Santa Cruz County Health Officer Gail Newel on Thursday announced that she will be retiring in June.
Newel was appointed to the position in July 2019.
During that time, she led the county through the Covid pandemic, considered to be the largest public health crisis in Santa Cruz County history.
“It has been a great privilege to serve my community during these challenging past few years,” she said in a prepared statement.
She thanked the “public health heroes” who supported her, and the community members who sacrificed and worked hard during the crisis.
“Together we saved many lives and protected the health of our most vulnerable,” she said. “I look forward to retiring here among you. See you at the beach.”
According to Health Services Agency spokeswoman Corinne Hyland, Santa Cruz County’s Covid vaccination rates are 77.3%, the highest in California. The county also has one of the lowest death rates—100.7 per 100,000 cases—compared to 251.7 statewide.
Newel was awarded the 2021 PEN/Berenson Courage Award, along with former Health Services Director Mimi Hall, for leadership during the pandemic.
“During her tenure with Santa Cruz County, Dr. Newel exemplified the spirit of public service through her courageous and principled leadership on behalf of County residents,” County Administrator Carlos Palacios said. “We will miss her guidance but wish her the best in her future endeavors.”
Hyland said that Newell has focused on equity issues such as reducing public health disparities.
“She spearheaded numerous initiatives aimed at promoting community health, preventing the spread of diseases, and improving access to healthcare services,” Hyland wrote in a press release.
Newell also led initiatives to combat major public health concerns such as the opioid crisis and infectious diseases. This included promoting harm reduction practices and expanding access to the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan.
On May 10, she received a Letter of Appreciation from the County’s Syringe Services Program Commission for her service.
She helped declare racism a public health crisis in Santa Cruz County on Aug. 8, 2020, which prompted the Board of Supervisors to incorporate educational efforts in all County departments to address racism.
Newel’s medical career spanned more than 30 years, and included serving as clinical faculty with the UC San Francisco training program and as Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She later served as Medical Director for Maternal Child and Adolescent Health in Fresno County’s Department of Public Health and as San Benito County’s Health Officer.
“Dr. Newel’s remarkable career and contributions to public health have made her a trusted advocate and leader in her field,” Health Services Director Mónica Morales said. “Her unwavering commitment to improving the health and well-being of others continues to inspire and will make a lasting impact on the community.”
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Newel’s last public event as Santa Cruz County Health Officer will be a virtual presentation of the “State of the County’s Health” on June 15 from 6 to 7pm., when she will provide an update of the County’s current health status followed by a moderated Q&A.
May 20 is World Fiddle Day, and yet, to mark the occasion, we’ve spoken with a cellist. Thomas Dewey is a Santa Cruz-based musician who began playing cello as a nine-year-old. He jokes that he chose it “out of spite.”
“My parents wanted me to start learning a stringed instrument,” he says. “And the options I knew of were violin, viola, or cello. I didn’t know about the bass, so I picked the biggest one of those three. I was like, ‘Well, if you’re gonna make me play, I’m going to play the biggest one.’”
Dewey—who is set to perform in the orchestra for Cabrillo Stage’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame—has been playing classical cello ever since. He always enjoyed Celtic music but didn’t think the cello had a place in it. His perspective changed after listening to an album by renowned traditional Scottish fiddle player Alasdair Fraser and cellist Natalie Haas while in college.
“I had no idea that the cello could be so powerful. And then I heard Natalie play. The minute I heard that, I was like, ‘How do I do that? I want to do that.’ That made me realize that it was possible to have a place in Celtic music as a cellist.”
Dewey plays with the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, which, despite its name, is made of more than fiddlers.
“The club was founded by people who play violin. It grew out of that, but eventually, other instruments that could and wanted to participate in traditional Celtic and other traditional music joined. It’s mostly fiddles, but we have cellos, guitars, sometimes basses, sometimes flutes, percussion.”
It is worth noting here that the violin and the fiddle are the same instruments, played in different styles, with the violin more often referenced in conjunction with classical music and the fiddle referring to its use in traditional music. The San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers play across traditions.
“There’s a focus on Scottish music, but we play everything from now to the Celtic diaspora. And the Celtic-adjacent world, like, Scandinavian music and music of Brittany, France and some stuff from Spain. It’s quite far-reaching.”
