8 Questions with My Answers

By Mike L. Newman

8 Questions asked of all Council candidates by the Eureka Times-Standard, my answers as follows:

I'm Mike L Newman and I'm running for re-election to the Eureka City Council. As a resident and Businessman of 30+ years in Eureka (I have signed paychecks). I believe that high-quality job opportunities will allow our children to stay here and raise the next generation . I will continue to take action to improve both our natural and designed environments, by continuing to build our economic base that coexists with our magnificent natural environment. It is through an expanded sales tax base that the City will be able to provide the essential public safety services of police and fire protection at the levels that keep us safe. Since my election I have served on key Boards/Committees in leadership roles as Chair or Vice-Chair in the Humboldt Waste Management Authority, Humboldt Bay Fire, and Redwood Regional Economic Development Commission to name a few. In my 4 years I have helped accomplish such tasks as:

• Facilitating the opening of the Extreme Weather Winter Shelter, to care for the homeless
• We combined our Fire Department with Humboldt FD #1 to form Humboldt Bay Fire, saving the City approximately $180K per year for the last 3 years.
• Consolidated several departments in City Hall to save money.
• Partnered with the County for a Community Forest
• Helped work through Lost Coast Brewery permitting issues, finding solutions and helping with infrastructure. This brewery is nearly complete with a projected 20 new jobs.
• Prioritized the need to attract and retain Business emphasizing our deep water port, a beautiful waterfront and a downtown rich in historic architecture.

2. <What are your priorities, if elected?>

Eureka needs to continue with the premise that our city government exists to serve the public, not the other way around. Our interface with city government needs to be simplified, and geared toward treating citizens like good customers. Under my leadership, the city will greet appropriate new businesses that provide living wage jobs with welcoming and open arms, and treat existing businesses with appreciation for the contributions that they make to our local economy. There is no question that our economic landscape has changed. The industries that built this fine city no longer provide the jobs that they once did. As we look toward the future we need to consider new possibilities, and those possibilities do abound if we can build consensus and seize the opportunities. In my next 4 years, I will continue to work toward:
-Easier and better Transportation access to our remote region to help alleviate the extra costs for locating, and conducting business here.
- Addressing and solving the needs of our healthcare system. We have a problem attracting and keeping health care providers to our area and one of the reasons cited is the difficulty to easily travel in and out of our Region.
-Beautifying the Broadway corridor
-Development of the Waterfront instead of vacant land
-Industrial Park-pre permitted
-Completing our General Plan
-Completing the Humboldt Bay Trail Project including the work we've done and are doing to complete the 6.5 mile Eureka Waterfront Trail (projected to open 2018)
-Continuing the success of the just launched Project, "Restore Hope", by a coalition of the City and County to restore hope to the Citizens of Eureka and bring respite to those struggling to find housing.
-Opening of the Fisherman's Terminal Café & Retail Counter (Ranked #2 in priorities of Regional Projects in the County's Prosperity! 2012)

3. <What changes would you like to see made along the Broadway corridor?>

The Broadway corridor is the entryway and exit to Eureka's southern corridor of Highway 101, so it's important to put the City's "best foot forward". This Council has directed City Staff to send out a RFP (Request for Proposals) outlining what we, as a Council, would like to see for our "South Gateway Entrance". I would like to see the Herrick Avenue overpass become our "defacto- Welcome to Eureka" for the public coming into town, depending on funding, "Come Back Soon" theme for the traffic leaving at the overpass. These could happen a variety of ways with signs or monuments. Banners could also be hung from street lamps letting the public know what activities or destinations they should stop and visit while here.

With that said, it's important to have traffic flowing smoothly along the 101 corridor without excessive speeds or choke points. Cal Trans has had several public meetings to get ideas for improvements to the Broadway corridor that I, and many of the Council have participated in. I would like to see in that proposal additional signage directing the pedaling public to use the Bayfront Multi-Use Trail that is to be completed in 2018 as the alternative to trying to pedal along this stretch of 101 that goes thru Eureka. Giving the bicycling public the option of using the Bayfront or trans-versing thru the heart of Eureka using our existing bike paths on Harris, Henderson, and J streets is important AND gives them a much safer route to pedal.

The future Broadway corridor changes that will be proposed to make will need to take into account the businesses along it. I will strive to keep access to and from them in my mind with any of the proposals put forth. Safety will be key as well.

4. <What should be done about homelessness in Eureka?>

I have been working on this in a variety of ways the past several years. It's a multifaceted problem that the City has struggled with for many years. I helped to co-ordinate with Eureka Main Street, the Rescue Mission, Redwood Teen Challenge, St Vincent's Dining Hall, and many Eureka businesses the opening of the Eureka Extreme Weather Winter Shelter shortly after my election for the winter of 2011-12 to give shelter in times of need to the homeless. I've been serving on the HHHC (Humboldt Housing and Homeless Coalition) as well to seek solutions to our community's problem....it's all about affordable housing.

As a City Council, we decided to employ the services of Focused Strategies to help us in the updating of our General Plan. One of the findings indicated by them is that compared to other interventions, Rapid Re-Housing has been demonstrated to decrease homelessness, increase the speed with which households exit homelessness, and significantly reduce returns to homelessness. There is strong evidence that this is true even when factors such as income level, disability and demographics are considered, leading to the conclusion that rapid re-housing can be effective for homeless people who were previously thought to have significant barriers to obtaining and maintaining permanent housing. The research also shows that rapid re-housing is much more cost effective than emergency shelter and transitional housing.

