So many of the people who walk among us in Santa Cruz County have incredible life stories that would enthrall us—if we only knew. One thing I’ve always loved about Good Times is that we can tell those stories in a way that really goes in-depth about someone’s experiences, and how those experiences have shaped them. One week we might have a cover story about how an election will decide the future of the South County, or how we can support dozens of organizations doing important work in every sector of our county, and then the next week we can devote those same pages to a far more intimate look at that one person whose story you should know.
This week, that one person is longtime Ben Lomond resident Karin Babbitt. Coming from our resident knower-of-all-things-comedy DNA, you might guess that her untold story comes from the world of stand-up, and you’d be right. The story of her upbringing and trailblazing comedy comes at exactly the right time, as not only is there a new bookabout Disney animators that includes both of her parents, but, more importantly, Babbitt herself has made a return to comedy, and will be performing this week at Greater Purpose Brewery.
Oh, and speaking of dozens of organizations doing important work, read Erin Malsbury’s story this week on the environmental work being done by Santa Cruz Gives groups, and then check out the leaderboard at santacruzgives.org to see how well the campaign is going in week two—and while you’re there, donate to some of our 63 nonprofits. This Thanksgiving week, it’s a great way to give thanks for the incredible work they do for us year-round.
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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IN LANE SIGHT A surfer at Steamer Lane earlier this month. Photograph by Jo Gliddon.
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GOOD IDEA
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
Avoid the Black Friday fistfights, and instead show your support for local businesses this weekend on Small Business Saturday. In a fun twist for local shoppers, there will be 300 Golden Envelopes hidden in bags throughout downtown Santa Cruz shops and each one will contain a special prize. For a list of all participating shops, visit downtownsantacruz.com/do/the-golden-envelope.
GOOD WORK
BREAKTHROUGH SCIENTISTS
UCSC undergrads won a gold medal at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Grand Jamboree in Paris last month. The UCSC iGEM team set out to address the high cost and limited availability of Type 2 diabetes medication, and through the production of a yeast-based therapeutic that can be grown locally and affordably, they did just that. Learn more at: jamboree.igem.org/2022.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“If someone asks you why you’re crying, you can just say, ‘Because of how wrong you are.’”
Re: “South County Questions Firing of Fairgrounds CEO” (GT, 10/13): Dirty tricks. In the case of the Fair Board President and the State Department of Food and Agriculture, this is the best that can be offered to us in Santa Cruz County. The defamation and dismissal of David Kegebein, CEO of the Fair, involved the kind of derision and malicious treatment of a person we’d expect to find in lesser states and counties.
A small group of unhappy critics hounded state officials with complaints to the point that they felt the need to use the most blunt instrument of bureaucratic control—the unquestionable audit. Avoiding the work of a solution to issues raised, the state instead worked to make the target not only wrong but evil in the eyes of the public. The audit was conducted at light speed for the state and delivered in a way that created the appearance of intentional malfeasance.
It was an easy reach for the governor’s skilled appointees to employ tactics usually reserved only for political opponents up for election. Ignore accomplishment. Inflate the audit report. Cite thousands of pages of laws, directives and outdated forms and guidance documents. Laser focus on minute details while ignoring the responsibility of the state. Establish deadlines that are impossible to meet. Suppress opposition. And above all, keep it all as secret as possible.
Once the state blade is sharpened, politics demand that the bureaucrats find local collaborators to implement the end. In this case, Fair Board President Don Dietrich was their huckleberry. Any local voice that counseled fair treatment of the CEO would have to be throttled by dirty tricks. The usual process of handling audits had to be twisted. Dietrich, not the Board as a whole, responded to the audit and accepted the audit without question as to the content or process. The strike was planned after the annual Fair was over. The audit was withheld and kept secret until close to the strike. The CEO was informed of his pending dismissal the day before the strike, with no opportunity offered to address the audit conclusions.
There was the possibility that a majority of the Fair Board might vote in favor of a reasonable and respectful approach to the audit and the instigating complaints, so a show of force had to be made. Three Santa Cruz County Deputy Sheriffs were outside the meeting, bolstered by two CHP officers.
Dietrich was formerly with the Sheriff’s Department, and the CDFA attorney claimed he requested the CHP. The CHP stayed at the scene of the strike until released by the CDFA. If that weren’t enough, it may have been necessary to threaten each of the unconvinced directors with replacement by the governor with less independent candidates. The dirty tricks paid off in the closed meeting of the Board and CDFA staff. The last blow was delivered with only Directors Estrada and Belgard opposing. Don Dietrich, as endorsed by the state, is now nominally in charge of the Fair and all its business, proclaiming that things are running “seamlessly.”
Believe this sordid tale or not, we are left with a Santa Cruz County Fair in chaos. The state and its collaborators have seized control at an inestimable cost. David Kegebein worked for 2 years without pay to get the Fair to both survive and thrive as a service we can all be proud of. Any person should have the chance to correct what their employer identifies as a problem. No one should be treated as a criminal without due process of law. The state rules, directives and countermeasures cited were made for the dishonest among us. David Kegebein is not only honest, but dedicated to the Fair and what it should stand for in the community he loves.
The collateral damage is to the many volunteers that contribute to the Fair. People who are happy to help out and have worked for many years with David to make the Fair successful. They have been stunned by the betrayal and left stranded in the aftermath. I hope this is the beginning of the saga and that we will find out what the real goal of the CDFA is in regard to the Fair and its extensive property.
