#109. Miles Slattery | Humboldt’s Crossroads: Growth, Grit, And Going Big

Scott Hammond: Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, and Nick and Miles, Scott Hammond with the 100% Humboldt podcast, back from my sabbatical and, uh, welcoming you, our listener, too. Hey. Hey, Miles Slattery. What's up?

Miles Slattery: Nada. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Scott Hammond: Thanks for being had.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: You're, uh… Can you remind us who you are and what you do again one, one more

Scott Hammond: time?

Miles Slattery: I am Miles Slattery. I am the, uh, city manager for the city of Eureka. I've been in that position for a few, a little over six years now.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Time flies when you're having a good time.

Miles Slattery: Of course.

Scott Hammond: So now for you folks that don't know where we're at here, it's, uh, Humboldt County, which is one of the most northern counties in California. Pretty iconic place, wouldn't you say?

Miles Slattery: 100%, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hund- Humboldt-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … in fact .

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: I see what you did with that.

Miles Slattery: Yes .

Scott Hammond: 100, 100%.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So city manager, six years. Where'd you come from? Where'd you grow up? How'd you get here?

Miles Slattery: I grew up in Del Mar, California, when it was a lot different, uh, in the '70s and '80s. Um, then I went to college up at Humboldt State in the late '80s, graduated early '90s, moved back down to San Diego, um, was a chemist for water quality monitoring, and then moved back up in here in 2006 and ran stormwater program and then-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Miles Slattery: … moved my way up from there.

Scott Hammond: With the city of Eureka or-

Miles Slattery: With the city of Eureka, mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So a chemist. What'd you study at Humboldt?

Miles Slattery: I was a fisheries biology major.

Scott Hammond: Oh, cool.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I came up as that.

Miles Slattery: With, uh, Mulligan. Did you know Mulligan?

Scott Hammond: Uh-uh.

Miles Slattery: Him and his wife. Uh, it's Tim Mulligan, and I forget his wife's name, but they both taught at the, uh, the fisheries department there, and I graduated in '94.

Scott Hammond: '94. Way… Oh, uh, from… Oh, you were born last century.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: You gotta- you could use that later. It's-

Miles Slattery: Yes, 1994.

Scott Hammond: That's our new saying with-

Miles Slattery: Yeah. It wasn't 1894.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: It was 1994.

Scott Hammond: So with young people, you go, "You were born… I was born last century."

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And they're like, "Oh," and they have to think about it.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: "Oh, yeah, you're really old." "Like my dad."

Miles Slattery: Yes. Yes.

Scott Hammond: So Del Mar was a fun place to grow up, I bet.

Miles Slattery: It was. It was a lot smaller then. There was, uh, nothing east of I-5 other than Torrey Pines High School, and it was, uh, a, a lot different back then.

Scott Hammond: A lot of good surfing.

Miles Slattery: We lived up in Del Mar Heights, and it was about a mile away, good surf. Um, you know, used to walk through the canyon to the beach, and now the canyon's all full of houses.

Scott Hammond: It's all houses.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And traffic.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: And people. Other than that, it's great.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. My, my mom moved back up here, and she always… She calls it God's country and-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … there's too many cars down there to be calling it God's country for me.

Scott Hammond: It is, yeah. I call it OG, original God's country.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: OGC.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. It was nice back in the day. There's just… It, it's mind-boggling when I would go down there-

Scott Hammond: Oh

Miles Slattery: … and visit my family and, uh, see the hundreds of thousands of people that sit in traffic for six

Miles Slattery: hours a day.

Scott Hammond: Commuting 40 minutes-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … for two hours.

Miles Slattery: I mean, you're better off getting out and walking for the most part.

Scott Hammond: Gets there quicker.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, we go down to LA, same thing.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, too much.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, it's painful.

Scott Hammond: You go to Black's Beach ever?

Miles Slattery: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: I surf there often. Um-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … I… Last time I was there was probably about five years ago. It's been a while.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Um, but yeah, we used to go make the trek and walk down on the

Miles Slattery: cliff there, you know. Didn't surf Torrey Pines much. Most of the stuff I surf was,

Miles Slattery: um,

Miles Slattery: y- Del Mar Beach Break or The Reef, 15th Street.

Scott Hammond: How about George's Reef in Solana?

Miles Slattery: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: That was amazing.

Miles Slattery: We'd go up there. We used to have surf PE, which is kind of amazing.

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's pretty cool.

Miles Slattery: Super cool. Yeah, we had, uh-

Scott Hammond: For two hours

Miles Slattery: … my senior y- well, in junior I

Miles Slattery: left school . I went to continuation school my senior year. Well, junior year, I had two sessions of surf PE. So I had a first period and a, and a second period surf PE. And we had 135 and 246, and so first- … first period was at F- 15th Street in Del Mar, and then, uh, second period was at, um,

Miles Slattery: uh, w- um, Seaside up in, uh, Cardiff.

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah. Great spot.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: So that was cool. Uh, Coach Nogel, he used to play for the Chargers. He's a football coach, and then he was also our surf PE coach.

Scott Hammond: I know that last name, I think.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh. Yeah, this is going way back.

Scott Hammond: I, um… So that's a pretty easy schedule.

Scott Hammond: You just g-

Miles Slattery: Oh, it was sweet

Scott Hammond: … first period, 7:00 AM in the water.

Miles Slattery: I mean, I ended up dropping out and-

Scott Hammond: Did you?

Miles Slattery: … going to continuation school halfway through my junior year.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. When did you, when did you leave house, your home?

Miles Slattery: Like 15.

Scott Hammond: Oh, you were pretty y- young.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, I left, uh… Had s- uh, adversarial. I was a little poop head back then and so-

Scott Hammond: So you kids out there

Miles Slattery: … I was super stubborn and, and left and slept on couches. And then at 16, I was in a apartment with a buddy of mine, an older buddy of mine, and then worked in the restaurant industry and did a lot of nefarious activities back then.

Scott Hammond: I'm sure you did, yeah.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: D- So say we all.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Right? Right, Nick?

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: He's not agreeing at all.

Miles Slattery: No. He's the guy with the filtered cold water.

Scott Hammond: He's good. He's good. We're good. Yeah, I, um… It's funny how I always marvel how a knucklehead like myself got out of, uh, the shenanigans that I created and went through myself-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … to get to Humboldt to marry Joanie, to marry way up and have nine kids and do this and sit here with you and go, "Well, I'm not a drooling idiot at 66. I'm actually somewhat here."

Miles Slattery: Yeah. No, it's amazing to me. I always… I went f- did a lot of, uh, different drugs at a very young age and did a lot of inappropriate things at a very young age, and my perspective on it was getting that over and learning from it and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and understanding, you know, where you've made mistakes. I would go back after college and go

Miles Slattery: back to folks that, you know, weren't like I was then, and they were getting into it in their 20s and 30s-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: It caused a big delay in their life-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … in my opinion.

Scott Hammond: That's interesting, yeah.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Same journey for me. It's like I, uh, got sober coming to Humboldt, which is really interesting.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: At like 19.

Miles Slattery: I went to Humboldt State for the weed, actually.

Scott Hammond: Right. You were… Mine was a guy, "Wait, they have weed here?" And so it's funny. And, and you look at that and you go, "Wow, checkered past. I learned from it. I become better for it."

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: And I think, you know, uh, my m- my dad always told my mom, "Wanda, just let the kid grow up, man."

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: You know, and it's like it's very wise.

Miles Slattery: I have, uh, the same opinion. My kids go through their stuff like now, not much too different than mine, not as severe, but, um, my ex and I disagree on that, that we should… I, I, I think you're young, make your mistakes now.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Figure it out.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. There's lots of coaches to coach you back up through and-

Miles Slattery: Yep

Scott Hammond: … coach you through. I think, um, yeah, I, I've noticed a lot of people with great privilege, uh, that had it all and, and like you said, maybe in their 20s

Scott Hammond: discovered the wildlife and-

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … it was a big delay.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Like maybe a lifelong delay.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. No, for a lot of them.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: I mean, I had a buddy of mine, called him Hector, I'll keep his name out of it, but,

Miles Slattery: uh, he, uh, um, was a good surf buddy of mine, and he went through addiction, you know, well after 20. Didn't smoke weed or do anything at a young age, and then-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … 20s or so. He, he didn't get out of it until well into his mid-30s.

