Trees? In Eureka?

For a long time I have been bothered by the traffic problem in Eureka. It seems to be the dark cloud that hovers over everything that I love about this city. Traffic noise, noxious fumes, devalued neighborhoods and just plain physical danger are caused by the proximity of too many cars passing by too fast on almost every street in the heart of the city and downtown . Many cities use trees to combat these impacts.

The powers that be know there is a problem, yet it seems they have given up. Although they have workshops on traffic calming, there is an accepted tenet that the automobile must be catered to. For years Eureka and the County traffic engineers have been working with CALTRANS to ensure that there is smooth traffic flow on 101 as it passes through Eureka. This same concept guides traffic engineering on Eureka streets .

Having worked as a planner for city and county governments and a consulting firm for over thirty continuous years, I can see that Traffic Engineering has not been balanced by Transportation Planning. Transportation Planning, as required under state planning law, requires cities and counties to plan for other modes of travel than the automobile and to consider the impacts of traffic on the community. Traffic Engineering, without Transportation Planning turns streets into racetracks.

Imagine that cars went through Eureka on two-way streets lined with trees and that wide streets had landscaped medians as well. Imagine that the historic neighborhoods were dressed up with trees and that some of the streets had stop signs, traffic circles or neighborhood gardens that prevented cars from speeding through. Can you picture people sitting on their front porches or in their front yards, talking to their neighbors, walking to the store or park or waterfront?
In this picture, .trees separate people walking, biking or taking the bus from the moving cars. The noise of the cars is softened and roadside air pollution is absorbed by the trees. Trees create an idyllic setting and context for t he historic houses; they soften the hard surfaces of asphalt and concrete, streets and sidewalks.

This picture is especially needed in the historic neighborhoods east of Broadway and south of Downtown. These neighborhoods are full of an amazing assortment of historic houses but because they are closest to the "freeway" corridor of Route 101, they are inhabited by those who have no other choice than to live in neglected historic houses impacted by "freeway" noise and polluted air. This area is very affordable but it is not a healthful place to live. It attracts drug addicts and criminals of all sorts who prey on the residents. As Jerry Brown told the politicians from East Oakland who were screaming about gentrification when he tried to improve the quality of life in similar neighborhoods, "Just keep your drugs and crime and you will have low-cost housing forever." Even though many people in these neighborhoods treasure these historic gems and are restoring or have restored the old houses to their former glory and grandeur, the neighborhoods continue to appear blighted as long as the City makes no effort to dress up the stark concrete and asphalt street environment and show off these architectural beauties. Just planting street trees and adding a few stop signs or traffic circles would make a big difference. Yes, we want to retain affordable housing but it is not necessary to neglect neighborhoods to ensure that they remain affordable. Many cities have restored the quality of the environment and life in older neighborhoods and kept the low-income people there. Rent control, low-interest long term loans and other programs successfully ensure the continuity of low-cost housing for low-income residents.

We will still have cars for some time to come but we need to reduce their impacts and ensure that walking and other forms of moving about are viable alternatives. Creating a pedestrian environment with street trees and green spaces will go a long way toward reducing conflicts between cars and people and will make our city more beautiful, too.

A One Page Health and Nutrition Book

I feel many health books, while full of valuable information, are far too wordy and don't give people some concise steps they can take to improve their health in practical and affordable ways. This one page guide is a starting point for all of us who are concerned about rising health care costs and our connectedness with agriculture and the natural world. I encourage you to look up the books listed in the bibliography if you are interested in learning more.

DIET: Include plenty of fiber – vegetables, whole grains, fruit – in your diet to keep food moving through or you will get clogged up. Chew your food thoroughly as this aids digestion. Keep meat consumption low as it contributes no fiber at all. If possible, don’t peel your fruits and vegetables. Avoid refined grains (white flour, white pasta and breads, white rice) and don’t overcook your veggies (in fact, eat them raw as often as possible). Foods with intense colors--reds, purples and greens--are called phyto-nutrients because they are very nourishing.

ACID/ALKALINE BALANCE: Slightly alkaline blood is the natural state for humans and enables nutrients to be assimilated. When blood is acid, nutrients are not assimilated and all kinds of problems can result from physical disease to poor mental health. Most fruits and vegetables are alkaline-forming in our bodies and most grains, beans, seeds and meats are acid-forming. Of course, we need both acid- and alkali-forming foods. The key to proper assimilation is to maintain slightly alkaline blood by eating more fruit and vegetables than grains and meat.

