In honor of the second anniversary of the CZU Lightning Complex, Mountain Community Theater (MCT) Director Peter Gelblum did something extraordinary to commemorate the event: he wrote a film about it.
Of the movie, entitled, The CZU Fire In Their Own Words: Fighting Fires, Losing Homes and Rebuilding Community, Gelblum says, “Our idea was to create a living document about the fire and the effect it had on the Valley, as a gift to the community.”
Gelblum’s gift is set to be released on Saturday, July 9 at 7pm at the Boulder Creek Recreation Center, with all proceeds to be divided between Boulder Creek Fire Department and the Community Foundation’s Fire Recovery Fund.
The film is done documentary-style, with members of MCT featured in the roles of fire survivors, resulting in a compendium of memories and local art, wrapped in music and presented to the community it reflects.
The script is based on interviews Gelblum conducted with various community members: Matt and Mindy Lariz, Marj and Steve Young, the Ring Family, Big Basin Redwood Park Interpreter Susan Blake, Clinical Social Worker Joan Donato, The Red Pearl’s Jenny Wu, Boulder Creek Native Brian Garrahan and Boulder Creek Fire Protection District Chief Mark Bingham.
Gelblum says the impetus for making this film was an emotional response to the CZU Fire’s wrath.
“The unprecedented destruction of both the forest and homes, the vast amount of emotional, material, and ecological suffering, and the enormous outpouring of love and support from neighbors and community,” he says. ”As a performing arts organization, we were in a unique position to create a document of this extraordinary event.”
When it came time to select the stories to share, Gelblum had many to choose from.
“I’d read about Brian Garrahan’s heroic “unofficial” efforts to fight the fire, show people what was happening with their houses (including ours), and feed animals (including our cat),” he says. “I and other people at MCT knew people who had lost their homes, and who had interesting stories about their fire experiences.”
MCT’s cast and crew found different messages and motivations in their roles. Actor Grace Peng, who plays Wu, says she felt honored to be a part of the project.
“I was touched that MCT was creating an homage to the victims of this tightly knit community to memorialize the devastating effects of the CZU fire and how the people of Boulder Creek came together to help one another,” says Peng.
Wu, whose house was lost in the fire, returned to her restaurant as soon as she could after evacuation orders were lifted, and went to work feeding survivors at no charge.
“I met Jenny a few times, and she is so lovely, generous and kind,” says Peng, who also highlighted a larger message at play. “In California, fire is a part of our new reality. While the fire destroyed so many homes and personal items, the power and generosity of community, of the human connection and love, is unwavering and endures. This film would be relevant to all but may be particularly interesting to those who live in vulnerable regions that are prone to fire.”
Actor Sarah Marsh, who plays Mindy Lariz, says the idea of participating in the film was a little daunting when she was first asked.
“I wanted Matt and Mandy Lariz (the couple Nat Robinson and I portrayed) to feel heard, represented, and loved. This film shows the resiliency of the human spirit. We might hear that a lot, but these precious humans actually lived it,” Marsh says. “During a deadly global pandemic, job and financial insecurity, a racial injustice reckoning, and nastiness of an upcoming election, they lost their homes, possessions, and security in that disastrous fire. To hear their stories and see how they survived in the midst of so much heartache … how can one not be moved and amazed at their courage and tenacity?”
Marsh also found solace in the retelling of the survivors’ stories.
“There is power in sharing our stories. I’m grateful to Peter Gelblum for leading, directing, and editing this project, and I’m extremely thankful to those who shared. May your stories bring solidarity and hope to others who go through scary and difficult times,” she says.
Cabrillo Stage and MCT are the home away from home for actor, singer and dancer Mindy Pedlar. In addition to promoting Cabrillo Stage’s various plays and musicals, she’s also a staple at MCT and was given the role of Marj Young (wife of Steve Young, played by David Leach).
“I thought it was a wonderful idea for our community and I was honored to be asked to be a part of it,” Pedlar says.
Pedlar says that she and Leach had the opportunity to meet the Young family and visit their property.
“I wasn’t expecting to cry, but the sense of loss was overwhelming and tears flowed. The trees were trying to reassure me, telling me ‘It’s OK, we’ll grow again,’” Pedlar says. “My heart ached for this couple that had lost so much, but I admired their desire to carry on, perhaps to rebuild and their gratitude that their family was safe.”
Pedlar says the message of the film was one of resilience.
“To me, it’s an example of ordinary people going through a devastating experience, dealing with great loss yet somehow rising above the situation and coming together to help each other,” Pedlar says. “In these terrible pandemic and political times, it’s heartwarming to see the generosity of our community at large. For all of us, it’s important to be heard, particularly when trauma has been experienced. This film gives voice to the survivors.”
Leach, who has been featured prominently in many of Gelblum’s MCT performances, says he believes “the primary message is tragedy is really hard on us, on a personal level, in so many ways and it’s always just around the corner.”
“But the human spirit, like the earth, is incredibly resilient and able to recover from almost anything you can imagine,” he says. “Or, if you want a simpler one, even in tragedy, it’s the people you love who remain the most important things in our lives. Tragedy doesn’t just happen to the ‘other guy.’ It has the potential to strike any of us, at any time, without warning. So stay aware, keep yourself prepared to evacuate at a moment’s notice. And don’t covet stuff, treat others with dignity and love and you will be better off.”
Helene Simkin Jara, who gave voice to Park Ranger Blake in the film, says she “was feeling honored to be representing someone who had experienced such a great loss.”
“A main message in the film to me is the strong human ability to survive and continue even after such an enormous loss. Also, the willingness of neighbors and friends to help each other in times of great need,” Simkin Jara says. “We never know when a tragedy will happen, and it can happen in the blink of an eye, so the appreciation of what we have in the present counts for a lot and is a good thing to be mindful of.”
Gelblum says he is looking forward to sharing the film with the community it represents.
“Mountain Community Theater funded the film as a gift to the community,” he says.
The initial screening of the film will be on Saturday, July 9 at the Boulder Creek Rec Center at 7pm. The film will also be shown at one or two other places in the Valley, Bonny Doon and possibly downtown Santa Cruz; Gelblum is hoping to screen it at the Second Annual CZU Remembrance event at Brookdale Lodge on Aug. 18, the second anniversary of the fire. It will eventually be posted on the MCT website and YouTube channel.