The CDFA staff and the Fair Board should also be held accountable for the dirty tricks employed. Many question why it was necessary to employ so many dirty tricks if the CEO was actually guilty of the malfeasance alleged. If the truth had been sought, a corrective plan could have been put in place while David continued to move forward. We should urge legislators Rivas and Caballero to help in this regard. I hope David will find justice from the courts in his cause for wrongful termination and slander. I hope the volunteers hang in there as long as the situation is tolerable. I’ve lived my whole life in Watsonville and it is a profound disappointment to find that the state and its functionaries are free to crush people’s spirits rather than elevate them. I still believe we’re better than that, though.
DENNIS OSMER | FORMER MAYOR, WATSONVILLE
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Ben Lomond resident Karin Babbitt grew up in Hollywood, California, where her parents Art and Dina Babbitt worked as animators. Every Sunday at 9 o’clock, Karin would get very quiet while curling up on the living room couch—so nobody would see her and tell her to go to bed—and watch The Ed Sullivan Show. Babbitt already liked comedians like Joan Rivers, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, but on May 9, 1965, she saw Richard Pryor’s first TV appearance—and like that, she was hooked.
“I’ve always been funny,” says Babbitt over food in Felton. “I’m what’s called in Yiddish a ‘patsh,’ which means a slap. So, if you’re really funny, it’s like you wake people up. I saw Richard Pryor do it and I thought, ‘That is exactly what I am going to do.’”
But the world’s first real comedy club, the Comedy Store in L.A.—where Babbitt would eventually get her name painted on the wall, next to Jerry Seinfeld’s—wouldn’t open for another seven years. And day-to-day life with Hollywood’s famous Babbitt family was an enormous shadow to grow up under.
Babbitt’s father Art Babbitt had been one of Walt Disney’s top animators; not only creating the lovably iconic Goofy, but also revolutionizing the way animation was done. Art also believed in workers’ rights, and fought to unionize the Disney animators in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court—and won. That story is explored in depth in a new book by Jake Friedman called The Disney Revolt.
“My father was never at home, it was way after the strike,” says Babbitt. “He was working for United Productions of America, and Art Babbitt Films. He was a mythological creature that arrived when food was served. Our house, that he designed, was two stories—crazy-ass modern, very unique—and the entire front of the house was glass. So you could see the Hollywood skyline, the Goodyear Blimp would fly by our kitchen window. When Santa Claus went down La Brea at Christmas time, we could hear him ho-ho-hoing in our bedrooms. To the left is Mount Baldy, to the right you can see the ocean glimmering and [in 1965] if you looked downtown you could see the smoke rising from the riots in Watts,” Babbitt explains.
Babbitt’s mother Dina, who moved to Bonny Doon in the 1970s, was an artist and a Holocaust survivor, and—while just a footnote in The Disney Revolt—was the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, a 1999 documentary called Eyewitness and an illustrated story in the back of X-Men: Magneto with a forward by Stan Lee.
Karin Babbitt (front row, left) at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, one of three locations of the legendary Comedy Store, in the ’80s. Babbitt, who was a favorite of Comedy Store owner Mitzi Shore, has returned to stand-up and performs at Greater Purpose Brewery on Saturday, Dec. 3.
Amid the hustle and bustle of the Babbitt household, young Karin began doing what every kid growing up in Hollywood did—she took acting lessons.
“I took acting classes as a kid at a place called University of Judaism,” says Babbitt. “Taking acting classes is like a remedial thing in Hollywood. In most places, you do Little League to try to influence your behavior and get team spirit. In L.A., they put you in children’s theater, and I was in the Hollywood Children’s Theatre. Once I got to high school there was so much delinquency going on that it made it impossible for me to audition for Music Man because I was passed out from acid on the front lawn.”
During her years at the University of Judaism, Karin was friends with Cathy Warner, who later became the Harbor High School drama and dance teacher. They took dance lessons from influencers like Bella Lewitzky and acting lessons from pioneers like Benjamin Zemach. “It was the only place where I could go and feel like I was being heard,” says Babbitt.
When Babbitt was 12, she was taken to her first Renaissance Faire in Agoura Hills by an art teacher, and her life took a turn. “It was the height of the hippie days, and I was taken there and I felt at home,” Karin recalls.” I have always been an anglophile and a Queen Elizabeth freak. I got addicted to Ren Faires and started learning about dialects and Shakespeare and things I wasn’t being taught in school. That’s how I ended up on The Tonight Show.”
In fact, Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show was Babbitt’s first venture into stand-up comedy—in front of nine million people. She had created a character that she developed during her time at Ren Faire called Wench Penelope, who would come out before the queen’s show and sweep the stage and do a whole riff. What started happening was more people were coming to see Wench Penelope then would hang out for the queen. Babbitt really got into the persona of Wench Penelope, rolling in mud before she went on with a beef bone in her hand. It was there she was “discovered” and given a role on The Tonight Show in a sketch with Carson.
“Except they cleaned me up and gave me a push-up bra,” Babbitt recalls of her first brush with show-biz sexism.
Babbitt in 1977, a year before she first took the stage at the Comedy Store in L.A. PHOTO: COURTESY OF KARIN BABBITT
High school proved troubling for Babbitt’s renegade teenager energy. Finding herself getting kicked out of school constantly for mouthing off to teachers, it was beyond her ability to auto-correct. “I could never stop with the punchlines,” says Karin. “It’s kind of a form of OCD with me. It’s something I do to relax myself. I think in joke structure.”
Karin started joining groups like the Students for a Democratic Society and “different commie clubs”; she didn’t know anything about Trotsky, but she was mad, and trying to find something that meant something to her. Despite low grades, Karin was forced to graduate at 16, because, “they just wanted me to leave.”
Babbitt has a learning disability called Dyscalculia that was undiagnosed at the time; it’s like Dyslexia, but with numbers reversed instead of letters. So after attending college at Cal State L.A. for four years, she still couldn’t graduate because she couldn’t pass math. Always the rebel, she bought a class ring anyway, and “of course, it had the wrong year on it,” Babbitt remembers.