ENZYMES: Try to eat at least 50% of your fruits and veggies raw. There are all kinds of enzymes in raw foods that are good for us and are lost through processing, cooking and freezing or long-term storage. Cut down on packaged foods (They are mostly dead and expensive) and minimize processed sugars and chemical additives in your diet.

JUICES: Drink raw juices. Make your own raw fruit and veggie juices, including carrot, beet, ginger and many other fruits and vegetables. These are truly immune-boosting and medicinal power foods. Most juicers come with a recipe book but check the rack at your health food store or book store for one if you didn’t get one that has recipes for different ailments and tonics.

CULTURED FOODS: Cultured foods are a time-honored tradition, a way to preserve foods without modern processing tools and loss of nutrients. Cultured foods have incredible live organisms that benefit digestion and taste sensational. Raw yogurt, raw sauerkraut and Essene bread are just a few of the examples of these fabulous foods.

DAIRY: If you drink milk, drink certified raw milk for enzymes, vitamins A and C and less lactose intolerance as well as incredible good flavor. Make your own raw milk yogurt and kefir and farmers cheese. Save the whey to add to soups and juices and to make kvass. Stocking Up and Nourishing Traditions are just two of the many great books that teach you how.

WATER: Drink clean water. If your water company doesn’t tell you what is in your tap water or if it is chlorinated or fluoridated use a reverse osmosis filter to do the best job of clean-up. Both the Co-op and Eureka Natural Foods have machines that dispense this kind of clean water for just 40 cents per gallon.

FATS: The typical American diet is woefully short on Omega 3 fatty acids. To balance your fatty acids component, eat raw nuts, seeds (include flax seeds and hemp seeds if possible) and cold water fish such as salmon. If getting these foods is a problem supplement with EPA or cod liver oil or fish oil capsules.

SUPPLEMENTS: Take Silymarin (milk thistle herb) for your liver if you live in an area where the air is polluted. When you have an infection or virus, boost your Vitamin C intake and add herbs for respiratory and sinus or whatever the ailment is. Raw garlic, ginger, GSE (grapefruit sed extract) and raw juices round out the arsenal for defense. Otherwise, try to perfect your diet and get the many vitamins and minerals present in a variety of vegetables, fruits and grains eaten fresh. Don't eat late at night; your body needs to shut down digestion while you sleep.

EXERCISE AND REST: Be sure to get plenty of exercise (walking, swimming, dancing, yoga, chi gong, stretching, etc.) and get enough sleep every night. Have some creative activities to get involved in, too.

Bibliography
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
The Uncookbook by Juliano
Stocking Up by Carol Hupping Stoner
Recipes for a Small Planet by Ellen Buchman Ewald
Laurel’s Kitchen by Laurel Robertson
Wild Fermentation by Sander Ellix Katz
Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford
Healthy Healing by Linda Rector Page
Eat to Beat Cancer by J. Robert Hatherrill
Rawsome by Brigitte Mars
Fats That Heal and Fats That Kill by Udo Erasmus

What's Really Wrong With Eureka?

Patrick Geddes, a city planner from Scotland who wrote Cities in Evolution between 1910 and 1915, said, "It is no easy matter to change the habits of a people, and above all as regards their homes." He went on to say that our cities do need to be maintained and rebuilt as they grow and crumble and that there is no better way to find out how to renew them than to "see what is being done in other cities and countries."

I say this because, although I love Eureka, there are many things we could be doing better and when I suggest doing something that I feel would make Eureka a better place, I am usually told I should go back to where I came from. Believe it or not, things were not so great where I came from and Eureka has a lot more potential than most places I’ve lived. However, I have visited a lot of cities where the locals recognize what is hurting the livability of their own place and are taking big steps to make it a better place.

In Clearwater, Florida, the main downtown street is being made into a pedestrian street and traffic is being diverted a few blocks south to hook up to a new bridge to Clearwater Beach. An old neighborhood being revitalized sought to protect its residents from raging through traffic and was granted a street vacation permit to create a cul de sac to replace the busy intersection that allowed traffic to travel through the neighborhood. In Portland, Oregon, parking lots and a freeway have been ripped up to make urban and shoreline parks, and intersections are being used for neighborhood gathering places.

