Letter to the Editor: Trains and Irony

I love trains, and I also love irony.

Back in the late ’70s, when our collective community was concerned about rapid population growth, some “progressive” leaders fought back efforts to revive the “Suntan Special,” a train that would have transported people to work over the hill during the week and allowed thousands of tourists to avoid flooding Highway 17 and our local streets with polluting auto traffic on the weekends, all in the name of preventing such growth. Well, they stopped that train from being built out, one that would have been financially feasible, and likely crowded with commuters and tourists. It made sense, and would have made a real difference!

Growth happened anyway, and now, ironically, many of the same “progressives” are saying that we should preserve unused tracks between Davenport and Watsonville in hopes that one day it will become financially feasible to build out a commuter rail that will do little to reduce the daily horror show commute on Highway 1. They want to prevent our community from using this resource to provide a safe and effective bike/pedestrian/wheelchair-safe trail for millions of dollars less cost than one that avoids taking up unused damaged tracks that could otherwise be sold as scrap metal that could, in turn, be used to pay for transit improvements.

Instead of being fiscally reckless by potentially investing over a billion dollars in a train that only those with higher incomes will use, let’s pour resources into expanding and modernizing our Metro bus system, building a bus-on-shoulder system on Highway 1, and reducing fares to encourage ridership. Let’s railbank the corridor and quickly build out a trail that will provide a safe way for cyclists, pedestrians, wheelchair users, etc. to avoid having to navigate on auto-congested city streets. That is what I would call progressive! And your yes vote on Measure D helps to make that happen.

Scott Roseman

Santa Cruz


This letter does 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 Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published).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.

Letter to the Editor: What the Cluck

Re: “Tracks of the Trade” (GT, 2/2): Isn’t Manu Koenig saying he’s not against rail sorta like the fox saying he’s not against chickens?

Britt Schickhaus

Santa Cruz


This letter does 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.

Opinion: A Personal Look at the ‘Murder Capital’ Years

EDITOR’S NOTE

Steve Palopoli editor good times santa cruz california

I listen to a fair number of true-crime podcasts, but they tend to be shows exposing wrongful convictions or analyzing the justice system, like In the DarkUndisclosed (R.I.P) and Suspect. I’ve never been one of those people who are obsessed with serial killers and their crimes.

Except for the ones in this week’s cover story. It’s just a function of living in Santa Cruz for a long time that you eventually learn that the “Murder Capital of the World” title wasn’t just something dreamed up for that line in The Lost Boys. And once you find out about the early ’70s crimes of serial killers Edmund KemperHerbert Mullin and John Linley Frazier, and the way those murders traumatized this area, you don’t forget it. You can almost forget it, for a while, but there will always be something that comes up to remind you, like when Kemper was featured heavily in David Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter a few years ago.

So of course it makes sense for GT to do a cover story on Emerson Murray’s new book Murder Capital of the World, which lays out the history of that era in Santa Cruz in a thoroughly researched oral-history style. But I think Geoffrey Dunn’s piece will surprise you. It offers the perspective of someone whose own life was too tangled in the aftermath of those crimes for his own comfort, and insight into how he’s dealt—and not dealt—with the trauma himself over the years. It’s an essential read on a subject that continues to haunt this community, half a century later.

STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

ONLINE COMMENTS

RE: SV BULLYING

Racially segregated parent groups? That’s the solution to racism? Sounds like the ’50s to me. Please stop boxing people into groups based on skin color. My husband and I are different races. How would that work? Unite people—don’t separate them.

— Melinda

RE: UCSC LRDP

Under current projections, Santa Cruz already could run out of water. If the UCSC regents want to add to this problem, then let them contribute to a solution first.

— Blu

RE: CHORALE BENEFIT

Thank you for making beautiful music in Santa Cruz and helping the Children of Ukraine. Holy Cross is a wonderful venue for your music. You are appreciated.

— Audrey Tennant

Read the latest letters to the editor here.