In order to earn some money, Babbitt started working at the coat check at the Starwood, a nightclub at the center of culture in West Hollywood.
“I would sleep during the day, and at night I would visit a bunch of hooker friends that lived off Sunset, and we would hang at the Starwood and drink all night long and go home with people,” Babbitt recalls. Just 19 years old, Babbitt got married—and was abandoned by her husband after 90 days.
“After that person left me, I was in the same apartment, and there were a lot of holes in the walls where I put my fist through, and I could just not wake up and not be high. I always felt sorry for myself, and wondering why people didn’t understand what a prodigy I was. I had never even done comedy at that point, I just knew,” says Babbitt.
Although Babbitt was sneaking into the Comedy Store and feeling fulfilled basking in the glow of laughter, she was also an addict sinking down into her own morass. It took some trials and a lot of errors, but at age 21, Karin Babbitt got clean. “I tried three more times to pass the math class in college, and the professor ended up giving me a courtesy C, so I could graduate from Cal State L.A.—which, if you say it fast enough, people think you said UCLA and are really impressed,” Babbitt jokes.
There comes a moment in one’s life where dreaming has to match up with reality, and on an amateur night in 1978, Babbitt got onstage at the Comedy Store. The owner, the legendary Mitzi Shore, happened to be there and loved her act. “She said, ‘Oh Karen, I’m making you a regular. Keep calling for your spots.’ I remember going home in my beat-up car just screaming, ‘I did it!’ I would go to work during the day at this little health store and then go to the Comedy Store where I was up until 1 or 2:30 in the morning in the Belly Room,” says Babbitt. The Comedy Store had three rooms you could perform in, and the Belly Room was the broom closet where often only two people would be in the audience.
After four years of performing, Babbitt was starting to make a little money so she didn’t have to work so many jobs during the day. At five years, Shore promoted Babbitt to the more prestigious Original Room and Main Room shows. “And I became able to survive, barely,” Babbitt says. “If you got the Main Room on a weekend, you would get a cut of the door and be able to pay your rent. At the time it was the best showcase in town—for men. When I was there, on the roster there were 200 regulars and only 12 of them were women. I was fortunate enough to be one of them. And there was a much prescribed type of comedian that women were allowed to be. You needed to be very self-deprecating, but if you were attractive in any way, the only person that would take a chance is Mitzi. She loved the really absurd, attractive women who would get onstage and play against type and be loony.”
Comedy is tribal, and while the other female comics in the sea of male comedians bonded over drinks and drugs, Babbitt started a 12-step meeting at the Comedy Store. Richard Pryor even stopped in once or twice.
During this time, Shore was producing a TV special called Girls of the Comedy Store and chose Karin to be one of the “girls.” So Babbitt began the process of working out her new material, some of which was based on her intense childbirth experience.
“I gave birth to a critically ill child in 1984,” says Babbitt. “She was in the ICU and I was doing comedy, because you have to earn a living. So I would go to the Comedy Store, and after go straight to Cedar Sinai ICU to be with the baby, run home, crash and then back to the ICU until it was time to go onstage again.”
In preparation for the TV show, Babbitt was working out her new material onstage at the Comedy Store, including a childbirth bit. “And Robin Williams comes in every night and sits front row and watches and talks to me afterwards and tells me how great the bit is and asks me questions about it and the birth experience,” says Babbitt. She says he put some of her jokes in his hit special Live from the Met—without her permission.
“There’s nothing more personal you can rip off from a woman than her birth story, especially with a kid in the ICU,” she says.
Babbitt’s parents Art, a Disney animator, and Dina, an artist and Holocaust survivor. They divorced in 1963, and Dina later moved to Ben Lomond. Dina told her story of painting watercolors at Auschwitz—which she would fight her entire life to get back from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland—in the Oscar-nominated 1999 film “Eyewitness.” PHOTO: COURTESY OF KARIN BABBITT
Girls of the Comedy Store, released in 1986, didn’t do much for Babbitt’s career. There was an industry bias against female comedians, one that still haunts comedy clubs across America. “It wasn’t until Brett Butler that there was an attractive, female comedian allowed into the circle and given a career in comedy on TV,” she says. “People would mention Rita Rudner, but she was simpering and talked in a baby-talk voice, and smiled and wasn’t a threat. Comedians like Lois Bromfield and I were very similar, kind of dyke-y. I mean I have never been attracted to a woman, but there’s nothing feminine about me. I’ve faked it when I had to, but I was always just one of the fellows, and that was not OK at the time.”
Most people don’t recognize that 90% of being a comedian is waiting to get onstage. And while Babbitt had great times at the Comedy Store with friends like Charlie Hill, Johnny Witherspoon, Arsenio Hall, Jimmy Walker and her close pal Andrew Dice Clay, there were too many drugs and too much alcohol to be there for longer than her set. “So I didn’t go do all the socializing after-hours or on weekends,” she says.
After her daughter stabilized enough to move, Babbitt relocated to Ben Lomond in 1988 and started all over in the comedy world. Trying to hustle and get gigs at the SF Punchline and Cobb’s, Babbitt was promoting herself through radio, doing shows with Live 105’s Alex Bennet and Paul “The Lobster” Wells. But soon, she began to hear the same biases and sexist attitudes she heard in L.A.
