#57. Bill Barnum’s Legacy: From Eureka’s Timber Roots to Housing Hurdles and Sustainable Futures

Scott Hammond: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, and, uh, this is 100% Humboldt podcast with your host Scott Hammond, that's me, and my new best friend, Bill Barnum.

Bill Barnum: Hello, Scott.

Scott Hammond: Hi, Bill. How you doing?

Bill Barnum: I'm doing fine.

Scott Hammond: It's good to see you. What a magic fall day in Eureka today.

Bill Barnum: Oh my gosh.

Scott Hammond: Man, it's just, uh, these are the days where I wish I wasn't in the office all day.

Bill Barnum: You're not.

Scott Hammond: I'm not. Now, now I'm not. I got out a little early. You're right. I, I broke loose. Hey, so, uh, tell us, tell us the Bill Barnum story in, in brief. What, what's, what's your story?

Bill Barnum: Well, I guess the, the current joke is I was born into a middle class

Bill Barnum: family and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Um, I was born and raised in Eureka in 1954 and,

Bill Barnum: uh, went to Marshall School and Zane Junior High, Eureka High.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: Class of '72 and went to Humboldt.

Scott Hammond: You're 100% Humboldt.

Bill Barnum: Pretty much. Um, got my, uh, management degree there and then went to law school in Sacramento.

Scott Hammond: What'd you study at Humboldt State?

Bill Barnum: Management.

Scott Hammond: Management.

Bill Barnum: Business management, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Good, good department, the business department.

Bill Barnum: It was good then, yeah. I really-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … enjoyed it.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, they're, they're solid. And then you went to school down in Sac?

Bill Barnum: Sacramento.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Not, not Stockton, but Sacramento.

Bill Barnum: Right. Right. Uh, down on 5th Ave, yep.

Scott Hammond: Okay. That was part of, uh, uh, Sac State?

Bill Barnum: No, it's, uh, McGeorge is, uh, affiliated with the University of the

Bill Barnum: Pacific.

Scott Hammond: That's Pacific in Stockton.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Okay, good.

Bill Barnum: UOP. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Okay, yeah.

Bill Barnum: But the law school is in Sacramento.

Scott Hammond: That's right, yeah. My son went to UOP.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Good school.

Bill Barnum: Tigers.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, go Tigers. They used to have a lot of sports programs. Didn't they all?

Bill Barnum: It's expensive.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah, he liked Pacific. He, uh, studied, uh, international studies and went on to get a doctorate at Davis.

Bill Barnum: Oh, proud dad.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah, good guy.

Bill Barnum: That's good stuff, yeah.

Scott Hammond: They live in Amsterdam. He, she works for Nike, and they, um, they, they, they l- they're buying a home.

Bill Barnum: Good story.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. They're, they're buying a home. So tell us about y- what was Eureka and Humboldt like in the '50s, '60s? I mean, a little different environment.

Bill Barnum: Well, um, I love local history. I get a big kick out of it. Um, both, uh, sort of the ancient Humboldt history and Native American history, uh, really intrigues me. But you asked about the 1950s and '60s. It was the, the post-war boom. Um, the population-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … peaked out in 1960, 106,000 in the county then.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: Um, and it was a lumber boom and fishing.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Um, as a child, I, I can tell you that going to school, um, it was diverse. It was blue collar. Um, I remember across the street when I grew up on William Street, um, there was a lumber truck every night throughout the years of my

Bill Barnum: childhood.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Uh, everybody worked. It, it was interesting that way. Now obviously, the loggers didn't work so much in the winter, but-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … they'd do other things and go fishing and, and have-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Bill Barnum: … other jobs. But it was a working town.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Really true blue collar town.

Scott Hammond: Interesting.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Different world.

Bill Barnum: Completely different than today.

Scott Hammond: What was Humboldt State like at that… So you would've graduated early '70s?

Bill Barnum: '76. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: '76.

Bill Barnum: Humboldt, uh, of course it was Humboldt State when I was a kid, and, uh, it ran about, uh, 4,000 to 5,000 students then-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … in the '60s. Um, I remember 1960, I was young, but they won the Holiday Bowl in-

Scott Hammond: That's right

Bill Barnum: … Fresno, and, uh, our family always enjoyed football, so-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … season tickets to go up and see the game.

Scott Hammond: Great.

Bill Barnum: Always a mud bowl.

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah.

Bill Barnum: Always a mud bowl. Saw Danny Walsh, uh, have a punt return for 90 plus yards.

Scott Hammond: Is that right?

Bill Barnum: In the mud.

Scott Hammond: Was he later a supervisor?

Bill Barnum: Yes.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Is he still alive?

Bill Barnum: Oh, well, yeah. I saw, saw Danny just, uh, what, two weeks ago, we had that event up at, uh, 299 at Barry Summit.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: Um, Butch Matthews and others, uh, sponsored a memorial for skiing at Horse Mountain.

Scott Hammond: Oh, how about that?

Bill Barnum: And, uh, there was an article in Lost Coast Outpost about it. Really nice article. Glad they ran it. Probably had 300 people up there-

Scott Hammond: Wow

Bill Barnum: … uh, for the memorial.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: Bunch of white-haired folks.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, that, Jody call- Jody and I call that our tribe.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: We'll go up to a concert in Oregon, "Hey, look, our tribe's all here," all the-

Bill Barnum: That's it

Scott Hammond: … all the gray-haired people.

Bill Barnum: That was our tribe.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And Danny Walsh was there. Um, so skiing was a, a big fun thing u- up at, uh, Horse Mountain, also in the mainly the '70s and '80s.

Scott Hammond: That was the thing, right? There was a rope tow.

Bill Barnum: Three rope tow.

Scott Hammond: Three?

Bill Barnum: Oh, gosh. And, uh, they had a, a free tow, an access tow, and the Ruby Creek-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: … Tow, which was the longest operating rope tow in the world.

Scott Hammond: Oh, how about that?

Bill Barnum: About 1,400 feet long,

Bill Barnum: and, uh-

Scott Hammond: That's a big one

Bill Barnum: … grueling to ride because- … you had to have leather gloves.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Uh, and it-

Scott Hammond: That would just tear your hands up.

Bill Barnum: Oh my God. Well, you go to Shavers and buy a couple pair of thick leather

Bill Barnum: gloves-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … and you let the rope run through your right hand. You reach your left hand behind your back and grab onto the rope, and up you go.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Time you get to the top of the rope, you're cramping from head to toe.

Scott Hammond: 1,400 feet.

Bill Barnum: Oh, crazy and steep. And so you get off, you take a breath, you ski down to the bottom. Takes about 22 seconds.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And you, you take another breath and latch back on. After four of those, it was like, "Uh, I'm gonna go back to the access tow."

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. And there was-

Bill Barnum: But great, great history up there

Scott Hammond: … there was no ski lodge.

Bill Barnum: There was a ski lodge.

Scott Hammond: Oh, there was?

Bill Barnum: Oh, yeah. It was-

Scott Hammond: Oh, how about that?

Bill Barnum: … rustic.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Rustic. I think it-

Scott Hammond: It's funny, uh, 'cause that was going when I was g- at Humboldt, and I never got up there, and still haven't been too far up that road.

Bill Barnum: Next time you go to Barry Summit-

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh

Bill Barnum: … and pull into the viewpoint-

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh

Bill Barnum: … they've got a beautiful permanent memorial display there.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Uh, skiing at, um, up off, uh, Horse Mountain goes back into the '30s.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: 1930s.

Scott Hammond: What kind of elevation would you get going up it?

Bill Barnum: The top at Horse is 4,951.

Scott Hammond: Huh.So it had snow

Bill Barnum: It did when we had snow.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: When it wasn't raining on it.

Scott Hammond: So, uh-

Bill Barnum: Good times

Scott Hammond: So you become an attorney f- uh, at s- with EOP at Downtown Sac.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: How was… What… Was, was it like going th- through all that? How many years is that? Is that another four?

Bill Barnum: It's three for the day program, four at night.

Bill Barnum: I, I, uh, I made the mistake of, um, being the third youngest in my class. Uh, out of 305, I was the third

Bill Barnum: youngest.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: That was a challenge for me because, uh, most of the students were 26, 27 on the average-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Bill Barnum: … some in their 30s, even 40s. So I don't know that I was… You know, they say that a, a male brain doesn't mature till about age 25 or

Bill Barnum: 26 or-

Scott Hammond: Or 50-something

Bill Barnum: … 67 or something.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: So-

Scott Hammond: 60

Bill Barnum: So, so I, I felt, I felt that challenge, and I got through it.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: Uh, the beautiful thing was McGeorge was, uh, exceptional at, at the bar pass rate.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: So, uh, my class, 93% of the graduates passed the bar the first try.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: So that felt good, so I got that.

