The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: candidates

  • Dean of Students candidates vie for position

    by Andres Felix Romero

    Originally printed March 22, 2023

    Prospective Dean of Students candidates made their intentions heard through forums and Q+A sessions held on March 7 and March 8. 

    One candidate, Ryan Griswold, was recently the Dean of California Maritime Academy, leaving the position in July 2022.

    Griswold expresses a passion for working with students across institutions, especially at Cal Poly Humboldt. 

    “In terms of connections with the student population, I’m not going to say that this is different for me than a lot of institutions, because my passion for working with students really is universal. That’s not to say that the population isn’t different here,” Griswold said. “Every campus has its own demographics.”

    Griswold recounted a story about a previous institution he worked at, where he and student volunteers came together to help students around finals using what he says is his love language: food.

    “I have this tradition wherever I work, I like to find a way to incorporate food into things. We would get one of the industrial kitchens on campus, and we would bake banana bread for six, eight, or nine hours,” Griswold said. “Then we would take 200 loaves of banana bread and give it out to students at about 11 o’clock around finals.”

    Other candidate Micah Mitchell is currently the Assistant Dean of Students and Case manager for Winston Salem State University.

    Mitchell emphasized that to build that relationship, faculty must listen to student voices to understand how they are impacted by admin decisions.

    “[Myself and other leadership are] doing stuff, we’re changing stuff, and trying to support stuff,” Mitchell said. “But if I’m not knowledgeable of what [the students] are going through, it’s gonna be hard for me to effectively support you.”

    Mitchell also showed concern over the impending growth of the student population, and if campus resources can match the needs of those students. He is also conscious of overloading the current staff with the stress of supporting more students.

    “The growth is great,” Mitchell said. “But going too fast is dangerous. Do we have the institutional support to support the changes? Because if not, we’ll have this influx of students, then have an influx over the inability and strain our system. So how can we grow and sustain and maintain at the same time…we can’t expect the same staff to expand and do more work with regard to doing that. So I think it’s about…people getting the resources and figuring out how we can successfully support the growth.”

    Student and Indian Tribal and Educational Personnel Program (ITEPP) representative Mazacuauhtli Burrola wants whichever candidate that gets the job to integrate themselves into the campus community. Burrola wants to see this through the future DOS being open with their communication; by setting up methods to hear student voices such as dropboxes and a phone number to the dean of students publicly displayed on campus. 

    “You want to be our DOS, then you better move into my fricking house,” Burrola said. “You better be standing there in the quad. This is not a game. Our lives are at stake here, our futures.”

  • District attorney candidates debate on Cal Poly Humboldt Campus

    by Liam Gwynn

    Humboldt County district attorney candidates Stacey Eads, Micheal Acosta, and Adrian Kamada debated a variety of pressing issues on Monday in Cal Poly Humboldt’s Native American Forum.

    Students from the sociology department moderated the debate, choosing questions submitted by Cal Poly Humboldt students. Each candidate was given a two minute introduction and a two minute closing statement. After the introductions, the moderators would ask candidates a question and they would each get a two minute response followed by a round of one minute rebuttals.

    The Three Candidates

    Stacey Eads is currently the Assistant District Attorney and has 20 years of experience as a criminal prosecutor. She is the lead prosecutor for the Sexual Assault & Child Abuse Crimes prosecution team . She touts her many years of experience, connection to the current District Attorney Maggie Fleming, and love for Humboldt as leading factors in why people should vote for her.

    Micheal Acosta has been a practicing defense attorney for twenty years. Acosta moved to Eureka after being recruited by the California Indian Legal Services as a staff attorney. He’s a controversial figure and is running on the idea that he would implement major changes to face problems like policing for profit, racial inequality, and gender discrepancies in sentencing. Acosta isn’t just controversial because of his ideas, he’s also currently facing a felony drug possession charge in the Humboldt Superior Court.

