As election results continued to roll in on the night of March 5, Measure N came out swinging, with 69.9% of voters approving it.
That number had dipped to 68.5% by March 6, just barely making the required two-thirds supermajority needed to pass.
Measure N would provide $116 million for Watsonville Community Hospital to make an array of improvements took an early lead Tuesday, with 69.9% of voters saying yes.
The measure would also allow the Pajaro Valley Health Care District (PVHCD)—which runs the publicly owned hospital—to purchase the building and grounds, saving $3 million per year in rental costs.
The measure is seen as a life raft for the hospital, which suffered from years of financial mismanagement, and bankruptcy, before PVHCD took over.
It would place $24 per $100,000 of assessed value on property tax bills for properties within the district.
The measure includes an independent citizens’ oversight committee, which will make sure the district is spending the money as per the bond requirements.
PVHCD board member Tony Nuñez said he is “cautiously optimistic” about the preliminary results.
“It’s close, but we kind of figured it would be,” Nuñez said.
Nuñez said the numbers are a testament to the work of volunteers, who walked the district, which stretches from Aptos to northern Monterey County. during the campaign,
“Everyone in here put a lot of effort into this, and I want to thank them for all that they did.”
Santa Cruz County Supervisor District 1
Incumbent Manu Koenig will defeat challenger Lani Faulkner, with 54.5% of the vote as of March 6, fending off a formidable opponent.
Koenig said he is confident in a positive final outcome
“I’m feeling very encouraged by the results so far. Democracy is a team sport and I’m really proud of my team. It’s looking like our hard work paid off,” Koenig said.
Santa Cruz County Supervisor District 2
While a simple majority would have clinched an immediate win, that was not likely in a field of five candidates. And so Pajaro Valley Unified School District Trustee Kim De Serpa and Capitola Mayor Kristen Brown are headed for a November runoff after edging out three challengers with 26.1% and 32.9% of the vote, respectively.
District 2 covers Aptos, La Selva Beach, Seacliff and Rio Del Mar, parts of Corralitos, Freedom, Capitola and Watsonville. The seat freed up when Supervisor Zach Friend announced he would not seek a new term.
De Serpa said she is ready to continue the campaign, and said she’s grateful to the voters.
“I’m feeling energized,” she said. “I cannot wait to see it through to November.”
De Serpa also tipped her hat to her fellow candidates after the long campaign.
“It takes a lot of chutzpah and a lot of guts to run for office, she said. “You make yourself really vulnerable, and there is a lot of work in preparing.”
Brown said she was cautiously optimistic about the early results.
“We feel really good about it, but we know there are a lot of votes left to be counted, so we’re not taking anything for granted,” she said. “We’re excited for what we’re seeing so far, and we’re looking forward to seeing what comes next.”
Santa Cruz County Supervisor District 5
Another pair headed to a runoff in November are Monica Martinez and Christopher Bradford, who are vying for the District 5 seat that opened when Bruce McPherson announced he would not run.
Martinez is the CEO of local nonprofit Encompass Community Services and resides in Felton.
The district has faced serious environmental challenges, including the 2020 CZU Lighting Complex Fire, which devastated the area and destroyed multiple homes. Most recently, residents of the Big Basin Subdivision have endured a water and sewage crisis as embattled private utility company Big Basin Water moves into a public receivership.
Bradford, a small business owner, is a resident of Big Basin has been an advocate for a viable solution to the ongoing water problems.
As of March 6, Martinez enjoyed 45.8% of the vote and Bradford garnered just over 21%.
Two layoff plans will be voted on by the Live Oak School Board on March 6 after a week of tense discussions over the future of the District. To prevent insolvency and takeover from the state, the Board has to fill a $2.9 million deficit for the 2024-2025 school year by March 15.
Both plans cut approximately $4.8 million cumulatively from the Live Oak School Board District’s (LOSD) payroll over the next two school years. Plan A calls for 10.73 full time teacher jobs to be cut, while Plan B has 11.73 teacher jobs laid-off. The difference is an elementary school physical education position.
Plans A and B also call for a $290,000 cut to the Special Education program and five full time job cuts to “classroom support.”
Vice-president of the Live Oak Teachers Association (LOEFTA) Emily Avila thinks this is an example of the District’s “band-aides over the bullet holes” approach to decision making. The special education population has risen in recent years and without aides in the classroom more parents will choose “individual education plans” which can cost the District even more money.
The Ocean Alternative Education Center, the home schooling program for the LOSD, could also be hit with layoffs.
“I often work with a single child from kindergarten through eighth grade,” said Deb Bell of Ocean Alternative. ‘We are not an interchangeable cog with staffing with the rest of the district because we have specialized work that we do.”
Other ways to stabilize the District were discussed. Board members Krisitin Pfotenhauer and Jeremy Ray said they are open to the idea of merging Del Mar and Green Acres elementaries.
Under both plans, LOSD will reorganize district staff, which would move jobs down a full pay grade. “Cabinet” positions will be dropped to the “director” pay grade, and “director” down to “coordinator.”
Assistant-Superintendents Heidi Odom’s positions will be reduced to a Director of Human Resources and Assistant-Superintendent of Business Services Hanwool Kim will become Chief Business Officer.
