1ST DISTRICT DEBATE TODAY
Topics to include road repairs, donors, homelessness, climate crisis plans
Incumbent Rex Bohn and lone challenger Cliff Berkowitz will meet today at the Mattole Grange in Petrolia at their first debate in the race to represent the 1st District on Humboldt County's Board of Supervisors.
Bohn, who served as board chairman in 2019, is pursuing his third term in office in the upcoming March 3 primary election.
The forum is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. (doors open for dinner an hour before) and will follow a standard back-and-forth debate format. Moderator Michael Evenson will ask the candidates questions already submitted by Mattole Valley residents, before looking to the audience for follow-up questions on each issue covered.
“(The questions) range from road repair to questions about, ‘How influenced will you be by large donors?'” Evenson said on Monday. “We'll also have questions about the homeless population and how we're going to tackle that. Climate change, as well, will come up.”
In addition to the Mattole Valley, the 1st District includes unincorporated areas south of Eureka and in the Eel River Valley, including the city of Ferndale and the town of Scotia.
Reached Monday, Bohn said his candidate platform hasn't changed across two terms: “Humboldt County is open for business!” he said, echoing his mantra of fostering local jobs and industry.
“I'm also talking about working with the homeless,” Bohn said. “I was instrumental in getting (philanthropist Betty Kwan Chinn's) village up and running. I've done the work.”
Although election season has been underway for several weeks, Bohn said he held off campaigning during the holidays, wanting to avoid “having a ‘Vote For Rex' poster next to a nativity scene on someone's lawn.”
Bohn did spend the early weeks of December throwing the annual Eureka Truckers Parade, an event that faced cancellation but which Bohn revived to great fanfare.
Berkowitz has never held elected office, but has worked in the public eye for decades as a DJ on the local radio station KHUM. He quit his station job in November to avoid breaking the federal “equal time” rule for political candidates.
In a brief Monday interview, Berkowitz said he's taking a platform of road repairs and impending sea level rise into today's debate.
“The roads are almost impassable, they're in such deplorable condition,” Berkowitz said. “The reality is, my opponent claims this is an important issue for him as well, but he's been in office eight years and I don't see any improvement in the roads. In fact, they've gotten worse.”
During last month's climactic Board of Supervisors hearings over a failed proposal to build wind turbines on the Bear River and Monument ridges, the two candidates took opposing stances: Berkowitz, in public comment, argued against the controversial project, while Bohn voted for it.
Evenson said several questions in today's debate are about making decisions on controversial issues — clear reference, he said, to the wind project. He
called the debate an important opportunity for the candidates to hear directly from their constituents, including Mattole residents.
“This is participatory democracy,” Evenson said. “We need as much of it as we can muster, because whoever wins is going to be held to what they said in these debates.”