Remarks by Natalie Arroyo
81 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 4
I just want to make a comment on an item. I don't want to pull it.
I just want to appreciate our new library services director for serving on the Access Humboldt board. I thought that was really cool to see Director Scott immediately jumping in.
You can even undo the velvet rope. Is that right, Chair?
It's clear that the people you work with and the people you serve have really appreciated you. And it's great to hear about your meaningful career. And you look dapper as heck. So I hope you have a wonderful retirement. And thank you for dedicating so much of your life to public service.
Well, thank you. This is a new unveiling of process to pull all the items that we're gonna read. So thanks for bearing with me while I just thought we were gonna go in the regular order. All right, so we will have the folks here to receive the Paso a Paso proclamation. Please feel welcome to come forward while I read it and come on up to the podium. It's great to see you all here today. All right. This is in honor of the 25th anniversary of Paso a Paso, whereas Paso a Paso was established in 2001 as a community benefit program at St. Joseph Hospital to address critical gaps in culturally and…
We'll take it that way so that everyone's fine.
Well, I'll just echo that. Thank you so much. It's really exciting what you do and the word I stumbled on, the promotores, is just because there was a little typo. The work of being trusted community health information providers who build up that knowledge is such a powerful tool to be able to reach people in addition to all the the more medical side of things to have that bridge is so powerful. So I don't know if you knew that I was a pregnant Latino when you asked me to read this. But I think about being in the space of life has made me really think about the experiences that my family have…
You guys stay here, I'll take a picture of you guys. Stay here guys.
Thank you. I've been hearing a bit from folks in the medical field locally. I would say their holistic view of the data is not there, but people who have seen an uptick in instances of domestic violence requiring medical attention and have pointed it out as more of an observation. Again, I don't know what the data shows about change over time, but are you seeing increases or is it, I know we saw some changes to this during COVID, but are you observing anything kind of more big picture that you could share with us?
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for the work you do. I'm extraordinarily grateful for it and I know it's hard and unfortunately, there's still a lot of stigma. There are a lot of people who perceive survivors a certain way and have a lot of judgments around what people can or should be doing. And I know very personally how very complex it can be and how you really just need folks there to support you and believe you with whatever step you're in. So I'm grateful that you are there for folks to do that. And I encourage folks to... really think about any destigmatizing language they can use…
Thank you. It's a pleasure to hear about your service and hear from your family in this room today. It's wonderful that they have the chance to be here to acknowledge your service. And from one veteran to another, thank you. And I hope to get to 26 years myself. Thank you. I'm at almost 15 now, but yeah, it's quite an honor to be able to serve for a long time and to grow in your military career and how much it shapes your life. So I appreciate that and all that you, it sounds like you're doing after your service too.
Thanks, I'll happily speak to participation so far. The annual meeting and the legislative conference I have attended and will plan to continue to attend. I'm registered for the early December annual meeting, and I've been serving on the Housing, Land Use, and Transportation Committee as one of the co-chairs, as well as on the coastal counties. working group as one of the co-chairs. That one's been for a couple years, but I'm new this year to the Housing, Land Use, and Transportation Committee. And then I am due to have a baby in early 2027, but that'll be about three or four months before…
Thank you. It was helpful to meet with you and hear some more detail about all of this yesterday, but I really appreciate your work and tracking a lot of, there's a lot to track, so I'm sure you're stretched pretty thin. It was helpful also to kind of hear some of these expectations and strategies reiterated at Congressman Huffman's town hall that he held here in Humboldt last night, which I attended, and I just appreciated hearing your update and then his take on things in the same day. It was very informative. Thank you.
I know we haven't provided much direction on this matter yet, although you got a little bit that we wanted to see this item come forward. But are you aware of other example ordinances from other jurisdictions that might be a good template for this? I'm just wondering how heavy of a lift this is going to be.
Just to be clear though, so if someone completed an application for a conditional use permit and then we're going through the process on that, there would be a method for the community to weigh in and for us to evaluate the impacts and create conditions of approval and things like that, but it wouldn't prevent them from moving forward with an application if the project was if we didn't have some sideboards around what the appropriate criteria were, size, water usage, things like that for data centers. Would that still give us the opportunity to say this isn't really consistent with our…
Do you, in your professional experience, have concerns about the capacity for electrical or water infrastructure to support these uses?
I mean, just for the sake of seeing where we land, I'll move staff recommendation.
Could you repeat, sorry, you're a little quiet today, John. Could you repeat what that criteria was that you articulated?
Do you know offhand what the megawatt impact of the existing Arcata Center and the Hoopa Valley one are?
Okay. I'm just trying to get a sense of what kind of scale we're talking about there. I'm open to talking about that. I just kind of want to see where that is in the comparison, so I'm going to do some quick searching.
Thank you. OK, so a little very quick back of the napkin math around the existing facilities we have. The Hoopa data center megawatts I don't think has been publicly specified. And if it has, I just haven't been able to find it. Arcata's is half a megawatt capacity, and it takes up about 10,000 square feet. center that was proposed and talked about in the news, but again I'm relying on sort of local reporting for this, was proposed to be between four and eight megawatts and 30 to 50,000 square feet, which is, as we've learned, a pretty non impactful in my view warehouse size or comparable to…
With the criteria being that they generate their own power on-site, that is enough to... Renewable. Yes. That is enough to power 12,000 homes. So if they can do that, I will be impressed. But I think if we can get there together, I'm willing to make that amendment.
Does anyone know where Supervisor Bone is off to?
Well, I'm thrilled that we've gotten here and it has taken time to get the momentum of all the jurisdictions kind of together and I appreciate your role, Director Ford, in helping lead the way and making a commitment, budgeting for this and making it clear that we're ready and able to move forward. I think that leadership has been really important. I also really want to acknowledge the leadership of Beth Burks. She was the director at HCOG during the time when this was being considered for HCOG to do, and there was a little bit, Less movement on it when she when she left, but she did bring…
Oh my, do I ever. I would like to move approval of staff recommendation.