The grant aims to provide bilingual and bicultural grief support and physical, emotional and mental health assistance to families throughout Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito and South Santa Clara counties coping with the loss of a child or struggling with a child who is seriously ill.
“We are proud to support the ongoing work of Jacob’s Heart, which provides families with the compassionate care they need as they navigate difficult situations,” Irene Chavez, senior vice president and manager of Kaiser Permanente in Santa Cruz County, said. “We believe the family-centered approach to care Jacob’s Heart provides to families will give them the resources, tools and support they need during what can be an extremely challenging time.”
Kaiser presented the grant to Jacob’s Heart on June 7 at the organization’s headquarters in Watsonville.
“We’re grateful to be working with Kaiser Permanente to provide more emotional support to children and their families,” Jacob’s Heart executive director said. “At Jacob’s Heart, we envision a community where every child with cancer or in remission from cancer has a strong, supported, and informed family empowered to fully participate in their care.”
California’s firefighting agency has been slow to react to a mounting mental health crisis within its ranks as firefighters around the state say Cal Fire has failed to get them what they need — including a sustainable workload, easier access to workers’ comp benefits and more counselors.
While climate change is driving enduring drought and ferocious fires ravaging California, nature can’t be blamed for all of Cal Fire’s problems:The state’s fire service, which prides itself in quickly putting out wildfires, has failed to extinguish a smoldering mental health problem among its ranks.
Many firefighters told CalMatters they are fatigued and overwhelmed, describing an epidemic of post-traumatic stress in their fire stations. Veterans say they are contemplating leaving the service, which would deplete the agency of their decades of experience. Some opened up about their suicidal thoughts, while others — an unknown number since Cal Fire doesn’t track it — already have taken their own lives.
Interviews with Cal Fire firefighters, including many high-ranking battalion chiefs and captains, and mental health experts paint a picture of the state agency’s sluggish response to an urgent and growing crisis:
Cal Fire has an unyielding policy of 21-day shifts and forced overtime. Staffing is insufficient as firefighters battle thousands of fires year-round, sometimes for 40 days in a row, year after year. The nonstop work and increasing overtime are contributing to on-the-job injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The workers’ comp system is difficult to navigate for firefighters suffering from post-traumatic stress, even suicidal thoughts, beginning with skepticism among managers about the legitimacy of their unseen wounds. Some say to get help or be reimbursed for mental health care, they have to hire lawyers, who told CalMatters that claims are routinely denied.
In California’s rural areas, where many Cal Fire employees are based, there are inadequate numbers of qualified mental health care providers. And many won’t accept workers’ compensation cases because of the extensive paperwork and low compensation. As a result, firefighters say they can’t find help when they desperately need it.
Work conditions and stress are driving an exodus from the department, which loses invaluable institutional knowledge and field experience. Last year 10% of Cal Fire’s permanent, non-seasonal workforce quit.
Firefighters say suicidal thoughts and PTSD are rampant. But Cal Fire collects no incidence data on suicides or PTSD. Experts say the agency can’t develop an effective program to combat them if they don’t understand and monitor their scope.
Cal Fire’s behavioral health unit ramped up slowly despite the growing problem. Although created in 1999, it had no permanent budget and no permanent employees for 20 years. It began with one staffer — and six years later there were two. Now it has 27 peer-support employees, who assist a permanent and seasonal workforce of more than 9,000.
Cal Fire’s growing budget reflects the priority California places on fighting wildfires as they intensify and spread. The agency’s base budget for wildfires has grown by nearly two‑thirds over the past five years alone, from $1.3 billion in 2017‑18 to $2.1 billion in 2021‑22. The total budget, which includes resource management and fire prevention, has also increased about 45% in the same period, to $3.7 billion.
The California Legislature has maintained a laser focus on combating wildfires, in part because of the breathtaking cost to suppress them: In the last 10 years, Cal Fire has pulled $7.5 billion from the state emergency fund to fight fires, including about $1.2 billion in the past year.
Despite the large investment, the funds have not kept pace with staffing needs: Days with extreme fire risk have more than doubled in California over the last 40 years. Every year, Cal Fire responds to nearly half a million local emergency calls in addition to thousands of wildfires. Last year alone, almost 9,000 wildfires scorched the state; the millions of acres burned in recent years have set new records.
When asked about the problems facing his crews, Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler, who was appointed in March, acknowledged in an interview with CalMatters that “the fatigue and working long hours on large, destructive fires” is taking a toll on their health and wellness across the state.
Tyler vowed in the interview to make the mental wellbeing of his employees “my number one” priority. “I recognize that the cumulative toll is taking an effect on our people. To be honest, it’s taken a toll on me as well,” he told Calmatters, adding that he once worked a fire for 56 straight days.
Asked why the agency he oversees is failing to protect its firefighters from PTSD, California Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said “there’s no absolute, silver-bullet solution.”
“We’ve taken a big step forward,” he said, with a proposal in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2022-23 budget to add $400 million for relief staffing and permanent Cal Fire personnel.
“They need to be able to come off the front lines during fire season, and have periods of rest, reconnect with families. It’s an incredible strain. In some cases firefighters haven’t been home for months,” Crowfoot said.
“This is a complex challenge that requires resources and support in a lot of ways. I would not suggest that if we are able to get funding for staffing, it will solve the problem.”
The dangerous work of California’s firefighters is honored at the California Firefighters Memorial on the state Capitol grounds in Sacramento. PHOTO: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters
Former Cal Fire Chief Thom Porter, who retired last year after three years as the agency’s commander, said “more needs to be done” to address the agency’s staffing problems, long hours and PTSD among firefighters.