    Adrian Kamada graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt with a BA in Political science and a minor in Environmental Science and Ethics. Kamada has eight years of experience. He served as Deputy District Attorney from 2014 to 2020, when he transitioned to a position as a public defender. Kamada is running on a promise to lower the crime rate, which he says has risen by 30% in the last five years. He wants to do this by implementing new methods of criminal correction for first-time offenders that focus on keeping people out of the criminal justice system with alternative help like mental and drug abuse treatment.

    Standout Questions

    Could you please explain what racial justice means to you and could you provide concrete examples of instances where you’ve helped promote racial justice in Humboldt county?

    Acosta was called to respond first and was prepared with direct instances citing cases he worked on with the California Indian Legal Services. He cited a case where he was able to reduce a black man’s sentencing that was disproportionate to the sentencing that white people had received for the same crime.

    “Where you really see it in sentencing is where dispositions are made, and people of color get harsher sentences and get treated differently by the probation department,” said Acosta.

    Eads responded to the question by denying that race played a role in prosecutions but providing instances of how she has helped minorities by prosecuting for children who had experienced child abuse but were not believed because their community didn’t think that someone in their race could commit that type of abuse.

    “I think that race, outside of a hate crime type of analysis, really doesn’t have a role in terms of how we prosecute an individual,” said Eads.

    Kamada responded by acknowledging the fact that minorities are incarcerated at a higher percentage and saying that the problem needs to be fixed.

    “Religion, race, ethnicity, those things don’t have anything to do with justice, but we can’t ignore the fact that there has been injustice for a long time towards people of color,” said Kamada.

    If you are elected DA, will you prosecute the Lawson case?

    Eads answered first saying that she wants to prosecute the case but that they need to have enough evidence before taking it to the preliminary hearing again, because if the judge doesn’t think there’s enough evidence then it will be almost impossible to prosecute in the future.

    “We can only bring it before the judge one more time, and if we don’t have enough evidence to do that we will not be able to find Justice for Josiah,” said Eads.

    Kamada gave a similar response saying that he won’t promise anything he can’t guarantee while reassuring everyone that it would be a priority and claiming that he has the support of Charmaine Lawson in his election.

    “I will do everything possible, including coming up with new investigation techniques if necessary, but I can’t make a commitment that I can prosecute that case unless I’ve seen the entire case file,” said Kamada.

    Acosta’s response was bold, saying he would prosecute the murder case and bring charges not just to the murderer but also to accomplices in an attempt to get information from a plea deal.

    “There is significant new evidence this time to bring charges back and whether you do that through the complaint process or the grand jury indictment process is open to question, but absolutely yes, probably against more than one person,” said Acosta.

    Registered Humboldt County voters will be able to vote for the Humboldt County district attorney position during the Statewide Direct Primary Election on June 7.

  • Dobby’s dissection of Donald Trump

    Columnist Dobby Morse shares their take on the presidential candidates

    I tried. I tried to watch it, but like everything else Trump is involved in, it was a farce.

    Within the first 15 minutes, Trump dodged the question as to when the new justice should be nominated by talking about Amy Barrett’s qualifications. He lied about his very public taxes, called the Coronavirus the “China plague,” implied that Biden was stupid for forgetting the name of a place and bragged about football, of all things.

    I am by no means, a fan of Biden. He is a creepy old white guy that has been accused of inappropriately touching several women. Trump has done much worse. Biden has a plan for the Coronavirus, including free testing, Personal Protective Equipment and a nationwide mask mandate.

    He has a plan for the climate crisis that includes the Green New Deal, rejoining the Paris climate accord and an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Trump, as Biden said repeatedly, does not have a plan.

    Trump’s biggest problem is the inability to self-reflect. The media has been largely negative towards him. He is a pathological liar and it is the media’s job to expose lies. He has shown no ability to listen to experts or politicians who do not undeservedly love him.

    Rather than take a minute of his 74 years of life to reflect on why people don’t respect him, he goes on defense.

