May 27 – June 2, 2020

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON…Cruel Santa Cruz and Food Not Bombs birthday. Ideas for housing help. GREENSITE… on Saving the Wharf #3. KROHN…district elections, Civic Aud. For council meetings, council agenda, UCSC to reopen in the fall ? STEINBRUNER…County covid closing off track, RTC and $1 milion for transit corridor,open the beaches. PATTON…Restarting. EAGAN…Subconscious Comix & Deep Cover. QUOTES…”Summer”

...

THE CASTLE AT SEABRIGHT BEACH. The crowds gathered on March 23 1967 to watch them demolish the snack and coffee spot. Wind, waves and age took their toll. It opened in 1918 and was once the Scholl-Mar Castle or Casa del Mar.

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

SANTA CRUZ SPECIAL. Rich Siebert spotted this one…don’t miss it. It’s new!Michael Gaither sings “We’ll get through this”.

TOP SONGS FROM 1960.

DATELINE May 25

CRUEL SANTA CRUZ…OR FOOD NOT BOMBS CELEBRATES 40 YEARS..  
Over the decades Santa Cruz became known as a laid-back city, with a heart for its citizens. Seniors had, and have, many well -un food programs — such as Meals on Wheels, Second Harvest, and Grey Bears. We’ve been almost famous for the help we’ve given to foreign countries in their time of need, and the help list goes on and on. BUT for some reason we treat the homeless as scary, evil and to be avoided. We accuse them of being drug addicts, molesters, sex fiends, thieves and must be avoidable scum.

This is most obvious in the way the City and county officials and civilians relate to Food Not Bombs. Food Not Bombs is celebrating its 40th year. They work in more than 1000 cities and in 65 countries, and yet still Santa Cruz gives their local operation a very tough time. They’ve been pushed and denied locations, had their hours and health practices questioned and challenged. What is it about Santa Cruz that creates this two-faced attitude? Keith McHenry, our local Food Not Bombs director, was one of the actual founders of the organization all those years ago and continues weekly and daily to provide good healthy food to our homeless. We need to re-think how and why we can support them.  Check out the website and think it over.

IDEAS FOR HELP?
Just in case any of you know of rentals or house-sitting situations, both my daughters are interested in spending more time in Santa Cruz. Plus, they are great help to and for me.  Any leads greatly appreciated. Email me at bratton@cruzio.com


Dateline May 25

MEASURING THE LOSS
By the time you are reading this, the comment period for the Wharf Master Plan, Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) will be over. As required by environmental law, the city is obliged to respond to submitted comments if they pertain to environmental impacts that the city has failed to accurately study or has omitted. Why don’t you take a long walk on a short pier? will probably not get a response. Then the final EIR, which includes responses to comments, heads towards the decision-making bodies, in this case the Planning Commission and then City Council.


Snowy egret perched on the western railing of the Wharf.

After sitting on this DEIR for 3 years and then releasing it during a stay at home pandemic, it is hard to believe the city would stoop so low as to hold hearings while the public cannot attend in person but we will see. This is the same city that had to be forced under a legal challenge to conduct an EIR for the Wharf, despite its listing as a sensitive habitat and bird habitat in the city’s own environmental documents.

So it is not surprising that the handsome fellow pictured above slid under the DEIR radar except to be included as one of scores of bird species sighted at the Wharf. It took me years to fully appreciate that there is no room for sentiment in an EIR: just the facts, ma’am. And that does not include the fact that most visitors to the Wharf get a thrill at seeing such a beautiful bird up close. Most have no idea what it is (I hear their excited questions) and all leave a little enriched by the experience. I know I do. We will never see this sight again if the Wharf Master Plan is approved. No, the egrets won’t move to the east side with scores of people, bikes and cars.

The western side of the Wharf where the snowy egret is perched currently has no human presence except for a very occasional worker. The birds thrive in this isolation, not minding the many folks behind glass in restaurants a few feet away. The Wharf Master Plan adds a lowered walkway running along this side of the Wharf bringing possibly hundreds of people to walk its length. If approved by council, there will be no birds perched on the railing, no birds nesting under the wharf and the aesthetics of the Wharf’s piling structure will be lost forever.

Pictured above is the western side of the Wharf. Visualize a walkway on the outside of the pilings, dropped 8 feet below deck level, 12 feet wide filled with people and try with a straight face to say it has no impact on the aesthetics or historical feel of the Wharf. That is what is claimed in the DEIR. And if you are inclined to look for the positive even when disaster is imminent, no you won’t see the sea lions from the lowered walkway since they haul out near the end of the wharf.

The DEIR is filled with claims that question its integrity. The Wharf Master Plan as you probably know includes 3 new public buildings in the 40 to 48 feet height range (almost half the height of the Dream Inn) in addition to a 30% increase in commercial space. One of these new buildings is near the new entrance, which will be a third of the way down the Wharf. The new entrance looks like toll booths you see on freeways and will dominate your view until you are past it. The DEIR says it will have minimal impact since they take sightings only from the side view, which is narrow. Cute. The new building is called the Gateway Building. The entry in the DEIR states that it would be “somewhat larger and taller than adjacent buildings on the Wharf”.  Somewhat? The adjacent buildings are one-story, probably 12 feet high at most. The new building will be 40-45 feet high.

Whether such statements are corrected in the final EIR and whether that makes a difference to the claim of “no significant impact” is as yet undetermined.

Another new large 40-45 feet tall building, called the Events Center is planned for the site of the current stage where we get to enjoy great jazz each year, except this one. The Wharf Master Plan reminds us that it can get cold and windy on the Wharf and this will allow us to be inside out of the weather. The glass doors can be opened but there is still a roof on top. I thought of that plan for an enclosed space as I listened to Latin Jazz percussionist Pete Escovedo last summer at this site on the Wharf. The sun was warm, the sky blue and the pelicans soared overhead on the updrafts. How significant is that loss?

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

May 25

SIGNS OF THE TIMES
House for Sale, Apt. for Rent, Car for Sale…I’m seeing a lot more of these signs as I take my daily exercise walk to the end of the wharf and home again. I perused Craigslist today for Santa Cruz County and it turns out, there’s a lot of rentals, 539 as of the Memorial Day weekend, and it doesn’t take a real estate genius to prognosticate that many more For Rent signs are on the way. Housing crisis? What housing crisis? Is this one of those vaunted “market corrections” that capitalists are fond of talking about? The listings begin with all these “rare opportunity” to rent a $600-$700 room” close to the [UC] campus” ads. Will students be back in fall? I doubt it. Who will occupy these rooms then? Probably a few hopeful students who want to be around campus, do classes virtually, and maybe use the library, but it’s all still up in the air. We may be seeing a lot of empty bedrooms. On the same Craigslist page, there’s a cottage to share on Grant Street for $900; a cozy one-bedroom cottage on Ocean Street Ext. for $950 (that’s cheaper); a “freshly-painted studio” in Soquel with “spectacular views,” also for $950; 200 square feet in Felton for $1095; and someone looking for a housemate on the Westside to fill the third bedroom for $1175, “no couples” please. Is the pandemic finally bringing rental prices in Santa Cruz down from their non-ganga induced highs? Not yet, but we’ll take another look in late June following the exodus of the off-campus students who stayed during lock-down and also just on the heels of a likely remote/zoom/on-line fall quarter student body not coming back to campus. Also, the usual suspects–Chestnut Street Apartments, Cypress Point, and 55Five Pacific–have not come down much in price, but are offering one or two months “free” if you are willing to sign a lease. In addition, there’s a bunch of “rent and security deposit reduced” listings. Has it taken Covid-19 to not only address the houseless and homeless emergency, but make a dent in our affordable housing crisis as well? Stay tuned.

UC Santa Cruz to Open in Fall?
Still remains doubtful whether students will be back in September. UC not-for-long President Janet Napolitano (she’s outta here as of “August 2020 according to EdSource), told the S.J. Mercury News on May 20th that “every campus will be open and offering instruction” this fall. It’s just that most of those classes will likely be on-line. The few that won’t be will likely be held in-person in order to save the NCAA Division IA sports teams’ schedules, notably football. It was back on May 2nd that Napolitano fatefully struck a sterner chord.”I think it’s fair to say none of our campuses will fully reopen,” she said according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Seems impossible to think that if the 500,000-student CSU system, the largest in the country, is going totally on-line–Zoom anyone?–this fall, that UC will not follow suit. I could imagine a scenario that allows graduate students to be on campus because of their smallish numbers and research needs, but undergrads too? Classes of 400 down to a socially distanced 50-60 in Classroom Unit II, for example, and 30 in Classroom Unit I? Ten students per bus and shuttle? Dorms a quarter filled? These are the scenarios that come to mind. Perhaps the remodeled quarry can be used as an outdoor classroom for possibly up to 100 and could provide the six-foot social distancing. Will these campuses be safe without a vaccine or on-going testing? What we do know is that sadly, saving a football season is part of the UC calculus in determining whether to reopen physical campuses to physical bodies. Cal and UCLA are heavily invested in football programs. Don’t forget, the Transparent California web site has had these two football coaches (Jeff Tedford, Jimmy Dykes), and a couple of basketball coaches (Cuonzo Martin, Steve Alford) receiving between $2 million and $3 million dollars (see UC salaries)

They’re usually at the top of the UC pay scale followed by a non-essential employee like UCLA transplant expert, Ronald Busutill who clocks in at $2.5 million. He’s the Dumont Professor of Transplantation Surgery and Chief of the Division of Liver and Pancreas Transplants in the Department of Surgery at the UCLA School of Medicine, according to his university bio. So remember, getting football jump-started is an important consideration in whether to send back UC’s 280,000 students to its ten campuses before a vaccine is found. Sounds like the CSU is also making it possible for their three Division IA teams–San Jose State, San Diego State, and Fresno State–to play football during the 2020 Covid-19 season. Looks like college presidents will play all ends from the middle like SDSU president Adela de la Torre. According to NBC, she tweeted out that SDSU plans to get around any closure by offering a hybrid model for classes, some in-person, and some virtual.”We will offer certain lab and performance-based instruction in person.” I continue to say, follow the money…in sports, in politics, and in the for-profit public and private education biz.

Santa Cruz City Council Agenda for May 26th
Once again, too many non-essential decisions are being made, mostly by staff and rubber-stamped by a council majority, during these troubled Covid-19 times. I advocate taking some deep breaths and waiting until the public and city council can return to Council Chambers at 809 Center Street. Or better yet, open the Civic Auditorium for safe, socially distanced meetings. It is just plain bad policy to be approving non-essential building projects and subjectively slashing the budgets of key departments without sufficient input from the community. All departments are not equal and the called for 10% across-the-board cut may sound fair, but some departments have a lot more fat, like Public Works, Economic Development, and Planning, than others like the Parks and Recreation Department. Chopping $225k salaries at the top by 30% and leaving those making below $50k alone should a priority, or at least be discussed, but so many of these decisions are made in closed session (see council agenda here ).

From what I can tell, closed session this week includes the behind the scenes push to get district elections in Santa Cruz (it’s on open session too); settling or fighting a millions of dollars law suit which had alleged sexual harassment within the police department, and labor negotiations. And then on the “consent agenda,” the city manager must feel district elections is such a slam dunk policy move that it shouldn’t be placed on the “regular agenda.” This kind of move is usually done to circumvent discussion and bypass public scrutiny. If you ever thought that our local government system was squeaky clean, it would be this issue on the consent agenda, which should give you pause to think, Uh oh, this isn’t right, something may be fishy here. Also on consent, item 15, is the Highway 1 and 9 “intersection improvements.” This has been a move by one city engineer, Chris Schneiter, to 1) boot Central Home Supply from town, 2) widen an already difficult intersection, and 3) to elevate car culture in the time of climate change and Covid-19. The city council ought to send this one back to Chris’ drawing board and save some money. The”construction contract $5.1 million,” is money better saved and spent on local businesses trying to come back in the coronavirus economy. Please city council, choose the no-project alternative and save business and save the environment. But also, puleeze, stop putting such big-ticket items on the consent agenda, which by-passes a full community-council discussion! All major environmental groups–Sierra Club, SC Climate Action Network, and Campaign for Sensible Transportation are vehemently opposed to this intersection expansion project. As far as I can tell, council has received lots of communication opposing the project and not even one letter or email of support. On the evening’s “regular agenda,” items 1, 3, and 4 are proposed resolutions that if passed, give even more carte blanche power to the city manager and police department. Again, this will all take place with a minimum of public scrutiny and participation. Welcome my friends, to democracy in the age of Covid-19, call it Pandemic Politics.

Harvey Milk was one of the first openly LGBTQ politicians in the U.S., and on this #HarveyMilkDay, his vision for a brighter tomorrow has never been more important.” (May 22)
(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected to the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His term ended in April of 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...
May 26

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY NEEDS TO GET BACK TO WORK, SO WHY AREN’T OFFICIALS ASKING TO MOVE MORE QUICKLY?
Last week, I listened to a panel discussion of local business leaders hosted by First District County Supervisor Candidate Mr. Manu Koenig. I was shocked to hear about the high number of restaurants going under permanently in Capitola alone, with more threatened the longer the County keeps us in economic shackles.

What was clear from all panelists was that the County is not communicating with the business community on much of anything regarding plans to move forward with re-establishing the economy. “ZERO communication.” they said.

I did a bit of research today to learn more about the County’s ability to submit an Attestation Application for Variance to get economic recovery moving more quickly than the Governor’s Stage 2 Plan. What I found was shocking.

Of 58 Counties in the State, 46 have already applied for this Variance, some as early as May 12, but many on May 18, 2020.

Santa Cruz County Health officials stated that they were “taken by surprise” when Governor Newsom announced last week that Counties could apply to move more quickly, and that they had not anticipated such action for another four weeks. However, the website listed above shows the original application was made available on May 8, and revised on May 18.

San Benito County filed their Application on May 12. Why didn’t Santa Cruz County?

Health Officer Gail Newel has stated that she and her staff are busy with contact tracing relative to the new COVID-19 clusters in Watsonville. When I called Supervisor Caput, he assured me that the Board of Supervisors is going to begin filling out the Application after the Memorial Day holiday, using new information from the Watsonville clusters.

As Chairman of the Board, Supervisor Caput has the ability to call a Special Board meeting upon 24 hour notice and should do so this week to publicly adopt the County’s Attestation Application for Variance and send it quickly to the State for approval.

While County Health Officer Ms. Mimi Hall told the Board of Supervisors at the May 19 meeting that Dr. Newel anticipated the approval of the Application would take a week “because we expect a flood of applications”, Dr. Newel has privately stated that she feels she could get the Governor’s office to approve our County’s Application on the same day submitted.

There is quite a lot of confusion around all that, but what is important is that people flood Supervisor Caput’s office with calls and e-mails to insist he call a Special Board meeting early this week, and not wait for the regularly-scheduled June 2 Board meeting.  If you examine the Attestation Applications for Variance that have been submitted by any of the 46 Counties who quickly completed and filed them, you will see that the level of detail is not inordinately demanding, and the information is readily available to the County Health officials and Board.

Look at San Benito County’s Application, filed on May 12, 2020

Please contact Chairman of the Board, Supervisor Greg Caput <greg.caput@santacruzcounty.us> 454-2200 Santa Cruz office  763-4712 Watsonville office

Let’s get Santa Cruz County back on track and start rebuilding the economy. Please insist the County Board of Supervisors hold a Special Board meeting as early as Wednesday to approve and submit the County’s Attestation Application for a Variance to move more quickly than Governor Newsom wants.

THE MILLION DOLLAR STUDY CONTINUES ABOUT THE TRANSIT CORRIDOR 
The Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) is still working at spending over $1 million for yet another study about the rail corridor. Tune in on the Public Hearing on June 4 at 9:30am for the joint RTC and Metro to “share your input on the Transit Corridor Alternatives Analysis (TCAA) Alternatives Screening Results and Short List of Alternatives…  concerning the evaluation of different public transit options for the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, narrowing down to one that will best serve and connect our communities”.

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)

MAKE ONE CALL. WRITE ONE LETTER. ATTEND A REMOTE PUBLIC HEARING. TAKE A WALK ON THE BEACH AND BE HEALTHY.

MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE THIS WEEK.

Cheers, Becky Steinbruner. I welcome your thoughts and discussion: 831-685-2915

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

May 18
#139 / Getting The Restart Right

In case you don’t immediately recognize him, that is Niccolò Machiavelli, pictured right. The image was gleaned from an article published by the Modern War Institute. That institution, located at West Point, was citing to Machiavelli’s ideas about “innovation.”

The Wall Street Journal recently referenced Machiavelli, too, in an article about how to rebuild our shattered economy. The article was titled, “Getting The Restart Right.”

When the Great Restart begins, many leaders will fall back on an idea once espoused by Machiavelli, who wrote: “The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities.” They will try to reduce the anxiety in the air by restoring familiar routines, procedures and traditions. The problem is that business, as we knew it, cannot be recovered. It will need to be reinvented.

I am inclined to think that the quoted observation by Machiavelli is accurate. Most people are focused mainly on how things “appear,” and are not, generally, willing to consider the possibility that the “realities” of our world are not necessarily what everyone thinks they are.

If there is going to be a “Great Restart,” as we come back outdoors after the stay-at-home mandates imposed during the coronavirus, let’s think about what has now been revealed as “appearance,” and what has been shown to be “reality,” when we contemplate our politics, society, and economy.

It has most usually “appeared” that what is most worthwhile, and significant, and valuable in our society is what is reflected in the lives, activities, and actions of those with the most access to financial resources – the 1%, to use that way of describing the yawning economic division that has elevated a very small number of persons to positions of immense wealth, while the great majority of the population has largely been considered to be background noise.

