMUD News: With your remaining time would you like to share additional information about yourself or any closing remarks? 

We’re all going to have to take a little bit of a haircut here. You’re going to find some things not happening as quick. We’ve got to deal with our budget. We have to evaluate all our services. And we have to look for opportunities to …improve. And …with my positions, both on our RCRC and NACo, I’m allowed to find out different ways people are doing [things]. I mean, …we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we should just find out how people are making the wheels turn better. And …that’s the big thing about getting out to these outside agencies or outside groups that support our small counties, and our counties as a whole. So, I mean, 12 years on the board, I’ve made a lot of connections. And at this time, …nothing does more for us than those connections, I can make phone calls and people actually answer my phone call. So I’ve been very fortunate in …those ways.

Housing, we need to streamline that, the efficiency and the process. I mean,…nobody wants it in their backyard, nobody wants it, but we’re going to have to provide some housing. Now with that being said, our housing issue …is dire, but I don’t think it’s extreme. There are a lot of houses out there, we have to learn how to utilize them. So as we move forward, and we see ….these opportunities arise, we have to grab them and go for them, …and convince the landlord, convince these people that we have ….some good tenants. The problem is …a lot of people …want good tenants, bad tenants seem to cost them more money. I mean, …we’re running some locations where we’re underwriting the liability on them, so if you rent to somebody, and they do cause a problem or damage, we’re underwriting that to get people off the streets. That is an availability, but as a lot of landlords will tell you, if I get one bad …tenant, the other tenants want to leave. 

So we’ve got to work with them. And we have tenant awareness meetings, and things like that, to try to make people realize that there are some people that are just struggling and just need a hand up. I mean, I know everybody says hand up instead of a handout, but there are a lot of people with the cost going up the way they are… I mean, we’re looking at PG&E at 13% right now, I mean, …this is a tough, tough time. And …the biggest thing we will do, the people that are on the verge of homelessness, or houseless, we need to help them to stay in their houses, and then backtrack to help the people that are out of the houses, so we don’t have more people in that logjam. 

I’ve done the job.

I’ve done the job, I don’t think anybody can say I don’t do the job. I don’t think anybody can say I don’t put in the hours. But I also think I’m efficient in my hours. I’ve got great awareness of what’s going on in the county, like I said, I’ve spent 67 years here. I’ve been involved in [the] private [sector], this is my first time in …the government mode. 

So it’s a realization–I finally understand, it’s kind of amazing, even this long, I get amazed every day going, ‘we do that’, ‘we do that.’ But we’ve got, over the last 12 years, …we’ve got great people in place. We’ve got a great CAO and their office staff is doing a good job. And we’re kind of running seamless right now, to a certain extent. I mean, we’re never gonna have a board [that] fully agrees, but we’ve got a board that seems to be working together. I’m pleased to see we finally have worked forward. 

…[I]n Michelle’s district, we finally have come to an agreement and getting the Veterans Hall going there. We have a lot of big road projects that we’ve been able to take care of. We’re at the mercy of FEMA on a lot of those, because if we fix them, then FEMA decides, ‘well, you don’t need the money because you fixed them’, so we have to wait for FEMA to approve. And that …concept can sometimes take two to three years, so we’re band-aiding things to make it happen. 

…I’m proud of the work I’ve done. I’m proud of the improvements we’ve made in the First District, in the county as a whole. You’re elected by one district, but you manage the whole county. And and the other thing is, I’m fairly proud that …I do a lot …of events, and I do a lot of things, but …when I was in the private sector, I worked all over the county, literally Southern Humboldt, Willow Creek, and everything else. So I know everybody, a lot of people in the county, and that has worked in my favor on a lot of things when things come up in front of the board because I can make that phone call. So I’m proud of that. 

It’s been fun. I did not plan on running this long, we just did not have anybody step up. So you know, this thing I heard the other day, somebody says, ‘Love it or hate it’, he says, ‘Rex, the one thing about it, you don’t sugarcoat it, you know where you stand.’ There’s no surprises with me. And I guess that’s because …I don’t have a political agenda I’ve got to make… I’ve got my three grandchildren living in Fortuna, ….I want them to stay in Fortuna, or actually move to Eureka and get closer to me, but they’re gonna stay in Fortuna because that’s where their house is. But I’m proud of them. I love following all their events. So that gets me out of my district and in the Second District, but I really appreciate [it]. 

And I’ve won my last three elections by a …fairly good margin, so I must be doing the job that the majority of the First District wants. I mean, there’s always those few that are going to be throwing out everything in the world I’ve done wrong, but when you look at it, they never complain about the job I’m doing. It’s something I’ve done at a fundraiser, …you know, a couple …of missteps that I have apologized for, but you gotta remember I do 50 of those a year. 

Anyway, I …haven’t had a lot of jobs in my life. I stayed at my other job [for] 24 years. That was private, on my own, but I love serving the people in Humboldt County and the job I do. And as long as I think and the people of the First District think I’m doing a good job, I’m proud to serve them.

Candidate answers were transcribed from an audio interview, and lightly edited for reading clarification where noted. 

For more information on Rex Bohn’s campaign, visit the Rex Bohn for 1st District Supervisor website. Bohn can be reached by email at [email protected], by mail at Rex Bohn for Supervisor 2024, P.O. Box 338, Cutten, Ca. 95534, or by phone at 707-498-2228.

For additional election coverage, Live Candidate Forums will be aired on KMUD News:

During the fourth and fifth weeks of January, KMUD News will be hosting live candidate forums for the upcoming elections that have a direct impact on Humboldt County residents.  Tune in to special editions of KMUD Local News from January 23rd to January 30th. 

The schedule for the forums is as follows: 

• Superior Court Judge: Tuesday, January 23rd, from 6 to 7 pm. 
• First Supervisorial District: Wednesday, January 24th, from 5 to 7 pm.
• Second Supervisorial District: Thursday, January 25th, from 5 pm to 7 pm.
• Third Supervisorial District: Friday, January 26th, from 6 to 7 pm (Please note that candidate Roy Gomez has declined to participate). 
• Measure A: Monday, January 29th, from 5 to 6:30 pm. Gain insights from both proponents and opponents. 
• Assembly District 2: Tuesday, January 30th, from 6 to 8 pm. 

To stay informed, tune in to listen kmud.org, watch live on the @KMUDNews Facebook page, or on the @LaurenSchmittreports YouTube channel. We encourage voters to submit their questions in advance to [email protected]. Your active participation ensures a robust democratic process.

To learn more about the other candidates for the Humboldt County, First District, Board of Supervisors seat, click below:

Humboldt County Meet the Candidate Forums:

1st District Candidates:

• Meet the Candidate: Jerry McGuire
• Meet the Candidate: Gordon Clatworthy
• Meet the Candidate: Rex Bohn

2nd District Candidates:

• Meet the Candidate: Brian Roberts
• Meet the Candidate: Jeana McClendon
• Meet the Candidate: Michelle Bushnell

3rd District Candidates:

• Meet the Candidate: Mike Wilson
• *Note: 3rd District Candidate, Roy Gomez, declined to participate in the KMUD Meet the Candidate forums.

Superior Court Judge:

• Meet the Superior Court Judge Candidate: Gregory Kreis
• Meet the Superior Court Judge Candidate: April Van Dyke