NORTH COAST – As we say goodbye to 2017, News Channel 3 takes a look at some of what the North Coast was up to in the last 12 months.
One airline is gone and a beloved program is sticking around.
These are some of the North Coast’s accomplishments and setbacks over the last year.
Humboldt State University’s football program was in jeopardy of shutting down due to long term financial deficits.
But community members stepped up to raise $500,000 in matching funds. That means the Jacks will take the field at Redwood Bowl next season. The community must now raise that same amount annually for the next five years to keep the team on the gridiron.
And Pen Air took off from the North Coast this time for good.
Pen Air abruptly pulled its service from the Humboldt County Airport in August following the company’s bankruptcy. United is, once again, the only option to fly out of Humboldt.
And Pen Air left Del Norte County without an air carrier when it ended service on the December 15. The county selected Contour Airlines as a replacement which will offer 12 flights a week when it’s up and flying.
And an iconic building in Trinidad still faces an uncertain future. A landslide threatened the memorial lighthouse that overlooks the bay at the end of Trinity Street.
A geologist recommended it be moved before the rainy season. Initial plans were to shift about 20′ across the hillside but has run in to opposition from tribal groups that raised concerns about ancestral gravesites.
Commercial and recreational boaters got some relief when the city of Eureka dredged Humboldt Bay for the first time in more than ten years.
Crews pulled 36,000 cubic yards of sediment out of the public marina and boat launch. There’s still more to do, and permits are already in place for next summer’s dredging cycle.
Humboldt County adopted its General Plan Update after decades of discussion and revisions.
Land use, environmental protections, and property rights comprise just part of the document that will guide Humboldt County for the next 20 years and beyond.
And Eureka is in the midst of its own general plan update.
The city launched a year long series of public workshops to determine what the community wants to see for the next few decades.
Council and staff are working to incentivize a return to the unique features that contributed to Eureka’s character as far back as the 1800’s.
The plan is expected to be adopted by fall of 2018.
The city also reaffirmed its commitment to returning Indian Island to the Wiyot people.
No timeline for the transfer was established due to ongoing legal issues including the CEQA review process.
And after nine years of planning, McKinleyville celebrated the opening of its state of the art wastewater treatment plant. Water users approved a rate increase to fund the $15 million project which operators described as a groundbreaking moment for McKinleyville.
