Editor

I find it ironic and self-serving for Eureka Councilmember Kim Bergel to say "I feel like we really tried to work with HACHR on so many levels" (NCJ Daily Online, Aug. 20). Almost two years ago, Bergel and fellow Councilmember Heidi Messner presented HACHR with a letter on city stationery threatening HACHR that "lack of compliance will result in a recension" of the needle program certification. That this letter was nothing but a form of harassment was exposed when then City Manager Greg Sparks said about it, "Really, they just represented themselves as two council members. They weren't speaking for the entire city" (NCJ, Aug. 2, 2018).

Today we see that the conservative elements in Eureka are still bullying HACHR and trying to end its much needed program.

If the video presented by the Eureka Police Department purportedly showing a drug sale on HACHR property is a reflection of the caliber of the case against HACHR, then HACHR has nothing to worry about. In the video, we can clearly hear a HACHR employee telling the two men involved in an alleged drug deal to move off of the property. Initially thinking that they may be exchanging food, this is what she says: "Just getting food, right?" Upon seeing that they were not exchanging food, she immediately tells them to move off the property saying "This is not the place for anything else!"

The words of President Trump — who I'm sure is a hero to Eureka's right wing elements — ring true when applied to the city's sting effort to de-certify HACHR, if not anywhere else: "This is a hoax!" It is also an example of why we need to defund the Eureka Police Department. If it has money to waste in operations aimed to demonize a truly compassionate and needed organization like HACHR, then it has too much money.

Robin M. Donald, Fortuna