Scott Hammond: Off the hook, yeah.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. It's too bad.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So you came to Humboldt, studied, uh, wildlife biology?

Miles Slattery: Uh, fisheries biology.

Scott Hammond: Must be a smart dude.

Miles Slattery: Ichthyology and those types of things.

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah. Hey, what-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … don't be cussing on the show, man. Some big Humboldt words around here.

Miles Slattery: Ichthyology, which is a good one, and then, uh, the worst course was Hankin's, um, Population Dynamics, which is s- a statistics related course. That was,

Miles Slattery: um-

Scott Hammond: Was that-

Miles Slattery: I was good at math, so it wasn't that. It was just more theory.

Scott Hammond: Was that over at the business department?

Miles Slattery: No, it was in fisheries biology.

Scott Hammond: Oh, okay.

Miles Slattery: So you basically can, you know, predict populations and stuff based on using different type of statistics and stuff. So anyway, it was, it was interesting.

Scott Hammond: Was Terry, Terry Roloff still teaching?

Miles Slattery: Roloff was there, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hey, Terry, what's up?

Miles Slattery: Yeah, it was Terry, and then, uh, Mulligan, Hankin, um, were basically my professors.

Scott Hammond: Terry came by a couple years ago, st- said hi at State Farm. Just, "Hey, what's up?"

Miles Slattery: Oh, sweet.

Scott Hammond: Remembered who I was, and I… This is '78 or, you know… I'm sorry, about '80.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And so he's, he's a little older now.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: S- so say we all.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. Mulligan was super cool. He was from, uh, back east, I think Worcester or something, so he had that wah, wah.

Scott Hammond: Oh, the Bostonian.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, it was pretty good.

Scott Hammond: East Coast guys.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, he was a good guy.

Scott Hammond: You know what? This is a free East Coast, uh, zone here to just rag on East Coast

Scott Hammond: people. So let me tell you about you people.

Miles Slattery: He was a good person from Worcester, but I knew a lady named Stacy that was a bad person from Worcester.

Scott Hammond: It's funny how, it's funny how the culture's so different. "I'll have a mocha, please," and I'm from San Diego and-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and we're in California, and then everything's s- super slow and m- And these guys are like, "Hey, where's my bill?"

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And it's like, it's like my friend Philip and I, who lives down the street, we're always joking about… He's from Connecticut.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: That the East Coast ethos, it's just a different vibe, dude. It's a whole different-

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Is that generalizing too much?

Miles Slattery: I mean, it's different. I, I don't know. I mean, I don't know of very many people from back east. I've known some really cool… I got, uh, Kenny, we call him Double Papa because he was a horrible golfer and his handicap was twice over par,

Miles Slattery: so he was-

Miles Slattery: … he was very entertaining and a pretty, uh, relaxed person.

Scott Hammond: Nice. His handicap was his golf game.

Miles Slattery: Yes. He was super entertaining though.

Scott Hammond: So you were a chemist down in San Diego?

Miles Slattery: Yeah. I worked for, uh, basically their wastewater ind- uh, their wastewater treatment plant for the, um, city of San Diego's environmental monitoring and quality control. And so I was a lab tech, and then moved up to an asso- associate chemist. So I was-

Scott Hammond: Was that downtown somewhere?

Miles Slattery: Uh, our lab was in… So our marine lab was in,

Miles Slattery: um, San Diego, uh, right on the bay.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And then by the airport.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Miles Slattery: And then, um, uh, the lab that I mostly worked at was in, um, uh, La Mesa, next to the Lake Murray.

Scott Hammond: Oh, at the… Okay. Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Right there at Lake Murray, and then we'd do, you know, we'd go down to the plant at Point Loma and take samples. And then I tried to get into marine biology, but it's, um, it's really weird. They don't pay a super cool job. But, uh, they were like… It was weird. I didn't have… I worked with a bunch of PhD chemists. I just had a, a BS, and, um, I really wanted to get into marine biology, which was my daily work and super cool job. You'd go out and take ocean samples, you know, some outfalls two miles out in the ocean. So you'd go out and take-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … not only take, uh, um, ocean samples, but you'd take sediment samples and then do rod and reel fishing because you wanna, you know, when you're doing testing, you're doing these designs, and so you go out and you have a control area that's out from the outfall, and you catch fish, and then you go over to the outfall and you catch fish, and then you take the-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Miles Slattery: … the tissue samples from them, and we did the chemistries on the tissue

Miles Slattery: samples.

Scott Hammond: Wow. And then go have a fish fry.

Miles Slattery: It's funny. Yeah. I don't know about that, but yes.

Scott Hammond: A little sea bass.

Miles Slattery: Yes. A lot of, uh, barracuda.

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah.

Miles Slattery: But it didn't matter, whatever you caught.

Scott Hammond: Big ba- barracuda.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: We used to catch those off San Clemente.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. They're nasty. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: They're nasty fish, man. They're d- ugly looking little-

Miles Slattery: They're not quite bonito. We used to go surfing, uh, go down to Cuatro's and go surf, and we'd go out on the pangas and, um, so you'd get, you know, albacore, and when we didn't hit albacore, you'd get bonito, and bonito's the nastiest. I mean, that's like the mackerel.

Scott Hammond: Where's this at? Baja?

Miles Slattery: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Huh. Never did surf there.

Miles Slattery: Kind of by To- It's not quite Todos, but it's close to Todos.

Scott Hammond: Been as far as Estero Bay and, uh, down where the Federales start.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Having Uzis.

Miles Slattery: Yes. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, I've been down that far.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It was far enough.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh. So what do you miss about San Diego? Top three things.

Miles Slattery: Uh, warm water Um, I don't mind the weather.

Miles Slattery: Um, pretty much that's it. I mean, the beaches up here are– The surf's up here is, uh, as good, if not better.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And, uh, I'm not– You know, I can handle the cold. It's I've gotten used to it. I rode my bike everywhere when I was in college, and I lived up in McKinleyville, and I rode my bike from McKinleyville to, uh, to HSU.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And, uh, I always– People used to give me grief all the time 'cause I always wore shorts, but the first few times that I did it in the rain, y-your pants get so wet, and then you're sitting in wet pants all day.

Scott Hammond: Good point. You're already dry.

Miles Slattery: So, yeah. So I'd always wear shorts.

Scott Hammond: The benefit-

Miles Slattery: So, yeah

Scott Hammond: … of the shorts.

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: Heard it here first. Yeah, the, uh, our, our date night is, uh, Camel Rock.

Miles Slattery: Oh, sweet.

Scott Hammond: So we sit right above Camel, pop up in the van.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Just here it is. It's, it's surf and Trinidad and the

Scott Hammond: bay and-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and the water, when it hits at a certain time of night, just, like, refracts back up, and it's-

Miles Slattery: It's beautiful out there

Scott Hammond: … I just get on my Speedo. I'm right there.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: No, it's nice.

Scott Hammond: And then it's thirty-five degrees.

Miles Slattery: The track, the track getting down there, especially now that those st- I don't know. They haven't fixed the stairs on the, on the south side that you go down, right?

Scott Hammond: I think they're fixed.

Miles Slattery: Are they?

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: I haven't been down there in a while.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. There's a lot– There's always a lot of people there. Everybody's checking it out. So you got back to Humboldt. Uh, oh, you got a job with the city of, of, of Eureka. And if you're– By the way, if you're still just, if you're still just joining us, my new best friend, Miles Slattery, from, uh, City of Eureka. City manager, that sounds pretty… How are, how are you managing?

Miles Slattery: I, I enjoy it. I love the city of Eureka. It's been a, um… I'm very passionate about my work, and I

Miles Slattery: like doing, uh, good things for the city. Some people, um, you know, a lot of the direction I take, um, the majority of it is through elected officials, so a lot of– You get grief for good and bad-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Miles Slattery: … but it's not necessarily… You have to– It– I just let it slide 'cause I'm doing the work of three people who choose to, you know, set the direction of the city.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, and then, of course, there's influences from the state and those type of things and a lot of things that the state are bringing down, a lot of people here aren't appreciative of, whether that's affordable

Miles Slattery: housing or-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Miles Slattery: … things like that, reducing parking requirements, those type of things.

Scott Hammond: Right. Yeah.

Miles Slattery: My favorite stuff.