“Part of what needs to be done is recognition that we don’t have enough firefighters in service at any level — state or local,” Porter said. “We need our elected officials at all levels to increase those numbers. People can’t recover from these kinds of stressors without rest away from the job.”
Overworked, Under Stress
An administrative claim notice from Cal Fire’s firefighters’ union had a Dickensian tone, like a logbook from a 19th century sweatshop: Forced overtime, punishing working conditions, little sleep, workplace injuries, an inhuman system of indenture.
“Employees have been known to work 30 days or more without any time off due to forced overtime, and the most egregious cases include employees on duty for 49 days or more straight without a day off. Overworked beyond the point of exhaustion,” says the claim, which union attorneys sent in February to the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal OSHA) and the Labor Workforce Development Agency.
“CAL FIRE employees have sustained physical injuries and routinely experience fatigue, sleep deprivation, stress, and mental distress,” the union wrote, describing the emotional toll, including divorce, alcoholism and substance abuse, of what it called “excessive hours.”
“Other CAL FIRE employees are quitting their job to find relief from the pressure,” the union attorneys wrote. “Even worse, some employees’ emotional distress is so severe that they have committed suicide or experienced suicidal ideation.”
The document requested that the state’s workplace regulatory agencies investigate unsafe work conditions at the fire stations, which are staffed by Cal Fire under contracts with cities and counties.
The staffing problems stem from Cal Fire’s contractual obligationwith local stations in 36 counties to handle all emergency calls, including structure fires, rescues and medical aid, while also being dispatched to battle wildfires statewide.
Gary Messing, a labor lawyer for Cal Fire’s union, Local 2881, said California is out of step with the work rotations of other first responders. Cal Fire has shifts of 21 days, while federal firefighters work 14-day shifts. The union is negotiating with Cal Fire over the issue as part of its collective bargaining process.
“The solution is easy to articulate and hard to accomplish: Reduce the number of hours,” Messing said. “Our people work 72 hours a week. The first thing that could be done is to put Cal firefighters on a 56-hour week. That’s a start.”
The Legislative Analyst’s Office noted in a recent analysis that despite bumps in firefighting staffing and budgets, California’s relentless fires “can still strain response capacity.” In 2020 alone, Cal Fire was unable to dispatch personnel and equipment to thousands of fires: “Roughly 7,900 requests for fire engines, 900 requests for dozers, and 600 requests for helicopters could not be filled.”
The proposed Fixing the Firefighter Shortage Act of 2022, which has been approved by the Senate but has not yet cleared the Assembly, could address some of Cal Fire’s staffing problems. The bill would add about 1,300 firefighters to the state’s ranks at an estimated cost of almost $300 million per year; it would also increase the number of firefighters per engine and attempt to stop forced overtime.
“We are at critical mass, guaranteed, right now,” said Mike Orton, a Cal Fire captain and former Marine who has undergone counseling for PTSD. “These people in fire stations are not going to get relief for years because the state system takes so long to work. The people who are working here are jumping ship like no other. People like me are pulling the ejection handle.”
Unlike most workers, when firefighters make a mistake because of stress or fatigue, their actions can endanger the public.
“At the end of the day, all of the well-intentions in the world, and the mental health awareness, the opportunity to go to trauma retreats, doesn’t help when the bell goes off,” Orton said.
“How do we face the public and say, ‘We decided to close your station today because these guys are tired.’ That’s not a decision our managers are going to make.”
One of the core problems is the simple, intractable math: As fires are more frequent, burning longer and more difficult to fight, California does not have enough firefighters to perform all the tasks the state asks of them.
“If you can’t fill all the positions in your battalion, the way the system Is designed, nobody goes home until the positions are filled,” said Battalion Chief Jeff Burrow, referring to daily work shifts. “If I can’t fill those positions, I’ve got to reach out to the battalion next to me, and nobody in that battalion gets to go home. It just spreads. We run out of people all the time.”
‘Denial, Denial, Denial’
California’s workplace insurance system instructs stressed workers to follow a prescribed path to get relief: Report the problem to your superior, talk to a peer counselor to get referred to a mental health professional, keep your receipts and apply for workers’ comp.
Medical help is the endgame. Workers’ compensation benefits, paid by the state, cover the costs, which average $60,000 for first responders’ cases, according to a Rand Corp. estimate. But the barriers to firefighters’ claims are myriad.
Randy Thrash, who manages Cal Fire’s Occupational Health Program, said finding clinically competent mental health providers outside of large cities is a “huge challenge. They are difficult to find in the rural areas where a lot of our staff lives.”
Even when mental health clinicians can be located, it’s another struggle to identify those willing to take workers’ comp insurance patients, Thrash said. “They don’t want to deal with the billing and reporting requirements of workers’ comp. They prefer to deal with private insurance.”
That creates another layer of bureaucracy for a firefighter seeking help: If someone receives a PTSD diagnosis from a private insurer, those medical records — which are confidential by law — must be made available to the state. If that doesn’t happen, the diagnosis must be verified by a state-qualified medical examiner. The process can take months for a firefighter to be reimbursed for medical care.
A current bill, introduced by three Democratic senators, would cut the time period to investigate PTSD workers’ comp claims from 90 to 60 days, and states that if the claim is not rejected within that timeframe it would be presumed to be eligible for compensation.The proposal has cleared the Senate and is in the Assembly.
The long wait for workers’ comp insurance “is hugely frustrating,” said Gena Mabary, Cal Fire’s injury and accommodation manager. “When you are dealing with psychiatric stress, you are already stressed out. It adds another layer of stress. It means that sometimes people won’t go through the process.”