Scott Hammond: Chances are you're gonna pass.

Bill Barnum: Chances are. If you don't mess it up, you're gonna pass.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So we were talking before the show, what three things are you passionate about? What, what, what are the, say three big things in your life? I, I… Did you mention history?

Bill Barnum: Yeah. Um, my wife Monica and I are, uh, really faithful members of Sacred Heart Church.

Bill Barnum: That's-

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh

Bill Barnum: … gotta be, you know, the top for us.

Scott Hammond: Right down the street.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, I mean-

Scott Hammond: That, that way

Bill Barnum: … yeah.

Scott Hammond: The other way.

Bill Barnum: A little bit southeast.

Bill Barnum: Um,

Bill Barnum: so we've had a, a very, uh, excellent good fortune in my family for a few generations, so we've, we get to enjoy that.

Bill Barnum: And, uh, I really get a kick out of local history. I'm sure people from all over the world enjoy their local histories, but this one

Bill Barnum: is exceptionally colorful-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … and dark-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … uh, optimistic-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … resource-based, so, you know, it has its ups and downs, boom and bust.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: A lot of really excellent stories about people and peoples.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Uh, so I, I've enjoyed learning that.

Bill Barnum: Um, my grandmother Helen, uh, upon her passing in 1993, left her home, uh, as the headquarters for the Historical Society.

Scott Hammond: Beautiful home.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's right there on, uh-

Bill Barnum: 8th and H

Scott Hammond: … H?

Bill Barnum: 8th and H, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That's quite a house.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, so our, our whole family's been history oriented, put it that way.

Scott Hammond: So you were born into k- kind of the love of history.

Bill Barnum: Yes.

Scott Hammond: What, what's… A couple of favorite quick stories. What, what, what are some good stories about our…

Bill Barnum: Wow.

Scott Hammond: I mean, Old Town was, has its own personality and history and…

Bill Barnum: Well, I, I, I know this fact, factoid. I know in 1875, Eureka had a bigger population than a small town called Los Angeles.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh. No longer that small.

Bill Barnum: No, no, it didn't stick.

Scott Hammond: Good weather, though.

Bill Barnum: Um, so, uh, you know, you look at Humboldt County, it's half the size of New

Bill Barnum: Jersey.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Um, I like statistics.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: History statistics and population statistics and… Um, I was a real estate attorney for 43 years. I have a real interest in that.

Bill Barnum: Um, you know, we, we just don't grow much here.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: As I said, 1960 had 106,000 people.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: We dropped to 93,000 in 1970, so that was a

Bill Barnum: significant-

Scott Hammond: That's for the county. That's countywide.

Bill Barnum: Countywide.

Scott Hammond: You mean right over here? You mean this county?

Bill Barnum: That Mets- Metzger map you have right there.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: According to Mr. Metzger.

Bill Barnum: It's a great map, by the way.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, yeah, and Eureka's right there.

Bill Barnum: It still is.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That's my prop. I have to go to the prop.

Bill Barnum: It's a good prop.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, well, I'll go back to it in a minute.

Bill Barnum: So now we're what? We're 138,000 plus or minus, and, uh-

Scott Hammond: Oh, we're, we, we, so we bumped a little bit county, county size-wise.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, but that's, uh, since, uh… What is that? About 45,000 people in

Bill Barnum: 54 years.

Scott Hammond: It's pretty, pretty low growth.

Bill Barnum: Pretty modest.

Scott Hammond: So has Eureka proper shrunk?

Bill Barnum: Has. Uh, as a child, it was about 28,000, now about 26,000. And, um, as I hinted to you before we got going, one of my, my favorite beefs, um, and I like talking about it 'cause I don't get much opportunity, so I'll-

Scott Hammond: No, please, by all-

Bill Barnum: … I'll bring my favorite beef up. You asked me what my, my passions are.

Scott Hammond: Beef it up, man.

Bill Barnum: Well, I can talk about my church, I can talk about my family, talk about history, but what I really wanna talk about is, uh, how

Bill Barnum: worthless zoning and planning has been in this county, uh, i-

Scott Hammond: Take us there. What, what do you mean when you say that?

Scott Hammond: The-

Bill Barnum: Well-

Scott Hammond: … the departments or the policies or both?

Bill Barnum: Just the pol- the policies are just nuts.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: They're just really ridiculous.

Bill Barnum: So, um, and now that I'm not practicing law, I just feel really free to just tell you what I really think.

Scott Hammond: Tell you what

Scott Hammond: … Bill, tell us what you think.

Bill Barnum: Well, I remember back in 1995, the county was doing the Eureka Planning Area Project.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And, uh, you… Were you here in '95? Yes?

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah.

Bill Barnum: All right. See if you remember these details. The county drew a map, and they said the future growth of housing is gonna be in the Dunn Robinson or Forrester Gill tract.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: It was from Ridgewood for 2.2 miles down a ridgeline to Lundbar Hills.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: Okay? And that would be about 1,200 homes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Then there was the Slack and Winsler tract that would host about 300

Bill Barnum: homes.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: And then there was the Reardon Ranch tract that would host about 200.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Okay? That was 1995.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Okay? So next year, that's 30 years.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: How many homes do we have on those three tracts?

Scott Hammond: I'd say not very many.

Bill Barnum: Two.

Scott Hammond: Two homes.

Bill Barnum: So the planners-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: … are trying to meet… The State of California has these thing called the RHNA numbers, the Regional Housing Needs Allocation.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: So the state is as stupid as the county planning process 'cause the state says, "We're gonna require the, the counties and cities plan for a certain number of homes to accommodate and keep the supply of housing adequate to the demand."

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: And it's like any kind of planned economy, planned economies fail because market forces don't match the

Bill Barnum: plan.

Scott Hammond: Correct.

Bill Barnum: So for 30 years, we're supposed to have 12, 15, 1,700 homes in 30 years, and we have

Bill Barnum: two.

Scott Hammond: Dos.

Bill Barnum: That's failure.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Abject.

Bill Barnum: That's, that's failure.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: So that-

Scott Hammond: That's a, that's a, a debacle.

Bill Barnum: Thank you

Scott Hammond: … which is a ludicrous failure.

Bill Barnum: It's a boondoggle.

Scott Hammond: A bo- Let's, let's come up with some other words.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's a screw-up.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, it just-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … uh, it, it just-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … it doesn't work. So-

Scott Hammond: So why did those not get developed?

Scott Hammond: I'm curious.

Bill Barnum: Well,

Bill Barnum: um, we live in California.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Bill Barnum: It's extremely expensive-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Bill Barnum: … to develop raw forest lands-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Bill Barnum: … into housing.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Bill Barnum: Extremely expensive.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Bill Barnum: I'm not gonna give you the, my sources because I'm not under cross-examination, but I can tell you that right now, if you, if you bought a tract of raw land, and you wanted to build a building lot-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … you'd have the price of acquisition of the raw land-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … and you're gonna spend between 80 and $100,000 supplying utilities as required by code-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … and street, curb, gutter, sidewalk, all that.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: So let's say you paid $100,000, and you gotta put 80 into the infrastructure.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: You're at 180. I'll tell you a little story. Monica and I were driving on E Street, south of Henderson Center, January two years ago. We saw a little cottage with this, uh, sale

Bill Barnum: out front.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: The lot was, uh, sub si- uh, substandard size. It was 5625 instead of 6,000 square feet.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: So it's non-conforming.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

Bill Barnum: The cottage is, like, 800 square feet.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Pier and post.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: Built in the '20s. Needs some work. Needed some work because it was boarded up in plywood.

Scott Hammond: Geez.

Bill Barnum: It was a drug house.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: EPD shut it down. So I called on it. I said, "That'd be interesting. Maybe we just scrape that off and put new construction on it." But I wanna know what they would want for it 'cause I gotta spend 20 grand removing the structure, so what would the lot price be, not for a standard 6,000-foot lot, but for a substandard lot. So I called up, and they said, "Well, the, um, the listing price was

Bill Barnum: 199."

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: "We've had 14 showings. We have multiple offers above

Bill Barnum: asking."

Scott Hammond: It's an auction.

Bill Barnum: Now, you wonder why housing's expensive in Humboldt and Eureka?

Scott Hammond: There's no land, yeah.

Bill Barnum: There's no land.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: It's extremely expensive to develop.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: There's a rule of thumb in the construction trades that a finished spec house sells for four times the developed lot cost.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Bill Barnum: 200,000 for a lot-

Scott Hammond: 800,000

Bill Barnum: … 800,000 for the spec house.