Scott Hammond: Oh, we'll get there.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So y- one of your new, one of your new buildings is going up behind McRae Nissan over where my office is.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, Eighth and G.

Scott Hammond: And it, you know, I go, "Oh, this is gonna be good. Two stories," you know?

Miles Slattery: No, no.

Scott Hammond: It's, uh, now it's three, and I'm going, "Oh, shit. It's six stories." And like-

Miles Slattery: The bottom is technically five, but yes.

Scott Hammond: I'm going, "This thing's, this thing's massive compared to-"

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: "… pretty much anything in Eureka." I mean, maybe the, the Clark Museum or something. Not, not the Clark, but the other… There's a tall building downt- downtown. I forgot the name of it.

Scott Hammond: Corner of-

Miles Slattery: Which one?

Scott Hammond: … Fourth, Fourth and E. It used to be a bank.

Miles Slattery: Oh, yeah.

Scott Hammond: What's the name? I forget.

Miles Slattery: I forget the name of the building.

Scott Hammond: It's right over there on, on Fourth and E.

Scott Hammond: It's-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … downtown.

Miles Slattery: Yes, I know. I'm familiar.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: I think, uh, Katie Moulton, our council member's shop is in that building.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah, could be, yeah.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So, um, so I was doing some homework, and I'm going, "Oh, you're,

Scott Hammond: y- y- uh, everybody reports to you?" Like, all the s- the city-

Miles Slattery: Yeah, so, uh-

Scott Hammond: … divisions

Miles Slattery: … police, police, community services, development services-

Scott Hammond: Parks and Rec

Miles Slattery: … which is basically planning. Yeah, community services, Parks and Rec. Development services is, uh, planning and, uh, building, and then engineering is its own department. Public works. They all report to me.

Scott Hammond: You said planning too.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So these are department heads.

Miles Slattery: They– We used to have, we used to have fire, and then, uh,

Miles Slattery: there was a, basically a JPA, Joint Powers Authority, that was formed between the district and the city. And so while we, you know, contribute sixty percent to their, um, operations-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Miles Slattery: … um, I technically don't oversee them.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Miles Slattery: But we work closely with, uh, Humboldt Bay Fire.

Scott Hammond: So these are head, department heads you meet with weekly, monthly, whatever.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. And so the– even though I'm not an employee, but the HBF, the Chief Citro, he joins on that.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: So it's Chief, uh, Stevens, Chief Citro, and then our, um, department heads, finance, HR, community services, development services.

Scott Hammond: You and Stevens get along okay?

Miles Slattery: Yes. I, I, I-

Scott Hammond: He's a good man

Miles Slattery: … I, I love Brian. He's great.

Miles Slattery: He's, uh-

Scott Hammond: What's up, Brian?

Miles Slattery: He's been, um, great. I mean, we went through a lot, um, getting to where we're at now, and he's, he's grown a lot, and I think that he is a, uh, a really good human being and a, and a great chief.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: I agree with that.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Good man. So it seems to me like you're a guy that gets

Scott Hammond: stuff done. Like, there's stuff happening on your watch-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … in a, in a world where a lot of stuff hasn't happened for a long

Scott Hammond: time.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So, so whether we're talking about housing, or we're talking about the bike, the bike lanes, we're talking about… We'll talk about those.

Miles Slattery: The trail.

Scott Hammond: Um, the trail. The trail's– Were you part of the trail?

Miles Slattery: Claimed it too. Oh, come on. That was all me.

Scott Hammond: Did you invent the trail?

Miles Slattery: I didn't invent it, but I got it done. The trail was, uh-

Scott Hammond: We're talking about Eureka to Arcata, right? The Bay Trail.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, well, the Eureka portion, basically from, you know, Pound Road up to, uh, Tidstreet. That's the city's… We were, you know, of the Bay Trail. We were the first to do it. 2008, we built the Hickshari and then completed-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … the rest of it by 2014.

Scott Hammond: That's all y'all? Okay.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. So that was all grant funding. Uh, the, the, the, the idea behind it was a waterfront. Um, we had a subcommittee of our Open Space Parks and Recreation Commission that developed that vision. Um, and it was,

Miles Slattery: uh, laying, doing nothing for years, and then I took over environmental programs, and then we built, um, the majo- basically all of the trail with the exception of the extension, and now they're-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Miles Slattery: … working on Bay to Zoo.

Scott Hammond: So you could go all the way from Tidde, all the way back down Hickshari

Scott Hammond: down to, uh, almost the power plant, huh?

Miles Slattery: You can go to Tubey Road, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Is that Tubey?

Miles Slattery: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Tubey Road is off of, um, uh, South Broadway.

Scott Hammond: Right, right.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm. Humboldt Hill.

Scott Hammond: How far is it? Do you know offhand?

Miles Slattery: It's about 7.2 miles.

Scott Hammond: That's a nice little walk.

Miles Slattery: From back to front. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Miles Slattery: You go both ways, you're at four- over 14.

Scott Hammond: If you went three times, how many?

Miles Slattery: Good God. 21.6, right? So you could almost get to a, a marathon.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: Hey, Humboldt Bay Marathon coming up in August.

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: They're great. Our friend-

Miles Slattery: No, they're doing it. They're on the, um… I think this year the intent is to be all trail, but I'm not sure. I think they go th- they do a loop for the whole one. But anyway, they don't have to be on the road anymore.

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I'll ask Terry.

Miles Slattery: Uh, on the… But they… Ex- excuse me. They don't have to be on the freeway.

Scott Hammond: On the freeway part.

Miles Slattery: But they, they go around 255-

Scott Hammond: Right

Miles Slattery: … and back Spadina.

Scott Hammond: They go up over the… Do they go over the bridge?

Scott Hammond: Must.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Terry's been on the show. They're great.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Our friend Sarah does the design for the-

Miles Slattery: Oh, for the logo

Scott Hammond: … yeah, the, the medals and the-

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … the ceramic.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: 21… Yeah, you can stay on the trail. So w- that'll tie in at some point, I guess, to the Great Redwood Trail, right?

Miles Slattery: It is technically the Great-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … Redwood Trail right now.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, they own the railroad corridor. The vast majority of our, I would say, yeah, the majority of our trail is, is within the railroad corridor, so we had to get a right of entry and easements from, uh, what used to be the NCRA.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Now the NCRA is folded 'cause of what McGuire did, and McGuire established the Great Redwood Trail folks, and so-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … they own that corridor now.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: And so our license agreements are with them. I don't– We never really made the change, but we already have that portion of ours built.

Scott Hammond: So you had some piece of the Arcata Bay Trail, too, where you had to cooperate or contribute or… 'Cause some of that's Eureka City-

Miles Slattery: Oh

Scott Hammond: … property, right, up to-

Miles Slattery: No.

Scott Hammond: None of it's-

Miles Slattery: No. So the, the county portion of it, as soon as it gets over the Eureka Slough-

Scott Hammond: Okay

Miles Slattery: … it's, it's all county.

Scott Hammond: Right up to Target, that's… Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. So we don't… We, we provide, um, public safety services-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … uh, uh, within the city of Eureka limits-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … but the maintenance of the trail, um, basically from Eureka Slough all the way up to Brainard is on-

Scott Hammond: Oh

Miles Slattery: … um, the county.

Scott Hammond: That's cool, man. It's next level. I love going out there.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, it's super cool.

Scott Hammond: Oh, my wife loves it. She rides all the way from McKinleyville g- to get to Dick

Scott Hammond: Taylor.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, I plan to do a… I haven't done it yet, but my daughter and I are gonna do the up and back up to Arcata and then back down to Tubey.

Scott Hammond: It's a super mell. It's really fun.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: You've heard of Dick Taylor Chocolates, right?

Miles Slattery: Of course.

Scott Hammond: Okay, just wanted to make sure.

Miles Slattery: I'm a big fan of the chocolate chip cookie with the sea salt when they're nice and

Miles Slattery: warm.

Scott Hammond: Oh, man.

Miles Slattery: And I'm not usually a chocolate guy, but I ate one when we had-

Scott Hammond: Dude

Miles Slattery: … uh, the visitors, we had the Visit California people come here, and we went over, had a couple of drinks and, um-

Scott Hammond: And had a cookie

Miles Slattery: … to the wine bar, and then went over and got the cookie.

Miles Slattery: Delicious.

