These are two posts I did on the County of Humboldt buying one of the buildings co-owned by Ming Tree owner Larry Doss.
I also did an earlier post about the other building across from the jail 509 J street and the top floor was supposed to be rented out to various parties and eventually became the North Coast Journal offices.
Yesterday, I was researching and just happened to find these minutes from January 15, 2025 which are relevant to the posts above. It also explains why Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal is on the second floor; sometimes.
The County was looking at 509 J street as a Day Reporting Center or other uses.
Ming Tree is a private business. Larry Doss is one of the generational families in Humboldt. When he unsuccessfully ran for Fifth District Supervisor, First District Supervisor Rex Bohn and Sheriff Honsal endorsed him. Larry, as many in Humboldt County, on the left and right, benefit from these political connections. It is how "bidiness" is done in Humboldt County.
Outsiders are rarely welcome unless you are willing to suck up for years and take a chance maybe some crumbs will be thrown at you and only if you keep your mouth shut. You need to constantly massage egos and never question the progeny or in laws that are enabled and coddled into some business despite multiple failures.
I don't do that and I am outspoken. As someone local and from a well known family said to me, "you don't suffer fools."
If you challenge the status quo like me; it does not matter how much you gave to the community. The good ole boys and gals who at one time praised you will turn on you and use the cliquey, cowardly small town backroom tactics to make it impossible to survive.
I call these people out for me and for others they have treated badly. Remorse and an apology is unheard of in Humboldt.
Prior to reporting, I volunteered politically. I asked for nothing but the hope and prosperity promised to this community.
When I started reporting, I am the one who spoke up and reported on Measure F what other local media ignored. I have called out many people who I campaigned for previously because someone needed to and because they talked a good game but did not deliver. That is journalism. To do so in a rural, isolated community has an added risk.
Who got ads for Measure F? Lost Coast Outpost. Who gets the good ole boy ads, even from conservatives? Again, local media I call out. Those who bad mouth me on Reddit or Facebook or online are clueless or deliberately lying. Anons have zero credibility but smears in today's digital world are one tactic used to silence in a cowardly way what the powers do not want exposed.
There is no Humboldt economy. It has been going downhill every year. Who is "successful" and why depends on who you know, who you piss off and who the bored social media mob decides to target to deflect from their miserable, pathetic, empty lives. If a private owner like Larry, well connected, has to sell buildings to the County of Humboldt; what does it say about the economy of Humboldt? Politicians and certain businesses scratch each others back and the reason we have certain people who are arrogant bullies and control every industry in Humboldt are these informal connections which the other local media has no clue about or refuse to report on because their owners and publishers are good, little minions who know their place. They hang out with the very people they cover and their selective reporting speaks volumes.
There are people who have built their Humboldt businesses with hard work. They take care of their employees, they are too busy working to hob nob with the Humboldt cabal. Many of them have retired or closed businesses because they don't play the game. Others in Humboldt continue to appear "successful" because they stroke the right egos. They don't make eye contact with me because behind their facade of keeping up with Humboldt joneses; I know their secrets and the truth about how they are doing financially.
Now another site, 605 K street is being explored by the County of Humboldt as a possible site for the Day Reporting Center. These are minutes from June 17, 2026.
Downtown Eureka is mostly government offices; many associated with the criminal justice system or safe and sober houses or some other treatment center. Those living pay check to pay check or working part time instead of being on the government dole for life have to reside with sex offenders, drug addicts and the mentally ill. That is affordable housing. Don't like it; then get out. The slumlords of Humboldt may slap on paint on the mold, do a surface carpet cleaning and rent the apartment out to the next desperate person because they control how many housing units are available.
Concerns brought up by decent hotel owners, businesses and hard working residents are ignored by the City of Eureka and the County. I already called out the City of Eureka in a recent post.
Nothing has changed. The County of Humboldt is just as culpable.
The County of Humboldt and the local tribes are buying many buildings. What do you think these are being used for? Private industry? Nope. Jobs for people who don't want to work for the government. Nope. More of the social industrial complex that former 4th District Supervisor Virginia Bass, former Fifth District Supervisor Ryan Sundberg supported and First District Supervisor Rex Bohn supports just as much as those on the left they criticize and ran to replace. Rex likes his $100,000 plus government gig so much that he refuses to let anyone else have a chance. He has been in office for too many terms. If Rex knows so much about private industry, let him go out a build a business from scratch without his connections.
