Two weeks before the first Covid shutdown, Jon Bates and his business partners Jason and Keike bought the iconic Seabright Brewery and rebranded it as Seabright Social. Buying a restaurant/bar just before a pandemic was hardly ideal timing, but the popular neighborhood spot has persevered.
Bates had been working in wine sales, but said he got sick of “living behind a windshield.” Becoming a restaurant owner was the fulfillment of a longtime dream of his, especially in the Santa Cruz community that he loves.
It’s a community gathering place with a modern gastropub feel, family and dog-friendly with a beautiful spacious patio blocks from the beach. The menu is centered on upscale American pub food. Appetizer faves are the smoked and fried chicken wings and the charcuterie Pub Board.
Entrée bests include the fried chicken sandwich, shrimp and grits, and the carnitas or carne asada tacos. A warm-in-a-skillet chocolate chip cookie topped with gelato makes a great punctuation. Open every day, hours are 11:30am-9:00pm (until 9:30pm Fri/Sat).
What was it like buying the restaurant right before Covid?
JON BATES: The hardest thing was opening once we were allowed to in June 2020. Hiring front-of-house was easier, but it was so hard finding cooks because so many had changed professions. We’ve spent the last four years working hard to put the right people in place, be a real restaurant and rebrand, while also respecting the history of the Brewery.
How has the food been elevated?
JB: To start, we invested in a unique high-end oil filtration system that results in all the fried food being really clean. It allows us to filter and clean our oil often, as well as be eco-friendly with recycling it. And I’m so happy to have chef Desmond Schneider on the team, he has brought so much change to our restaurant. The primary menu hasn’t changed much, but the ingredients and purveyors we use have. His passion to make everything from scratch has motivated and improved our kitchen noticeably.
519 Seabright Avenue, Santa Cruz, 831-426-2739; seabrightsocial.com
The rains bring us grace. Outside, the plants bounce and grow, with glistening raindrops on their petals, leaves and stems. Back in the inside world, no one is droning on fearfully about drought on radio or TV news. The water agencies aren’t pushing us to conserve, and there is no water rationing. The reservoirs are full!
With the drought officially over in every county in California, it’s natural to think water conservation is, well, passé. But there are many good reasons to protect our water resources. Experts can’t predict the weather after 2025. Things could change on a dime.
Today, most municipalities in California prefer that residents keep rainwater on site. In the past, that was considered theft in some places. Rain was considered public property. Today, sometimes it’s even mandated to keep stormwater onsite. If we don’t capture rain, it flows into the storm drains and out to the ocean, taking with it car oil, trash, pet waste and other icky stuff. When that happens, surfers and sea mammals can get sick with bacterial infections.
The easiest thing to do to catch rainwater is to create a water-retentive landscape—e.g., mulch 4 to 8 inches deep. This wicks moisture into the soil, where plants can use it. Rain gardens, dry creekbeds, and infiltration basins all look like naturalistic landscape features, but they also capture rainwater, to the benefit of the garden.
Greywater was actually illegal until water activists started lobbying hard. In 2009, the California Plumbing Code was updated; for the first time, greywater became legal. It was a time of celebration. Greywater is water reuse, which ultimately reduces the effluent that spills into the ocean, polluting it.
Santa Cruz gets more average rainwater in a year than most of the state—about 31 inches of rain per year and well over 100 in the mountains. For comparison, San Jose averages about 16 inches of rainwater in a year.
The numbers are persuasive. For example, about 600 gallons of rainwater can be harvested off of a 10-by-10-square-foot roof during a 1-inch rain storm. That adds up to 18,600 gallons per year. You can harvest water off all structures..
How it works: Start with gutters and downspouts that are in good repair. Water needs to be able to flow through them freely, down into a tank. Some municipalities give out small 55- or 65-gallon tanks for free. They can be used singly, or daisy-chained together. Tanks should be fitted with spigots for accessing the water, screened lids to keep out debris, and overflow pipes.
In Santa Cruz, environmentalists had been putting in greywater systems on the down-low, until legalization in 2009.
Greywater can help a household cut its water use by nearly half.
