PVUSD PROPOSALS

Regarding school closures, I have advocated for an idea to sell the District Office Building and move it to a school, which should be considered for closing, since 2024. I also would like to advocate for an idea to prioritize investing money to restructure the existing prefab houses and buildings in Pajaro Middle School to protect them from another severe flood in the future.

Regarding increasing revenues, I have advocated for bringing the high school students of Ceiba Charter School to three PVUSD high schools while keeping the middle school part of Ceiba. (There have been around 250 high school students at Ceiba Charter School since 2024.) I advocated for Ceiba Charter School to be able to stay in the current place on Locus Street in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Takashi Mizuno | Watsonville

LOSE THE TRACKS

I’m romantic about trains. Living near the Yacht Harbor in 1975, the train would make sure I was up at 8:30am. I rode BART literally thousands of times in the 1980s to work in SF. But the recent long letters to Good Times advocating for the train here are romantic nonsense.

First, it is a tremendously expensive misdirection of resources. If we want to waste literally billions of dollars on romantic old technology, we can buy horses and buggies. Trains made sense for BART in 1970 to move millions of people to work in a concentrated downtown. But we don’t have that here. And in those days there weren’t nonpolluting electric buses. Electric bus routes and ride shares can now be flexibly changed to pick up and leave people near where they need to go, unlike fixed tracks which were originally designed for bringing fruit to Santa Cruz canneries.

Secondly, this rail plan is hazardous. The Roaring Camp train creates a traffic hazard when it goes just twice a day along the Boardwalk tracks—just think if a train ran every 20 minutes there and on many other roads. Several dozen pedestrians are killed every year from Caltrain on the Peninsula, including a raft of student suicides in Palo Alto; and about a dozen suicides on BART tracks yearly. We in Santa Cruz are proud to be liberal and tolerant of neurodivergent people in our community, but it is just an invitation to impulsive suicide attempts to have frequent trains running that can’t brake nearly as efficiently a bus. And trains also imply an electrified third rail or cable that would be another hazard to children, pets and everyone else.

Third, the rail plan and all the complicated easements it requires just delays the trail being improved for hikers and bikes.

Mike Strimling | Santa Cruz

ONLINE COMMENTS

EBIKE DANGERS

For some real excitement, try using the Monterey Rec Trail. It used to be a relaxing place for walking, jogging and pedal biking. Now you can experience the thrill of some clown passing right next to you on an electric bike at 25+ mph! Of course it’s not technically a “motorcycle” so there’s no problem, right? (Something to look forward to on the Rail Trail?) Cuidado.

Chris Kenny | Goodtimes.sc

DANGEROUS PROJECT ON PAUL SWEET ROAD

Regarding Virginia’s letter, I am certainly concerned for the safety of seniors in our community. I would be surprised if the city or the county would allow anything dangerous, but I appreciate the warning to look into that. I find Virginia’s use of the word tenement very concerning. Tenement housing historically described poor, rundown, uncared-for housing, mostly for black and brown people. I doubt or I hope that Virginia did not mean to imply anything by the use of that term, but I’m curious about her choice of words. Brand new housing would not imply tenement. Does she assume the units will be cheap and not well-kept? Most of the new housing going in, unfortunately, is actually too expensive for a lot of locals, so this would be a strange development, literally and figuratively.

Caren Sage Smiley | Goodtimes.sc