“During the first comedy competitions in San Francisco, I made it to the finals in 1990, and was the only female finalist, and thought that would finally make me a bookable comic that could get gigs without having to hang out. And still, I wasn’t getting the gigs. I could get a feature spot every now and then, but never a headliner set and because I ‘didn’t hang out,’ and that can be interpreted a lot of different ways, because it was always a male manager that was saying it. There’s a glass ceiling, and people say, ‘We’re thankful to you for paving the way for us, we’re grateful that you did all that.’ And I’m glad I could be of service, but I’m not going to get a tattoo that says ‘no regrets,’ because I have regrets. I really regret that there was a ceiling. It’s been very painful hitting it over and over,” Babbitt says.
In 1989, after the Loma Prieta earthquake, Babbitt produced Laughquake, a night of comedy to benefit those hit hardest. The benefit oversold the Catalyst and was held at the Civic.
In 1992, Babbitt was doing a little more TV, getting on A&E and The Rosie O’Donnell Show and “this whole time I still have this child who is not doing well,” says Babbitt. “My ass gets so kicked from this glass ceiling and other events in my life, I can’t do it anymore. I remember driving out to Tommy T’s in Pleasanton, and the owner shakes his head and says, ‘Not a fan, sorry.’ I remember sobbing on the highway, eating these chocolate-covered coffee beans to stay awake and having an anxiety attack at 2am, and realizing life has kicked comedy’s ass for me,” Babbitt says.
Within a year—while working on the cleaning crew at Scotts Valley’s Mission Springs Conference Center, and eating a lot of ramen—she had a soul-searching moment where she thought about what else she had wanted to do in her life besides stand-up comedy. Babbitt thought, “I’ve always wanted to be a high school drama teacher. There’s got to be disenfranchised, screwed up kids like me who need some sort of place they can be themselves,” she recalls. “And I did that for 20 years.”
Teaching originally at San Lorenzo Valley High School and then at Scotts Valley High School, Babbitt built a little comedy club in her classroom where the students could put their own names on the wall. Working as a drama and video productions teacher, Karin directed over 50 productions and won numerous awards. In 2019, she began working at the Options for All Film and Media Studio in Sunnyvale, helping students with special needs learn how to make movies.
Babbitt is currently working on a project for the Disney Family Museum—where she has been a guest lecturer—with her neurodivergent students.
And after 20 years, Babbitt recently returned to perform comedy at Tommy T’s, and the crowd went wild. “It feels good to finally be back onstage and waking people up again,” she says.
Karen Babbitt will perform at Greater Purpose Brewery on Saturday Dec. 3, at 7:30pm. $10.
When Laurie Egan began working as a “River Champion” for the Coastal Watershed Council in 2013, she frequently found that people didn’t even know the name of the San Lorenzo River. The river that winds through downtown Santa Cruz and provides 100,000 people with drinking water was an afterthought to many residents.
“Even some of the simplest connections to this river just weren’t there as a community,” she says. Over the years, through the efforts of nonprofits like the Coastal Watershed Council and its partners, she watched that ignorance largely disappear.
“Now people know exactly where the river is. They have ideas for how they want to see it improve,” she says. “There’s a much stronger connection to what this space could be, and we hear from folks that have used the river for many, many years that it is so much better today than it used to be.”
When the Coastal Watershed Council started in 1995, it attempted to cover several watersheds in the Monterey Bay Area. But over time, the nonprofit zeroed in on the San Lorenzo. In 2013, it co-founded the San Lorenzo River Alliance, which included government, business and community partners.
“And then one of the things we realized is even within that, there was still this incredible need specifically along the last two and a half miles of the river—this urban stretch—which continually was put on the back burner,” says Egan.
Now CWC focuses its efforts on that last section, hosting restoration planting days, educational outreach events and conversations with the Beach Flats communities bordering the river.
As we walk along the bank, she points out native bushes and flowers planted by students and volunteers. The sticky monkey-flower is a favorite among elementary school kids, both for its playful name and its bright mango-colored blooms. Other river visitors love the native sage for its sweet smell. Birds and butterflies pass us on the trail.
“When you get off the path and spend some time even just 20 feet over there down in the channel, the city melts away a little bit,” says Egan. “Plants and birds and the calmness of nature—”
The clatter of metal interrupts her.
“And construction,” she says with a laugh.
CWC has intentionally focused its efforts on the stretch of river nearest the new development between the Laurel and Soquel Avenue bridges.
“Not only because it had a lot of invasive species that needed removal, which we’ve tackled,” says Egan. “But we really want our community to see what’s possible for the river, and in a few years time to be able to stand in that space and to look around and to not only see shiny new buildings or cafes on the river for the first time, but also see that balanced with a thriving river ecosystem.”
In addition to working on the river, CWC played a part in creating new requirements for downtown development along its shore. New buildings will incorporate the river into their design, Egan says. She hopes that the shift in focus, alongside youth education and planting days will draw more resources to the San Lorenzo.
“As we think about growth and development, as we think about climate change, as we think about all these different conversations, having clean water is foundational for all of it,” she says.
CWC hosts restoration events on the second Saturday of every month. To learn more about upcoming events, after-school programs, community partnerships and to explore features of the river ecosystem, visit coastal-watershed.org
Save Our Shores
As CWC works to restore the San Lorenzo, Save Our Shores tackles the surrounding beaches. Known for its beach cleanups, the local nonprofit is expanding its attention to after-school programs.
“Our big project for 2023 is reducing barriers to coastal access for our local youth,” says Krista Rogers, the Save Our Shores program manager. “Introducing our underserved youth to the Monterey Bay, our coastal environments and connecting them with ecosystems that they may not have the opportunities to connect with and hopefully inspiring them to become caretakers of this amazing place that we live in.”
The nonprofit will launch a 15-week after-school program called Junior Sanctuary Stewards. Once a week, kids will take buses from their schools to different locations around Monterey Bay, where they can participate in “education activities, restoration projects and just have fun with nature as the classroom,” says Rogers.