Scott Hammond: Shh.

Bill Barnum: So where's the market for $800,000 homes?

Scott Hammond: Not there.

Bill Barnum: Not there. Did you know that the average house in Humboldt County, I'm 70 years old, the average house in Humboldt County is older than I

Bill Barnum: am?

Scott Hammond: Hmm. That's, that's a stat, actually. That's interesting, the average house.

Bill Barnum: 57,400 or so homes in Humboldt County.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: And the average house is older than Bill Barnum.

Scott Hammond: How about that? A 70-year-old house is not-

Bill Barnum: It ain't the code today

Scott Hammond: … how are those built, you know?

Bill Barnum: They're not… Well, they were built with beautiful full dimension wood.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: They have good structures. They go through many, many earthquakes.

Scott Hammond: They have knob and tube electric, uh, so-

Bill Barnum: Mm-hmm, unless they've been upgraded.

Scott Hammond: Unless they were.

Bill Barnum: And of course-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Bill Barnum: … many are, but-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … there's your housing stock.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: So then, you know, uh, you and I both know you get people that move here from LA or the Bay Area, and they sold a house for 1.2 to

Bill Barnum: 2.5.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Come up here, they can buy whatever they wanna buy.

Scott Hammond: Yes.

Bill Barnum: But it's not a huge number, but it is a number.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, it is, and I, I, I think you're, you're so on track here 'cause

Scott Hammond: the, um, we've had so many guests that have talked about the three H's, health, homelessness and housing, and the housing thing, maybe that's at the top of the list. Went to the economic summit yesterday.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And they're all talking about, "Hey, wind power, they're coming here," Vineyard Wind or whoever they are, and-

Bill Barnum: We'll see

Scott Hammond: … the, uh, uh… We'll see.

Bill Barnum: We'll see.

Scott Hammond: And the co- the, uh, Nordic, uh, fish farm guys and from… Are they from Denmark? I'm not sure.

Scott Hammond: Anyway.

Bill Barnum: Skandihovian, yep.

Scott Hammond: My dad used to say Skandihovie. He's a Skandihovian.

Bill Barnum: I am.

Scott Hammond: Like, where's that?

Bill Barnum: I am.

Scott Hammond: I, I'm, I'm Norwegian.

Bill Barnum: Norwegian.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. The, uh

Scott Hammond: Hey.

Bill Barnum: Brother.

Scott Hammond: O- Olaf.

Bill Barnum: Skol.

Scott Hammond: Skol. Skol. Skol. We digress. So the housing thing becomes super important because these guys are gonna come and need jobs and have housing needs, and I think, I, I think our britches are down. I, I don't know how they're gonna pull it o- you know, a 5 or a 10-year plan to put

Scott Hammond: another-

Bill Barnum: Oh

Scott Hammond: … 3 or 4,000 homes in.

Bill Barnum: Another Eureka planning area plan, right? Another good 30-year plan for 1,700 homes that-

Scott Hammond: Tell us what you think about that

Bill Barnum: … turn into two.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Just two.

Scott Hammond: So is there a plan now,

Scott Hammond: a, a-

Bill Barnum: Oh, the plan is-

Scott Hammond: … a new plan?

Bill Barnum: Oh, heck no.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Bill Barnum: Oh, no. We're still operating on the strength of that 1995 Eureka planning area.

Scott Hammond: Good gravy, and nobody wants to touch that kind of land 'cause it's too expensive.

Bill Barnum: I remember I went to, I went to a public hearing about that in 1995, and I'd just gone to a funeral of a close friend of mine-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Bill Barnum: … before the hearing, and I showed up at the, at the, at the hearing pretty

Bill Barnum: emotional. And I, I remember going in there and saying, "You know, if the county would simply stop zoning, just stop. Don't zone anything, and let people build homes wherever they wanna build homes."

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: "You might get some housing. But if you try to control housing in the future like you're trying to do right

Bill Barnum: now-"

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … "you're not gonna get housing."

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And 30 years later, two houses.

Scott Hammond: Well, it's, it… So you're-I'm inferring that we're set up for failure here.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That, that if we don't have healthcare, we don't deal with crime and homelessness and things, uh, of that

Scott Hammond: nature.

Bill Barnum: Right.

Scott Hammond: And we don't have housing, especially mostly housing. W- I mean, where will folks stay? The, in, in the mountains, in Rio Dell and Trinidad? That's prohibitive to live there, maybe.

Bill Barnum: To ask the question is to answer it, and, um, if I were an investor, uh, in the $300 trillion offshore wind project-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … uh, even if you're paying your people 100,000 bucks a year or 150,000

Bill Barnum: a year, there's no place for them.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Where do you put them?

Bill Barnum: I mean, it's irresponsible to-

Scott Hammond: Well

Bill Barnum: … make an investment like that.

Scott Hammond: Well, let's argue this. So you put a… You, you buy the house down- downtown-

Bill Barnum: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … you know, somewhere in the middle of town-

Bill Barnum: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … and you displace a working blue collar family.

Bill Barnum: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: And then they, they… And then where do they go? They, they go down the food chain perhaps and, and they s- they sell and they're renting or they go buy something smaller, and, and it, it ha- it's a trickle-down thing is I'm thinking-

Bill Barnum: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … that eventually that your lower middle class folks are gonna be-

Bill Barnum: Squeezed

Scott Hammond: … hurt. Yeah, and, and we didn't even talk about the poor yet.

Bill Barnum: Right.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yep.

Scott Hammond: And their re- and by the way, rents are gonna go up all the time.

Bill Barnum: They have to.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Wow.

Bill Barnum: Dark.

Scott Hammond: How cynical can we get here?

Bill Barnum: Well, no, it's, it's-

Scott Hammond: Pretty cynical

Bill Barnum: … you know, it seems to me that if you take a view of history and you look at what has been mismanagement, uh, of our county and

Bill Barnum: cities, even this thing, obviously I get a little bit of dark humor happiness out of what's going on with, um, Measure

Bill Barnum: F. The, the elected city council members, respectfully,

Bill Barnum: uh, I don't think they understand what the people in the community want. They have an idea that they want.

Bill Barnum: I also charge the state of California with those stupid RHNA numbers.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: The Regional Housing Need Allocation numbers. And, um, there are communities within communities-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … and one of these is the, uh, middle and low income, um, building community.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And they have interest and lobby, and they want opportunities. So the idea of taking these parking lots that are owned by the public and turning them into five to seven story apartment buildings is for… Well, we'll find out on election day, but certainly a large minority, if not a majority of local people, would prefer to keep the parking available for the vitality of downtown and Old Town. History, history again, my dad Bob, uh, lived to be 95. In the 1950s, he was on the Eureka Parking Place Commission.

Scott Hammond: Parking Place.

Bill Barnum: Parking Place Commission, and, um, they looked at, uh, at, uh, dilapidated Victorian era buildings-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … from the 1870s and so forth. They were just failed buildings.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: And they floated a bond, they bought 'em up, tore 'em down, filled them, paved them, and made public parking lots, the purpose of which was to support parking, what they then y- called the North of Fourth Association.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Before we had the Old Town moniker, uh, downtown was thriving.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: So the Bisclin family, the Daly's family, um, there was a lot of investment, a lot of employment-

Scott Hammond: Okay

Bill Barnum: … and, um, adequate parking.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: But North of Fourth needed that support.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Now, in the '70s, beginning in '72, '73, we did the redevelopment for Old Town, and there's many, many millions of dollars invested in retail and office space in Old Town and downtown.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And those parking spaces are for them.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: We have most of our social gatherings in Old Town.

Scott Hammond: Sure we do.

Bill Barnum: And you don't wanna park up on, you know, 10th, 11th, and 12th Street to go down to the, uh, C Street-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … uh, music on a Thursday night in the summer.

Scott Hammond: Who wants to walk a mile to do a deal?

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: It's Eureka.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: You know, we're not talking about that.

Scott Hammond: I usually park across the street and cross the street.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Well, you go down, if I go downtown to buy a mocha at Old Town Coffee, if I gotta go around the block three times, I'll go-

Scott Hammond: Pretty angry

Bill Barnum: … I'm gonna go to Jitterbean.

Scott Hammond: Hear that, Rick?

Bill Barnum: Well, I'm going to Jitterbean anyway.

Scott Hammond: Chris?

Bill Barnum: That's where I just was before I came to see you.