Correction

In last week’s cover story about the Santa Cruz punk scene, “Mosh Up,” the name of Drain drummer Tim Flegal was misspelled. We regret the error.


PHOTO CONTEST WINNER

Surfers aren’t the only ones dropping in at Cowell Beach. Photograph by Joni MacFarlane

Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.


GOOD IDEA

SUMMIT ON EARTH

UC Santa Cruz’s 8th annual climate change conference schedule will include a panel discussion, art exhibit opening and an Earth Day celebration at the family-friendly Climate Action Market. The free conference will be held at the Seymour Center during Alumni Week 2022, April 21-23. Public lectures will be held with scientists, artists, policy experts and community members, to focus on climate solutions for the future. For more information, visit: confrontingclimatechange.ucsc.edu.


GOOD WORK

PARK ACCESS

Kids2Park, a park-equity program that brings elementary school children to State Parks, has announced that it will reopen in person for select schools in Santa Cruz County. Kids2Park is offered to schools that primarily serve a high percentage of students from low-income families, and the program covers all associated field trip costs to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Natural Bridges State Beach, Nisene Marks and more. Applications open April 1: thatsmypark.org/k2p.


QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

— AGATHA CHRISTIE

When Santa Cruz Was the ‘Murder Capital of the World’

I remember the smell of smoke. Or at least I think I remember it. It has been more than 50 years since that morning in the fall of 1970, but my memories of that day, and the ensuing pain and chaos—the uncertainty and deep emotional tension—remain vivid to this moment.

A steady rain was falling, the horizon gray. I recall arriving at Soquel High School (I was 15 and a sophomore) and standing at the circular base of the lower quad, huddled with a throng of close friends looking northwest of the athletic fields, just beyond the foothills to where the family of our former schoolmates, Lark and Taura Ohta, had been brutally executed and later found in the swimming pool of the Ohta home.

Rumors and speculation ran rampant. Dr. Victor Ohta, a prominent ophthalmologist in Santa Cruz; his wife, Virginia; their two sons, Derrick and Taggart; and the doctor’s medical secretary, Dorothy Cadwallader had all been bound and shot in the head, before being shoved, one by one, into the blood-saturated pool. The family home—one ridge over and less than a mile due west of my own home—had been set on fire by whomever had committed this sickening and evil act, before local firefighters arrived, discovered the slaughter and finally doused the flames.

The Ohta’s two daughters, both of whom had attended high school with us the year before, had been away at school: Taura, the oldest at 18, at an art academy in New York; and Lark, 15, at the Santa Catalina School for Girls in Monterey. By a few simple twists of fate, they had been spared the carnage and the terror.

Given the proximity to the notorious Tate and La Bianca murders in Los Angeles the summer before (the highly publicized trial was taking place at the time), the fear was that yet another freak-show cult with a Charles Manson-like figure was running loose in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and set to wreak further horror on the community.

Those fears grew into collective panic as details from the murder scene were slowly portioned out to the press. A few days later we learned that a note had been left at the crime scene declaring that:

World War 3 will begin and [be] brought to you by the people of the free universe….From this day forward and any one and?/or company of personn [sic] who misuses the natural environment or destroys same will suffer the penalty of death…[M]aterialism must die or man-kind will.

The note was dated “[H]alloween 1970,” and was signed with references to the Tarot: “Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Knight of Pentacles, Knight of Swords.” It wasn’t hard to jump to the conclusion that Helter Skelter was upon us.

Based on tips provided by a trio of locals who knew him, John Linley Frazier—a troubled, 25-year-old mescaline addled psychopath who had grown up and lived most of his life in Soquel—was quickly identified as the principal suspect. After he had been sighted driving the Ohta’s station wagon in a variety of locations throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains, Frazier was captured by local deputies Brad Arbsland and Rod Sanford as he slept in his cabin, not far from the crime scene.