In Alameda, California, residents convinced the public works department to not remove mature trees on their street but to repair the sidewalks instead. One person wrote a letter that convinced the Bureau of Electricity to trim street trees more carefully so that the trees on the side of the utility poles did not look dwarfed. San Francisco adopted two waterfront plans in the 1970s to ensure that development along the SF Bay is not a cut-throat competition for views and access. A Berkeley developer goes to Europe every year and brings the city planners a binder full of photos showing new ideas from the developments he has seen. Together, new ideas and accepted practices from other places contribute to what we can learn to make Eureka a livable city.

Not all of what I propose is major work, but it needs to happen before we can invite people to come and be impressed enough that they will want to come again or will tell their friends about us. The first thing that we have to do is make this city a livable place for its residents. When we achieve that the tourists will come. We will not have to court them.

For Eureka to be a livable city, there are several major flaws that need to be corrected before we can be considered a livable city. Here are the problems, and they are not insurmountable. All of them have been talked about before but unfortunately proposed solutions have not been implemented. The proposed "cures" follow each stated problem:

1) A three-mile-long strip commercial highway, with no landscaping is the gateway or entrance to our fair city (from the south). This gives a very negative visual introduction to Eureka.

Cure: Landscape both sides of 101, make the suicide lane a landscaped divider, and allow left turns only at intersection.

2) Heavy traffic is the daily ritual on the entire 101 corridor through Eureka, including downtown. Speeding traffic is a daily occurrence on residential streets.

Cure: Time the signals on 101 at 25 miles/hour and allow left turns only at signaled intersections. Add stop signs on residential streets where there are none for four or more blocks. Close off streets so that cars cannot go through and insert little neighborhood parks at the intersections. (Oakland has long used boulders and landscaping at former intersections to prevent traffic from passing through residential neighborhoods.)

3) No crosswalks exist at many intersections and signal changes to allow pedestrians to cross are very slow, even when manually prompted.

Cure: Designate and stripe all signaled intersections along 101 with crosswalks and where walk-and-wait pedestrian crossing signals exist make them respond quickly to pedestrian prompts. (Petaluma is a good example of how well this works to make busy streets more pedestrian friendly.)

4) Homeless shelters are located in hotels and motels all over downtown and along the 101 corridor. Homeless people hang around downtown and on the boardwalk.

Cure: Make the asphalt lot next to the Mission a community garden and put the benches back in Old Town so the homeless have a place to sit. Save some of the shoreline for public use i.e., parks. It will cost less to maintain the parks than to repair the damage from forcing people to hang out on the streets. (Berkeley is a good example of a place that treats the homeless and poor with compassion.) Keep hotels and motels in the hotel and motel business.

5) Eureka’s treasure trove of residential Victorian and craftsman architecture is treated as a run-down low-income "ghetto."

Cure: Designate the Clark District a City of Eureka landmark district and start recognizing the immaculate restorations that are bringing back some incredibly beautiful and historic houses to urban Eureka.

6) Funky (and I mean FUNKY) old historic houses for sale for $300,000+ because (the owners tell you) they can be torn down and rebuilt as four-unit apartment buildings.

Cure: Re-zone the RM-1000 district (the flatlands historic area) to single-family residential (RS-6000). This will keep the selling price of neglected historic houses low so that people can afford to buy one and use their money and sweat equity to create an affordable home for themselves. Currently, owners of these embarrassingly neglected houses are selling them for outrageous prices telling prospective buyers that they can tear them down and build fourplexes in their place.

7) Hardscape everywhere – asphalt and concrete dominate as the favored ground cover. Newer buildings are landscaped with crushed rocks and wood chips. It is a very harsh environment to have to live with.

Cure: Remove and recycle asphalt and concrete where it is no longer needed. Stop and think before pouring more concrete. Do not allow crushed rocks and wood chips to be approved on new developments. The landscaping at the parking lot curiously named the Fifth Street Plaza looks terrible!!! The new Co-op has no street trees. Too much concrete and flat hard surfaces to be inviting!!!

8) New buildings are going up or are planned all along the waterfront to obliterate the view where scenic vistas should be protected or at least shared.

Cure: Impose a moratorium on development between the waterfront and 101 until a waterfront plan can be adopted that eliminates project-by-project review of proposals. Access to and views of the bay are too beautiful and valuable to be squandered and, with reasonable controls, can be enjoyed by all, resulting in better success for the developers and users of this area.