Within 10 minutes walking on 4th, 5th and 6th streets in Eureka between E and L streets, I saw this guy who has been screaming obscenities on 4th, 5th and 6th street day and night for the past two days digging through the trash cans outside the Conflict Counsel office. Who do you think is going to clean that mess up tomorrow morning?
Larry Doss and Jon Stone? Nope.
They got their money.
Weekends are the worst in Eureka. The usual miscreants set up camp, smoke weed, get high, scream, do drug deals on every corner and move temporarily as soon as they see an EPD or CSET vehicle.
Several "hotels" and "motels " are now places for drug deals, mentally ill, criminals who stay for a day, few days, weeks and loiter around downtown pollute the air with their cheap weed and tobacco smoke on every corner for their side hustle while taxpayers subsidize their lifetime benefits. If you are a tourist making a reservation, most places you stay look nothing like the website and encountering the walking dead of Eureka is your vacation. Some on Eureka City Council now want to increase the TOT because they have zero business sense and don't know how to generate revenue.
Fences and no trespassing signs do not deter the high, walking dead of Eureka who wander these particular streets staggering out from the bushes or their taxpayer funded motel rooms and safe houses on their free phone, blasting music, with their baggy jeans and standard white t shirt calling their bud for a not so clandestine meeting.
I am fed up of dealing with the same faces who appear frequently on the jail log or are well known to anyone living downtown. Every single day, evening and night, I have to be vigilant so someone doesn't destroy or vandalize the apartment, the building and constantly tell people to move because I can't sleep or have any peace. Many of these people don't have a job or motivation to change their situation. They have a lifestyle enabled in Humboldt by clueless elites who think buying a cup of coffee or handing out change and excusing this behavior is "helping." Then, they go back to their comfortable homes away from downtown or go to church on Sunday feeling they "improved" someone's life.
I cannot walk a block without an able bodied man or woman, fairly clean, soliciting me for money. There are constantly people here who are not locals and some have beat up vehicles from other states. They are mouthy, obnoxious and do not fear the police.
You think tourists want to put up with this when they pay money for a vacation and if the 12% TOT passes, pay more? Right after I did my post calling out those of Eureka City Council insulting hotel owners, I was having breakfast in Old Town and heard a couple say the 12% increase meant they would not come back to Eureka.
Government solution is never to live within your budget. It is always a tax. The rest of us don't have the luxury to just pass a tax, we have to pay our bills, reduce spending and go without to make ends meet.
Larry Doss, Jon Stone, the Supervisors, most of Eureka City Council do not live in downtown Eureka. Humboldt so called leaders and most generational business owners and their sycophants got theirs. Now they say, screw you to the rest of us. Fat cats with no problems slurring their words at their favorite drinking holes or at home whining about needing more money.
The Humboldt cabal has a monopoly because this wasteland is hours away from real civilization. Retired Bay Area and other NIMBYs protest any growth because they are selfish.
These greedy, self absorbed liberals and conservatives want the rest of us to be dependent, struggling or homeless so they can continue the grant funding and taking advantage of the lack of options to fund their power and lifestyle.
There is no money to give raises to the overworked Deputy District Attorneys, Public Defenders and law enforcement who deal daily with the crisis created by the useless, greedy Humboldt "leaders." But there is money to buy buildings and advance expenses for Sheriff Billybob to fly out on the East Coast? How did Billybob's East Coast speaking engagement and paid vacation help Humboldt County?
If I were living anywhere else, I would be able to monetize my work.
The people with money or "influence" who claim they want to make Eureka better again or improve Humboldt are full of empty words. It is their choice to continue to let it be a stagnant, empty wasteland. If they are so successful and have vision; prove it with actions and results.
Make sure to look for a fluff, PR piece or press release from the County of Humboldt and City of Eureka in certain other local media next week or soon. KINS or Scott Hammond will trot out one of the generational good ole boy conservatives for a fluff interview which doesn't even ask softball questions. That is usually the standard go to move when I call out
certain people in Humboldt.