Dewey mentions two places in Santa Cruz where people meet up and play Irish and Scottish tunes—the Steel Bonnet Brewery in Scotts Valley and Rosie McCann’s downtown (more Irish-focused.)
Dewey smiles when asked about the difference between Scottish and Irish traditional music.
“Some people say the difference between Scottish and Irish music is sixteen kilometers. And I mean, there’s a lot of crossover. They have some distinct idiosyncrasies. I can’t speak so much for Irish music, but Alasdair [Fraser] likes to say [Scottish traditional music] has its distinct accent. All music does, but there are certain ornaments and specifically tune types. For instance, the Strathspey is a style of tune unique to Scotland, and it’s not found in Irish music to my knowledge.”
Alasdair Fraser also likes to say things like: “Liberate your bow” and “Find the haggis.”
“I think he’s speaking to people like me, who grew up playing classical music,” Dewey explains. “Classical music is very prescriptive. It’s sort of straight and narrow and formal. You play within the lines and play what’s on the page and nothing else. Whereas traditional music, it’s a lot more organic. It’s raw. You want to tap into that feeling through your bow.”
As for Fraser’s reference to the haggis—a traditional food from Scotland made from boiling the organ meats of sheep with a mixture of grains and spices—it’s all about digging deep.
“You have to dig deep into that Scottish energy,” Fraser says. “But he doesn’t just mean Scottish music. When he says that, he uses it as a metaphor for finding that heart of live music.”
Gatherings like the Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle Camp are essential to passing on knowledge surrounding these traditional music forms.
“[These camps] keep playing this music alive and relevant. It’s where a lot of knowledge is shared. Everybody brings their favorite tunes or what they’re playing, and you can learn. You’re not just learning from the faculty but from your peers. You’re learning from the community. You’re learning what’s popular now, and you pick up all sorts of things, even outside of class. You learn about new artists and new ideas and ways of doing things.”
With the uptick of contemporary collaboration, the cello’s popularity is growing. This tune, which Dewey and Caroline McCaskey picked up at the Valley of the Moon, features Dewey on cello and McCaskey on fiddle.
“My understanding is that the fiddle and cello pairing goes way back to the 17th and 18th centuries when it was the classic pairing for dance bands. And then it fell out of favor. Only more recently has it come back into the instrumentation. It’s less common than a lot of things. But it’s coming back.”
On Monday, Beatriz Lopez stood in the doorway of the Pajaro residence she shares with 10 family members, recalling the 45 days she spent in the emergency shelter at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.
Lopez has been home for a week. She said the shelter was crowded and that it was difficult to be surrounded by hundreds of people.
“But you get used to it, I guess,” she said. “I’m happy to be back.”
Monday was also Lopez’s first day going back to work picking strawberries on a farm on San Andreas Road. That was a relief, she said, as was the check from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that allowed her family to replace the possessions that were lost in the flood.
“It was really easy to deal with (FEMA),” she said.
The County of Monterey opened the shelter on March 11, soon after the Pajaro River Levee breached during heavy rainstorms, sending torrents of water into the town of Pajaro and neighboring agriculture fields.
Lopez’s family was among hundreds that were evacuated after the flood brought a sizable layer of thick, viscous mud into homes. Water service was interrupted, as was power to many residences.
At its peak, the shelter at the fairgrounds held 435 people. The site offered showers, a laundry facility and daily meals for the residents.
The buildings sat empty on Monday after the county de-mobilized the shelter, the only sign of recent habitation a pile of cots sitting in a corner. Workers were preparing to haul away the shower and laundry trailers.
Similarly, shower services and the community resource tent at Pajaro Middle School are also closing. Laundry services, restrooms, meals and pet food distribution will continue for now.
The flood victims still unable to return home are now being sheltered in local hotel rooms, says Monterey County spokeswoman Maia Carroll.
Those who were homeless before the disaster have been referred to programs, services and sheltering options using the county’s homeless services network of providers.