Bill Barnum: So-

Scott Hammond: Oh, they're great. They're great

Bill Barnum: … it just strikes me that, um, the i- uh, the idea of building, uh, the apartments on those nine parking lots is, is not a great idea. That's, you know, many people agree, many people disagree. We'll see what happens.

Scott Hammond: Seems like, you know, Humboldt's played it right with the new dorms. They're going up, what are they, nine stories? They're pretty big.

Bill Barnum: No, no, those are, uh-

Scott Hammond: Are they 12?

Bill Barnum: Five to seven.

Scott Hammond: But they're big.

Bill Barnum: We– Do you want a war story on that?

Scott Hammond: And there's two of them.

Bill Barnum: Do you want a war story on that?

Scott Hammond: Heck yeah, man.

Bill Barnum: I've got a good one. So for years, I r- represented, um, Russell Kirkpatrick, and he owned, uh, uh, K- uh, KalKirk Landscaping. And he-

Scott Hammond: There's that land that they're-

Bill Barnum: He owned the 10 acres there.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And, uh, he married another client of mine, and, um, uh, she was good for him, and he, uh, passed.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Bill Barnum: So he, she inherited it. So she and her daughter came to me, and we agreed that it was timely for them to find a buyer, so we got an appraisal and started to reach out, and we had an unsolicited, uh, offer from a gentleman from Monterey-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: … a man named David Moon.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: And David began investing in student housing.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: And so he approached and he said, "You know, I, I'd like to buy the 10 acres," and we agreed on price. He said, "But I can't close, of course, until I get my entitlements, so I need to go to the city of Arcata and get approval for what I wanna do."

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: We said, "That's great." Um, I told him this. I said, "David, you need to understand that Arcata is the Berkeley of Humboldt County."

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: "And you're gonna have real difficulty getting the project shaped up the way you wanna shape it up."

Scott Hammond: He could see that he's out-of-towner.

Scott Hammond: He's-

Bill Barnum: He's fromMonterey

Scott Hammond: Where they probably get stuff done

Bill Barnum: They turnkey purchased to opening the dorms in 24 months. I said, "In 24 months, they won't even know your name yet."

Scott Hammond: Right.

Bill Barnum: But my client can sell this property immediately to somebody else who will take it with the existing zoning.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: So I said, "If you wanna buy this, you're gonna have to pay option consideration-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Bill Barnum: … every month that you make us wait."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: "Basically, you rent the property."

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: He said, "Well, I'll do that." I said, "I just want you to have your eyes wide

Bill Barnum: open."

Scott Hammond: Yeah, fair.

Bill Barnum: "This will take you years." He says, "It's the only 10 acres close to Humboldt. I'm gonna do it."

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: Five years later. Five years later.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: He's before the council and Brett Watson-

Scott Hammond: Oh, man

Bill Barnum: … at the public hearing to approve the final project.

Scott Hammond: This is the Brett Watson that's no longer on the council for all kinds of reasons.

Bill Barnum: So Mr. Watson, before a microphone, says, "I will not approve this project if you don't allow three-bedroom units and allow the members of the community to live there. I want two-bedroom and three-bedroom units-"

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: "… in the student housing."

Scott Hammond: So one guy.

Bill Barnum: And David Moon says, um, "That's not my model, and I don't think it's good planning to put Mom and three

Bill Barnum: children in an environment with 18 to 22-year-olds."

Scott Hammond: Fair.

Bill Barnum: "So I'm not willing to make that investment."

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: "So you let me do my student housing or I'm gone."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: And Brett Watson said, "You don't get it without the community in, in residence."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: And David walked.

Scott Hammond: That's where a local councilman might have a little power.

Bill Barnum: Ooh. Well, that's what I'm talking about with-

Scott Hammond: And will, willpower and, you know

Bill Barnum: … with Old Town as well, Old Town, Downtown. The city councils are powerful, but they don't necessarily get it

Bill Barnum: right.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: So, uh, it was only a couple months later we got together with the HSU Foundation. They saw the, the need and the genius of… And here's what's funny. This is the punchline. Because the foundation is a state agency and there's a doctrine in the law called preemption, so we have state, county, city, when the state acquires real property-

Scott Hammond: Preemption

Bill Barnum: … it's not subject to local zoning, nor does the state pay property tax.

Scott Hammond: Beautiful.

Bill Barnum: So the city lost $700,000 a year in property tax, control of the project, and the state built what they're building now.

Scott Hammond: And a little bit of egg on their face.

Bill Barnum: I would say an omelet, yeah.

Scott Hammond: I would I would, uh… I was talking to Alex Stillman here and she said-

Bill Barnum: She's great

Scott Hammond: … yeah, she, and she said, um, "Did, did Arcata not have the okay to say yes to some part of that project and reap some benefit from it, but they cut their nose off just, just to spite their

Scott Hammond: face?"

Bill Barnum: What'd she say?

Scott Hammond: I, well, I, I, I'm asking you if there was something that they, uh, they could have opted for in that process with the state.

Bill Barnum: They could have approved David Moon's project, yeah.

Scott Hammond: May- maybe that was where she was going.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. And it would be privately owned, and he'd pay $700,000 a year in property tax.

Scott Hammond: Instead it went to Humboldt and bye-bye.

Scott Hammond: Huh. I thought there was something else they could have said yes to with, with Humboldt, with the state, and gotten some, some, reaped some reward, and they said, "No. No thank you."

Bill Barnum: I don't know that.

Scott Hammond: And kinda lost some revenue.

Scott Hammond: Anyway.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So, uh, same idea for Old Town. What… So if Old… If F passes, they build, uh, apartments is it conceivable that they, somebody would do an underground parking structure or some sort of a high-rise parking like most little downtowns-

Bill Barnum: Communities? Yeah

Scott Hammond: … like Chi- Chico or-

Bill Barnum: Oh, I've been to, uh-

Scott Hammond: … Arcata or whatever

Bill Barnum: … been to Sonora.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Bill Barnum: Sonora in the foothills has a beautiful parking garage downtown.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And it's brick and concrete with hanging gardens.

Scott Hammond: Is that unheard of? I mean, what would-

Bill Barnum: No, it just, we don't have that kind of thoughtful planning.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Um-

Scott Hammond: Who would fund it? Is that a city-funded deal?

Bill Barnum: Well, gosh darn it, you're gonna make me tell you another story.

Bill Barnum: So-

Scott Hammond: Please do, by all means.

Bill Barnum: When I was, when I was 30 years old, uh, I was introduced to a company in the city, San Francisco-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … called Pancow Builders.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: And we put together a proposal. I went to the county and I said, "You own the health building on the corner of," what is that,

Bill Barnum: "6th and I."

Scott Hammond: Correct, yeah.

Bill Barnum: "The rest of the block is parking."

Scott Hammond: A lot of parking.

Bill Barnum: "So," I said, "here's my proposal. Pancow and I will do a joint venture. Here's the joint venture. You give us the property for a dollar. We'll tear down your health building. We will build a 476-car parking

Bill Barnum: garage-"

Scott Hammond: Wow

Bill Barnum: "… atop of which we will build a floor for your sheriff."

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: "We'll then build two floors for your jail. We'll have 400 cells, and every cell will have a concrete wall with a metal plate in it. We can bolt a bunk into the wall-"

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Bill Barnum: "… and you can have a person, so you have 400 beds."

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: "But we'll design it so that it's large enough to have two beds, so you have 800 beds."

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: "And then we can make a deal with the sheriff and the State of California Department of Corrections to take their least dangerous people and house them here-"

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: "… back," this is 40 years ago-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … "for $38 a night-"

Scott Hammond: Wow

Bill Barnum: "… per person. And the revenue stream from that housing, making it a hotel, would run the entire sheriff's budget-"

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: "… completely. Atop that, we would have a floor for the DA, a floor for the public defender-"

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: "… and 12 courtrooms."

Scott Hammond: 12?

Bill Barnum: 12 courtrooms.

Scott Hammond: How many do we have now?

Bill Barnum: I don't have the number.

Scott Hammond: It's pretty low.

Bill Barnum: Maybe six or seven or something.

Scott Hammond: Half dozen.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And then the top floor I would own and rent out to lawyers.

Scott Hammond: 'cause they should be on top.

Bill Barnum: So, well, we got the best view.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: So, so here's the dealio. This deal was 100% financeable with a life insurance company.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

Bill Barnum: 100% financeable. And so they would simply pay rent for 20 years-

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh

Bill Barnum: … pay off the purchase, it's a rent-to-own.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: 20 years later, they'd own the building except the top floor.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: You know what they did instead?

Scott Hammond: Built the jail.

Bill Barnum: Built the jail. You knew the punchline of the story.