Morales will take five furlough days, saving over $5,000 for the District next year. Her salary will be $223,831 for 2024-25.
Brooke Bond, a member of the Green Acres Site Council says five furlough days is not enough and would rather see 15-20 days and for more positions. Bond thinks that the District is still misleading parents because the materials they handed out to parents didn’t match the presentation given.
Parents and students were surveyed by the District to see which jobs they were in favor of saving, however, Board President Kristin Pfotenhauer admitted the process was flawed because only gmail users were able to access the poll.
Hanwool Kim said the online voting was “taken into consideration,” but his office will continue to crunch the numbers to save as many jobs as possible before March 6.
Pfotenhauer also said on February 27th that by answering audience questions out of turn during the previous meeting she had not followed the Brown Act, the code governing how public school board meetings are run in the state of California.
The Union’s Complaints
On February 27, Live Oak Elementary Teachers Association President Lauren Pomrantz and Vice-President Emily Avila charged LOSD Superintendent Daisy Morales with “neglecting to take actions to prevent our district’s fall into a multi-million dollar deficit.”
They asked that the Board “reconsider the terms of the contract for the superintendent.”
Pomrantz said the teachers’ union is angry with more than just the layoffs. Red flags were raised internally for years that were ignored by the District as it embarked on big initiatives that it did not effectively plan or fund, according to Pomrantz.
This includes initiatives such as the District’s plans for workforce housing, a new preschool, support programs and the capital facilities bond.
In the last six years, the District’s total expense for teacher salaries decreased 5% as the teachers got a 15% raise because of decreased enrollment. Total administrative salaries have risen 49% during this same time. LOSD has seven positions at the “Director” paygrade versus two positions at Soquel, a similarly sized district by students. This has given the District office a reputation for being “top-heavy.”
Superintendent Morales also expressed anti-union sentiment, according to Pomrantz, and accused her of saying she would “‘find someone else to do the job,’” during labor negotiations.
According to Avila, the District’s Special Education department is a mess. People have blown the whistle only to retaliate against. have the that students who have aides written into their individual education plans
The LOETA also accuses Morales of withholding information from the Board, and discouraging the District’s administration from talking to the Board in full confidence about what was going on.
Jeremy Ray thinks that there is a good reason why a strict separation exists between the Board and the administration. If an individual Board member is directing staff time that doesn’t work because it undercuts the entire operation of the superintendent, Ray says.
Comparing the school board’s relationship to the administration to the city council and city staff, Ray says, “It is really not appropriate for me to contact the chief budget officer and start asking him questions without going through the Superintendent.”
Kim only started in November after the past business chief Alison Warner left after fierce labor negotiations, so Ray hasn’t had time to develop a relationship with him yet.
For Lauren Pomrantz the question comes down to what happened in December, 2023, when the state decertified the district’s budget. Before that happened, there was not a single word out about the budget problem from the district office.
This is why the teachers passed a vote of no confidence in Morales for “abetting the insulation of the Board of Trustees from any sources of information other than what she provides.” 82% of the union signed the vote of no confidence. The rest were afraid of retribution from Morales, according to Pomrantz.
When asked by this reporter to respond to the allegation made by the LOETA that she controlled information given to the Board, she said, “I do not respond.”
Another allegation by the teachers is that Morales’s mentorship of the youngest member of the Board of Trustees, Marlize Velasco, is a conflict of interest. Velasco is a UC Santa Cruz student who began her term in 2022 when no one else filed to run.
Velasco said she did get a binder of information from Morales.
“What hurts me is that they do not see me as my own person, ” Velasco said.
There has been a lot of catching up to do, Velasco said, with having to go through years of documents. She has reached out to the County Office of Education to get more data on the school’s comparative financial situation.
“I support Daisy,” Velasco said.
The Future of Morales?
Morales apologized to the teachers and parents at the board meeting on February 29, admitting that she had not been transparent enough.
“Those of you who know me well know that my heart is guarded for good reasons,” said Morales. “But I know I have to come to work not just to be effective and efficient and dependable but I have to be open and vulnerable and that is how I want to lead.”
Parents and teachers said they thought this was disingenuous because she gave the same speech at both the parent and board meetings, pausing at the same moments.
“Her apology and her tears were totally forced,” said Emily Avila of LOETA.
But Pfotenhauer ended the board meeting by acknowledging that the Board was unsure about Morales’ future.
“I do stand by Dr. Morales’ strengths but it is clear there are a lot of weaknesses. I am not sure how we are going to move forward,” said Pfotenhauer.
However, it could be difficult to fire Morales. The Board extended Morales’ contract last year, and her contract now expires 6/30/2026.
Pfotenhauer suggested a parent advisory committee to oversee fundraising, but she admitted that the Live Oak community lacked trust in them to carry it out.
Morales had previously sent out a link to parents for a “ParentSquare” fundraiser, to raise $3 million.
“Understandably those that might be willing to donate might be reluctant because they don’t trust us,” said Pfotenhauer.
The City of Santa Cruz unveiled its draft 50-Year Community Vision For West Cliff late last month, the culmination of a year’s worth of community feedback about the future of the iconic stretch of coastline.
The plan focuses on prioritizing pedestrian and bicycle access; exploring nature-based solutions and one-way vehicle access.