John Linley Frazier was a religious fanatic who killed five people in Santa Cruz in October of 1970. PHOTO: Sam Vestal, provided and © 2022 the Vestal Family Trust

My mother, who knew Virginia Ohta, was terrified, and my father, who did business with Victor Ohta (their offices were across the street from each other’s), began to carry a concealed Chief’s Special, a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol.

My dad also knew Frazier, who had worked as a mechanic at Putney & Perry’s in downtown Santa Cruz, along with other garages. From that moment on, my old man kept his pistol loaded and close by. He changed, the community changed, our lives changed. It was a dark, foreboding and transformative moment in local history.

By the time I graduated from high school in the spring of 1973, there would be 21 more murders in Santa Cruz committed by a pair of psychopathic serial killers, Herbert Mullin and Edmund Kemper. At some point in the darkness, the county’s inimitable, if ultimately tragic District Attorney Peter Chang—who would successfully oversee the prosecution of all three killers—picked up on a question asked by a San Francisco reporter and dubbed Santa Cruz “the Murder Capital of the World.”

That sobriquet went global, making its way into the pages of Time Magazine. It hung over the community for years like thick summer fog.

This grim, complex and gruesome history is the subject of Emerson Murray’s fascinating and compelling new book Murder Capital of the World: The Santa Cruz Community Looks Back at the Frazier, Mullin, and Kemper Murder Sprees of the Early 1970s.

At 552 pages, and with more than 300 accompanying photographs and assorted images—many of which have never before been published—Murray’s tome captures not only the details of the murders as never before revealed, but the lives of those who would be forever impacted by these chilling crimes. This includes family members and friends, the law enforcement and legal professionals who pursued them and, most importantly, the victims themselves, whose personal histories were often swept under the rug by beat writers working on a deadline and all-too-focused on the perpetrators rather than on those who had been killed and their families and friends left behind.

Murray has now brought them into the light. To his eternal credit, Murray has reminded us on page after page that the victims were humans, too; that they had back-stories and loved ones, dreams and ambitions. The lives that they thought were ahead of them were an essential part of the story.

Rather than impose his own narrative on these stories, Murray allows the various actors in these tragedies to tell them themselves. Using interviews, newspaper quotations, depositions, police reports and letters, Murray has assembled a patchwork quilt of oral histories (sometimes at odds with one another) that forms its own narrative and in a very real way brings the past immediately into the present.

We read the police dispatches as they happened in real time, the interviews and courtroom banter all rendered in the first-person present. The cumulative impact is stunning. Murder Capital of the World grips the reader on every page.

Raised in Santa Cruz County, and a graduate of San Lorenzo Valley High School, Murray had the story of the mass murders driven into his psyche his entire childhood. It was part of the valley’s cultural milieu.

Born in 1973, just as Kemper and Mullin ended their killing sprees, Murray also had a direct link to the events. Murray’s father, Roger, had been a roommate and close friend of one of Mullin’s victims, Jim Gianera. The book includes a picture of Murray’s dad, Gianera and another friend.

Murray also has another familial link to the story of the crimes. His grandmother, he recalls, “collected unusual and sometimes morbid newspaper clippings. I can remember looking at clippings from the Ohta-Cadwallader murders at her house when I was very young.”

References to the era remained constant. “As I grew up,” he says, “I remember my parents’ friends talking about these crimes at parties and dinners. It just feels like it was all around. It always felt important. I really can’t remember when, but when I was very young, I just started collecting newspaper clippings about these crimes myself. “

It all led to something of an Edgar Allan Poe-like childhood for Murray. “My brother and I used to hang out with our neighbors under the streetlight and tell Herbert Mullin horror stories as kids. Logically, we knew he was in prison, but he was still like the boogeyman to us … He haunted us.”

As Murray grew older, he was startled by how the community had effectively buried this history. He was also surprised when he realized that there had been no major works about the murders told from a local perspective. He felt that this significant history was dying, that it was about to be lost forever.