Scott Hammond: Dude, they gave one of those, uh, Christmas. It was Arts Alive or something. We took it on the bus for the, uh, the, uh, decorations-

Miles Slattery: Oh, yeah

Scott Hammond: … uh, bus.

Miles Slattery: That was a pretty cool event, huh?

Scott Hammond: That was fun, man. I ate that cookie and life was good.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. No, they're delicious.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, I know. These guys do a good job. So, uh, set the stage for the, the discussion. So Humboldt's had this boom and bust economy for 200 years. Um, we're not doing that great, uh, overall in terms of jobs. Uh, assuming you want smart economic development, who doesn't? Um, we're, we lost a, a fish farm, or we're losing it, right? Or is it gone?

Miles Slattery: I coulda told you that wasn't gonna happen from the get-go.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Okay, you probably inter, inter… Yeah, but us, us common folk, we're, we're believing news now.

Miles Slattery: I, I tried to scream from the mountaintops. When you have a company that's in Maine and they're leaving Maine because of permitting issues and they're coming to California, it was-

Scott Hammond: Something's wrong with that picture.

Miles Slattery: And then you find out that the people that started it and are operating it have never raised a fish ever. It's-

Scott Hammond: Is that right? Wow.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, it's-

Scott Hammond: So as a fishery guy, you'd have insight into that business plan.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, I think that just the idea of, and it's not even just from working in government, somebody coming to California, um,

Miles Slattery: to do a pretty intensive, you know, uh, industry here. I d- I didn't see it happening.

Scott Hammond: As regulated as we are, right?

Scott Hammond: It's crazy.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: And the fact that they hadn't done it before.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: They had people that were components of it and-

Scott Hammond: Kind of a problem.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Out of the gate.

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: And then offshore wind, I mean, that looks like that's tanking for now, right?

Miles Slattery: No, it's… I mean, I wouldn't say tanking. I think that there's, um, a, a, a big, um, hurdle that's gonna happen is the Prop 4 money that's coming from the state, and there's gonna be people up and down the state fighting for that. And if we were to get that, it would, it would be– it would help

Miles Slattery: a lot. Um-

Scott Hammond: What's Prop 4 money gonna do for that?

Miles Slattery: So there's a climate change money, and it's… I think there's $400 million. I, I forget the number. But the, the, the issue is, is that Long Beach already

Miles Slattery: has a port.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Long Beach wants to take all that money, and they wanna manufacture all of

Miles Slattery: the, um, uh, turbines and stuff-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and have them shipped up here-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Miles Slattery: … uh, for the leases that are here, which to me seems ridiculous, but at the same

Miles Slattery: time, uh, the argument is they already have an operating port. If this doesn't work out, it fails, then, um-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … at least you're not putting a bunch of money into something that couldn't be

Miles Slattery: supported.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Miles Slattery: But our argument is that it's, we're right next to the, the most wind that's off of our coast, and it would be best for those things to be manufactured here locally.

Scott Hammond: And haul them out the same day.

Miles Slattery: So there's a big, uh, there's a, uh, wind energy conference that's coming up in Long Beach, and so we're trying to provide as much support down there.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Miles Slattery: Trying to get the lobbyists to-

Scott Hammond: In their backyard

Miles Slattery: … something like that. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Hey.

Miles Slattery: Hmm.

Scott Hammond: Let's, let's go, man. Let's go advocate.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So I, I guess point being is that there's so much boom and bust and, and, and seems like we can't get it right. I mean, Halverson's was gonna be a big thing when I was a young man and had, had more hair.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: I mean, that was gonna be like the big rock 'n' roll venue, the convention center, the whole nine, and, uh- Like a Marriott, I forget whatever

Miles Slattery: Yeah. They even put in the elevator shaft. The, the foundations for them are still out there.

Scott Hammond: Right. Right. So, so you get the sense of like the, the sense that we can't get anything right in the county or the city. It's not id- not everything, but economic development-wise, Hershey's came in and left, and left, and who know, who knows what other, you know, Home Depot. We, I mean, we could go on and on, and these are just things that I vaguely know about. Did Trader Joe's ever wanna come?

Scott Hammond: Maybe they-

Miles Slattery: No, I think that's never been a

Scott Hammond: That's not really our type

Miles Slattery: At least as far as reaching out to the city-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … that I've been here for 20 years, and they've never, um, reached out and had any se- serious interest. Home Depot's always… They're still looking right now. And Home Depot's, we talk to them-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … at least once a month.

Scott Hammond: And Walmart's gonna go to the Kmart building?

Miles Slattery: So the Walmart going in there is just gonna be a grocery store.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Miles Slattery: And it's not definitive, and that I think, uh… I'm hoping I'm not talking out of line, but I talked to the property owner. They just extended their, um, uh, basically put up or quit, um, to April.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, so definitely still interested. What they wanna do is they have, you know, big grocery stores.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: And that's just gonna be the grocery store component, and they'll maintain the

Miles Slattery: property-

Scott Hammond: The retail

Miles Slattery: … at Bayshore Mall for-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … other merchandise.

Scott Hammond: The back of a mall in an old Godchaux building.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. See, they own that, though, so they bought-

Scott Hammond: Oh, they bought it.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Miles Slattery: So that's a separate parcel from the rest of the mall.

Scott Hammond: I gotcha.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hmm. So I guess where I'm going in, in my conspiracy theory mind, which I don't do this much-

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … is, like, there's, there's some outside f- or inside force that keeps this thing from, this thing from prospering, and I, I'd love your insight as to what, what you think some of that is, and you don't need to name names or, or y- I don't care. It's- … your, your interview. The, but the idea of what, what obstructionist people, organizations, mofos are behind the fact that we can't fricking get it right. I mean, Ukiah, Santa Rosa, I mean, pla- Redding gets growth. They get jobs.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: We don't, we don't do that great. Um, in fact, we do, we're on the declination usually, and it's

Scott Hammond: kind of, um, what's… It's making a lot of us, frankly, quite mad out there.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And I, I don't expect you to answer for that, but I want to… I, I'd love your insight as to what, what the hell, man?

Miles Slattery: Yeah. I, well, I think a lot of it has to do with, uh, our zoning, believe it or not. Um, we've had bigger companies come to our area and looking to do industrial-related work or light industrial-related work, and the majority of our vacant properties that are in our, what we call industrial areas, are coastal-dependent industrial. And so that really limits the amount of uses that you can have

Miles Slattery: there. And-

Scott Hammond: What does that mean? Does that mean ocean-related?

Miles Slattery: So it's basically, i- in order for it to be principally permitted there, it has to be directly tied to the bay.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: So m- basically commercial fishing.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, there's other uses that you could justify for that. Um, but it's very much a, a, a zoning that is specific to fishing because, you know, we wanted to protect our fishing industry, and it was booming back in the 1960s when these codes were developed. Well, actually 1980s, but either way, um, when they were developed, it was very much in, with the intent of protecting the fishing industry. Now with regulations and other things associated with the fishing industry, I think that the more modern fishermen understand that, um, the fleet is going to decrease, and the need for that isn't there so much anymore. So that's one thing that we're really trying to do is do an update to our local coastal program to make sure that we, um, have a little bit more leeway with that zoning district, changing and getting rid of some of it because we have a surplus of it and being able

Miles Slattery: to get, um, more opportunities for folks to be here. I also think that it's, we just don't have the population. You know, the, the people that wanted the east-west rail and, or to replenish the old rail, um, the only way that that's viable is if you're shipping coal, and that would bring a lot of jobs, but I don't know if we wanna turn it in Humboldt County into Pittsburgh.

Scott Hammond: Right. Yeah. How much coal is under-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … underneath our, us anyway?

Miles Slattery: So that's, I think, behind us, but I do think that there's opportunity now with, um, remote working and those type of things-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … that we can be– We have the new, you know, fiber cables here. We have the communication capabilities, and we have the ability to recruit, um, businesses like that.

Scott Hammond: So the guys in Arcata with the cable-

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … is that… What, what is that designed to do? It's, it goes to Singapore or Taiwan or wherever. Is it designed to be a redundancy for the n- the nation, for us? It, uh, it-

Miles Slattery: I'm, it, it's-

Scott Hammond: To pipe into that

Miles Slattery: … it, it's just provides a, uh, a more reliable-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and, uh, uh, service. You know, I don't know the intricacies of, like, who benefits from it. I know that we definitely do.

