Watsonville’s proposal to annex ag land for development fizzles
Watsonville’s Measure T, an initiative that proposed the city annex 95 acres of active agricultural land for retail development, was struck down on Tuesday, June 4 with more than three quarters of the vote in opposition to the proposal.
The measure, which Watsonville City Councilmember Daniel Dodge first initiated a year and a half ago and maneuvered into position for voters, was defeated 77.36 to 22.64, according to votescount.com.
The areas that were being considered—a 15-acre area called “Greenfarm” and another 80-acre region called “Sakata-Kett”—would have been paved over and used for new businesses that proponents of the measure believed would have boosted the city’s low employment numbers (20 percent of residents are unemployed) and served as a much-needed jumpstart for the local economy.
‘Blancanieves’ retells Snow White with spicy Spanish style
In 2006, Canadian actress Sarah Polley directed Julie Christie to an Oscar nomination and herself to a variety of writing and directing awards for her feature debut, Away From Her. Now Polley turns to the documentary format in Stories We Tell, which is essentially a glorified home movie about the filmmaker’s family and a potent secret buried for years in its collective past. In circling around her quarry, a family rumor, a joke, really, that she decides to investigate, Polley attempts to give her subject universal appeal by stressing the theme of communal family storytelling, and the places where family story and true history either converge or split apart.
Films This Week
Mechanic, programmer, acrobat, builder, tinkerer.
Bluegrass band-turned-rockers embrace change, new challenges
Amanda West started singing sometime after she began walking, but before uttering her first words. Or that’s what she’s been told, at least. “My mother says that I sang before I talked,” the Santa Cruz-based singer-songwriter recounts. “I just always loved singing.” When the 11-year-old West picked up a guitar for the first time—a cheap garage-sale find belonging to her “hippy” parents—she says it was more in the interest of having “someone accompany me when I sang” than out of a particular urge to strum. It makes sense when you think about it.
Souzão 2009
While gun sales soar nationally, a group of musicians fundraise for a local gun buy-back
Casa Nostra rolls out traditional Italian fare under the redwoods of Ben Lomond
