Here are excerpts from the Crescent City Police Department call logs for May 3–May 9. 

Friday, May 3

• At 5:40 p.m. a report of vandalism on the 400 block of 9th Street.

• At 8:03 p.m. a public intoxication arrest made near 3rd and N streets.

• At 9:52 p.m. a public intoxication arrest on the 900 block of Northcrest Drive.

Sunday, May 5

• At 10:15 a.m. a warrant arrest made near 3rd and O streets.

Tuesday, May 6

• At 3:30 a.m. a warrant arrest made on the 1000 block of U.S. Highway 101.

• At 1:30 p.m. a warrant arrest near 3rd and N streets.

Here are excerpts from the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office call logs for May 3–May 9.

Friday, May 3

• At 3:27 p.m. a report of a gas theft from a vehicle on the 12400 block of U.S. Highway 101.

• At 7:08 p.m. a report of a person hiding from officers in a shed on the 300 block of Amador Street.

Saturday, May 4

• At 3:59 p.m. a report of a motor vehicle accident near U.S. Highway 199 and Second Bridge.

• At 8:06 p.m. a report of a vehicle stuck at Enderts Beach.

Monday, May 6

• At 3:39 p.m. a report of a vehicle over an embankment on the 2100 block of U.S. Highway 199.

• At 5:58 p.m. a report of a burglary on the 100 block of Burke
Lane.

Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office Communications Officer Wendy Malone sits at her workstation in the dispatch center. Malone is one of three full-time dispatchers who handle all of the county’s 911 calls. Each dispatcher works 12-hour shifts without breaks. Del Norte Triplicate / Bryant Anderson

She also works to ensure the safety of emergency responders by figuring out whether there are guns in a house, whether there are warrants for a person pulled over in a traffic stop — and the location of that house on the unnamed drive off a poorly lit highway.

She’s quarterbacking information relayed during police chases, tsunamis and manhunts.

And she does it all sitting in front of six computer screens in a small room at the Sheriff’s Office.

“We’re the eyes and ears before anyone gets on scene,” said Malone, communications supervisor for the Sheriff’s Office.

Now her job has gotten harder.

Until last November, the Sheriff’s Office dispatch — the only dispatch center in the county — had 12 lines to service 911 calls. Then it was integrated by the state into the California Enhanced 911 network, supposedly so it would start receiving wireless calls directly with the accompanying location information. It’s the work of the California Public Safety Communications Office, the state agency that oversees the 911 system for emergency dispatch centers. It is funded by a telephone surcharge on California residents.

In order for the integration to fully occur, the system needed to be built from fiber optics and a microwave/radio tower installation, said Christine Lally, assistant secretary for legislation and communications for the California Technology Agency.

Work to begin this summer; full scope is not yet decided

Crescent City has begun the bidding process for a major sewer project on 2nd Street that is scheduled to begin this summer.

The City Council on Monday unanimously authorized city staff to advertise and receive bids for the project, which will replace an existing 18-inch clay pipe with a 24-inch pipe made of high-density polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride. 

The city plans to use a $1.28 million Community Development Block Grant to pay for the project, said Public Works Director Eric Wier. The project is expected to begin after July 4.

The existing pipe that was installed under 2nd Street following the 1964 tsunami is one of two major sewer collection lines that serve the Crescent City area, Wier said. The line connects to another pipe under B Street, which leads to the wastewater treatment plant. 

But after nearly 50 years, city workers have noticed sink holes appearing along 2nd Street. The clay pipe is extremely brittle and is easily broken, Wier said. The Public Works Department has had to repair sink holes using gravel before they are repaved, he said.

“That gravel has ended up at the treatment plant,” Wier said. “This is telling us that the line has been compromised.”

The contractor working on this project will have the option of replacing the pipe using a “cut and cover” method or a trenchless method, Wier said. The “cut and cover” method involves digging up the street to replace the pipe. The existing line could be used as a sewer bypass while the new pipe is being installed, but the city would have to repave the street, Wier said.

Airport needs wetlands as set-aside for project

The local airport authority is closer to acquiring land in the Pacific Shores Subdivision needed to mitigate the loss of wetlands for a runway improvement project, but some property owners might balk at the price offered for lots.

Last week, the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority unanimously approved a motion to accept a new appraisal report that valued Pacific Shores Subdivision lots at $5,000 apiece and to send letters to some buyers offering a one-time offer for the lots at that price.

Offers-to-purchase letters will be going to 225 properties whose owners have expressed a willingness to sell or have requested more information. Thirty-seven properties in tax default and 20 properties owned by the county will also be receiving the purchase offer, according to authority officials.

Del Norte County approved the Pacific Shores subdivision near Lake Earl/Tolowa in 1963.

Kelly Smith, an attorney who represents the Pacific Shores Property Owners Association, which accounts for roughly 150 of the remaining private lots, said in a phone interview on Wednesday that the $5,000-per-lot offer is “a rate that’s obviously intended to find suckers.”

