Protestors Call on Banks to Cut Fossil Fuel Industry Support

Arecent national day of protest by Third Act members urging banks, including local branches of Wells Fargo and CHASE Bank, to stop lending to and underwriting the fossil fuel industry, included a demonstration attended by around 60 people in Arcata.

Many attendees brought their bank cards to cut up in protest March 21, as well as submitted letters promising to remove their funds to the Wells Fargo and CHASE Bank corporate offices, according to protest co-organizer Valerie Gizinski, of Arcata.

The protestors gathered at 11th and G streets in Arcata in front of the Wells Fargo branch bank for a half hour of waving signs at passing traffic and singing protest songs before walking south on G

Street and across the plaza to Seventh and H streets in front of the CHASE Bank. The protesters reprised their public-awareness actions and sang for another half hour before Gizinski reminded attendees, in closing, of the potential impact of their actions to withdraw their resources from banks and to find greener credit cards and banks.

No bank representatives appeared at either location.

The organization, Third Act, was started by climate activist Bill McKibben and includes sustainable banking options and other information at its website at www. thirdact.org.

POSTED 03.28.23

— Mark Larson

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office has made an arrest in a 2018 shooting case that left a 47-year-old Trinity County man dead on State Route 36.

According to a press release, Matthew Gabriel Susmilch, 38, was arrested March 22 in the Mendocino County jail, where he is being held on unrelated charges, on suspicion of the murder of Anthony Joseph Calderone.

Calderone was found bleeding from the head in a pickup truck near mile marker 43 on State Route 36 east of Dinsmore just before 3 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2018, by deputies responding to a report of a car crash.

He was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. The truck had damage consistent with having been in a crash and a second vehicle that police said was «possibly involved» was later found on Van Duzen Road near Alton.

The press release from the sheriff’s office does not say what in the yearslong investigation led to Susmilch’s arrest. The release states he will be transported to Humboldt County to face charges of murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm “at a later date.”

POSTED 03.24.23

— Thadeus Greenson

McKinleyville’s Jeffrey Woodke has been reunited with his family and is expected to return home soon after being held hostage in Western Africa for more than six years before he was freed March 20.

According to a family, from the press release issued March 27, Woodke was in San Francisco with his wife, Els, and two sons, Robert and Matthew, receiving medical care but expected to return to Humboldt “in the coming days.”

“Mr. Woodke and his family would like to express their profound thanks and gratitude to all who have worked towards, prayed for and in any way encouraged

Jeff’s release,” said the press release. “They also express their thanks to President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and the U.S. government.”

Woodke, a graduate of Humboldt State University with deep ties to the Arcata First Baptist Church, had spent much of the last three decades doing aid work in Niger when, on Oct. 14, 2016, he was taken by armed gunmen near his home in Abalak.

The details of who held Woodke and why he was released remain murky.

POSTED 03.27.23

— Thadeus Greenson