Cal Fire workers’ comp claims for mental health problems “are more frequent. I am expecting them to increase still more,” Mabary said. No data, however, was available.
“Comprehensive national data on first responder mental health do not exist,” said a 2020 Congressional Research Service report on federal efforts to address the mental health of first responders. The authors reported that barriers to accessing mental health services are particularly problematic among firefighters, where a “culture of not seeking help” exists.
Mynda Ohs, a San Bernardino-based counselor specializing in treating first responders, said Cal Fire “has no idea how to proceed with a mental health injury versus a physical injury.”
One of her Cal Fire patients suffering from PTSD had to hire an attorney to pursue a claim, and even then the case took two years to resolve. “They put him through the ringer, ” Ohs said. “It’s more trauma on top of trauma.”
In 2020, a state law recognized that all first responders engage in stressful and dangerous occupations, and made PTSD “presumptive” for workers’ comp benefits — codifying that a mental injury is a legitimate medical claim, although it must still be proven. That law sunsets at the end of 2024.
Before the law was enacted two years ago, California firefighters’ PTSD cases were denied workers’ comp benefits 24% of the time — almost three times more often than their claims for other medical conditions, according to a RAND Corp. report. They were also denied more often than PTSD cases filed by people in other occupations.
Yet the current system is still stacked against those filing claims, according to an attorney representing firefighters who dispute workers’ comp rejections. He said many are denied.
“Denial, denial, denial,” said San Diego attorney Scott O’Mara. “It’s very, very common. Adjusters’ training is to contain and control costs. They need to pull back and allow these people to get the care. They delay and deny treatment. It’s horrendous.”
Workers’ comp claims begin with an adjuster at the state’s nonprofit insurance provider, the State Fund. If the claim is denied, challenges can move their way, slowly, to the state’s Division of Workers’ Compensation, which is the final arbiter.
Battalion Chief Brad Niven successfully navigated the workers’ comp insurance system for his mental health claim after he began considering suicide, but not without difficulty. He said he has at least 18 friends and peers who have faced the same problems he did.
“I’ve heard horror stories from people whose boss has not supported them, who say, ‘You are making this stuff up, you are not sick. You are trying to get out of coming to work’. You have to sit down with a psychiatrist and you have to relive those experiences. People who have issues, myself included, don’t want to relive them,” Niven said.
“They are looking at it from a financial standpoint, not wanting to approve the claim, not wanting to pay it out. You are guilty until proven innocent. You have to go above and beyond to prove your case.”
Turnover: ‘People are Leaving in Droves’
Far from being walking recruitment posters for Cal Fire, many fire service veterans bluntly said they are ready to leave the organization they love — and they give that unvarnished advice to their colleagues. The agency is losing experienced employees who either accept quieter, better-paid first responder jobs or opt to retire and collect a pension.
Burrow said his Riverside staff is operating at about 50% capacity. “You’d be hard-pressed to talk to someone in the department right now that isn’t looking for other avenues in their life,” he said.
He added, “people are leaving in droves.”
“My entire battalion — we have people leaving all the time or retiring earlier, which is where I’m at,” said Burrow, 49. “For the people that work for me, I advise them to move on. I can’t in good conscience tell them to stay. We have people quitting the academy now. That was unheard of 20 years ago. That speaks volumes.”
Cal Fire officials initially disputed that people are leaving in large numbers, saying their staffing levels have been fairly consistent.
But data released at CalMatters’ request shows that about 10% of its workforce quit last year. The number of firefighters and other personnel who left in 2021 was 691, nearly twice the average for the previous four years, according to numbers provided by Cal Fire spokesman Chris Amestoy.
‘For So Long It Was In The Dark.’ And Often, It Still Is
There have been few attempts at legislation to address the mental health of the state’s wildland firefighters.
A 2017 bill would have created a peer-support program for a broad range of first responders that included a strict confidentiality component. It made it through the Legislature and to then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 for his signature.
In the month that the bill sat on the governor’s desk, two Cal Fire employees committed suicide, according to Assemblymember Tim Grayson, the bill’s author. Brown ultimately vetoed it, objecting to the scope of the confidentiality, which he said could jeopardize workplace safety.
Grayson, a Democrat from Concord, revived the measure the next legislative session, with a more-narrow focus on creating a pilot program of peer support for local or regional firefighters. That legislation was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, although it has a sunset provision in two years.
Grayson said it took three years to convince colleagues that mental health problems were increasing at Cal Fire, in part because the agency collects little data.
“There’s been a shift — people are talking about this. For so long it was in the dark,” he said. “We’re talking about lives here. Not just lives of the firefighters, but their family and children, everybody is impacted by the wellbeing of our first responders. It would behoove us to invest in the mental health and wellbeing of our first responders. They do lay their lives on the lines for us.”
Porter, Cal Fire’s recently retired chief, said firefighters are starting to open up more about their PTSD and share their heart-wrenching stories.
“It’s been an incredibly moving experience to have people opening their personal lives and talking about things that never would have been talked about before. In my career, up until the last three years, I have never heard some of this. It’s alarming,” he said.
But getting help is problematic in a service where tough-guy traditions persist. Mike Ming, who oversees Cal Fire’s employee support program, saw firsthand the “walk-it-off” mentality as a young firefighter. When he told a supervisor that a traumatic work experience was bothering him, “He said, ‘Suck it up, buttercup,’ and told me to pull up my skirt.”
While that attitude is fading, Ming said, there remain “some holdovers, some 30-year grumpy captains. We do also have in management some folks who say, ‘I sucked it up, why don’t they suck it up?’ I don’t know if we are ever going to get away from having some aspect of that.”
