Eureka Sales Tax Revenue ‘Pointed in One Direction and That’s Down’
Eureka is in a situation familiar to other Humboldt County cities – its costs are rising at an alarming rate and its revenues are comparatively weak.
The sorry state of Eureka’s budget was explored during a May 26 joint meeting between the Eureka Council and the city’s Finance Advisory Committee.
Finance Director Lane Millar gave a presentation on the budget that flagged several troubling issues.
“Sales tax revenues have decreased over time and continue to stay flat, and most expenditure increases are out of our control,” he said.
That’s resulted in a budget deficit of $800,000 in the current fiscal year.
The projection for the next fiscal year beginning July 1 is a modest 2 percent growth in tax revenue. But even that slight improvement is in doubt.
It’s based on a forecast by HdL Companies, the city’s contracted financial consultant. Councilmember Renee Contreras-DeLoach has heard it before and as before, she isn’t buying it.
“I feel like I’ve spent three-and-a-half years arguing with this these numbers and we have declined and declined and declined and declined,” she said. “I’ve just kept saying it and I’m going to argue with them again – we should not plan on it, it will be a mistake to plan on it and it’s been a mistake.”
She added that it “does make sense, right?” to “listen to the professionals” but “they’re wrong and they’ve been wrong.”
Contreras-DeLoach noted Eureka’s location as a “rural area” where “the recession began sooner, and by years.” She reiterated her doubt about HdL’s forecast.
“I don’t want to count on an increase, if anything I would like us to come up with a plan for how we’re going to deal with a decrease,” she said.
Eureka isn’t alone in dealing with a sluggish economy.
“The City of Arcata and the City of Fortuna, they’re very similar, they’re having budget issues too,” said Millar. “And when you see that everyone’s struggling with their sales tax numbers, it’s telling you that our local economy might be contracting.”
Sales tax is crucial to the budget, accounting for 60 percent of its revenue. Millar showed a graph detailing the sales tax revenue trend since the 2021-22 fiscal year and described its trajectory.
“You can see that it’s kind of pointed in one direction and that’s down,” he said.
Meanwhile costs are going way up, with employee salary and health insurance costs expected to rise by $1.3 million in the coming fiscal year.
Employee retirement fund payouts and liability insurance are also increasing by roughly equal amounts, for a combined total of about $800,000.
Of the retirement fund costs, Millar said “about $300,000 of that is going to hit the police’s budget.”
The mayor and council are up for pay raises that will go before voters this November but regardless of how that turns out, health insurance costs for the mayor and council will rise by $47,000.
What can the city do to offset the cost quake? Councilmember Leslie Castellano suggested some approaches.
Acknowledging that “sometimes in deficit times it’s difficult to think about investing,” she recommended “investing in economic development opportunities.”
Those include utilizing the bayfront Halvorsen Park into “more of a consistent venue” and building upon the Holiday Lights program to establish the city as the “destination shopping area for people throughout the region” during the Christmas season.
Castellano also referenced San Francisco’s SF New Deal program, which was created during the COVID era and uses a non-profit organization as a springboard for small business development.
“We can of course continue to recruit large industries such as wind but in the meantime we have small businesses that that I think could grow,” she continued, citing home-based businesses and “cottage industries” as examples.
The budget also includes cost reductions, with city departments cutting their budgets by 2.2 percent. It has more impact than might seem.
“2.2 percent might not sound like a lot but if you’re the Police Department and your budget is $18 million, 2.2% is about $400,000,” said Millar. “It starts to get really hard when you’re a big budget.”
The city council will review the draft budget on June 2 and final adoption is set for June 16.
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DUH you can’t tax sales at almost 10% very long, or people like me eventually avoid shopping or look for cheaper alternatives. I factor in every purchase when I go shopping now, dreading the 9.5% sales tax. That is priced high enough now to be the real deal killer. We need to be going in the opposite direction with taxes even at the least to save retail!
Don’t forget the zombie frogger game one gets to play in Eureka, either by car or one on one mode.
How Humboldt can maintain asking $400k for a house on Dakota St is beyond me.
Good luck!
I can’t help but notice how many of these negative comments about the area sign off with “good luck!” as if they’re all made by the same person or based on the same script. Reeks of astroturfing.
Idioms that are clichés are that because they are commonly used. They are not plots, cabals or propaganda.
Sales tax in Eureka is 10.25%
Then you have the local er… ‘bond taxes’ on top of it.
Population declining. Build massive Stalinists barracks.
Millions on a ‘bus terminal/barracks’ in Old Town.