Greywater systems require few upfront costs and few or no permitting hurdles.Nutrients from bits of skin, dirt and earth-friendly cleansers—which contain biodegradable compounds—are broken down by soil microorganisms and alchemize into plant food. (By the way, greywater is never, ever toilet water. That’s blackwater.)
Most homeowners opt for so-called “simple systems.” Laundry-to-landscape systems send wash water to the garden; they don’t require a permit and are easy to install for handy DIYers, who need to spend only $200 to $250 for materials. To have a contractor do the installation, the average cost is $1,500 to $2,500.
Branched drain systems divert bath and bathroom sink water by separating it from toilet water and then piping it to the garden. These do require a simple permit, which costs around $150 and is (or is supposed to be) easy to get. It involves a simple alteration to the plumbing of the bathroom sink or shower. They can be more complex to install.
Greywater works well with roses, lavender, and many perennials and shrubs. The exception is acid-loving plants like rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias. It also is also suitable for edible plants, particularly fruit trees, vines and plants that are staked or trellised. Greywater should never touch the edible parts of a plant; it should not be used to water strawberries, root crops or leafy greens.
GREYWATER HONEY-DO LIST
DO keep in mind that there is not a single documented case of anyone getting sick from greywater. This is why it was legalized in 2009 when the California Plumbing Code was updated.
DO install a clearly labeled three-way valve (see picture), which directs water to the landscape or the sewer. The valve, which is necessary, gives you a choice of where to send the water. It is installed on a wall next to the washing machine, or shower or sink in the bathroom.
DO use biocompatible household cleaners, personal care products and laundry detergents that are free of hazardous chemicals, toxins, salts or boron. Bleach, other toxic chemicals, and wash water from baby diapers, should always go to the storm sewer, not the garden.
DO make sure that greywater is always covered with 3 inches or more of mulch, gravel or soil in the landscape. It should never be exposed, form a pool, or run off your property—that’s sloppy.
DO keep greywater away from playgrounds and recreational facilities, and minimize contact with kids and pets. Keep greywater at least 100 feet away from waterways.
DON’T store greywater, or it will become blackwater.
DON’T run greywater through sprinklers to water your lawn—it’s illegal. Plus, it will clog your sprinklers. Greywater is best for planted and mulched landscapes, not lawns. If you want to use greywater for drip irrigation, there are neat high-tech filtration solutions like Aqua2Use.
RESOURCES
The Environmental Working Group rates products on toxicity, helping inform consumers on which ones are safe for greywater.
Oasisdesign.net is the website of Art Ludwig, known as the godfather of greywater. It is the most information-packed website on all aspects of greywater, with all questions answered and greywater installation materials available for sale.
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Vols. 1 and 2, 3rd editions (2019, Rainsource Press) by Brad Lancaster (harvestingrainwater.com) is an inspiring and creative how-to book with great text and illustrations showing land-based ways to save water, such as through creating moisture-retentive landscapes.
Visit the Water Institute at Occidental Arts & Ecology Center in Mendocino County, where they give tours and host trainings. Or find a plethora of the latest water conservation news online.
The company bushman.com makes good-quality rainwater tanks in a wide range of colors, shapes and sizes.
Check if your municipality or water agency offers rebates. Look at the “Rebate” page on the websites for information. It’s an easy application process.
A woman walks toward me on Seabright Avenue in Santa Cruz. She is fastidiously buttoned up and well heeled, she carries a tiny dog, clearly from out of town. She stops me: “Do you live here?”
I say, “Yes, I do, ma’am. How may I help you?”
“Well, I love Santa Cruz. But I do not understand why everywhere I go in this town I smell skunks. I do not see them, but I smell skunks everywhere here.”
I nod, “They’re shy. They like to stay in the backyard.”
The pungent Skunk strain of cannabis is the legendary genetic building block of thousands of strains produced today. What most folks—even locals—don’t know is that Skunk cannabis was first developed and grown in Santa Cruz County 50 years ago.
It’s flying skunk, it’s a sativa high, it’s… a band?
I tend to miss the most obvious connections. As the ’70s ended, long before I heard that Santa Cruz was the epicenter of the Skunk cannabis growing world, I briefly served as a singer and guitar player for a country rock band called the Skunk Band. We opened for Larry Hosford.