When Watsonville voters head to the polls in November they will choose between two critical ballot measures concerning the future of the city.
Should they extend outward growth restrictions put in place 20 years ago through 2040, or determine a new, 30-year growth plan for the city in a year-long community visioning process?
That group’s initiative—placed on the ballot in March—seeks to extend Watsonville’s expiring urban limit line approved by voters in 2002 for another 18 years in order to preserve agricultural land.
The competing ballot measure introduced at Thursday’s special meeting would not toss out the restrictions included in Measure U—in fact, it would also extend them through 2040—but it could significantly change the urban limit line depending on the results of the upcoming general plan update, a massive, multi-month undertaking in which the community will determine what Watsonville should strive to be by 2050.
If approved, the measure would allow the council to amend the urban limit line to include parcels identified in the general plan update, which begins later this year.
Both the committee’s measure and the countermeasure only need a simple majority for approval. If both are approved, the measure with more votes in favor would win.
In addition, they both could fail. In that case, the committee and city would be back at the drawing board with some of Measure U’s restrictions set to expire at the end of the year—the rest sunset in 2027.
Councilmembers Eduardo Montesino, Francisco “Paco” Estrada, Lowell Hurst and Vanessa Quiroz-Carter voted to place the new measure on the ballot.
A few minutes earlier, Montesino, Estrada and Quiroz-Carter voted against a compromise between the city and the committee that would have kept the current urban limit line in place, save for a 13.6-acre agricultural lot at 320 Lee Road, which city staff says could turn into a needed revenue generator if redeveloped into a commercial property.
Councilmember Rebecca Garcia joined that trio in voting against the compromise, and also voted against the countermeasure.
It was the second time the council had thrown out the compromise. Last week, they neither approved nor denied the proposal. Instead, they asked city staff to return with a countermeasure that could run against the committee’s efforts.
Proponents of the committee’s measure say that Measure U’s growth restrictions have had an overwhelmingly positive effect on Watsonville over the past 19 years. They say that preserving ag land has not only kept the Pajaro Valley’s strong presence in the agricultural industry intact but has also forced the city to focus on dense, infill development and limit dreaded urban sprawl.
And, they add, there are still plenty of underutilized and vacant properties throughout the city that can be redeveloped to help the city meet its mounting housing and economic needs.
Critics, however, say that Measure U has hamstrung the city’s ability to adequately build housing—specifically, single-family homes for purchase—and lure large employers and economic drivers commonplace in other cities.
Some on the council have also said the committee’s measure is “undemocratic” because it does not give residents an opportunity to reassess the community and its needs in the same way they did during the creation of Measure U in the late 1990s.
The competing measures will be included in a long list of items before Watsonville voters in the Nov. 8 election. Four city council seats will be up for grabs and the city has a half-cent sales tax increase on the ballot as well. In addition, Dutra and Felipe Hernandez will square off for the 4th District Santa Cruz County Supervisor seat currently occupied by Greg Caput.
New Watsonville City Manager Rene Mendez stepped into the leadership role on July 1.
Just three days later he was driving Watsonville City Councilman Jimmy Dutra through the Spirit of Watsonville Fourth of July Parade in a Chevrolet Corvette, and, in the time before and after, working feverishly with staff on a key ballot measure for the November election, and meeting with several local organizations.
He brings in three decades of experience in state, county and city government, including the previous 18 years as the city manager with the City of Gonzales. In that role, Mendez, among other things, led efforts to create a Health in All Policies initiative, a youth council that represents the city’s young people at city council and school board meetings and an ambitious microgrid energy project. He was also instrumental in convincing agricultural industry giants Taylor Farms and Mann Packing to set up in the Monterey County city of roughly 9,000 residents.
Mendez says he sees several parallels between his new job and old stomping grounds, but explained that he first wants to embed himself within the Watsonville community before moving forward with any initiatives.
“I’m going to be available and accessible, and I want to learn,” Mendez says. “I have my thoughts, ideas and approaches, but part of the art of this is to figure out how it works … Clearly, there’s a lot of great stuff going on, and, to me, it’s how I can support and enhance that and not get in the way of the stuff that’s going on.”
But, he adds, there are three issues that will likely be focal points of his tenure with Watsonville: housing, economic vitality and community engagement. All three issues, he explains, are interconnected, and have big implications for the city’s large population of youth and young adults. He says the city should help in any way it can in creating paths for its younger residents to access higher education, find a good-paying job and, ultimately, own a home.
“How do we tap into [this generation] to get more involved in their community?” Mendez says. “Obviously, we want to work with all segments of the community, but one of the challenges and goals that I see is how do we bring in segments of the community that have not felt that they’ve had access or participated. It’s not easy, and it’s not going to happen overnight. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to keep knocking on the door.”
Mendez signed a five-year deal with a base annual salary of $240,000.
He takes over during a time in which Watsonville’s leadership and direction could see big changes. Three city council seats will be up for grabs in the upcoming Nov. 8 election, and Watsonville voters will also decide whether to support the extension of current outward growth restrictions and a half-cent sales tax measure.
He says he made the decision to leave Gonzales for Watsonville—a move made easier after the recent graduation of his two sons from Gonzales High School—to continue his “professional growth.”
“One of the things that I hope people find out about me is that I don’t sit still—I’m not a maintainer,” he says. “I think you have to maintain things but I’m always working to improve.”
Mendez is a first-generation Mexican American who grew up in the Central Valley and worked in the agricultural fields as a youth. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Duke University. He first worked as a state legislative analyst before being hired as an analyst for Solano County and then as the County Administrator for Inyo County. He then joined Gonzales as the city’s lead public official.
It took all of two weeks for him to realize that being a city manager is “the best job in the world.”
He came to that realization when a woman randomly walked through his door and asked if the city had a youth soccer league. At the time, Gonzales did not. So he told her to gather the coaches and kids and the city would find the fields and equipment. That was the start of a strong partnership between the youth soccer league and the city that has paid dividends for the community multiple times.
“That was a reminder that sometimes the investment is only like 2 cents and the return is amazing,” Mendez says. “You had parents, kids, families there—salen todos. So, now, from a city perspective, you can participate, you can ask questions, you can put a table out there for information—aver que—you don’t have to force it on people because they’re already there. If the city wants to do that by themselves that would take more effort and resources … That, to me, is why I think this work is so exciting. Making those connections.”