Millions on green paint. Millions on curb fart outs. Millions on ‘no bike’ lanes.
Then you have the bigger picture.
California Income Tax.
California Fuel prices.
Insurance prices.
Grocery prices.
Electricity prices.
$1 (+-) Trillion for offshore windmills.
CARB.Nobody elects them Serve ‘for life’. Most powerful group of people in the USA.
State highways in ruins despite massive funding.
$9.5 billion for Illegal Aliens health care.
$2.1 billion for ‘language services’.
Paid leave and disability for Illegal Aliens.
$135 million for food assistance (CFAP) for Illegal Aliens.
$231 billion for a train to nowhere.
Big Businesses exiting California.
Billionaires exiting California. ($1 Trillion in income dollars left the state).
Yee hah !
This is all spot on!! Even as their ideology ruins everything it touches, they will still blindly support it.
And someone will have to pay the billions and billions that Dirty Dump’s optional war is costing. Since it’s for Israel’s benefit, perhaps the US should deduct the costs from the billions and billions in subsidies the US pays to Israel?
Since that won’t happen, prepare for a big ripoff. Tariffs amount to a national sales tax. Thank Dump!
H8 much? How much TAX dose Trump pay to live in your head?
The Iran war has cost 96 billion dollars and is pretty much over. The great democrat highspeed railway has cost 126 billion so far (that’s 30 billion more for those of you who went to Calif. schools). Not sure you can put this on Uncle Don.
I will say…We are not feeling the economic effects of the Iran War expenditure yet- other than gas prices. So it’s premature to say that the economic effects we are feeling today are due to the Iran War. We will feel them soon! But not really yet. So let’s keep that in mind. I’m not defending anybody- I think BOTH parties have made terribly bad and expensive decisions that hurt the middle and lower classes especially…just right now we in CA are mostly feeling the DUM er I mean DEM decisions
I’ve been feeling the economic effects at the gas station for couple of months already
Well….I’d say a lot more money went to military contractors and military families that like to spend money on things. Missiles deliver too. What has the high speed rail delivered for that amount of money? They haven’t even procured a locomotive and rolling stock for it, yet the war money paid for a lot of aircraft and ships. There’s at least an ROI on the investment. Screwing up a 1/3 of the world for no good reason of course has its disadvantages, but you can’t say a lot more people got paid in war funding than rail funding.
I think my money back in my pocket is the best way for government to handle taxes.
Of course we can blame Trump for this war of his choice. Go back over the record. The Strait was not closed until Trump’s bombing. Now the Iranians know the power they have. President Trump is a liar and a moron and unscrupulous. Very bad traits anywhere but especially in the President of the United States.
Bozo, you said it all, and are so correct.
I just cant understand how people (progressives, and dems too) vote for all this bullshit. Do they not read the full text of propositions? Or the bio of candidates?
Here is something of a cliche, You cant TAX your way into prosperity. and another good one, The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money.
Both are so true.
Well, yes and no. If you want high taxes to invest in society—funding things like firefighters, police, parks, libraries, and healthcare (which are all social programs)…you also have to support and encourage industry. Our local government has used industry merely as a way to sustain its own bureaucratic bloat. Instead, we should reduce fees, permits, and restrictions, downsize administrative staff, and automate permitting and payment systems. Look at Denmark, for example: they have high taxes and a high quality of life, alongside a thriving business sector because they balance heavy social investment with a free-market system that makes it incredibly easy, fast, and digitized to do business without regulatory friction . Government being a leading employer is a terrible place to be. Locally 26% to 27% of all wage and salary jobs in Humboldt County are government jobs, making the sector the largest single employer in the region. That is so terrible for an economy it should rest at about 15 percent (national average)we need to reduce and encourage private growth yesterday
We also wouldn’t need a 10 percent sales tax if our government didn’t employ almost twice the national average of employees. We obviously are not getting what we are paying for with our economy plummeting
Government or healthcare positions are about the only lines of work with a decent paycheck around here.
Let me introduce you to Measure 15-226, a massive wake-up call out of Jackson County, Oregon, where the local farming community fought back and slashed their county commissioners’ salaries in half from $150,000 to $75,000. By legally indexing future government raises directly to the median income of the population, these fed-up voters forced out-of-touch politicians’ personal wealth to rise or fall alongside the actual survival of the working class. It is a brilliant grassroots blueprint that strips the financial insulation from bureaucrats and shows exactly how a rural community can weaponize the ballot box to finally reign in their bullshit.