Scott Hammond: Couple of jobs, right?

Miles Slattery: Yeah, and there's another one. Uh, over by PG&E is another one where it p-

Miles Slattery: comes up to.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Miles Slattery: It allows… I mean, now with Vero Fiber coming here and we're getting hardwired-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … it's not, you know, Wi-Fi, and it's not done by that. It's, it, it makes it a lot more secure and much more reliable, and it gets people to be able to-

Scott Hammond: Dude, we got Vero today at my business.

Miles Slattery: It's insane.

Scott Hammond: They're on it, man. They, they-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … came in. They conquered.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: They fired it up.

Miles Slattery: And if I'm gonna poop on any company, it'll be Optimum 'cause they, they-

Scott Hammond: Turned it here

Miles Slattery: … I've dealt with them for way too long.

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah.

Miles Slattery: Listen, this is how bad it is, and I'm gonna poop on them really bad 'cause they're not a local company, so I feel good about this.

Miles Slattery: But they-

Scott Hammond: Oh, no, they're awful

Miles Slattery: … they, uh, my daughter is in a rental over by the hospital and pays $75 a month because they're competing with Optimum.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: My mother lives in unincorporated county over by the golf course-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and, uh, she pays $152.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Miles Slattery: Same service. One gig internet, that's it. And I called them and talked around in circles and around in circles. Told them I was gonna get out of, which I wouldn't do 'cause AT&T-

Scott Hammond: Right, it's worse

Miles Slattery: … uh, doesn't work.

Miles Slattery: So I got them down to 120.

Scott Hammond: I was gonna say-

Miles Slattery: So I just-

Scott Hammond: … usually they're worse. So you got a couple.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: You, you negotiated a little bit.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: How'd you feel about that?

Miles Slattery: I was still pissed.

Scott Hammond: This was not a win-win. This is-

Miles Slattery: No

Scott Hammond: … this is a win and ah.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. No, I, um… It's a monopoly, dude.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: When they bought Suddenlink, it was, uh, it was kinda over. They cut half the work- more than half the workforce nationally.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, and you talked… Did you ever have, um-

Scott Hammond: Amazing

Miles Slattery: … uh, come on, the Hawaiian guy that used to work for Access Humboldt.

Miles Slattery: Um, come on. You know-

Scott Hammond: Sean McLaughlin.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, McLaughlin.

Scott Hammond: Is he a, did you say Hawa- Hawaiian?

Miles Slattery: He'll give you, he did, he did his Divka. Divka is the digital… Anyway, it's a regulation that is just so backwards and so wrong that it needs to be fixed.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, yeah. Nice guy, though.

Scott Hammond: He's-

Miles Slattery: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … he negotiated that deal for all his channels.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Which you will be on here shortly.

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: Hey. Do we look okay on TV?

Miles Slattery: But anyway, I do think that there's, there's opportunity up here. I think that there's a lot of folks who don't, you know, want development,

Miles Slattery: you know-

Scott Hammond: Well-

Miles Slattery: … because they don't want to bring,

Miles Slattery: um, you know, that expansion. You have groups here that are very much, um, anti-sprawl and-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Miles Slattery: … don't want us to go, "Everything's gotta be in Eureka. That's where the jobs are, and we're not gonna look into McKinleyville, Trinidad, Rio Dell-"

Scott Hammond: Sure

Miles Slattery: … those other areas that have not been built out and have more opportunities-

Scott Hammond: Right

Miles Slattery: … for growth.

Scott Hammond: Right. Yeah, so it's an interesting battle of, uh, philosophies in terms of, you know, I got kids and grandkids, you know, that will live here, and I, I don't know. I, I don't know where they're gonna work, you know? And, and I, and I understand it's not gonna be Santa Rosa. We're gonna have, you know, um, Micron come in with 500 jobs. That'd be great. It ain't happening.

Scott Hammond: However,

Scott Hammond: um, I think a lot of that headspace poops on a future that could, could have a lot of cool jobs if, if people played their cards right.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, I think that sustainably-wise, I think those kind of remote working jobs-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … are, are, are good 'cause I think that, A, they'll be more sustainable. I mean, if we, you know, put all our eggs into, you know… Timber obviously didn't work. Put all our eggs into fishing is –

Scott Hammond: How about weed?

Miles Slattery: … still functional.

Scott Hammond: We- weed's never-

Miles Slattery: Weed, yeah

Scott Hammond: … coming back, right?

Miles Slattery: I don't know about never. I think if it, the… We do f- We're not the county. The county, it hurts a lot because a lot of theirs is manufacturing. We don't have a lot of manufacturing. We have a lot of dispensaries.

Scott Hammond: You have a lot of dispensaries.

Miles Slattery: And they've been… We have a very…

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Almost as many Dutch Brothers.

Miles Slattery: But they've… Yeah, they've done, um, you know, they're– I see the numbers. They, they, they've been pretty s- straight, you know. There's been a drop just like our revenues dropped in sales tax. There's been a drop, uh, in the dispensaries, but it's not any more significant than what-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … we've had for others.

Scott Hammond: I also think weed would be tough 'cause you can't create a lot more demand. People that smoke weed or, or eating weed are gonna probably do that, or are already doing that.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So we're gonna raise up a new generation of weed smokers and-

Miles Slattery: It's free now.

Scott Hammond: It's free.

Miles Slattery: I mean, I remember sell- I mean, I remember buying ounces of weed-

Scott Hammond: Did you say sell?

Miles Slattery: … for, for 300, you know, bucks and, you know-

Scott Hammond: Oh

Miles Slattery: … you, you can get an ounce for, like, 50 bucks now.

Scott Hammond: Oh, in Oregon it's worse. It's like, it's… So what do we do?

Miles Slattery: And if you're local, it's pretty much free.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, if you know, you know a guy.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. So I understand that. So I think that the, the feds changing it w- would help, but I don't think… You know, the whole idea of us being the Napa of weed is, um, it's a good theory, and I think that there's certain niches where that would work, but it's not gonna sustain-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … cannabis up here.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, I agree. So if you're just joining us or you will be joining us, or you're joining us right now, it's my best friend, Miles Slattery, Eureka city manager and, uh… So we talked about trails, we talked about… We'll go back to housing in a minute. Um, talked about the bike stuff-

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … that's happened. What about, uh, the new transit center? That's gonna be cool, right?

Miles Slattery: Yeah, and that'll-

Scott Hammond: Downtown

Miles Slattery: … incorporate housing too. We just, we meet weekly on that. Uh, Dan Coates finally secured all the funding along with HTA. I think it's gonna be 51 residential units as well as the transit center.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: Um, that's, um, gonna be great. We're also looking into a potential parking garage right now too,

Miles Slattery: so –

Scott Hammond: Cool

Miles Slattery: … HTA is looking into some grant funding for that. But the transit centers, um, it'll be great,

Miles Slattery: you know.

Scott Hammond: Parking garage, that sounds good.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, it's, uh… There's an opposite. So they l- are looking for another revenue stream, and they– with the transit center being there, park and ride would help with that.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And so it, this parking structure, we just met with this company called The Smith Group, and, um, it's pretty cool. They have these new parking structures now that are actually less costly as regular parking structures that basically just… You have bays that you pull your car into-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and it's all automated. They grab the car, and it's like Legos. They, they put it on a lift, and they slot it in a spot-

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool

Miles Slattery: … and put it in there. So we're looking at-

Scott Hammond: As opposed to, uh-

Miles Slattery: … that as a potential option

Scott Hammond: … the old school of driving around and around and around.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, up in the curly Qs, yes.

Scott Hammond: Remember the one in downtown, the city con- uh, community concourse by the city

Scott Hammond: center?

Miles Slattery: Oh, yeah. Or UTC has a pretty fat one too.

Miles Slattery: La Jolla.

Scott Hammond: UTC, yeah.

Miles Slattery: University Town Center in La Jolla.

Scott Hammond: Right. Uh, who else? There's a really co– Uh, Davis has a big one.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: But so this is just a racket stack.

Scott Hammond: That's cool.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: High tech.

Miles Slattery: That's the idea. I mean, we're j- in the very early stages of it. We just met with them for the first time, and that was one of the options they

Miles Slattery: brought up.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. So let's talk about the, uh, the tr- the trans- transit center. What does it do for those of us who have no clue why this is cool?