9) Trees blow down or are senselessly removed leaving huge emptiness and bleakness. Are they ever replaced? e.g. Halvorsen Park, Carson Mansion.

Cure: Establish a tree-trimming crew for the city. Trim City trees to thin out heavy canopies that are subject to losing branches in storms. Keep this crew employed by hiring them out to homeowners and business owners who want their trees similarly maintained.

10) Sidewalks continue to be replaced without planter strips or holes for trees even though the City Council voted five years ago to make Eureka a street-tree-lined city.

Cure: Change the ordinance to require planter strips (boulevard strips) for all new sidewalk being poured This will not only save the builder and owner material (concrete) costs but also will save him or her money cutting out the holes at a later date to plant trees or shrubs.

11) Then there is the pulp mill toilet paper remake, already approved by the Air Quality Management District, asking the Water Board permission to reopen without meeting water discharge standards till 2013. Didn't we just get rid of the toxic fumes a couple of years ago when they said they were going to shut down forever?? Spewing fumes on a cloudy day and it gets pretty toxic in Old Town and the flatlands of Eureka.

The City Council has previously refused to get involved in the air quality concerns of Eureka residents. They stated that the pulp mill was out of the City's jurisdiction. I believe that the impact on the residents is definitely a matter the City can take up and complain to the State Resources Board for starters. Patty Berg and Wes Chesbro have made inquiries on behalf of the community that live here. Where is the City Council?

Yes, I know, Eureka has always been like this and we like it this way. No, I am not going to go back to where I came from. People like Angelina Schwab and the artists are doing great things for Humboldt. Let’s support them and make the setting for their work and place to live for all of us more sustainable and beautiful. Talk of tourism? If we make the city more livable for ourselves, who live here, people will come to see what we have here.

How Mainstream Can You Be?

I wrote this poem because I was found to be not mainstream enough to be on the Planning Commission. A few weeks later I heard that they removed the bench in front of Pacific Flavors in Old Town because no one mainstream ever used it. It made me wonder just who is mainstream?? Is it something I would aspire to? Is it discriminatory or discriminating to label someone "mainstream"?

I call it a conciliatory poem because I don't think people really have thought through the meaning of this label. and I think it is a dangerous one. People need to think about it.

HOW MAINSTREAM CAN YOU BE?
(a conciliatory poem)

Can you love old -growth redwoods and still be Mainstream?
Can you oppose clear-cuts and still be Mainstream?
Can you be a tree-sitter and still be Mainstream?
Can you talk to the homeless and still be Mainstream?
Can you be unemployed and still be Mainstream?
Can you be homeless and still be Mainstream?
Can you be disabled or handicapped and still be Mainstream?
Can you be mentally challenged and still be Mainstream?
Can you be gay or bisexual or transsexual and still be Mainstream?
Can you drink herbal tea and still be Mainstream?
Can you be a vegetarian or vegan and still be Mainstream?
Can you have long hair and still be Mainstream?
Can you wear dreads and still be Mainstream?
Can you have your natural hair color and still be Mainstream?
Can you wear a nose ring and still be Mainstream?
Can you oppose war and still be Mainstream?
Can you walk in a Peace March and still be Mainstream?
Can you live in an old house and still be Mainstream?
Can you live in the Clark District and still be Mainstream?
Can you be an artist and still be Mainstream?
Can you jam in a band and still be Mainstream?
Can you speak out for historic preservation and air quality and still be Mainstream?
Can you boycott drive-thrus and big box stores and still be Mainstream?
Can you be a non-native of Humboldt County and still be Mainstream?
Can you be native American and still be Mainstream?
Can you be a person of color and still be Mainstream?
Can you wear Birkenstocks and still be Mainstream?
Can you belong to a third party and still be Mainstream?
Can you read the Greenfuse and still be Mainstream?
Can you engage in civil disobedience and still be Mainstream?
Can you speak your conscience and still be Mainstream?

You can be Mainstream if you answer yes to fewer than five of the above questions. Then you may qualify for the Planning Commission. And you will be entitled to sit on a bench in Old Town.

Maybe if we didn’t have to invent criteria about who is or isn’t Mainstream we could accomplish a lot more to make Humboldt a liveable place with nice neighborhoods, good schools, parks and trails, and less traffic. These are things we all want and if we work on them together the things that separate us into Mainstream or not Mainstream do not really matter.