The craziest thing is that the bureaucrats in Oregon didn’t let it happen, even though the voters passed the proposition . We should learn from this in Humboldt. The hardworking people of this region deserve decent wages. If we are overtaxed to the point where the only good jobs are government positions, they are stealing from us. They are stealing our futures by taxing and charging frivilously inflated fees to our businesses and taxing our hard work just so they can have high-paying jobs at our expense. https://ashland.news/county-commissioner-measures-split-voters-favor-cutting-salaries-to-75k/
Thank you!! I appreciate your detailed comments on the outrageous government and university administration salaries. I agree wholeheartedly that we are being economically oppressed by these overpaid “civil servants” and we should be paying attention and acting to change it!
It passed overwhelmingly but surprise-surprise the government workers will not let it become real…https://ashland.news/county-commissioner-measures-split-voters-favor-cutting-salaries-to-75k/
Right! That is why I put the secondary comment after I read into it further. I wish Kym would do a poll to ask voters if they would tie government wages to our median civilian income. I wonder if there would be interest. Change starts from the bottom up. We the people
Right, like a fish farm or Amazon warehouse …. Oops
It’s wild watching Humboldt pretend Nordic was some kind of environmental savior while we strangled our own locally owned industry that used less freshwater, created thousands more jobs, and could have run almost entirely on rain‑catchment and forbearance. You can’t do that with a fish factory. Nordic needed 24/7 industrial pumps and billions of gallons a year just to keep the lights on cannabis farmers needed a roof, a tank, and a rainy winter.
We didn’t lose Nordic because it was a bad project; we lost it because the company saw what every local already knows: Humboldt will litigate anything that moves. Meanwhile, we regulated our own people out of existence. We killed 15,000 small family run farms an entire economic base for an industry that would have given us 150 jobs on a good day. Thanks Mike Wilson!
So yeah, congratulations to us. We chased away the fish and slaughtered the farmers, and now we’re shocked that sales tax revenue is falling off a cliff. This wasn’t environmentalism. It was self‑inflicted economic collapse dressed up as virtue.
Industry / Scenario
Total Water Use (Gallons/Day)
Total Water Use (Gallons/Year)
Estimated Annual Jobs
Notes
Nordic Aquafarms (Yellowtail facility)
≈12,000,000 gal/day
≈4.38 billion gal/year
≈150 full‑time jobs
Licensed Cannabis (Humboldt – current)
≈1.5–2.0 million gal/day
≈550–750 million gal/year
≈2,000–3,000 jobs
Based on ~1,000–1,200 active licenses (I think it has dropped to 400)
Cannabis if ALL 15,000 Humboldt farms (2016) had been legalized
≈20–25 million gal/day
≈7.3–9.1 billion gal/year
≈25,000–30,000 jobs
Scaled from current licensed averages
Aside from the fact that I can eat a fish and stay alive and weed won’t….keep in mind what went into the soils all over the hills from those greenhouses that made it into the streams and diets of wild life. The water was also pulled from every river and creek possible, drying them up long before they naturally would. Lot of wells ran low or dry too. The aquafarm is right on the beach. It’s water source is a few miles from the ocean too. It’s already made it’s way down the hills and given it’s location, goes right back to the ocean (or could be repurposed and resold)
And the work? One is permanent, one is temporary. One has benefits and proper OSHA approved working conditions and pays employment taxes and employee wages are taxed too. Cannabis did none of that beyond sales taxes, and that’s assuming it didn’t also go towards expensive vacations and homes in other states or countries.
Cannabis employees lived under a threat of being raided, shot at, robbed, trafficked, beat up by drunken, thwacked out grow owners and arrest and zero things to put on a future resume.
But sure….it all scales if you completely disregard everything else. And lastly….one can still open shop here, the others saw everything crater.
Of course one can see if a nuclear power plant can be built and an AI data center. Maybe it could replace those offshore wind turbines still in the planning stages?
The industry was rapidly moving to water tank storage; the tanks are filled in the rainy season. The industry, to this day, is not permitted to utilize the national “bank card” system available to virtually all other economic sectors. All cash. Imagine running any modern business without credit or debit cards.
the cannabis industry could have made it, but the lingering bias, hate, and prejudice “baked into” the serpentine, draconian registration and administration process was too much.
Maybe this generation or the next.
Maybe.
Yeah, and everybody was not a turd as you imply. Many folks did their best to run as clean an operation as possible, clean as a vineyard which is a major alteration to the eco-system. Anyway thanks for helping me understand the enormity of hate and contempt for this marvelous plant, a gift of nature.