When I asked the Skunk Band’s leader where they got the band name, he handed me a joint. I still didn’t get it. While I was too innocent, or rather too dense, to appreciate the name of the band, I did appreciate how I played my guitar on their pungent weed. My stint with the Skunk Band faded from memory and I forgot about them and their weed for 40 years. Then I met Wayne.
In 2018 I moved to Watsonville, in south Santa Cruz County, when I found a farm out in the vineyards that let me set up my Airstream trailer for a crash pad. I became friends with Wayne. Wayne would not stop rattling on about his frozen weed seeds.
At first it sounded like stoner-babble but little by little his ramblings about his seeds and some character he called Sam the Skunkman began to form a larger tale. I started researching the story of the legendary Sam the Skunkman, and Wayne’s story turned out to be true.
It goes like this: in 1978 Wayne bought 100 seeds of Flying Skunk from Sacred Seeds, a psychoactive strain he and his grower buddies loved. He paid $1 a seed to a guy named David Watson, who developed the cannabis seed strain in Watsonville, California.
But life happened and Wayne could not grow out the seeds. He read on the back of the seed package that they would keep much longer if they were frozen, and that’s what Wayne did: He froze all 100 seeds. Like Bilbo Baggins’ obsession with The Ring, Wayne never could stop talking about his frozen seeds.
My All-Encompassing Disclaimer
In researching this story of the first Skunk strain and Sacred Seeds, I spoke with three Santa Cruz seed producers from the ’70s about Skunk—and I got three different stories. All I know for certain is that these guys can smoke me under the table.
I have no idea if the controversial Sam the Skunkman is a genetics genius, a marketing genius, a benevolent scientist or a fast-talking opportunist. Maybe he is all of those. His story has become legend, and while we may each believe different portions of it, I take the legend itself as folklore of our times.
Whether you accept Sam the Skunkman’s story as Johnny Appleweed or not, we know he did create the first cannabis seed company in the country, Sacred Seeds. We know the seeds he sold in 1978 were called Flying Skunk, a strain that became the building block for thousands of strains we grow today.
He did evade the clutches of the law to recover his hidden seeds. And we know that the first F1 hybrid strain that preceded Skunk No. 1 was lost.
TRIPLE THREAT Sam the Skunkman combined Colombian sativa
with Acapulco Gold and Afghan indica. Photo: Sacred Seeds
Roots of Skunk
The legend goes that before he took his seeds to Amsterdam in 1982 and became Sam the Skunkman, our hero called himself David Watson.
Hmm… a pothead dodging the law to grow a plant that is a felony moves to Watsonville and calls himself Watson.
Why not? It’s elementary, my dear Watson.
His former associate Phil Noland tells me, in the ’70s, Watson used a tiny greenhouse, 10 feet by 20 feet, near Mt. Madonna. He combined Colombian seeds (sativa) with Acapulco Gold and Afghan (indica) seeds, to bring down the enormous height of the Colombian sativa plant and mitigate the odor to make it more grower friendly.
He also wanted to reduce the long maturation period of the pure Colombian strain. Look at the front of the Flying Skunk seed package from 1978 and notice the thin blue font that says, “Extra Early.”
After the police busted his Watsonville seed operation in 1982, Watson sneaked back onto the crime scene and recovered his safely hidden 250,000 seeds.
They changed cannabis history.
He took his seeds to Amsterdam to share with Nevil Schoenmakers of The Seed Bank of Holland, who used Watson’s Skunk No. 1 to make Skunk-based sativa brands that proliferate worldwide today.
David’s Skunk No. 1 strain was wildly popular in Amsterdam; he became the toast of the town and started calling himself Sam the Skunkman.
The Lost Strain
The first F1 strain that preceded Sam’s Skunk No. 1 is lost. The ancient landrace genetics are gone. Extinct. Unless some crazy hippie had a stroke of cryogenic madness, the first strain is no more, gone like smoke in the wind.
It would be preposterous to think that some nutso stoner froze the original hybrid cross. But Santa Cruz is where preposterous happens. Wayne is our nutso.