Scott Hammond: For a jillion dollars.

Bill Barnum: And-

Scott Hammond: And it looks like a sore you-know-what.

Bill Barnum: And, and they never-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … they never paved the parking lot.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: They never-

Scott Hammond: Go by there today.

Bill Barnum: That pa-

Scott Hammond: Still dirt

Bill Barnum: … parking lot's still not paved.

Scott Hammond: After how many years?

Bill Barnum: Close to 40.

Scott Hammond: Dang. And the things that I saw.

Bill Barnum: Oh, my God.

Scott Hammond: What do they call it? The Pink Hilton?

Bill Barnum: I've heard worse.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Funny story. My State Farm office, the Panoche building was located

Scott Hammond: over there.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, it was, on J.

Scott Hammond: You're a h- historian. You would know.

Bill Barnum: I was in that building.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Oh, you were?

Bill Barnum: There was a law firm in it.

Scott Hammond: I did not know that.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh. Where it is now we're at?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: 7th and G?

Bill Barnum: No, no, over in, uh, on J Street.

Scott Hammond: Before it got moved.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: They shut 101 down on a Sunday and hauled that thing over.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Gold-

Bill Barnum: Cool building

Scott Hammond: … Goldan and whoever else. B- Joe Frazier, maybe.

Bill Barnum: Joe Frazier.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Nice guy.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Liked both those guys. Well, that's a great story. So, uh, three big things-

Bill Barnum: Didn't happen. Didn't happen

Scott Hammond: … so we, we caught at least one big thing in your life that's history.

Bill Barnum: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Two, you mentioned, uh, family and church.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I think that came through. Um, w- what are you passionate about there?

Bill Barnum: Whoa. Well, I met Monica, uh, at mass, and

Bill Barnum: so I, uh, uh, you're asking about my heart, so.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, absolutely.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. It's j-

Scott Hammond: Is that okay?

Bill Barnum: Oh, it's fabulous.

Scott Hammond: It's it's, it's where you live.

Bill Barnum: It's, it's everything.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. And your wife seems super nice. I, I d- I barely know her, but.

Bill Barnum: Well, she's long-suffering, but she's very nice.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. She tolerates you, so there's, there's something.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. She's the 12th of 13 children.

Scott Hammond: Is that right?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Are they Catholic?

Bill Barnum: You think. The Cruz family. Love the family.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh. The local Cruz family?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Okay. The Cruz plumbers?

Bill Barnum: Yeah, that's, uh, yeah, her brother Dan was in that biz.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Bill Barnum: Great family.

Scott Hammond: Small world, isn't it?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Really small. And that's Portuguese.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: For Azores?

Bill Barnum: No, mainland.

Scott Hammond: Oh, how about that?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: 'Cause most everybody in Ferndale, Arcata's Azores, right?

Bill Barnum: That's right. Azorean.

Scott Hammond: Azorean.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Haven't heard that one.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Are you Azorean, Nick?

Bill Barnum: I don't know. We come from out there, too, but I'm not sure. Somewhere out there.

Scott Hammond: Somewhere out there. You know, he, he's right. The islands, uh, let me show you on my map.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Your prop.

Scott Hammond: The, uh, the islands are 500 miles offshore from Portugal.

Bill Barnum: It's a boat ride.

Scott Hammond: It's a, it's a big boat ride.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I had no idea the Az… I thought they'd just be Catalina. They're, like, way out there.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. I haven't been there yet. Been to the mainland.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Oh, I bet it's gorgeous.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, we went to the little village of Arelo.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: R, uh, A-R-E-H-L-O, Arelo.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And, uh, it's fascinating. It was on a little knoll, sort of like, um, Humboldt Hill-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … not quite as steep, over, uh, a bay. They called it a lagoa.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And then the Atlantic Ocean with the waves breaking on a spit like Samoa. I mean, it was eerie how similar the view was.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: And, um, so the, um, great-grandfather came over, uh, first, which was common.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And then while he was gone, uh, the great pandemic of 1918 hit, and he lost-

Scott Hammond: Oh, wow

Bill Barnum: … he lost a child during that.

Scott Hammond: Oh, geez.

Bill Barnum: So his wife had to stay, bury the child, and eventually came and joined here and made more babies.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's, yeah. I,

Scott Hammond: like, the, the joke in my family is we have nine kids, and I, I say I'm Mormon, and she's Catholic.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That's, neither are true, but it's kind of funny.

Bill Barnum: Opposites attract, I guess.

Scott Hammond: I guess, I guess that would be true. Uh, wanna talk about Barnum and Barnum family and lumber and, can we go there?

Bill Barnum: Well, yeah, a little bit. Um, the, um, I like telling my grandfather's story because he was, uh, he was born… Well, even better than that. Um, my great-grandmother, who I knew, um, was born in San Francisco and left in an orphanage.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: And a local judge here, um, back in those days, in 1880, they had a superior court judge, and they had, um, a justice court judge, and then he was a police judge.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: So police judge dealt with the, the bums and the petty thieves and so forth. So that was-

Scott Hammond: Like you see on TV, the guy, the night court.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, the night… Yeah, it was, it was busy for Judge Dixon.

Bill Barnum: But anyway-

Bill Barnum: … we have a manifest that he and a friend, male friend, uh, took the Pomona, the steamer Pomona to San Francisco, picked up an infant female, my great-grandmother-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: … brought her back around Cape Mendocino. No mention of a wet nurse. Don't know how you take a months-old baby back around Cape Mendocino.

Scott Hammond: Whoa.

Bill Barnum: Raised her to age 17.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: So, um, things were different in 1897.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'll say.

Bill Barnum: Little, little different.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Horse, horse-drawn isn't-

Scott Hammond: This is your grandmother now.

Bill Barnum: Great-grandmother.

Scott Hammond: Great-grand. Okay.

Bill Barnum: So she was, uh, courted very briefly by a young man from

Bill Barnum: Astoria.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: They married, and my grandfather was born. Unfortunately, my biological great-grandfather had, um, some character flaws-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

Bill Barnum: … including the wet one.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: So he, uh, got a little abusive, and she said goodbye.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: Came back to Eureka and married Fred Barnum.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: So her, my grandfather was born Charles Robert Brown.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And he became Charles Robert Barnum.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: He had a, a exciting childhoodUm, she had two other children with, with Fred. Uh, three actually. One passed away. And Charlie, uh, was ambitious, so at the age of 12, uh, right after school let out, first week of June, he hopped the freight and went to Fort Seward

Scott Hammond: Which is So- SoHum.

Bill Barnum: SoHum on the main stem of the Eel.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Bill Barnum: This is before 1914. We don't have the-

Scott Hammond: Right, right over there on the map.

Bill Barnum: Yes.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, so-

Bill Barnum: Right down there

Scott Hammond: … you can see it from here.

Bill Barnum: Right there on the map. So he wrote his mother a letter, and we have the letter, and it's in perfect cursive. "Dearest Mother,"

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: "I will be spending the summer at the so-and-so family truck farm here in Fort Seward. Uh, I arrive by train. I'll return, um, the Monday, Labor Day, to return to school in the fall."

Scott Hammond: Have a great day.

Bill Barnum: 12 years old.

Scott Hammond: 12. So-

Bill Barnum: 12 years old

Scott Hammond: … what was he doing? Was he working in lumber?

Bill Barnum: He worked, he worked the truck farm.

Scott Hammond: What does that mean?

Bill Barnum: Well, corn, radishes-

Scott Hammond: Okay

Bill Barnum: … carrots, you know.

Scott Hammond: A truck farm.

Bill Barnum: A truck… You've heard the expression?

Scott Hammond: I, I, barely.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I'm from Iowa. I should know that.

Bill Barnum: Well, you guys had ginormous farms.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Out here they're truck farms.

Scott Hammond: There's a, there-

Bill Barnum: Think of-

Scott Hammond: … combine farms.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Here, here you think about, uh, you know, the tradition at, uh, Red Crest and Shively and, uh-

Scott Hammond: Oh, the corn

Bill Barnum: … Pepperwood.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, those are truck farms.

Scott Hammond: So he just was a-

Bill Barnum: The folks that come down here, uh, for the, you know, the farmers' markets.

Scott Hammond: Will you tell me that at CR, that you go to CR and you get, you score at the farmers' market on Tuesday?

Bill Barnum: I,

Bill Barnum: I-

Scott Hammond: Somebody was telling me about that.

Bill Barnum: Wasn't me, but yeah.

Scott Hammond: They said it was amazing.