Dennis King, 76, who retired as a battalion chief after 22 years with Cal Fire, may be one of those holdovers. He wonders “if the pendulum has swung so far.”
“The state has always had a very liberal policy. The phone rings in the morning at the station and I go, “Who’s calling in sick today?’ Everyone says, ‘I think I have the flu.’ We have people who are serial hypochondriacs. There’s always people who are going to take advantage of this system.”
Today, when mental health issues are raised among wildland firefighters, it’s still in hushed tones. There’s a stubborn stigma attached to discussing PTSD or trauma.
“They will always tell you there’s no punitive action against anybody who admits to PTSD,” said Mike Feyh, a former captain with the Sacramento City Fire Department. “But it does affect their career. There were very few times that I saw someone who has struggled with a mental health issue rise to the top of an organization or take a leadership position. They kept it to themselves.”
Ernie Marugg, a former Cal Fire battalion chief who is in the process of seeking a medical retirement for PTSD, said the agency culture is, “If you need help you are weak and if you are weak I don’t want you around me. It’s like you are contagious,” he said.
A Slow Reckoning At Cal Fire
Until recently, Cal Fire’s behavioral health program was bare-bones. The program had only one staffer when it began in 1999 and six years later, there were two. Now Cal Fire has 27 employees in its peer-led program — all of them with their own stories of addiction, suicide attempts and trauma — to help a statewide workforce of 6,500. These peers do not offer formal counseling, they mostly listen, and then, if warranted, send employees to therapists for help.
But Cal Fire still doesn’t collect much data on mental health, and what information it does gather is often squirreled away in departments that don’t talk to each other. Some Cal Fire staffers bemoan the agency’s antiquated and cumbersome data management.
For example, its behavioral health program collects numbers of “contacts” — calls to a helpline and visits in person from a peer advisor. But, rather than focusing solely on issues such as PTSD, the numbers include those seeking advice about an array of other topics, such as parenting, financial problems and legal issues.
When CalMatters asked Tyler, the Cal Fire head, why his agency doesn’t have data on incidence of PTSD and suicides, he said he will soon meet with the behavioral health team to discuss “strengths and weaknesses and threats to the program.” He said the data related to mental health needs to be improved.
The 2012 Strategic Plan, Cal Fire’s guiding document updated every seven years, devoted two pages to the value of physical fitness and calisthenics. There was no discussion of PTSD or mental health.
Cal Fire now preaches the importance of mental health awareness and the no-strings approach to asking for help. The latest plan, from 2019, for the first time acknowledges suicide as a problem.Now each station house has pamphlets and fliers tacked onto bulletin boards with information about PTSD and suicide prevention. Classes about PTSD and suicide awareness have recently been added to the Cal Fire academy’s curriculum.
Behavioral health experts point to the U.S. Armed Forces as a model for integrating mental health programs alongside physical well being.
The Defense Department has studied and reported on the health of American troops for 30 years. In 2021 the military asked the Rand Corporation to perform a similar analysis, considered a critical tool to understanding the impacts of the long deployments and inherent dangers. “Exposure to traumatic events, combat in particular, is a well-known hazard of military service. PTSD can contribute to military attrition, absenteeism, and misconduct,” the report said.
The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the nation’s largest wildland firefighting force, says it is focusing on PTSD like never before.
“Over the past several years, understanding the mental health impacts on firefighters has become a high priority,” said E. Wade Muehlof, a deputy national press officer with the Forest Service in Washington, D.C., citing the length and intensity of the fire season as factors.
The federal agency has an expanded employee assistance program and a new provider with on-call “trauma-trained clinicians.” In addition, it tasked a new behavioral health steering committee with developing programs.
But even as the need has come into sharper focus, a gap in services for first responders remains.
The nonprofit National Fire Protection Association identified an acute shortage of programs to treat PTSD and trauma among firefighters. Its 2021 national assessmentfound that nearly three-quarters of fire departments do not have behavioral health programs for their employees. Of those that do, 90% offer help for post-traumatic stress but few other mental health services.
“We are really good at preventing fires, why don’t we work on preventing this?,” said Patrick Walker, a Cal Fire battalion chief. “There’s a tendency to kick people when they are down, instead of pulling them up. That’s got to change.”
A Life Saved
Intervention, if it comes in time, can save lives. Niven can attest to that.
In late 2019 the battalion chief, who is based in Sonora, was struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. They became overwhelming after he drove through an intersection where, five years earlier, he was unable to save the life of a young woman hit by a logging truck.
He couldn’t shake the memories. “I thought to myself, ‘Is this it? Am I going to commit suicide?’,” Niven, 47, said in an interview.But he didn’t reach out for help, “I thought I could fix it.”
During a flight to Sacramento, he made a plan: He would kill himself by jumping off the top floor of the airport parking garage.
A flight attendant who saw him crying sat next to him and asked how she could help. She arranged for Niven to text a friend, who put him in touch with a counselor from Cal Fire’s employee support program, who then stayed with Niven on the phone for two hours after the plane landed.
After that, Niven received counseling and the support of a supervisor, who told him what every employee in pain wants to hear: I got your back.
If you are having suicidal thoughts, you can get help from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
On Tuesday, Santa Cruz Police arrested a Watsonville man after he allegedly traveled to the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf to meet who he thought was an underage girl for sex.
Valentin Rodriguez, 62, was charged with meeting a minor for lewd purposes. He was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail but was not in custody on Thursday.
Rodriguez teaches diesel mechanics at Hartnell College in Salinas.