Turns out, doesn’t it, that the “realities” are different from what “appeared” to be true? In fact, when ordinary people don’t work, and don’t participate in the production and consumption that is the life of our society and economy, the economy utterly fails and falls apart. Stock prices plunge, big businesses go bankrupt, and the entire economic apparatus no longer works.

So, if we are going to “get going again,” our politics, our social relationships, and our economic arrangements cannot simply be “recovered.” They will need to be “reinvented.”

This means, among other things – at least the way I see it – that we will now have to admit that the “reality” of our situation is not that we are a bunch of individual persons (as it can so easily appear), but that we are “together” in this life. Our reinvented world must make sure everyone is provided with the basics, including food, shelter, health care, worthwhile employment, and education.

As the wealthiest society in the history of the world, we can make that happen. And in fact, the “reality” is, we have to make that happen if we want our politics, society, and economy to “restart,” and thereafter to flourish and endure!

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. More classic views, just a few twirls below.

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s “Deep Cover”down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog.

    SUMMER

“Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”
~Pablo Neruda,

“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
? Maud Hart Lovelace

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
? Henry James

This guy is amazing, his videos are so fun! I know I’ve linked him before. This is top notch though, check it out!


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...

Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment

May 20 – 26, 2020

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON…UCSC’S East Meadow threats. GREENSITE… on Saving the Wharf #2. KROHN…Covid and local politics, Zoom meetings, City council and development, Democracy in peril. STEINBRUNER…Board of Supes and the Brown Act, County budget and $5 million deficit, Adventists and the homeless. PATTON…Planet of the Humans and Al Gore. EAGAN…Subconscious Comix and Deep Cover.QUOTES…”Washington”

...

THE MIGHTY SOQUEL CREEK 1955.  Looking East toward Veterle & Howard’s plumbing Supply. You can see the unleashed power of Soquel Creek in its heyday.

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

TIGHTROPE WALKING THE GRAND CANYON.

THE WORLDS TALLEST BUILDINGS YEAR BY YEAR.

DATELINE May 18

UCSC’S EAST MEADOW FUTURE UNCERTAIN.While the city and county of Santa Cruz undergoes enormous changes and threats to its character, quality, size, and uniqueness, the UCSC campus is now — and has been — facing identical issues. The East Meadow Action Committee (EMAC)headed by James Clifford, has for the last two years taken on the protection of the campus from the many threatening proposals to change it, as well as other projects that would conflict with the original campus conception. James Clifford sent a letter to the members of EMAC. Here are some excerpts, plus an appeal at the end for various ways our community can help our important neighbor. 

This spring was the season of our litigation, as EMAC’s CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) lawsuit moved through the legal process.  EMAC co-founder Paul Schoellhamer did yeoman work going through the Administrative Record (over 60,000 pages!) and helping our attorneys with the legal briefs.  Fundraising efforts for legal fees were also successful; we have been deeply moved by the depth of support for protecting the meadow. 

On May 15, 2020, our CEQA litigation had its oral argument before Judge Paul Burdick of the Santa Cruz County Superior Court.  At that hearing the Judge put forth his tentative verdict in the case, and that tentative verdict registered clear support for the arguments in EMAC’s briefs.  Lawyers for the UC system argued aggressively against that tentative verdict becoming the final verdict, and our side argued in support.  The Judge ordered both parties to produce further briefs on specific issues raised in the oral arguments.  He also set a date for the final verdict in the case: June 19, 2020.

At the university, much has changed since we began our now two-year effort to save the meadow from destruction and to preserve the campus’ environmental integrity.  Several administrators who were the most vocal champions of East Meadow development are no longer in their positions.  The current Chancellor and Executive Vice Chancellor were not involved in approving the project.  The present fiscal environment, which will bring big budget cuts to the University and which may negatively impact undergraduate and graduate enrollments, may be less favorable for big construction projects, particularly their most controversial components.  This is why an EMAC victory at this stage could be so consequential.   

As we enter these last few weeks, the outcome is uncertain.  The additional work required by the judge brings unexpected legal expenses We realize that in our present situation there are many worthy causes that need your help.  If you are able to give more to protect the East Meadow for generations to come, now would be the time.  

To contribute, see instructions at eastmeadowaction.org

We hope you and yours are well.                 

East Meadow Action Committee

 

May 18

THE FEEL OF THE WHARF
I recently alerted a friend that the Wharf Master Plan includes covering up the sea lion viewing holes. Besides expressing dismay he made a comment that resonated. He wrote, “When you are way out on the end of the wharf it feels like you are at sea.”

If you are familiar with the Municipal Wharf you know what he means. That is if you enjoy a bracing wind, the cries of sea birds and a few folks fishing. Our century old wharf offers a unique experience of being a half -mile out at sea surrounded by nature.  No need for videos or simulations. Contrast that with the rendition of the end of the wharf that will come to pass if the Wharf Master Plan is approved. The rendition of the 45+ feet public building is carefully distorted to reduce its size, scale and impact. The sea lion viewing holes are gone. The Dolphin restaurant, squeezed to the left of the building (out of sight) with its view and open-air feel gone. The view from upstairs at Stagnaros Restaurant to the southeast will be the back of this building, which is significantly higher than the two-story restaurant. Two more buildings of this size are in the Plan. 

Notice that none of the people are fishing. It’s not hard to predict the current folks who fish at the wharf, mostly working class will be moved out if not by sheer numbers of tourists then by the design of the project. If you fish, try to imagine dropping a line amidst this crowd. The plan for the 30 feet expanded eastern walkway is similarly designed to prevent having your car next to you with hatch open, a few chairs and a cooler, with friends and family while fishing. This current pleasure is affordable for the working class. The city has long worked to replace working class visitors with a more affluent sector. That explains why a past city council on advice from the Economic Development Department would not renew the lease for Andy’s Bait Shop at the end of the wharf, as working class as it gets. Since that time Andy’s has remained empty, a storage-shed. 

I’m sure there are those who love the scene above. I don’t happen to be one of them. It feels generic. Unrecognizable. I read the brand Santa Cruz Wharf but I don’t feel it. Apparently there are others who feel the same way since over two thousand people in two weeks signed the Don’t Morph The Wharf petition when the Wharf Master Plan first surfaced 4 years ago. They were locals and locals who had moved to other states and others who lived far away and had visited Santa Cruz and the wharf. Many left comments and the feeling was as one: we love the wharf the way it is: don’t change it!  That doesn’t mean there can’t be a bit of upkeep, the road needs repaving and the lights are too bright but beyond that, leave it alone.

I don’t think it an overstatement to say that this is a class struggle. Perhaps not as significant as is the case with the current high-end building boom in Santa Cruz but connected. It is mirrored in the class of restaurant moving out and the class moving in: the class of people forced out by rising rents and the class moving in. Covid-19 may change this trajectory but a city strapped for money will not be class neutral.

The deadline for comments on the Wharf Master Plan DEIR (Draft Environmental Impact Report) is fast approaching: due May 27th.  When you comment, this is not the format to say why you are vehemently opposed to the Wharf Master Plan, although that is tempting. It is the format to say why the DEIR fails to adequately study the impacts of the Plan and therefore the claim of no significant impact is incorrect. The city claims the tall new buildings have no aesthetic impact (photos are taken from far, far away). The city claims the migratory Pigeon Guillemots (no relation to pigeons, related to auks) can find new nesting sites from the south or east side of the wharf even though their access is blocked from the west by the new lowered west walkway. Look again at the picture. The south and east sides are packed with people, boats, outriggers…not conducive to the easily disturbed Pigeon Guillemot after it flies from Puget Sound to the wharf each spring. A short email to dmccormic@cityofsantacruz.com by the 27th is needed to show we care about our wharf. 

The full report if you are so inclined can be found here.

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

May 18

WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE?

Disorienting
Disorienting is what comes to mind when I try and follow the local political process in the age of Covid-19. If you are interested in engaging in local issues, finding ways to work on community solutions while the national pandemic politics play out, then these are the times that try men’s, women’s, and non-binary souls. Not only is it scary and chaotic in TrumpWorld, but as we are well-aware his shit is flushed across the country. Locally, who can follow in real-time what is transpiring on the issues we care about? Homelessness?  Affordable  housing? The environment? UCSC growth? Normally, the progressives are pretty good at thinking globally and acting locally, and there exist tremendous electronic resources for keeping up with the latest coronavirus news: economic statistics bombard us; how to avoid Tweet-monster Trump’s hourly pronouncements; Governor’s Cuomo and Newsom‘s usually informative press briefings; and likely the best in humanizing the Covid-19 story, Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. But trying to put all of this information into a localized context without the necessary benefit of real face-to-face public meetings has most of us occupying a kind of wait-and-see social space. This will end soon, right, we tell ourselves. But when? I don’t know about you, but my internal clock has been off. I often wake up at different times, forget this or that virtual meeting I had scheduled, I’m even often unsure about what day it is. And then there’s the anxieties…

Anxiety 101
They are deep, gut-gnawing feelings, sometimes burning a hole in my stomach. One is about our daughter living in a the Covid-19 hotspot, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The other daughter toils away with us in virtual land, sometimes taxing our home internet as three Zoom meetings happen in the same hour.We collectively are linked in weird ways with the outside world, all of us bowing before the hottest internet stock, Zoom.But the Zoom meeting and classroom of today is troubling at best. All three of us–mom, dad, daughter–have concluded that working on Zoom from home requires more focus and more preparation, and the desire to space out and want to clean that cob web in front of your computer or pick up all the clothes and dishes piling up around your room, is constant. Attending these Zoom meetings, I notice it is more difficult to be funny, body language cues coming from the Hollywood Squares screen are all off when trying to assess how a group of six, or 60 colleagues or students are actually thinking as someone’s audio and video drop away. Some have less connectivity than others. Our souls are being severely tested right now along with our compassion and empathy too. Many of my students feel alienated, miss the physical UCSC campus, and can’t find any space away from housemates or family members and sometimes just want to scream, or cry. For me, there hovers over each day a longing, (a knowing?), that this all will end soon. I will be able to once again meet a friend and share a Mike’s Mess at Zachary’s, a citrus IPA at Lupelo, or run into someone at the community table at the Coffee Roasting Company. I even look forward to that cacophony of high school student voices as they flood into the Bagelry mid-morning. How I long to hear those sounds again. 

Sad Daze for Democracy
This people-to-people contact becomes ever more vital when I remember how the public is unable to sit in close proximity and respond in a give-and-take dialogue with city staff members, commissioners, and councilmembers. These are truly sad days for democracy. Of course, I’ve been on Zoom meetings with enviros discussing Michael Moore’s new controversial film, Planet of the Humans; been part of discussions on the city council bi-weekly agendas; attended an Our Revolution post-mortem for Bernie (what’s next?); been at family gatherings too, and endless UCSC staff, faculty, and student meetings…all without great fulfillment. I tend to think most of us are not all that satisfied with our limited contact with each other. Sometimes the virtual meeting exacerbates the fury within for a need to be around friends. And, when it gets to the level of spending and cutting great sums of money as the city is currently doing, we have to find a better way for community input and collective decision-making.

URGENT: Public’s Extreme Vigilance Now Needed More Than Ever
There it was, in black and white, a Santa Cruz Sentinel headline screaming triumphantly above the fold:Development proposals roll in, and in the on-line version, Coronavirus no damper for Santa Cruz development projects. It should now be crystal clear just what the March 3rd recall was all about: $MONEY$. That is, the developers and real estate interests wanted a city council to enable a city staff to facilitate the building of profitable MARKET-RATE housing. Yep, no mystery there. For the price of half a luxury condo, these same developer and real estate interests were able to oust two councilmembers and move toward getting their buildings approved. Of course, we all knew that is what the election was about, but the speed and shear chutzpah on the part of city staff and developers in getting through the permit process is proving alarming. Since the March 3rd election there has been this unleashing of projects (see Sentinel article, Coronavirus no damper for Santa Cruz development proposals) looking for rubber stamp approvals by the city council. Developer interests are working the pandemic for everything it’s worth, and it is worth a lot of greenbacks to them. What is not clear to me is if any of these projects will actually be built any time in the next five years given the state of the economy. So why the rush? Part of the answer is that the “approvals” of these projects are usually transferable and can be sold for major dollars. Developers are rushing now to get approvals in the absence of any real public meetings and before this November’s election when the political climate just might change again. The current virtual approval process for obtaining permits and the lack of public input and scrutiny is unacceptable.

Building Permit Moratorium Now
Why not call for a moratorium on issuing any new commercial building permits until the pandemic has subsided and the council returns to public meetings? So much is on the table in terms of market rate housing projects. The projects being presented are not affordable undertakings, but ones driven by the maximization of profits. Santa Cruz is once again for sale. It may be likely too that the current council will allow the developers to pay “in-lieu” fees so as not to have any of those pesky affordable units in their building envelope. Can we put in place a building moratorium aimed at reigning in over-zealous developers? The emergency powers now enacted and commanded by the city manager can indeed put in place a moratorium on issuing any new building permits until a sense of municipal normalcy returns, as measured by Governor Newsom’s six goals that must be met in order to get the economy back up and running. The fifth bullet point below should be adhered to locally with respect to profit-driven developers. Building permits ought not to be issued until the city has “the ability for businesses, schools, and childcare facilities to support physical distancing.” Punto final! Here are the Governor’s six goals:

  • The ability to monitor and protect our communities through testing, contact tracing, isolating, and supporting those who are positive or exposed;
  • The ability to prevent infection in people who are at risk for more severe COVID-19;
  • The ability of the hospital and health systems to handle surges;
  • The ability to develop therapeutics to meet the demand;
  • The ability for businesses, schools, and child care facilities to support physical distancing; and
  • The ability to determine when to reinstitute certain measures, such as the stay-at-home orders, if necessary. (https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/04/14/governor-newsom-outlines-six-critical-indicators-the-state-will-consider-before-modifying-the-stay-at-home-order-and-other-covid-19-interventions/)

The developer class is fooling no one in its headlong rush to obtain their luxury condo gold and forge ahead quickly in using the pandemic as a way to extract profit from Surf City.

Democracy in Peril
This pandemic, besides losing jobs, childcare, and education time in the classroom for our children, is also bad for democracy. Much is happening in local government without public scrutiny—the Parks Master Plan, Wharf Master Plan, Library in a garage project, a towering curtain of buildings along Front street which will hover over the river, a Jeep dealership (yes JEEP cars), and we already know the Circle Church property has been approved for townhouse development. This is a dizzying array of projects, and it’s taking place while all of us are in lockdown and “sheltering in place.”These are the times when those who see public comment as burdensome, bothersome, and unnecessary will thrive in this atmosphere and push their highly profitable projects forward if we cannot create (invent?) additional avenues for input.

“Before this crisis, half of our people lived paycheck to paycheck. Tens of millions had no health insurance. Some 40 million people lived in poverty. 500,000 slept on the streets. We cannot just go ‘back to normal.’ We must go forward and build an economy that works for all.” (May 18)
(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected to the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His term ended in April of 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...

May 18

A POSSIBLE $40.5 MILLION DEFICIT IN COUNTY GOVERNMENT BUDGET
The County coffers are bleeding out as local unelected health officer Gail Newel continues to strangle the local economy and shatter the livelihoods of the people.  The result is a possible $40.5 million County budget deficit, depending on what life rafts the State and Federal governments toss our way.  

Because no one in the County Administrative Office or Finance Dept. really seems to know where all that stands, the customary full week of budget hearings at the end of June will be shortened to June 22-23 and June 30, before the Supervisors go skating off on vacation for a month.  When they return, the budget hearings will happen on August 10-13.  The final 2020-2021 County budget will not be approved until September 15, at which time, maybe we will know how many, if any, life rafts have sailed in at 701 Ocean Street.

But can we really expect any State money when the State budget is $52 million in the hole?  An how much worthless money can the County expect from our federal government, now $24.95 Trillion in debt?

Staff reported that all revenue sources are down by $4.2 million.  The County financing staff had planned to add $6 million to the County’s $56 million reserve fund, but that will not happen.  In fact, the CAO Palacios explained that the County budget will rely on over $20 million from the Reserve Fund just to be able to have a balanced budget in June at the close of the fiscal year, and will require using more in 2020-2021 in order to pay CalPERS government worker pension payments coming due.  

Next year, the 2020-2021 revenue estimates for sales tax will be 25% lower, Transient Occupancy Tax, from hotels and vacation rentals, are expected to be 45% lower, and all other revenue sources are expected to be 25% lower.  

Overall, in the last month, the County has seen a 50% decrease in overall revenue. 

Did the Board of Supervisors discuss this much?  NO.  Supervisor Leopold mentioned that the County government is the largest employer in the County, so any departmental cuts will add further economic stress.  He talked hopefully about the House bill that could allocate $1 trillion for additional COVID-19 aid, and that while dipping into the County Reserve Fund will keep the government afloat for a bit, it is not a solution.

Supervisor McPherson expressed hope that there will be options to reduce the cost of recovery.  

Supervisor Caput mentioned that there will be a need for more extensive and serious discussion of top County staff taking some pay cuts.

Supervisor Friend?  Supervisor Coonerty?  Hello?  Were they even listening?  No one knows, because the images of the Supervisors who are not physically present in the Chambers are absent from the public screen.  Hmmm…I wonder if they were even there and listened….or who it was that actually voted on other critical matters of government earlier in the meeting???

The public has no way of knowing.

