---

---

Though candidates spoke briefly about Last Chance Grade, mental health, homelessness and the state of the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office took center stage at a candidates forum Tuesday for the District 3 seat on the Board of Supervisors.

Hosted by KFUG Community Radio and Redwood Voice in partnership with the Del Norte Triplicate and the Wild Rivers Outpost, the forum came after photos of a jail cell belonging to an inmate awaiting transfer to a mental health hospital were made public. The photos show the jail cell with walls smeared with feces, littered with food trays and other debris and whose toilet is overflowing.

According to DNSO Lt. Daniel Schneck, the photos were taken after the inmate had been moved to another cell so the one he had been in could be decontaminated. Schneck did’t give an exact timeline for how long the inmate had been left in those conditions, but said allegations that it had been as many as 15 days were false.

At Tuesday’s forum, Mike Thornton, of KFUG Community News asked each candidate — incumbent Chris Howard and his challengers Joe “Hank” Akin and Frank Magarino — to address the conditions the photos allegedly depicted, pointing out that 70 percent of the county’s discretionary budget is allocated to the sheriff’s office.

Incumbent Chris Howard said “there’s no doubt that public safety, in particular the sheriff’s office is in crisis.” Howard repeated a phrase he used last month about giving “a lot of love and care into the sheriff’s office” and indicated that one reason for the challenges the DNSO and the jail faces has to do with state mandates, early release and the complications of treating mental illness.

“I was in Sacramento last week and this is something that’s high on their list,” he said. “We heard Governor Newsom, instead of talking about fire, instead of talking about drought, said to us personally — all 58 counties — and said ‘I’m going to tackle mental illness. It’s no longer appropriate for us to turn our backs, we got to hit it head on and all you guys are accountable and we’re going to pass legislation to get there and if you don’t get on board, you’re going to be fined on a regular basis.”

Howard said the jail cell belonged to an inmate who is “No. 397 on a list of about 1,400 people in State of California waiting to seek mental care.” Howard referred to a decision the Board of Supervisors made earlier on Tuesday that allows the jail to administer medication to inmates who are mentally incompetent to assist in their own defense.

“Our jail is currently housing mentally ill patients. As a matter of fact, we’re currently housing 12,” he said. “Our jail is under equipped, under funded and not staffed with the appropriate people to deal with these issues, period. The state does not fund us to do these kinds of things, and our jail is not equipped to handle it.”

Magarino said he initially thought the photos were a joke but was appalled at the conditions of the jail cell. Magarino cited AB 109, the California Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011, which allows non-violent criminals to be housed in local jails, as well as a lack of funding as creating unbearable burdens on the sheriff’s office.

Magarino said he also spoke Garrett Scott, who is running for Del Norte County Sheriff unopposed, and former sheriff Dean Wilson, who is running for the District 5 supervisor position. Magarino also referred to Measure R, the 1 percent sales tax that is currently addressing a myriad of staffing issues within the county, including at the sheriff’s office.

“I’m hoping with Measure R and strong leadership, I’m hoping we can rectify the problem,” he said.

Akin also called the photos appalling, but said laws have been on the books for years about how jails can house their inmates and in what conditions. The issue is a lack of leadership at the sheriff’s office, he said. Though Akin praised the work Schneck is doing as acting sheriff and operations lieutenant, that upper management position needs to be filled as well.

While he acknowledged there is a crisis in the sheriff’s office, Akin pointed out that the sheriff is an elected official.

“Therefore it’s not like we can just tell him what to do. He has that responsibility and that right for himself,” Akin said. “Basically what we can do is we can back that up.”

Akin brought up Measure R since much of those dollars were allocated to the sheriff’s office. Though he said he didn’t vote on Measure R in 2020 because he was not in Del Norte County at the time, he called for more transparency as to how the money is being spent.

“If they want a tax for law enforcement then put out a tax for law enforcement and let people vote on what they think they’re spending it on,” he said. “I don’t know anybody in the community that wouldn’t want a better law enforcement.”