Wayne knows a lot about his seeds: “The intense odor of this first strain made us call it Skunk. The difference between these seeds and the ones that grow Skunk No. 1 is these are the F1 strain, the first crossing of Colombian, Afghan and Acapulco Gold strains. They are not true breeding (true breeding takes five generations)—these seeds will give you an array of phenotypes.”
Why Skunk Matters
What is this strain called Skunk? It is very high in sativa, which makes you creative, focused, inspired and happy. Skunk is not like the heavy indica-based dispensary herb that is so popular with young folks.
A 20-something turned me on to cannabis that looked like brown glass, a dab of concentrate. We used a blowtorch to smoke it out of a quartz bowl, at which point I renamed it Flat on My Back on the Floor Weed, because that’s how I ended up. I lay there, listening to ocean waves, and we were in Sacramento.
Sativa will not make you pass out on the floor. Sativa may make you dance on the floor. It may make you paint the floor. It may make you think you are the floor, but it will not knock you out.
I’ve got nothing against passing out, and if you want to do that, fine, delve deep into indica. It’ll make your body feel good.
But if you are trying to brainstorm what you could say to your wife about last weekend, Skunk is your junk.
Time Capsule Seed
In February of 2020 Wayne gave me 40 of his frozen seeds. We didn’t know if they would sprout.
I felt like Frodo putting on The Ring for the first time as I laid the seeds between damp paper towels on a plate. Are these seeds too old to germinate? I found myself looking at them throughout the day, keeping the towels damp.
On the third day one cracked open and a tiny white sprout appeared. Over the next two weeks 38 of the 40 seeds sprouted at an incredible germination rate. I put the sprouts in potting soil, and in May I replanted them into a hoop house.
One would expect the Sacred Seeds that Wayne bought in 1978 would have an array of phenotypes that express their Afghan or Colombian/Mexican origins, and that is what happened.
In Wayne’s hoop house, one plant might be squat and purple, with five wide leaves per stem that look Afghan (indica), and the next plant might be incredibly tall (I had to cut their tops off four times) with seven narrow leaves of a Colombian (sativa.) But the thing is the smell.
My Airstream is 100 feet from the hoop house and inside my trailer it smelled like I live with a skunk.
We were going for seed production, so Wayne shook the male flowers all over the female flowers. I kept trimming the tops. In mid-November we hung the plants upside down in a shed. And finally, it was time.
My first inhale did not seem to do all that much.
I inhaled again.
Pleasant enough, but I wondered if this weed works. Was the legend of the first Skunk strain bullshit?
I hit it a third time, deep. Then I looked at my guitar fretboard and could see all the notes like I was looking at a piano keyboard.
I thought of the Jimi Hendrix Chord (E7 #9) and a way to play it above the 12th fret appeared in relief on the fretboard.
I played with effortless focus. Would Aldous Huxley say that I had opened the “doors of perception”?
Happy Weed
After I started writing about Wayne’s seeds, Sam the Skunkman emailed me from the Netherlands and said that the famous Skunk No. 1 he made in the ’80s “was a 3-way hybrid of Afghan X Colombian X Acapulco Gold. These were true breeding (meaning the phenotypes grow out to have the same physical characteristics). The F1 strain that I made before that was not true breeding.”
So, one would expect the Sacred Seeds that Sam sold Wayne in 1978 would have an array of phenotypes that express their Afghan or Colombian/Mexican origins. And that is what we see; out in Wayne’s hoop house, one plant might be squat, with five wide leaves per stem that look Afghan (indica), and the next plant might be incredibly tall, with seven narrow leaves of a Colombian (sativa).
Wayne’s vision is that everyone who wants to feel great could start by germinating 12 seeds, discard the males and grow their six plants that the state of California allows. He thinks of himself as a holy man.
He is a holy man; he had a colostomy.
When he came home from the hospital I screamed like James Brown, “Whaaaow! Poppa’s got a brand new bag!”
Wayne and I sit on his porch smoking the flowers grown from his time capsule Skunk seeds and I ask him how it makes him feel.
“It’s the most creative weed I’ve ever used. You start laughing, talking, it puts you in a good mood. It’s more fun, it’s happy weed.
