SANTA CRUZ IS AGING
This article is clearly biased against seniors in Santa Cruz. I’m 74 years old and angered by the paragraph, “Many longtime homeowners remain in houses they bought decades ago, often without affordable down-sizing options nearby. Meanwhile, younger families struggle to enter the housing market.” “We’re seeing seniors kind of trapped in those homes while young families don’t have a place to move into”, your quote from Greenberg. Have you considered that those seniors WANT to stay in their homes, “not trapped” as the quote you used stated. In addition, can these young people actually afford to pay the property taxes to get into a new home?
Michele Philibosian
FUNDING FELTON FIRE’S TURNAROUND
Last July, Santa Cruz LAFCO flagged concerns about Felton Fire’s financial viability. For 80 years, the portion of property tax for FFPD hasn’t changed. As other districts voted in supplemental funding, Felton leaned on pancake breakfasts and Santa’s Shelves. Costs kept rising; call volume tripled since 1999 to 900 per year; the 72-year-old station needed maintenance, and a mostly-volunteer staffing model was hit by economic and regulatory pressures.
LAFCO’s report caught the attention of the FFPD Board and the community. In the year since, the district has had a remarkable turnaround, led by a part-time chief, who got his start at Felton Fire decades ago at 18.
These recommendations from LAFCO’s report have been implemented or will be initiated once a proposed benefits assessment passes this month – if Felton voters approve it:
● New staffing model in line with current best practices – 24/7 paid staff supported by a strong cadre of volunteers.
● Recruitment of a full-time chief with adequate compensation
● Improvements to the 72-year-old station and timely repair/replacement of vehicles; the assessment will cover vehicle replacement and free other funds for the station’s physical needs.
● Improved community outreach – remote access for Board meetings, revamped website, and nine town halls in four months led to a 95% rating for transparency in LAFCO’s June 2026 countywide report on local fire districts, the highest in our area.
● Additional funding – the success of FFPD’s proposed special benefits assessment will be determined when votes are tallied on July 24.
FFPD has protected Felton for nearly 100 years and kept us safe during the CZU fire. We have an extraordinarily high participation rate in Firewise. If any town has the will to save our fire district, it’s Felton. Let’s vote YES on the assessment.
Joni Martin | Felton
MISSING PET
Every day dogs go missing. This one is different: our family dog Taffy – a tricolor corgi – vanished from our yard in La Selva Beach on July 4th at 5:18 PM, and her GPS collar recorded exactly what happened. The tracker’s timestamped data shows she went from standing in front of our house to traveling 4.87 miles down San Andreas Road in 8 minutes – 36 miles per hour. No dog runs that fast; she was picked up by a passing vehicle. Minutes later, her tracker came off near Beach Road and Highway 1, where we recovered it in the roadside brush. Taffy is still missing.
We’ve filed a report with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff and we’re not looking to accuse anyone – whoever picked her up may have thought she was a stray. There’s a reward, no questions asked. Taffy has been the center of our family for four years, and we just want her home.
Please share this, and one of them may have seen something on San Andreas Road between 5:15 and 5:30 PM that day. For more information: https://shorturl.at/PnV0f
Thank you for considering it.
Dave Kennedy | La Selva Beach
CAYUGA STAGE
Thanks to Lucille Tepperman and the staff at Good Times for the lovely article on our homegrown performance space. Very helpful to get the word out!
One small (BIG) detail: the article never once mentioned our name! We have a name. We are “The CAYUGA STAGE” friends! (No- not ‘The Cayuga Vault’. That venue is gone to history.) Hard for interested parties to look us up if they don’t know what we are called! We host performances every week in our lovely garden until mid-October.
Look us up at: facebook.com.
Kevin Keelan | General Manager, the CAYUGA STAGE