    Biden, despite Trump’s opinion, is smart. He brings up his experience as a senator and vice president to show he knows how to do the job. He talked about the Coronavirus deaths as people, rather than statistics. He talked about Trump’s history of lies and lack of a plan to showcase his opponent’s incompetence.

    A horrific outcome of the debate is an increase in recruitment for the White supremacist group, Proud Boys. When asked to condemn them, Trump replied, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

    The hate group has since adopted this quote as a slogan and an endorsement by Trump.

    We live in a world where incredibly dangerous people are world leaders. We live in a world where fundamental and private rights are in danger. We live in a world where a few people can decide the course of history.

    So vote. Check your registration status, and if you aren’t already getting election mail, find out why. History has its eyes on you.

    Dobby Morse is a columnist for The Lumberjack and is an HSU student.

  • Mike Bloomberg is Democratic Trump

    Mike Bloomberg is Democratic Trump

    Mike Bloomberg is just another billionaire with outdated views looking for attention

    We’ve all seen the campaign ads. “Mike will get it done,” they profess. What exactly has he done? He’s had 64 sexual harassment cases brought against him. He’s expanded the infamously racist stop-and-frisk policy in New York. He’s spied on the Muslim community. And he has bought his way into the primary.

    Not to bring everything back to another bigoted New York billionaire who got bored with having too much money and went into politics, but Mike Bloomberg certainly does remind me of someone.

    Were it not for the mark on the ballot calling him a Democrat, people would assume based on his fiscal policy and social track record that he was at least a centrist-Independent, if not a conservative-Republican.

    Despite being a registered Republican from the beginning of his political career up until 2007, and an Independent until 2018, he chose to run as a Democrat. Presumably, to gain the support of both Republicans and party-line Democrats.

    He’s an authoritarian, plain and simple. Party isn’t the real issue here. He cares about power.

    Bloomberg has a long history of bigotry. While his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, first implemented stop-and-frisk, it was under his watch that the program grew to the widespread excuse for police brutality and racial profiling.

    When it was brought up by critics that New York police officers were disproportionately targeting black and brown communities, he gave the rationale that, “That’s where all the crime was.” In addition, he justified having undercover officers stalk Muslim New Yorkers as preventative measures against another 9/11.

    “We had just lost 3,000 people at 9/11,” Bloomberg said in an interview with PBS Feb. 27. “Of course we’re supposed to do that.”

    If anything, Bloomberg is a more dangerous version of Trump. He’s smart. He knows that putting up a polished front and playing up the establishment card will make him look like the opposite of the current president.

    Aside from his dubious past, Bloomberg’s current policy proposals are anything but progressive. While his website claims that Bloomberg will defend equal rights for LGBTQ+ Americans, he has stated as recently as 2019 that he considers transgender individuals as just “some guy in a dress,” or “he, she, or it.”

    On his website, aside from a reference to overturning the military ban, he has nothing to say on transgender rights. By considering equal rights for the transgender community to be reaching too far, he betrays the entire LGBTQ+ community.

    Being progressive is about supporting the oppressed and the marginalized. No ally insults the people they claim to stand with behind their backs and considers the value of their identities negotiable.

    According to his website, his plan for climate change is to “restore America’s leadership in fighting the global climate crisis, propel the United States toward a 100% clean energy future, make environmental justice a national priority.” These promises are all incredibly vague, and his campaign has been silent on the specifics of how they’d achieve any those goals.

    General promises of somehow solving climate change aren’t going to help us. If we want this planet to be livable for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren, we need to take serious and quantifiable steps to ensure it. The science says we need ambitious action. All he offers are glossy advertisements.

    If anything, Bloomberg is a more dangerous version of Trump. He’s smart. He knows that putting up a polished front and playing up the establishment card will make him look like the opposite of the current president.

    I’m not afraid that he couldn’t defeat Trump in an election. If Bloomberg wins the Democratic primary, the general election won’t matter. It’s a self-serving billionaire in office either way.