Miles Slattery: It'll be the hub for our regional transportation for the bus system. It also includes Amtrak and-

Scott Hammond: Greyhound

Miles Slattery: … those other things with Greyhound.

Miles Slattery: And so, um- It will be a hub for that, and it'll be the bottom floor of a four-story building, and it will have, um, office space they're looking at leasing out, and then probably a cafe and a little trinket store, uh, uh, there. It'll be, you know, it's kind of this… It, it'll be much more elaborate than what-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … Arcata has, but it's, it's similar with that idea.

Scott Hammond: So bike storage for people to-

Miles Slattery: Bike storage and, um, uh, ride shares, um-

Scott Hammond: What about high-speed train rail? Will they, will they be able to come in there and

Miles Slattery: They won't. You'll be able to get on a bus to get you-

Scott Hammond: To get to one

Miles Slattery: … to, to the high-speed rail. Yes. But yeah, that's, that's, uh… Rail's not gonna happen. But it's-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Miles Slattery: … it's, it's good. It's gonna increase the frequency of trips to, um,

Miles Slattery: Arcata.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: It'll be going every half hour up to Arcata from H Street there.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: It's already their, uh, major transit, um, hub. It just doesn't have their facilities there.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Miles Slattery: So it'll be nice for them to, to move in there. So Humboldt Transit Authority will be there, and they've been talking to some local,

Miles Slattery: um, nonprofits and other government agencies to fill up the rest of the, the spot-

Scott Hammond: Cool

Miles Slattery: … down below.

Scott Hammond: And, uh, I was talking to somebody about that maybe a little, uh, shuttle that goes around Old Town just-

Miles Slattery: So that's what-

Scott Hammond: … dropping people around

Miles Slattery: … yeah, we're trying to do that to mitigate, um, some of the concerns people have about parking. We were… Looked at a grant to get a, um, automated shuttle that'll hold 12 people. And the idea would be that, you know-

Scott Hammond: Cool

Miles Slattery: … the Adorni parking lot is very rarely used.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And so the idea would be you'd start there, and then it'd go in a loop, go down to First Street, go up to C Street, go back up to Second-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and just do a loop and be able to drop people off where they wanna get dropped

Miles Slattery: off.

Scott Hammond: Automated in terms of time and schedule.

Miles Slattery: No, no driver.

Scott Hammond: No driver.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That'll be fun.

Miles Slattery: Super cool.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: You should check it out. They're cool. Anyway, also to mitigate some of the concerns and 'cause people are worried, um, concerned about parking is the, um, the microtransit. So HTA just started a new program where you pay two bucks. Um, they have virtual stops. Basically, they'll pick you up, similar to Dial-A-Ride that they did for-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Miles Slattery: … some of the, um, some of our elderly c- community members, but this is open to the, available to everybody now. There's an app. You can sign on. You can get in.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Two bucks will get you where you wanna go.

Scott Hammond: Within the city?

Miles Slattery: Yeah, within the city.

Scott Hammond: That's a smoking killer deal.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Two bucks.

Miles Slattery: I told them they should do it after 2:00 AM so I could-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … use it at more appropriate times.

Scott Hammond: When Su- Let's run that 24/7. Get that baby, get that baby going.

Miles Slattery: Right now it only goes, I, I think it's 8:00 to 6:00.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: Hmm.

Scott Hammond: Well, I like it. So, um, before we go onto parking real quick-

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … we're gonna do the quiz, so maybe you could w- win yourself a, uh, Dick Taylor

Scott Hammond: burger.

Miles Slattery: Sweet. I'm in.

Scott Hammond: But, uh, don't get too carried away yet. You haven't won anything.

Miles Slattery: I'm not good at these. I do that Pabstine show and-

Scott Hammond: I know. Oh.

Miles Slattery: I'm about, I'm about two for 60.

Scott Hammond: Hey, Brian.

Miles Slattery: I'm about two for 60.

Scott Hammond: Does he, does he do, like, quiz questions or something?

Miles Slattery: Well, it's better now because it's multiple choice. Prior to that it was… I was really embarrassing myself when I didn't have multiple choice.

Scott Hammond: Maybe he renamed his show That Pabstine Show.

Miles Slattery: Yes.

Scott Hammond: What's up, Brian?

Miles Slattery: That is Talk Shop. I'm sorry, Brian.

Scott Hammond: Talk Shop.

Miles Slattery: Yes. Hmm.

Scott Hammond: So you and Brian share a distinction. I'm gonna just, uh, out you right now.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: You're the only two people that have been on the show twice.

Miles Slattery: Hey, sweet.

Scott Hammond: Hey, look at you go.

Miles Slattery: Nice.

Scott Hammond: I've been on twice.

Miles Slattery: Nice.

Scott Hammond: So j- join the club. Welcome.

Miles Slattery: All right.

Scott Hammond: There's a green jacket at the back for you.

Miles Slattery: I'm gonna be the first to be three, though, Brian.

Scott Hammond: Oh, look, I like these. This guy's calling you out, bro. So, uh, so we're all agreed that we have a housing crisis. We have a homeless cri- and a health crisis. Um, I don't think, you know, you're not St. Joe's. I don't know if you can really address medical and-

Miles Slattery: No, I don't even wanna bring up Providence

Scott Hammond: … I, I don't-

Miles Slattery: Providence Imaging, I, I, I've been trying to get my mom, she has a lump in her… And she got, um, uh, referred for a mammogram and an ultrasound to look at it.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Miles Slattery: This was back in October. Get the runaround saying that they need her old mammogram, and I said it was 40 years ago. We called up Scripps down in La Jolla.

Scott Hammond: Good luck.

Miles Slattery: They no longer have it. It's not there. I've been going back. I call them, like, at least once a week, if not twice a week.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Miles Slattery: And still– And then we finally get around and they say, "Oh, now we're booked out till July." It's like, what if that's an issue?

Scott Hammond: Yeah, what if that's an issue?

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. It's mind-blowing.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, that's tough, man.

Miles Slattery: Anyway.

Scott Hammond: Uh, talk to me off, off camera.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Um, you know, and then the homelessness, I, I, I, I know that… I, I don't know. You must have some thoughts on that before we talk about parking and the-

Miles Slattery: Oh, yeah

Scott Hammond: … and the new housing. So how, how do we… How do you fix that in, in America or in Humboldt or in Eureka?

Miles Slattery: Well, I mean, it's everywhere. But I don't think that they're, you know, people say we're gonna solve homelessness. I think that there's– that doesn't exist until we become socialist and everybody gets, you know, a certain portion of whatever it may be. But I think that w- we're doing our best to, to address it. I mean, a lot of the issues that we have are people not taking advantage of the services that are being

Miles Slattery: offered. Um-

Scott Hammond: Right

Miles Slattery: … I'm not saying that's everybody, but there's definitely a good contingency of that that's out there.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Miles Slattery: So what we've done is we've tried to establish, um, places for folks to go with very low barriers. Um, a lot of our traditional… I mean, we do really well here in Eureka. We have well over 300, uh, shelter beds that are available.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And then, then, it, uh, they have been full in the f- six years that I've been twice.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: There's always been capacity.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: So that's a little frustrating, but a lot of those issues are because our traditional shelter spaces don't allow for couples, don't allow for dogs, and so we recently opened up with Betty, the Bayside Village. That is, it's ultra-low

Miles Slattery: barrier.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: They allow dogs. They allow for couples.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, and you still don't get full participation from folks.

Scott Hammond: How many beds does she have?

Miles Slattery: There's 38 at, at that, uh, Bayview.

Miles Slattery: And so-

Scott Hammond: What do you say about Betty? She's Freaking amazing

Miles Slattery: No, she's amazing. Just saw her today. We did our, uh, Pathway to Payday over there.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Miles Slattery: And she is amazing. And, you know, she's… There's some struggles there when you're dealing with this population. We have people that have not lived inside for over 30 years.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: And some 20 years.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: So just getting them there is a victory-

Scott Hammond: Right

Miles Slattery: … but managing it is extremely difficult.

Scott Hammond: I imagine.

Miles Slattery: Um, but with more experience, I think we get more of those around, and I think at some point in time, when there's folks who we have these spots for folks to go, there needs to be some sort of deterrent and some sort of accountability.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Miles Slattery: We, we are about as the most compassionate community and have done more related to social services and mental health as a municipal government than anybody in United States, in my opinion.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: I mean, we've, we've, we've done a lot of things that cities don't typically do.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: They're typically done by counties or, uh, states.