Well yeah, you had to run a clean operation. Or 1) get raided or 2) get roughed up for selling bunk, moldy product or screwing someone out of money. There were more than a few of those types running around. And that’s just the locals, not the foreign nationals or SoCal people running amok.
I’m not against weed. I voted for legalization, just didn’t have any say in how the (abhorrent) taxes were structured. But don’t tell me it was all clean and safe and worker friendly operations.
And how do these figures compare with a 100 acre vineyard or size of your choice. Oh my, gollee gee! Is that a fair question? Titter, giggle. maybe thousands of acres of California oak woodland cleared for alcohol production. Ooooooh, Wow, man. Is that a fair question? Dee dee da dee dee dee!
Oh, heck, I meant this for CsMisadventures. Must be the Devil’s Herb again. Plus, it’s late.
Best part was when they gave John Ford a raise to come back and do it even more! Great job, supes!!
It wasnt but it was something that would generate TAXes that was not a government job.
The fact that we’re getting an Amazon warehouse now and the planners are basically telling the NIMBYs to kick rocks is pure karma. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but this is what happens when you destroy your own people. No Nordic, no wind energy, no small family‑run farms… but yes to the largest corporate overlord we can get. It’s sad, but I’m laughing.
Not to say you aren’t correct. But we also have a problem on the “conservative” republican sphere of expanding government and expanding costs with that government. Neither party are really interested in decreasing the size of the government or decreasing it’s costs.
I hope you’re not on MediCare. So how would you fund public utilities, safery and transport? That’s what Obama was talking about years ago when he reminded the wealthy folks that bridges and roads were publicly financed. Industry runs much smoother with a modern infrastructure. I hate waste and fraud, but the “socialism” boilerplate sounds groovey but seems meaningless to me. I believe there is a Lincoln quote that government allows us to do together that which we cannot do alone.
Republican President Eisenhower advanced the idea of a publiclly financed InterState Road System which would benefit everybody and promote commerce. It worked fabulously. Socialism, tsk, tsk, oh my!
Yes, you can tax your way into prosperity, but you need accountability.
if taxes and “socialism, aaaaargh” are so horrible, what is your alternative?
The funny part is that someone downvoted this like they think you’re making it up ?
Many down votes are just H8. You can tell when there is no rebuttal. Just TDS and H8.
Yeah I get those. Funny thing is half the time I agree w them but boy do they personally hate on me! LOL!! No rebuttal -because they are stupid. Just a lonely downvote ha ha ha!! I live for them. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right, getting under their thin humorless skin Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Add to all of this that Humboldt County has no economic base. The wood products industry, fishing and even the cannabis industries have all been decimated by political actions. Further more our State and Civic leaders do all they can to prevent new industry from coming here. Obviously more people shop on line which is encouraged by higher sales tax. When are we going to get civic leadership that will face the facts and have the courage to do the right thing.
It’s inaccurate to say that fishing, logging, and Cannabis went out of business because of political actions.
The forests were over-logged.
Fisheries collapsed du to a combination of factors including overfishing and habitat degradation.
Cannabis died mostly due to market factors.
Offshore wind promises to be one of the best things to happen to this area in a long time. It’s the Federal government that’s getting in the way of that project.
Hell, cannabis only existed here as the industry it was because of excessive federal government intervention in the market.
The transition out of that could definitely have been handled better by our state and local governments (if you’re naive enough to imagine that the well being of working class people and small businesses is their goal), but the idea that excess regulations killed the local industry is hilariously out of touch with reality.
And you’re spot on about the other two industries as well. Fishing is subject to forces way beyond our local control, but stronger forestry regulations a century ago could have protected a sustainable, high value, redwood based, timber industry locally. Instead, that natural resource was gobbled up by local and outside private parties and we were left with the husk
“the idea that excess regulations killed the local industry is hilariously out of touch with reality.”
Evidently you never provided a two inch thick binder of details, licenses, etc. etc just to get your permit application much less the plant by plant details etc. etc. while operating nor dealt with shutdowns of day labor sources…and an SO that hardly took the trouble to check out trespassing..
Yeah, something tells me this guy who claims it wasn’t regulation and that Humboldt had nothing special about its product either missed out on a lot or is choosing confirmation bias. The county itself requested a marketing assessment and was given one in 2020. That assessment roadmapped the best way to market our cannabis: focusing on terroir and quality-based small farms. Yet, instead of implementing that strategy, the county took the three million dollars provided by the state for that purpose and put it back into the general fund for raises. But yeah it was just market forces not over regulation or in the case theft and misuse of funding https://humboldt.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=8921982&GUID=F27FA5F7-DF3B-4FA0-8518-C012CBB7B0CF
Here is the RFP for marketing that they never funded. We had state funding for marketing and economic development. Instead the county really did just take the money and put it back into the General Fund. And gave themselves crazy raises.