INTERNATIONAL  ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS AWARDS ONE OF THREE GRANTS IN THE U.S. TO LOCAL APTOS/LA SELVA AND CENTRAL FIRE DISTRICTS FOR FIRE RISK REDUCTION WORK 
Our County is so lucky to have the great team of Fire Marshals Marco Mack and Mike DeMars who are working hard to help people living in the wildland areas of the MidCounty to improve their fire safety.  Last week, the two were honored with the award of a grant administered by the International Association of Fire Chiefs as one out of three awarded in the United States. The grant will support two demonstration projects, one in Aptos / La Selva District and the other in the Central Fire District, and working with rural neighborhoods to conduct table top fire evacuation exercises. Congratulations!  Read more about this on page 113:  https://www.aptosfire.com/DocumentCenter/View/942/05142020-Board-Meeting

By the way, these two fire districts are still moving forward to consolidate most likely by the end of this year.

SIGN UP FOR FREE CHIPPING TO CREATE FIRE DEFENSIBLE SPACE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
The FireSafe Santa Cruz Council is working with the Santa Cruz County Resource Conservation District to offer neighborhoods in the rural areas FREE chipping of vegetative materials removed to create and improve fire defensible space in the wildland areas of Santa Cruz County.    Apply here:

Landowner Assistance

Now is a good time to remove those fuel ladders but do take care not to remove or disturb nesting areas of local birds now in the process of raising their young. Governor Newsom, even with a $54.3 million state deficit, pledged to give an additional $200 million to fund additional firefighters and staff.

On Wednesday, Newsom said his revised budget will include more than $200 million to increase the state’s preparations for looming wildfires and other disasters. That includes hiring an additional 500 firefighters and 100 support personnel to help make up for the loss of dozens of inmate firefighters who were paroled to ease the risk of coronavirus outbreak

California governor to propose 10% pay cut for state workers to help with $54 billion deficit, union leaders say.

The truth is, the number of inmate firefighter crews was already reduced by about half before the COVID-19 mess occurred, due to the early releases under Prop 47 Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative

GREAT PLATES DELIVERED UP AND RUNNING SOON!
Many thanks to the Santa Cruz County Human Services Dept. Director Mr. Randy Morris and staff.

This program was hastily offered by Governor Newsom on April 24, and required County staff to work very quickly in order to qualify for funding.  Mr. Morris and his staff were one of the few in the State that were able to accomplish the task, bringing welcome partnerships with local restaurants that will proved three meals daily to seniors living on the edge and worried about venturing out in public.

Mr. Morris stated the restaurant owners only had one week to respond, but as of last Tuesday, staff was vetting the applications while accepting sign-ups for recipient.  The program is set to end on June 10, but the County intends to request an extension.

The phone number to call to sign up for meals: 454-4406

e-mail: hsd_greatplates@santacruzcounty.us 

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)

MAKE ONE CALL.  WRITE ONE LETTER.  ATTEND ONE VIRTUAL MEETING.  MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE THIS WEEK.

Cheers, Becky Steinbruner

I welcome your thoughts and discussion:  831-685-2915

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

May 14
#135 / Planet Of The Humans

Planet of the Humans, directed by Jeff Gibbs, and with Michael Moore as Executive Producer, is a new and very controversial film. You can view it for free. Just click that link to the title. The film is perhaps particularly controversial because it rather savagely attacks a number of nationally recognized environmental leaders. Al Gore, Bill McKibben, and Michael Brune are three of the environmental leaders whose leadership (and motivations) are questioned in the film.

The film clearly implies – and makes this claim explicit in the case of Al Gore – that these leaders have capitulated to corporate capitalism, and have attempted to push ineffective and contraindicated global warming solutions that will speed up the destruction of the Planet but that will also result in personal profit for them (or corporate support for their organizations). 

Are “gold bars” more important than Planet Earth, asks Al Gore, in a segment included in Planet of the Humans? Do we choose “gold bars,” or “Planet Earth?” That’s what Gore asks. According to the film, Gore went for the gold! 

Let me be clear, this may well not be fair to Mr. Gore, but it is not irrelevant to ask ourselves who is providing environmental leadership, and to what ends. The film definitely poses that question.

There has been a lot of “pushback” to this new film, and while I think that there is a good deal of truth in the “pushback,” I also think it would be wrong simply to dismiss the film, and not to confront the points that the film is seeking to make. In fact, one main point of the film is a point made in Jonathan Franzen’s important article, “What If We Stopped Pretending.”

Franzen’s article outlines what he believes is the inevitability of the massively negative impacts of global warming, but without any personally-directed anger aimed at those whom we might be tempted to blame. Franzen understands that our global warming crisis really is a crisis that we have all caused, and that it is not a “plot,” or something that has been nefariously imposed upon us by the wealthy. Planet of the Humans actually does say something quite a bit like what Franzen says, but the film’s projected anger onto our environmental “leaders” is a component not found in Franzen’s presentation.

For a good example of the pushback to the film, I’d suggest this article, from the Ecoequity website: “Why ‘Planet of the Humans’ is crap.” Tom Athanasiou, the author of that article, who calls the film “crap” (thereby adopting the same antagonistic model of discourse as the filmmakers ) is the author of Divided Planet: the Ecology of Rich and Poor and Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming, and is co-author of Greenhouse Development Rights: The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World. He is, in other words, a bonafide (and so far unsavaged) expert. In that article calling the film “crap,” Athanasiou does give some credit to the film, even as he objects to a lot of it:

Let me be clear. Gibb’s critique of renewables is just wrong, and its proportions are absurd. You would never know that the “gas as a bridge fuel” people are no longer held in esteem. You would never know that the intermittency problem is being solved, and the storage problem too. You would never know that the problem of decarbonizing the grid has been front and center on the renewables agenda for decades, and that the electric car people know it all too well. You would never know that the technology revolution is well and widely understood to be necessary but not sufficient to the green transition. All of which is to say that this would have maybe been a good movie 20 years ago. Maybe.

On the other hand, alas, there is another hand. His critique of biofuels, in particular, is generally spot on. I was briefly beguiled by the idea back around 2004, when I was paying too much attention to the carbon cycle and not enough to the realities on the ground. But everyone in the movement knows the score on this today, everybody who’s paying attention that is. Just like no-one still believes that natural gas is a bridge to transformative decarbonization, except maybe Michael Bloomberg. And while there are clearly idiot salespeople in the solar movement, it’s not like they’re representative. Though maybe they are, some of the time. The business of business, is, after all, business. But the Sierra Club had its reasons for joining hands with Bloomberg in the Beyond Coal campaign, and they were good ones. It used his money to shut down a lot of coal plants. Case closed (emphasis added).

For me, advancing “biomass conversion,” as a supposed “Green Technology” solution to global warming, is even worse than making the claim that “biofuels” are a way to deal with our climate crisis. Biomass conversion, as I understand it (see the picture at the top of this blog posting) is just another name for deforestation. Learning how this false solution has been pawned off as something positive is one of the main reasons to see the movie. 

There is another reason to see the film, too, besides the strong case it makes against “biomass” as a Green Tech strategy. One of the main ideas presented in the movie is the idea that we can’t trust “leaders” to solve our problems for us. I think that this is a message we need to hear.

We (ordinary people, non-experts) must reallocate our time and get much more deeply involved in and informed about the key political and policy issues that are central to how our local, state, and national governments operate, and how they are responding to our Global Warming crisis. We can’t just assume that between Al Gore, 350.org, and the Sierra Club, we’ve got our best and our brightest on the job, and that we can continue on with our “normal” patterns of consumption and complacency. The groups that I think best understand this are groups like Extinction Rebellion and Citizen’s Climate Lobby. Personal involvement by ordinary citizens is their raison d’être.

It is almost always counterproductive to try to advance policy challenges and policy disagreements by seeking to discredit or denigrate those with whom we disagree. But we can disagree without being disrespectful, and we do need to challenge the idea that we have already found a “Green” solution to the global warming crisis, and that if we could just elect another president we’d have this problem well in hand. Franzen doesn’t think that this is true, and Planet of the Humans doesn’t think that this is true.

I don’t think it’s true, either! 

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS.

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s dive into our dreamland down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog. 

    WASHINGTON

“Washington likes to threaten the people over whom they exercise power.”
~Glenn Greenwald 

“Not surprisingly, there’s nothing to do at the Pentagon except start a war.”
~Paul Beatty 

“I once saw a snake having sex with a vulture, and I thought, it’s just business as usual in Washington DC.”
~Jarod Kintz

This guy is incredibly skilled at what he does…


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...

Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment

May 13 – 19, 2020

Posted on May 14, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON…Oganookie revived, KZSC’s Bushwhackers Movie critiques, Trump’s local votes, GREENSITE…on the Riverfront Project. KROHN…will return next week. STEINBRUNER…Santa Cruz raising water rates?, County using Facebook to communicate? Homeless to Adventist Camp?PATTON…The Top, Middle and Bottom of voting. EAGAN…Subconscious Comics  plus Deep Cover. JENSEN…Watchables.  QUOTES…”Viruses”

...

DOWNTOWN APTOS. 1910. Do note the original placement of the train depot, the hotel, the train tracks.

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

GIRAFFES FIGHTING.

Horse scared by fart!

DATELINE  May 11

KZSC’S BUSHWHACKERS BREAKFAST CLUB & B MOVIE BRATTON!

Reviewing — or better yet critiquing — movies on KZSC’s Bushwhackers Breakfast Club has been a weekly delight for 17 years. Then came the pause for virus issues. Starting again this very Friday May 15 right after the news at 8:10am, I’ll (phone in) my slings, arrows, bouquets and warnings related to what’s available to watch on any size screen. Theatres, cinerama, superscope, 70mm, appear to be doomed, so it’ll focus on what’s worth our time to view at home, or workplace (if any), Tune in, it won’t hurt. KZSC is at 88.1 FM on your dial or keyboard. 

OGANOOKIE FANS FOREVER! Jack Bowers, one of the Oganookie original band members, was kind and thoughtful enough to send this clip. Oganookie was just about the first Santa Cruz band to achieve any resemblence of fame or especially fortune. Bowers says, “Staying home for my esteemed former colleagues Bob Stern and George Stavis has meant delving into the long shelved Oganookie oeuvre. First one of the shelf is “Little Maggie”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBZszEfsT4c   regards,   Jack Bowers

TRUMP VOTE QUESTIONED/UPDATED? Reader Martin Peaden emails to tell us/me… 

“In reference to the May 4 column, 11,276 people voted for Trump in March! That was limited to only Republican Party members. And very recently. New Canadian and former Santa Cruzan Dan Dickmayer wants us to know…” Closer to home, though not born and raised in Santa Cruz, is Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winner and researcher on epidemics, who graduated from Merrill College when I knew her in the early 70s. Now 69 years old, she was on CNN last night with Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper, with whom she is friends. She was amazing, far outdistancing most of the other experts I have seen. I hope she gets more exposure for her views, not least her anti-Trump perspective.

May 11

The Future of Santa Cruz

The rendition above is what is planned for lining the river levee on Front Street between Laurel and Soquel bridges opposite the Metro. The city released its Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for this project today.  I had hoped for a breather after the DEIR for the Wharf Master Plan but no such luck. Not that luck has anything to do with it. You don’t have to be a bloodhound to smell something fishy in the city’s timing of the release of environmental documents for three major projects (Parks, the Municipal Wharf and now this Riverfront Project). Can the controversial library issue be far behind?

The project is taller, denser and boxier than what was approved a few years ago by the Planning Commission and the then city council (pre-Glover and Cummings elections). I and a few other die-hards attended those meetings and voiced what we felt was a shared community perspective: that this scale of development was out of scale: that its size, feel and look spelled the end of our small town’s character: that despite a token required 20 “affordable” units, 80% of the market-rate condos would not ease our housing cost crisis but would exacerbate it by attracting high-tech workers from Silicon Valley or second homers, a demographic fact verified by the real estate industry.

As bad as it was then, this version is worse. Thanks to the CA state government’s imposing a “density bonus” on local governments, developers can get all sorts of waivers if they cram more units into their project. So this one went from 133 to 175 units with the trade-off that the 20 affordable units now include 15 for very-low income levels and 5 for low-income levels. For this they get waivers for height and step-backs. It went from 70 to 81 feet in height and is now 7 stories with 6 stories of housing above street level commercial (previously 5).  Gone are the step backs of the top story, previously required to be 60% smaller than the floor below. The demolishing of two historic small buildings, currently leased by long-time well-known local businesses has not changed. 

I’m wondering if this love affair with housing density will take a hit after the corona virus is a memory? We now know that density by itself does nothing for affordability or for getting people out of their cars despite all the happy talk. Santa Cruz is a relatively small town and will never have the level of robust affordable public transportation system, which is a pre-requisite. We know that low-income workers are pushed further to the margins when new market-rate dense developments bulldoze small rental units. We know that the lifestyle of wealthier newcomers increases not decreases the overall carbon footprint. Does dense living also increase susceptibility to viral spread? If New York and Italy are examples, it might be a relevant variable. 

Perhaps it’s time to reconsider density as the greener alternative. I am familiar with the ostensible environmental arguments for density and find them un-compelling. Those who espouse them strike me as lacking any affection for a small town feel. They lack awareness of the class impact of such developments. Santa Cruz for them is a blank slate for designing a new urban elite consumerism. The alternative is not a nightmare of suburban sprawl. It is to plan carefully and go slowly. That small is beautiful and moderation key. Keep a human scale. This is not nostalgia. It is a love of place. Perhaps if those promoting these projects lived in the city rather than on properties far from the madding crowd or had more than a few years residency under their belts they too might look at the above project and really see how it obliterates the character of Santa Cruz. And this is just one of many coming down the pike.

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

CHRIS KROHN’S SANTA CRUZ REPORT. Will return next week.

(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected to the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His term ended in April of 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...

May 11

HOW CAN WE FIND OUT WHAT’S NEXT?
Every Thursday at 10am, Santa Cruz County Health Officer, Dr. Gail Newel, holds a press conference to update the County with her newest ideas for keeping the public safe.  The only way citizens can find out what she has in mind each week is to listen to the County’s FaceBook live stream.  What about those who do not subscribe to FaceBook?  Too bad.  No local radio stations broadcast it reliably. 

Why won’t the County use the 454-2222 tele-conference system that is free, and allow anyone with a telephone to be able to listen to these press conferences?  Write the Supervisors and ask the County make these critical meetings available to the general public.

I am grateful to be able to hear Governor Newsom’s the daily press conferences held at noon by tuning in to KAZU radio 90.3FM.

And do try the County Public Information Officer Jason Hoppin <jason.hoppin@santacruzcounty.us>

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY ORDERED TO SHELTER IN PLACE INDEFINITELY BUT LOCAL BUSINESS COMMITTEE DEMANDS DISCUSSION
Congratulations to the local merchants and bankers who convinced the County that Gail Newel needs to work with them to chart a path to opening local business again and begin to climb out of the economic abyss she has created for the County.

The Sentinel “Coastlines” announced the handful of bankers, non-profit leaders, and a couple of small business owners who will be guiding this effort to talk some sense into Gail Newel.  I wonder who chose the committee?  The list does not include either Casey Byers or Robert Singleton, who commented strongly in the Sentinel report. 

COUNTY WANTS TO MOVE IN DOZENS OF HOMELESS YOUTH AND LET THEM ROAM THE SOQUEL COUNTRYSIDE
Soquel residents near the Seventh Day Adventist Camp on Soquel San Jose Road are not pleased that Supervisor John Leopold kept them in the dark for nearly a month as he worked with attorneys and the Church Camp to place 35 trailers for homeless there.  He knows this neighborhood is adverse to such a thing, based on the fierce push-back he received when the County tried to allow a homeless RV park there a couple of years ago.  This time, the homeless, aged 18-25,  would be allowed 24/7 full use of the large acreage owned by the Church.  Understandably the locals are worried about fire danger from smokers wandering about night and day.

So why did Supervisor Leopold wait until the Sentinel announced the project to send a letter to his constituents in the area?  

Why would the County think it makes better sense to put these homeless youth miles from town and provide free shuttle bus service instead of locating the trailers on the County-owned lot in Watsonville at Freedom Boulevard and Crestview?  That was used for FEMA trailers after the 1989 earthquake, was plumbed and may still have utilities,  is on a major bus route, is just behind the County medical clinic and is next to a large community garden operated by the Master Gardeners? 

I think these are all good questions, but Supervisor Leopold refuses to answer them or the myriad of others his constituents are asking about this proposal.  The most significant one by far is: Why didn’t he come talk with his constituents sooner?    They will remember this in the November elections. 

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)


SOMETIMES THE SMALLEST ACTS OF KINDNESS MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE
My friend, Shirley Coleman, was in hospice, having battled cancer for years.  She always loved and admired Celtic music, and loved local bagpiper David Brewer as “the son she never had”.  

David Brewer showed up one lovely day recently and played Shirley’s favorite tunes.  She sat on her porch with a big smile under her mask, exhausted.   She told us all afterward it was the best day she had had in weeks.  

The Aptos Times was kind enough to send reporter Jondi Gumz, and published this gem: A Bagpipe Full of Cheer

Shirley passed away last week, but her sister said they watched the video a friend had made and sent them over and over because it made Shirley so happy. Rest in Peace, Shirley, and thank you to David Brewer for bringing a bagpipe full of cheer.

MAKE ONE CALL.  WRITE ONE LETTER.  DO KIND THINGS FOR OTHERS.  MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE.