Then, three years ago, he and his wife attended a talk on Kemper given by a pair of retired local law enforcement figures, Sheriff’s detective Mickey Aluffi and retired Judge William “Bill” Kelsay, who had worked in the District Attorney’s office with Chang.

“Mickey’s memory was sharp and clear,” Murray recalls, “but the audience was all older, and I panicked that these first-person stories would be lost in the next decade or two. I started working on the book the next day.”

One significant aspect of this story that has long been overlooked is the heightened community tension that ensued both during and in the aftermath of the murders. Murray delves deep into the subject.

It is equally critical to note that this was a time of global violence. The U.S. had unleashed a technological carnage on the peoples of Southeast Asia, and that genocide was replayed daily on the nightly news here at home. Demonstrations, police violence and political assassinations had all become routine, even normalized. Violence beget violence.

Little more than a year after Frazier had been convicted of the Ohta and Cadwallader murders, a series of seemingly unrelated killings started taking place again throughout the county and in other communities in Northern California.

The 6’9″ giant Edmund Kemper III—who had been convicted in 1964 of killing his grandparents when he was 15—prayed on young women hitchhikers, often sexually abusing their corpses, and perhaps even engaging in cannibalism. He finally killed his mother, Clarnell Strandberg, with whom he was living at the time of his murder spree, and one of her friends, Sara “Sally” Hallett.  

Herbert Mullin, who had spent his adolescence and early adulthood in the San Lorenzo Valley, began hearing voices telling him he needed to kill in order to save the region from earthquakes. It is believed he killed at least 13 victims during his reign of terror.

Once again, the murders hit close to home.

On the evening of February 13, 1973, after returning home in the evening from baseball practice at Soquel High, I received an erratic, terrorized call from my mother who said that our family’s lifelong friend Fred Perez, a beloved working-class Santa Cruz icon, had been shot on Gharkey Street, just kitty-corner from my aunt and uncle’s house. My aunt Joan Stagnaro had spotted the killer’s car and identified a telling “STP” sticker on its bumper.

Left: Herbert Mullin (seated), who had spent his adolescence and early adulthood in the San Lorenzo Valley, began hearing voices telling him he needed to kill. Right: Emerson Murray, author of ‘Murder Capital of the World.’ PHOTO: Sam Vestal, provided and © 2022 the Vestal Family Trust

It was Mullin she had spotted. He had shot the 72-year-old Perez, who was working in his yard, through the heart with a .22 rifle. Because of my aunt’s quick response, Mullin was arrested a short time later. I was startled to discover that my aunt’s “voice” recounting these critical events found its way into these pages—she died 34 years ago—but Murray had uncovered it in the form of depositions and court testimony.

Kemper turned himself in two months later, in Pueblo, Colorado.

If only that were the end of it. In the mid-’70s, Richard “Blue” Sommerhalder (who killed Vickie Bezore, the wife of seminal Santa Cruz journalist and editor Buz Bezore) and the so-called “Trailside Killer” David Carpenter would commit multiple murders here again.

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” Joan Didion observed at the beginning of The White Album, her brilliant series of essays on the Manson murders and the often-violent excesses of California culture in the ’60s and ’70s. “We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five.”

As I worked my way through Murray’s book, I found myself a long way from any moral lessons. Indeed, my blood boiled on many pages as I read the killers’ own recounting of their savagery and the lives they destroyed. In due candor, there were certain passages I chose to avoid. In other instances, I found myself shaken, often to the point of tears.

If there is a glimmer of light in all of this, it is in Murray’s commitment to honor the life of those who were slaughtered, as well as their families. The most moving of these testimonies came from my former classmate Lark Ohta, who lost her family more than a half-century ago, and whose sister Taura committed suicide seven years later. In many ways, Lark serves as the deep conscience of the book.

Last week, with Murray serving as a facilitator, Lark and I touched base for the first time in 52 years. She talked about the positive experience of working with Murray and doing “whatever I could to bring my family to life and to describe the town that they loved.”