DANIEL CHAMPAGNE When the Aussie prodigy first picked up his father’s guitar at the age of five, it simply made sense. By 12, Champagne was penning original songs and began training classically while performing wherever and whenever possible. Over the last decade, the musician has released five acclaimed records, averaged about 300 live dates annually and shared stages with Lucinda Williams, Ani DiFranco, Judy Collins and Rodrigo y Gabriela. $25. Wednesday, July 6, 7:30pm. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. kuumbwajazz.org.
THE WAYBACKS The San Francisco foursome has been perpetually evolving for more than two decades—and continues to experiment with an eclectic sound driven by guitarist James Nash, fiddle virtuoso Warren Hood, bassist Joe Kyle Jr. and drummer Chuck Hamilton. The outfit’s blend of improvisation, skill and animated irreverence equates to a musically satisfying experience in any setting. “The whole spirit of improvisation has always been the cornerstone of this band for me,” Nash says. “I can do whatever I feel like doing at any moment.” $25. Sunday, July 7, 7:30pm. Michael’s on Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. michaelsonmain.info.
MAN IN BLACK From the crying weeping willows of “Big River” to the fiery ring “bound by wild desire” in “Ring of Fire,” the Santa Cruz quartet does all things Johnny Cash. Boardwalk shows are on the Colonnade Stage, located on the beachside of Neptune’s Kingdom—the dance area is in front of the stage. Free. Thursday, July 7, 8:30pm. The Colonnade at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. (Free Movie at the Beach features Little Shop of Horrors on Friday, July 8, 9pm). beachboardwalk.com.
HOUNDMOUTH WITH SAM FILIATREAU The hard work is starting to pay off for Indiana alt-rockers Houndmouth—SPIN and Esquire wrote that they’re one of Lollapalooza’s must-see acts. Garden & Gun said, “You’d be hard-pressed to find a more effortless, well-crafted mix of roots and rock this year than the debut album from this quartet.” Since then, the group has performed at Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo and the Newport Folk Festival. $29 plus fees. Friday, July 8, 8pm. Felton Music Hall, 6275 Highway 9, Felton. feltonmusichall.com.
JAKOB NOWELL WITH NOAH VONNE There’s no way to escape your last name. Jakob Nowell embraces it. Hell, it represents the musical talent embedded in his DNA. Jakob knows there will never be another Bradley Nowell—gone-too-soon Sublime frontman. So, he’s forging his own path. “I’ve always really liked the stage,” Jakob told Billboard. “Being an entertainer and a performer has always really resonated with me. I feel more comfortable up there in front of an audience than on the ground floor talking to people.” $15/$20. Saturday, July 9, 9pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. moesalley.com.
‘EMPTY CHAIR’ Two years ago, the inspiration for a short play about Calvary Church Founders Day was ignited after Scotts Valley historian Jay Topping discovered that Agnes Scott was one of Calvary Church’s original members in 1861. Topping stars as Agnes’ husband Hiram in a trip back in time, written by Dana Bagshaw and directed by Matt Matthews. The performance starts in the courtyard, moves into the church and ends outside where it began. A Q&A will follow both performances. Free (donations appreciated). Saturday, July 9 and Sunday, July 10, 4pm. Calvary Episcopal Church, 532 Center St., Santa Cruz. cd*******@at*.net.
COMMUNITY
DOWNTOWN ANTIQUE FAIR Plunge deep into a world where Bakelite, Fire King milk glass and Couroc reign supreme. Free. Sunday, July 10, 8am-5pm. Lincoln Street between Pacific and Cedar, Santa Cruz. 831-476-6940.
GROUPS
TODDLER STORYTIME The weekly bilingual program—in-person—includes sing-alongs, nursery rhymes and books that foster early literacy. Free. Wednesday, July 6, 11:30am-12:30pm. Freedom Branch Library (Meeting Room), 2021 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville. cityofwatsonville.org.
BACKBEAT JAZZ JAM Players of all skill levels are invited to sit in with the house band, and all are invited to watch—dancing is encouraged if the vibe feels right. The focus: jazz from the Great American Songbook. Free (donations accepted). Sunday, July 10, 3-6pm. Santa Cruz Veterans Hall, 846 Front St., Santa Cruz. jazzsantacruz.org.
OUTDOORS
SANTA CRUZ SANDHILLS TOUR Experience Santa Cruz’s most sensitive ecosystem, the sandhills, during a two-mile guided walk. Learn about the habitat’s formation and the unique plants and animals adapted to the area. Meet at the campground amphitheater off Graham Hill Road and journey through a breathtaking setting in the mountains. Free ($10/daily use parking fee). Sunday, July 10, 9-11am. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, 101 North Big Trees Park Road, Felton. thatsmypark.org.
“Revolution,” the opener on Heartless Bastards’ 2021 A Beautiful Life, begins gently with an acoustic guitar moving back and forth between two simple chords. Frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom’s vocals drift in, unrushed and relaxed, similar to that calm-before-the-storm temperament Lou Reed evokes in the opening minutes of the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin.”
“Where you going, my friend?” Wennerstrom croons in her deep alto voice. “Have you forgotten when there was a time filled with hope instead of fear that’s in your heart?/ There was a time when life was simple and innocent to start. Do you remember? Do you remember?”
The light tingle gains more steam when Wennerstrom asks again, “Do you remember?” An abbreviated orchestra of strings and synth become audible, alongside the lone guitar, as her vocals jump an octave higher: “Constantly being advertised, your life commercialized and disguised, as happiness in pills and potions, fancy threads and cars in motion/ Hypnotized by gilded lies to line the pockets of so few/ While hungry politicians feed bullshit to the masses, to ensure their statuses and further divide the classes/ You were born with a voice so open up and speak your mind, raise consciousness and elevate how we all relate don’t hesitate. No need to be better or smarter than anybody else/ Leave judgment at the door for others and yourself.”
Wennerstrom takes the song into fourth gear: “The revolution is in your mind; the revolution is in your mind; the revolution is in your mind; the revolution is in your mind.” The repeated line is unleashed with urgency as if there’s no time to come up for air; there’s no time to take a breath.
Like Gil Scot Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and the Beatles’ “Revolution,” Heartless Bastards’ “Revolution” is timeless—and timely. Wennerstrom lists off several influences for the one song, including the old-school rock ‘n’ roll sound of Chuck Berry and the matter-of-fact/don’t-give-a-fuck delivery of Kurt Vile. The tune was released as a single in 2020, marking Heartless Bastards’ first new music since 2015’s Restless Ones—in 2018, Wennerstrom released a solo LP, Sweet Unknown.