In high doses it gets psychedelic.” Combining these ancient landrace genetics resulted in a new strain that features the uplifting high and citrus flavors of its sativa side, together with the short flowering time, feeling of relaxation and heavy yields that are characteristic of indicas.
It was Jeff Nordahl of Jade Nectar, a cannabis wellness company, who named Wayne’s seeds Grandpappy Skunk. I stood with Jeff in the noon sun on his mountain top in Boulder Creek.
He turned to me, squinted and said, “Those seeds you gave me that Wayne froze in 1978 are the grandfathers and grandmothers of the first Skunk.”
I like to smoke it as is, but some growers are selecting the phenotypes they prefer, to access landrace strains that are centuries old, or more likely thousands of years old.
The way I have encountered this psychoactive strain again and again makes me think that there is something beyond coincidence here. In the end, the story of the Skunk strain is a circle that coheres—a circle of legend, genetics, of a place that believes in its own magic, and of our desire to open Huxley’s “doors of perception.”
I find peace swimming at the Simpkins Swim Center. Also in solitude—hiking the Fall Creek trail, near Felton. It’s a magical place, a gift—there’s redwoods and there’s always water flowing. —Beverly “Rev Bev” Brook, Chaplain at Santa Cruz Juvenile Hall
Rex Solway
Tokyo has been an escape for me—5 times now. It’s comforting being in this exotic, huge city, lost in a different culture. My serene place in Japan is the hot springs in Snow Monkey Park. Snow monkeys up in the forest enjoy their own hot springs too. —Rex Solway, 32, Traveller
Leila Hakimi
I wrestle, and I find comfort in it. It’s all autopilot, and I forget everything else. The act of it just washes over you. It’s about finding something you love—whether it’s sports, or painting, drawing, or singing. —Leila Hakimi, 18, Student
Kai Ford
In the shower, cleaning all the worries away and listening to music. —Kai Ford, 21, Student
Judith Barath-Black
I meditate at home, morning and evening—transcendental meditation. I’ve done it in laundromats, libraries—trains, airplanes. Not only do I hope it changes me, which it does, but also the effect on the rest of the world. —Judith Barath-Black, 78, Retired (“but busier than ever”)
Van Swanson
It would be sword fighting. I do circle-fencing. The physical action and focus that makes me forget everything else around me is just what I need. It’s meditation really. —Van Swanson, 25, Teacher
The West Cliff 50-Year Community Vision is moving forward as the Santa Cruz City Council voted to adopt the document during a regular meeting last week. However, a city staff proposal to pursue a two-year pilot project to turn West Cliff Drive into a one-way road received pushback from local residents and groups. Ultimately, the council voted no on the one-way experiment.
After nearly a year of working on the vision document and months of public discussion, the draft document was published in late February of this year, followed by a final public input session before it was presented to the city council on April 9.
The 50-Year Vision was a response to the damage from the 2023 winter storms, which resulted in West Cliff Drive being closed to traffic from Columbia Street to Woodrow Avenue. Neighbors and local officials came together to address the biggest issues facing 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 and seawalls are floated as possible long-term solutions.
City staff recommended that the city council adopt the 50-Year Vision—which is not yet an official plan—and received an update on the current infrastructure work on West Cliff during the April 9 meeting.
The council was also set to vote on pursuing a grant “to test and explore a transportation option that includes one-way vehicle access with dedicated bike and pedestrian lanes and neighborhood traffic calming,” according to the agenda report. If adopted, the city would apply for a $3.5 million grant from the California Active Transportation Program Quick Build Program for the two-year pilot project.
The pilot would have been a “quick build’, temporary project to study the impacts on traffic behavior and infrastructure concerns with a report every six months.
During that meeting, dozens of residents opposing the one-way spoke out during public comment, including surfer group Santa Cruz Boardriders Club and former local officials.
“I don’t know where it was that the decision was made to move to, ‘We are going to build a one-way roadway and then ask people about it,’” said former Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin at the meeting.
After hours of public comment, the city council voted to adopt the 50-Year Vision but not pursue the one-way pilot.
Bike Santa Cruz County, which advocates for safer bicycling and less reliance on cars, was one of the organizations championing the one-way pilot. Amelia Conlen, board chair for Bike Santa Cruz County said in an email that they hoped it had gone their way.
