Humboldt County’s most impactful stories of 2023
2023 has been a year of transition in Humboldt County. On the positive side, after generations of efforts, we’re transitioning into a community that undams its rivers, with news of PG&E’s plan to remove its dams from the Eel River following word that the first of four dams had been removed from the Klamath River. On the scary side of things, we’re also transitioning into a community in which a growing number of our neighbors are hungry and food insecure. Meanwhile, Cal Poly Humboldt, a flagship institution of the county, continues to transition into the state’s third polytechnic university, while Eureka’s effort to transition into a city with less parking but more housing has met fierce resistance. Perhaps most importantly, Humboldt continues to mull a potentially transformative transition into a hub for the offshore wind industry. These are Humboldt County’s most impactful stories of 2023, presented in no particular order. Let us know what you think we missed, either in online comments or by sending a letter to [email protected]. Woodke Freed “Six years, five months, five days and 12 hours, give or take a few minutes, I was a hostage.” So began Jeffery Woodke’s March 31 press conference and his first public remarks since the McKinleyville man had been freed 11 days earlier in West Africa, where he’d been taken captive while doing missionary work in Niger, and retuned with his wife Els. “I was treated brutally and without humanity during my captivity,” Woodke said, identifying Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), the official branch of Al-Qaeda in Mali, as the group that held him hostage. “I was beaten and held continually in chains for 16 hours a day, every day, seven days a week. I was kept in isolation. I suffered injuries and illness, which were never medically treated.” A Humboldt State University graduate, Woodke had been doing aid work in Niger for more than 25 years, having found his passion in the ministry, when he was taken from his home in Abalak by armed men in a coordinated attack Oct. 14, 2016. It’s unclear what ultimately led to Woodke’s release, as U.S. officials maintained that no ransom was paid or other concessions made to his captors, and news reports have quoted unnamed administration officials as saying the government of Niger was “central” to the successful effort to free him. Woodke said he’d lost all faith when on…