A few days after the Supreme Court’s historic Roe vs. Wade reversal, Wennerstrom is still in shock.
“I’m still processing it all,” she says from her Austin home. “I’m a little afraid. When you have a court ruling on things that most Americans don’t support, there’s a real disconnect. I feel powerless right now, but hopefully, we will all be able to move forward. Ultimately, we can only control our perspective and attitude, and I think music is a medicine that helps.”
The ideals and the frustrations shared by many following the monumental SCOTUS decision are similar to the vexations that Wennerstrom feels fuel most of the songs on A Beautiful Life. As a single entity, the songs on the record work together and represent a profoundly personal journey towards inner peace and acceptance.
“It’s a message that others could use, and I think I find that writing has a positive impact,” Wennerstrom says. “The [album] is about raising consciousness and being aware of your strengths and impact—I also address the environment and hyper-commercialism.”
Stylistically, the music is just as varied as it is thematically. On the dreamy “The River,” driven by Andrew Bird on violin and Fared Shafinury on setar (not to be confused with sitar), Wennerstron’s vocals resonate with a tribal undertone—a cleansing of the soul. Meanwhile, “Photograph” jams with hints of the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo acid country rock.
In addition to the guest musicians, Wennerstrom put together a super tight band for the record, including guitarists Lauren Gurgiolo (Okkervil River) and David Pulkingham (Patty Griffin), drummer Greggory Clifford (White Denim), multi-instrumentalist Jesse Chandler (Mercury Rev), keyboardist Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket) and longtime Heartless Bastards bassist Jesse Ebaugh.
On the group’s world tour, which kicked off July 1 in Santa Fe, Wennerstrom is joined by several Heartless Bastards regulars: guitarist Jonas Wilson, bassist Sam Pankey, singer Beth Harris and multi-instrumentalist Doug McDiarmid.
The tour closes out in Bristol, England, on Dec. 7.
Wennerstrom isn’t sure if she’ll start working on a new record after the tour. It’s definitely not a matter of having enough material.
“I probably have a couple of albums worth of songs,” she says. “I always have tons of ideas. Just finishing ideas is the biggest challenge for me. Melodies will pop out when I’m walking down the street, not even when I’m trying to write. I think honing my message and figuring out how to articulate what I’m feeling is the big challenge. I didn’t really write during COVID. I had some ideas here and there, but I think I get inspired by being around people and living life. In isolation, it wasn’t the right time for me; I didn’t feel inspired because I didn’t have that interaction that I’m used to that makes me think differently.”
The last couple of lines in the closing minute of “Revolution” speak to Wennerstrom’s feelings on human interaction and offer sound advice regarding the recent Supreme Court ruling: “You were born with a voice, so open up and speak your mind, raise consciousness and elevate how we all relate don’t hesitate/ No need to be better or smarter than anybody else, leave judgment at the door for others and yourself.”
Heartless Bastards play Monday, July 11 at 8pm at Felton Music Hall, 6275 Highway 9, Felton. $29 plus fees. Laney Jones opens. feltonmusichall.com.
Beginning in the 2010s, beer festivals really became a thing in Santa Cruz County. Thanks to Covid, however, they all but disappeared over the last two years. Now, like so many things we’ve all missed in the pandemic, they’re coming back, and it’s appropriate that one of the festivals originally at the forefront of the trend is also one of the first to return.
The 12th annual Hop N’ Barley Beer and BBQ Festival will be held Saturday, July 9, from 11am-5pm at Skypark in Scotts Valley. A benefit for the Homeless Garden Project, this year’s event will feature 60 breweries, including local favorites like Humble Sea Brewing Co., Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, the Slough Brewing Collective, Discretion Brewing, Shanty Shack Brewing and more, as well as visiting brew teams like Los Gatos’ Loma Brewing Co., Berkeley’s Gilman Brewing and Fresno’s Full Circle Brewing Co.
There will also be food trucks—with an emphasis on BBQ, of course. And since most of us are still making up for lost live-music time, the two stages’ worth of bands should be a nice boost.
Featured on the Good Times stage is newcomer Santa Cruz jam band Superblume. The group was formed in 2019 by guitarist Nate Smith and drummer Taylor Brougham, but due to the pandemic, they had to wait until last year to start showing off their wide-ranging sound, which oscillates between psychedelic, funk and straight-up rock ’n’ roll. They share the stage with eclectic Bay Area band the Higher Collective and local roots-reggae favorites Ancestree.
The Solar Stage will present Half Moon Bay acoustic bluegrass ensemble False Bottom Band, and psychedelic rockers Love Creek from the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The 12th annual Hop N’ Barley Beer and BBQ Festival will be held Saturday, July 9, from 11am-5pm. For more information, and to purchase tickets, go to hopnbarley.org.
Our City’s facilities, shores, parks and lands are overburdened and understaffed while at the mercy of our elected officials, who are failing to implement what is needed to keep public spaces functioning: livable wages and safety for the Santa Cruz City workforce.
According to a 2022 compensation study commissioned by management, the City pays its SEIU-521-represented workers more than 15% below the median wage of comparable public employers.
Accounting for total compensation, we receive nearly 9% less than we would by simply working elsewhere.
In this economic environment, many of our co-workers are succumbing to predatory lending, maxing out credit cards, taking on second jobs, living on the streets, in their cars, or wiping out their savings to be able to provide for themselves and their families.
We often find ourselves in situations where basic resources to maintain public facilities are unavailable or unreasonably denied by management. Our safety exposure isn’t limited to refuse, wastewater, bacteria, blood-borne pathogens or needles and human waste discovered during routine cleaning.
Our coworkers who service public spaces in disrepair are also subject to physical, mental and emotional assault while on the job. Even while underpaying and under-protecting its workforce, City management maintains the highest surplus in its general fund balance for at least a decade.
Much of this large surplus in the general fund was created on the backs of City workers. On paper it is clear the furlough we endured during the pandemic accounts for a significant portion of unprecedented funds available. Strikingly, our staff retention crisis—caused in large part by inadequate compensation and safety protections—could be fixed if the City chose to invest in its workforce. However, Santa Cruz is a de facto training ground for workers who leave for better-paying jobs once their training is complete. Retaining good workers is more efficient and far cheaper than hiring and training new workers every year.