They wouldn’t even let us market our Economic driver with our own tax dollars. Purely cannabis tax dollar funded money from the state. Market forces my ass.
https://humboldtgov.org/DocumentCenter/View/96692/FINAL-Project-Trellis-Marketing-RFP-w-exhibits_amendment-2-61821?utm_source=copilot.com
And DIRECTLY from Grand Jury report: FINDINGS
F-1: The handling of large sums of cash used by applicants to conduct transactions with the
Planning and Building Department lacks transparency and creates the perception of potential for
fraud. (R-2, 3, 4)
F-2: Cash transactions jeopardize the safety of the public and department personnel due to a lack
of robust security infrastructure. (R-2, 3, 4)
F-3: Lack of transparent accounting for cannabis-related revenues (permit fees, Trust Fund
monies, fines) makes it difficult to determine the economic impact of the legalization of the
cannabis industry on the county. (R-2, 3)
F-4: The cumbersome permitting process defeats the purpose of legalization. It creates the
incentive for cultivators to remain in the illicit market.
F-5: The Planning and Building Department website is not user-friendly. Applicants are
disadvantaged by lack of access to clear instructions and guides. Some information also appears
to be out of date. (R-1)
RECOMMENDATIONS
chrome-native://pdf/link?url=content%3A%2F%2Fmedia%2Fexternal%2Fdownloads%2F2807
I did actually go through the permitting process. And no doubt that the county made things much harder than they had to.
But I also lived through the collapse of the market price by 90% prior to legalization or permitting and the rise of massive competition from so cal, Oregon, Oklahoma, Michigan, and the proliferation of small growers in every locality before the first regulation was written or the first permit applied for.
Wrong headed regulations kicked the shit out of our local industry while it was down, but it’s not what knocked it down at all.
I sold my first pound of outdoor (genetics you probably couldn’t sell in 75% of modern markets and grown with all the skill of a first time grower) for close to $3k locally. In 2015 I was buying hype strains grown excellently for around $1000. The last packs I participated in moving east included some seriously stunning flower purchased locally for $400 and sold wholesale in the Midwest for $700.
If you think that that change in economic dynamics was secondary in causing the loss of local production then you’ve got some serious reading to do on how markets work
Offshore wind and it’s subsidies has been pointed out as an expensive boondoggle in the UK. I anticipate the same Great Reset here. Residential rates went sky high. Cheap renewables just isn’t a thing.
And you’ll never get wood products back as long as the push is on to make more and more parklands and no development zones.
Now I am just waiting for the retiree social security insolvency to kick in the automatic cut in every beneficiaries monthly check. Heard as a rumor that the congress had it set at some 24% and insolvency should be in about 2032, a scant 6 years from now.
Yes, can’t believe everyone is missing Captain Obvious…no more pot $$$…the growers threw $ around…like it was growing on trees(oh ya it was!) That is gone!
period – end of story!
Just look at their policies Anti business, pro transient. Prioritize low income development and demographics. Waste money on bike streets and dangerous curbouts on narrow intersections. Terrible road and park maintenance. Shabby waterfront. High permit fees. Onerous conditions. Obscene sales tax..Makes people defer high end and even modest purchases. But they want to double their pay and give COLAS every year. And the state adds to the problem. Confiscating farmland, restricting logging and fishing. The end result of decades of liberal democrat policies.Not to mention their idiotic policy on fossil fuels making it 25 percent higher than the national average.
🎯
By the by, Kym … You’ve have me on moderate for over a year. Glad to know I’m over the target when I post, still.
You aren’t on moderation. For some reason, your comments are held for moderation but we don’t have you on our list. This has happened to several commenters for reasons we haven’t been able to figure out. The only way to get off is to use another email and name. That seems to have worked for everyone so far.
Thanks!
💙 🤍 ❤️
Chicken feed compared to the DOGGIE giveaway to billionaires, costs for OPTIONAL WARS, and the endless Trump gouge.
That is all you got? Blame Trump? LOL!
I think it’s more accurate to blame Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981.
He failed to appreciate that funding still needed to come from somewhere.
As Federal contributions to State and local municipalities dried up,
State and local taxes had to be raised to make up the difference.