According to Santa Cruz Police spokeswoman Joyce Blaschke, the 14-year-old girl Rodriguez thought he was meeting was an “independent, non-sworn investigator” that was live-streaming a “sting” operation.
Rodriguez reportedly exchanged several inappropriate messages online with the decoy.
The group that set up the sting, CC Unit (Creep Catching Unit), says on its website that it’s dedicated to catching and exposing online predators. Members pose as underage children online and then confront and record the people who agree to meet them.
Since it was founded in 2018, the San Diego-based outfit says it has caught 240 people, 25 of whom have been arrested.
Blaschke says that an SCPD officer asked a CC Unit member to send a text message to Rodriguez, making his cell phone buzz.
“The reporting party produced compelling evidence for probable cause to arrest the suspect Valentin Rodriguez for arranging to meet with a person assumed to be a juvenile with the intent to engage in sex and lewd acts,” Blaschke stated in a press release.
Detectives have obtained warrants for Rodriguez’s home, vehicle and electronic devices. The investigation is ongoing. It is not yet known if there are actual underage victims.
Blaschke says that police do not recommend that citizens conduct sting operations to protect the investigation’s integrity. She added that confronting suspects could be dangerous.
As four candidates take a comfortable lead in the race for two seats on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, efforts to win the November runoff race will begin in earnest.
With roughly half of the ballots counted, Fourth District candidates Watsonville City Council members Jimmy Dutra and Felipe Hernandez had garnered 1,152 and 862 votes, respectively, as of Wednesday afternoon. The two-edged out opponent, Ed Acosta, who received 345 votes.
That district covers much of unincorporated Watsonville. In 2012, Greg Caput, then a Watsonville City Councilman, defeated incumbent Tony Campos and has held onto his seat against several challengers.
Dutra attributes his success to walking his district and connecting with potential voters.
“I was out there personally talking to people, having conversations with them, and I did that for three months straight,” he said. “I think that connection is what people here in this community appreciate.”
Dutra also says his message of supporting South County resonates with his potential constituents.
“A lot of people, including myself, feel that we do not get the resources or finding that we deserve in this part of the county,” he said. “People feel that we’re forgotten.”
He also says he got support from voters who appreciated his opposition to a housing project on Ohlone Parkway being built on contaminated soil.
“People told me they were voting for me because of that vote,” he said. “I put the health and safety of our community first.”
Hernandez did not respond to requests for comment.
In District 3, Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson had received 2,333 votes to opponent Justin Cummings’ 1,900. Ami Chen-Mills got 880.
Cummings says he is cautiously optimistic
“If we’re heading into a runoff, we’ll be looking forward to keeping up the momentum,” he said.
Cummings says that his connections with the diverse spectrums of the community helped push him to the runoff.
He also says he garnered support for his mayorship during 2020 when the community was reeling from the pandemic, the CZU Lightning Complex fires and the social unrest fomented by the murder of George Floyd.
Kalantari-Johnson says she focused her campaign on reaching out to voters, walking the district and making phone calls.
“I think that paid off,” she said.
Also resonating with constituents, she says, is that, if elected, Kalantari-Johnson would be the only woman on the board, which white men currently populate.
She says her work with nonprofit organizations and on the city council propelled her to the runoff.
“Voters want a leader who is in action, and who is really trying to work toward solutions and who is a collaborative thinker and can work across sectors and work across the county,” she said. That’s what the voters want, and they’ve seen it in me either through my professional work or my work on the City Council, and they know I can put it to scale at the county level.”
The four will face off in the Nov. 8 election.In the California Assembly race, 29th District incumbent Robert Rivas edged out Republican challenger Stephanie Castro with 65% of the vote. At the same time, in the 30th Assembly District, Democrat Dawn Addis and Republican Vicki Nohrden appear headed to the November runoff, having so far garnered 43.4% and 33.4%, respectively.
Measure D—which was hailed by many as a way to get Santa Cruz County residents out of their vehicles, off the roads and onto a bike-pedestrian path that replaced the rail line—was dealt a crushing blow Tuesday when it went down in a landslide.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Santa Cruz County election results show 21,021 people had voted against it, while 8,580 voted yes.
The measure would have rewritten the county’s general plan with language of developing a trail-only model along the county’s existing rail corridor, a plan that could have included removing the tracks in a process called “railbanking.”
But opponents—many of whom hope in the future to see passenger rail spanning the length of the county, with a trail alongside it—said the measure would have forever removed the rail option.
In a prepared statement, Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission spokeswoman Shannon Munz said that rail funding has not changed as a result of the vote, but that staff will continue to look for future passenger rail funding opportunities.
“The RTC will be looking to our commissioners and policy makers for their priorities and how they want to proceed from here,” Munz said.
The commission is also working on environmental impact reports for rail trail segments 8-12, she said.
Brian Peoples, Executive Director of Trail Now–which was at the forefront of support for the measure–says that the RTC will soon consider the future of work along the rail corridor, with options that could include an interim trail or work on the more expensive rail-trail.
But it is unclear when such a discussion will occur. Munz says it is not slated for the June 16 meeting, and the RTC will not meet in July.
But the discussion has trail-only advocates concerned. Peoples says that the more costly option of working on both the rail and trail—the RTC estimates that option could cost as much as $250 million—could delay a trail for years.
“I hope we don’t wait another decade to open the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail,” he says. “There are three main transportation corridors: Highway 1, Soquel and the Coastal Corridor. All three need to be open for our community to be mobile, and I hope the vote does not prevent us from opening the coastal trail in a timely and cost-effective manner.”
County Clerk Tricia Webber says that just 30,340 ballots have been recorded so far, representing just 18.1% of registered voters. That number could soon change, however. The office received 35,000 vote-by-mail ballots Tuesday, which could more than double that number.
