Town decides that green is its color
Environmentalists run Arcata, Calif.by Gale Holland
USA TODAY, November 18, 1996ARCATA, Calif. -- How green is Arcata?
As green as the redwood forest that surrounds it.
This counterculture college town 300 miles north of San Francisco has compost piles at children's playgrounds, an All-Species Day when people dress like favorite life forms, and a bird refuge that doubles as a sewage-treatment system.
So when the Green Party took control of the City Council in the Nov. 5 election, it was viewed as a triumph of the town's emerald soul.
With three of the five council seats on the line, voters chose an all-environmentalist slate that included two Greens.
Jennifer Hanan, manager of a store that sells environmentally friendly products, and "Bad" Bob Ornelas, owner of a microbrewery, joined Jason Kirkpatrick, a two-year council member, to form the first Green Party majority in any U.S. city.
"My congratulations to them for setting the Green Party standard for future elections," says Ralph Nader, presidential candidate for the party.
The third winner, Democrat Connie Stewart, is a staunch environmentalist and the first African-American woman elected to office in Humboldt County. The Greens say they didn't run on party affiliation. But they claim victory for their save-the-planet creed.
"Everybody wants to keep the quality of life and remain small," Hanan says.
But not every Arcatan appreciates being a Green icon, least of all conservative Republican Mayor Carl Pellatz.
"I have some real fears about certain people having a preset agenda," says the insurance agent, 51, who lost his council seat Nov. 5. One of the five council members will be named mayor later. "The misconception is we're all Greens and we're not. We're a normal city," Pellatz says.
Normal, yes. But you need look no further than the new council members to see that life behind the Redwood Curtain is different.
Three of the five council members -- Stewart, Hanan and Kirkpatrick-- don't drive. The Arcata-based Alliance for a Paving Moratorium, an international group that published a "how-to" guide on pulling up asphalt, touted the council's "auto-free" majority.
Hanan, 28, and Kirkpatrick, 29, gave up their cars this year. Stewart, 30, doesn't have a driver's license. "I ride my bike and put it on the bus," Kirkpatrick shrugs.
Arcata (population 15,855) is near the Headwaters Forest, an old growth stand of redwoods that has been at the center of dispute because of an effort to start harvesting the trees. But the Greens say their issues, like stopping development on agriculture bottomland, are local.
Arcata's transformation began after California students were given the right to vote at campus addresses.
In the '70s, student activists joined a huge fight over state plans to widen U.S. Highway 101 through town. When the dust settled, activists kept the expansion to only four lanes, and an environmental juggernaut was born.
The shift came as the region's traditional timber economy went into free fall. Arcata once had about 50 mills; now there are three. Many locals blame environmentalists for the decline. Activists blame overcutting by loggers.
In Arcata today, the big battles are over the counterculture. The town has miles of nude beaches, a piercing parlor and strong gay and New Age communities.
The big story on the environment now is that it's driving the economy. Students often come here to Humboldt State University to escape urban sprawl in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many never return.
One was Don Banducci, a university student who dropped out to kayak. He was living in a tree house in Oregon when he heard about a car rack company for sale.
Banducci bought the company in 1979, moved it to Arcata and, by turning the racks into a high-performance sports accessory for mountain bikers and paddlers, built Yakima Products Inc. into the city's largest private employer, with 150 workers. In 1994, Banducci, 43, sold his stake in the company to outside investors, who recently sent jobs down to Mexico. But other green jobs survive, including 50 at Kokatat Inc., a watersport clothing manufacturer that outfits the U.S. Olympic kayak and canoe teams. "We use recycled materials where we can," says vice president Kit Mann.
The Greens promise to push job creation. And they say they'll move slowly on charged issues. Most people here expect little epic change.
"The three Green members are not going to go off in Green Land and do some wild stuff," Banducci says. "The fact is, the community, whether liberal, conservative, progressive or Democrat, won't let them forget about the rest of them."
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