Management fails to understand or care about the impact of low wages and inadequate safety on our ability to keep Santa Cruz running, and their behavior in our contract negotiations are arguably worse. First, management claimed there was “no money in [their] budget,” then they began utilizing every tool available to disempower us: canceling bargaining sessions, submitting incomplete proposals and showing up late or unprepared. Negotiations are now at a standstill.
The decisions by the City don’t only impact us as workers, but the public who fund our positions. We take offense to the management’s behavior, which forced many of us to make major life sacrifices including living on the fringes of Santa Cruz society.
Every member of the public that needs our services deserves the best that we bring to the table. We ask the City to do the same.
SEIU 521 City of Santa Cruz Bargaining Team
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Every summer when I interview the creative minds behind Santa Cruz Shakespeare, the conversations go to places I never expect. For instance, this year I started with some vague notion that I should find out about how Kathryn Chetkovich’s The Formula became the first work by a local playwright to be produced by the company, and ended up getting into questions like, “Are Shakespeare’s fools really fools?,” “What makes clowns funny?” and even “What is the nature of comedy?”
The best part, for me, is that everyone from Artistic Director Mike Ryan to this year’s SCS directors Ellen Maguire, Miriam Laube and Paul Mullins to actors like Patty Gallagher, Lorenzo Roberts and Dion Graham—and I’d be remiss not to mention Chetkovich herself—are all willing to go there. It’s hard to explain, but for some reason interviews with members of this company are never typical. I think you’ll understand when you read how thoughtful and insightful their answers are in my cover story this week. None of them had any practical need to go beyond, “Yeah, we’re doing The Formula and The Tempest and Twelfth Night this year, July 10-Aug. 28, everybody should check it out!” But these people love thinking and talking about their work, and about the larger questions it ties into. To me, that absolutely shows not only in my story, but also in what they put on the stage every summer.
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
A GOOD DAY TO DRY Chester the dog shakes it off. Photograph by Robin Lynn Lord.
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
BARD TALK
This week, kick off Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s 2022 summer season with a refresher course on all things Shakespeare from UCSC Professor Michael Warren. Warren is Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s Head of Dramaturgy and Professor Emeritus of English Literature at UCSC. He’ll discuss the plays that will be presented this year, covering each in relation to Shakespeare’s career, from 5-6pm on July 7 at the Santa Cruz Public Library Downtown Branch.
GOOD WORK
BIG NEWS
Big Basin is partially reopening to the public for the first time since the CZU Lightening Complex Fire ravaged the park in August of 2020. The CZU fires burned nearly 18,000 acres of the park, but thanks to the hard work of park volunteers and specialized hazard tree removal, most of the fire-scarred old-growth redwoods have been preserved and trails have been repaired. Reservations can be made at: thatsmypark.org. Tickets are $6, and will provide access to the park for the whole day.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
When you think of the great Shakespeare scholars, the first name that comes to mind is, of course, Isaac Asimov.
What? No? Hmm, well, the iconic science fiction author did write two volumes of Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare in the ’70s. That’s okay if you don’t remember, though, because the only thing anyone remembers from those 800 pages is this one short quote: “That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool—that he is no fool at all.”
That particular sentence lives on in our collective cultural memory because it’s a succinct expression of an idea we’re all familiar with, thanks to Shakespeare: The fool is not really a fool. The clown is not really a clown. There’s a method to their madness (thanks again, Shakespeare), and their secret superpower is that they wield a wisdom that we in the audience lack.
Except, what if they don’t?
Or, more to the point, what if the occasional insight that pops out of Shakespeare’s clowns is actually the least interesting thing about them? What if the most successful fools are actually very much fools, and their best moments—the ones that make us laugh, and reveal their most genuinely human qualities—come when they don’t have a clue?
Patty Gallagher, who has a lot of experience playing clowns—and does so in two of the three plays Santa Cruz Shakespeare is producing this summer, The Tempest and Twelfth Night—is willing to go even a step further. We laugh at clowns, she says, when they’ve gotten themselves into a situation where they desperately need to have the answers—but don’t.This is why the idea that clowns should be played “wacky” is a misconception, she says. Some of the funniest clowning comes out of learning to get serious.
“One of the main things I’ve learned about comedy,” says Gallagher, “is that you can’t necessarily go out there and think, like, ‘I’m going to be funny today, yuckity yuck yuck!’ Clowns are funny because they’re ordinary people, often outsiders, who face extreme circumstances and have to find their way out of it, or think their way out of it. To them, the circumstances are very serious. So part of the risk of comedy is you have to play it urgently straight, and follow what that character needs. Let the audience see the predicament of the clown and find it funny.”
Mike Ryan, SCS’ artistic director, says that’s a theme audiences might notice across all of the company’s season this summer, which not only includes Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Twelfth Night, but also the world premiere of Santa Cruz playwright Kathryn Chetkovich’s The Formula.
“It’s true of all the plays this year, actually,” says Ryan. “The joy of the comedy comes out of the stakes and the mistakes—that’s funny to use those two words next to each other—that people make. The stakes are high, and then people are also mistaken about what they’re actually playing for—which makes it particularly funny. Patty’s correct; she knows more about clowning than anybody I know. Clowns follow a very strict logic. They passionately believe that if they do A, B will happen. And we laugh because we know that’s not going to happen.”
The lighter tone of this season’s slate is a change-up from the bruising political intrigue of last year’s two SCS productions, The Agitators and RII, and after the intensity of playing Susan B. Anthony in the former, Gallagher is happy to return to comic roles.
“It’s quite a delight to be like, ‘Well, the other people have the hard stuff to do. I’ll be back here being the clown again if anyone needs me,’” she says. But just because this season will get more laughs, she doesn’t think audiences will find it any less powerful.
“It’s going to be a very funny, funny season,” says Gallagher. “But I have to say, I’m in two plays that have comic elements, but they are deeply beautiful, human plays. The Tempest is soaring. Twelfth Night is heartbreaking. I think people are going to have really vivid and full experiences seeing both of them. And, of course, The Formula—oh my god.”