The Runway Safety Area project, which would create an open, flat buffer zone in case a plane over- or undershoots the runway, is a congressionally mandated project that must be complete by 2015.

The project will disturb just under 17 acres of land that state regulators have deemed environmentally sensitive habitat, home to nine protected plant and animal species.

Caltrans crews will be directing traffic at Last Chance Grade on U.S. Highway 101 today while workers modify the temporary traffic lights so they’ll adjust to the traffic flow.

The repairs come after the signals malfunctioned at the one-lane section of Last Chance Grade south of Crescent City at about 9:15 p.m. Monday, resulting in a flashing red light that confused motorists, according to Tamera Leighton, Executive Director of the Local Transportation Commission. 

With no one to direct traffic, some motorists proceeded through the traffic signals, with the southbound lane taking its turn after the northbound lane cleared, Leighton wrote in an e-mail Wednesday. Others didn’t want to risk a collision and waited until help arrived.

“The driver who contacted me said that after seeing this happen, she turned around and drove downhill to the first available call box,” Leighton said in the email. “The CHP told her there would be a traffic control officer on the way. She returned to the line of cars and shared her information with others. About 15 minutes later someone arrived. (The driver) stated she waited for nearly an hour through the entire process.”

No flowers while cemetery preps for Memorial Day

In preparation for Memorial Day, officials are asking the public to not place flowers at the Del Norte County Veterans, IOOF Memorial, Masonic and St. Joseph Catholic Cemeteries after Wednesday, May 15.

All tributes and keepsakes  that are present should be removed, to aid in the cleanup efforts before the holiday, officials said.

Flowers may be placed for Memorial Day weekend beginning Friday, May 24.

Free workshop on composting

The Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority will present a free workshop on backyard composting Saturday.

The event will be held at 1 p.m., rain or shine, in the community garden on the corner of 9th and F streets at Crescent Elk Middle School.

The workshop will discuss how backyard composting can save money, improve  gardens and help conserve the environment.

For more information, call 465-1100. 

The Crescent City Council on Monday agreed to endorse the appointment of Ocean World owner Mary Wilson to the Solid Waste Management Authority Board.

But the vote for the public member of the board wasn’t unanimous.

The board, which also includes two county supervisors and two City Council members, oversees the Solid Waste Authority and directs the pickup and disposal of garbage and recyclables throughout Del Norte. The two supervisors on the five-member board have called for the dissolution of the authority.

Councilwoman Kathryn Murray acknowledged Wilson’s experience on the Del Norte Solid Waste Task Force, an advisory committee for solid waste issues, but said she was concerned about Wilson’s ability to be objective. Murray said she was also worried that Wilson did not grasp how her “day-to-day decisions” would impact the community.

“You were not happy with the process, and even when your rates were reduced and you could start self-hauling, you still had problems with that,” Murray said to Wilson, who sat in the audience at Monday’s meeting. “I’d like to see somebody who has not shown their true colors and (who is) more objective in this issue because it’s very complicated and it’s going to get very political and it’s not going to be pretty.”

A Crescent City man was arrested Monday on suspicion of selling marijuana-laced brownies to teenagers, including two who were taken to the hospital.

The mother of a 16-year-old girl contacted the Sheriff’s Office after her daughter spent almost a day in the hospital as a result of eating the brownies, said sheriff’s Commander Bill Steven. Another girl was treated in the emergency room for the same reason, Steven said. 

The two girls ate the marijuana brownies Saturday with two teenage boys, Steven said, adding the boys bought the brownies from a neighbor who had a medical marijuana card.

Yurok Wildland firefighters Mike Obie (with propane torch) and Andrew Lamebear (with propane can) ignite a prescribed cultural burn on the Yurok Reservation. Courtesy of Matt Mais/ Yurok Tribe

Controlled burn first step in reintroducing clearing method

After almost two years of community organizing on the remote, up-Klamath River reaches of the Yurok Reservation, a controlled cultural burn was held last week near Weitchpec — the first step in reintroducing traditional fire treatment that was practiced on the land by American Indians for centuries.

The first community-organized, officially sanctioned cultural burn on Yurok Tribal land took place April 30 — the last day before a statewide ban on burns.

A celebration to commemorate the event will be held Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. at the Libby Nix Community Center in Weitchpec.

In three years, the 5-acre hazel stick patch that was burned along Route 169 will provide the crucial materials necessary for basket weaving, a practice that has been endangered by a lack of weaving materials.

“You can’t tell someone how to weave a basket — you have to show them,” said Skip Lowry, a community organizer for the burn. Yurok elders have expressed the desire to pass on their basket-weaving expertise, Lowry said, but modern management of the forests have made it difficult. “If the materials are not present, that knowledge is going to be lost.”

The community desire to revive controlled burns was identified through the Weitchpec to Wotek Local Organizing Committee as a way to strengthen cultural practices while keeping the community safe from fires.