By Investigative Reporter, Linda Sutter – January 24, 2024
On January 4th, 2024 at a secret meeting by Tri-Agency (because it was not posted) Chris Howard plotted with Blake Inscore and Wes White to have Kevin Hendricks, President of the Democrat Central Committee bring in as many people as possible to the BOS meeting on January 23, in hopes of persuading Supervisors to keep the Oceanic Wind Turbine language in their Tri-Agency By Laws. Mr. Kendrick brought in the big guns: Former Chair, Dave Finigan that use to sit on the Tri-Agency Board as well as the Board of Supervisors, Blake Inscore and Wes White to write in favor of the “Renewable Energy” aka Oceanic Wind Turbine farms which would destroy our local commercial fishermen as well as sport fishermen’s economy and way of life.
Blake Inscore was allowed to give two public comments and went over the 3 minute time limit. Wes White, Chair for the Tri-Agency, was also given several minutes over the time limit demonstrating disparate treatment to the public. It is questionable that 4 board members whom sit on the Tri-Agency board should be at the same meeting trying to persuade the board. (2 sit on the BOS – Chris Howard and Dean Wilson)
Most of the people who spoke had no clue regarding the history of the Tri-Agency and how the Tri-Agency had to be bailed out with Public Funds, has no office, no internet site, no staff, no budget and continually violates the Brown Act demonstrating lack of transparency.
Several members brought in by Kevin Hendricks focused on Wind Turbines as the only source of renewable energy. But, would not entertain placing wind farms out on Pacific Shores. Probably because of the red legged frog. However, these people were willing to destroy our Marine life without a blink of an eye.
Try as this crowd may, Supervisor’s Joei Borges and Darrin Short said, “We are not going to compromise our fishermen’s livelihood for wind turbines.”
Then came Chris Howard who continued rambling about how we need to bring jobs into this community which caused this subject matter to go on F O R E V E R. What Howard did not say to the public is the fact that these jobs for Wind Turbines are specialized jobs for those who have already been trained and worked with them for a number of years. There would be limited jobs if any at all for this county. Chris Howard attempted every contention tactic and failed.
Once the crowd discovered that Oceanic Wind Turbines was not going to be written in the new amended bylaws the crowd of people dissipated. It is worthy to note Supervisor Dean Wilson wants to continue spending money on a Tri-Agency that has been failing for the last 12 years under Chris Howard, Blake Inscore, and Wes White.
To date the Tri-Agency has spent $400,000 to bail themselves out and resurrect a failed agency. $400,000 could have been used to clean up our county, place gravel on roads like Darby and Dodain.
To quote one of choices in Lost Coast Oupost poll “This kind of investment is going to spur growth that will ruin the bucolic small nature of our little area. I liked it sleepy. Go away wind people.” I share that sentiment. This area growing too fast now. They say people leaving California. I sure don’t see it here. Looks like Humboldt getting ton of money for wind power project.
Linda, this is a really good article way to go. You have my support on this article. The people need to look at Chris Howard and Dean Wilson and think about getting rid of them based on this article. Getting rid of fishing jobs just for windmills is not the way to go. There’s not as many jobs in windmill farms as there is in the Fishing Industry. This is just another reason why Tri Agency should Not exist. These people do not have the right vision for Del Norte County.
Thank you David. In my opinion Dean Wilson and Chris Howard are disconnected and then most of the time Darrin Short rides their shirt tales. This is why nothing gets done in 5th District or the County as a whole. They want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a failed agency. You have to go further than that. We have to fix our county and city streets. We have to fix the appearance of this city first. The empty buildings downtown are currently wrapped up in a lawsuit. Until that is finished and until we hold the property owners accountable for upkeep and appearance we will not be able to accomplish bringing business to this area. There needs to be a tax exemption consideration for all new businesses for two years. The city needs to figure out a theme that says something about Crescent City. Until we get this done no revenue will be available which means the city and county will not be able to sustain and make more attempts in taxing us.