Cracking ‘The Formula’
Oh my god, indeed. Chetkovich’s play is a landmark moment for the company; it’s the first time they’ve produced the work of a local playwright. It helps, of course, that The Formula is inspired by Shakespeare’s most beloved play (or, at the very least, most performed play in the 21st century), A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Chetkovich’s romantic comedy of errors updates Puck’s love-power flower to a scientifically designed potion created by a young researcher named Suzy who is studying the neuroscience of attraction. Just as Puck mistakenly doses Lysander instead of Demetrius, Suzy lets her untested designer love drug loose at her own wedding.
But beyond echoes of the Bard, there’s also something deeper that The Formula shares with SCS, and it comes through when Ellen Maguire—who has been collaborating with Chetkovich throughout the play’s development, and is directing this premiere production—talks about it. Her explanation of why they chose Allie Pratt for the lead role of Suzy, for instance, echoes Gallagher and Ryan’s philosophy of comedy.
“She clicked with the material,” says Maguire of Pratt, “clicked with us professionally and creatively. She understood how to play this comedy for real, with high stakes. That’s one of the things Kathy and I always talk about, you know? We like comedy played with the seriousness of a drama—with really high stakes. The characters don’t know they’re being funny. So, I never ask the actor to play a line for its humor; I’m asking them to play it for real. ‘What do you want? Go after what you want. You want to educate your daughter on the perils of marriage? Let me see you do it.’ And the actor might say, ‘But it’s on the eve of her wedding!’ And I say, ‘The character doesn’t care. The character thinks she’s doing her daughter a favor. Go for it.’ And that’s how we elicit the truth of the play.”
Getting to that truth was a collaborative process, says Chetkovich.
“Ellen and I have been working on this together for a very long time,” she says. “I had a draft that I showed [her] after we met and realized we were on the same page in a bunch of ways. And that draft changed quite a bit over the course of the writing. One thing I found really helpful in working with Ellen on revising and revising is she kept pushing me to let the characters make real and big mistakes, and let them really hurt each other. I think my natural inclination is not to hurt people—and I was thinking, you know, it’s a comedy. But that was really critical to get to the point where in pursuing what they needed and wanted—the characters were going to make big mistakes. And I think it makes it both a more human story, and funnier.”
The two began working together when they both lived in New York City, after Maguire happened to pick up Chetkovich’s book of short stories, Friendly Fire, at a mutual friend’s house. She was already enthralled with it when the friend told her that they would be meeting the author at a party they were both going to the next day.
“I went to this party, and really clicked with Kathy,” says Maguire. “She asked me to direct a short play that she had written, and we really enjoyed doing that. And then she came to me and said, ‘I have this idea for Midsummer Night’s Dream; you’re very familiar with it; how would you feel about working on this with me?’ And I, being a smart person, made the right choice and said, ‘Yes, of course.’”
“There was a certain shared aesthetic,” says Chetkovich, “and I had a sense of, ‘Obviously this is a very smart director, and somebody who gets comedy the way I get comedy.’ I feel like comedy’s so ephemeral—you get it on the same wavelength, or you don’t.”
Into the Woods
They continued to work on The Formula until a staged reading in 2015 that Maguire says “really coalesced everything.” But even more important was the reading produced by SCS in 2019.
“Kathy moved from New York City to Santa Cruz,” says Maguire. “I came out to visit her, and I met Mike Ryan. I pitched him The Formula at one of those picnic tables overlooking Monterey Bay outside the Grove, and he was intrigued and read it, and then asked if we would come do the reading.”
That reading drew 400 people to the Grove, and paved the way for this season’s production.
“When we came to Santa Cruz, it was really this lovely feeling of the right setting for this play, for starters,” says Maguire. “The climax of the play takes place in the woods at night, and here we were in the woods at night, which I found so magical and moving to be able to do that. And then the actors just, you know, they got the play, they got the sense of humor. We’re in this magical setting, we’re in Kathy’s hometown, and we have this really beautiful audience ready to laugh.”
After that, it was just a matter of a few phone calls to strike a deal to bring The Formula to the SCS stage as a full-blown production. Covid got in the way of Ryan’s original plan to produce it in 2021; he wanted to wait until the company’s productions were back to full strength. But he knew the play was a natural for them—and the perfect choice for their first world premiere.
“One thing that’s really cool about it is that while it references Shakespeare, it also calls into question some of the things that Shakespeare might propose to us,” says Ryan. “Specifically, that there’s this romantic notion of ‘the one’—the person of our destiny that we’re supposed to marry or be with. So many of Shakespeare’s comedies, in particular, sort of have a pre-established marriage order. I know a director who has worked for the festival who says that Shakespeare’s comedies are really about reaffirming the social order, and about reaffirming the institution of marriage in particular. Then this play, while it explores marriage—and doesn’t necessarily have only cynical things to say about it— definitely asks questions about if there is such a thing as the one right person for us in the world.”
Ensuring there was time to get everything right on a play representing multiple firsts for SCS, an extra two weeks of rehearsal was allotted this summer for The Formula, with Maguire and Chetkovich on hand to work with the cast. For actor Dion Graham, who audiences may know from his roles on TV series like The Wire and Madam Secretary, it was a unique introduction to the world of Santa Cruz Shakespeare. In his whole stage career, he says, he’s only been in one other production that devoted as much time to rehearsals as SCS has to The Formula, and that was at London’s Royal National Theatre. Playing the role of Jack, Suzy’s father, Graham has been thrilled with the process of developing his character.
“We had two weeks before the rest of the company got here, to just focus on The Formula and what we were doing, and exploring this world,” he says. “Ellen is a terrific leader, just a really open and nurturing collaborator. And Kathryn is great, of course, and this is an incredible piece that she wrote, which is funny and warm and hilarious, and also rich with the warp and woof of life—it’s not just yucks. I was joking with someone the other day that it seems in this part of our process, our play, in our telling of it, can range within scenes and within characters from very Marx Brothers-ish to Chekovian.”
“That was a real gift,” says Lorenzo Roberts, who plays the character of Dean in The Formula, of the expanded schedule. “Because it is super rare to have this much time—essentially six weeks of rehearsal. We had two weeks alone, eight hours a day, at the Grove—at the actual space—sitting on the stage with each other, just talking about the language, workshopping the play, helping Kathy figure out what moments she needed to change, what language needed to change, how it’s going to fit with this specific ensemble of actors.”
Deeper Things
Roberts is also playing Duke Orsino in director Paul Mullins’ take on Twelfth Night. Last year, he was in a very different kind of Shakespeare production for SCS, playing the lead role in RII—which boiled the historical epic Richard II down into an intimate and fast-moving three-person play thick with political intrigue and paranoia. So has it been a challenge to shift gears for the romance and comedy of Twelfth Night?