Enjoy the fresh air and gentle sunshine, and be well,

Becky Steinbruner 831-685-2915 ki6tkb@yahoo.com  

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

May 5
#126 / The Country Club Set (And The Rest Of Us)


Having just polished off my blog posting made yesterday, extolling the virtues of The New Yorker, I was amused to find a message in my email inbox that promoted a New Yorker article titled, “How Greenwich Republicans Learned to Love Trump.” It was as if I had received this email simply to prove my point! Read The New Yorker to find out what is really going on!

I do commend the article to your attention. As I say, I found out about it from an email bulletin from Axios, which gave me the following advice: “If you read only 1 thing: ‘The Greenwich Rebellion.'”

Evan Osnos, the author of the advertised article, is The New Yorker’s resident expert on China. Here, however, Osnos has turned his attention to the Country Club Republicans of Greenwich, Connecticut. There is a reason for that, of course. It turns out that Osnos grew up there.

As Osnos paints the picture, Greenwich was, for generations, a place that might have been thought of as the private political plantation of the Bush family. Generations of the Bushes dominated Greenwich politics, and particularly the polite and proper “style” in which politics was carried out, and its “service oriented” approach to government. 

Consistent with this style was the call by President George H. W. Bush for a “kinder, gentler nation.” Apparently, this was truly the spirit of the Greenwich Republicans – right up until Jeb Bush ran for president, and tried to tell Republicans “how ‘immigration is love.” Osnos outlines how this very “starched collar” Republican stronghold decided to cast its lot with Donald J. Trump, despite Trump’s failure to conform to the typical Republican Party archetype that had been admired in Greenwich up until that time. 

One particular sentence in Osnos’ article attracted my attention: 

As early as May, 2016, exit polls and other data showed that Trump supporters earned an average of seventy-two thousand dollars a year, while supporters of Hillary Clinton earned eleven thousand dollars less.

As I understand it, Osnos is reporting on national statistics here, and to me, the point is not that Trump supporters represented the well-to-do, and  that the supporters of Hillary Clinton were those who earned less. There is nothing too remarkable in that observation. 

What struck me (not being much of a “math guy”) was how that “average” income figure must have been derived, for both the Trump and the Clinton supporters. We all know that Trump’s supporters include a huge fraction of the ultra-wealthy, that 1% of the population that controls over 90% of the entire wealth of the nation. Considering how much income each member of the “billionaire class” might command, there simply must be huge numbers of Trump supporters who are extremely low-income, if the average income of all Trump supporters ends up being only $11, 000 more than the average income of Clinton supporters. 

In other words, when we consider the incomes of Clinton supporters, most of them earn something like $60,000 per year – certainly with some lower income persons and some higher income persons making up the average, but with the “deviation” from that average not being all that much. But there must be a huge deviation from the average when we consider the incomes of Trump supporters. He has, if Osnos’ numbers are correct, a coalition that spans the ultra-wealthy (those from Greenwich, Connecticut being one component) to the very significantly below-average income workers that we see at Trump rallies. 

For me, this is not a happy thought. 

Osnos is concerned that the reputation of his home town has now changed, and that the place where he grew up has moved away from a kind of genteel, noblesse oblige politics to a politics that “forgives cruelty as the price of profit.”

As Osnos sums it up, in the last line in his article, “In the long battle between the self and service, we have, for the moment, settled firmly on the self. To borrow a phrase from a neighbor in disgrace, we stopped worrying about ‘the moral issue here.'”

My concern is somewhat different. If Trump and his Republican Party confederates can maintain a hold not only on the formerly “service oriented” rich people who have now accepted Trump’s cruelty as “the price of profit,” but can also attract huge numbers of those on the edge of poverty, a decent politics may be difficult to achieve. Where can a decent politics, that founds it appeal on the idea that we are  all “together in this,” build a majority that can take back power from the ultra-wealthy, so that the immense productivity of this nation can be made to benefit the nation as a whole?

As I say, Osnos’ article does not suggest that a solution is close at hand. Unlike Osnos, I don’t have any special concern for Greenwich, Connecticut and the elites who live there. But I do care, deeply, about the United States of America, and what Osnos’ article tells me is that we have a significant political problem. If large numbers of those at the “bottom” continue to identify with those few at “the top,” we are left with an isolated “middle” that doesn’t have the electoral strength to demand that the government respond to the needs of everyone.

Of course, that is not news. You don’t have to read The New Yorker to understand that!

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. Mixes penetrating laughs with introspective thinking. Scroll down.

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s ever present even current…”Deep Cover” down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog. 

LISA JENSEN LINKS. Lisa writes: “Wondering what to watch while you shelter in place? This week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com) , let me steer you toward some noteworthy new entries and some four-star favorites that have recently popped up on a streaming platform near you!” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975. 

QUOTES. “VIRUS”

“There is nothing so patient, in this world or any other, as a virus searching for a host.”
~Mira Grant. 

“Disregard the coronavirus as you would a cannibal kissing your face.”
~Kevin Ansbro 

“Our brains are like computers; it’s our responsibility to programme them well, daily, and remove the viruses.” 
~Sam Owen, 500 Relationships 

This guy is really funny

Best Impression of a Kid You've Ever Seen. Eric O'Shea – Full Special

Best Impression of a Kid You've Ever Seen. Eric O'Shea – Full Special

Posted by Dry Bar Comedy on Wednesday, April 15, 2020


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...

Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment

May 6 – 12, 2020

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON…Ignore Trump, Library news. GREENSITE… on the need to speak up to save the Municipal Wharf KROHN… Santa Cruz Report. STEINBRUNER…bike lanes repaired, bike lanes erased PATTON… Exhaustion & Politics. EAGAN… Deep Cover + Subconscious Comics. JENSEN… takes a deep breath. QUOTES… “COMMUNICATION”  

...

SANTA CRUZ’S REAL LIBRARY. Andrew Carnegie funded 2509, libraries and more than 800 are still in use. This photo is from our Santa Cruz library. It opened April 1904, was 9000 square feet in size, and demolished in September 1966. The library in use now opened in 1968.

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

AWKWARD SPORTS MOMENTS.

OLD CIRCUS PHOTOS.

DATELINE May 4 

LATTE BREAKING NEWS

IGNORING TRUMP…A CHOICE. There’s a small chance that by working together we (the editorial “we”) could change the way our world works. IGNORE TRUMP. If we (now meaning the media) stopped watching the Trump portion of the virus updates, the three biggest TV networks FOX, CNN, and MSNBC would stop broadcasting him. Trump has created the biggest ratings ever and it’s our fault for us waiting and watching his latest lies, claims and globe changing mistakes. A digression…did you know that Rachel Maddow — who is 47 years old — was born in Castro Valley, and went to Stanford? I didn’t. Today Trump makes his headlines by taking attention away from Corona data, and we foolishly debate his every word, and he does it all over again, day after day, again grabbing all the headlines and still keeping his supporting voters. We need to stop him before elections get more scary and closer. Do remember that 22,438 Santa Cruz voters voted FOR him the last time…

LIBRARY NEWS FOR This just in from Jean Brocklebank, from Don’t Bury The Library — one of the many groups and multitudes opposed to the plans from Cynthia Mathews and her co-horts to demolish our present library, and build that new parking sky rise with cars and  collectibles combined. “Community Presentation of an update from Group 4 architects on their progress with the Downtown Library Mixed Use Project Cost Assessment. This will be a virtual meeting. There will also be a future community meeting once the final report is ready. The final report will be available to the public prior to the meeting. The place is to de determined and Doors Open: 4:30 PM…Program Starts: 4:30 PM…End Time: 6:00 PM“. 

JOKE. Shelley Hatch reports in to tell us that the Rio theatre marquee is displaying a funny. She added…I don’t know if it’s funny on paper, but it was in those big, colorful letters announcing it as a coming attraction, and a double bill as well. Serendipitously, our webmistress happened to have taken a photo of it, seeing as she also found it hysterical.

May 4th 2020

Save the Municipal Wharf!

I read the Wharf Master Plan draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) over the weekend.  It was not a pleasant experience. It is however a necessary one since the deadline to respond to this sham of a CEQA document is May 27th.  The city has been sitting on it since 2017. That they chose to release it in the middle of a stay at home viral pandemic is frustrating enough but the document itself is infuriating. I suggest you take a look. Your silence does not equal consent but it sure will be interpreted that way.  You can find it here

Ignore everything else and scroll down to the heading WHARF MASTER PLAN DRAFT EIR DOCUMENTS. Each section is a different link with the Appendices containing the various consultants’ reports. 

You may recall that the city was shamed into conducting an EIR after thousands of people who love the current wharf signed a petition protesting the proposed make-over and demanding that a full Environmental Report be done to assess the impacts of such changes. That, plus a letter from an attorney who documented the legal need for such environmental review forced the city to go back to the drawing board.  After 3 years of waiting, some hoped the whole project was on the back burner and others felt it was a non-starter due to the $25 million price tag. Both are wishful thinking. 

The language in the DEIR is Orwellian. Everything proposed is an “improvement.” Whether it’s the 3 new buildings up to 45 feet in height; a 30% increase in retail and commercial; a 50% increase in daily automobile trips with only 45 new parking spots achieved by re-striping the current spots (read narrower); the paving over of the sea lion viewing holes plus a boat landing dock capable of handling tenders from cruise ships although the document doesn’t admit that, you gonna love it! is the general theme.  

The impact on the marine and bird species (the wharf is a listed sensitive habitat site and birding hot spot) is swept into the “no significant impact” category with a sleight of hand. Sure the protected migratory birds which currently nest under the wharf might be impacted by the lowered walkway on the west side and the hundreds of people who will be able to access their current nesting area but hey, the wharf will be bigger so actually the habitat area is increased! No mention that such birds, who make the long trip from Puget Sound to the wharf each year are sensitive to disturbance, usually abandoning their nesting areas if disturbed. Nor any mention that after losing access to under the wharf from the west, entrance from the south and east will be difficult if not impossible for the birds due to the obstructions that are planned: a lowered viewing platform to the south plus a boat dock and outriggers to the east.  

The consulting historian found no issues of significance perhaps because she failed to include the lowered walkway when she wrote: “The improvements proposed for the West side of the Wharf are mostly structural (new piles) and cosmetic (improvements to the facades of the existing buildings). These alterations would not change the overall character of the Wharf and would not impair the ability of the Wharf to convey its historic significance.”

I hope by this time you are angry enough to put pen to paper and send in your comments. If you are still hesitant, consider that the Wharf Master Plan was funded by a grant from the US Department of Commerce with the claim by the city that the wharf was seriously damaged in the tsunami of 2014, which it wasn’t. Besides this fraudulent claim, consider also that the city has just thrown Gilda’s Restaurant under the bus, shoving 50 employees out of work, many of them having worked at Gilda’s for decades. Despite a number of potential buyers for the restaurant, willing to keep it as Gilda’s, the city would not grant a lease reasonable enough for a viable business venture. Four council members backed that affront. I can hazard a guess who they are. Compare that abandonment of an iconic landmark wharf business with the strategy statement #3 in the DEIR:  ” The third strategy calls for expanding the number, mix and attractiveness of commercial uses on the wharf within the existing footprint devoted to these purposes with preparation of a marketing plan to guide city efforts for outreach to potential tenants.”  Apparently not the current tenants. Remember the author of the Wharf Master Plan said, looking at Gilda’s: “We can do better.”

The Wharf is a Municipal Wharf, meaning it belongs to the people of Santa Cruz most of whom oppose this morphing into A Pier 39. That the word “municipal” has been erased in these documents is not without significance.  If this DEIR is un- opposed and sails through city council then it’s only a matter of time and grant applications before the wharf as we know and love it is forever lost to the community.

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

May 5, 2020

Passing the Time in Lock-Down

Watching, Listening, Reading
The first thing you will see is that the “Majority Report” has retired. Now, this is The Santa Cruz Report. Why? Because having a seat off the city council and looking in, instead of looking out, puts me in a whole different place. The current council majority acts along the lines of that old CIA-ish jaundiced view of reality, paraphrased this way: If you knew what I know you would do it this way too, but I can’t tell you what I know. It’s for your own safety. I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of this person, that event, or any reality you may be experiencing. It’s why so many councilmembers, past and present, love “Closed Session.” They get to know something no one else in town is privy to, and certain councilmembers thrive on it. And why begrudge them this stealthy fringe benefit because the job really offers few perks, a parking pass, free food during council meetings, and a smallish pay check, $1500 per month. Why shouldn’t councilmembers at least be able to carry with them the secrets of the castle? No? I don’t believe so either. The public’s business ought to be done in public, not behind the doors of the Courtyard Conference Room, a place the public cannot enter. Open and transparent government ought to be foundation of our local government, with or without Covid-19. 

Rx Advice
I can safely report out to all good residents of Santa Cruz that after having spent over seven years on the Santa Cruz City Council, the council has much to learn from the public. In fact, local government depends on “The Public” insisting on exercising its First Amendment speech rights. It is up to you to ask questions, put forward creative solutions, follow the money trail wherever it leads, and push for open and participatory governance. The community must be present to help disinfect the whole process because it’s the only cure that will save our community from those developer-real estate lugubrious souls who sell snake oil wrapped in the guise of “affordable” housing. Their scams have been working for a long time and they were willing to spend over $200k to remove two councilmembers who got in their way. (What will this November look like?) But folks, we all know it isn’t over ’til it’s over. Stay safe and stay tuned. 

Watching
What have I been watching during this lockdown? Thought you’d never ask… 

Executive producer, Michael Moore and Director Jeff Gibbs offered up an Earth Day present on April 22nd that on first look may appear to be a leftist circular firing squad. Planet of the Humans, besides being an absolutely FREE movie, offers a sober and cynical glimpse into “green capitalism.” Specifically, it presents a grim picture of industrialized and monetized wind, solar, and biomass business. Bill McKibben, Al Gore, and the Sierra Club come off, if not looking somewhat villainous then as just pragmatic capitalists. Say it ain’t so?!? Yes, inaccuracies abound in this documentary, but real substance is also there too. Part of the message is that 1) we live on a planet with finite resources, 2) there’s no free lunch and 3) fuel efficient airplanes and electric cars traversing around the planet will not save the planet in the long run. An “executive producer” is usually that person in the film hierarchy who secures the funding. So how much Moore had to do with the writing, interviewing, and post-production of Planet of the Humans is not immediately obvious. Furthermore, the film is overly serious and cynical, and lacks Moore’s tremendously famous humor from Roger and Me, Sicko, and Capitalism:  a Love Story, not to mention the show that really hooked me, the hilariously inventive TV Nation. Little of this documentary is funny.  Of course, Covid-19 has given us all an opportunity to take a step away from the climate abyss and see the positive changes already registered in air and water quality around us. The question becomes, what will we do when the “shelter in place” order is lifted and so many seek to go back to “normal,” which perhaps a majority never fully shared in before the virus? BTW, a Rachel Carson quote gets in near the very end of the movie and possibly summarizes the movie-makers message: 

Humankind is challenged, as it has never been challenged before to prove its maturity and its mastery–not of nature, but of itself.

There’s More Beyond Moore
During these Coronavirus days, there’s a lot to watch. We get to shelter-in-place during the “golden age of television.” It would take a couple of life-times to watch all the great material that’s now being produced. For any of you political junkies I recommend a Danish series, Borgen. Bruce Bratton put me onto it last year. I also suggest checking out a new Norwegian political drama series, Occupied. Quality-wise, Borgen kills it with a fantastic story-line– first Danish progressive woman prime minister dealing with a multi-party government–and the acting is first-rate. I saw most of House of Cards and Borgen beats it for realistic storyline and shear drama. It is more like an on the edge of your seat West Wing. Occupied is interesting in seeing how a Green loses his way after being chosen as head of state. For sheer pleasure, and minor dollops of politics and head-turning moments, check out the Coen Brothers western, the Ballad of Buster Scruggs. But during these sometimes bleak Covid days I have found by far the most intriguing, engrossing, and at times surreal series is La Casa de Papel from Spain. It’s called Money Heist in English. I can hardly wait for season 5! A diverse group of bank robbers, headed by a college professor, breaks into the mint in Madrid and begins printing money, but how will they get it out? I also recommend Unorthodox. It’s about a woman exiting the Orthodox community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn for a freer life in Berlin. If the comedic weirdness of the Coen Bros is not enough, try Look Who’s Back. Adolf Hitler returns to present-day Germany trying to do it all over again, but this time with different results. If you are a Bob Dylan fan, No Direction Home is excellent, not to mention a YouTube find of all 55 minutes of his 1965 press conference in San Francisco (Can spot the question from Alan Ginsberg?). All these offerings can be found on Netflix, except Borgen, which you will have to use your search engine to hunt down. (P.S. For your sports viewing fix try The Last Dance on ESPN, pay close attention to the hip-hop sound track. Absolutely for FREE on YouTube are the Celtics-Lakers 1984 Game 7 (with or without the original commercials); Game 7 of the 1987 Lakers-Rockets finals; the Mets-Orioles 1969 final game 5; and the 1970 Knicks-Lakers’ game 7. They are all there, enjoy!)

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)

“Now is the time to create millions of good jobs building out the infrastructure and clean energy necessary to save our planet for future generations.

For our economy, our planet, and our future, we need a #GreenNewDeal.” (April 20)
(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected to the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His term ended in April of 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...
SANTA CRUZ CITY COUNCIL UNABLE TO ACCEPT PUBLIC COMMENT
I could not participate in the April 28 Santa Cruz City Council meeting, but did later listen to the proceedings via Community TV Government on Demand.  It seems no one from the public was able to get through to the Council for the first half of the meeting.  The Council eventually figured this out, but some members of the public most likely had given up trying.