Bill Barnum: Oh, it is amazing. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: They go down there and they, they have, you know, boxes of beautiful tomatoes and-

Bill Barnum: Oh yeah, they do that, uh-

Scott Hammond: … corn

Bill Barnum: … Tuesday in Old Town, Thursday Henderson Center, and it's really part of our

Bill Barnum: culture.

Scott Hammond: Well, there's that one, yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Hammond: This, this is actually specific to CR.

Bill Barnum: Ah.

Scott Hammond: I don't know. We'll have to look that up.

Bill Barnum: So Charlie, 12 years old, did that. He came back, and of course, he finished Eureka High and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … went off to the Navy in peace time.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: And, uh, uh, this is in the '20s.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: After World War I, before World War II, and he was a prizefighter.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: So he got so good that the admiral in the South Pacific would arrange his fights. So he would go from island to island in peace time in the South Pacific and just knock people out.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: So I asked my dad about this.

Scott Hammond: He's good at it.

Bill Barnum: "What, what was his technique?" And he said, "Well, your grandfather, he would just jab, jab, jab, jab. He'd jab a guy 30, 40 times. Pretty soon all the guy's looking for is the jab, and he gives him a right cross and knocks him out."

Scott Hammond: He's finished.

Bill Barnum: One shot.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: So that's a good story.

Scott Hammond: Scrapper.

Bill Barnum: So he comes back, uh, in the late '20s and, uh, starts his family. Um, my dad was born in 1927. My grandfather was the Oldsmobile Willys-Knight dealer.

Scott Hammond: Willys-Knight. Is Willys-Knight a, a brand or is that two brands?

Bill Barnum: It was Willys-Knight hyphenated, and then later Willys Jeep.

Bill Barnum: Right?

Scott Hammond: Here, here in Eureka?

Bill Barnum: Here in Eureka. He was an Oldsmobile Willys-Knight dealer.

Bill Barnum: He was-

Scott Hammond: What was, what was the dealership called?

Bill Barnum: Uh, I don't know that.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: I just knew it… That's the history I've heard is-

Scott Hammond: But Oldsmobile, you don't think of-

Bill Barnum: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … that car anymore.

Bill Barnum: No. Or-

Scott Hammond: You know, Willys, I barely know what that is.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: World War II.

Bill Barnum: So he, uh, he was in the business until

Bill Barnum: 1932.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Went broke.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Scott Hammond: Depression.

Bill Barnum: Had a family of four children.

Scott Hammond: Phew.

Bill Barnum: Broke.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Scary times.

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah.

Bill Barnum: So he went into Old Town. There used to be a print shop there, Lambert McKeown Print Shop.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: He made up 500 business cards, "Charles R. Barnum, timber broker."

Scott Hammond: What, but was-

Bill Barnum: He invented himself.

Scott Hammond: Of course he was.

Bill Barnum: Of course he was.

Scott Hammond: Of course he was.

Bill Barnum: It's on the card.

Scott Hammond: It's right-

Bill Barnum: It's right there.

Scott Hammond: It's, "Look at my card."

Bill Barnum: See?

Scott Hammond: "It proves it."

Bill Barnum: There you go.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: So we had no Department of Real Estate. There wasn't licensure in 1932.

Scott Hammond: Timber broker.

Bill Barnum: Timber broker. And he had been raised by Fred Barnum to understand the ins and outs of the timber industry.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: He had learned how to survey,

Bill Barnum: land survey.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: He learned how to cruise timber, forest mensuration. Go out into a forest, how many board feet are in this stand per acre?

Scott Hammond: Right.

Bill Barnum: All of that. So he-

Scott Hammond: Whole science

Bill Barnum: … all of that. So he had an open car. You know the expression?

Scott Hammond: He, he… Meaning his office was in his car?

Bill Barnum: He had a car but it had no roof.

Scott Hammond: Oh, okay.

Bill Barnum: It wasn't a convertible. It was just an open car.

Scott Hammond: Huh. Not a convertible.

Bill Barnum: Just an open car.

Scott Hammond: In Humboldt.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Hey-

Scott Hammond: I guess you had to look-

Bill Barnum: Remember-

Scott Hammond: … see how thick the trees were

Bill Barnum: … remember he was broke.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: He was broke. So my dad was five years old, and he went with his father all through southern Humboldt, stopping at every homestead.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: "Welcome. Hi, I'm Charlie Barnum. Here's my card. You need any help brokering your timber-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: … call me in Eureka."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Three-digit phone number.

Scott Hammond: Right. Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And that's how he got into the business.

Scott Hammond: What did they call that, an extension? They called it the, uh-

Bill Barnum: Phew.

Scott Hammond: The old, the old phone number had a name.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So that's how he got into timber business.

Scott Hammond: That's funny. So, so people would wanna cash in on their land and say,

Scott Hammond: "Let's-"

Bill Barnum: Or sell their timber, yeah.

Scott Hammond: "Let's get this out of here," and…

Bill Barnum: So he got into that business, and he was really excellent at it. He picked up a large tract. He represented a large tract between Garberville and Whitethorn.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And it belonged to a company in, um, Pennsylvania.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: Warren, Pennsylvania. Warren Land & Timber.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: And, um, it's interesting. There's a whole curious history about, um, the turn of that last century.

Bill Barnum: Um, you heard of the Manhattan Club in Manhattan?

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Rockefellers?

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: The Melons,

Bill Barnum: Carnegies?

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: And these folks, the Warren Timber people, they all socialized.

Scott Hammond: They hung out.

Bill Barnum: And they agreed, "We're gonna go buy redwood timberland."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: That's how we get the Rockefeller Forest.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: All happened in the turn of the century.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: So they had this large tract, about 20,000 acres, but, um, it was sort of lateDepression era, '30 to

Bill Barnum: '36 to '40-

Scott Hammond: Mm

Bill Barnum: … before World War II. And so they paid Charlie commissions when he would sell 40 acres, 80 acres, 120, whatever it was. And they developed a relationship all by mail.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: All by mail. Phone calls were expensive, so everything was done by business mail.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: We have all those records. It's fascinating.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: So they finally said, "You know, we're doing this piecemeal. We'd be happy to sell you the whole tract, Charlie."

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: He says, "Well, I'll come see you." So he did a planes, trains, and automobiles

Bill Barnum: trip-

Scott Hammond: He flew back, yeah

Bill Barnum: … to Warren, Pennsylvania.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Got his contract and acquired it. And then, of course, World War II ended.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: And then we had our timber boom.

Scott Hammond: Right. Right.

Bill Barnum: And so that's how Charlie got into that.

Scott Hammond: Built a lot of homes after World War II.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. So we've been in the timber business since the '30s.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: With that-

Bill Barnum: Grandfather, my father

Scott Hammond: Did it start with that tract, and then he bought others from there?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So as he's profitable… So this guy was a hustler.

Bill Barnum: He was a worker bee.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh. Wow. And just expanded the, the es- the, the estate.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, my dad did a lot of that. Um, my dad was very active, uh, beginning in '66 with Ronald Reagan.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: He was campaign chairman up here. Um, Reagan had an informal group of business people in '65 and '66 called his Kitchen Cabinet.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: You heard that expression?

Scott Hammond: Sure, yeah.

Bill Barnum: Bob, my dad, was in that group.

Bill Barnum: And, um, we had Reagan at our home twice for fundraisers up here.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Yeah. It was a neat part of my-

Scott Hammond: Huh

Bill Barnum: … my teen years, and parents got to go to three conventions, and-

Scott Hammond: That's cool

Bill Barnum: … really, yeah, they, they really enjoyed that time.

Scott Hammond: Had lunch with a fella that was, that persuaded Reagan to run.

Bill Barnum: Really?

Scott Hammond: He was a g- a guy up here. He's on, um… I forget his name and how he was associated with Ron and Nancy, but he was in their home in, um, Santa Barbara, wherever-

Bill Barnum: Yeah, or Encinasas, yeah

Scott Hammond: … wherever they lived, and, and, um, he was active in saying, "Y- you got this. You, you, you can make a run." And he, he tipped, he tipped him over and, and he ran and won.

Bill Barnum: Cool.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Well, yeah, 'cause he ran for governor in '66-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … against Pat Brown, Edmund Pat Brown.

Scott Hammond: And he won.

Bill Barnum: Beat him by a million votes.

Scott Hammond: Did he win or lo- Oh, he beat him. That's right.

Bill Barnum: Beat him by a million votes, and then won again in '70.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Bill Barnum: He almost got the presidential nomination in '76.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Um, at that convention, it was the Kansas delegation that, uh, caucused late 'cause they were gonna be the break even.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

Bill Barnum: And they gave it to, uh, Ford.