If that happens, it would make the number average for a primary year, Webber said.
Mesiti-Miller said the wide margin of the victory also came as an unexpected shock because of the support the measure apparently had–Yes Greenway reported nearly $500,000 in campaign financing, while No Way Greenway raised around $290,000.
“That we prevailed by such a large margin when we were outgunned is pretty significant,” Mesiti-Miller said.
He attributed the success in part to the breadth of people and organizations that opposed the measure. This included businesses, schoolteachers, to labor unions, environmentalists and democratic clubs, he said.
“Everybody stood together,” he said. “It was pretty surprising.”
Mesiti-Miller also says the measure’s defeat is a win for South County, which did not stand to benefit from a trail-only model.
“We’re not going to favor one part of the county over another,” he said. “Everybody needs to benefit. The idea of a trail only between Santa Cruz and Watsonville was just unacceptable. Despite the many claims, there is no way you can claim that is an equitable use of the rail corridor.”
AGENTS OF CHANGE: A COLLABORATIVE POETRY PROJECT Santa Cruz Poet Laureate David Allen Sullivan and friends will be presenting “Agents of Change: A Collaborative Poetry Project” at the Downtown Santa Cruz Public Library from June 10 to Sept. 2. The project features local poets writing about images from local artsits that relate to the idea of change. “Change can be anything,” the organizers write. “Climate change, personal change, linguistic change, change of minds, political change, spiritual change, change in the weather, spare change, menopause, the Yi Jing, etc.” On Saturday, June 18, there will be an “Agents of Change” poetry workshop from 11am-noon, and an art show and poetry reading from noon-1pm at the Downtown Library. santacruzagentsofchange.wordpress.com.
STEEL HOUSE FEATURING EDWARD SIMON, SCOTT COLLEY, BRIAN BLADE Pianist Edward Simon, acoustic bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade is jazz powerhouse Steel House. Since meeting in New York, the trio has shared stages and studios, playing many different kinds of music together. Steel House was formed as a “dedicated place for their joint musical explorations—spirited and serious, caring and care-free.” $36.75/$42; $21/students. Thursday, June 9, 7pm. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. kuumbwajazz.org.
W.I.T.C.H. WITH L’ÉCLAIR WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc), fronted by energetic talent Jagari, is considered the dominant force behind Zamrock, a little-known musical genre born in the early ’70s in Zambia, Africa. Zamrock melds the traditional rhythmic backbone of African tribal music with psych, garage rock, blues and funk, resulting in something familiar and completely different from anything else. (Read more about WITCH). $22/$27 plus fees. Friday, June 10, 9pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. folkyeah.com.
CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE The six-time Grammy Award-winning bassist/composer and host of NPR’s “Jazz Night in America” has recorded as a sideman on more than 300 dates. Things changed in 1995 when McBride recorded his debut as a band leader. Aside from large scale gigs with everyone from Chick Corea to George Duke, McBride has been artist-in-residence and artistic director with organizations such as Jazz House Kids, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Jazz Museum in Harlem and Jazz Aspen. Meanwhile, the Christian McBride Big Band continues to deliver waves of creative flow—and accolades. $47.25/$52.50; $26.25/students (7pm) and $36.75/$42; $21/students (9pm). Friday, June 10. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. kuumbwajazz.org.
ALLAH-LAS WITH KOLUMBO Allah-Las singer/guitarist Miles Michaud has fond memories of ditching class with his bandmates in high school. Michaud, drummer Matthew Correia, bassist Spencer Dunham and lead guitarist Pedrum Siadatian would hit the mega L.A. record store Amoeba Music. They’d file through thousands of records, experiencing moments of rock and roll clarity, epiphanies and revelations, leading to their authentic cover of The Frantics’ 1966 instrumental “No Werewolf.” $31.50 plus fees. Friday, June 10, 8pm. Rio Theatre, 205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. folkyeah.com.
‘PILATES FOR YOUR BEST SEX LIFE’ The premiere of Dax Mills’ show is part stand-up, part Pilates and sex tutorial. The introduction explains the basic concepts of Pilates, along with a discussion of the pelvic floor and orgasm. Mills and other locals model photographs of the exercises. All attendees receive an excerpt of the book for private viewing. $25. Saturday, June 11, 8pm. Broadway Playhouse, 526 Broadway Ave., Santa Cruz. da*********@gm***.com.
LONG BEACH DUB ALLSTARS WITH BURNT PLUS HIJINX Sublime fans unite! Everyone in the “Reunion” iteration of LBDAS is part of the Sublime extended family: Marshall Goodman “Ras MG” on drums, Michael “Miguel” Happoldt on lead guitar/vocals, Opie Ortiz on vocals, Jack Maness on vocals/guitar/keys, Tim Wu on sax/flute/vocals and Edwin Kampwith on bass. If some of those names sound familiar, they are. The late great Sublime frontman Bradley Nowell often included them in his lyrical repertoire. $25/$30 plus fees. Saturday, June 11, 9pm. Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. moesalley.com.
JERRY MILLER BAND The Moby Grape frontman was a part of San Francisco’s original psych-rock sound spawned by 1960s Haight-Ashbury. They played Monterey Pop—Otis Redding followed their set. Over 50 years after the Grape’s debut album, Miller is the only original member who has consistently toured and made music since the band’s breakup. However, original Grape Don Stevenson is flying in from Canada to join Miller, guitarist Terry Hiatt and drummer Fuzzy John Oxendine on tunes like “Indifference” and “Omaha.” $20. Saturday, June 11, 8pm. Michael’s on Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. michaelsonmainmusic.com.