She recalled growing up on the West Side, of attending Holy Cross Elementary School and of the magic place Santa Cruz was in the 1960s. She recalled the Pacific Garden Mall and the wharf and Holy Cross Church. She remembered her mother double-parking in front of Dell Williams Jewelers, and her father buying her the Beatles’ White Album.

“We lived a perfect and happy life,” she said, “in a quiet and very cool town.”

Lark’s most powerful statement, however, was about the man who killed her mother, father, two brothers and close family friend—and, really, her sister as well. “I forgive Frazier,” she told me, “as I believe he was a broken human being. No healthy person could kill a child.”

No anger. No bitterness.

“I miss my family and my home,” she concluded. “I grew up in Santa Cruz in a special time, and no one can make that bad for me. It was my home … I will always love Santa Cruz.”


‘MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD’ BOOK EVENT

Bookshop Santa Cruz will hold a virtual event this Thursday, March 31, featuring Emerson Murray and his book Murder Capital of the World: The Santa Cruz Community Looks Back at the Frazier, Mullin, and Kemper Murder Sprees of the Early 1970s, at 6pm. Free registration: bookshopsantacruz.com/emerson-murray.

Eviction Protections to End as Thousands of Renters Still Await Promised Relief

Lourdes Rios has waited for her $3,000 in rent relief to come for more than a year. 

The state’s Covid-19 rent relief program Housing is Key promised her the money, which would pay her landlord for the pandemic rental debt that Rios has accumulated.  

But now, a year into waiting for it to come through, Rios and her family of three are faced with the consequences of rental debt, despite being in line to have it cleared. 

On March 9, three weeks before the state program ceases to accept new applications, and all tenant-related eviction protections are set to end, Rios received a Pay or Quit notice from her landlord.

“I know my rights,” Rios says through an interpreter. Rios is a leader at Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA), a faith-based nonprofit where she educates renters like herself, who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic and are unable to keep up with their monthly payments. “But it’s nerve-racking. Especially now that I have this eviction notice, and with protections ending April 1.” 

When we speak over the phone, Rios is nannying—she had just put the child she cares for down for a nap—but this is the first job she has been able to get since the pandemic began. Rios is a housekeeper, and even as local Covid-19 restrictions continue to relax, none of her usual clients have taken up her offer to come back to work. 

Because Rios and her husband both worked jobs that required being on site and in person, they were out of work for multiple months when the pandemic hit. They were able to pay rent with their savings for a few months, and when that ran out, her son’s best friend’s parents lent them money. It was embarrassing for Rios to accept that money—“I felt like a beggar,” she says —but at the same time, she knew there was no other option. Rios and her husband were already sacrificing essential goods like food and school supplies to cover the rent.

So last April, when Rios was approved for rent relief, she was hopeful that the money would keep her family housed. 

That was nearly a year ago. 

Now, Rios is part of one of the estimated 214,000 households that are still waiting on the rent relief they were approved for. As the end of the month quickly approaches, state legislators are rushing to pass eviction protections that will extend past April 1.

Without additional protections, local nonprofits fear cities will see an eviction tsunami, compounding the homelessness crisis both locally and across the state.

So what will happen? GT spoke with a local attorney, nonprofits and the state to see what will—and won’t —change come April 1. 

What’s Going to Change 

Even though the statewide eviction moratorium expired at the end of September, California’s rental assistance program provided some of its own protections—and a new bill introduced last week aims to preserve some of these defenses.

On March 24, two lawmakers—Assemblymembers Tim Grayson and Buffy Wicks—introduced a bill that would extend eviction protections for people with pending applications through the end of June. Assembly Bill 2179 was approved in the Assembly on Monday. It must be signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom before the March 31 deadline to buy qualifying tenants another three months of protection.