Scott Hammond: Oh, they… Okay.

Bill Barnum: Who, who ran against Jimmy Carter.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Bill Barnum: Loser.

Scott Hammond: And, and Jimmy turned out to be a okay guy. So tell me this. What, what do you see as our challenges and opportunities for the county going forward? In, in your mind, what are the top things that come to mind?

Bill Barnum: Well, the beautiful thing is that we are still living behind the Redwood

Bill Barnum: Curtain.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Um, we still have this amazing gift of forest

Bill Barnum: lands. Um, you know, we're 3,600 square miles,

Bill Barnum: um, temperate rainforest. It's, um, it's an amazing gift to the community that we have this available.

Bill Barnum: Um, we don't have the economic diversity that we used to have. We used to have– Well, when I was a youngster, we had 300 sawmills.

Scott Hammond: Right.

Bill Barnum: Now we're down to about five or six. So it's pretty marginal, and our market forces are not real market

Bill Barnum: forces.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: You wanna have 10 to 15 bidders if you're selling

Bill Barnum: logs.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

Bill Barnum: We don't really have that. But we have families like the Schmidbauer family making significant tens of million dollars investments.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: There's a new, uh, investor from Seattle coming down who's gonna be investing tens of millions of dollars. So the resources here, my dad liked to share– My dad was on the State Board of Forestry in the '70s. He was very knowledgeable about this industry, and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … he likes to say that there's more standing timber in Humboldt County today than there was in 1900.

Scott Hammond: Wow. Huh. In terms of board feet?

Bill Barnum: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: There are more stems per acre because when you cut a redwood tree-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … you get stump sprouts.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: So you get more stems, but the total volume of standing timber, especially on the commercial forest lands, is more than it was in

Bill Barnum: 1900.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh. That's a lot.

Bill Barnum: So it's an amazing resource.

Scott Hammond: That's, you know, and we, we need to utilize it as such.

Bill Barnum: Well, we just have to manage it for sustained yield-

Scott Hammond: Well-

Bill Barnum: … which has been what we've done.

Scott Hammond: Pelco did a pretty good job with that, right?

Bill Barnum: Pelco did a good job. Uh, Hurwitz did not.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Hurwitz was a looter, and, you know, that's part of the risk in this business. You get-

Scott Hammond: He was a looter

Bill Barnum: … people come in and loot.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Um,

Bill Barnum: the, um, folks at HRC, MRC, I think do a better job of managing, uh, their lands. Um, and, uh, Green Diamond does a fabulous job.

Scott Hammond: They're, they're stellar, are they not?

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: My family's been, uh, investing in some of our Douglas fir forest lands. We've been– When we cut the Douglas fir, we're planting

Bill Barnum: redwood.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And the redwood is outperforming the fir.

Scott Hammond: How about that? Huh.

Bill Barnum: So that's part of what we hope to leave as a legacy is, uh, uh, we're expanding the realm of the redwood.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Like it. What was fun about practicing law, by the way? You got any, any good stories there?

Bill Barnum: Well, yeah.

Scott Hammond: How many years? 40?

Bill Barnum: Well, 43.

Scott Hammond: 43.

Bill Barnum: Well, it was, it was, it was fun because, like in your business, uh, every day is different.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: You don't know who's gonna call, you don't know who's gonna walk in. Um, you have to make judgments about what cases you take and which ones you

Bill Barnum: turn down.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: Um, I wasn't a great judge of some of my early cases, so I had some spectacular losses at jury trials because I- … led with my heart and not with my brain, but you sort of learn-

Scott Hammond: Sure

Bill Barnum: … by failure that maybe I shouldn't take that case.

Scott Hammond: That's, yep, that's how we learn.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. Uh, but I really enjoyed it. When I focused on real estate and litigation and real estate, I just really enjoyed the work every day.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Nice.Probably you've helped a lot of people in your, your day-

Bill Barnum: It was, it was tremendous, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. No, I love it. So let's talk about legacy and what you wanna be, uh, remembered for and, and, you know, who… Before we do that, we almost forgot to do the, the quiz show. So here we go.

Bill Barnum: Okay.

Scott Hammond: All right, Bill Barnum, for $100,000 and a candy bar, what's your, uh, you get to take Monica out to anywhere you wanna go in the county. Where do you go to dinner?

Bill Barnum: Well, we go to several places.

Bill Barnum: Let's see. We used to love Oberon.

Scott Hammond: Oberon, yeah.

Bill Barnum: We do, um, Campground, we do 511.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: We do, um, Moonstone Grill.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

Bill Barnum: Do Larapin.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: Don't get to Larapin as often as we'd like 'cause it's a bit of a trip.

Scott Hammond: Journey.

Bill Barnum: Uh, journey. Uh, Benbow Inn.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. Just-

Scott Hammond: Benbow's terrific.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, we have wonderful choices here.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, that's true. Okay, question two. You get to go to Out for Coffee, and you get anything you wanna drink. Where do you, where do you go?

Bill Barnum: Well, uh, I am a mocha, uh, fetishist. I just have to have my coconut milk mocha.

Scott Hammond: Coconut milk?

Bill Barnum: Coconut milk.

Scott Hammond: That's the first I've heard of that.

Bill Barnum: Well, I'll tell you why.

Scott Hammond: I like a coconut mocha.

Bill Barnum: Uh, so I've been married with, with Monica 19 years and, you know, you go through your health studies and your blood test stuff, and she goes, "You know, you've got some lipid problems here. Maybe you should change from cow's milk on your mochas and get coconut milk." And she's very bright, and I said, "I'll give it a try."

Scott Hammond: And it's good.

Bill Barnum: So I did it for a year and took my blood test, and my HDL, the high density lipoproteins, tripled.

Scott Hammond: It tripled?

Bill Barnum: Tripled.

Scott Hammond: Are those the good ones?

Bill Barnum: That's the good ones. That's the hard density stuff. So go to the internist and get an exam. He goes, "What happened here?" I said, "Coconut milk mochas. Dark chocolate, coconut milk, little caffeine."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: He goes, "With that ratio, you can't have heart disease."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: So I says, "Let's keep it going." The next year, tripled HDL, kept that good number.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

Bill Barnum: So there you go. That's the hint of the day.

Scott Hammond: There's a coconut milk, folks.

Bill Barnum: Get, get-

Scott Hammond: Brought to you by the Coconut Milk and-

Bill Barnum: Yeah. Get rid of the cow's milk

Scott Hammond: … Association.

Bill Barnum: We're not calves.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's a, that's a good tip.

Bill Barnum: There you go.

Scott Hammond: I like that.

Bill Barnum: So jitter bean, OTC and C.

Scott Hammond: I never asked this one. Here we go. Where do you go for a cocktail, and what do you have?

Bill Barnum: Well, golly, um-

Scott Hammond: Or a drink, a drink of any sort.

Bill Barnum: Any of the places I mentioned where I can get a cocktail.

Bill Barnum: I-

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, it's sort of, I… For a long time, I liked, uh, Bombay gin martinis. Sort of got away from that. Last year, I got into, uh, Manhattans.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: I got tired of the cherries, so I get Manhattans without cherries and, you know, this time of year, sort of like a, a gin and tonic or something, but yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, something light.

Bill Barnum: Yeah, I'm just… I enjoy a drink, but I don't, I'm, I'm not doing many.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Well, men of our age, yeah, advanced maturity.

Bill Barnum: Man.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Well, good job. So-

Bill Barnum: Well, you asked about, uh, this question you love to ask people about your legacy and all this stuff. I-

Scott Hammond: Yeah, tell us-

Bill Barnum: … got a ready answer for you.

Scott Hammond: I'm ready. What, what would you like to be remembered for?

Bill Barnum: Scott, nobody cares. Nobody cares.

Scott Hammond: That's a good answer, actually.

Bill Barnum: No, really, just so I looked it up. I was born in 1954.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: I'm already on borrowed time.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Born in '54, 66.7 years. I'm 3.3

Bill Barnum: in. I'm in, I'm in the, the lightning round, you know?

Bill Barnum: I just-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

Bill Barnum: … I'm getting extra years.

Scott Hammond: When you say 3.3, what does that mean?

Bill Barnum: 66.7 plus 3.3, 70.

Scott Hammond: Yeah?

Bill Barnum: Yeah. So I'm on overtime already.

Scott Hammond: Well, your average lifespan according to the life tables is probably 82 or 3.

Bill Barnum: Now.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. I checked that. I'll be 85, 86, so I got 15, 16 years if I take care of myself, right?

