By Linda Sutter – July 20, 2023 CORRECTION ON THE TIME. IT STARTS AT 5 PM, NOT 6 PM! JULY 25, 2023 The defunct Tri-Agency will be providing a dog and pony show for public members to voice their opinion of whether to stop spending taxpayers dollars on a defunct agency. The Tri-Agency was developed 50 years ago for the benefit of economic development. In 2009 the Tri-Agency began showing signs of distress when businesses they loaned money to defaulted leaving a $290,000.00 shortfall and owing the USDA this money. At that time, the Del Norte Economic Development Corporation took over the financial aspect of Tri-Agency under direction of Crescent City Finance Director Eli Naffah. Later the Del Norte Economic Development Corporation would also close their doors and became Subject of a federal investigation of bad faith lending practices. By 2012 the former Tri-Agency Director Renfroe closed the doors of the Tri-Agency and resigned. In October 2022 these 3 entities that formed the Joint Power Of Authority, AKA Tri-Agency; Crescent City Council, Del Norte Board of Supervisors and Crescent City Harbor District conducted a public meeting where 10 people from the public made an appearance. During that time these elected took $290,000.00 of public money to pay back USDA after letting thus bill linger for 10 plus years and placing them on a "do not loan" list. Where do you think that money came from? Measure R and Measure S because those funds are kept in the general fund. Now what the Tri-Agency wants to do is to continue wasting tax dollars in order to keep it alive and well. What the public does not know is these people already voted In public forum to use $110,000.00 dollars to hire staff for the Tri-Agency. Folks it is a pig and a poke. Brian Stone Harbor District Commissioner was quoted stating the bylaws and procedures had changed and no new loans would be given for economic development. That was found to be untruthful because a public request for information was submitted requesting documents to support his statements. Del Norte County Council responded stating there were no records demonstrating the Tri-Agency new bylaws, policies, or procedures. In other words these elected want to spend $110,000.00 on fake personnel, fake office, leading us down a continued economic disaster. The Tri-Agency argument is this will bring jobs to Del Norte County through the windfarm program. That is another untruthful remark for several reasons. Crescent City does not have the infrastructure to build a 5 acre transfer station to move the electricity to the outlying areas of our County. The personnel that would be needed to construct such a structure are all specialized and would be brought in to Del Norte County. They would need approximately 9,000 specialized workers to construct the job. There are not enough homes or rentals to bring in this many people. Once the job was complete Crescent City would experience a mass exodus as these workers would no longer be needed. Del Norte County does not have the money it would need just to obtain the grants. The money it would cost to erect the windmills in the ocean, bury the cables, and connect to a transfer station, and to electrical lines would cost billions. The land mass needed is not available. In essence, these elected have one thing on their mind and one thing only. Gentrification. They want to push you and I out of our homes in order for the elite to take over. THEY WANT to take this small town fishing community and destroy it. Is this what you want?