Safeguarding the coastline against the effects of climate change is a fundamental part of the vision, and hard armoring, including seawalls, is also planned for.
The document is now open for public review before it heads to the city council for deliberation in April and a community meeting was held on Feb. 29 to get locals to weigh in on the draft.
The city partnered with Sacramento-based Farallon Strategies, a climate resilience consulting firm, to develop the vision document. The firm billed the city $103, 000 for its services.
After sustaining significant damage during storms in January 2023 , a segment of West Cliff Drive between Columbia Street and Woodrow Avenue has since only been closed to vehicle traffic. As emergency repairs got underway last year, the city engaged with area residents in multiple community meetings to get their take on how to preserve the area. To view the 50-Year Community Vision Fro West Cliff document, visit cityofsantacruz.com
Santa Cruz City Schools voted to “declare its opposition” to the opening of a cannabis dispensary near Santa Cruz High School at a meeting on Feb. 28 in part of Emily’s Bakery.
The declaration says it is the District’s responsibility to protect the health of their students, citing the effects of marijuana on the developing brain. The declaration notes that the number of students in Santa Cruz schools who were disciplined for marijuana-use last year more than doubled.
A cannabis dispensary, The Hook Santa Cruz, is proposed for 1,878 square feet of the building at 1129 Mission Street. The rest of the building will become a “ghost kitchen” for food delivery apps. Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the pioneering medical marijuana non-profit, transferred one of only five marijuana store permits allowed in the city to the applicant.
The dispensary would be outside the 600-foot restricted-zone around schools as mandated in the City of Santa Cruz’s zoning. Santa Cruz High is located 850 feet from the proposed dispensary.
Santa Cruz City Schools proposes a 2,000 foot barrier, which would align the city to the Monterey County Risk Assessment Matrix, a 2019 framework for cannabis legalization.
Bryce Berryessa, who co-founded The Hook Outlet, which has two stores in Watsonville and Capitola, says this would be effectively “a ban.” No city in Monterey follows this guideline besides Salinas, which has a smaller 1,000 foot buffer.
The current zoning around dispensaries is longstanding, dating back to 2010 when medical marijuana was decriminalized in 2010, and updated in 2017 before legalization.
Bryce Berryessa says he agreed to work with the schools on substance abuse issues, including agreeing to a requirement in the permit that no one under the age of 19 will be able to buy cannabis from the store, even with a medical permit.
He says his offer to work things out with the nearby schools was spurned by Superintendent Kris Munro.
“This is primarily spearheaded by the city school Superintendent,” said Berryessa. “[She] is leveraging her position of power to subvert the rule of law, and the will of the majority of Santa Cruzians who have overwhelmingly voted to allow for regulated cannabis in our community.”
Superintendent Kris Munro says her overriding concern is the students and families she serves.
“It’s my responsibility and my role in the community to advocate for students, youth, and families. I am not opposed to his business. I am not opposed to him as an individual. I just know we have to do everything we can to mitigate access to something that does damage to children,” says Munro.
President of the Board of Santa Cruz City Schools Claudia Vestal agrees. She believes it is not the right place for a dispensary.
“We would like to bring forward to the Planning Commission a buffer zone around schools, and not just for dispensaries but also for alcohol,” said Vestal.
A minor can’t just wander in and buy marijuana from a dispensary. On its website, the Hook claims that since 2010, not a single minor has bought cannabis from its stores.
Dispensaries must scan IDs to keep a record and check them with blacklight. “If we get violations, we get shut down,” said Berryessa.
In her letter to the Planning Commission, Munro says that a Santa Cruz High student focus group notified her that it is incredibly common for students to get fake-IDs.
In 2022-23 there were 91 suspensions for possession or use of drugs in Santa Cruz City Schools with the vast majority being for vaping marijuana, according to the letter.
City staff say that the proposed dispensary “meets all the objective standards laid out in the City Zoning Code.” However, staff gives the Commission discretion to deny the project because of the “subjective” nature of having a pot-store near a high school.
“It would be an unprecedented move to hold us to a different standard,” said Berryessa.
If you go: The Santa Cruz Planning Commission will vote on the permit for a cannabis facility at Santa Cruz City Hall on March 7 at 7 pm.
Comedian Jim Norton has been grinding at the mics (comedy parlance for “working hard”) since 1990. Originally being taken on the road by Andrew “Dice” Clay, Norton found a home at the wildly successful “Opie and Anthony” radio show, eventually replacing Anthony. And now, over 30 years later, Norton is still going out, night after night in New York City, working small clubs, and honing his new material to a vibrant sheen. When Norton hits the bountiful stage of The Rio Theatre on March 8, it’s going to be a master class in comedy and performance.
“Sorry. I was onstage at the Comedy Cellar (in NYC) and wasn’t able to take your call,” says Norton, who is out of breath, but ready to talk. The famous Comedy Cellar, and the sister club, The Village Underground, are where Norton works out at least two sets a night.
Comics have to be onstage. For comparison, a guitarist can sit in their room, alone, for a year, running scales for 24 hours a day, and emerge an accomplished virtuoso.
But solitude doesn’t work for comedians; they need an audience. When A-Lister comics need to work on their new hour of material, they have no choice but to work it out onstage.