Scott Hammond: Well, keep that coconut milk going.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, keep-

Bill Barnum: But really, honestly-

Scott Hammond: Buy those mochas

Bill Barnum: … I love history, love family history.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: Um, my, my mom's dad, um, great stories. Didn't really get to know him much. He lived in New Jersey.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Um, had other family m- Dr. Reuben Gross built the Gross Building at Fifth and

Bill Barnum: F.

Scott Hammond: Sure, sure.

Bill Barnum: Wonderful guy.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Obviously never knew him.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

Bill Barnum: Um, people in this county, you know, the, the famous Isaac Minor and,

Bill Barnum: uh-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … Hans Bohner.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Uh, we know them as just historic figures, and we can read about them in books, but we don't know who they were.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Really, we don't know anything about these people.

Scott Hammond: Hans Bohner. Not Hans-

Bill Barnum: Hans Bohner

Scott Hammond: … not Boon, not Bohner.

Bill Barnum: Not Bohner.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

Bill Barnum: Not B-O-O-N-E-R. No, Bohner.

Scott Hammond: It's not Gentoli. Or is it, or is it Gwintoli in Arcata?

Bill Barnum: It's Gentoli.

Scott Hammond: Gentoli.

Bill Barnum: Gentoli.

Scott Hammond: I like that. Yeah, Isaac Minor, wonder, wonder what he… I know where he's buried.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. It's the mausoleum.

Scott Hammond: It's by the Catholic Church up there in, uh,

Scott Hammond: Arcata.

Bill Barnum: Greenwood, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Exactly.

Bill Barnum: He had a, um, um, granite quarry on West End Road.

Scott Hammond: Yes, he d- yes, he did.

Bill Barnum: The only coastal granite.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And he used it on the mausoleum.

Bill Barnum: 10, he spent $10,000 on his own

Bill Barnum: mausoleum.

Scott Hammond: In those dollars, in those days.

Bill Barnum: Think about it.

Scott Hammond: That's real dough.

Bill Barnum: Whew.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. It's kinda cool. I like going through graveyards looking at that stuff.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. I, I have, too.

Scott Hammond: A lot of history.

Bill Barnum: Uh, but no, I, I, I think that, um, I don't wanna be a person who is living my life to leave a legacy.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: That's not what I'm about.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

Bill Barnum: I, I hope I know where I'm going.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Sure.

Bill Barnum: So I'm looking forward, not backward.

Scott Hammond: That's good. That's good. A- and by doing so, you'll probably leave a great legacy, whatever, whatever that looks like.

Bill Barnum: Well, uh, who's the judge of it, right?

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Well, it's been over-talked about so much, you know, my legacy. So y- you will have a legacy of a, maybe not a mausoleum, but so what, what would you like the phrase to be on the, on the tombstone?

Bill Barnum: The epitaph?

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Uh, never thought of it. Um, maybe my name.

Scott Hammond: We, we wa-

Bill Barnum: Just-

Scott Hammond: We wanna identify the grave. "That's Bill."

Bill Barnum: "Here lies Bill."

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Okay.

Bill Barnum: "No longer lying." I don't know. Leave it up to others.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, that's fine.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Hey, what a pleasure. I'm really glad you're here.Yeah. Any parting shots? Anything you wanna leave, what you'd like to see happen,

Scott Hammond: um, for the county, for, for, uh, Eureka, for-

Bill Barnum: Well, you've got an idea from this visit. Um, I, I am, uh, I'm an old school conservative in this sense. I really believe, especially at the local level, that that government which governs least governs best.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: The planned economy that we have in California and the planning for regional housing needs allocation is just stupidity-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … in my opinion.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: It doesn't work.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: And if after 30 years it doesn't work, the solution isn't more planning.

Scott Hammond: More of the same.

Bill Barnum: It produces nothing.

Scott Hammond: The definition of insanity.

Bill Barnum: Eureka was 28,000 when I was a child.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: It's 26,000 today.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Bill Barnum: So somebody is not figuring it out.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: And, and frankly, it's also market forces and the freedom we have to live where we wanna live.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: People have– They, they filled up some of the rural areas in the county. You know, um, McKinleyville was up, is up to 17,000 now.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, we're full.

Bill Barnum: It was probably 5,000 in 1960. There's 12,000 more souls.

Scott Hammond: Maybe, yeah, yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. So-

Scott Hammond: Good point. Rio Dell's bigger.

Scott Hammond: Fortuna's-

Bill Barnum: Marginally, you know.

Scott Hammond: Fortuna must be bigger.

Bill Barnum: Fortuna's, what is it, about 15 rather than 10?

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. So-

Scott Hammond: A little bit

Bill Barnum: … but it really hasn't changed the character. I mean, it's still, the, the drive to McKinleyville is still 25 minutes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: The drive to Fortuna is 18 minutes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: So people can pick and choose where they wanna live, but they're not– We don't have

Bill Barnum: an influx.

Scott Hammond: Yeah,

Scott Hammond: yeah.

Bill Barnum: Without the influx- … we don't have the means to build the infrastructure and the

Bill Barnum: lots-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … and thus we can't find places to build.

Scott Hammond: So where do– Uh, no one's ever addressed this, just real quick-

Bill Barnum: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … parting shot there.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So where does that leave us if we're going backwards? What, what does backward-

Bill Barnum: You covered it. You covered it

Scott Hammond: … and that's it. What does that look like? It looks like depleted services-

Bill Barnum: Uh, absolutely

Scott Hammond: … poverty-

Bill Barnum: Uh-

Scott Hammond: … more crime.

Bill Barnum: Healthcare problems, you know.

Bill Barnum: Um, Providence St. Joe's has that, uh, new residency program that we all ought to be supporting.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

Bill Barnum: Um, they had hoped to put together, I think, three graduates in the first class. I think they came up with seven or eight.

Scott Hammond: Destination Humboldt, yeah.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: We wanna keep these pe- We wanna encourage them to come, learn and stay. At least if we keep-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

Bill Barnum: … half of them over time, that'd be a real boost.

Scott Hammond: It's a great program.

Bill Barnum: Wonderful.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Uh, we're losing labor and delivery. It's too expensive.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Mad River's done.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Redwood Memorial.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Finished.

Bill Barnum: These are very scary things.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah, they're-

Bill Barnum: And there just aren't a lot of us.

Scott Hammond: So there's markers of toxicity, if you will, re-retraction, if you

Scott Hammond: will.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Scary thoughts, yeah. I, um, on that note-

Scott Hammond: … Oh, it's been a pleasure. Hey, before you go, on that note-

Bill Barnum: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … uh, you are the winner because your answers were so, uh, uh, spot on.

Bill Barnum: Has anybody ever lost? Did we all get candy?

Scott Hammond: Well, you're the first to actually.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: A Dick Taylor, uh, Bay Leaf bar, uh, made here in, in Old Town

Scott Hammond: Eureka.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Handmade.

Bill Barnum: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Um-

Bill Barnum: Adam, Dick and Justin Taylor, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Great people.

Scott Hammond: Yep, yep.

Bill Barnum: Entrepreneurs.

Scott Hammond: Du-Dustin.

Bill Barnum: Dustin.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

Bill Barnum: Not Justin.

Scott Hammond: That's okay.

Bill Barnum: Dustin. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Oh, they're great guys.

Bill Barnum: Close.

Scott Hammond: They just won a, an award, uh, for their, uh, Tanzania chocolate.

Bill Barnum: Wow.

Scott Hammond: Tanzania bar somewhere. I think it was Se- I don't know where. Where were you guys? Seattle, somewhere.

Bill Barnum: Yeah. 72% dark.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. You like chocolate.

Bill Barnum: Oh, dark chocolate.

Scott Hammond: I gotta try that coconut mocha, man. I'm gonna do that. Hey, before you go, uh, I wanna remind people, uh, this is the first time I've ever remind, reminded anyone of anything. Uh, listen next week 'cause I got somebody amazing coming, and also subscribe on to my podcast on any of the podcast platforms. Uh, YouTube, we're on YouTube. Just look under Google me, Scott Hammond, 100% Humboldt, and, uh, you can find us there. We'd love you to subscribe to our, our, our channel, of course. And, uh, by the way, uh, major awards for those that subscribe between now and the end of the year,

Scott Hammond: gift cards, dancers, the whole nine. You're gonna get a, an award, so we'll, we'll put you in a, a, a bucket for that. In the meantime, 100% Humboldt. Don't warn me.

Bill Barnum: Entertaining. That was fun.

Scott Hammond: You are, um, you're an amazing dude. Thank you for being here.

Bill Barnum: Glad to do it.

Scott Hammond: Appreciate it.