The question the City Council needs to answer for the public is: If the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors is able to continue holding in-person public meetings that allow the people to speak freely, why can’t the City Council do the same?

COUNTY SUPERVISOR CHAIRMAN CAPUT TO ASK FOR SUPERVISORS AND DEPT. HEADS TO FOREGO PAY FOR 2 WEEKS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE UNEMPLOYED MASSES
Chairman of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors announced at the April 28 Board meeting that he will ask members of the Board on  May 12 to forego their pay for two weeks, ans ask all department heads to join in as well.  “All these shelter-in-place orders have caused people to lose their paychecks for five or six weeks. We need to be leaders here,” he said.  Alot of people are really hurting, but government workers are okay, albeit working from home.

While County Administrative Officer has assured the public that there will be no government reductions for now, there might be in 2021.

HEY, DON’T BURY THE LIBRARY!
What are those people thinking?  Tune in May 7 at 4:30 to the Library Advisory Committee meeting for a Community Presentation of an update from Group 4 architects on their progress with the Downtown Library Mixed Use Project Cost Assessment. This will be a virtual meeting. There will also be a future community meeting once the final report is ready. The final report will be available to the public.

Plan to be ready at least 5 minutes before the virtual meeting begins at 4:30 pm. However, as with any public meeting, one may join at anytime after 4:30 pm.

SELLING ART TO STAY AFLOAT?
Until last week, any art museum who sold off art treasures for purposes other than to axquire additional pieces would suffer censuring, sanctioning and public shaming by the powerful Association of Art Museum Directors.  However, last week that group relaxed their rules to now allow art museums to sell off artwork in order to economically survive the COVID-19 problem.  Known as “deaccessioning”, art museums may now sell valuable pieces of art, just to survive.

This does not set a good precedent, and I wonder how safe the nation’s treasured art pieces are?  Who would decide when the need is great enough to sell things, rather than cut back in other areas? How would the museum directors decide what to sell and what to keep?  What guarantee to benefactors have that their donations will not be auctioned off rather than shared with the public and future generations?
Hmmm…..

MCGREGOR DRIVE NOW SAFER FOR BICYCLISTS….BIKE LANE RESTORED
Last week, the hard-working County Public Works crews repaired the huge road failure in the bike lane  on McGregor Drive in Aptos that caused some real safety hazards for cyclists.  Many thanks!!

You can write the crews a thank you note, and report other road problems that still need attention,  by filing a report here.

APTOS VILLAGE TRAFFIC IMPROVEMENT….BIKE LANE ERASED
Soon, bicyclists will have to veer out into traffic as they approach Aptos Creek Bridge in order to accommodate a traffic mitigation measure for the Aptos Village Project developers’ Phase 2 subdivision.

The County plans to begin construction soon on a new traffic light in Aptos Village at Aptos Creek Road and Soquel Drive that will be a mitigation for the Phase 2 Aptos Village Project.  In order to make room for a dedicated turn lane on eastbound Soquel Drive for left turns onto to Aptos Creek Road, the westbound bike lane in that busy area will be erased.  So will about 7 parking spaces for the Publik House and other area businesses.

The County’s project, known as “Aptos Village Traffic Improvement Project” Phase 2B is fully funded, thanks to the Board of Supervisors approving “unanticipated revenue” of $3.4+ million for the Project on March 24, 2020.  The grand total for the Phase 1 and 2 work is $6.9 million, according to Santa Cruz County Capital Improvement Report 2019/2020 (see page 58)

Look at page 60 of that Report.  It shows the drainage improvement project for Rio Del Mar esplanade area still needing $4.8 million to happen.  Why has the County consistently rated the Aptos Village Traffic Improvement Projects as the top priority for funding in various grant applications?  Hmmmmmmm…..

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)

WRITE ONE LETTER.  .   MAKE ONE CALL.  ATTEND A TELECONFERENCED MEETING AND SPEAK OUT!  TAKE A WALK IN THE SUNSHINE AND FRESH AIRE AND STAY STRONG.

Cheers,
Becky Steinbruner

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

May 2


#123 / Exhaustion

As an environmental attorney, I am sometimes approached by persons concerned about proposed development projects of various kinds. When I am so approached, I am often asked to provide free legal and political advice, and I almost always tell inquirers that free advice is “worth every penny you pay for it.” Usually, I don’t have a lot to say in response to requests for free advice, for two different reasons. 

First, of course, as Abraham Lincoln may or may not have said, “an attorney’s time and advice are his stock in trade.” Attorneys are in the business of giving advice, and if they hope to be paid for that advice, it is not, generally, a good idea to give the advice away for free. 

Second, and much more important, as far as I am concerned, I worry a great deal that general comments I might make, giving free legal or political advice, will actually be bad advice, and steer people in the wrong direction if they rely on it. Almost always, to use that familiar phrase, the “devil is in the details,” and general statements about the law, or what might be a wise thing to do, can be significantly in error, if an attorney gives advice without really knowing what the attorney is talking about, in terms of the details.

So, I tell people who inquire, and ask for free advice, to hire an attorney to provide assistance, and to do it sooner rather than later. That is a piece of “free advice” I am willing to provide to everyone, as this blog posting makes clear. No charge to the reader! 

Here is another piece of free legal advice that I am providing to anyone who might be able to make use of it: you need to exhaust your administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit, if you want to be successful. 

“Exhaustion” is what attorneys call participating in the decision-making process at the administrative level. The courts require that the plaintiff or petitioner must have “exhausted his or her administrative remedies” before challenging a decision in court. Relevant arguments must be raised at the administrative level. Relevant facts must be introduced into evidence at the administrative level, too. One reason you need to get that attorney on board “sooner rather than later” is to make sure that you do, in fact, fully exhaust your administrative remedies.

If anyone thinks that the courts are going to reverse bad policy decisions by local officials, and thus conclude that the right time to consider hiring an attorney is immediately following a bad decision by a City Council, or a Board of Supervisors, or some state or federal agency, such person will likely be very much disappointed by the results of any lawsuit filed. 

If we hope for positive results from our institutions of democratic self-government, we need to get involved ourselves. I am fond of saying that, in these daily blog postings I write, and otherwise. 

In the context of legal proceedings to challenge governmental decisions, that kind of personal involvement is an actual requirement, before a court will take action to reverse what may have been an illegal or otherwise challengeable governmental decision. We must, in other words, give our elected officials all our arguments, evidence, and advice before those officials take their action. If we do, and the officials do what we consider to be the wrong thing, then the courts will hear from us, and examine our objections, and the courts may rule in our favor. 

If we just show up in court, however, with arguments and objections we never made during the approval process, and tell the court that the elected officials did the wrong thing, it is almost always true that the court will not even review our objections.  Why not? Because we did not “exhaust our administrative remedies.”  

Unless citizens participate before the decisions are made to which they object, the courts are simply not going to consider their arguments. 

Participation in government can be exhausting. It takes a lot of energy, time, and often money. But if you don’t exhaust your remedies in the administrative proceedings leading up to what you think is a bad governmental decision, you won’t get much satisfaction in court. 

Exhaustion? You’re saying that’s a good thing? 

You bet I am, and that’s a piece of free legal advice that is worth a lot more than what you paid for it!   

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. A classic comic if there ever was one. These are from Tim’s private collection!

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s “Deep Covers” down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog. 

LISA JENSEN LINKS. Lisa writes: “Sorry, folks, I have nothing to declare this week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com ). Any minute now, I’m going to get a grip and start posting again, so please do keep checking back. You never know when I;m going to get inspired!” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975. 

    COMMUNICATION

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind”.
~Rudyard Kipling 

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”. 
~George Bernard Shaw

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”
~Henry Winkler 

Thought this might be appreciated…


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...

Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment

April 29 – May 5, 2020

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON…the real Hawaii issues. Sentinel’s politics. Errett Circle Church, sugary beverages & the City council. GREENSITE… on comparing Australia and USA on Covid 19. KROHN…will be back next week. STEINBRUNER…15 billion County deficet, bad drinking water, Soquel Creek water debt, City Council and Covid laws. PATTON…on being Ruled.EAGAN…Subconscious Comics and Deep Cover. JENSEN…her second book. QUOTES…”BOREDOM”

...

AN EARLIER SANTA CRUZ. This was 1894 after the big fire. It is Pacific and Cooper Streets. City water had been shut off earlier in the day. Do note the Town Clock in its original position “high atop” the old Elks building.                                                   

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

PASADENA ROSE PARADE 2020.

FUNNY CLASSICAL MUSIC WITH ORCHESTRA.

 

DATELINE April 27

HAWAII’S REAL ISSUES. For many years I’ve had a free subscription to Ka Wai Ola, the official monthly newspaper of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.(OHA). The April edition has a story (www.kawalola.news) titled “Aloha Rising Survey Results”. It lists the most important Hawaii issues. 1. Affordable homeownership. 2. Proper management of land and water resources. 3. Native Hawaiian representation in government. 4. Poverty in Hawaii. 5. Access to Hawaiian homelands. More than that… 88% of the survey responders plan on voting this year, and 78 % of these responding Hawaiians participated in an Hawaiian cultural activity last year. 

SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL FOLLOWUP. Area activist Fred Geiger wrote to say something like “don’t be too kind to the Santa Cruz Sentinel; they’ve been so Republican for so many decades”. He’s right, and so was the Sentinel dating back to the anti -Chinese era and today with more than enough right-wing columnists. The Sentinel never once in 20 years endorsed Gary Patton for County Supervisor as an example. Then too, there’s Bruce McPherson. He was co-editor with brother Fred and became my editor for the short six months I wrote for them. He later quit the Republican party and went “no party preferred”.  But to Mr. Geiger I say, “look at the columnists starting with Amy Goodman and their near daily choice of letters to the editor”. Besides all that, it’s owned and operated by Media News Group. Wikipedia says of Media news group… “MediaNews Group is known as a cost-cutter in the newspaper publishing industry. The company has a reputation for buying smaller daily newspapers in a single area (examples include Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area) and consolidating their operations, including sharing staff writers and printing facilities. As a result of the cost-cutting, some former employees say that the newspapers are focused on making a profit to the detriment of good journalism”. Having said which, I do believe it’s also important for a community to read about meetings, events, happenings, and as much local news as possible. I think the beleaguered Sentinel staff — even with today’s — pressures tries hard to do that.

THE CIRCLE CHURCH DEVELOPMENT. If I read the docket properly, Tuesday April 28 will be the City Council’s chance to save our community church at Errett Circle — or let the greedy developers split the property into pie-shaped pieces and make millions. The whole piece was sold for $3.3 million in February.

April 28

On Delivering the Goods

Santa Cruz library patrons received an email on Monday afternoon from Santa Cruz Library director Susan Nimitz with the following:

“We are working extra hard to plan for a future when we can safely return to providing you with physical materials.” 

Just how “extra hard” have our library system heads been working towards this goal I wondered?  This came to me after a conversation with my girlfriend in NSW Australia about the books we are reading during our respective countries’ stay at home orders. After we exchanged our favorite books and programs she added that a highlight for her has been the delivery of library books to her home by the local library during the shut down. I felt a twinge of envy. One of the top negatives for me during this stay in place order has been the shutdown of our libraries except for online access. I understand no gatherings at the libraries. I understand no book returns.  I don’t understand why books ordered online wouldn’t be delivered to an address? It surely is no more risky than delivered food, in fact probably less risky. I read a book online only when there are no other options. Our public library has given us no other options. I think it reflects a lack of imagination or lack of caring or both. Let them read online!

This got me thinking about the difference between Australia and the USA with respect to response to Covid-19.

We can speculate why Australia, Mexico, South America (other than Ecuador) India and Africa have not seen the spread and deaths from Covid-19 as have China, northern Europe and the USA. Maybe season related? We will see. Beyond this speculation, there are significant differences in the response to the pandemic that are worth noting. 

Australia has a conservative Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. In Australia the conservative party is the Liberal Party while the liberal or left of center party is the Labour Party. Tomato Tomahto. They usually form a coalition government (it’s a parliamentary not a two-party system) with either the Greens or the Country Party or others depending on the season.

Early on in the pandemic the conservative Prime Minister convened a national cabinet of all state and territory leaders who meet regularly and issue updates. Similar to the USA, states in Australia have a lot of independence yet there emerged a rare consensus for the need to act together.  The trade unions, more powerful in Australia than in the USA although their power has diminished since neo-liberalism took hold in the 1980’s, worked with the government to determine a fair package to assist workers and reached agreement, another rare occurrence. An app can be downloaded that allows Australians to be traced if they have been in contact with a known carrier. Despite concerns, 2 million people out of a population of 25 million down loaded the app in the first 24 hours. Schools are about to re-open. With few exceptions, people are following stay in place and physical distancing orders. The tourist beach Bondi remains closed but other beaches are open and people are keeping their proper distance. By and large, despite its convict past, most Aussies obey the rules. No dogs on beaches; no bikes on single-track trails; no socializing during a pandemic.

It’s been said that this virus has stripped naked our system’s flaws. Beyond the inability to deliver books to our homes, a major flaw exposed here, among others, is an individualism that works well at some times but at this time works against our common interest which is survival. 

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

April 27, 2020 

Chris will be back next week.

(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected the the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His current term ends in 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...
April 28

THERE WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH MONEY
How long must kids have to drink water known to contain a carcinogen because the water companies say they can’t afford the treatment cost to remove it?

I listened in on a three-hour teleconference workshop by the State Division of Drinking Water to learn more about how much carcinogenic Chromium 6 water companies should be allowed to sell to customers.  Over 50 individuals participated, some of them were teachers from Watsonville schools and city government staff.  Teachers lamented that in the past five years, the incidence of students developing cancer has risen dramatically. 

Teachers and social justice advocates pointed out the EPA mandated in 2004 that State Division of Drinking Water officials develop the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for Chromium 6, a proven carcinogen.  Poised to adopt a more protective health goal level in 2017, the State was forced by a legal judgement to conduct a feasibility study for water treatment to remove Chromium 6.

That is happening now.  Here is the White Paper ready for public comment

Public comment will be accepted until May 15. commentletters@waterboards.ca.gov      Include “Public Comment on Feasibility White Paper for Establishing Hexavalent Chromium MCL”

There are a few alternative treatments that several discussed in the teleconference workshop, such as this one:

Ionex SG Debuts Breakthrough Technology For Low-Cost Removal Of Hexavalent Chromium (Chromium 6) From Groundwater — With Near-Zero Waste

Note that Ionex installed the first-in-the-nation Chromium 6 treatment station at the Soquel Creek Water District facility.  Too bad that the moment the Court ruled the Chromium 6 MCL would not be immediately lowered, Soquel Creek Water District exited the contract agreement with Ionex.  The District, however, continued to collect rate monies from customers to pay for the Chromium 6 treatment.  District ratepayers owe a debt of gratitude to ratepayer Jon Cole, acting as his own counsel for public benefit, for taking the District to court and winning his demand that the District stop collecting this money.  The judge made the District stop, but did not require them to refund any money.

One of my concerns, having listened to many comments in the teleconference workshop, was: will the expense of this treatment required to improve the health of the people drive the cost so high that the State could require small water companies to consolidate with large municipalities, in order to spread treatment costs over a larger group?

SOQUEL CREEK WATER DISTRICT BUDGET AND ISSUANCE OF INTERIM DEBT
The next Board meeting of the Soquel Creek Water District is May 5 and will include many interesting items regarding the financial impacts of the expensive PureWater Soquel Project.  It will be teleconferenced, but members of the public are able to be unmuted only if a written request is made in advance of the meeting.  You can listen to the last meeting here 

Despite the video dated 4/2/2020, the meeting actually happened on 4/7/2020.

Make sure you tune in on May 5!

REGULATIONS ABOUT DRINKING EXPENSIVE TREATED SEWAGE WATER COMING..KEEP SENDING THOSE LETTERS
Soquel Creek Water District’s plan to inject millions of gallons of treated sewage water into the aquifer, let it sit awhile, then pump it out and sell it to customers is called Indirect Potable Re-Use.  The State is working away on making it so that water companies can soon put that treated sewage water directly into your tap and call it Direct Potable Re-Use.  

You can send comment to the State Division of Drinking Water and let those regulators know what you think.  

ddwrecycledwater@Waterboards.ca.go

Although the official public comment period ended a few months ago, Mr. Randy Barnard let me know that the State will continue to accept and consider public comment as policy is being created.

Division of Drinking Water’s Recycled Water Information | California State Water Resources Control Board  

FBI RAIDS MIGHIGAN CLINIC FOR ADMINISTERING VITAMIN C
It is chilling that the FBI raided a clinic near Detroit because the owner was administering Vitamin C to frontline medical and emergency responders to keep their immune systems strong.

FBI raids medical spa for providing false coronavirus treatments of high doses of vitamin C

FBI raids medical spa for providing false coronavirus treatments of high…

Would the FBI raid a community clinic for administering mandatory vaccination for COVID, even though it is not proven safe or effective, and the testing to prove that has all been waived?

Researchers call for relaxed standards in race to find coronavirus vaccine

Maybe not if the dose includes an Identification chip.

ID2020 | Digital Identity Alliance

SANTA CRUZ CITY COUNCIL TO EXTEND COVID EMERGENCY ANOTHER 60 DAYS AND EXPAND THE NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES WHO CAN ISSUE CITATIONS
I received the following this week from a friend…

On Tuesday, 4/28, the Santa Cruz City Council will consider two specific items on the agenda #17 & 18.  Item 17 proposes extending the COVID emergency for 60 days, until the end of June.  Item 18 authorizes City employees to issue citations to enforce the “shelter in place”, “social distancing”, and mask wearing requirements.