“When Chappelle is in town, he hits the Comedy Cellar. Chris Rock. Ray Romano. Again, it just depends if they’re in town, and if they have something to work on. It’s a small room, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the best test for material. Because the Cellar is in the Village, on McDougal Street, so you get all walks of life. You get your White people, Black people, gay people, tourists, students and older people. It’s every single representation. So you kind of get an idea if your material translates to a larger group of people,” says Norton.
If you haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening in stand-up comedy lately, it’s a bit of a mess. The woke vs the unwoke. The pro-Trans vs the anti-Trans. The “We’ve sold our souls to Satan,” vs. “We still believe in humanity,” comics.
Comedy camps are being staked out and divisiveness rules. Norton is no stranger these phenomena. “I never thought I’d live to see the day that there were comedians trying to punish each other, for jokes,” says Norton.
“I never care about the ideology of another comic. I don’t care if they’re far right wing. I don’t care if they’re extremely liberal. If I like the material, and I think they’re coming from an honest place, I respect them. What I don’t like is any comedian trying to penalize another comedian for their jokes. You’re going to get a round of applause for scolding another comic’s material? It almost feels like cheating to get ahead,” says Norton.
Playing the game of identity politics isn’t something Norton wants to get caught up in. “Dave (Chappelle) is saying things that are upsetting one side of people,” says Norton. Always seeking to find compassion in any given situation, Norton admires Chappelle as a comic, even though their viewpoints differ.
It should be noted that in the last year, Norton married a beautiful transgender model named Nikki. It was during COVID that Norton had the most important and best times of his life.
He spent that lockdown trying to get his Norwegian wife into the country through Canada. “She was dealing with a minor marijuana charge. It was a nightmare,” Norton recalls.
When Norton heard that, due to COVID, Canada was going to shut down the border, he went to see Nikki in Montreal. He planned on being gone for a month,but it turned into 15 months.
“I spent my quarantine living with a woman for the first time. It proved to me our marriage would work. So for me, that lockdown was the best time of life,” says Norton.
Jim Norton will be at The Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz 8pm Friday, March 8. For tickets go to riotheatre.com
Jess Williamson finds comfort as the outsider and strength in the “other” on her current album, Time Ain’t Accidental, an often brutally poignant chronicle of the healing miles between rejection and renewal.
Less a “pandemic” album, more an awakening, Williamson navigates the crumbling structure of a relationship and the identity it imposed as she minds the gap between two literal and spiritual homes in Texas and California.
“I noticed when I was writing this record, it really feels like sonically there is this Texas feeling that’s such a part of me, and then there’s this modern L.A. feeling which is also a part of me,” Williamson said in a recent interview. “Somehow the record is able to keep a foot in two different worlds.”
Jess returned to producer Brad Cook’s Puff City Studios in Durham, North Carolina, to delve into her dual natures as a blue Texas poet and a pop-savvy lyricist, both heartbroken and challenged by an uncertain future.
“There’s this dance called the Texas two-step, which everybody in Texas knows. If I’m dancing with someone who’s a good lead, I can follow along, but otherwise, I don’t really know it,” Williamson said. “I was thinking about how in a metaphorical sense, at that time in my life especially, I felt like there was this dance that everyone else knew the steps to but I had never really caught on. I was just sort of struggling to keep up.
Williamson credits that particular strain of self-awareness to not only the jagged break from a long-term partner, but also her “humbling” experience with 21st-century app-based dating while living in Los Angeles during the pandemic. On “Hunter,” Williamson, whose “love is pure as the universe” and “honest as an ashtray,” sings “I’ve been thrown to the wolves and they ate me raw.”
“I kind of missed the dating app thing because I was in relationships and it just so happened that it didn’t line up for me to ever try it — and then I never wanted to try it. But coming out of COVID, when a lot of stuff wasn’t really open yet, you know, people weren’t really gathering,” she said of what she terms COVID dating. “Life wasn’t really in session, but people were meeting each other on these dating apps and making plans to meet up in a park and sit outside and talk. It was such a weird moment.
“I didn’t last very long because I didn’t really like the way that it made me feel, the way that I think that there’s this mutual devaluing that happens on both sides because you’re meeting through this technology that feels so inauthentic and inorganic. I didn’t like meeting up and feeling like, “I’m sussing them out, they’re sussing me out…” I didn’t like having no context for these people, and I didn’t like being thrown to the wolves,” Williamson said. “That’s really what it felt like, where it’s like, ‘Here’s this world that I’m getting into, and I really didn’t sign up for being made to feel so small!’
As she brings “Time Ain’t Accidental” to the live stage, Jess and her band (guitarist Matt LaRocca, bassist Caleb Veazey, and drummer Andrew McGuire) are conscious of but unfettered by the album’s arrangements, often choosing to dictate the pace to suit individual moments.
“I always like to really play specifically to the room,” said Williamson. “You know, I’ve seen live shows where it just sounds like someone pushed play on the record, and there’s a beauty to that in that it’s really ‘pro,’ I suppose, but for me, I appreciate when things are a little different and there’s some surprises and it’s a little more rockin’ at times.”
