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Robin P. Arkley II’s Eureka-based Security National-backed ballot measure campaign has spent almost $400,000 this year in its efforts to block Eureka’s plans to convert 14 municipally owned parking lots into multi-family housing developments.

According to campaign finance disclosure reports filed with the city of Eureka that detail campaign fundraising and spending through June 30, the campaign had spent $396,729 in 2024 by the filing deadline, outspending the opposition campaign nearly $69 to $1. In fact, according to the disclosure forms, the campaign has spent far more on postage alone ($23,000) than its opposition has raised ($9,004).

If passed, Measure F would effectively scrap city plans that have been in the works since 2019 to build more than 300 affordable housing units by leasing or selling those city-owned lots to developers looking to build multi-family projects. The measure would create zoning overlays on the lots, requiring that any development maintain or replace existing parking spaces, while also adding new parking for future tenants, which officials have said would make such projects infeasible financially, effectively scrapping the city’s plans. Measure F would also rezone the former Jacobs Middle School site south of WinCo to allow residential development, which proponents of the measure argue will make up for any units lost in the effort to protect parking.


But the future of that dilapidated school site remains unclear, with a property exchange agreement in which Eureka City Schools agreed to trade 8.6 acres of the site to a mystery developer for a small residential property on I Street and $5.35 million in cash still in escrow. With the Eureka City Schools Board of Trustees set to get an update on that deal Thursday, the disclosure forms also add to the web of connections between the Measure F campaign and AMG Communities-Jacobs, LLC, the entity that entered into the contract with Eureka City Schools and whose principals remain unknown.

For years now, Arkley has loudly voiced his displeasure with the city’s plans. In repeat appearances on a local radio show, Arkley has called parking the “lifeblood” of businesses in the downtown and Old Town areas and baselessly claimed that low-income housing “brings crime,” while separately charging without evidence that eliminating the city-owned lots would create safety hazards for his Security National employees at the company’s headquarters at Fifth and E streets.

He's since bankrolled the efforts of a community group, Citizens for a Better Eureka, to file five lawsuits challenging the city’s plans in court, so far unsuccessfully, and launched the initiative effort proponents dub Housing for All that became Measure F.

The current financial disclosures document spending this calendar year, after the Yes on F campaign reported having spent $314,000 last year, while its opposition reported spending $1,932.

According to the 2024 campaign disclosure filings, Security Nation has contributed all of the $253,191.54 the Yes on F committee has raised so far, with Gail Rymer, a spokesperson for Measure F and Security National, telling CalMatters the committee doesn’t “actively solicit other donations.”

The campaign has also accrued $142,204 in debt, according to the filings.

Of the amount paid and owed to date, the bulk of the campaign’s spending has gone to political consulting, with $189,000 paid out to a handful of companies and individuals operating in Southern California, Sacramento and Tennessee.

The campaign has also spent $126,000 on campaign literatures and mailers, paying $23,000 in postage alone, with another $56,000 spent on print, radio, television and social media advertising buys, according to the disclosure forms.
The Yes on F campaign reported closing the filing period with $1,085 in cash on hand.

The opposition, formally dubbed Committee Opposed to the Housing for All and Downtown Vitality Initiative, meanwhile, reported having raised $6,100 for the period, bringing its total raised in the campaign this year to $9,004.

The opposition campaign’s largest donations came from Lost Coast Energy owner Tyler Chapman and the local United Food and Commercial Workers International Union chapter, which contributed $1,000 apiece, and the Humboldt County Central Democratic Committee, which donated $1,500. The campaign also reported receiving a $1,500 loan from Humboldt Area Foundation Finance Director James Kloor.

On the expense side, the campaign reported paying Thomas Edrington $3,300 for consulting services, and $156 to Sticker Mule, a New York company, for campaign paraphernalia. The campaign ended the filing period with $3,250 in cash on hand.

The Yes on F financial disclosures appear to reinforce known ties between the campaign, Arkley and the LLC in contract to purchase the former Jacobs school site.

While emails released to the North Coast Journal in response to a records request indicate Harold Freiman, an attorney working for the school district, believed as late as Nov. 8 that Arkley was the entity looking to acquire the Jacobs site in a property exchange, AMG and Arkley have both denied his involvement through their spokespeople.

Rymer, a spokesperson for the Yes on F campaign who has been paid $67,000 for her work to date with another $51,000 owed, according to the filings, told the Journal in December, “No one from Security National, the Housing for All Initiative or Citizens for a Better Eureka have any involvement with the Jacobs property swap.” When the LLC launched a website for the Jacobs deal, a frequently asked questions section proactively asked if Arkley was an owner or investor in AMG and informed readers he is not. And Arkley himself told the local radio show Talk Shop he was uninvolved, saying he knew “nothing” about AMG’s attempted acquisition of the property.

But the campaign finance disclosures reinforce that people with ties to Security National’s ballot effort are involved with AMG.

According to the filings, the campaign has paid $4,460 to Everview, the law firm founded by attorney Brad Johnson, for professional services, with another $15,250 owed in unpaid bills. In addition to his work on the campaign — and his work filing lawsuits against the city of Eureka on behalf of the Security National-funded Citizens for a Better Eureka — Johnson negotiated with Eureka City Schools on behalf of the LLC, signing paperwork on their behalf.

Additionally, the filings document $11,190 in payments made to someone based in Sacramento named Sara Lee for consulting services on behalf of the Yes on F campaign. A woman named Sara Lee, meanwhile, acted as a spokesperson on behalf of AMG Communities-Jacobs LLC, responding to questions submitted by the Journal in the days and weeks after the property exchange agreement was approved by the school board on Dec. 14. That Sara Lee did not immediately respond to a Journal email inquiring whether she’s the same person on the campaign payroll, but we’ll update this post if she does.

The campaign finance disclosures come as the Eureka City Schools board is again slated to discuss the Jacobs site on its Aug. 8 agenda — a day before an escrow closing deadline on the exchange agreement.

The deal appears twice on the Aug. 8 agenda — once in closed session for an item concerning “price and/or terms of payment” and again in open session for a discussion item to be presented by Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Paul Ziegler described as an “update” on the exchange, with the staff report noting the deal is slated to close Aug. 9 under a July 10 amendment to the original exchange agreement.

Superintendent Gary Storts did not respond to a Journal email seeking clarification on whether the deal is slated to close by the deadline or what exactly Ziegler will be presenting to the board on Aug. 8.

Meanwhile, as of Aug. 6, the I Street property AMG is purchasing to swap with the district for the Jacobs site, remained in escrow itself. Charles Winship, who agreed in November to sell the property to a buyer represented by local real estate agent Scott Pesch, who later was revealed to be Johnson’s law firm, acting on behalf of AMG, with Winship saying he had been unaware his property would end up involved in the Jacobs property exchange, said his sale of the property to Everview had not closed.

“It is still under escrow,” Winship told the Journal.

Editor's Note: This story was updated from a previous version to make clear the disclosure forms document spending from this calendar year only, and to include spending totals from 2023.