Narrative and mindfulness are as crucial to Elizabeth Kolbert as her field reporting on the climate crisis. She wrote a piece for The New Yorker about six months ago, expressing that if climate change “exceeds narrative,” the story must still be told. Yes, Kolbert is a journalist, but she’s a storyteller first and foremost, and throughlines matter to her as much as the facts. Like the practitioners of New Journalism who came before, such as Joan Didion, Kolbert is hyper-aware of the storytelling embedded in her journalism. I think that’s one of the reasons why Under a White Skyworks so well as UCSC’s 2023 Deep Read selection: It reads like a novel with literary devices like plot and metaphors, but it’s journalism in disguise. The first line of Under a White Sky is, “Rivers make good metaphors,” before referencing Mark Twain’s personification of the Mississippi River: “the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading matter.”
“[Rivers] can be murky and charged with hidden meaning,” Kolbert writes. Praising her as one of the most respected contemporary science journalists doesn’t do justice to her ability. Hailing Kolbert as one of the most respected contemporary writers, who happens to write a lot about science, is more fitting. I spoke with her about that and much more in this week’s cover story.
Kudos to the Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz for selecting Under a White Sky for its fourth Deep Read. It might be its most complex book yet. Thankfully, this ultimate book club comes armed with a panel of experts, including Mike Beck (Marine Sciences, Director of the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience) and Sikina Jinnah (Environmental Studies), who have navigated weekly dives over the last month. Don’t miss Elizabeth Kolbert in Conversation with Ezra Klein at the Quarry Amphitheater on Sunday, May 21.
Adam Joseph | Interim Editor
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
SEEING DOUBLE A matching sand sculpture of Natural Bridges models the real thing in the distance. Photograph by Brett Macauley.
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GOOD IDEA
The third annual County of Santa Cruz Career Fair is Wednesday, May 17, at the Civic Plaza Community Room in Watsonville. Residents can talk with representatives from more than twenty county departments at the fair about job opportunities. Animal Services, the District Attorney’s office, Health Services and Human Services, Parks and Recreation and many more will be on hand. Attendees can network and learn how to get a job with the County. co.santa-cruz.ca.us
GOOD WORK
Last week, Watsonville Ivy League Project (WILP) announced that Karla Leyva of Pajaro Valley High School and Morielle Mamaril of Watsonville High School had been accepted to Yale and Cornell. Both were participants of WILP, a program that helps students travel to the East Coast and visit many prestigious universities. The mission for WILP is to expand the vision of career and professional educational opportunities for low-income, first-generation, underrepresented and academically high-performing students in the Pajaro Valley. Congrats grads!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“[Writing] is the hardest work in the world. The only thing that will get you through it is maybe someone will applaud when it’s over.” —Tom Wolfe
La Crema’s 2021 Pinot Noir is available all over, and it’s a jolly good bottle of red wine—it’s only $18, too! The grapes are from Monterey, and the wine is bottled in Santa Rosa at the La Crema Estate. It’s a delicious Pinot; I’m enjoying a glass of it right now!
“Aromas of boysenberry, black plum and rhubarb are followed by flavors of red plum, blackberry and pomegranate,” the winemaker explains. “The 2021 vintage presents a plush texture and balanced acidity.”
Various options await you when you visit La Crema: Estate Tasting; Barrel Tasting; Picnic Table; Best of the Vine Estate Tour. Check out La Crema’s Picnic at the Grove series—a Saturday afternoon of La Crema wine, snacks, lawn games and live music. The events happen July 8, Aug. 12, Sept. 9 and Oct. 7, from 3-6pm. On Dec. 2, the Sparkling Holiday Soiree is 6-9pm. Reservations are required.
La Crema Estate at Saralee’s Vineyard, 3575 Slusser Road, Windsor, 707-525-6200; lacrema.com
CHAMINADE’S VINE TO VIEW
The Vine to View (named for the fantastic panorama of the Monterey Bay) farm-to-table dinners at Chaminade Resort & Spa’s magnificent resort kick off on June 16 with Equinox Wines. Then, Maker’s Mark follows on July 21, J. Lohr Vineyards on Aug. 18, Alfaro Family Vineyards on Sept. 15 and Calerrain Wines on Oct. 20. Executive Chef Avram Samuels and his team create thoughtful food and wine pairings for each of the five-course gourmet dinners served on the outdoor patio. There are spectacular accommodations should you decide to spend the night.