I was surprised and dismayed to learn that most City employees were ALREADY authorized to issue these Notices to Appear and Release Citations.

The following additions are being proposed:

  • Marine Safety Officer
  • Santa Cruz County Health Officer and subordinates
  • Urban Foresters and City Arborists
  • Wharf Supervisor
  • Golf Course Superintendent
  • Rangers
  • Resource Recovery Supervisor
  • Street Sweeper Operators
  • Water Patrol Officer

These changes to Chapter 4.02 “Code Enforcement Authority and Powers” of Santa Cruz Municipal Code will be voted on at the City Council Meeting on Tuesday, 4/28

I asked an attorney for clarification on “Notice to Appear and Release Citations” – and received this reply – 

“The process, in other words, is equivalent to what happens with a “traffic ticket,” with which many persons have experience. If, the person charged does not admit the violation, and wants to contest the citation, then guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, as in all criminal proceedings. Evidence will have to be produced in court by the prosecution. IF a person receiving a citation is found guilty, there can be penalties, probably including not only a fine, but incarceration. 

The purpose of the Penal Code Section is not only to establish that this procedure is valid, but to exempt from a civil lawsuit any authorized public officer or employee who is later claimed to have wrongly used this citation power.”

I don’t see any information about the proposed fines and have written to the City Council to inquire. 

This fact is continually stated that –  for most people the Coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough that clear up within 2 to 3 weeks.  This has certainly been the case in Santa Cruz County where the numbers continue to be extremely low.  

Negative Tests (3,090)
Positive Tests (115)=.04% –  67 people have recovered
Hospitalizations (18) = .006%
Deaths (2) = .0007%

There have been only 2 deaths, both persons with previous chronic health conditions.  **********

Does any of this worry you with respect to the personal freedoms and economic hardships that State and local officials are causing???  

COUNTY ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER WARNS OF $15-$20 MILLION COUNTY DEFICIT
CAO Carlos Palacios was the guest of Supervisor Zach Friend at last week’s Tele-Townhall meeting to discuss the economic impacts of the Health Officer and Governor  shelter-in-place orders.  He warned that the future economic conditions will be severe, with perhaps a deficit of $15-$20 Million in the County budget.

He said that, although County has not seen the surge in hospitalizations that had been predicted, the County continues to move forward to set up alternate medical treatment centers to handle the surge that may comein late May or early June.  

For this purpose, the Seventh Day Adventist Camp in Soquel and Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds are being contracted for possible homeless treatment and isolation centers if needed.  Simpkins Swim Center is already set up and in use, along with Multi-University in Scotts Valley and the Veterans Centers in Santa Cruz and Watsonville. 

CAO Palacios said that he does not expect to have to cut services  until after July 1, 2021 and beyond because the County has maintained a 10% reserve fund, totaling $58 million, that will fund the County’s needs.   Fiscal Year 2020-2021 was when CAO Palacios had warned the Board of Supervisors a tsunami of debt would arrive due to the CalPERS debt funding government employees.

The County has received no State or Federal stimulus money as of April 21.

Wow…our society needs to get back to work!

WRITE ONE LETTER.  MAKE ONE CALL.  ATTEND A TELECONFERENCE MEETING.  TAKE A WALK IN THE FRESH AIR AND SUN TO BOOST YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM.

Cheers, Becky

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

April 23
#114 / We Are Not Ruled

The picture on the right, taken from an article in City Journal, shows visitors inspecting the original version of the Declaration of Independence, in Washington, D.C. The article from which I grabbed this picture is entitled, “About Those Self-Evident Truths…” The article is worth reading, as a stimulus to civic engagement.City Journal is a politically conservative magazine published by The Manhattan Institute, which describes itself as “a leading free-market think tank focusing on economic growth, education, energy and environment, health care, legal reform, public sector, race, and urban policy.” 

That article on “Those Self-Evident Truths” advances the idea that our “culture,” as constituted by our “manners, morals, and beliefs,” is in a state of significant collapse. At least, that’s how I would provide a short synopsis. 

I can’t say that I am completely in tune with the article, but I was attracted to this statement, the second sentence in the article, with which I wholeheartedly agree: 

We are not ruled.

That is, we are “not ruled” unless and until the “culture” that supports our democratic self-government has, in fact, totally collapsed. I am not willing to concede that it has. 

Still…

If we want to maintain a nation that is “not ruled,” and in which “self-government” is practiced in fact, then a lot more of us will have to get involved in government ourselves.

Where self-government is concerned, there aren’t any shortcuts. 

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. A classic comic if there ever was one. These are from Tim’s private collection!

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s “Deep Covers” down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog. 

LISA JENSEN LINKS. Lisa writes: “Hey, if the Rolling Stones can jam with each other online from their rec rooms, what am I waiting for? Here’s my response to the global shutdown; my “lost” second novel now available in its entirety online — for free! Nothing to join, nothing to buy, no passwords required. Just follow the links and enjoy! Doing my bit to provide a little escapism in these anxious times, this week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com/).” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975.

    BOREDOM

“Boredom is the root of all evil – the despairing refusal to be oneself”. – Soren Kierkegaard 

“Boredom is the fear of self”. – Marie Josephine de Suin 

“There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes, Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever”. – Viggo Mortensen

This is so cool! After watching it, I fell down the rabbit hole of videos on scything and gardening and growing food for free!


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...

Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment

April 22 – 29, 2020

Posted on April 23, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON…about The Sentinel, GREENSITE… on Gilda’s Restaurant KROHN…Masks.  STEINBRUNER…Soquel gives water to church not Cabrillo, RTC asking for $1 million, NewLeaf Aptos and Covid.PATTON…Voting Young. EAGAN…Comics and inner views. JENSEN…No new films but check her out.. QUOTES…”Claustrophia”

...

FULL LENGTH VIRUS MASKS ON PARADE.   Just a little humor in these fairly grim times. This was really our Fourth of July Parade in 1927  Almost at the center you can make out Max Swain’s Unique Theatre. Swain took it over in 1906, He was of course one of Charlie Chaplin’s favorite foils.

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

SNEEZING NOT JUST FOR SHUT INS.

TOWN CLOCK WORKINGS.

DATELINE April 20 2020!

SENTINEL COVERAGE AND EMAIL…Last week I mentioned that The Santa Cruz Sentinel hadn’t printed a word about the Easter weekend, arrests, legal action. I received a thoughtful email from  Johnny Croper…take a look.”The lack of reports over the weekend by the Sentinel is probably due to the fact that much of the staff was furloughed and it could be permanent. Elaine Ingalls, Dan Coyro and weekend editor Don Fukui are furloughed while Michael Todd, Julie Jag and Anthony Solis left last year and were not replaced.  That leaves two reporters, one part-time photographer, a sports writer and the managing editor”. Then yesterday Jondi Guma sent a Messenger message re the drastic total and present state of our press. It’s from POYNTER Institute in Florida…check it out….very scary.

It’s sad to watch one of our most important and historical icons failing, and failing so fast. The PRESS, our daily newspapers, have led our country since the late 1700’s. I’ve been a Sentinel subscriber since 1970 except for one little break of a week and a half. Give them the credit they deserve!


April 20th 2020

GILDA WOULD NOT APPROVE

Long-timers who love the municipal wharf will be sad to hear that Gilda’s restaurant will not re-open when the time comes.

Gilda’s has been my second home for years. My son’s first job was busing at Gilda’s. It was where I drove like a homing pigeon from the emergency room after my John lay dead on the gurney. The hugs of friends at Gilda’s, the workers and patrons were instinctively sought. It is where I go (or went) at least twice a week to connect with friends and enjoy good food at reasonable prices.

Gilda’s is old-school Santa Cruz. Heavily working class, grey hair, some now needing help, most grew up here, surfed here, taught school here and will die here. Most of the cooks, dishwashers and wait staff have worked at Gilda’s for decades.

The rub is that the owners have just said goodbye, thanks and good luck to the staff without even a modest severance check to help ease the financial burden of permanent loss of job. Not even for those who have worked there for decades.
I have a hunch that Gilda Stagnaro were she alive would have insisted the workers receive a check in appreciation for their day-in, day-out hard work. That was her character.

It is no secret the city has long wanted to get rid of Gilda’s restaurant. The head of ROMA, that SF firm paid a million bucks to write the Wharf Master Plan in 2014 said over his slide show when it hit on Gilda’s Restaurant, “We can do better.” That got me out of my seat. I could hear Gilda cheering me on.

The Economic Development Department’s vision is two-story, upscale. This, despite the fact that the most recent wharf restaurant to go out of business permanently was the upscale Splash restaurant. The city seems ignorant of who frequents the wharf. Or maybe they want to change the demographic.

Given this record, it was no surprise that the city refused to play ball with Gilda’s owners when the latter sought a new lease that would allow new owners to keep Gilda’s Restaurant in its current form. It’s no secret that Dino and Malio Stagnaro want out of the business. The only thing standing in the way of their being able to sell and retain Gilda’s as we know and love it was the city’s co-operation. The city gave them the shove.

If you’d like to see how rude the past Mayor Watkins was as she cut off Dino Stagnaro at two minutes as he tried to share his family’s centuries of history on the wharf and the need for the city to approve a lease that would allow willing buyers to continue Gilda’s,
check it out here.

The city senior Economic Development staff must be cheering this news. For the rest of us who love Gilda’s restaurant it is a sad day. For the workers, no thank you check from Gilda’s owners is an insult. Gilda would not approve.

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

April 20

Masks.

I usually go out every day for a walk, 3-5 miles, so as not to turn into a couch potato. I have been increasingly disturbed by the fact that I see less than 15% of the people I encounter on Pacific Avenue, along West Cliff Drive, and on the San Lorenzo River levy wearing a mask or bandana, which by the way, is now the advice of the Center for Disease Control. Can everyone just wear a mask, and gloves to but at least a mask, if you go out. Masks are becoming quite fashionable and we just might really flatten that curve if we follow the common sense. We are not out of the Covid-19 woods yet and wearing a mask certainly seems to make sense for a few of reasons: 1) it shows respect to everyone, especially our seniors and any grocery store, pharmacy and bank people we may encounter, 2) models good behavior for our young, for our old people, and for the tourists I encountered everywhere the past two weekends; and 3) get us practicing for the inevitable return of the virus in fall or winter. Seven states now require masks including Hawaii, Maryland, and New Jersey with many cities that have similar population densities to Santa Cruz. It makes sense. Please wear a mask.

Do you know any of these stalwart Santa Cruzans who are now donning masks whenever leaving home? (answers next week)

(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected the the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His current term ends in 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...

April 20

WHY DID SOQUEL CREEK WATER DISTRICT PREFER TO GIVE FREE WATER FOR 50 YEARS TO A CHURCH INSTEAD OF CABRILLO COLLEGE?
Part of the deal that Soquel Creek worked out with Twin Lakes Baptist Church regarding the Twin Lakes Church PureWater Soquel Project injection well is to give the Church FREE irrigation water for 50 years.  Wow.

It really is a shame that the District chose the Twin Lakes Baptist Church site instead of the Cabrillo College site, just across the road along Cabrillo College Drive.  Their preference for Twin Lakes Church required that they chop down nearly 20 healthy oak trees at the Twin Lakes Church well site that were likely roosting places for solitary bats, and the District chose to do so during the most lethal time for the bats: winter torpor.  However, just across the street at Cabrillo College, the same well could have been constructed and not required any tree removal.

Also, the District could be paying Cabrillo College the $800/month it will continue to pay for the next two years to Twin Lakes Baptist Churchas rent for the site.  That is separate from the tens-of-thousands of dollars the District gifted to the Church with the waiver of all water demand offset fees for the Church’s new construction project nearby.  And this Prop. 1 publicly-funded injection well agreement could have provided Cabrillo College 50 years of FREE water for irrigating their athletic fields, instead of favoring the private Twin Lakes Baptist Church school’s athletic field irrigation needs.

Does this seem right to you?   Hmmm…..

Some members of the community have observed seeing the District manager at Twin Lakes Baptist Church Sunday services last year.  The District held all of the public hearings at Twin Lakes Church during the EIR process…not at the adjacent public venue, Cabrillo College.

HMMMM….
Write the State Water Resources Control Board who generously granted the $50 million Prop. 1 public money for this PureWater Soquel Project and make your thoughts known.

Alyssa Wible <alyssa.wible@waterboards.ca.gov>

SOQUEL CREEK WATER DISTRICT CANCELS APRIL 21 BOARD MEETING
Well, after going to a lot of trouble to re-instate the April 21 Board meeting, the General Manager Ron Duncan cancelled it again.

Hmmm…..

The Board had been scheduled to Approve Issuance of Interim Debt for PureWater Soquel Project Cash Flow

I suppose it does make more sense to combine that with the May 5, 2020 Board meeting, which will feature a Budget Workshop.  Make sure you tune in on that meeting, which will most likely be teleconferenced.

ONLINE OPEN HOUSE AND SURVEY FOR ALTERNATIVE TO RAIL TRANSPORTATION
Here is your chance to provide your thoughts on yet another expensive study the RTC is doing to yet again continue to do nothing on the rail corridor.  The current study will take one year and cost $1 million!

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)

WRITE ONE LETTER.  MAKE ONE CALL.  JOIN IN ON A VIRTUAL MEETING. GO FOR A WALK IN THE FRESH AIR AND SUNSHINE.  STAY HEALTHY AND MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE.

Cheers, Becky Steinbruner

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes, and again in 2020, getting 33%.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

FROM GARY A. PATTON  From Gary’s “We Live In A Political World” website…
April 16, 2020
#107 / Hey Kids!
I am not much on celebrity culture, but a recent editorial in The New York Times gave me a reason to track down the facts on Cardi B.

Cardi B, who is pictured above, was born on October 11, 1992, and her birth name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar. She is, for any others who are not really “up” on celebrity culture, a Grammy Award-winning American rapper, social media personality, songwriter, television personality, actress, and former reality star.

The Times has now featured Cardi B as a “Get Out The Vote” champion:

In a hilarious, highly profane rant posted Thursday on Twitter, the 27-year-old rapper went after young people for not delivering for Mr. Sanders. “I’m seeing all over Twitter: ‘I love Bernie. I love Bernie.’ But y’all wasn’t voting. Y’all wasn’t voting!” she scolded. “Now, you know who be voting? Older people.” And on she went about how the nation is facing perilous times, how President Trump is not up to the challenge and how this is no time to be messing around by not voting.

The Times’ own Get Out The Vote effort was an editorial headlined, “Hey, Kids: Get Out There And Vote!” It was accompanied by the image reproduced below.

I am not sure that addressing young people as “kids” is the best way to motivate the behavior that The Times’ is hoping for, but “voting” is definitely a good start on political participation, and on making sure that our democratic form of self-government will endure. If we think self-government is important (this is Cardi B’s point), we do need to get involved ourselves.

Voting is good. It is definitely, in fact critically, important. Cardi B and The New York Times are absolutely right about that, but here’s one more thought.

Voting is important. But it’s just a start!

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS.

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s comic down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog.

LISA JENSEN LINKS. “The coronavirus pandemic has claimed another victim: the deadline. Without movie, editorial, and social deadlines, how am I supposed to, you know, actually DO anything? Find out just how much of a sloth I’ve become, and compare notes, this week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com.” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975.

“CLAUSTROPHOBIA”

“I think I’m a very solitary person. To actually not be anonymous is a bit claustrophobic for me.”
~Ani DiFranco

“Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It’s not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it’s the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don’t last long in captivity”.
–Neal Shusterman

“I’m a bit claustrophobic, I don’t like crowds, I live by the sea – that’s what I see when I come out of my house in Bridlington.”
-David Hockney


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...

Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment

August 15 – 21, 2020

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON… about Errett Circle Church, Sentinel’s no local news, Bill Maher and China… GREENSITE… on virus and class … KROHN… Sheltering in place and what will things be like on the other side… STEINBRUNER… on Kaiser, water, and closed parks PATTON… on don’t close the beaches … EAGAN…Sub Cons and Deep Cover JENSEN… slacking or being productive?… QUOTES…”BINGE WATCHING”

...

SANTA CRUZ, THE BAY, THE SAN LORENZO, NEARY LAGOON…1948. Just waiting for the Tsunami!!! But seriously squint closely to see the huge sand bar under the San Lorenzo Bridge where our city-owned parking lot used to be.

Those were the days.

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

Funeral director Caitlyn Doughty has a Youtube channel called “Ask a Mortician”. It is very much worth watching; this episode is about the misconceptions about refrigerated trucks and mass burials in NYC

April 13

ERRETT CIRCLE CHURCH RISES AGAIN!
The many neighbors and folks from far and wide are still struggling mightily to save their Errett Circle Community church. They have a new website at  www.savethecircles.org – it shows their planned events, it shows the faith and determination their community has in defeating the developers from dividing the property into sections and making fortunes from that community sacrifice. As the neighbors say in their website…”WE are in the process of starting our fundraising campaign to buy back 111 Errett Circle. Soon we’ll have our non-for-profit status and we can begin to accept donations online. Please share our website with all of your neighbours and friends to get the word out!

We also wanted to give an update on the current owner’s development process. The Planning Commission is holding a meeting on April 16 and is restricting public access because of COVID-19. We have emailed city council members and the planning commissioner to ask that the meeting be postponed until the public can be present, and have been told that we will be able to submit our comments in writing beforehand. We encourage all of you to write emails to the planning commission asking that the public be able to attend in some way or have the meeting delayed (Ryan Bane – RBane@cityofsantacruz.com or Lee Butler – lbutler@cityofsantacruz.com).

