Dana Quillman: Arcata City Council Candidate Questionnaire 

Occupation: The main careers were as exercise instructor for 28 years and as a massage therapist for 24 years. I have also practiced astrology for the last 30 years. At this point in time I am only practicing astrology.

Where did you grow up? Los Angeles, born and raised, until the age of 25.

How long have you lived in Arcata? I moved to Humboldt County in 1981 and moved into Arcata in 1985. I purchased my home in Arcata in 1987.

Tell us a little about yourself, why you are running for a council seat and what you can bring to the dais.

I have had a strong interest in politics since 1996 when I helped to spearhead an activist movement to keep 800 homes from being built in the Arcata Bottom. The development was called Janes Creek West. Within 6 months of beginning the movement, the project was canceled.

In 2002 was on the General Plan 2020 Update Committee. It was a process which involved many community members to help create a plan that the citizens wanted. It is obvious that the city did not want to include citizens this time around.

In 2006, I ran for Arcata City Council because there was a ballot initiative to remove fluoride from our drinking water and I was pretty sure that none of the seven candidates were going to support the initiative. I ran so that I could talk about the issue and bring the public's awareness to the dangers of fluoride in drinking water. The only other woman who was running, owned properties both on the Arcata Plaza and off the plaza and I felt she had serious conflicts of interest and would need to be recusing herself when plaza issues, housing rental issues and housing shortage issues would come up.

While a nationwide problem, homelessness is also an acute one in Arcata. What steps can and/or should the council take to address this issue?

We certainly cannot withstand any more useless lockdowns. Our state and federal governments are the cause of homelessness and if they are not doing anything about it except cause more of it, especially with an open border, how can a city council or even county supervisors be expected to solve it?

When Paul Pitino was on council he tried to get the rest of the council at that time to take a city owned property on Ericson Way and turn it into something similar to "Opportunity Village" that is in Eugene, Oregon. Paul and I went to visit Opportunity Village and met with the man who created it and the board of directors who were in charge of it. It was an impressive operation.

If I get elected I will be pushing strongly for not just one of these villages but several. However, considering how the university is buying up Arcata properties, I doubt there will be a place for any homeless villages or senior-housing for the coming "silver tsunami", and we can forget about any kind of first time homebuyer program. Remember the Great Reset selling point: You will own nothing and be happy!

What are your views on the proposed Gateway Area Plan?

I think it needs to be shelved. The Gateway project is leading the city to be one that will be demographically out of balance with no affordable housing for families that will have a yard for growing food or playing in the yard. It will ruin our city. We already have a huge parking problem in Arcata and this project is going to make Arcata become another San Francisco in regards to parking. I am opposed to "Smart Cities".

I doubt it is coincidental that the project is coming out to the public at the same time as HSU is becoming a Cal Poly. I am opposed to increased enrollment that HSU wants. I think HSU does not care about our city. It is using the city for its own purposes without a care for quality of life. In the end the only people who will be able to afford to live in Arcata will be older homeowners, well-off people and subsidized people. The city will never be able to grow in the way the university needs it to without the quality of life being destroyed for everyone. All the things that make Arcata special will be lost forever.

Two current members of the council are required to recuse themselves from Gateway plan discussions/decisions due to owning property within 500 feet of the project's footprint. Do you have any potential conflict of interest issues that might require your recusal as well, if elected, and if so, what would those be?

I was told by Hank Sims of the LoCo that I reside within 500 feet of the project. If I get elected I will go through the same process as two members of council did to determine if it is true or not. I would certainly like to vote on it so I could vote it down!

With Cal Poly Humboldt in transition and the anticipated influx of thousands of additional students to the campus in the coming years, what can/should the city be doing now to prepare for impacts to the city and its services, especially considering its current housing shortage?

In my opinion, (it) is not the city of Arcata's problem. It is the university's problem to deal with because the university is creating the problem. The best way it can solve it is to let go of its grandiose ambition of bringing thousands of students to a small city that has immovable borders. I would like to see the city make changes to its zoning that will protect us from the university ruining Arcata, but even though we may be able to fight city hall, fighting "the State" which basically the university is, is another matter. If elected I will do whatever is in my power to not "bend over" to the university that is simply using Arcata. Arcata is the wrong location to place a CalPoly and in doing so I suspect they want to take over our city and have complete control over it.

How do you view the city's response to addressing impacts from climate change?

Well the first thing is to oppose the state and the university, which is also basically the state, in the push for Arcata to keep growing, when in the end it will completely ruin Arcata. I love this city and I will do whatever I can to stop this takeover by the state. With supposed climate change/global warming and sitting on the edge of a 100-year flood plain, next to the bay and near a river, why would be allowing more growth? It does not make any common sense.

What is the city's greatest flaw in responding to residents' needs and what could be done to fix it?

Stop the unreasonable growth that the university wants to force on Arcata.

Anything else you would like to address or mention.

I am very opposed to all restrictions, lockdowns, medical mandates for testing, face-masking and social distancing, as well as using blackmail and coercion to get students to comply. I have no respect for HSU/CalPoly because of this, in addition to its careless regard for our city in regards to its reckless ambitions for growth.

Big pharma is not a trustworthy industry and either are the captured medical agencies that regulate big pharma, big tech, and the MSM. No government should have control over anyone's body, and I will always do whatever is in my power (to) thwart any government interventions in people's personal health decisions.

I have a beef with the state of California and federal governments that are becoming totalitarian and sending marching orders down to our local governments that are making them also totalitarian. I am opposed to all of this and will do whatever is in my power as an activist or an elected official to fight the totalitarianism that has infected our world.