Anti-Amazon initiative gains momentum to block McKinleyville warehouse
Hundreds signed within hours as anti-Amazon organizers moved to cap Coastal Zone warehouses at 20,000 square feet, a direct threat to the 40,290-square-foot McKinleyville plan.
Organizers behind the anti-Amazon ballot drive said they drew hundreds of signatures across Humboldt County as they moved to put McKinleyville’s warehouse fight directly in voters’ hands. The initiative would bar new warehouse and distribution facilities larger than 20,000 square feet in the county’s Coastal Zone, a change that would stop Amazon’s proposed 40,290-square-foot project at 3110 Boeing Ave. and set a precedent for future large warehouses.
Dozens of volunteers fanned out from Fortuna to Trinidad after getting approval to begin collecting signatures, and they were in the field within hours. Even a full day of rain did not slow the effort much, with supporters gathering signatures at sites across the county, including the Eureka Friday Night Market. The campaign now has to collect 4,687 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, a target organizers say is reachable if the early pace holds.
Debra Rumberger filed the Notice of Intention to Circulate a Petition with the Humboldt County Clerk-Recorder’s Office on June 10, giving the campaign a short runway for a countywide drive. The measure was filed by local residents who want to permanently block large-scale warehouse and distribution facilities from the Coastal Zone, turning what began as a land-use dispute into a larger test of how much industrial development Humboldt County will allow near the coast.
The county received Amazon’s coastal development permit application on Oct. 21, 2025, for the project in the Airport Business Park, on six parcels near the Arcata-Eureka Airport. Amazon confirmed in February that it planned to build a last-mile distribution warehouse in McKinleyville, a proposal that has already sparked repeated public scrutiny over warehouse size, traffic, neighborhood character and the county’s land-use rules.
That scrutiny came into full view at an April 29 public meeting at Azalea Hall in McKinleyville, where a large crowd pressed county officials on the proposal. The next formal decision point is still months away: county officials say the Humboldt County Planning Commission is expected to act on the permit in February 2027. Any decision could then be appealed to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors and, ultimately, the California Coastal Commission.
For now, the signature count is the clearest measure of momentum in a fight that has become about more than one warehouse. It is a contest over who gets to decide McKinleyville’s future, and whether Amazon’s arrival will open the door to a new generation of big-box development on Humboldt’s coast.
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