Huffman gets huffy at North Coast debates

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Huffman gets huffy at North Coast debates

by David Gurney

This past weekend, Noyo News attended the debates of ten of the current eleven declared candidates for the new 2nd California Congressional District, which encompasses a huge slender strip of some six hundred miles of the Nor Cal coastline. I was there mainly to support and document local Mendocino County resident John Lewallen's campaign to speak truth to the issues facing 2nd District voters, including ocean issues, the burgeoning military industrial complex, and the legalization of marijuana.

With a low-budget campaign of less than a couple thousand dollars, he has long-shot chance of winning the seat against the hundreds-of-thousands of dollar urban media campaigns being put forth by the heavily funded front runners. But Lewallen showed in the debates that he has a 100% chance of getting his heart-felt message of peace and unity before the public at large, and who knows? Dark horse candidates have won before.

Just prior to the debate, I was talking with a couple of local Humboldt mavens about the one big local issue that was facing them - namely the defunding of school buses brought on by budget-cutting bill CA AB 121, a measure which passed in the California Assembly, that cuts funding for school transportation. This leaves rural parents struggling on how to get their kids to school, without the buses.

Assemblymember Jared Huffman voted in favor of the bill. These renegade Moms were joking with the speculation that maybe "Hotair Huffman" might not show up to face their wrath.

But at the last minute Jared Huffman did show up, making his appearance right before before the debate was to begin. To my surprise, upon entering the hall at the Mateel Community Center, he made a bee-line to this reporter, to strongly object to a post I made earlier on this blog about his statement on sea otters at a recent meeting of the semi-secret Fort Bragg "Ocean Committee."

I reported his mention of sea otters as a possible solution to the problem of sea urchin barrens - areas areas of rocky ocean bottom where spiny sea urchins take over in monoculture for the lack of predation, human or otherwise.

According to Huffman, I'd "twisted his words," and had an "agenda." He accused me of "trying to make him look bad," with the quote about sea otters.

According to Huffman, he was trying to ask a question at the meeting about whether sea urchin barrens were the result of no otters being present, and he was not suggesting that sea otters were the solution to the problem.

He went on to say that some other people in a roomful of his supporters at the "Ocean Meeting" would back him up on his claims that he'd been misquoted.

Despite Huffman's attempts at spin control, by aggressively approaching this reporter with his faulty recollection of events at the oceans meeting, and his "the lady doth protest too much" objections about his remark on sea otters, Noyo News sticks by the story, and is not offering the retraction Huffman was apparently trying to gain.

Noyo News has not made any mention about sea otters on this blog, and has taken no position on the subject. There is no "agenda" on the topic that we know of.

But the mere mention of sea otters is obviously a hot-button topic in Caifornia ocean politics.

On the one hand, abalone sport divers and commercial urchin divers view sea otters as their arch enemy in the competition for harvesting shellfish on the California coast. On the other hand, big green NGO environmental groups, commercial ocean aquariums, and promoters of no-take marine reserves have made sea otters their symbol.

If you want to get a man red in the face, with their blood boiling, mention sea otters to some urchin divers. If you want to see an well-meaning environmentalist's eyes glaze over with affection, about all that is good and right about marine conservation, mention sea otters.

The otter is the money-making captive mascot for the large commercial aquariums backing the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called "marine protected areas," and the villain to commercial and sport divers on the California coast, who compete for the same shellfish - urchins and abalone - that otters survive on.

Huffman was there with two salaried campaign aides, one of whom tried to shield his candidate from my follow-up question during one of the ten minute breaks in the debates. Since he had brought up the subject of sea otters, I wanted to ask what he thought about the re-introduction of sea otters in the new Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative "marine protected areas" on the far reaches of the North Coast. When I finally got through to Huffman as he was walking away, he said he had no position on the subject.

But re-introduction of otters in remote areas not presently targeted by urchin and abalone divers is a mute point anyway.

According to sustainable mosquito-fleet hook-and-line sustainable fisherman Don Sack, who lives in the remote Shelter Cove region hardest hit by the new MLPA fishing closures, there are already "hundreds" of sea otters present in these areas. Mr. Sack's fishing operations do not involve urchins or abalone, so he has no interest in the subject of otters.

And if oil interests move in to work these areas, that the MLPA Initiative fishing and gathering closures did nothing to protect from oil drilling, it'll all be over for the sea otters anyway.

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Finally, I also got a chance to ask candidate Huffman the question of why he had voted in favor AB 121, that defunds school buses. Huffman stated that he and Assemlymenber Wes Chesbro were working to "fix" the bill.

Maybe Mr. Huffman and his 1% corporate supporters can think of a way to privatize the school buses. But then, there's probably no easy money, power, property or politics to be made, in simply getting poor rural school kids to school.

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Noyo News will continue to accurately report on news and issues facing the North Coast, and hopefully in the process, we'll continue to piss off all the right people.

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