After thrilling audiences as the doomed King Richard II in last year’s “RII,” Lorenzo Roberts shows his comic chops this summer in “The Formula” and “Twelfth Night.” PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA
“It is, because it’s a big show, too,” says Roberts. “There’s like 15 of us. And Paul Mullins, the great Paul Mullins, has so much energy. It’s such a joy, but it is like, ‘Whoa, I haven’t done that in a second.’ RII was much more intense and psychological. This is like, ‘Put your big clown hair on, and your nose, and go.’ Let’s fly, you know. Leaning into that, I think there is trust in being with one or two people, but there’s a lot of trust in building an ensemble, too. And Paul has been great about building an ensemble.”
“My approach,” says Mullins, is that I’m hoping—you know, within reason—that everybody feels they have responsibility and input. That it matters, that it’s not an autocratic society; hopefully, it’s more of a group of people working together. I hope that it feels more like a collaborative effort than, ‘That’s what he said to do.’ That’s what I’m trying to avoid as much as I can.”
Mullins says Twelfth Night is pretty much in a class of its own among Shakespeare’s plays, when it comes to comedy and clowning.
“Twelfth Night is such a great play—such the best play—for many reasons, but one of them is that there’s a lot of talk about madness and foolishness and fools,” he says. “So, I think that ‘the’ clown in Twelfth Night is actually spread out among a whole lot of people, even people that you wouldn’t think. There are some of those elements in all of them—foolishness, extremity of behavior. That’s true of so many of the characters in the play—some are, you know, silly, nutty. Some are not; some are very serious. There’s an undercurrent all the way through the play; that’s part of the beauty of it. There’s a sense of sadness, of melancholy, of loss, and there are very funny things that are put right up alongside things that are much deeper.”
Interestingly enough, Miriam Laube, who is directing The Tempest this summer, also has a special fondness for Twelfth Night—one of her favorite roles she’s ever played was Olivia in a production of it at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where she made her mark over 16 seasons in the company. But Laube thinks The Tempest has its own unique rewards.
“Paul says that he thinks [Twelfth Night] is Shakespeare’s best-written play, and there is something to that; Twelfth Night is sort of a perfect play,” says Laube. “The Tempest was one of Shakespeare’s last plays, and he was wrestling with forgiveness at the end. And I think that’s what makes this play beautiful. It’s this coming to terms with your life, with mortality, looking back on it and going, ‘What do I need to change to move on,’ and forgiveness is a huge part of that.”
One of the most intriguing elements of this production is that it gender-switches the character of Prospero, who is being played by Laura Gordon.
“It doesn’t change the story,” says Laube. “But it changes the dynamics, right? The difference between fathers and daughters is different than mothers and daughters. I think about the relationship between mothers and daughters as a very fierce love. Not always simple, but quite beautiful. In this play, when Prospero is sent off in the boat, and the queen of Naples hopes that she’s going to die, and they’re not supposed to have food and water, that’s intense, right? And we have that in the world today—immigrants setting off on boats without anything. And what does a mother do? We’ve seen it in the recent school shooting where there was one mother who said, ‘I’m going in, I don’t care what you say, my children are in there.’ So that kind of fierceness between Prospero and her daughter, and that her daughter helps keep her alive. All this is true with fathers and daughters, but it takes on a different dynamic when it’s a mother.”
These kinds of insights are part of what keeps bringing Patty Gallagher, who’s being directed by both Laube and Mullins this summer, back to SCS, whether she’s stepping into the shoes of one of history’s most trailblazing feminist orators, or just clowning around.
“The directors give us these things that are so rich and so beautiful,” says Gallagher. “You have to keep returning to the lessons that they give you; like every day after the show is over, you have to say, ‘What went right? What can I do better tomorrow? How do I need to rethink that moment? Or what do I need to take into my head and my heart?’ You just have to meet them, and always be reaching toward what your directors have given you, and try to make it better every night.”
Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s summer season—featuring ‘The Formula,’ ‘The Tempest’ and ‘Twelfth Night’—runs July 10-Aug. 28. This year also features the return of the Fringe Show, an intern production of ‘Just Deserts’ by Carol Lashof, Aug. 17 and Aug. 23. There will also be two staged readings, Aug. 2 and Aug. 9. For a full schedule, a list of all related events and to buy tickets, go to santacruzshakespeare.org.
Summer is here, and water resource managers around the state are gearing up for another dry season. In Santa Cruz County, unique geology and three distinct basins make protecting the water supply a complicated and fractured process involving multiple water agencies. From the Pajaro Valley to the Santa Cruz Mountains, here’s what they’re doing.
Pajaro Valley
The Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency received a $7.6 million grant from the California Department of Water Resources through the Sustainable Groundwater Management Program in May.
“We came home with a check that was about three-feet-by-five-feet wide,” says PV Water Management Agency general manager Brian Lockwood, with a chuckle.
The funds will support the College Lake Integrated Resources Management Project, which will increase College Lake’s capacity and make it an alternative to groundwater for agricultural irrigation, which is the largest drain on South County’s water resources.
The agency split the project into two parts.
“There’s the facilities in and around College Lake. That includes a weir structure and fish passage, water treatment and a pumping station to move water down the coast. That’s been designed for some time,” says Lockwood. “The second part of the project is a 6-mile pipeline, and that project is at the 90% design level.”
The agency is currently acquiring property rights to flood land around College Lake.
“And we’re doing that either by purchasing land outright or purchasing flood easements on private property,” Lockwood continues.
The agency is also developing appraisals for the pipeline properties.
“We’ll be sending out offer letters for those in July,” says Lockwood.
PVWMA plans to have the project operating by 2025.
After receiving the $7.6 million, the board pushed back a planned rate increase for customers from July 1 to Dec. 1.
“Changing rates in the middle of the summer is more problematic for the agricultural community than changing rates in December because they’re in the middle of their season,” says Lockwood. “It’s also better overall to have the rate change occur when usage is lower, and December is a good time for that.”
PVWMA also has several other water projects lined up. The next one will divert water from Struve Slough to a treatment plant near Harkins Slough.
“What we’re looking to do is push our diversion at the slough system further away from the influence of saltwater and rising seas and be able to divert water to the San Andreas terrace,” says Lockwood.