Trump’s overspending, his tax cuts to his billionaire buddies, and his reckless economic policies certainly aren’t helping anything. But tax reforms that would alleviate pressure on local governments would take a bipartisan act of Congress– and I don’t see that happening any time soon.
As Federal contributions dried up, State and local taxes have to be raised to build the “Train to Nowhere”! Likewise State and local taxes will have to be raised to build the $Trillion dollar offshore wind propeller totems to save the world! “Why wouldn’t you do something to save the world!!!”
Oh that is just stupid.
Exactly. The only thing bipartisan in Congress is their agreement as to what will and what won’t be an issue for drawing up articles of impeachment and that we should be subjected to a global digital gulag and our resources stripped for global elites to tell us how we should be governed.
I note here too all that hubaloo about “No Kings” and then Congress actually invites King Charles III to speak from a nation that continues to be a perpetual thorn in our side and during our anniversary year. You would think there would have been a plethora of “No Kings” signs inside and outside the Capitol.
You know little of the progression. Banning of national forest logging and taking private timber and farm land and fishing grounds for parks and preserves. Started with Clinton, expanded by Obama and Biden.Ridiculous expansion of government bureaucracy and regulation. Every Democrat leader kept us at war ,too and also exacerbated the present necessity. Look at the phone book. Hundreds of government offices in this county alone. You walk into most offices, and its like walking into a tomb. People pretending to work.Its ridiculous.And the overlap in functions is astounding. And Trump cut taxes twice. And revenues went up. And my investments are way up under him. Euraka and Humboldts problems are not his fault.
Geoff, want to change it? Run for the hufferman job. I don’t see him talking about the billions going for tying the nation to the genocidal maniacs at the east end of the Mediterranean. During President Carters term U.S.AID was running $10 million a day to Israel and $5 million a day to Egypt. Now we are to be tying our military to Israel with Section 224 of the NDAA.
We have been funding illegal unconstitutional undeclared war since I’ve been born or funding them by proxy like in Ukraine. Afghanistan and Iraq alone added another $12 trillion to our debt and the military program countermeasures for the botched plandemic called Covid-19 cost another $4 trillion between Biden and Trump
I read the article, and this far down the comment hole, and have not yet once read a reference to marijuana. It’s like everyone is playing some kind of game with denial. The city administration is pretending their little civic bubble was ever self sustaining without weed.
All that money that the high sales taxes was supposed to garner is now “owed” to the county in measure S bills, excessive “staff time” bills, unpaid property taxes, and paid to the State in overblown pay-to-play billing to the DCC, paying the waterboard for your own water that you use more sustainably than the corporate Chads in Salinas, and Santa Barbie who were given our markets.
The County was right there front in line to squeeze the Golden Goose. Raise your hand if you congratulated your self on putting the screws to all those “dopers” in the hills who used to fund your economy.
Yep. When I hear flippant comments by Supervisor Arroyo about how attrition should take out most of the farmers, when she is talking to NIMBYs, it makes me want to puke. They do not see these families as something worth supporting.
Then there is the sheer, callous nature of knowingly reducing a tax to zero only after they destroyed the industry through over-taxation. Worse, they refuse to forgive the historical debt. Instead, they choose to strip people of the licenses that cost them their life savings, acting like it is absolutely nothing.
And then we watch people kill themselves, some burning themselves alive in their own homes. This local administration have blood on their hands. I imagine we will see even more tragedy as this crash starts to infect every single corner of Humboldt.
The “dopers” in the hills put the screws to themselves.
This is a complete no brainer folks, come on. The 4th and 5th corridor looks like a ghost town, rents for businesses keep going up, and you have the zombie apocalypse walking the streets day and night.
The city needs to reduce leases and give businesses breaks on license, business, etc. fees.
Incentivize the whole process.
Is Eureka and Arcata self sustaining without the rural shoppers? The County and State are quietly sneaking out of the conversation hoping you won’t notice! Didn’t we just go through a decade of “developing” a new “legal” market for our county’s #1 export? Did we do good by our citizens? Let’s see… Locally purchased wholesale cannabis is running about 10% of what it was ten years ago, hand processing is paying about 40% what it was if at all. Cost of everything is up. the smallest operations were shut down in exchange for fewer larger players with access to other people’s capital. All those retail outlets selling the taxable product? Huh, it’s the same price as always…where’s it from? Oh! Looky here! Nevada County, Santa Barbara County, Salinas… Funny how this great new class of retail shops in Eureka correlate with the crash in sales tax revenue.
