Thumbnail photo: Del Norte County Supervisors on Tuesday decided that K rail blocking vehicular access to an area commonly called the Ruth Compound should remain. | Photo by Heather Polen (Updated at 7:51 p.m. to correct the spelling of Randy Pincombe's name) District 1 Supervisor Darrin Short argued that barriers are part of the solution to curtail illegal dumping and camping in the Ruth Compound, though he said Band-Aid is an apt term for them too. “Band-Aid” was the phrase District 2 Supervisor Valery Starkey coined in February 2024 when Short initially proposed blocking the area. On Tuesday, though she ultimately voted with the rest of her colleagues for the barriers to continue, Starkey asked for statistics on the number of illegal dumpsites as well as the number of deputy patrols in the area. She also pointed out that a gate that $50,000 in Measure R money was meant to have paid for at Iowa Street wasn’t there. “Are we ever going to put up a gate or not and if we are going to put a gate up, is that going to be a barrier to first responders getting back to whatever needs are back there,” Starkey asked. “My questions are, what was the success, why would we continue [the blockade], what is the reason for it.” Del Norte County had been blocking Union Street, Broad Street, National Boulevard and Madison Avenue — also commonly called the Swamps — using a combination of gates and K rail for about a year and a half. According to the report Short submitted ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, this is permissible under the California Vehicle Code and was recommended by the Del Norte County sheriff and California Highway Patrol. The closures have been implemented, according to Short’s staff report. However a gate at Union Street near Iowa Street won’t be installed until the county’s emergency homeless shelter is operational. In addition to derelict vehicles, refrigerators and other debris, discarded mail is often left behind in the area past the barriers. | Photo by Heather Polen On Tuesday, though he shared statistics from the year before the county erected the barriers in 2024, Short said he had no updated numbers for his colleagues. According to him, Crescent City Fire & Rescue responded to the area “just under 52 times” in 2023, prior to the barricades being installed. The Del Norte County Sheriff's Office sent deputies to the area about 284 times during that period, Short said. While he estimated that the number of calls the fire department has responded to since the barriers were erected was about 10% of 52, Short said there has been an increase in fires behind the gear sheds in the area in the past two to three months. “I think that is because of the squatters there having found a way to bypass our blockades there at the end of Union [Street] and Elk Valley Road,” he said. Short also referred to a time of disruption when former code enforcement officer Dominic Mello resigned and his successor Ryan Lopez stepped in. The county had hired an additional code enforcement officer, but there’s still a vacancy, Short said. “Before Dominic left, he was wanting to figure out a way to put a gate in and not have it disappear that same night. We do know folks out there have tools like cutting torches, so we don’t want to throw money away on a gate and have it completely disappear. That’s still in the works.” Sheriff Garrett Scott said Monday his deputies respond to calls beyond the barriers “all the time,” but he didn’t have an exact figure available to him. He told Redwood Voice Community News on Friday that he was still working on getting those statistics. The calls Scott’s deputies respond to vary from a property dispute to someone who might be drunk to a report of smoke in the area. While the illegal dumping continues, he said, the barriers did limit the number of abandoned vehicles and trailers that wind up there. Short, citing California Vehicle Code, said once a gate is put in, emergency services will get a key. Under California Vehicle Code 21101.4 and 21101.6, closing roads is permissible when “serious and continual criminal activity exists on a portion that’s slated to be blocked based on recommendations from law enforcement. Closing the roads is allowed if they’re not a through-highway or arterial street — according to Short’s report, the road segments in question are considered collector streets under the county general plan. Road closures must also not adversely affect the flow of traffic or safety on adjacent streets or in the surrounding community, according to Short’s report. Starkey brought up the report of a woman who was burned while living in the area, asking what else the county has done to address the illegal dumping and camping besides blockading the road. “We can’t just close a road and expect for this to magically be better,” she said. “I feel the county should be putting in protections to make sure we’re following up, and if it means we need additional code enforcement to go out there and be investigating who’s doing the illegal dumping. They’ve got mail that’s out there with the illegal dumps, are we following up on that?” Darcy Walton, who works with Del Norte Mission Possible, brought the woman Starkey referenced to Sutter Coast Hospital. According to Walton, who spoke with Redwood Voice Community News Executive Director Heather Polen on July 12, she sustained burns to about 20 percent of her body. “She got burnt and the ambulance couldn’t come in and we tried to pick her up over the barriers and I couldn’t pick her up high enough because she said it hurt,” Walton said. “The next day I got more people and we walked her out to my car and I got her to the hospital then.” On Tuesday, Short argued that an ambulance can’t always “drive right up next to the patient and pick them up.” “There is some personal responsibility as to where you’re living,” he said. “People get hurt out in the wilderness all the time. Guess what, they have to be carried out. So, like I say, that responsibility falls on the people and where they’re choosing to squat.” County resident Randy Pinkham Pincombe, who owns two sheds in the area, echoed Starkey’s comment 18 months ago that the barriers were a Band-Aid. He said he wished the fire department couldn’t access the area because burning it “at level” would rip the Band-Aid off. Pinkham Pincombe also challenged the assertion that law enforcement responds to the area. “We were getting broke into steady,” he said. “[There was] even a car back there that was stolen out of somebody’s shed and you couldn’t get nobody to go back there. We had to take it upon ourself… in order to stop that thieving out there. It’s a Band-Aid no matter how you cut it.” District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson agreed with Pinkham Pincombe that the continued cleanups in the area are futile. While he acknowledged that “discussions need to be made” one reason for the delay in the gate, he said, is because the emergency homeless shelter is still being built. “As we’re moving in that direction, the steps we need to take is not only passing county legislation that allows us to do enforcement, but also to continue to keep it cleaned up after we go in there,” Wilson said, adding that the area near Iowa Street has been cleaned up four or five times. In a conversation with Redwood Voice Community News on Aug. 13, Del Norte County Health and Human Services Director Ranell Brown said most structures associated with the emergency homeless shelter and the micro village will be in place by the end of September. Funded by $10.8 million in state Encampment Resolution Funding grant dollars, the emergency shelter will serve 60 individuals while the adjacent micro village will consist of 25 duplexes with two units each. While Del Norte County owns the property that the shelter sits and micro village will sit on and was awarded the funds to build both facilities, it’s contracted with Del Norte Mission Possible to provide case management and other services, Brown said. Brown added the county Board of Supervisors has a homelessness technical advisory committee that meets quarterly. “DHHS is the lead department for that [committee],” she said. “We help facilitate conversations and the agenda for those quarterly meetings, which includes some discussions about what else is needed in our community, which might be encampment cleanup or additional permanent housing.” Brown pointed out that while the name of the grant is Encampment Resolution, its aim is not to clean up homeless encampments. “The funding is supposed to provide space for individuals to get out of the encampments,” she said. On Monday, Scott said one of his concerns is until the shelter is built, an increased focus on curtailing illegal dumping and camping in the Elk Valley Road area will force those residents to move elsewhere. “They’re not able to travel long distances so they’re not going to go very far,” he said. “My biggest fear is if we don’t have an area for them to go, or a much more dedicated resource, we’re going to impact our residential areas like the Bertsch Tract. I don’t want them to be impacted more than they already are.” On Tuesday, Starkey said she hoped that in addition to putting up barriers, the county will come up with solutions to address the illegal dumping and camping in the area so businesses and homeowners can “live in peace around the area.” “We’re going to put another Band-Aid on for 18 months, but I’m sure hoping that we put a little ointment on that as well because we can’t just keep going the way we’ve been going,” she said. Attachments A-E-1Download