Scott Hammond: That's a big statement.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Uh..

Miles Slattery: I, I've d- We… Our mental health clinician, our, our, um, social services manager, Jeff Davis, he just got, um-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … invited to the National League of Cities to go r- um-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Miles Slattery: … report on our programs. Um-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Miles Slattery: … Lenny, um, our Commander LaFrance, and-

Scott Hammond: Very good

Miles Slattery: … our managing mental health clinician, Jacob Rosen, who you should have on here.

Scott Hammond: Jacob Rosen.

Miles Slattery: He's, uh… They go and they do trainings up and down the state

Miles Slattery: for-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … um, the-

Scott Hammond: That's right

Miles Slattery: … programming that we do.

Scott Hammond: They're cutting edge guys, right?

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Wow. Real quick, did you have anything to do with the, uh, skywalk at the zoo?

Miles Slattery: Yeah, we got-

Scott Hammond: Is that part of your deal, too?

Miles Slattery: We got the funding for that.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: Our staff.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Miles Slattery: A lot of it was, uh, thanks to the Lodging Alliance. They gave us close to 2 million, about 2 million, and then, uh… or 2.1, and then, uh, Land and Water Conservation Fund, other grants-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … about $7 million for that.

Scott Hammond: So I don't think I forgot-

Miles Slattery: But it's been huge

Scott Hammond: … my, my answer I was looking for earlier. Just circle back real quick.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And it's… I think it's an easy answer. So why haven't we grown? What's, what are the obstacles?

Scott Hammond: Y- you said, you said a couple things, but there's… Institutionally, we're problematic with planning and,

Scott Hammond: uh-

Miles Slattery: So, yeah, I-

Scott Hammond: … to get stuff to grow and go, it- it's a pain in the ass.

Miles Slattery: It, it is, and there's certain agency… I, I think a lot of… I think that why I can get stuff done is I'm willing to take risks.

Miles Slattery: I mean-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … when we started our KAPE program, which is a social services program, I was told I was sniffing glue.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And we started that with just donations from, um, local events. Bars would hold happy hours, and we'd get 10%, so that funded that and started it. And we were successful.

Scott Hammond: What is, what is that? The, the… Did you just call it K?

Miles Slattery: KAPE program.

Scott Hammond: K-

Miles Slattery: It's, uh, Community Access Program for Eureka. It's our uplift program that we do. You know, we started out with just young children-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and disadvantaged children and getting them so we would take that funny, that funding, and we would get them into after-school programs-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … get them into camps, those type of things.

Scott Hammond: Cool.

Miles Slattery: And then we moved on, and now we're doing it for, for everybody. So now we do rapid rehousing. We do job skills training programs.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: We do, um, Pathway to Payday, which gets people's jobs. So we've been doing that for a while.

Scott Hammond: Boys and Girls Club's-

Miles Slattery: But yeah

Scott Hammond: … sort of adjacent.

Miles Slattery: When we did that, you know, we even got a call from a government agency that will remain nameless. Then told us that what we're doing is not legal and that we had problems with that.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Miles Slattery: And so there was threats of them coming after us, but a lot of folks, and I think this happens a lot with government entities, is,

Miles Slattery: you know, a lawyer is there to give you legal counsel and to, uh, tell you what the liabilities are.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And if you're running a program or you're running a city or a government, you're, you weigh that, and you try to mitigate it as much as possible.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: But if it's something that's truly beneficial for the community, you take more risks, in my opinion.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Miles Slattery: And the more risks you take-

Scott Hammond: Attaboy

Miles Slattery: … the more successful you are.

Scott Hammond: Do it for kids, man.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Do you have pretty good counsel with the city?

Miles Slattery: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Uh-

Scott Hammond: With the team?

Miles Slattery: … we've had, we've had-

Scott Hammond: Do you have a guy or gal, or is it a team?

Miles Slattery: He's a guy right now.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Miles Slattery: Um, we've had issues in the past, but, um, I think that-

Scott Hammond: Is he not gonna be a guy later?

Miles Slattery: Well, no. So Bob's been doing this for years.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: He's fully understanding that you are there. We both… I don't oversee him. He doesn't over- oversee me.

Scott Hammond: Gotcha.

Miles Slattery: We both work for counsel. But his job is to provide legal

Miles Slattery: advice.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: My job is to make decisions on that legal advice.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, sometimes in certain agencies, that, that line gets blurred.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Miles Slattery: And I think that's a problem. I think that there's a lot of folks that are so risk-averse that nothing gets done.

Scott Hammond: Wow, I like that. It's part of leadership.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hey, time for the quiz show.

Miles Slattery: All right.

Scott Hammond: Oh, oh. Brought my bell. Miles Slattery for all the money and a what? Oh, this is perfect. Orange bourbon pecan, 65% dark, my

Scott Hammond: friend.

Miles Slattery: Perfect.

Scott Hammond: Don't be touching it till you win it.

Miles Slattery: Orange, orange is my favorite color.

Scott Hammond: This is delicious, by the way. Question number one: What i- what gives you life, and what sucks your soul dry?

Miles Slattery: Uh, I don't know if there's anything that sucks my soul dry. I'm pretty jaded, but I would say –

Scott Hammond: What's, what soul?

Miles Slattery: I would say my kids-

Scott Hammond: Soul

Miles Slattery: … my kids give me life for sure, and it's why I do what I do.

Miles Slattery: For sure.

Scott Hammond: So being with your kids.

Miles Slattery: Yeah, 100%. And, uh…

Scott Hammond: Now, something's gotta be kryptonite for you that takes your, takes you down.

Miles Slattery: Uh, uh, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Or south or…

Miles Slattery: I think that there's certain, um… I wouldn't, I wouldn't say sucks my soul. That's a little bit extreme, but there is a lot of frustration when you are dealing with, um,

Miles Slattery: uh, uh, different agencies and not, um… Like what I talked about before, when we, you're, you… We have a s- certain project that is so beneficial to the city and to our overall region, and I've been through a three-year process, um, trying to get to that point, and it has a lot to do with

Miles Slattery: people not- Being willing to take a chance and-

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh

Miles Slattery: … and make it happen.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Miles Slattery: And, um, we're, we're there now, and I'm very, um, happy that we've gotten there, but that sucked my soul for a long

Miles Slattery: time-

Scott Hammond: Right

Miles Slattery: … because of you're sitting there and thinking you're on the same page-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and then-

Scott Hammond: And they're dragging their feet

Miles Slattery: … you come back and, you know, there's this or that that wasn't done, and this wasn't crossed, and this wasn't done here. And people give me grief and say that I'm just haphazard about it. Believe me, I, I do all the research, and I, I knowingly do these things, not just because, um, I d- I don't wanna listen to people. I think it's more because we wanna get stuff done.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I see that foot draggers and obstructionists, uh-

Miles Slattery: Yeah, you have people that have, uh, not only from the risk-aversity, but you have people that spend more time not doing their job than it takes to do their job or finding reason whys they can't do things as opposed to finding reasons why they can do things.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: And, uh, you know, I don't wanna nail all of them, but there's planners are very, uh… You know, this idea, and I think that's a reason why I should have brought that up, too, for the lack of development here. People want this highest and best use-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … and it has no thought about what the market will bear. So when we have folks that wanna do something on C to F Street, and they wanna build a canal that looks like, you know, you're in Amsterdam-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … well, that's great. Love to have that, too, but, you know, let's be

Miles Slattery: practical.

Scott Hammond: And, yeah.

Miles Slattery: There has to be some sort of idea of what's gonna be there. And so when people do… And I've gotten a lot more affection for planning, but it's, it's, it, it's really hard to plan your way into. We had a former, um, uh, employee that worked in planning that, um, changed one of our zoning districts to downtown because they felt that our car dealerships shouldn't be in the areas of there, and they wanted to concentrate the car dealerships.

Miles Slattery: And so they-

Scott Hammond: Oh

Miles Slattery: … changed this s- big chunk of service commercial to

Miles Slattery: downtown.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Miles Slattery: And I'm dealing with the repercussions right now, not having the ability to put people into locations. I think that's a huge component. Now, I don't want it to be willy-nilly, and there has to be-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Miles Slattery: … some sort of regulation so you don't turn into Las Vegas, but, um, you know, there needs to be a little bit more, um, common sense about what the market bears.