We’d also like to encourage the planning commission to consider asking the owners for more public space than the current plans allow for, possibly a public park on the section of land that looks down Woodrow Ave. In your letters you can include any ideas that you have that you think would make the plan better for the whole community!
If you’d like to receive emails about the purchase of 111 Errett Circle, please email: savetheheartofthecircles@gmail.com to get on our list, or  submit a contact form on the website.

SENTINEL’S HOLIDAY COVERAGE? For the first time ever the city of Santa Cruz was really illegal for tourists to visit over the Easter weekend. Beaches all along the coast were “locked” (taped off), Boardwalk was flu-ted out, and the police were standing at the ready. How many $1500 tickets were issued? Any fights? What happened to our town under this new illegalization? Not a word or report in the Sentinel? It doesn’t take experience to check this needed news. I support and subscribe to it because it’s all we got in non-sponsored news.

BILL MAHER’S OTHER SIDE? I was flipping past Maher’s show just at the moment he carried on about how we should be kind to our Chinese-American friends but that all the most serious flu epidemics in history came from China. It dawned on me…is Bill Maher the left wing Donald Trump? Read how “The Daily Beast” sees Maher… It’s not just you and me !


April 13th 2020

A Class Act

If there is proof needed that we live in a class society it is contained in the same page headlines on two different subjects on section A6 in the Sentinel of 4/13/2020. One is titled “Tax paying immigrants won’t get stimulus checks” and the other, “Wave riders ponder pandemic rule.”

I wrote about the former last week. Following the lack of response from the city council on the exclusion from a stimulus check of laid-off undocumented workers who pay taxes, I wrote Congressman Jimmy Panetta. His form reply was detailed and answered my question affirming that fact, including no payment for the children of such workers, despite their being citizens. When interviewed on CNN Panetta spoke to the issue directly with specifics and pledged to get it addressed. One might ask where was the Democratic Party in all of this? Maybe they tried and failed to get its inclusion? Maybe they thought it too controversial to get the stimulus bill passed? Maybe they thought no votes are to be gained since undocumented workers like permanent residents cannot vote? On a simple human level, anything other than insisting that the estimated 4.3 million workers without legal status who pay taxes via a Taxpayer ID number (since they cannot apply for a Social Security number) should receive the same payments as all workers is callous and shortsighted. Those without documents who don’t pay taxes are a different issue.

The words of one woman interviewed might touch your heart. Working as a housekeeper and filing a tax return annually (it’s the right thing to do, she says) she is out of work, having lost most of her clients. She has been in the US for 30 years. Similar to my friends in the same situation, most were brought as young children to the US. Don’t think for a moment they have not tried to secure permanent residency or citizenship. One of my friends brought to the USA as an 8 year-old filed papers for citizenship in 2003. He is still waiting. No, the papers are not lost. It just takes time the officials say.

Of course you can help! Write to Panetta and express support for insisting that workers who are undocumented and who pay taxes should receive the same financial help as all other workers who pay taxes, including their children. I’ll refrain from overly commenting on the paltry sum of money allocated. Canada was able to allocate $8000 to each worker as a lump sum plus $2000 a month for the duration of the stay at home orders.

And now for the really serious issue covered in the latter headline: a shut down on CA beaches including a ban on surfing. Oh the horrors! The workers “won’t get” a stimulus check but the surfers “ponder” the rule to keep out of the water in the interest of public health. What is this “pondering” all about? The surfer interviewed has surfed Huntington Beach for more than 30 years, about the same time that the aforementioned immigrant worker has been in the US doing work that most of us wouldn’t touch. The surfer on the other hand is braving it by carrying his board a long way and navigating barricades to get to the water. And the paid enforcers? “I even walked right past a lifeguard and he didn’t say anything,” the surfer recalled. “That’s how I knew it was OK.”

I have seen this scenario play out on West Cliff Drive since its closure. Driving home last week I saw two city rangers walking shoulder- to- shoulder on West Cliff Drive pass a person in the closed zoned without saying a word. Today, driving home I counted 128 people out on West Cliff. Most without masks, in close proximity and ignoring the prominent signs indicating the path is closed. Does our right to have fun trump public health? While the law abiding, thinking of others people stay close to home and walk or bike in the neighborhoods, the couldn’t care less, don’t tell me what to do crowd have West Cliff and the parks all for themselves. This is not ok. Rangers and police have paid jobs. We expect them to do their jobs. Looking the other way is not part of their job description.

As the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden said, commenting on how well New Zealanders were complying with the stay at home orders: “While compliance has been generally strong, there are still some I would charitably describe as idiots.”

What does it say about us that we cater to idiots and leave stranded the low wage, tax paying workers whose only lack is a piece of paper giving them the status they would be honored to hold?

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

April 14, 2020

Review of Emerging Thought While Under Lockdown

Sheltering in Place…
We will get through this. And with our collective efforts we will come through it maybe with a changed perspective on how to live and new appreciation for our friends, family, and colleagues. Is it possible we might change our views on how we build, what we build, and who we build for? And what about our transportation habits, might the pandemic give us pause to contemplate how we get around, where we travel to…or not, the potential for Santa Cruz to be a transportation model while providing support for those who live here now? I’ve been doing some reading, as I am sure many of you have too. I offer four hopeful pieces below on how we might use this adversity to create positive change for workers, renters, students, and the houseless…and it wouldn’t really be inventing anything new because it’s already being done elsewhere. It would just be borrowing an idea or two.

Now you see it, now you don’t.
So-long old friend, La Bahia on Beach Street, RIP.

Social Change Happens After Pandemics
Claire Cain Miller writes in the New York Times a cogent and optimistic piece about how pandemics have a way of “…shrinking the gap between the rich and the poor, or empowering the working class.”  How is it other countries require paid sick leave, subsidized childcare, and universal healthcare, but not the U.S.? Can we learn from this crisis?

Lay Offs and Unemployment
How is it that Germany has avoided massive layoffs and unemployment has increased perhaps by no more than 1% so far as all countries everywhere race to ‘flatten the curve?’ But in the U.S., we will likely surpass the highest unemployment during the Great Depression, 25%, as unprecedented numbers of workers are laid-off. It is a dire jobs picture right now, with the $1200 checks lagging and rent due for so many on May 1st. How does Europe do it?

Pedestrians Rule!
Many are now dreaming, planning(?), and re-visioning a transportation future that is not dependent on car culture. It has been exciting to watch NYC try and transform itself into a livable city. First came CitiBike, then moveable outdoor furniture all over mid-town Manhattan, and also opening up of major streets on Sundays for peds and bikes as well as skateboarders and roller-bladers. Then came the many-year negotiation of “congestion-pricing” for vehicles going into Manhattan. That is set to begin next year. But now, with the Covid-19 crisis and city residents in lockdown a different research project is taking place. “Yet the wide-open streets have fueled talk of possibilities that seemed unlikely even a month ago: large car-free zones, a network of connected pedestrian-only streets and an explosion of bike lanes that could be used for delivering packages by cargo bikes.” Could Santa Cruz be far behind?

Nova Coronavirus Covid-19, May Force Progressive Change on U.S.
Jonathan Freeland writing in the Guardian newspaper points out that so much of the national, and local, progressive agenda has been given a jumpstart by the Covid-19 crisis, but will the changes stay? So much of what Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna, and other progresistas have been touting is now being implemented because of the crisis: guaranteeing housing, freezing evictions, mandatory drug price reductions and free coronavirus testing, implementing the Defense Production Act, drastically reducing our massive incarceration rate, and allowing the homeless to also shelter in place has spawned a renewed effort to find more permanent housing. There is much hope to draw upon from Freeland’s opinion piece. Not to mention the numerous rent strikes being organized around California (Link to Anti-eviction mapping project).

Freeland’s piece is here

PS If you are wondering about the direct payments the federal government has been discussing, small economic shrapnel from Andrew Yang’s UBI plan (Universal Basic Income) really, then check out this summary of Republican-Democrat plans.

Trump knows mail-in ballots mean a larger voter turnout, which he does not want to see.

That is pretty pathetic.

My colleagues and I are working as hard as we can to pass legislation so that as many people as possible can safely participate in our democracy.

From NPR Politics Tweet:

@nprpolitics

“President Trump has incorrectly denounced voting by mail as widely susceptible to fraud.

But Trump himself voted by mail in Florida’s presidential primary last month — and Florida Republicans have long supported mail-in ballots.”
(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected the the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His current term ends in 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...
IS THE COUNTY TAKING OVER KAISER’S FOUR STORY MEDICAL BUILDING AND 730-CAR PARKING GARAGE IN LIVE OAK?
It appears so, if you look at the slides presented April 2, 2020 for a teleconferenced public hearing. This massive project, located at 5940 Soquel Avenue (near Chanticleer Avenue), was initially presented to the public at an open house in 2018 as a Kaiser Medical facility. However, nowhere in the recent presentation will you find Kaiser’s name. In fact, the opening slide announces “Santa Cruz County Medical Office Building Environmental Impact Report”. Hmmm….

Take a look at the images of this four-story medical building and the four-story 730 car parking garage.

Interestingly, Kaiser Permanente awarded $500,000 to fund the large project in Live Oak at 1500 Capitola Road that will include a two-story Dientes clinic and a separate two-story low-cost medical clinic, adjacent to a three-story affordable housing complex. Those clinics are supposed to open in 2021.
Money talks, doesn’t it?

Here is a link to the December 27, 2018 Sentinel article about the public open house, announcing the Kaiser Project and the San Diego developer handling the application: Live Oak site eyed for medical center

According to that article, Kaiser plans to have the new facility open in 2023. Wow.

In my opinion, a good point to make is that a better alternative site would be the vacant Toys R Us and Marshall’s building just across the freeway that is closer to existing public transit (the proposed site has NONE), and is near Dominican Hospital and other medical complexes (not to mention a proposed 24/7 drive-through CVS pharmacy across the way near the Union 76 gas station).

Public comment on this massive four-story medical office and adjacent four-story 730-car parking garage has been extended by one week and will close on May 1, 2020 at 5pm. Make sure you send your comments and issues that must be addressed about this project to:
Stephanie Hansen <stephanie.hansen@santacruzcounty.us>

Another big question is why aren’t the BeachComber Mobile Home Park residents receiving notice about this project that would loom over their back yards and forever destroy their quality of life? This proposed medical facility will operate 8am-8pm, with some services being 24/7. Reliable information from residents in the Park is that only the group’s President attended the 2018 Project open house, but no one has heard anything further about the status of the Project.

Hmmm…does this seem to you that the County Planning Dept. and Kaiser are neglecting proper noticing of a disadvantaged community???

If you have any comments you would like to submit, please visit the County’s environmental webpage to review the documents available

Here is what I recently sent to Ms. Hansen, to which I have received no response.

Dear Ms. Hansen,
Thank you for this information. I have reviewed it and, while the April 2 presentation slides are helpful, I wonder if the meeting was audio recorded? Hearing the discussions would be very valuable.

I find it curious that nowhere in the presentation is the name “Kaiser” applied, and in fact, the first slide is entitled “County of Santa Cruz Medical Office Building” with the County Seal prominently shown next to it. This is misleading, unless this project truly is being funded and will be operated as a County-owned medical facility. Can you please clarify this matter and why Kaiser is not mentioned at all?

How many participants were there at the April 2 remote presentation? How were people who participated by telephone able to access the presentation slides during the session?

What level of outreach is the County Planning Dept. providing to the Beach Comber Mobile Home Park residents? I notice the slides are all in English; was there a Spanish translator available at the April 2 presentation? I am somewhat familiar with that community and know that many are Spanish speakers.

I have already submitted comment regarding the 5490 Soquel Project Scoping, but will review the documents along with the presentation slides and submit further comment.

Finally, while I do appreciate that the Planning Department has extended the public comment period for this large project’s Scoping by one week, I respectfully request that the public comment period be extended by at least 60 days.

Given the severe restrictions on the public’s ability to gather for meaningful community discussions, I feel that a 60-day extension, or a postponement of the Project’s EIR process until the COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions are lifted, is reasonable, due to the magnitude of potentially significant impacts the project presents to the Live Oak community. This community is considered to be a disadvantaged community.

Thank you again for your help in reviewing this project. I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Becky Steinbruner

CLOSING THE BEACHES AND CITING SURFERS???
Has local law enforcement imposed martial law? So it seems, when Sheriff Jim Hart insists that surfers will be fined $500/hour for going out to enjoy the waves. Will he next make it illegal to ride a bicycle or jog? Those are all equally solitary sports, yet last week, law enforcement pressured County Health Director Dr. Gail Newel into closing down the beaches and making surfing illegal until April 15.

“We were getting information from social media that large numbers of people were planning to visit Santa Cruz from out of the area. Law enforcement felt they would not be able to control the crowds.” said Dr. Newel during last Wednesday’s public teleconference with Supervisor John Leopold. She stressed that “unless law enforcement shows push-back”, she plans to re-open the parks and beaches on April 15, EXCEPT possibly skate parks and dog parks.

Dr. Newel also stated that County Sheriff Jim Hart has been proactively planning these measures for the past TWO months. At least two additional deputies have been hired on to monitor citizen compliance. Wow.

Here is the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s report that “Law enforcement agencies join together to tackle coronavirus” (page A4).

Sheriff Hart is quoted in this Santa Cruz Sentinel article

“On Wednesday, Hart said law enforcement agencies were working to provide “fair warning” to area residents in advance of enforcement starting tomorrow.

“We don’t want people in the water. We don’t want people in the parks. We don’t want people in the open spaces or the state parks,” Hart said. “And if people make the decision to go ahead and do those types of activities that I’ve described, they’re going to get a citation and the fine is going to be up to $1,000 each time they go out and do that.”
The Sheriff’s Office has teams dedicated to beach and park enforcement, Hart said. Violation of the new order constitutes a misdemeanor under state health code and is punishable by imprisonment, fines up to $1,000, or both.
Surfing Ban…

Hart said he has mainly heard support for the order from the area’s surfing community, particularly professional surfers.

For surfers who decide to flout the weeklong ban, Hart said they should expect a citation waiting for them when the get out of the water. “They gotta make a decision if it’s worth $500 an hour for them to be out in the water or not,” he said.”

County residents are getting citations for $1000 because they were parked in a vehicle, and watching the ocean waves breaking at the beach.

And Santa Cruz County residents are writing letters to the editor like this one in the San Jose Mercury News by Ms. Pat Emard of Aptos

Curiouser and curiouser….

What about Sweden’s approach?  Sweden sticks to ‘low-scale’ lockdown despite rise in coronavirus deaths

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE ECONOMIC SITUATION LOOK LIKE FOR THE SANTA CRUZ COUNTY BUDGET WHEN MONEY IS FLOWING OUT LIKE WATER?
With County CAO warning the Board of Supervisors recently that a recession would bring a possible $12 million deficit, one must wonder what the Junes’s budget hearing will be like?
Well, if the April 14, 2020 Board of Supervisor agenda is any indication, it will be gloomy for a very long time.

Consider Consent agenda Item #42 that is a resolution to approve lease contracts with three businesses to provied shelters and storage for the County’s response to the coronavirus. County taxpayers will be paying $100,000/month to the 1440 Multi-versity (630 Bethany Drive) in Scotts Valley for possible off-site medical cneter use, leased on a month-by-month basis. We will likewise be paying $55,080/month for the 27 rooms at Salt Air Lidge (510 Liebrandt Avenue) in Santa Cruz to house homeless for an undetermined time, and $16,000/month for three months to a business in Royal Oaks (303A Salinas Road) for 6,708SF of storage and 503SF of office space to support the County’s response to the coronavirus.

That’s $171,080/month for who knows how long.

Has the Board forgotten the impending tsunami of debt from the CalPERS unfunded debt? That picture looks alarming if you read this article.

Call in, listen and ask questions next Tuesday, April 21, at 6pm, for a teleconference Town Hall meeting with County Administrative Officer Carlos Palacios and Supervisor Zach Friend. Look for announcement in the Santa Cruz Sentinel Coastlines but plan to call 831-454-2222 and connect with a code that will be soon assigned and made public. Call 831-454-2200 during regular business hours and ask, or write Zach Friend zach.friend@santacruzcounty.us

MAKE ONE CALL. WRITE ONE LETTER. JOIN IN ON A VIRTUAL MEETING. KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS. TAKE A GOOD WALK IN THE FRESH AIR AND SUNSHINE. STAY HEALTHY.

Cheers,
Becky

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor and finished with almost 30% of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

#105 / Social Distancing
Brad Goodwin’s letter from the Sunday, April 12, 2020, edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel is reproduced below. Sounds like he may have heard the same story I did. The story I heard was that a Sheriff’s Deputy waited onshore until a single, solitary surfer came in from riding the waves, and that the Deputy then gifted the surfer with a $1,000 ticket.

That story may well be apocryphal, but I think there is a point worth thinking about in what Goodwin says. Social distancing is important. I support the current social distancing rules, and as an article published in the Sentinel yesterday makes pretty clear – “Wave Riders Ponder Pandemic Rule” – surfing is not, always, a “solitary” sport.

Still, enforcement zealotry can be counterproductive. This is, in fact, exactly the point made by a Wall Street Journal editorial, in yesterday’s edition, which offered some non-surfing examples of the phenomenon. When I first became a member of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, I was a pretty zealous “law enforcer” (zoning, not surfing, was generally the area in which I focused). I learned early in my tenure, though, that if the government wants to maintain its credibility, discretion must be exercised on how to apply the rules in individual situations.