I think the solution is to light up our craft fair. There’s expected to be an uptick in the purchasing power of helping professionals, especially in the homelessness, marriage, and crisis counseling sectors.
Just one horse shy of a one horse town. This ain’t the first time it tried to burn itself down.
and the American girls in their American dreams
never put themselves here so undone at the seams
27 pot stores, one church, heaven is no match for hell
in these many blocks of rust piles and abandoned motels…
apologies Eilen…
You should make that into a song. It could be a number one hit.
I drove by city hall yesterday. You know, where the failed city council works. Out front by the front door, there are two big orange bike racks.
.
Do you think any bikes were in them? Fuck no, both empty, collecting dust. How can this be. How is it possible that NOBODY at city hall rides a bike to work, on a nice day?
I guess that means Carpetbagger Arroyo wasn’t there … if anyone catches her driving to the office and it’s not raining, please let us know so we can shame her sorry backside.
Had to laugh… in Paris, the Frenchies paid for bike racks and bikes for people to use. The bikes were disappearing. One year, by necessity , a canal through the city needed to be repaired and dredged and… they found the bikes by the hundreds. I guess it’s fun to jump off the bike and watch it sail into the canal. Ain’t Socialism Grand.
other peoples money
The current city council and mayor should have nothing to do with budgeting. They are a disaster to say the least.
Also fun fact. Buying local generates tax dollars. Just ask one of the council members what state they just purchased a vehicle to avoid paying tax????
Who did that?
It is perfectly legal to buy out of state. BUT you must, MUST, tell California what you bought and pay a tax on it. And an auto, will have to be registered in California. So if this failed council member did buy a vehicle out of state, they will still pay. BUT if they registered out of state (there are ways) then this person needs to be called out.
Again, the full city council needs to be biking to work! Even Ms Moulton way down there past WinCo — especially her, she loves kinetic 🤣
You only have a short window to pay the tax. If you miss it you will be hammered with huge penalty. It’s California and they cannot get enough of other people’s money to pay for Social Programs their own people can’t access.
What sacrifice! Don’t forget then that they’ll have to drive a new car under warranty the two miles to work. Damn! Those suckers even come with new tires. That’s sort of the dark side all these Cost of Living adjustments. One solution, albeit a little selfish, is refusing a raise, or taking a reduction in pay. But that might unfortunately reduce their tax burden.
But we have all these bike lanes, how can this calamity be?!
The word is out about eureka extra gas taxes. Tourists just won’t stop.Theres nothing to have them stop except a fast food break. Why have an outside financial consultant? Can’t people in house do simple math? Pay cuts or lay offs might be the only prudent thing to do.
Eureka used to be my shopping destination, but now I avoid it, Arcata, and Trinidad at all costs. Why shop anywhere with a 10% sales tax? It’s sheer idiocy to do so when McKinleyville and online services exist at the county minimum tax. Recently I had a laptop emergency and found a cheap one through Wally World. Instead of driving to Eureka I choose the free delivery service, expecting it to arrive the next morning. Less than an hour later a Dasher delivered it to my house. I received a 10% discount for purchasing online, paid the county minimum tax as it was calculated by delivery address, and avoided an hour round trip to boot. Total actual cash savings to me was over $60 after tipping the delivery driver.
Here is your plan, maybe this should be all city,state etc. Govs. Start by making everybody quit driving their work vehicles home. INCLUDING POLICE CARS. WE all pay for our own gas ,time to face reality!!!
No surprise here! Shopping in the Eureka area we pay a combined sales tax rate of 10.25%, among the highest rates in California if not the nation. Sales tax revenue is down throughout the County.
I am a retired part-time Humboldt resident. Humboldt County has a high cost-of-living driven by the combination of relatively low incomes, high housing costs, some of the highest gas prices in the nation (thank McGuire, Rogers and Huffman for looking onto it – NOT), high costs for goods and services and high local taxes. On top of that, the cost of construction/remodeling is absolutely nutty! About 20% more than Redding and Southern Oregon (Grants Pass/Medford). I actually am sick of the “Shop Local” ads. Everything is more expensive in Humboldt! It’s no wonder Humboldt’s population is decreasing!
The median household income in Humboldt County is approximately $61,000 per year, which is about 38% lower than the California median household income. Del Norte County has a higher median income, $67,100 and Shasta is $72,600. Despite Humboldt’s lower incomes, the median home value is roughly $419,000, meaning the typical home costs nearly seven times the typical household’s annual income. Housing economists generally consider housing affordable when home prices are three to four times household income; Humboldt significantly exceeds that benchmark. It’s absolutely crazy!