“We are disappointed of course that the pilot did not move forward, but we also understand that the council was in a tough position and did not want to overrule the concerns of neighbors. Ultimately we were not successful in convincing neighbors that we all want the same thing, which is places to enjoy our neighborhoods and walk and bike without the disruption of car traffic,” Conlen said.
Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley said in an interview after the meeting that he understood neighbors’ concerns over the traffic impacts of a one-way.
“Most of the people who testified were from the immediate neighborhood. For them I can totally understand their view that every time there has been a disruption of two-way traffic on West Cliff Drive they take the brunt of that and I don’t think […] they were satisfied. And, frankly, I wasn’t either. Once you get to the end of the one way, now what?” Keeley said.
Council member Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson proposed that city staff come back to the city council later this year with more insight into the potential neighborhood, traffic and geological impacts of the one-way proposal. The council voted in favor of this motion instead of committing to the pilot program. Grant funding for a one-way pilot program will not be available again for another two years.
The West Cliff 50-Year Vision document still includes one-way vehicle access and traffic calming measures as part of its pillars, but it is yet to be determined whether these will be included in a future plan.
Additional assistance for Pajaro flood victims is getting to those that are still in need more than a year later through Monterey County’s Pajaro Unmet Needs Disaster Assistance Program. Within the first week, hundreds of applications have been processed in a joint effort between Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. Local leaders say that efforts in the aftermath of the flood set the tone for the way local state and federal governments disbursed aid this time around.
Just over a week after the opening of a community outreach and application center in the town of Pajaro, over 500 applications for assistance had been processed, according to Monterey County Communications Director Nicholas Pasculli.He says the turnout has been “slightly higher than expected,” but that there are no plans to extend the center’s operations beyond the April 27 end date.
The Unmet Needs Program is funded by a $20 million relief funds grant from the state’s Office of Emergency Services, which is intended as direct relief for individuals, businesses and undocumented residents. The funds will also be used for long-term recovery projects.
On March 11, 2023, the multiple breaches along the Pajaro River levee resulted in the devastating flooding of the town, sending thousands of residents fleeing. Once the waters receded, local, state and federal entities stepped in to provide financial assistance. As of late last year, over $14 million in financial relief had been distributed to flood victims.
About half of that money came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which distributed close to $7.5 million to qualifying applicants.
Nonprofit organizations Community Bridges and the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County (CAB) have provided $6.7 million. These organizations worked with flood victims from start, stepping in when state and federal relief were not yet available, and helped regardless of their undocumented status.
However, many residents and businesses are still struggling a year on and the Unmet Needs program is meant to bridge that gap. Community Bridges and Catholic Charities Diocese of Monterey were tapped to distribute $5.4 million in individual assistance, while the Monterey County Workforce Development Board will disburse $3.7 million to small businesses.
Tony Nuñez-Palomino, Communications Manager for Community Bridges, which has partnered with Monterey County to process applications for individual assistance, says that the volume of applicants has been high during the first week.
“We’ve been seeing about anywhere from 50 to 100 people each day since we started [March 27],” he says. Nuñez-Palomino estimated his organization had processed around 260 applications as of April 3.
The current efforts underway are a result of the advocacy local officials and community leaders have engaged in since the flood to raise awareness of the ongoing need in the area. Nuñez-Palomino says that it’s a “silver lining” in the wake of a disaster.
“[T]he fact that Monterey County got $20 million to distribute among Pajaro (residents), it speaks volumes to not only their ability to advocate for the people of Pajaro; to work with their state partners to get this money to come here. But also (speaks) for the people of Pajaro; that they finally have a voice,” Nuñez-Palomino says.
Pasculli says that Monterey County has strived to improve its outreach efforts in the last year to better inform the immigrant and farmworker communities about the type of assistance available to them
“We conducted extensive outreach efforts with all social media platforms in collaboration with our Program partners, including Informational Sessions to ensure all residents were accurately informed of assistance. We continue to provide ongoing Program information ensuring all Pajaro residents affected are applying. [And] specific outreach with the alert and warning notification system, to improve communication to residents,” Pasculli says.