With the help of Police Chief Mills and a group of City/County officials (including myself) and the Business community, a plan has been developed to address many other facets of this homeless dilemma. Project "Restore Hope" was presented to the City Council and the public in August. The Council and the Board of Supervisors approved the directions it outlined. We intend to use it and modify it as it is implemented. http://eureka.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=337

5. <Eureka has a high property crime rate. How would you work to see it reduced?>

Eureka's high property crime rate is partially due to the State legislation commonly referred to as AB109 (the 2011 Public Safety Realignment) which the Governor signed because of a 3-Judge Court order to reduce the State of California's prison population. To summarize the actions that then happened, I will offer a simple explanation.

In order to reduce that population, inmates that were deemed as non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex offenders were ordered to complete their sentences in county jails instead of state prisons. This in turn, made our county jail overcrowded and the Sheriff had to release lower level offenders to the county's probation department. As part of the legislation, our county received monies from the State to cover the extra probation and rehabilitation costs of the individuals released.

This has made it harder, if not impossible, to put into jail for any length of time any person that breaks the law by burglary. I will work with our State elected officials to secure additional funds to help place these lower level offenders on work "farms" or our local "SWAP". I urge that the public participate in a local "neighborhood watch" group to put more eyes on the street and make their homes less attractive for property crimes. As our police department is urging citizens to join these watches, the Chief has dedicated a PSO (Public Service Officer) to help the public in forming and implementing their own neighborhood watches. Currently there are 19 groups with 7-9 being active.

Our police department also uses a group of officers to implement Problem Orienting Policing or POP to curtail and work pro-actively on these types of criminals (that are usually stealing property to pay for drug habits) along with putting cases together to apprehend more serious offenders in our City.

6. <What's your stance on Measures R (Fair Wage Act)?>

The folks that brought "Occupy Eureka" are now bringing this Measure. I am in favor of raising the minimum wage, but it has to be fair and not single out one small town in a rural County in a State that is already in the Top 10 for highest costs of doing business. Our community's businesses are already having a hard time competing with other businesses because of increased costs to live and locate in Eureka or Humboldt County. I've heard that some of our existing business owners are planning on relocating outside the city limits if the minimum wage increase, Measure R, is passed. I've also heard of a longtime local business turning down the chance to upgrade their plant to the tune of over $2Million if Measure R goes into effect. AND I've been told that we've already lost out on the opportunity to have a business locate a regional "call center" here, instead locating it in Chico just because of the possibility of Measure R being on our November ballot.

As with ANY major shift of the basic structure of industry, you have to anticipate the "Unintended Consequences" of well-meaning proposed measures. A real local example will be fishing boats and processing going to Oregon. Another is HCAR (non-profit) curtailing a majority of programs.

Likewise, a rise in the minimum wage implemented ONLY within Eureka (or even Humboldt County) would put us at a disadvantage in our struggle to compete for Business, which create revenues from taxes, which in turn fund our vital services + education, law enforcement and emergency response. The rise in a minimum wage should be addressed at a minimum, the State level, but better yet, the Federal level, to keep our ability to prosper on a level playing field with neighboring markets.

7. <What needs to be done to improve traffic safety in Eureka?>

The final draft of the City of Eureka Transportation Safety Action Plan, developed in partnership with the City of Eureka's Engineering, Public Works, Police and Fire Departments, Eureka City Council, and the City of Eureka Transportation Safety Commission, was released in June 2014. It addressed a variety of methods in order to focus on two goals: the reduction of collisions and the element to preserve quality of life. The second goal will be an ongoing review of the streets and traffic flows in the City.

As for the first goal, in reviewing the report, almost every strategy includes the recommendation of traffic enforcement. Enforcement comes in a variety of ways, but the most common is the issuance of traffic citations for breaking the law.

I have and will continue to urge the use of the writing of citations to get people to obey the existing laws for the motoring public and for the observance of the law for other modes of transportation. Speeding and distracted driving are major contributors to accidents on H and I Streets. http://www.ci.eureka.ca.gov/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=9172

8. <What is your stance on Measure Q (extending the city's half-percent sales tax)?>

I am in favor of extending for five more years, the existing ˝ cent sales tax in order to help fund our public safety departments. When it was passed in Nov 2010 as Measure O, I had hoped that we (the City) could develop and move forward on several major projects in our City. Those projects would have helped to allow the sales tax measure sunset with the additional sales tax revenues brought in by them.

As a member of the Eureka City Council, I will endeavor to use the revenues Measure Q (Measure O extended for 5 additional years) brings in to continue (over the past years, ~71% of the Measure O monies have been used toward public safety) to pay for public safety. <http://www.eurekaq.com/>

Measure "O" enables the police to work on homeless crimes and transient populations, high traffic accident locations, drug trafficking and the environmental issues that come with it. The Problem Oriented Policing team is staffed almost exclusively with Measure "O" money. Without Measure "O" proactive policing would be a thing of the past. Gangs, transnational crime and preventative measures would become subordinate to just managing calls for service. As the county seat and a growing population of early release felons, Eureka needs Measure "O" to supply the resources needed to control crime and bring order." Police Chief Andrew Mills (12/10/13)

"Measure "O" has been extremely beneficial for maintaining Fire services for the City. Prior to the passage of the Supplemental Transaction and Use Tax, the Fire department was facing the prospect of reduced staffing and reducing the day to day emergency services we provide to the community." Fire Chief Ken Wood (12/10/13)

The funds for this measure come not only from the residents of Eureka but the many visitors who work and shop here.