COMMUNITY
EL MERCADO FARMERS MARKET The weekly farmers market aims to decrease food insecurity and improve access to health resources for Pajaro Valley families. The goal is to make shopping as easy as possible and offer healthy choices to everyone. Free. Tuesday, June 14, 2-6pm. Pinto Lake City Park, 451 Green Valley Road, Watsonville. pvhealthtrust.org/el-mercado.
GROUPS
WOMENCARE ARM-IN-ARM This cancer support group is for women with advanced, recurrent or metastatic cancer. Meets every Monday on Zoom. Free. Registration required. Monday, June 12, 12:30pm. 831-457-2273. womencaresantacruz.org.
OUTDOORS
DOORS OPEN CALIFORNIA AT THE CASTRO ADOBE The first-ever Doors Open California weekend will offer special tours of the interior rooms of the two-story adobe, including the famous fandango room, one of the last remaining indoor cocinas in California and the lush gardens. Learn about the adobe’s ongoing restoration and the meticulous creation of 2,400 adobe bricks. Tours also include the history of the Castro family, the vaqueros who worked the rancho and plenty of background on the Rancho period. (Read more about the Castro Adobe). $20. Saturday, June 11, 10am-4pm. 184 Old Adobe Road, Watsonville. californiapreservation.org/doca.
I’m talking to Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins by phone as he walks around the new Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit in Manhattan’s Starrett-Lehigh Building, which features more than 200 pieces—including many never before seen by the public—from the collection of the artist’s family. He’s feeling sensations that only great art can produce. He’s shaken. He’s inspired.
“I got Basquiated,” he says. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”
With Third Eye Blind’s first acoustic album coming out June 24, I’m wondering how it took his band a quarter-century to make one, considering their multi-platinum, self-titled debut album—which featured hit singles like “Semi-Charmed Life,” “How It’s Going to Be,” “Graduate” and “Losing a Whole Year”—came out in 1997, around the height of the ’90s unplugged craze.
“I don’t know,” he says, with a bit of a chuckle, still fired up by the art around him. “But we’re gonna make another one. I just think I’m in a maker’s mindset now, you know? Basquiat, you just see this huge, huge amount of output that he did, and I think that I have to be in a rock ’n’ roll mindset, which is I don’t give a fuck what you think, this is my voice and I’m putting it out there. And that’s really how it has to be. That’s what makes rock music immediate and erotic and all the things that we like about it. Years ago, probably, I got myself somehow kicked out of that mindset, and now we’re just kind of gleefully creative.”
The upcoming Third Eye Blind Unplugged features acoustic reworkings of those four early singles, as well as subsequent hits like “Never Let You Go” and “Blinded,” as well as deeper cuts like “Palm Reader” and “God of Wine.” Though the San Francisco band became known around the world for high-energy anthems when “Semi-Charmed Life” became a Top 40 hit in six countries, that sunny sound has sometimes obscured very dark lyrics. On the new acoustic album, the songs get a more somber, contemplative treatment that often suits their lyrics better.
“I think there’s some element of just dealing with darkness in a way that somehow is soothing, like dark lullabies to myself,” says Jenkins.
He doesn’t consider either the electric or acoustic approach more authoritative. “These versions of these songs are just as valid to me as the ones that are on their original albums,” he says. “Because there is no ultimate version of the song. There’s the thing that I kind of download from the mystic, from some kind of mysticism, to what we record, and getting close to that. And you never arrive. So I think that’s what made [the Unplugged album] like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s make it.’”
As the band prepares for its “Summer Gods: 25 Years in the Blind” national tour, Jenkins is excited to play the band’s warm-up show for the tour in Santa Cruz—which is not only his favorite place to surf, but the place to which he traces back his surfing obsession.
“Pleasure Point was the first time I’d ever been on a wave,” he says. He was a young kid at the time, and a neighbor basically put him in a wetsuit and threw him out in the waves to fend for himself.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” he says. But whatever he did, he liked it, and it forged a deep connection with Santa Cruz, and the ocean.
“Very deep,” he says. “It goes way back. I always wanted to be a marine biologist, and actually started school in marine biology, and I worked on kelp reefs in the summers for two years, kelp reef restoration. So when I’m out there, you know, when I’m out at Steamer and floating in the swell and waiting for the sets to come—just kind of floating in the kelp and sliding on it and seeing these big fat otters that are just incredibly well fed—there’s this feeling, this moment of wellness of all things.”
He’s honoring that connection on this tour by funding carbon offsets not only for everything the band does on the road, but also for the fans driving to and from the shows. A portion of each ticket will go to help the nonprofit group SeaTrees restore the kelp ecosystem along the California coast, which has lost as much as 90% of its kelp forests in some parts of the state due to the invasive purple sea urchins.
“This little warm-up show that we’re doing at the Catalyst is going to be the launch of our initiative in restoring kelp reefs,” says Jenkins. “It goes back to when I was a little kid, it goes back to the reefs that I worked on in college. So there’s a huge through-line, and as a surfer I think it’s natural that I want to give back to this environment that is foundational to my life.”
Third Eye Blind plays the Catalyst at 8pm on Sunday, June 19. $39.50/$45. catalystclub.com.
In the early ’60s, modernist landscape architect Robert Royston took on an ambitious project: designing what’s now the Quarry Amphitheater on the UC Santa Cruz campus. Like Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, Royston’s approach to creating the venue centers around environmental preservation. After all, the Quarry is located in a majestic setting cuddled by a canopy of towering redwoods, and the space’s limestone provides natural acoustics far superior to most indoor concert halls.