Nuńez-Palomino says that his organization and others involved in the Pajaro flood response learned from their experience responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and the CZU fires in 2020. Many residents were left with unmet needs and the same reality applies to Pajaro. However, he says, the level of advocacy from residents and officials has prompted a better response from the state in this case.
“We’re just happy that when the county was thinking about how to set this up, they looked at our program and they looked at other unmet needs programs, and they said, ‘Yeah, this is the right way to do it. We’re going to do it like this,’” Nuñez-Palomino says.
“A lot of families that had to use a lot of their savings to do some of this contracted [repair] work, they just didn’t get the money from FEMA. They didn’t get enough money from us, they didn’t get enough money from anyone else. And so it’s gonna make a lot of families whole. And you just don’t see it, It’s really unheard of.”
A teacher once told me to be careful with the word best. Once you declare something is at the top of the heap, you’ve set the bar so high that nothing else can contend. What if you find something better?
To this day, verbally, at least, I often overuse the word. I’ve probably been to hundreds of best concerts and had many, many best meals. They can’t all be best, right? But they feel that way at the moment.
That’s why I’m glad our Best Of Santa Cruz issue is a democracy. You vote on the things that are best.
For me, this issue has always been a coffee table keeper. I open it when I’m ready to find a new restaurant, entertainment spot, place to shop, hike or bike trail or workout class. It really is the best resource about life in Santa Cruz and I treasure it. I think you will too.
Meanwhile, I have some fun, free Best Of suggestions.
Best Free Way to Learn About Your Community
Go on a police ride along. The local police and sheriff’s department will let you ride with an officer during their shift. Nothing has taught me more about my neighbors and what our towns are really like. And there’s more drama than anything you’ll see on those fake TV cop shows.
Best Free Drama
Head to the County Courthouse and watch trials. I’m always surprised at how few people know you can just sit in the audience and watch accused murderers, thieves and all sorts of criminals have their day in court. It’s real, it’s dramatic, it’s more intelligent and complex than TV portrays it. It’s a great way to see how the wheels of justice really turn.
Best Free Place to Impress Out of Town Friends
Bring them to the country’s only Grateful Dead museum exhibit at UCSC’s Library. They can see artifacts and concert movies.
Two weeks before the first Covid shutdown, Jon Bates and his business partners Jason and Keike bought the iconic Seabright Brewery and rebranded it as Seabright Social.
With the drought officially over, it’s natural to think water conservation is, well, passé. But there are many good reasons to protect our water resources.
The pungent Skunk strain of cannabis is the legendary genetic building block of thousands of strains produced today. What most folks—even locals—don’t know is...
Where do you find your peace?
I find peace swimming at the Simpkins Swim Center. Also in solitude—hiking the Fall Creek trail, near Felton. It’s a magical place, a gift—there’s redwoods and there’s always water flowing.—Beverly “Rev Bev” Brook, Chaplain at Santa Cruz Juvenile Hall
Tokyo has been an escape for me—5 times now. It’s comforting being in this exotic, huge...
Best Bar
MOE’S ALLEY
Silver Medal
MAKAI ISLAND KITCHEN & GROGGERY
Bronze Medal
BRADY’S YACHT CLUB
Best Bartender
JASMINE SIEMER-DUNBAR, VIM DINING & DESSERTS
Silver Medal
JULI MIRELES, REDROOM COCKTAIL LOUNGE
Bronze Medal
KAYLA BRASFIELD, MOE'S ALLEY
Best Craft Brewer (local)
DISCRETION BREWING
Silver Medal
SANTE ADAIRIUS RUSTIC ALES
Bronze Medal
HUMBLE SEA
Best Dance Club
MOE'S ALLEY
Silver Medal
MOTIV
Bronze Medal
THE BLUE LAGOON
Best Fancy Cocktails
MAKAI ISLAND KITCHEN & GROGGERY
Silver Medal
VENUS SPIRITS COCKTAILS & KITCHEN
Bronze Medal
VIM DINING & DESSERTS
Best Happy...
A teacher once told me to be careful with the word best. Once you declare something is at the top of the heap, you’ve set the bar so high that nothing else can contend. What if you find something better?
To this day, verbally, at least, I often overuse the word. I’ve probably been to hundreds of best concerts and...