When it’s a big group on the beach, kicking back with beer and a bonfire, when its the “popular Steamers surf spot packed with people floating side-by-side and at times almost on top of one another,” that’s the time to make sure everyone takes those social distancing rules seriously. But when it’s a single surfer, seeking to maintain the surfer’s “physical and mental health,” as Goodwin puts it, I am inclined to think that criminal penalties are not a very good approach. Gift that solitary surfer with a conversation, not a $1,000 fine.

oooOOOooo

Banning surfing is a bad idea

You will likely not find a person more pro police than I. I was a police officer and sergeant for the Santa Cruz police with a total of 26 years in law enforcement (I bleed both blue and tan and green). But someone needs to state the obvious, the Sheriff needs to seriously reconsider his recent, seemingly arbitrary decision, to close parks and outlaw surfing.

In Santa Cruz, running, hiking, mountain biking in parks and surfing in the ocean, can easily be accomplished using social distancing. This is especially true for surfing, where, by definition, it is an individual sport. With the current sheltering in place, the powers that be should encourage such activities, to maintain physical and mental health, rather than discouraging them in these trying times.

— Brad Goodwin, Santa Cruz

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. Classic peeks inside our secret places…maybe?

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s comic down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog. 

Lisa writes: “Are we all a bunch of whining slackers if we’re not using this enforced downtime stuck at home to produce our next masterpiece? (Oh c’mon, you’ve all seen that meme about Shakespeare writing King Lear while under quarantine from the plague in London.) Consider how guilty you have to feel about it — or not — this week at, this week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com/).” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975.

...

Here’s some insight into flat earthers…

Binge Watching

You would not believe the amount of feedback I’ve gotten over people binge-watching The West Wing. Most of them have binge-watched it countless times.
~Rob Lowe

The problem with binge-watching on Netflix is that you lose three days of your life.
~Harland Williams

I love a good Netflix binge!
Simone Biles

I have taken a bit, when I find the time, to the odd television binge. Because television has improved so much, it’s worth binging.
~Sam Neill


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...


Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment

April 8 – 14, 2020

Posted on April 9, 2020 by Bruce
Highlights this week:

BRATTON… gives us the scoop… GREENSITE… on Getting No Response… KROHN… Santa Cruz is worth the fight STEINBRUNER… on water, water, water PATTON… on Internet trolls … EAGAN… Sub Cons and Deep Cover JENSEN… temporarily suspended… QUOTES…”PERSISTENCE”

...

CLEAN BEACHES. This was back about 1940 or so, before the Dream Inn, before dirty beaches, The Ideal Fish Restaurant building was there. Check it out and think about how all the development this area has received, and just how much better is it now???

Additional information always welcome: email photo@brattononline.com

Seth Meyers now does his show from his home, like many other talk show hosts. Here’s “A closer Look” from April 6

STATE OF BRATTON Bruce is working on resting up and getting better still. He sends thanks for all the notes, FB’s, emails and calls of support, and here’s his contribution for this week:

JUST THINKING ABOUT IT. What more could possibly change our world? Amazon goes bankrupt, CNN guilty of Fox bribery, Trump gets assassinated, fill in the blanks. So now that most of the world is hibernating, hiding, praying, becoming religious , this just could just be a time to do some life life style decision making. I’ve long time believed that man’s most serious enemy is fellow man. But maybe, just maybe, just like the dinosaurs learned there are cosmic-larger than earth life threats. Or stated another way, this could be the time when we cancel our cable server, cut out even more shopping trips, and get down to an honest of what we really need to do to improve the life we had.

THE LAST RECALL. It couldn’t be more fitting than to have the Santa Cruz City Council recall not on community TV. A genuine mistake in community and justice. We must be very aware of the direction the pro-direction, that the council will take. Cynthia Mathews is definitely back in control. That means more non-affordable housing, more commuters, more of everything that brought us and so many others here in the first place.


April 6th 2020

What Public?

I wasn’t holding my breath in expectation that the city’s Economic Development director would respond affirmatively to my request to postpone the deadline for comments on the Wharf Master Plan EIR. The draft EIR was released last week with a deadline of May 13th.  Whether enough folks will have the wherewithal to focus on the future of their Municipal Wharf during this crisis is hard to determine. I’m sure staff weighed that question carefully in their choice of timing. 

As I discovered and shared last week, an email sent to the official council address at citycouncil@cityofsantacruz.com is likely to be distributed to council without a name attached, without an identifying topic or buried anonymously under a pile of other business. Perhaps that’s what happened to this other email I sent to council three weeks ago:

March 16th 2020

Dear Mayor Cummings and City council,

I have many friends who work in the service industry, especially local restaurants. Most have been laid off work for a minimum of two weeks with an expectation for a much longer period. I searched the city website and explored the links to options for financial support during this unprecedented situation.

In order to apply for unemployment benefits you have to be a citizen or have proof of approval to work. These workers have neither. Those whom I know have lived in the city of Santa Cruz since they were brought here as children. While I’m sure this is a statewide and national problem, I am bringing this to your attention and ask that you consider this a local emergency. All those whom I know are renters and have young children. If they can’t pay the rent they lose their housing and have nowhere to go since family members are in the same situation.

The city is organizing much effort to help the unhoused. A similar effort is needed to help laid-off undocumented workers, most of whom work two jobs with no sick leave or other benefits.

I would appreciate a response.

Sincerely,

Gillian

Again no response. Rent postponement is no help.  At some point the back rent becomes due and if money is scarce now, after a few months without work it won’t magically appear. Some local restaurant owners are applying for federal loans in order to help their laid off workers and some aren’t. The latter have basically told their workers to get screwed. The city could have played a role in this crisis. 

I recall when the UCSC administration shifted to a “no response” model of dealing with complaining staff subordinates. In the early days of my working at UCSC, any letter sent upstairs, even to the Chancellor, was responded to in detail and with thought, even if the response was not what one hoped for.  It was around the turn of the millennium when the change happened. Emails sent went unanswered. With serious issues I tend to be persistent and vocal student support can be convincing so a response was soon received. The shift to a no-response mode wasn’t accidental or personality based but a new business model, similar to the cubicles that replaced open office space and isolated workers. Now the institution is so big I doubt most workers would know where to begin to complain. 

Beyond buried emails and no-responses, we can expect a further erosion of democratic process at city hall with the ouster of council members Krohn and Glover. I am less concerned about a few instances of rudeness to staff (especially since I was accused of the same in 2005 in an effort to shut me up in my protest over the abysmal response to rape by SCPD) than I am about a new majority attempt to roll back the democratic gains from the past 2 years. There have been many and usually on a 4 to 3 vote with Mathews, Meiers and Watkins opposed. Newly elected Katherine Beiers was instrumental on previous councils in getting as policy a city attorney summary at the end of council meetings naming the legal topics and action discussed in closed-session, which was crucial for public awareness, a key to democratic process. Whether the new council will build on what’s in place or move to collapse it is an open question. I’m not holding my breath. 

Correction: the photo from last week of a wave crashing into the wharf was in summer not winter.

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.
...

April 7, 2020

Santa Cruz is Worth the Fight!

This is a refined version of the message I put forward here last week, but my theme is borrowed from Presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren. All of us would likely not be here if Santa Cruz was not worth the fight.

Back, by Popular Demand!

But It Is!
In a strange anticlimax, the Santa Cruz County Clerk confirmed on Monday, March 30, that Councilmember Drew Glover and I will not be returning to the Santa Cruz City Council this term. After what may go down as the longest month in my life, all 27,373 votes in the city of Santa Cruz were counted. On that day, we learned that the recall effort had narrowly prevailed – in my race by 507 votes. Although this was an historic and unprecedented vote, the outcome is dwarfed by the tragedy of the global pandemic that has descended on our planet. I truly hope that responding to Covid-19 will bring our City back together. We need each other. Maybe this crisis will help us transcend our local political differences. Glover and I have been recalled, but the issues we brought to the city council will not disappear anytime soon. Knocking on countless doors in dozens of neighborhoods (those pre-virus days seem so long ago), I came to realize how deep the political differences in Santa Cruz are around many issues, including affordable housing, homelessness, and the out-of-control growth of UCSC. Although the pandemic has changed our society irrevocably, the severity of our community’s challenges has only intensified. Our collective political struggle is still basically about who gets to live in Santa Cruz and whether our town is for sale to developers and corporate real estate interests. 

It’s the Political Community We Build
Looking back at the campaign for a moment, I am deeply grateful to the grassroots participants in Stop the Recalls. We faced tremendous odds. The Santa Cruz “Together,” “United,” “Forward” trio — all various incarnations of the same powerful real estate industry and developer-driven interests — was tough to overcome. Individuals centered in these interest groups began proposing recalls from Day 1, after the November 2018 election of Glover and now-Mayor Justin Cummings. The required campaign spending reports, which will arrive long after the March vote, will demonstrate that in order to drive Councilmember Glover and me from office, the recall proponents spent well into the six digits on at least five slick city-wide mailers, full-page newspaper advertisements, and endless Facebook ads. Campaign finance filings will show how special interest money helped buy an election.  Is this the new political normal in Santa Cruz?

Progressive Hope
While the recall passed by a small majority, there was notable evidence of progressive strength in this election. My friend and former city council colleague Katherine Beiers, who is a marathon runner in her spare time, far out-distanced her rival to fill the remaining six months of my term. Other progressive gains came in races where reform candidates were running for seats on the Democratic Central Committee. Planning commissioner and Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) member Cyndi Dawson bested long-time pro-development powerbroker Cynthia Mathews as the top vote-getter in the 3rd District. Another DSA member and high school science teacher, Stacey Falls, also won a seat in this district, which covers most of the city. 

The Long Sprint Home
We must remember that politics is not a sprint but a marathon. It took years after the 1989 earthquake to rebuild Santa Cruz, and it probably will take years to rebuild our local economy after this pandemic abates. Besides rebuilding our economy, several major controversial issues remain pending: the just-released Wharf Master Plan looks to put our beloved pier on Disneyland steroids; the UCSC administration wants to add 10,000 more students; the Parks and Recreation Master Plan is now up for debate; and of course, the ongoing library-in-a-garage-atop-the-Farmers’-Market saga will continue. With the severe ramifications of the pandemic playing out and the November elections just around the corner, I sincerely hope our community will get some much-needed rest —that unfortunately Covid-19 is forcing upon us—and come back together with our sleeves rolled up, guided by a spirit of generosity and mutual aid! To paraphrase Elizabeth Warren, Santa Cruz is worth the fight!

“During this pandemic, know your rights!
For most renters, you cannot be evicted or charged penalties for not paying rent.
For most homeowners, you can request a forbearance on your mortgage.” (April 6)
(Chris Krohn is a father, writer, activist, and was on the Santa Cruz City Councilmember from 1998-2002. Krohn was Mayor in 2001-2002. He’s been running the Environmental Studies Internship program at UC Santa Cruz for the past 14 years. He was elected the the city council again in November of 2016, after his kids went off to college. His current term ends in 2020.

Email Chris at ckrohn@cruzio.com
...

IS THIS THE JAIL FOR SOQUEL CREEK WATER DISTRICT CUSTOMERS WHO CAN’T PAY THEIR HIGH WATER BILLS?
It sure looks like it, doesn’t it?  Do you like the bundle of electrical wires protruding from the ground next to the sidewalk?  Yikes!

Soquel Creek Water District refuses to abide by the environmental mitigations the Board approved for the Granite Way Well as part of the Well Master Plan Mitigated Negative Declaration in 2010.  Back then, the Granite Way Well was supposed to be tucked within the Aptos Village Project (at the actual site of the buried fuel tank that was later excavated in 2016 and hauled away in the night), but in 2015, the developers got approval from the County Planning Dept. and Board of Supervisors to move the Well to it’s current location directly across from the Aptos Post Office, at the busy intersection of Trout Gulch Road and Cathedral Drive.

In 2015, I wrote the District’s Director of Engineering, Mr. Taj Dufour, to ask what the new well facilities might look like.  There were no plans available at all for the public to view during the Aptos Village Project hearings that included other major changes to the subdivision’s design as well.  Mr. Dufour assured me that the facility would blend with the neighborhood and not obscure visibility at the intersection.

However, because the District’s new Granite Way Well as built now is so aesthetically unsightly, and is in a very high-traffic and publicly visible location, I have requested a number of times that there be landscaping to improve the site.  Nothing has happened.

I have written the Board multiple times about this matter, but received no response.   At the Board’s March 3, 2020 meeting, I publicly asked that the District plant vines on the imposing fence around the Granite Way Well site to soften the unsightliness.  Mr. Taj Dufour assured me and the Board that there is landscaping planned for the site.

However, in truth, it appears that NO landscape plans exist, according to District staff response to my Public Records Act request to view them.

The District’s Environmental impact Report (EIR) for the 2010 Well Master Plan included mitigations 3.13-2a and 3.13-2b on page 3.13-18 to address this aesthetic impact of the Granite Way Well.  Mitigation 3.13-2a requires that the facilities blend with the character of the existing neighborhood, and not obscure historic resources (like the Hihn Apple Barn that is now New Leaf Market??)

“Typically, fencing would be obscured with slats and landscaping.”

click here to continue (link expands, click again to collapse)

How can a new Project be deemed “essential” when the District’s own recent hydrologic report states the groundwater levels are rising?

Well, folks, there it is.  Please write a Letter to the Editor with your thoughts. Write to the District Board with your questions and comments…get them on record.

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY WILL HAVE MAIL-ONLY BALLOTS FOR NOVEMBER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
That’s the latest news from County Clerk Gail Pellerin.  These indeed are interesting times.
Guest commentary | Keeping democracy alive during the COVID Crisis

WRITE ONE LETTER.  MAKE ONE CALL.  PARTICIPATE IN A REMOTE MEETING.   HUG YOUR FAMILY AND LAUGH.  STAY HEALTHY.

Cheers,
Becky

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor and finished with almost 30% of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com
...

#99 / I Meet A Troll

I had an adventure not so long ago. I met a troll.
I am sure you know the kind of “troll” I am talking about. I am not talking about “a dwarf or giant (in Scandinavian folklore) that inhabits caves or hills.” That’s the definition of “troll” from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, online.

I am talking about an Internet troll, which Wikipedia defines as “a person who starts quarrels or [who] upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages.” Internet trolls do not often venture out into public; they do not generally self-identify.

MY ADVENTURE:
A month or so ago, prior to the March 3rd election, I made a posting to my Facebook Timeline, passing on some information about an upcoming event connected to John Leopold’s campaign for Supervisor in Santa Cruz County’s First Supervisorial District. Lots of people expressed appreciation for the notification, but a couple of people expressed, in troll-like posts, how much they despised and disliked Supervisor Leopold. Their postings went on for quite a bit.

As the Bible tells us [Proverbs 15], “a soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” Trolls specialize in “stirring up anger.” With the Bible as my guide, however, I did not rise to the bait, but “turned away wrath.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t protest. I acknowledged the postings, and expressed my disagreement in a polite way. And I didn’t block any further commentary or access to my Facebook page for the troll-like commenters.

That was that.

Then….. (several weeks later), I went to see the movie Parasite, at the Nickelodeon Theatre in downtown Santa Cruz. By the way, I recommend the movie, if you haven’t seen it!

In the middle of the show, I made a quick trip to the restroom. As it happened, another person was heading to the restroom at the very same time. As we emerged into the light, he looked at me, and recognizing me, he said, “are you Gary Patton?”

I confessed I was.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been trolling you.”

“Oh,” I said, “I think I remember that. About John Leopold, right? You notice I didn’t come right back at you.”

“I know,” he replied, and then proceeded to engage me in a reasonable (if brief) discussion about some of the local issues of concern to him. We differed, but the conversation was cordial, just the kind of discussion about a political issue that anyone might have.

In fact, in person, this “troll” was a pretty decent guy, or so I felt.

Because I wanted to see the movie, I didn’t really have time to discuss local political issues; thus, my troll and I never really became acquainted. Given more time, and allowing for our political differences, we might have become perfectly friendly. Even though we didn’t agree on a number of things, we did agree on some, and I was happy to make this troll’s acquaintance.

As he presented himself on the Internet, I would have suspected that my “troll” might have looked just like a “real” troll, pictured above. In real life, though, my “troll” seemed to be a nice enough person, given that he did have some political views with which I didn’t agree.

The lesson I draw from this adventure is that our politics needs to be person-to-person. Politics by Internet is simply not a viable way to make democracy work.

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com
...

EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. Classic peeks inside our secret places…maybe?

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s comic down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog. 

Lisa writes about being temporarily suspended, and watching movies on Amazon, Netflix – and everywhere else! This week, she’s taken a blogging break, but check out her old stuff at Lisa Jensen Online Express (ljo-express.blogspot.com/). Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975.

...

Here you have 8 minutes worth of clips of my countryman, Alexander Skarsgård, being hilarious 🙂

Persistence

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”
~Benjamin Franklin

“Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.”
~Dale Carnegie

“Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.”
~Napoleon Hill

“Throughout human history, in any great endeavour requiring the common effort of many nations and men and women everywhere, we have learned – it is only through seriousness of purpose and persistence that we ultimately carry the day. We might liken it to riding a bicycle. You stay upright and move forward so long as you keep up the momentum.”
~Ban Ki-moon


COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS. Subscriptions: Subscribe to the Bulletin! You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!), and the occasional scoop. Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!

Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

...

Posted in Weekly Articles | Leave a comment