Jess Williamson plays Felton Music Hall with opener Erin Rae March 12, 8pm, 21+ $27 advance & $32 day of show
Les Lullies identifies as “four French cheese-eating attack monkeys.” Since their 2016 conception in Montpellier, France, they have honed their in-your-face garage punk sound through relentless touring and recording around the globe. Their album Mauvaise Foi (Bad Faith) finds the band singing almost exclusively in French for the first time on a release and exploring some European influences, like classic punk bands of the Normandy scene. It’s still a rollicking listen even for those who don’t speak French; rock ‘n’ roll of the Les Lullies variety doesn’t necessarily need to be understood to be felt. ADDIE MAHMASSANI
INFO: 8pm, The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $10. 429-6994
JAZZ
OKAN
Okan fuses jazz and folk with Afro-Caribbean roots to create powerful, emotional music. They sing about immigration, love and resistance in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, breaking cultural and language barriers. The group’s name comes from the word “heart” in Santeria; it is fitting because they put their hearts into the music, highlighting the unique perspectives and passions the members bring to the show. Those attending will find themselves connecting to the range and depth of emotions the group presents. Okan brings fresh voices and perspectives to Latin and jazz music. ISABELLA MARIE SANGALINE
INFO: 7pm, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $42/adv, $47.25/door.427-2227
FRIDAY 3/8
COMEDY
JIM NORTON
For those unfamiliar with comedian Jim Norton, consider this quote: People are dumb and think that laughing equals cosigning a belief in the ideology, which it doesn’t. In other words, Norton is not for the easily offended and absolutely knows what he’s doing—he even titled his 2012 comedy special Please Be Offended. Norton is a comedian, actor, author and radio personality who first gained prominence in the early ’00s on the Opie and Anthony radio show. Since then, he has been on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, hosted several programs, including Vice’s The Jim Norton Show and acted in numerous movies, including portraying a young Don Rickles in Scorsese’s The Irishman. MAT WEIR
INFO: 8pm, Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $30. 423-8209
FILM
ALFRED HITCHCOCK FESTIVAL
The Alfred Hitchcock Festival is back with more thrills, chills and kills for local cinema lovers. This second annual benefit fundraiser for the Scotts Valley Theater Guild takes a deep dive off a very high cliff into the world of the infamous horror director and one-time Scotts Valley resident. The three-day festival features panels with the director’s granddaughter Tere Carrubba and local historian Jay Topping. Discussions include everything from costume design to Hitchcock’s off-screen battle with morality censors. It’s not much of a festival without showing some of the master’s movies (Rear Window, Blackmail, Birds, North By Northwest), which will also be followed by lectures from local professors. Each day features different activities and start times. MW
INFO: 5pm, Community Theater Guild, 251 Kings Village Rd., Scotts Valley. $50 – $150. 438-1000
SATURDAY 3/9
AMERICANA
JEFFREY HALFORD & THE HEALERS
Roots rock singer-songwriter Jeffrey Halford’s bio includes a couple of factoids to enhance his credibility in the roots music world. Although he grew up in California, he was born in Texas and listened to genuine old-school country music in his youth. He also has a sprinkling of “I fought the law, and the law won” from his teenage rebel years. Hailed as a slide guitar wizard, Halford now leads his San Francisco-based band the Healers, including bassist Paul Olguin, drummer Jim Norris and guitarist Richard Goldstein. He’s been reviewed in Rolling Stone, and former Stones guy Bill Wyman reportedly requested that the band (which tours Europe each fall) record his tune “Mississippi Flyer.” DAN EMERSON
KQED’s Daniel Bromfield describes Lucy Liyou as “an avant-garde answer to elegant, inspirational divas like Mariah [Carey].” The comparison is apt, as Carey’s sound was an early influence on Liyou’s understanding of what a human voice can do, and the pop star’s songs are also sampled twice on Liyou’s recent album, Dog Dreams. As part of a rising cohort of young experimental electronic musicians, Liyou has garnered praise for her innovative treatment of Korean American identity and LGBTQ+ desire. Dog Dreams begins with three minutes of silence followed by a lengthy recording of her saliva—because, as she explains, “Worlds don’t build in a minute.” AM
INFO: 8:30pm, Indexical, 1050 River St #119, Santa Cruz. $16. 627-9491
SUNDAY 3/10
R&B
MARIAH THE SCIENTIST
She got her stage name from her early love of biology, but if creating the perfect R&B song for driving down a palm tree-lined road was a science, she could easily have earned it that way. Atlanta artist Mariah the Scientist has recorded with Lil Baby, 21 Savage, and Young Thug, but her solo tracks bring the real heat. Songs from her new album, To Be Eaten Alive, grapple with heartache, the joys of true love and the complexities of womanhood. Why not spend this Lenten season playing the song “40 Days n 40 Nights” on a loop? JESSICA IRISH
INFO: 8pm, The Catalyst, 1101 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $32.50/adv, $37.50/door. 713-5492
TUESDAY 3/12
FOLK
JESS WILLIAMSON
Jess Williamson’s music is influenced by her friends, including Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, who both specialize in lyrics that slice straight to the marrow and music that makes the heart glow. Her voice is just this side of country; her lyrics on the other side of folk, and the Raymond Carver references are reminiscent of Phoebe Bridgers’s lit bro aesthetic. Williamson has a beautiful yowl that captures feelings anyone can relate to, like loneliness mixed with hope or love clouded by trepidation. Pop stars going country should look to Williamson to see how it’s done. JI
The “IV” is a subtle reminder that Coleman Williams hails from country music’s most exalted gene pool as the great-grandson of Hank Williams Sr., grandson of Hank Williams Jr., and only son of Hank III. Before becoming an alt-country singer-songwriter, Williams IV spent years developing his musical identity, starting in Nashville’s punk/metal house concert scene, then traveling cross-country, doing a resume of miscellaneous jobs and soaking up musical influences. Southern Circus, the debut record he cut with his Stranger Band, crosses genre boundaries to mix the country troubadour tradition with turned-up-to-11 rock. DE
Bold representation of an underrepresented culture and lowriders are among the themes of this year’s 12th Annual Watsonville Film Festival.