SOS planned the program to meet the after-school needs of parents, and to improve environmental access for the next generation, hopefully eventually inspiring action.
“Most people won’t be interested or want to conserve a place that they’ve never been or never experienced,” says Rogers. “So having those experiences is the first step in building stewards for the future.”
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
In a similar mindset, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation plans to expand its educational programs and improve access to the coast. The organization serves as the “nonprofit buddy and chief advocate of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary,” says director Ginaia Kelly.
The foundation funds programs like whale disentanglements, marine debris cleanups, bilingual educators and research projects.
For Santa Cruz Gives, the nonprofit is focusing on bringing “ocean education to inland underserved communities and bringing those schoolchildren out to our Sanctuary Exploration Center across the street from the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf,” says Kelly.
The students learn about watersheds and marine ecosystems at the center then go across the street to take water samples and observe the sea life around the wharf. The foundation stresses that Monterey Bay is a unique hotbed of life, and what happens inland directly affects it.
“Our mission is to leave a thriving and healthy Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary for future generations,” says Kelly.
She adds that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the sanctuary. “It’s because of the sanctuary that we are able to preserve and maintain this thriving ecosystem,” she says.
Watsonville Wetlands Watch
As its partners expand education for young kids, Watsonville Wetlands Watch empowers older students to change their communities.
“Our Santa Cruz Gives project is focused on the Watsonville Community Forest Project, which has two components,” says executive director Jonathan Pilch. “One is developing youth leadership within our Climate Core Youth Leadership Institute, which is a job training program for Watsonville area teens.”
The paid program involves urban forestry, watershed restoration and climate action projects.
“The other major component of our big idea for the Gives campaign is reforesting the city of Watsonville,” says Pilch. “We have a project that’s working to transform the current tree canopy in the city from a very low 9% to 30%.”
More trees around the community provide cleaner air, shade and habitat for native species. Watsonville Wetlands Watch has planted about 1,100 trees on schools, streets and parks, but it will take thousands more to reach the goal of 30%.
Putting youth leaders in charge of the urban forestry projects “is a great opportunity for them to step into their own voice,” says Pilch. “It opens their eyes to new career pathways and helps them understand that they have the ability to make a really big impact in their community.”
County Park Friends
From wetlands to beaches to redwood forests, Santa Cruz County is home to many parks. County Park Friends aims to “activate and maximize” those public spaces, says executive director Mariah Roberts.
Over half of the population lives in unincorporated areas and does not have city-funded services, meaning county parks provide the programs.
“And their public funding is not enough to truly deliver what our community wants and needs,” says Roberts.
County Park Friends is currently focusing on expanding free programs such as wheelchair basketball, docent-led family urban hikes and swimming lessons.
“We believe and know from research that time in nature is one of the most cost-effective ways to support mental health, physical health, social health,” says Roberts.
“We’re the backbone organization for a multi-agency effort called ParkRX Santa Cruz County … The funds raised will help us to be able to co-design and deliver programs that can be prescribed or referred from school counselors or clinics.”
The organization is collaborating with seventeen other nonprofits and plans to continue discussing equitable access to parks and the role they play in community health.
“It is larger than us,” says Roberts. “We are very, very aware of being one piece of a much larger movement. And we’re very excited about that.”
Regeneración
Climate change is not going away, but that’s no reason to give up. Each year, the Watsonville-based climate justice organization Regeneración hosts the Climate of Hope forum. This year, the forum will feature muralists, poets and other “artivists.”
“We can all find a place to plug in, and we can plug in according to our interests and passions,” says executive director and founder Nancy Faulstich.
“Art is a terrific way to help alert everybody to what’s happening with the environment and inspire people to take action.”
The creative process can also provide a way to cope with the losses that come with climate change, says Faulstich.
The nonprofit hopes that incorporating art into its activism will help build community, in addition to inspiring action. The group is currently organizing three artist-led workshops and plans to host more later in the year. The Climate of Hope forum will take place online on Feb. 23.
Donate to these and other Santa Cruz Gives groups at santacruzgives.org; follow @santacruzgives on Facebook and Instagram. The campaign runs through midnight on Dec. 31.
In a comeback reminiscent of his 2018 bid for Santa Cruz City Council, Justin Cummings has declared victory in the race for the 3rd District Santa Cruz County Supervisor after Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson conceded Monday night.
In updated results released by the Santa Cruz County Elections Department Monday evening, Cummings had 10,221 (50.95%) votes counted in his favor. Kalantari-Johnson trailed him with 9,678 (48.25%) votes.
Initial election night results showed Cummings trailed 53.87% to 45.23%. But in the days following Nov. 8, he slowly but surely chipped away at Kalantari-Johnson’s advantage before taking the lead on Nov. 10. He was up by a mere 33 votes on Nov. 18 before building his current triple-digit lead in Monday’s update.
Cummings said that although he expected the race to be close, the slim margin was unexpected. Before the latest results came in, he said he was cautiously optimistic and holding out on any celebrations until the votes are certified. He believed same-day registration votes, which take longer to count due to the two-step verification process to eliminate the possibility of voter fraud, could carry him through to a win.
“Oftentimes, historically in Santa Cruz, people who vote early have more of a conservative vote,” said Cummings. “The people who are more progressive vote later. That’s what happened to me in 2018, and I feel like that’s what’s happening again.”
Cummings said the County Clerk already plans on hand-counting votes in the tight races across the county. When asked before the latest results came in if he would call for a recount should Kalantari-Johnson take the win, he said that would be unlikely.
