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FOGGY "GREEN" CITY LACKS POLITICAL VISION
Ghent (707) 825-7088
Imagine a town with nearly as many Green Party voters as Republicans. Where a series of marshes treats wastewater biologically. Where a company called Sunfrost builds the most efficient refrigerators in the world. You're talking Arcata, California. This coastal college town just made national headlines as it became the first in the country to elect a Green Party majority to its city council. Nestled behind the "Redwood Curtain" 280 miles north of San Francisco, Arcata is best known for its large population of no-longer-hip "hippies" and its close proximity to The Emerald Triangle--the nation's notorious marijuana-growing region to the south.
But Arcata is a town of contrasts.
Logging and fishing once dominated Arcata, but unsustainable use of natural resources, combined with the rise of Humboldt State University, led the town in a different direction. Most of today's residents were drawn to Arcata by the college campus or the tolerant atmosphere it created. But most of the surrounding Humboldt County lacks Arcata's tolerance. Even Sheriff Dennis Lewis calls the town "the People's Republic of Arcata." And since much of Humboldt County surrounding the town has made anti-environmentalism a lifestyle, an island mentality pervades Arcata politics like the mixture of fog and pulp-mill emissions in the air. The progressives here traditionally were deemed such for their ability to refrain from saying anything overtly right wing and listen to people's opinions without getting hostile. If you recycle and take short showers you're a shoe-in for public office, as long as you also support "ecological" housing-development frauds, more police cars, and logging in the city-owned forest.
For the daring, bumpersticker piety replaces activism, while activists over 30 isolate themselves in the comfort of their particular franchise-like issues.
A small but vocal minority of conservatives finds its base of support in Arcata's business community, and the progressives always go out of their way to avoid offending them. In Arcata politics, nothing is worse than being yelled at by a room full of flag-wavers. Because business people and their allies--including many liberals--found the sight of homeless gathered in public places distasteful, the outgoing city council last year sued Food Not Bombs, a group that serves free food daily on the town square.
The mayor at the time, a self-described "progressive" named Victor Schaub, supported the lawsuit and even endorsed a right-winger, Carl "I'll-Come-After-You" Pellatz, in the recent election. Pellatz patronized and threatened those who opposed a "big box" retail store and an 800-unit housing development moving to town.
While the threat of a Taco Bell opening near Humboldt State University results in daily politically motivated vandalism against the franchise, several fast-food chains on the north side of town lie out of sight, mind and harm near Louisiana-Pacific's particle-board mill, where most progressives rarely travel.
The mainstream press touting Arcata as a modern-day Ecotopia won't mention that visitors find "Rush" Limbaugh bumper stickers on nearly as many vehicles as those sporting "Save Your Mother" and the like.
A small faction of residents even finds the latter sort of driver hypocritical, preferring to get around by bicycle or on foot. So it's no wonder that Arcata houses the Auto-Free Times, a quarterly magazine for those advocating alternatives to more roads and cars.
Perhaps for the first time nationally in the Age of the Automobile, Arcata's five-member city council boasts an auto-free majority, too. One Democrat owns is auto-free, while one Green is a bike nut who admits to occasionally using the family car.
Indeed, Arcata appears to be at a turning point. The new Green city council might occasionally sway from the overly cautious, defensive politics of the past. All three Green council members oppose the previous council's lawsuit against Food Not Bombs and intention to annex and develop nearly 200 acres of farmland. Surprisingly, the previous council supposedly also had a progressive majority--so recent and imminent debates are separating the genuine progressives from the phonies. So it seems progressive politics might move beyond innovative recycling, composting and wastewater treatment projects.
"I see this Green experiment as an opportunity for many changes," said seated Green councilman Jason Kirkpatrick. "I would like to maintain Arcata's small-town atmosphere by looking into banning large corporate chain retail establishments." Kirkpatrick also wants to address domestic partnership and build a youth center.
But don't expect radical change anytime soon.
"There's a lot of temptation to do things, but we're not about to block off four or five streets and say 'Walking only,'" said Bob Ornelas, a newly elected Green council member.
"I think the Green Party in Arcata has really become mainstream," added Kirkpatrick. "Arcata is different from the rest of the country. Everyone here knows organic food is good for you and that compost is okay."
When the new council elects a new mayor to replace the outgoing Pellatz, Kirkpatrick thinks the council will choose Democrat Jim Test over one of the three Greens.
"It would look fascistic if we just took over," Kirkpatrick said.
Randy Ghent is an environmental activist who has lived in Arcata since 1991