LUNAFEST The 22nd annual short film event to benefit WomenCARE will be in-person and virtual. A pre-show reception at the Del Mar will also feature wines from Hallcrest Vineyards and Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard. “We’re proud to amplify the inspiring short films by this year’s selection of women and gender nonconforming directors. Our featured filmmakers are from all walks of life, from poets to conservationists, activists and educators. These stories remind us that when we come together, we all move forward.” $20-35; $15/students. Wednesday, May 17 (virtual screenings run through May 20), 7pm (5:30pm pre-show). Del Mar Theater, 1124 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. lunafest.org
EARTHLESS WITH TERRY GROSS There’s an ancient Japanese legend in which a horde of demons, ghosts and other terrifying ghouls descend upon the sleeping villages once a year. Known as Hyakki Yagyō, or the “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons,” one version of the tale states that anyone who witnesses this otherworldly procession will die instantly—or be carried off by the creatures of the night. As a result, the villagers hide in their homes lest they become victims of these supernatural invaders. Such is the inspiration for the latest album from Earthless. “My son is really into mythical creatures and old folk stories about monsters and ghosts,” bassist Mike Eginton explains. “We came across the ‘Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ in a book of traditional Japanese ghost stories. I like the idea of people hiding and being able to hear the madness but not see it. It’s the fear of the unknown.”$25/$30 plus fees. Thursday, May 18, 8pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. folkyeah.com
EVERYONE ORCHESTRA 20 Years in, with over 1,000 different musicians joining, Everyone Orchestra continues to create uniquely. EO is a masterfully conducted, entirely spontaneous explosion of live music created by a rotating cast of world-renowned musicians and led by conductor Matt Butler. Each show is 100% unique, as a carefully curated lineup of performers is guided through high energy, creative, danceable grooves and beautiful songs that you won’t believe are created on the fly under the visionary leadership of Matt’s cues and improvised whiteboard directives. This show features Dan Lebowitz (ALO), Natalie Cressman (Trey Anastasio Band), Grahame Lesh (Terrapin Family Band), Jason Crosby (Jackson Browne / Phil Lesh), Johnny Bones (California Honeydrops), Brett McConnell, Aniana, Doug Stringer. $28/$32 plus fees. Friday, May 19, 8pm. Felton Music Hall, 6275 Hwy 9, Felton. feltonmusichall.com
GOOD LUCK THRIFT STORE WITH WOLF JETT A reunion for the ages! The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit has recorded and performed original music since 2004. Fine songcraft and contagious enthusiasm on stage keep fans coming back to see them repeatedly. The band consists of singer-songwriters Willy Taylor and Chris Doud; drummer Aaron Burtch; Taylor Webster on bass and vocals and multi-instrumentalists Matt Cordano and Chandler Pratt. The band has been staying local to their home base in Oakdale, but they’re coming in hot! $25/$30 plus fees. Saturday, May 20, 8pm. Veterans Memorial Building, 846 Front St., Santa Cruz. bit.ly/3mhPY14
MIGHTY POPLAR New roots-Americana Supergroup Might Poplar features Noam Pikelny and Chris Eldridge (Punch Brothers), Andrew Marlin (Watchhouse) and Greg Garrison (Leftover Salmon). With their self-titled debut, they capture the fierce and playful energy of an all-night jam between old friends who just happen to be musical savants. Marlin selected and sang lead on most songs, bringing classics and deep cuts from greats like Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, John Hartford, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Norman Blake. The songs and tunes are as immediate and emotionally impactful as the tasteful playing. $25/$29 plus fees. Saturday, May 20, 8pm. Felton Music Hall, 6275 Hwy 9, Felton. feltonmusichall.com
DAVE EGGERS: ‘THE EYES & THE IMPOSSIBLE’ Join bestselling and award-winning author Dave Eggers (The Every) for a reading and signing of his new all-ages novel about a dog who unwittingly becomes a hero to a park full of animals. The Eyes & The Impossible is illustrated by Shawn Harris (Her Right Foot). Taylor Norman, the executive editor of Neal Porter Books, will join Eggers. Johannes, a free dog, lives in an urban park by the sea. His job is to be the Eyes—to see everything in the park and report back to the park’s elders, three ancient Bison. His friends—a seagull, a raccoon, a squirrel and a pelican—work with him as the Assistant Eyes, observing the humans and other animals who share the park and ensuring the Equilibrium is in balance. But changes are afoot. More humans, including Trouble Travelers, arrive in the park. A new building containing mysterious and hypnotic rectangles goes up. And then there are the goats—an actual boatload of goats—which appear, along with a shocking revelation that changes Johannes’s view of the world. A story about friendship, beauty, liberation and running very fast, The Eyes & the Impossible will make readers of all ages see the world around them in a wholly new way. Free (registration required). Saturday, May 20, 2pm. Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. bookshopsantacruz.com