“When I was mayor, I gave Gail Pellerin a key to the city because of how much effort she put into making sure that people had access to being able to vote or drop off their ballots,” said Cummings. “A recount is not something I’m thinking about right now.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): One of your callings as an Aries is to take risks. You’re inclined to take more leaps of faith than other people, and you’re also more likely to navigate them to your advantage—or at least not get burned. A key reason for your success is your keen intuition about which gambles are relatively smart and which are ill-advised. But even when your chancy ventures bring you exciting new experiences, they may still run you afoul of conventional wisdom, peer pressure and the way things have always been done. Everything I have described here will be in maximum play for you in the coming weeks.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Your keynote comes from teacher Caroline Myss. She writes, “Becoming adept at the process of self-inquiry and symbolic insight is a vital spiritual task that leads to the growth of faith in oneself.” Encouraging you to grow your faith in yourself will be one of my prime intentions in the next 12 months. Let’s get started! How can you become more adept at self-inquiry and symbolic insight? One idea is to ask yourself a probing new question every Sunday morning, like “What teachings and healings do I most want to attract into my life during the next seven days?” Spend the subsequent week gathering experiences and revelations that will address that query. Another idea is to remember and study your dreams, since doing so is the number one way to develop symbolic insight. For help, I recommend the work of Gayle Delaney: tinyurl.com/InterviewYourDreams
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The TV science fiction show Legends of Tomorrow features a ragtag team of imperfect but effective superheroes. They travel through time trying to fix aberrations in the timelines caused by various villains. As they experiment and improvise, sometimes resorting to wildly daring gambits, their successes outnumber their stumbles and bumbles. And on occasion, even their apparent mistakes lead to good fortune that unfolds in unexpected ways. One member of the team, Nate, observes, “Sometimes we screw up—for the better.” I foresee you Geminis as having a similar modus operandi in the coming weeks.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): I like how Cancerian poet Stephen Dunn begins his poem, “Before We Leave.” He writes, “Just so it’s clear—no whining on the journey.” I am offering this greeting to you and me, my fellow Cancerians, as we launch the next chapter of our story. In the early stages, our efforts may feel like drudgery, and our progress could seem slow. But as long as we don’t complain excessively and don’t blame others for our own limitations, our labors will become easier and quite productive.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo poet Kim Addonizio writes a lot about love and sex. In her book Wild Nights she says, “I’m thinking of dating trees next. We could just stand around all night together. I’d murmur, they’d rustle, the wind would, like, do its wind thing.” Now might be a favorable time for you, too, to experiment with evergreen romance and arborsexuality and trysts with your favorite plants. When was the last time you hugged an oak or kissed an elm? JUST KIDDING! The coming weeks will indeed be an excellent time to try creative innovations in your approach to intimacy and adoration. But I’d rather see your experiments in togetherness unfold with humans.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In her book Daughters of the Stone, Virgo novelist Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa tells the tale of five generations of Afro-Cuban women, her ancestors. “These are the stories of a time lost to flesh and bone,” she writes, “a time that lives only in dreams and memories. Like a primeval wave, these stories have carried me, and deposited me on the morning of today. They are the stories of how I came to be who I am, where I am.” I’d love to see you explore your own history with as much passion and focus, Virgo. In my astrological opinion, it’s a favorable time for you to commune with the influences that have made you who you are.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In accordance with astrological omens, here’s my advice for you in the coming weeks: 1. Know what it takes to please everyone, even if you don’t always choose to please everyone. 2. Know how to be what everyone wants you to be and when they need you to be it, even if you only fulfill that wish when it has selfish value for you. 3. DO NOT give others all you have and thereby neglect to keep enough to give yourself. 4. When others are being closed-minded, help them develop more expansive finesse by sharing your own reasonable views. 5. Start thinking about how, in 2023, you will grow your roots as big and strong as your branches.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Even if some people are nervous or intimidated around you, they may be drawn to you nonetheless. When that happens, you probably enjoy the power you feel. But I wonder what would happen if you made a conscious effort to cut back just a bit on the daunting vibes you emanate. I’m not saying they’re bad. I understand they serve as a protective measure, and I appreciate the fact that they may help you get the cooperation you want. As an experiment, though, I invite you to be more reassuring and welcoming to those who might be inclined to fear you. See if it alters their behavior in ways you enjoy and benefit from.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z has stellar advice for his fellow Sagittarians to contemplate regularly: “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with the aim; just gotta change the target.” In offering Jay-Z’s advice, I don’t mean to suggest that you always need to change the target you’re aiming at. On many occasions, it’s exactly right. But the act of checking in to evaluate whether it is or isn’t the right target will usually be valuable. And on occasion, you may realize that you should indeed aim at a different target.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You now have extra power to exorcise ghosts and demons that are still lingering from the old days and old ways. You are able to transform the way your history affects you. You have a sixth sense about how to graduate from lessons you have been studying for a long time. In honor of this joyfully tumultuous opportunity, draw inspiration from poet Charles Wright: “Knot by knot I untie myself from the past / And let it rise away from me like a balloon. / What a small thing it becomes. / What a bright tweak at the vanishing point, blue on blue.”
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In accordance with current astrological rhythms, I am handing over your horoscope to essayist Anne Fadiman. She writes, “I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things, but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one.”
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Over the course of my life, I have been fortunate to work with 13 psychotherapists. They have helped keep my mental health flourishing. One of them regularly reminded me that if I hoped to get what I wanted, I had to know precisely what I wanted. Once a year, she would give me a giant piece of thick paper and felt-tip markers. “Draw your personal vision of paradise,” she instructed me. “Outline the contours of the welcoming paradise that would make your life eminently delightful and worthwhile.” She would also ask me to finish the sentence that begins with these words: “I am mobilizing all the energy and ingenuity and connections I have at my disposal so as to accomplish the following goal.” In my astrological opinion, Pisces, now is a perfect time to do these two exercises yourself.