Scott Hammond: Okay. Question number three. Are you ready?

Miles Slattery: Yes. I didn't know you were queuing me up.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, I'm teeing it up, baby. So, uh, you got the day off. What do you wanna do? It's fully paid, 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. What's your sched- what's in your schedule?

Miles Slattery: I would, I would surf in the morning, and then I would go and have, uh, a brunch with mimosas, and then I would golf in the afternoon.

Scott Hammond: Nice. What would you do in the evening?

Miles Slattery: In the evening, I'd probably just go to a nice dinner, or if I'm a little bit more, uh, in the mood, probably go to karaoke.

Scott Hammond: Karaoke? Whoa. Who does karaoke?

Miles Slattery: Everybody does. I was there last night.

Scott Hammond: Really?

Miles Slattery: Uh, Shanty does it on Wednesdays. Uh, Vista Del Mar does it on Thursday.

Miles Slattery: Um, somebody, I think The Siren Song does it on the weekend.

Scott Hammond: All the cool places.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Are you a karaoke guy?

Miles Slattery: I get… Yes, I enjoy it.

Scott Hammond: Get a little bit.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: I do a, a good rendition of "King of the Road."

Miles Slattery: Oh, nice.

Scott Hammond: Roger Miller.

Miles Slattery: I mix it up as much as possible.

Scott Hammond: Okay, I bet you do.

Miles Slattery: Yeah. I'm not too worried about what I sound like.

Scott Hammond: That's good. Actually, that's, that's good. Hey, guess what? You are the winner, winner, chicken dinner of the, uh-

Miles Slattery: Hey, hey

Scott Hammond: … orange bourbon icon. Good job.

Miles Slattery: There was no wrong answer, though.

Scott Hammond: Well, that's true. That's probably true.

Miles Slattery: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So, uh, last question about parking in downtown, and then we'll talk about your legacy. What, um… Walk me through the primer, the, the, the fundamentals of why we built, uh, why we're building out downtown and housing and state funding and why it's cool and why there's no parking and why we're under, we're under study show that we're, we're, we have plenty of parking and how that all pans out. When I look at that thing across from me, and I go, "Crap, um, where are they gonna put all the cars?" They're not gonna put them in McCray Nissan's lot.

Miles Slattery: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: It's already full of cars. So tell me more about, um, from, uh, uh, birth to death, how, the arc of that housing

Scott Hammond: story.

Miles Slattery: So it all starts with the state. They have a RHNA, which is Regional Housing Needs

Miles Slattery: Allocation.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Which basically the federal government determines what your housing needs are through this ridiculous calculation, and, um, it goes to the region. Um, the entity that houses this is Humboldt County Association of Government, so we

Miles Slattery: get, I'm just gonna throw a number out there, 2,000 units that we need.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: That 2,000 units are mixed into different income levels, so it's above market, market, and then affordable.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, so for years it was just like a planning

Miles Slattery: exercise.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, and then the state determined that affordable housing and not being able to live in California is a huge issue, so they got a little bit more stringent on it. Prior to that, um, the last housing cycle, which was 2019, it's every seven years, um, they would just make you demonstrate through zoning and where you are with your city that you had the capacity to build this and not necessarily demonstrate building it. Then they got into affordable housing. Um, they wanted us to make it happen.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: I don't wanna get into too long, but it, it, it eventually ended up… And we have a very supportive council for housing and especially affordable housing.

Miles Slattery: So, um, we offered up our properties in order to make this happen and demonstrate we can get there. We've been extremely successful. We had 332 units that we were supposed to build in seven years. We're at 302 fully funded.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: Um, so we're doing really well as it comes to that.

Miles Slattery: Um, so when we did it, we Picked out nine properties, all owned by the city.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: Um, we did the first round, which is the one with 8th and G, and Sunny and Myrtle, and 6th and M. Um, that was put out to proposal. There was some y- there was some, um, opposition for sure by the local businesses that were in that area, but then we started moving into Old Town and we were gonna do 5th and H, 4th and G, and 5th and D. That's when, when we started doing notifications we got a big, "Hey, this is gonna-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … screw up my business and there's not enough parking down here." So we went back and offered it up to everybody and said, "Hey, we'll put this on pause. Let's trade some properties, um, and we're willing to do that." Um, we worked with Security National and Redwood Capital Bank. Security National was about to pull the trigger on something and they backed out at the end, didn't trade, but then Redwood Capital worked with Greg Pearson. He had property and we traded 5th and G-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … 4th and H, and 5th and K-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … um, to them for the properties up there to lessen the impact.

Miles Slattery: So, um,

Miles Slattery: we… Once they got that property, th- we still move forward with the rest of our properties and con- con- continue to do that. Um, the parking issues,

Miles Slattery: and I'm just giving you traffic engineering numbers here. We do a traffic study every single year-

Scott Hammond: Right

Miles Slattery: … on all of our parking lots. Um, this more recent one we did a traffic study which incorporates all of the years of data that we had in the past.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Miles Slattery: And when we do those studies we do them in the summertime at peak hours and we determine what the-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … what the capacity is and where they're at. Um, when you're looking at that we were below 50%-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … capacity all the time. Now-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Miles Slattery: … everybody's gonna yell at me but at w- okay, when you go there at Friday Night Markets of course it's gonna be filled.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Miles Slattery: But when you look at the, you know, full month of it that's-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … where we're at. So anyway, we got, um, you know, we're still cognizant of that and that's why we do those mitigation measures. So we're trying to make it so that, um, folks still have access to parking. Um, and if not they have a way of getting, you know, from a parking lot to their shop which will be that shuttle and then microtransit. So we'll continue to do that and we're also looking at a parking garage and a parking garage would be a game changer for-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Miles Slattery: … that area. Not only for HTA for their park and ride but also for the businesses down there so-

Scott Hammond: Cool

Miles Slattery: … we're, we're gonna pursue that. The grant is due in May I believe and so-

Scott Hammond: Go garage, yeah

Miles Slattery: … we're putting that together now.

Scott Hammond: Sounds good. Hey, thanks for being here.

Miles Slattery: Of course.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Miles Slattery: Anytime.

Scott Hammond: Tell us about your legacy. What do you want to be remembered for?

Miles Slattery: We talked about this last time.

Scott Hammond: Let's do it again.

Miles Slattery: I'm not a big legacy guy.

Scott Hammond: Maybe you rethought it.

Miles Slattery: My children are my legacy.

Scott Hammond: That's a good one.

Miles Slattery: And, uh, whatever they do I, I, I want them to good, be good people and enjoy life and if they do that I'm, I'm happy.

Scott Hammond: I like it. What's your tombstone say?

Miles Slattery: Uh, that's a good question.

Scott Hammond: I have one.

Miles Slattery: I probably won't have a tombstone is what I'll, I'm gonna-

Scott Hammond: You'll be sprinkled somewhere

Miles Slattery: … I'm gonna be sprinkled. Yes.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. I think I have a-

Miles Slattery: My tombstone will be somewhere in the surf somewhere.

Scott Hammond: I like that. Mine's gonna say, "We'll see where this goes."

Miles Slattery: Yeah. I will say this. My son came up with a really good one which I thought is a great saying and I don't know how to say it in Latin but, um, um, "I will because I never thought I couldn't."

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Miles Slattery: And I think that's a great one.

Scott Hammond: That's a good one. It's deeper. Yeah. Hey, well thanks for being here, man.

Miles Slattery: All right. Thank you.

Scott Hammond: Hey, thanks for joining us on 100% Humboldt. Like us, love us, send us money. Uh, send us, uh, our-

Miles Slattery: Really you take donations?

Scott Hammond: Yeah we do. I got a little code on there.

Miles Slattery: Okay.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, no. Oh, oh and don't forget Quality Body Works in-

Miles Slattery: Ross

Scott Hammond: … Ross. What's up Ross?

Miles Slattery: Love you Ross.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, big sponsor and, uh, yeah sponsor us and, uh, see us on, uh, Access Humboldt, all the podcast platforms and

Scott Hammond: YouTube too.

Miles Slattery: Sweet.

Scott Hammond: Thanks for joining us.

Miles Slattery: Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it. Thank you, Nick.

Scott Hammond: Thanks, Nick