The festival will present over 40 Latine films of community stories, shown at the Cinelux Green Valley Cinema and online, including one about a 9-year-old Watsonville boy who has never seen the ocean.
“The audience is our own community, celebrating our stories that we don’t see represented in the media; the diversity, the beauty, the nuanced stories that we have as a Latine community,” says festival director and co-founder Consuelo Alba.
“And the lowriding community who brings us together. Being part of a lowrider community is a fellowship. It’s something you give back.”
Latine representation in film is 4%, according to a study by Spectrum News. In California, Latines are 30 % of the population.
“The Watsonville Film Festival presents stories that illuminate our shared humanity and inspire meaningful change, portraying ourselves in more authentic ways than mainstream media depicts us,” says Alba. “Let’s go beyond the TV show Narcos and tell our real stories. The festival is interactive, with audience Q & A after each film. Actors, directors, and writers will dialogue with the audience.”
Co-founder and Director of the Watsonville Film Festival, Consuelo Alba has leveraged the power of film to inspire, connect and shift disempowering narratives and harmful stereotypes of the Latine community. She is an award winning-documentary filmmaker and executive producer of local films. She directed El Andalón /The Healer, screened in 30 film festivals worldwide, received seven awards and was broadcast on Mexican public television.
She favors the term Latine for this article.
STILL CRUISIN’ Festival Director Consuelo Alba and lowrider art by Maggie Yee. PHOTO:Sandina Robbins
“I understand a lot of people still use Latinx and it has been like that for a while,” she says. “And we are moving away from that because Latine takes into consideration the Spanish language. Because the E is actually gender neutral. That’s why E works really well in Spanish and we’re bringing that back. It’s inclusive. And, because in Spanish, Latinx is hard. I know there are a lot of different conversations about it. You know, some people never liked Latinx. Latine makes sense to me.”
Alba was born in Mexico City, where her parents instilled a “deep appreciation for our culture.”
Since moving to California 25 years ago, she made it her mission to honor her cultural legacy through her work as a translator, reporter, editor, business owner, documentary filmmaker and cultural activist.
After graduating with a BA in Communication Sciences & Journalism from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, she fell in love, moved to Santa Cruz and worked as a translator for El Andar,an iconic bilingual magazine, and as an editor and reporter with Nuevo Mundo, the Spanish language publication of the San Jose Mercury News. Consuelo is the Board Chair of the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County and inaugural member of Rise Together, a coalition of 32 Black, Indigenous, and People of Color leaders and a team from the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County working to advance racial equity.
“This year’s festival will honor the resilience and creativity of lowrider culture,” says Alba. “We have films that really change the narrative about the lowrider community and the Latine community in general. Here in Watsonville, we have a lowriding community that is very strong.”
GREEN FLASH El Camino Ranfla on Main Street, Watsonville. PHOTO: Tyrone “Malow” Diaz
Victor Ruiz, of Santa Cruz, sees lowriders as more than just cars and drivers.
“The point of going cruising is to show off your car, the kind of paint job you put on it,” he says. “The best cruising is in the summer, with your windows down, music blasting. Lowriding is not a sport, it’s a way of life. Not only are the cars beautiful, but they are vehicles of expression for the artist who has found community.”
Lowriding began in California among young Mexican Americans, who took the middle-class American symbol of the automobile and turned it upside down. Picture the flashiest possible rolling art creations imaginable, made to float “low and slow,” all to sexy, throbbing music. Has there ever been a more dazzling symbol of defiance against police harassment? It has spread to marginalized communities across the country, and as far as Japan.
In the Alberto Pulido documentary, Lowriding: Everything Comes from the Streets, Constancio says, “Lowrider is the Chicano’s way of resisting, and saying, ‘You know what? ¿ Sabes Que? This is me. ¿Y que?’ (So what?)”
As one of my neighbors said, “Have you ever seen someone drive a lowrider car who was sad?”
I was born in the Deep South, Bakersfield, California. Some of my Kern County cowboy cousins built monstrous, jacked-up pickups, and I never heard of police harassing them on the pretense that these odd-looking trucks were too tall. Not once. Nunca. But somehow vehicles being too low presented a danger to us, and police never stopped promoting that scary narrative about lowriders.
Five local lowrider clubs have contributed to this exhibit, says Alba. Watsonville Riders, Watsonville Impalas, Family First, Classic Memories and Killer Klowns.