It’s always a thrill tasting an exciting new menu. And that’s exactly what we experienced last week at Bad Animal at our first encounter with the masterful cooking of Lalita Kaewsawang and Mauricio Ortiz, the brains behind Hanloh Thai, which is now filling the tiny kitchen with remarkable flavors to match the avant-garde salon ambience. A creative playlist saturated the background as we joined diners sampling the eclectic wine list and provocative menu.
To join with feisty appetizers of Mieng (betel leaves with assorted condiments, $11) and Laab Moo (spiced pork wrapped in tender greens, $17) we chose three wines. A Slovenian orange Malvasia 2018 ($15), one of my go-to varietals on this list, worked its salt-spice magic from first sip. Another terrific choice was a 2021 Kadarka—a full-bodied, pinotesque red grape from the Hungarian winegrowing district of Szkekszard ($14). Our companion enjoyed his distinctive, unfiltered 2021 Annesanti “Ninfa del Nera” bianco, a blend of malvasia, grechetto and trebbiano from Umbria ($14). All the wines proved delightful partners for the dramatic cuisine created by the Hanloh chefs.
Presentation and service were outstanding throughout the meal, and it became abundantly clear that Bad Animal has, in its fourth year, hit its stride as a food and wine destination embedded in a bustling bookstore.
The first appetizer arrived, a plate with three large peppery betel leaves topped with bits of pungent lemongrass, cubes of plum, toasted coconut, peanuts and a glaze of amazing tamarind sauce. Each bite of the wrapped leaf took us through layers of flavor with terrific balance, showing off the skill of the chefs. Our second appetizer—offering minced pork loaded with herbs, fish sauce, lime and the kick of chili de arbol—was just as much fun to eat as the first. From a bouquet of emerald greens we selected our fresh leaf, filled it with the spiced pork and polished it off with a few bites. Just enough kick to clear the sinuses, but not enough to numb our tastebuds—and heaven with the wines.
Our shared entrees of two Thai classics were blatantly gorgeous. Arriving along with our order of exceptional jasmine rice ($4), the Tom Kha Gai ($23) was a masterpiece of balanced flavors and fragrant aromas. Coconut broth infused with generous slices of Mary’s chicken, lemongrass, tomatoes and oyster mushrooms were swirled with shreds of sorrel and chard, every bite exuding sweet heat. My favorite dish of the evening, Pak Ob Woonsen, arrived in clay pot dishes upon the top of which sat little bowls of a fiery bird’s eye chili and pineapple dressing (we licked these bowls clean). Inside the large pot lay a shimmering tangle of glass noodles, surrounded by luscious shiitake mushrooms, tofu and tender braised greens, inflected with sesame oil, dark soy sauce and ginger ($29). The long noodles were fun to try to manage, and we happily succumbed to the umami-intensive messiness. An outrageously fine dish that, once tasted, imprinted itself on my sensory consciousness. Tofu arrived inari-style, puffed up into soft pillows to better capture the dreamy sauce. I can barely believe I’m getting so excited about tofu, but this dish was transformative.
The dessert—a bowl of shaved ice dotted with unripe melon, acrid adzuki beans and neon green pandan jelly—proved unworthy of the spectacular meal we’d just enjoyed. Perhaps the menu will change its dessert offering?
With Bad Animal’s Hanloh Thai menu, you’re in for a wonderful flavor odyssey. It’s already wildly popular, and rightfully so.
There’s a reason why Bargetto Winery has been in business for eight decades and counting. They’ve been producing excellent, hand-crafted wines since 1933. Nearly 90 years after they started, their focus is still on richness and intensity in all their varietals.
My husband and I attended Bargetto Winery’s presentation of their 2023 Taste of Bordeaux River Cruise for Wine Lovers. As you sail down the Garonne and Dordogne rivers, you’ll enjoy local tastings and some excellent Bargetto wines—with John Bargetto, director of winemaking, as your wine host. The seven-night cruise is from June 1-8, 2023, by AMA Waterways aboard their AmaDolce. If you’re considering going on a cruise next year, why not add wine to the experience? Visit the Bargetto website for more info.
During the cruise presentation, I sipped on a 2019 Pommard Clone Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir ($35), a voluptuous mouthful of juicy, rich fruit with a deep ruby color. A second glass tasted even better! Aromas of toasted vanilla bean and baked cherry pie and flavors of “ripe cherry, strawberry and raspberry” boomed to the forefront. Kudos to winemaker Bobby Graviano for this beautiful Pinot.
Bargetto will be one of the wineries at the Aptos Wine Wander (more below).
Bargetto Winery, 3535 N. Main St., Soquel, 831-475-2258; bargetto.com.
Aptos Wine Wander
Sixteen wineries will participate in the popular Aptos Wine Wander, with wine tastings offered at various local businesses in Aptos Village. A commemorative glass and wristband are provided at check-in, along with a map of tasting locations inside Aptos Village businesses—all located on Soquel Drive and Trout Gulch Road. New Leaf Community Markets sponsors the event.
Aptos Wine Wander is Saturday, Dec. 10, 1-4pm. Check-in is 12:30pm at Aptos Village Green. $45/$55. winesofthesantacruzmountains.com.
Since opening in 1979, Beach Street Café has been a Watsonville favorite with classic, old school diner vibes. Juan Sumano has worked there for over two years, initially as a prep cook before moving to the front-of-house and working his way up from bussing to his first serving job. Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, Sumano came to the U.S. at 15 and has worked in the restaurant industry most of his life.
