The City Council has these important decisions to make -- "Arcata’s own Gateway Code specifies that a permit will not be granted on a building that is detrimental to the public interest, health, or safety, or is potentially materially injurious to persons or property." "The Council needs to decide if it is willing to have Arcata grant permits for four-story or taller buildings." "It is my view that the way to get this money is, in a sense, to extort or threaten the State and the CSU system. To convince the State to come up with money for us, they need to be told what could happen if they don’t. It has to be "an offer that they can't refuse.""

At the April 9, 2024, Arcata Fire District's Board of Directors meeting, the Board discussed and approved a letter to be sent to the Arcata Mayor and Arcata City Council. That letter is re-printed here ----This letter formalizes and re-states what the AFD has been telling the City Council over these past two years. At the current time, the AFD cannot ensure the safety of people living in a building that is over 40 feet tall, which would be a three-story building.

The letter sent to the City Council. This item was on their agenda for the February 21, 2024 meeting. The overall design of this interchange does not seem safe -- not safe for bicyclists, for pedestrians, and not even safe for cars. WE CAN DO BETTER,

Part 2. The multi-road intersections of Sunset Avenue, L. K. Wood Boulevard, G Street, H Street, and the four on-ramps/off-ramps for US Highway 101 are an acknowledged difficult situation. The solution that's provide is not, in my view, a good solution. I think this design would be the source of all kinds of problems. I believe there must be a better solution for us at this intersection. We can do better.

Here are images of the design of the roundabouts for the multiple-lane intersection of Sunset Avenue, L. K. Wood Boulevard, and the four on-ramps/off-ramps for US Highway 101. The question is: WHERE ARE THE BIKE LANES?

Original article from September 4, 2022 ------- Dr. Tom Jackson has been the President of Cal Poly Humboldt since May, 2019. He writes a twice-a-month letter published in the Eureka Times-Standard. Dr. Jackson may be "thankful to be a community partner" but many people here in Arcata do not see Cal Poly Humboldt as being a community "partner" at all.

An open letter to Dr. Tom Jackson, president of Cal Poly Humboldt. Listed are some concrete actions that can be taken, for the benefit of all people in Arcata.

Did UC Berkeley bring in more students than they'd promised? How much should the University contribute to infrastructure costs? And -- is any of this applicable to Cal Poly Humboldt and Arcata ?

Reading time: 5 minutes -- Cal Poly Humboldt looks to expand by 6,000 students, and that may be 3,000 students more than they are building housing for. Adding students also means adding 700-1,000 faculty, staff, and support employees, plus their partners and children. Ancillary jobs in the community would add another 2,000 people. Where are they all going to live?

At Cal Poly Humboldt and in much of America, universities are supplying dorm beds for about 1/3 of their students. The universities expect private developers to build off-campus housing -- in town -- for the rest of the housing that students need. When universities expand, they aren't making enough dorms. and the shortage gets worse.

In May, 2020, six HSU students created a proposal to build apartments in the space above Uniontown Shopping Center, at 7th and F Streets.  With a height limit of 35 feet (3 stories) the plan included 66 apartments of sizes from 350 square feet to 1800 square feet. The report also includes a discussion of Form-Based Codes and required design elements and considerations.

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. You've just crossed over into... The Twilight Zone." Or crossed over to -- The Gateway Zone.

Are California universities required to contribute funds for increased traffic, firefighting, wastewater capacity, and other costs caused by campus expansions? The answer is Yes, they are.

"Additional students will put more pressure on the local housing market and increase rents for everybody, hitting low-income students and low-income nonstudent families the hardest."  An interview with Phil Bokovoy, leader of the group "Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods."

Original article May 2022, updated October 2023. Arcata's Gateway plan could add 3,500 apartments to our town, as Cal Poly Humboldt expands. Unless more than 60% of all new apartments are owner-occupied condos, Arcatans will have a small chance of owning their homes.

In March, 2023, Cal Poly Humboldt projected over 2,000 more students for the Fall 2023 semester than there were in the Fall 2022 semester. Current figures indicate there are only 98 more students enrolled this Fall.

3-minute video by Eric Black, dated February 1, 2023. The CSU Board of Trustees had met the week before to consider Cal Poly Humboldt's planned construction of the 6-story and 7-story off-campus dorms at the Craftsman's Mall site in Arcata. Despite the Arcata Fire District's strong disagreement with the Final Environmental Impact Report regarding their inability to provide fire protection at the dorms, the project was approved.

Northcoast Journal article, September 1, 2022. Cal Poly purchases Arcata Creekside 16 acres; pays triple the appraised land value. The purchase eliminates this site from the housing and assisted living plans by the non-profit Life Plan Humboldt.

In recent years, windowless bedrooms have become somewhat normalized on college campuses. Students at the University of Texas, Austin and the University of Michigan are currently renting dorm bedrooms without windows. Sunlight in your bedroom could become a luxury as cities debate allowing landlords to rent windowless rooms in former office buildings to alleviate the housing crisis.

The Cal Poly's EIR says "Therefore, no additional fire protection facilities are anticipated to be necessary for AFD to adequately serve the project site, and no significant decrease in response time is expected. Impacts would be less than significant." -------- This is directly refuted by the Arcata Fire District. It is not safe for people to live in 7-story buildings that do not have adequate fire and emergency protection.

At the site of the Craftman's Mall, Cal Poly Humboldt plans to put in dorms for 1,050 students. Is that good? Well, 5,500 dorm beds are needed.

Arcata's Village project was stalled in public comment for almost 2 years. A year after it was eventually approved, the developers withdrew. What went wrong?