These five clubs have supported farm workers and essential workers during the pandemic, helped victims of the Santa Cruz CZU Fires and helped those affected by the flooding in Pajaro.
Lowriders take pride in sponsoring free Halloween events, food and toy drives. In planning this exhibit, more than 75 lowriders have shown up to the meetings. They wanted to be a part of creating the exhibit, not just contribute to it.
“This aligns with the mission of the Watsonville Film Festival, to create ways for people from the community to tell their own stories,” says Alba. “It is a huge network. They have been stigmatized, always. That is the change of narrative that we’re trying to do, first through storytelling, through film, and then with community engagement.”
Go to the lowrider art exhibit event March 10 and you can learn more about the different car clubs and their histories. Each one of them is going to have a display section where they are going to be representing themselves and telling their stories.
Lowriding culture is deep and wide. Smithsonian Magazine says lowriding started with the Pachucos and the Zoot Suiters, bootleggers from the 1920s through the 1940s.
Wearing expensive suits and having booze in their weighted down trunks meant they had money and status. To emulate this style of success, static lowriders were built. After WWII, Los Angeles lowriders would take the hydraulics from old WWII planes and put them in their cars to make them go up and down.
Police began to associate the cars with outlaws and troublemakers and target them. In 1958, California outlawed cars that were below the wheel rim. The hydraulic systems came in where they raised the cars when the cops were around, lowered them when they weren’t there. Police officers harassed lowriders and broke up cruising events.
“Lowriders are not gangsters, we’re not looking for trouble,” says Victor Ruiz. “It’s a chance to laugh and celebrate each other. People whistle and wave, and we wave back. These are my people.”
The Festival is bringing in an influential law writer lowrider advocate. His name is Roberto Hernandez. He’s the San Francisco Lowrider Coalition president who was key in lifting the lowrider bans.
Growing up in San Francisco’s Mission District, Hernandez loved zoot suits and art, according to a report by Capradio.org. Hernandez says that lowriding “is in my DNA.”
He remembers the SF glory days.
“At one point it was bumper to bumper for 20 blocks. It was like a parade every Friday and Saturday night,” Hernandez says.
Police issued citations, made arrests and even shut down Mission Street, where lowriders went to cruise. Across town in white neighborhoods, cops left the kids alone to race, while in the barrio they gave out tickets for going low and slow.
Hernandez, who said he was arrested 113 times, was done. He and other lowriders filed a civil rights lawsuit against San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein and the police. They won.
Roberto Hernandez will be part of the Q&A following the film screening of “La Mission” March 9 at Cinelux Green Valley Cinema. Doors open at 6pm with a Red Carpet event out front.
The street signs would say: NO CRUISING – TWO TIMES PAST SAME POINT WITHIN SIX HOURS IS CRUISING and give police the power to levy a $250 fine.
On October 13, 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California Assembly Bill 436 into law, repealing lowrider bans and lifting a state prohibition on modifying a vehicle to reduce its clearance from the roadway. Targeted by police for half a century, lowriders can now cruise California police-hassle-free. Their good works continue – holding the community together, “keeping the peace.” Californians have the green light to ride low and slow.
The mobile masterpieces made by lowriders embrace art, family, and religion. The lacquered bodies of lowrider cars glow with brilliant colors, geometric patterns, religious symbols, and velvet trim.
How to see these rolling works of art:
More Than Cars: Celebrating Lowrider Culture Exhibit will open on Sunday, March 10 as part of the 12th Watsonville Film Festival. It will continue with a series of films, an art exhibit, interactive learning activities for youth, panel discussions and of course, car shows.
Exhibit Dates: March 10 – June 30, 2024 Opening Reception: Sunday, March 10, 1:00pm-4:00pm Location: PVA Porter Building, 280 Main Street, Watsonville
The Festival will present over 40 Latine films of community stories, shown at the Cinelux Green Valley Cinema and online. See the festival’s full schedule of events at: https://2024wff.eventive.org/films
There will be music at movie premieres including Carlos Mejía Godoy, Friday, March 15, 2024 6:30pm, as well as XXIII, Gabi Bravo and Soul Driverz on March 7& 8, and 9 at 9pm after the films.
Along with the films and live music, there will be amazing cars that can make transformer-esque moves using hydraulics.
See a complete list of the films and summaries at goodtimes.sc.
CELEBRATING CULTURE Consuelo Alba, raised in Mexico City, has become a flagstone of local Latine heritage in Watsonville. PHOTO Contributed
Two years ago, award-winning filmmaker Jon Silver, a longtime resident of Watsonville now living in Santa Cruz, was visiting a friend north of San Francisco, who told him about a musician from Nicaragua who had recently relocated to Santa Rosa.
Silver— bilingual, multicultural and a longtime leftist activist who had been politically inspired by the Nicaraguan revolution of the 1980s—was more than a bit surprised to find out that the musician was none other than Carlos Mejía Godoy, the celebrated singer-songwriter and poet who had played a significant role in the early stages of Latin America’s “New Song Movement” of the 1970s. He was later a voice of the Sandinista uprising that swept his homeland in the following decade.