Royston used the elements of nature, carving the venue out of the former lime quarry. The layout is unique and asymmetrical, but there isn’t a bad seat in the joint.
Since its construction, the Quarry has hosted experimental theater and Shakespeare. Students have held Bollywood tributes and political rallies; renowned cultural figures, including Angela Davis, Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, have spoken, and notable musicians, from Ravi Shankar to Joan Baez, have performed. The Quarry also made an ideal spot for topless sunbathing in the ’70s.
Following an $8 million renovation that includes upgrades to the stage, electrical infrastructure and capacity expansion—the amphitheater now seats 2,700, making it Santa Cruz’s largest outdoor venue—the Quarry reopened in 2017 after lying dormant for more than a decade.
Fast forward another five years: Last April, Quarry general manager Jose Reyes-Olivias announced a collaboration between the venue and Noise Pop.
“Noise Pop’s connection to independent music and culture felt like a perfect fit to find some great artists to play here,” he said.
Noise Pop Industries founder Kevin Arnold delivered an initial statement that resonated with the same excitement: “We’re fortunate to have forged a partnership built on a shared vision and passion for the potential of the Quarry with the UCSC community.”
In addition to founding the Noise Pop Festival and co-founding Treasure Island Musical Festival and Another Planet, the San Francisco-based Noise Pop Industries has produced hundreds of shows throughout the Bay Area and beyond. As champions of up-and-coming indie artists, the organization’s impressive resume features the Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse and early White Stripes shows.
Mexican singer-songwriter Carla Morrison kicks off the Quarry-Noise Pop alliance on June 24—she’s touring for the first time in six years. Morrison’s international following is impressive—multiple platinum records, 3.2 billion streams, stadium sellouts—but her courage in writing about her mental health struggles has proven more captivating. Especially since her music breaks through language barriers—most of Morrison’s songs are sung in Spanish—and touches listeners deeply.
Morrison’s acclaimed 2022 release El Renacimiento (The Rebirth) is just that—a return, a “rebirth,” after an extended hiatus.
“I just felt like people were more enamored with my work than I was,” Morrison told Billboard. “Now that I think back on it, I was really depressed. But at that time, I didn’t know I was.”
El Renacimiento is a deep emotional dive. The 12 carefully crafted tracks exude love, forgiveness, mourning, anxiety, healing and hope through acoustic compositions, electronica, indie rock and straightforward pop. “Te Perdi” (“I Lost You”) is a stripped-down, heart-on-her-sleeve ballad with a gentle percussive backbeat. Morrison’s delicate alto vocals build up to a poignant eruption about letting herself let go.
Meanwhile, the Quarry-Noise Pop 2022 Summer Concert Series continues Aug. 12-13 with two nights of very different music. For 20 years, STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9) has branded itself as being undefinable. Eventually, the jam band community embraced the five-piece instrumental outfit for their live improvisational musical expanses that can go on—and on. STS9’s fully immersive live shows also include mind-bending light shows in sync with the music. A STS9 show might be what Ken Kesey envisioned acid tests could look like in the future.
Carla Morrison performs Friday, June 24, 7pm. Irene Diaz opens. $44.50/$50; $34.50/students plus fees. STS9 plays Friday, Aug. 12 and Saturday, Aug. 13, 7pm. $47.50/$54.50; $77.50/premium; $37.50/students plus fees. Two nights $95; $155/premium; $77.50/students plus fees. Quarry Amphitheater at UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz. quarry.ucsc.edu.
I wanted to express my disappointment in the lack of information, discussions or articles regarding the national tragedy that was the domestic terrorist attack in Buffalo on May 14. I spent some time flipping back and forth between your most recent edition and the previous edition, thinking I must have been wrong. While I understand Good Times is primarily focused on local news, I wonder what our city has to say about this ongoing issue? What do our council members have to say about racism in Santa Cruz today? What are ways that white supremacy is being sustained and encouraged in our town? Or how is our town calling out and exposing racism in our county? We tout a progressive agenda often, but I have personally experienced many individuals who loudly express racist ideology and actively make certain restaurants, bars and other public spaces unsafe for minorities. These are not isolated incidents, and I firmly believe Santa Cruz needs to continue reconciling the background of white supremacy in our community.
I want to know what our community is doing to address the growing number of domestic terrorist attacks perpetrated by white young men against minority communities. Do we have an education system that has a stance on teaching about microaggressions, antiracist history lessons and LGBTQ inclusive language? Does our local media talk about the Buffalo attack with a particular slant that depicts the perpetrator as a young/innocent/disturbed/isolated youth? Can we discuss how our white privilege is arming and encouraging white people to take violent steps with the focus on sowing fear and hate into communities?
We have all seen plenty of social media posts about this attack, but I want to hear from our local community and journalists about what is happening in our own backyard and how we should respond to make this community safe.
Chaney Janssen
Santa Cruz
These letters do not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@go*******.sc
Hate crimes and bigotry are on the rise in this country, sometimes leading to murder and mayhem. Most of our attention is with crimes against Blacks and Asians and other minorities such as the LGBTQ community. Often forgotten is the increase of anti-semitism in this country and the world. The Santa Cruz City Council recognized this, and passed a strong resolution in its condemnation of Jew hatred and offering its support to the local Jewish community. Resolution NS 29 is a strong commitment to my community and affirmation that hate against Jews is no less egregious than hateful acts against other minorities.
I urge the city councils of Scotts Valley, Watsonville and Capitola as well as our Board of Supervisors to review and adopt the language of NS 29 so that the entire county can speak with one voice in support of our Jewish community.
Gil Stein
Aptos
These letters do not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@go*******.sc