The agency hopes to begin working on that project by October.
In April, the board also decided to increase rebates for conservation programs.
“We have things that work for the residents like gray water rebates and rainwater harvesting rebates that were all increased,” says Lockwood. “And we have ongoing rebates for agricultural customers as well.”
Soquel
Soquel Creek Water District is working around seawater intrusion, as well. The groundwater basin, categorized as “critically overdraft” by the state, is threatened by salt water that seeps into the space where fresh water used to be.
To prevent further encroachment, the district designed the Pure Water Soquel Project. This project will treat recycled water to drinking standards before injecting it back into the basin at sites chosen by hydrologists.
The recycled water will flow from the treatment plant on the Westside of Santa Cruz to injection wells near New Brighton State Beach.
“We have eight miles of pipeline currently going into the ground, and we’re just over four miles done,” says Becca Rubin, the public outreach coordinator for the district. “So it’s a huge milestone that we just hit.”
“You’ve probably seen us going through town,” she adds. “We appreciate the patience of everybody in the community while we tear open the streets and put it back together.”
Ron Duncan, the district general manager, echoes Rubin’s thanks.
“It’s a short-term pain for long-term gain kind of thing,” he says. “We continue to navigate and adapt as appropriate to create a new water supply to help make the community resilient. If not, we’ll lose what we have due to seawater intrusion.”
SCWD’s constant project updates and outreach within the community earned them recent recognition from the California Special Districts Association.
“We’re lucky enough to get the transparency award for special districts again,” says Rubin. “We were the first in the area in 2015 to receive this award.”
Santa Cruz
The City of Santa Cruz shares the mid-county groundwater basin with Soquel and works closely with SCWD, but almost all of the city’s water comes from surface sources such as the San Lorenzo River.
Despite another dry year, the city was exempted from the new state-wide emergency water use restrictions.
“We met three criteria that they included in the emergency regulations,” says Heidi Luckenbach, the deputy director of engineering for the City of Santa Cruz Water Department.
One requirement was indoor water usage of 55 gallons per person per day or less. Santa Cruz comes in under 50.
“Not being connected to the state water system was the second component,” says Luckenbach.
For the final criterion, the city had to demonstrate it had enough water through September of 2023.
“It’s really just reinforcing the fact that customers in Santa Cruz have done an amazing job at backing off on water use,” says Luckenbach. “But the climate is changing, and we cannot predict it, so we’re carrying forward with our supply planning.”
Part of that supply planning includes an aquifer storage and recovery project, which injects treated excess storm runoff into the groundwater basin during the winter.
The city tested the injection process at two wells over the winter, and this month, the water department started extracting water.
“Our planning has shown that we can take that water out at specific rates, so we’re testing that theory now,” says Luckenbach. “But there’s still a lot of fine-tuning to be done both in terms of the volume, and also the water quality—taking the water out of the ground, treating it and putting it into our distribution system.”
The city expects to extract until sometime in August. If all goes well, the project will expand from two wells to up to 10.
“So we have a lot of planning and construction left to do,” says Luckenbach.
Inflation and materials shortages have made that challenging.
“But on the flip side, there’s a lot of money being set aside by the federal government through the infrastructure act, and we’re starting to see that,” she adds.
The city will continue exploring other options as well.
Even though the project is going well and Loch Lomond sits between 85-88% full, “we’re still really vulnerable,” says Luckenbach.
“Our demand is super low, which means we have no gravy to cut. And the weather is really variable,” she says. “We still have to move forward. We’re not done yet.”
Scotts Valley
Further north, Scotts Valley Water District is also exploring aquifer storage and recovery as an option for improving the Santa Margarita Groundwater Basin. Scotts Valley shares the basin with the San Lorenzo Valley Water District, and an emergency intertie connects the two.
Normally, SLVWD relies more on surface water, but the CZU fire made pumping necessary. So SLVWD and SVWD have both been relying on the basin.
The district declared a stage-two water shortage in May, or as some officials call it, a stage-two “water supply condition.” The word “shortage,” they say, can be misleading and make people think they’re running out.
“There is plenty of water still in the basin,” assures Piret Harmon, the SVWD general manager.
The concern is for the long term.
“It all comes from this space and underneath us. The only recharge for the basin is rainfall, and it’s the third dry, severely below-average rainfall year for us,” says Harmon. “We don’t know how long it’s going to go on. It might be the last dry year. It might be that we have many more coming.”
The district has a few options for addressing that uncertainty. Besides aquifer storage and recovery, SVWD is considering conjunctive use and indirect potable reuse. Conjunctive use involves sharing surface water with neighbors like SLVWD when there is an excess, which gives the groundwater basin a chance to recharge. Indirect potable reuse, similar to the Pure Water Soquel project, injects treated recycled water back into the ground.
“I think that is going to be the project that will ensure the resiliency of this basin,” says Piret.
She compares it to shortening the natural water cycle.
“Instead of letting it go to the ocean and then raining down, let’s catch it, let’s treat it, let’s put it back. And then we are much less dependent on the climate impacts,” she says.
In addition to large infrastructure projects, the district encourages users to consider their usage. Smart meters make that easier.
“These days, you can go and see [water use] in 15-minute increments,” says Harmon “And our customers have been surprised by it.”
SVWD wants to cut back usage by 10% and is creating incentives for residents to meet that mark. For instance, the district has a monthly raffle for customers who achieve a 15% demand reduction. Winners can use a $100 prize to lower their bill or at a local business. Customers who achieve a 15% reduction four months in a row can win $500.
The district also incentivizes turf replacement. Participants get $2 per square foot for replacing irrigated lawns with water-efficient landscapes.
To address questions, the district sets up a pop-up station every Saturday by the Skypark from 9am to 1pm.
“Eight to five office hours Monday through Friday—that’s when people work. So, if we tell them, ‘Come here and talk to us, we can help you,’ we’re not very accessible,” says Harmon.
Public opinion is still often the biggest challenge for the projects, says Harmon.
“I still see on social media, unfortunately, a lot of mistrust and attacks,” she says, adding that she sometimes hears accusations that Scotts Valley is taking other districts’ water to build new developments. Harmon shakes her head.
“Why would we take somebody’s water and use it up, and then nobody has water?” she asks. “We want this basin to be resilient for decades to come. We need that for our own customers. We need that for our neighbors.”