I make a list of items we need and head to Oregon to visit Home Depot, Trader Joe’s and fill up our gas cans. Save a lot on tax and gas. I have lived here my whole life and cannot say that I am proud to say I live near Eureka. I hate shopping in that town.. they need to let stores come in that people actually want here not everyone smokes weed! And where are the taxes going? It is so not welcoming compared to other towns. Just saying.
This was self imposed stupidity by the city of Eureka, the imbeciles on the city council, and the utter incompetence of the city manager and many of the Dept heads. I quit shopping in Eureka unless it’s absolutely necessary because of the tax. Period. I will not shop Arcata either and avoid it like the plague. Now I shop McKinleyville Fortuna or online. I am not Eureka’s piggy bank and I do not have the funds. Because the city of Eureka cannot balance its budget, cut staff and spend appropriately they raised sales tax and they didn’t give a damn about the small businesses that we’re going to feel the brunt of their stupidity.
Our climate is heavenly. Lighten-up, trust in it!
I wonder how much money goes to pay outs for LE misconduct, burtuality etc and also lawsuits against city, county? If much then at leas for EPD some more deescalation training and totally restructuring could save some money. Many cases that would have won were never brought to court for a variety for reasons so figuring some must have made it. I’m pro government so long as we are all up in its/our business meaning we participate in city, county, state government not just vote.
I purchase the absolute minimum here. Wait until I take a trip to Oregon and purchase there. Yes- even though food doesn’t get taxed it is still much less expensive up there. On what I save I get to pay for my trip and see some of my family, see the Smith River and even eat out at a restaurant inexpensively! Eureka and Humboldt are very very expensive and I am not a rich guy!! What is nice here is the nature and the climate…and a few people
What little is left of the terminally ill economy of Humboldt County continues to circle the drain.
I see a lot of folks have really strong opinions and probably some good ideas for solutions to these tough problems. Do you participate in local government at all? Are you running for office? You’ll feel better if you get in there and actually at least try to make some change happen.
That would be nice, but current leadership and good ol boy clubs don’t let newcomers enter the political scene very easily…. I remember multiple times when a local politician/leader talked down to newcomers trying to put their hat in the ring. I also notice when Lost Coast and Times Standard bash newcomer candidates while writing praise pieces for the established leaders. It’s also hard to get votes when the already established leaders have their employees, family, and friends vote for them.
We have a large scale industry waiting in the wings Much cleaner and healthier for the environment than off shore wind. Enough good jobs created to sustain a flourishing sales tax ,quality of life and public infrastructure. We have lots of it waiting to be extracted just need to do it.
🎯
Eureka:
It’s not San Francisco…
The comments are getting a bit off topic, which allows these issues to be sidelined. Facts are in the article. The city is paying consultants to tell them what is up. How about that ends now. In Trinity, they are doing the same thing. Why do we elect these people if they can not do the job? Every program you can think of is backed up with a nice tidy sum going to consultants or lawyers etc. Fun fact, AI could do those jobs for free. Currently Trinity government is fighting hard to raise the TOT. The last proposal had a payoff to a lawyer group of 40% of the revenue. Why would we want to pay that? and now an unopposed seat out of junction city admits his goal is to raise the sales tax and TOT. He brags about not careing how much his vacations cost, while people like me have not had a vacation in over 10 years. Serving the community should not come with a fat salary and better than average benefits. Minimum wage and no retirement till you work 30 years and rech the retirement age. That would be a start. Also if a municipality will remember the first job is public safety, followed by infrastructure, etc. Social programs for homeless are rediculous. It needs to stop until all prior services have been delivered.
Fun fact a lot of these consultant firms are owned or employ family/friends of City of Eureka’s leadership. It’s the same deal with the county and other cities. It’s basically leadership stealing money from Humboldt taxpayers to give to themselves and their friends/family.
Shocking
Dang who would have thought kiling the golden goose would have economic reprocusions for the city of Eureka.
Also maybe cleaning up the rampant street drug addict problem might encourage more investment in our floundering community.
It wasn’t a “golden goose” for the public when growers paid far less in taxes than legal businesses did yet used the same government services and more. And certainly cleaning up their messes drained the budget. Some got rich but, despite Kym’s repeated protestations about how charitable these illegal growers were, crumbs falling from the tables of the rich are no better than any other “trickle down” economy. The only thing that made Marijuana a “golden goose” in humboldt was the tolerance of the locals for outlaws. Once it was made legal, that goose was cooked. Humboldt had no more to offer it than any other business they can’t let be profitable.