John Chiv: How local is HPA and who is funding and behind this effort?

Mar 7, 2021

How local is HPA and who is funding and behind this effort?

Until last May 2020, how many people had heard of Ryan Rice? At that time, Rice was a part of Open Humboldt, the group expressing opinions and concerns about the impact of California's shelter in place order. Since then Rice has been active on Facebook.

Now, he is the President of Humboldt Prosperity Alliance. The executive director, Melanie Satterlee, has only been in Humboldt for five months, according to her Linkedin profile. Her Facebook profile lists Merced.

I was told that Satterlee's parents in Merced. She worked for Wells Fargo years ago. Melanie Satterlee married Blake Satterlee, whose father, Bob Satterlee is the family that owns the Fort Seward ranch. Melanie Satterlee seems to know people in the community I do and people have reached out privately. It seems she has been in the area for a while but others are also curious about the questions I have raised.

According to a Facebook post by Rice, they have been quiet about it until recently. The question is why?

The group has a Facebook page, a website, they are putting out a newsletter and asking for donations. There is no other information about who is funding this newsletter, website or who else is associated with this new group.

There are a lot of Facebook groups in Humboldt, lot of groups, mostly anonymous and semi anonymous.

HUMCPR is still around but quiet; the Humboldt Consequential has disappeared and now there is this new group talking about property rights, businesses and landowners.

Besides two people, we don't know if anyone else is involved because there is sparse information. If they are asking for donations, they need to be more transparent. Anyone can put up a website and an email address. They don't even have a phone number or donation information up yet.

https://california-company.com/co/humboldt-prosperity-alliance

They have an agent and a mailing address in Rocklin.