Silver went with his friend to meet Mejía Godoy, who, he discovered, was living in exile after speaking out against the right-wing dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, the former leader of the Sandinista Revolution who returned to power in 2007 on a starkly rightwing platform. Mejía Godoy soon became a critic of his former comrade and the murderous junta that now ruled his beloved country with an iron fist. He issued a public letter calling on Ortega “to stop the killing.” A short time later, he was warned by friends that Ortega’s henchmen “are going to kill you.”
Mejía Godoy took the warning seriously. He fled—first to Costa Rica, and then to Santa Rosa, where he has lived for the past four years.
During his initial meting with Mejía Godoy, Silver was immediately taken with the vitality of the now-80 year old musician. He was moved by his personal story as well as by the larger saga of Ortega and his current cadre betraying the spirit and egalitarian principles of the Sandinista Revolution. “Carlos’s stories about Nicaragua,” Silver recently noted, “combined with his charismatic presence and performative style as he shared his music and art immediately made me think he would be a great subject for a documentary.”
The result, Living in Exile: Carlos Mejía Godoy, an at once delightful and compelling 15-minute filmic portrait by Silver, will be featured as part of an evening of short musical documentaries at the Watsonville Film Festival, to be screened Friday, March 15, at the City of Seaside’s Oldemeyer Center (986 Hilby Ave., just off Fremont Blvd.)
As a special festival treat, Mejía Godoy will perform immediately following the screenings.
Film veteran Silver, whose documentaries date back four decades and include Watsonville On Strike, his epoch chronicle of labor unrest in the Pajaro Valley canning industry in the 1980s and his more recent Foodie for the People, on India Joze culinary maven Jozseph Schultz, has made delightful use of Mejía Godoy’s own artwork in constructing his narrative, while also employing telling images by Susan Meiseles, Margaret Randall, Owen Franken, and Jorge Mejía.
But it’s Mejía Godoy’s sparkling presence and musical magnetism, along with his political conscience, that is at the pulsating heart of Living in Exile. “I can’t remain silent,” the musician-poet says during one interview. “I can’t remain indifferent
to the pain of so many people.”
Living in Exile: Carlos Mejía Godoy; Yo Soy La Reyna; and Maura will screen Friday, March 15, 6:30 pm, at the Oldemeyer Center in Seaside, 986 Hilby Ave. A live performance by Carlos Mejía Godoy will begin immediately following the screenings.
Describing the joy that accompanies truly great food and drink can be tricky. This is not a self-pity statement. (Don’t cry for me, ravioli.)
The evidence is there in the line I’ve seen (as an editor) far too many quality writers revisit: “cooked to perfection.”
That said, near perfection does find expression on a square aluminum pan at Bookie’s Pizza, nestled inside Sante Adairius Rustic Ales’ Santa Cruz Portal (1315 Water St., Santa Cruz).
And I’m not talking about the foraged mushroom pizza, though that also approximates heaven in its own right, in a uniquely airy, crispy, melty and synergistic one-plus-one-plus-one-equals-22 way.
It’s Todd Parker’s latest creation, a union of three of the best foods Goddess has given us (pizza, garlic bread and crab): the cheesy crab bread appetizer.
My oh my it’s probably better than it sounds, somehow garlicky without overpowering the sweet and subtle crab, while bringing big butter energy—but not too much—with a nice interplay of mozzarella, pecorino and Parmesan too.
And while beer-and-pizza pairings might be exhibit A that Goddess loves us, there’s a nice alternative on tap that translates to fewer calories and more room for crab bread: Sante Adarius’ NA hop water that’s balanced, refreshing and bottomless, for $3.
Speaking of Sante, its new era as co-author of another local institution—and purveyor of perfection-adjacent brew—has begun.
Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing (402 Ingalls St., Santa Cruz) recently re-opened after a short pause following its purchase by Sante Adarius’ Adair Paterno and Brad Clark of Private Press Brewing (332 Ingalls St., Santa Cruz).
rusticales.com/tasting-room; scmbrew.com
DOUBLE YAY
Second Harvest Food Bank is now partnering with nonprofit Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust and its Community Seafood Program to get fresh local fish in front of its participants. MBFT’s Get Hooked! Dinner Series, meanwhile—with proceeds supporting the program—rolls on with seafood empanadas, huge quantities of paella and paired wines as Colectivo Felix cooks and Madson Wines (328 Ingalls St., Santa Cruz) hosts Thursday, March 7 ($90, tax deductible). montereybayfisheriestrust.org/get-hooked-events
NIBBLES AND NUGS Early returns are outright ecstatic at Watsonville Public House (625 Main St., Watsonville), open Thursday-Sunday…Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains Grand Tasting cometh March 24 at The Mountain Winery in Saratoga, winesofthesantacruzmountains.com…I’m on a train south to a double conference coordinated by Women of the Vine & Spirits and The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. Message me on IG via @MontereyMCA with anything you’d like me to find out. Fun spirits fact: Isabella’s Islay, the most expensive whiskey in the world, comes in a bottle decorated with 8,500 diamonds and 300 rubies (filled with luxury Scotch) and costs…$6.2 million. Gulp.
Jess Williamson finds comfort as the outsider and strength in the "other" on her current album, Time Ain’t Accidental, an often brutally poignant chronicle