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY YOUTH SYMPHONY SPRING CONCERT Featuring soloist Anaïs Huet on violin, the all-pops concert will feature the music of the Studio Ghibli Suite, Pirates of Penzance, How to Train Your Dragon, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. $5-33. Sunday, May 21, 3pm. Samper Recital Hall at Cabrillo College, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos. cabrillovapa.universitytickets.com
RYLEY WALKER BAND Ryley Walker currently resides in New York City. But his latest LP is a Chicago record in spirit. The masterful Course In Fable, the songwriter’s fifth solo effort, draws from the deep well of that city’s fertile 1990s scene, when bands like Tortoise, The Sea and Cake and Gastr del Sol were reshaping the underground, mixing and matching indie rock, jazz, prog and beyond. Walker spent his formative years in Chicago, absorbing those heady sounds and finding ways to make them his own. Even though he emerged at first in folk-rock troubadour mode, it makes sense that he’s arrived at this point; each LP has grown more intricate and assured, his influences distilling into something original and unusual. Course In Fable is Walker’s best record yet, full of active imagination and endless possibilities. $35 plus fees. Sunday, May 21, 7:30pm. Kuumbwa Jazz, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. folkyeah.com
In 2020, the CZU fires ravaged the Santa Cruz Mountains, destroying 1,490 structures and an untold number of trees.
A little more than two years later, many of those downed trees washed down streams into the ocean. During the storms in January and February, the trees smashed into the wharf at Seascape State Beach, heavily damaging the Capitola Wharf and causing millions of dollars of damage.
That was a perfect example of how forest health—and wildfire risk—ties into multiple aspects of life on the Central Coast, says Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend, who was part of an all-day seminar hosted by the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force.
“There is an interrelation between climate disasters,” Friend says. “Dead and felled trees from the CZU fire became the same trees that caused damage in Seacliff and Capitola. We have to look at, and plan for, this connection of extreme drought and extreme flood and see that one disaster can lead to other challenges years after the event.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom created the Task Force. It calls for a comprehensive statewide strategy for wildfire and forest management, which includes aligning the alphabet soup of local, state, federal and tribal agencies that are involved in forest health and wildfire management. At the heart of the seminar was the knowledge that much of California is facing the possibility of a catastrophic fire season.
“We all know the climate is changing, and conditions are riper and riper for catastrophic wildfire,” says California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “We are just months away from what could be another devastating wildfire.”
More importantly, the differing landscapes and climates throughout the state require different regional approaches to management.
“One thing I’ve learned is that wildfire threats are very different, depending on where you are in California,” Crowfoot says.
In the Central Coast, there have been nine forest health projects and 71 wildfire prevention efforts thanks to the Task Force. In addition, fuel reduction efforts have been on 32,000 acres and prescribed burns on 23,000 acres. Crowfoot says the Task Force has 1,200 wildfire management projects in the works, but there needs to be more.
“I think we need to move much more quickly than we have today,” he says.
Most importantly, managing the state’s forests and reducing wildfire risks also requires the collaboration of multiple agencies and organizations.
“This is a collective effort,” says Jennifer Eberlien, a regional forester with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region. “Not one entity can do it by themselves.”
Chris Dicus, a natural resources management professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, showed the audience a photo of heavy undergrowth exacerbated by the heavy rains as an example of the state’s current wildfire risk.
“It looks like a battlefield, and that’s because it is a battlefield,” he says. “Wildfire is going to be a problem, so we have to get over the idea that it’s not going to happen to us.”