As for homelessness, Thornton pointed out that recent statements at a Board of Supervisors meeting placed the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness at 500-800 — higher than the official numbers usually cited.

Thornton cited work done by several community groups in the community to bring affordable housing to the community and asked what the candidates would do to bring those solutions to fruition.

Earlier in the program, Magarino said the county should address homelessness by making it easier for property owners to build an accessory dwelling unit, also known as a mother-in-law unit, on their property. He disagreed with the county’s 2020 purchase of the former Coastal Inn & Suites motel with Project Homekey dollars for permanent supportive housing for the homeless.

“If we’re striving to be a tourist destination, I’ve heard from friends that come to town that say, ‘What’s going on out there? Why do you have this in the middle of your town?’” Magarino said. “I don’t think that was a wise decision, I wouldn’t have voted for that. I would have voted to move it to a place where they would still have access to the resources they need, but not where it would disrupt the attraction of this county.”

Magarino also referred to “blighted properties” in the county, saying that through Measure R, which he claimed was tied up with property values, though it’s a sales tax, he hopes the county would have the ability to confiscate the properties and sell it.

“We should make it easier for the community to be able to take advantage of the ADU by streamlining (and) also provide free plans you can give free to the individuals that want to build on that property,” Magarino said. “So they don’t have to deal with engineers, they don’t have to deal with getting permits. The department should be able to provide free planning these builders can use without having to go through all the hoops and expenses of coming up with one.”

Magarino also called for tax breaks or a “temporary lure” that would bring those projects in.

Akin, pointing out that Del Norte County is a “cash-strapped community,” asked where does free and “tax breaks” come from.
Akin also referred to homelessness as another “broad brush thing.”

He referred to a 2015 cleanup of the old McNamara and Peepe lumber mill property behind Safeway, which, he said, included removing thousands of pounds of trash and debris.

“Where did we think those people were going to go?” Akin asked rhetorically. “We flushed those people out into the community and now it’s visible. Is the crisis different than what It was then? I believe it has increased some, but I believe we can’t push it out into the people’s faces and say now it’s a crisis. It always was.”

Akin also asked how many homeowners who have ADUs would step up and accept someone who had been homeless living on their property, while the county’s purchase of the Coastal Inn & Suites translated to a loss in transient occupancy taxes.

“Those to me aren’t answers and I’m not saying I have the answers,” he said. “It’s very complicated and it’s definitely something we’re going to have to look into.”

Howard also addressed homelessness by citing the Coastal Inn & Suites, which became the Legacy after he and his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors approved the purchase in 2020.

Answering a question from Redwood Voice’s Monique Camarena about mental illness in youth, Howard pointed out that 250 children are homeless. The Legacy provided homes for 37 residents, including children, Howard said.

“We were taking children out of cars and putting families with vital needs into a situation where they could have wraparound services,” he said. “And for the most part (opponents) have come up to me and said, ‘You know what, I was wrong. This is working.’”

While there isn’t a lot of space to build housing for the homeless in Del Norte County, according to Howard, he said he and his colleagues have identified some areas and is “willing to move forward with some of the things that have been mentioned this evening.”

“When it comes to housing the homeless, there’s a lot more opportunity out there and we need to move quickly and take advantage of state funding that is flowing rapidly out of Sacramento to our area to address the issue,” Howard said.

Akin countered Howard’s statement by pointing out that if the Legacy “took kids out of cars,” many of its residents have slight income.

“Is it low-income housing or is it housing the homeless? The homeless are still out there, so which people are we talking about,” Akin asked. “Some of the future things coming, so we don’t call them homeless anymore, we call them unhoused? The biggest population of unhoused people in this country right now are those that came across the border. That’s great, they need help too.”

KFUG and Redwood Voice will host future forums featuring candidates for the Del Norte County District 4 and District 5 races at 6 p.m. May 3 and May 10. Forums will be streamed live on Redwood Voice’s Facebook page and broadcast on KFUG 101.1 FM in Crescent City. For more information, and to submit questions, click here.

---

SHARE →