He says Beach Street is all about a friendly and family-oriented feel with quick service and a menu of traditional breakfast and lunch diner food with some Mexican dishes sprinkled in. Some of these include the chilaquiles scramble and fried churro waffle with ice cream and fresh berries. The classic diner fare includes the customer favorite country fried steak with homemade gravy and the meat lover’s scramble with sausage, bacon, ham and cheddar cheese. For breakfast or lunch, the Beach Street Burrito is a big hit, and other lunch options are the club sandwich and hamburger, with either regular fries, curly fries or onion rings.
Beach Street is open every day, 7am-2pm. GT asked Sumano recently why he came to the country and about life as a server.
What inspired your journey to the U.S.?
JUAN SUMANO: I had family here already, and I mostly moved here to pursue the classic American dream. I wanted to be able to have my own house, live my best life and get to be exactly who I am without limitations. And I love cooking and serving, so the restaurant industry has been a good fit for me. I’m very happy with where I am and what I’ve done.
Why do you enjoy being a server?
Meeting new people and also seeing the same people coming in and getting to know them. And just the little personal conversations, and even when I’m busy being able to project good and calm energy and caring about the customers. I also love when customers know my name, and I know theirs, and I can even guess their order sometimes. And just being able to ask about each other’s lives, about our families and how our weekends went—little things like that mean a lot to me and them. You don’t know what people are going through, so I always try to make their day.
The men who used the spinning wheels of a pickup to damage a Black Lives Matter mural on Center Street last year—as they and their friends who were watching from the sidelines shouted white supremacist slogans and made Nazi salutes—must pay more than $19,000 in restitution and attend restorative justice and cognitive behavior classes, a Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge ordered Friday.
Hagen Warner, 20, and Brandan Bochat, 21, will also serve two years on probation and have the threat of 90 days in jail hanging over their heads if they break any laws during that time.
The newly-convicted felons are also prohibited from owning firearms.
If they manage to someday reduce their conviction to a misdemeanor—which their attorneys said was a hope—Judge Syda Cogliati signaled she would consider adding a 10-year firearms ban.
Warner and Hagen Pleaded no contest to felony vandalism and hate crime charges on Oct. 24.
The sentence followed more than an hour of impassioned victim impact statements from community members and the people who created the mural.
The unusual decision to allow testimony from the public, Cogliati said, was a way to bring important voices to the case.
“Here, the community is the victim,” she said. “Victim impact statements are an essential part of our criminal justice system.”
Abi Mustapha, one of the artists who created the mural, said the vandalism—and the fallout from it—has left her feeling unsafe and scared.
“You have hurt me,” she said to the men as they looked on silently. “You have tried to intimidate me. And you have gone out of your way to try to destroy something that took a lot of work to create, and that’s not OK.”
More than a dozen speakers asked the judge to impose the maximum punishment and to increase the two-year sentence recommended by the probation department. But Cogliati said laws created by the state legislature bound her.
Santa Cruz City Councilman Justin Cummings was one of two Black men elected for the first time in 2018.
“It took a really long time for Black people to have a voice in our local government,” he said.
The creation of the mural, Cummings said, came in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, as communities were organizing around the Black Lives Matter movement. It was the same year that Cummings served as Santa Cruz Mayor—he was the first Black man to do so.
“This really helped bring our community together, and many people expressed how much they appreciated the fact that we were able to put this type of mural in our community,” he said.
The act of vandalism was an act of racism and intimidation aimed at the Black community, Cummings said.
“It was so egregious that not only did they do that act, but they recorded it and put it online to spread hate, and that is something that should not be acceptable,” he said.
Community organizer Esabella Bonner said the vandalism is a sign of a deeper underlying problem with society as a whole, and that she experienced racism as a student at Soquel High School.
“What we are witnessing in the behaviors and actions of these men is a failure of systems,” she said. “Systems that have failed not only the Black community but also these men themselves.”
Turning toward the vandals, she told them she hopes that restorative justice “sets you free … and I wish you both an opportunity to shed away the hate and the hurt that lives inside your bones and get to the root of your own inferiority complex.”
Neither Bochat nor Warner spoke in court.
Warner’s defense attorney Ed Sidawi explained that his client was “incredibly nervous.”
“This entire process has taken an emotional toll on him, and being here every court appearance,” Sidawi said, adding that Warner will likely discuss the matter in smaller group settings as part of his required restorative justice classes.
Bochat’s attorney Mischa Rinkus said he “is committed not to be a force of hate or divisiveness in the community and to live his life in another way.”
“He offers his sincere apology to the community of Santa Cruz for his behavior, which was not just hateful but divisive at a very critical time for our community,” she said.
Rinkus added that Bochat “is not a white supremacist.”
But Santa Cruz County Assistant District Attorney Michael Mahan had a different view.
While both men are equally to blame, Mahan said, Warner has come to all the hearings and showed some form of remorse and regret.
That is not true for Bochat, who “never—still doesn’t—take this seriously,” Mahan said.
Bochat’s assertions that he did not plan the vandalism were belied by the fact that he let someone out of his truck to take a video of him doing it, Mahan said.
But the most damning evidence of Bochat’s racism was evidence taken from his cell phone.
Mahan read several expletive-filled text messages in which Bochat used racial slurs to say he hates Black people and wants to “kill them all” with an assault rifle.
The messages also contain derogatory statements about LatinX people and LGBTQ+ people.
“These two men and their band of friends planned, organized and targeted that mural,” Mahan said.
Paying restitution, Mahan said, is “literally the least they can do.”
“Everyone is here because of the impact and the damage done to our community,” he said. “And it’s clear that some people still have fear, even after this has all happened, and I actually think the true impact probably will never be expressed or seen in our community, and I hope that this brings a small amount of closure and appreciation that justice can be possible.”