Dicus says that management and prevention efforts must include shaping this battlefield by, among other things, creating refuge areas in mountainous regions where evacuation is difficult or impossible during wildfires and creating ways for firefighters to access the sites.
In March 2020, as news of the Covid virus rapidly transmitted worldwide, the federal government declared the pandemic a Public Health Emergency (PHE). Through the declaration, the government could provide free vaccines and Covid testing and expand programs like Medicare to include these measures. The PHE declaration officially ended on Thursday, May 11.
Covid cases have subsided significantly just in the past year. In January 2022, the county had a 7-day average of 261 cases per 100,000 people. As of May 8, 2023, the 7-day average was 2.5 cases per 100,000 residents. Deaths from the virus are also less likely than during last January’s peak, with no deaths reported in May 2023.
To get a better picture of the Covid caseload and understand what this change in emergency status will mean locally, Good Times spoke to Dave Ghilarducci, the Deputy Health Officer and Emergency Medical Services Director of Santa Cruz County.
Why is the emergency declaration ending now?
DAVE GHILARDUCCI: Covid exposed a lot of vulnerabilities in our system, like access issues and barriers to healthcare. The declaration brought support: free testing, free vaccinations, free medications and education. Now it’s the responsibility of the healthcare system to provide these services. A never-ending state of emergency was never sustainable. Now that the threat has changed, it makes sense to revert to our usual healthcare system to handle this disease, like it handles flu and other infections.
What changes will residents experience after the declaration ends?
Although the federal health emergency expired on May 11, California has extended benefits for an additional six months, giving free access to vaccination, testing and treatment as long as supplies are available. Health insurance plans must cover those without cost to the recipient until Nov. 11. Under the declaration, automatic re-enrollment in MediCal expires. We have made efforts to educate people to stay enrolled.
How will the county continue to monitor Covid?
We will no longer be using Covid case counts to measure the severity of Covid, as there is no accurate way to collect case counts. The majority of testing takes place at home now, instead of a laboratory or testing center, where that data collection traditionally has occurred. People with mild cases might not report them.
Fortunately, we monitor case counts by analyzing wastewater data. The amount of virus in sewage at treatment plants indicates whether cases are rising, falling or steady. That data informs educational efforts and mask recommendations. If the virus spikes in one part of the county, we consider focused approaches for that location. Our website, santacruzhealth.org, shows wastewater levels dropping and hospitalizations down to 16 in early May.
What does the future of living with Covid look like?
We’ve had flu in human society for as long as we know. We know it can be deadly, especially to vulnerable populations like the elderly and the immunocompromised. Most of us have had Covid once, have been vaccinated or both, which does minimize impact, hospitalizations and deaths. We will probably see Covid fall into a seasonal pattern where it will be most common during the winter, when people gather indoors, and annual vaccinations, especially for the vulnerable. It is helpful for healthy people to vaccinate, as they become less likely to spread the disease. Many people will wear masks to protect themselves and others in specific settings or during Covid and flu season. In the Bay Area, San Benito County and Santa Cruz, health officers, who communicate often, see things gradually returning to normal with some location-specific interventions as required. School closures will be highly unlikely.
Will there be masks or vaccine mandates going forward?
Public health policies related to masks or vaccination probably aren’t useful at this stage. We closely monitor the number of hospitalizations, and if we see them getting strained with Covid admissions to the point of being unable to function, then we may have to revisit masking and requiring vaccinations for healthcare workers.
If Covid is less of a threat to individuals and the healthcare system, what are the County Health Department’s most pressing issues?
Now we are dealing with opioid overdoses, an explosion in syphilis, issues stemming from homelessness. Some of these are aftershocks from the Covid earthquake that has reverberated with childhood mood disorders and behavioral healthcare—there’s so much work in public health, it’s incredible.
The air is warm and thick with salt Friday evening at Beach Flats Park, just steps from the Boardwalk.
Three teenage girls from the Senderos nonprofit perform traditional Mexican dances, swirling their skirts to mariachi music in front of the Nueva Vista Community Resource Center at the neighborhood park. People gather around tables while kids run through the playground, all in celebration of the center hitting its 40th anniversary.
Like the community it serves, Nueva Vista Community Resources has endured challenges and persisted throughout the decades. Originally opened up as La Familia in 1983, the center provided crisis counseling and women’s medical services, among other things, to a low-income, high-crime community.
In 2008, when the center faced imminent closure, Community Bridges stepped in to keep it running. Now, it continues to ensure the Beach Flats and lower Ocean communities, Santa Cruz’s highest minority-concentrated neighborhoods, have access to things like clothes, food, counseling services and more.
The Nueva Vista Community Resource Center provides clothes, food, counseling and other essential services to Beach Flats, one of Santa Cruz’s highest minority-concentrated neighborhoods. PHOTO: Tarmo Hannula
While Nueva Vista tries to fill in the gaps to support low-income residents to make ends meet, the neighborhood faces challenges beyond the scope of a resource center.
According to locals, the neighborhood’s longtime residents are increasingly at risk of relocation as the city continues to be mainly unaffordable to low-income families—despite that neighborhood being a haven for lower-cost housing throughout the past decades.
How did the Beach Flats and Ocean Street neighborhoods become the lower-income, minority neighborhoods in Santa Cruz? In an increasingly expensive city, what does the future of these neighborhoods look like?
BEACH FLATS HISTORY
When Eduardo Montesino, the now-mayor of Watsonville, recalls growing up in Beach Flats in the ’80s, a few things stand out to him.
He remembers people watching at the Boardwalk in the summer with his cousins, partly because of the limited access to green space. They walked around the bustling Boardwalk, occasionally stopping by the small park—what he described as a small square slab of concrete and dirt—to hang around.
Montesino remembers sharing a studio with his mother, father and siblings—and the cockroaches. He recalls the “cockroach bomb” they would set off in the house to kill the critters—a familiar neighborhood routine.
He remembers the walk from his neighborhood to where the downtown Trader Joes now stands, the closest grocery store to his home. And he recalls the prostitutes strolling the sidewalks in the evenings and drug deals happening on street corners.
“It was probably a very tough neighborhood,” Montesino says. “But as a kid, you never saw that because you didn’t have that broader context.”
It wasn’t always considered a tough neighborhood.
The Beach Flats neighborhood can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century when the boardwalk was built in 1907. According to the book History & Future Of The Santa Cruz Waterfront: A Historic Perspective of the Wharf-Mouth, Beach Hill, Beach Street, Beach Flats, Depot District, And Riverside Park, written by local historian Eric Ross Gibson, by the 1920s, scores of families had built bungalows and cottages near the boardwalk as summer retreats. Grocery stores, restaurants and boat rentals soon followed.
The area remained popular until 1955 when, after a devastating flood, the Army Corps of Engineers built levees to protect the town. Gibson writes that this flood changed everything for the neighborhood, which was now less appealing to tourists as the ocean views were obstructed and access to the river changed. The neighborhood rental market dropped in value as landowners struggled to find people to fill their units.
Today, most of the rentals in the neighborhood are the same ones built before the flood, and the area is now made up of primarily lower-income, working-class minorities of Latin descent.
Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley attributes the change in the makeup of this neighborhood in part to the accessibility of the wharf and Boardwalk.
“Many of the workers in the flats may be in the service industry, in the gardening industry or maybe working at professional jobs at the boardwalk,” Keeley says. “The proximity to many of the employment centers has historically drawn Latinx workers, many of whom have immigrated to the United States.”
According to many who live there and data from 2019, the neighborhood is home to most of the city’s service industry employees. For a town with a tourism tax that is estimated to bring in $12 million in revenue in 2023, these workers are essential to the economic vitality of Santa Cruz.
Assistant professor in Anthropology and Social Change Michelle Glowa, who has researched the Beach Flats neighborhood, says this neighborhood deserves the same rights and privileges as other parts of the city.
“This isn’t the doormat to the tourists’ playground and the boardwalk,” Glowa says. “This is an important community. And these are our friends and neighbors who live here in Santa Cruz and should have every right to decide what their life and community look like.”
NEIGHBORHOOD CHALLENGES
Montesino, whose sister and mother still live in the neighborhood, says that when he visits, he notices that the area has changed in some ways from his childhood. It’s safer; there are fewer drugs and less prostitution; there has been clear investment in green spaces like the park and the community garden.
But some aspects have remained the same. From accounts Montesino has heard, conditions of many of the homes in the Ocean and Beach Flats neighborhoods are uninhabitable: mold, lead contamination and the simple wear and tear that comes from cottages and bungalows remaining from the early 1900s. Still, longtime residents are being pushed out of the neighborhood because of rising rent costs.
“I have a longtime family friend; he had to move out to Watsonville,” Montesino says. “He works at a restaurant in the wharf and originally lived in Santa Cruz for many years. But it just became unaffordable, and there’s not enough space.”
Glowa’s research reinforces this anecdote on a larger scale. In 2015 during her graduate program, she worked with UCSC students to survey residents about what they viewed as their primary concerns and challenges. The top concerns included neglectful landlords, poor living conditions and displacement due to high rent and lack of green space.
“It’s a different context from now, but today there are still many of the same concerns, if not even more exacerbated,” Glowa says.
It will be critical, Glowa adds, that as the city tries to address any affordability issues, it prioritizes the voices of the residents who live there now to avoid residents being priced out of their homes.
“It’s a concern that when housing gets improved, that can benefit neighbors and community, and it can also be a process that leads to some displacement,” she says. “Unless you have strong advocacy from those tenants, they can stay in their neighborhood and where they’ve been living. [The city needs to] make sure to have tenants’ voices at the table and empower tenants to be a part of the development process.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Keeley admits that the Beach Flats neighborhood has been neglected in previous years.
“It’s in an area that could be relatively easily flooded,” Keeley says. “It’s a neighborhood somewhat noisier than the rest of the community because it’s immediately adjacent to the boardwalk and all its activity. It is densely populated, and the neighborhood streets are relatively narrow. It’s a neighborhood that, over the decades, has, in my judgment, been treated differently. I think that’s changed over the past years.”
And it will continue to change, he says. Keeley points to the city’s shift to district elections, which ideally will hold representatives accountable for the interests of the neighborhoods they represent. He also says that the city’s upcoming housing mandates from the state will bring an influx of affordable housing units that will help offset rising rents.
A transformation plan for the neighborhood is also in the works. The city is just in the beginning stages of the project, collecting community input from the residents in the neighborhood.
But, he says, there will be an upcoming community meeting this Thursday to design and build an affordable housing bond measure that will be placed on the 2024 ballot. Keeley also attended the Nueva Vista anniversary party, where he told community members about the chance to give feedback on the bond measure, so he expects input from the Beach Flats neighborhood.
“I think we have an opportunity to focus on a range of housing affordability as we’re complying with state law,” Keeley says. “There will be, by law, more extremely low, very low, low, and moderate-income units by a lot. We will see a rather major transformation of downtown Santa Cruz. I think that increasing housing, which is affordable in this strategy, will be helpful to Beach Flats residents.”
Yogi Shapiro’s dad opened Dharma’s in 1982 and first started working there as a kid during summer breaks. Then he followed his own life path, getting a geology degree from UCSC and working in the field for several years. In 2003, Yogi began managing Dharma’s after attending a yoga retreat. He describes Dharma’s as laid back with a new-age ambiance boasted by spiritual art and bright green plants. Yogi defines the menu as “conscious food” with diverse international influences, with every item 100% vegetarian and many dishes totally vegan. Fresh Thai spring rolls highlight the appetizer offerings, and the Gardener Salad is also a hit, with popular dressing choices like lemon tahini and vegan bacon ranch. The (Not) Chicken Chow-Mein is another crowd-pleaser, as is the Bo Thai, an adaptation of traditional Pad Thai. The Brazilian tapioca and almond shortbread raspberry tart are dessert favorites. Hours are 11am-8pm daily. GT asked Yogi about returning to work at Dharma’s and the ethos there.
What did you gain from your time at the yoga retreat?
YOGI SHAPIRO: After a career transition, I went to find my purpose moving forward. I learned how to work with more drive, a better work ethic and a sense of incorporating service and community into my life. Twenty years later, I still feel like a beginner, but one who has improved.
What is Dharma’s philosophy?
We don’t aim to only serve vegetarians, vegans and health-conscious people. We welcome everyone. There is a big movement among people to improve their well-being through nurturing the mind-body connection. We have done our job if we can serve as an element in this process.