If it is not approved, renters with applications that are still pending or under review will no longer be able to legally use the program’s protections as a defense in court, says Sasha Morgan, Santa Cruz Superior Court’s director of non-criminal operations. That would allow landlords to not only serve an eviction notice for nonpayment of rent, but also to sue that individual in small claims courts for the money they are owed.

The bill has faced criticism from tenant advocates and representatives from Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco counties who fought hard to enact their own local moratoriums on evictions for nonpayment of rent. AB2179 would pause most local eviction protections until July 1.

Morgan says that since the eviction moratorium ended on Oct. 1, there has not been a wave of eviction cases that have gone through the court for non-payment of rent. There were 23 eviction cases filed during the first two months of 2022, but that includes evictions for reasons outside of non-payment of rent. 

Still, that number doesn’t capture the people who have been served an eviction notice and moved out of their house voluntarily, tenant advocates say.

Most landlords, however, want to keep their tenants in place, says Victor Gomez, the director of Santa Cruz County Association of Realtors.

“Vacancy is not good,” says Gomez. “Landlords in general want to retain existing tenants. If there’s an opportunity for mediation or an opportunity to work with one another, even outside of mediation, to resolve their tenancy issues.”

Still, he says, landlords have their mortgages to consider. He knows many landlords who have been waiting for months, some close to a year, for the state to pay them the back rent their tenants owe, and many are growing skeptical that the money will come at all.

“I’m hearing people wonder when and if this money is even coming,” says Gomez. “People are saying, ‘Where the heck is the government now?’” 

State Response 

The state’s program dashboard shows that it has received 3,407 complete applications from residents across Santa Cruz County, and has issued money to a little less than half of those applicants (1,465). The average time that an applicant receives money is about four months after the application is submitted, according to a report by the National Equity Atlas—but local nonprofit leaders tell GT that they think the waiting period is closer to six months. 

Geoffrey Ross, the deputy director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, says that the reason some people are experiencing longer wait times might be partly due to the process by which the state was prioritizing applications. It has been prioritizing low-income applicants and those that it classifies at highest risk of eviction. Ross says that, originally, the State Treasurer’s Office restricted its funding to the program according to this prioritization.

“Part of the reason it has been slow is because of just having to deal with the timing of resources, the prioritizations that resulted with that,” Ross says.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Development’s definition of low-income for Santa Cruz residents, Rios and her family qualify. But she says when she reached out to Housing is Key representatives to check the status of her application, they told her she wasn’t a priority.

“They told me to stop calling, I’m not a priority,” says Rios. “I’m even embarrassed to try to call and find out what the status on my application is.” 

Ross says that since the state passed Senate Bill 115 in February, the program has been able to expand its resources and change its prioritization. This bill also ensures that everyone who applies and is approved is guaranteed to receive funding. According to Ross, the earliest applicants like Rios will be able to receive their funding in the next month. 

“We are now in a different place because of the state’s intervention (with SB 115),” Ross says. “We are moving as quickly as we can to make payments.” 

Still, he acknowledges that the program will likely be processing applications into late fall. 

Local Response

The county and local cities declined to extend local eviction protections, but did shell out funds for local programming and legal services.

Santa Cruz City Council raised the question of whether or not to pursue a local eviction moratorium at its latest meeting. But according to the city’s attorney, an eviction moratorium has to be handed down at the state level rather than be implemented at the local level. At the county level, Housing for Health Director Robert Ratner also noted that state law has limited local governments’ ability to enact new renter protections.

Certain requests that local nonprofits were calling for were also left out of the recent city and county meetings—things like changing the eviction notice from three to 15 days, or requiring mediation between landlords and tenants before moving to eviction. These are the things that could make a huge difference for tenants, says Ray Cancino—even more so than money. Cancino is the CEO of Community Bridges, a nonprofit that has been helping renters fill out their rent relief applications.

“Policies are going to be far more impactful than any funding that we’re going to get,” says Cancino. “What always ends up happening in situations like this is that the funding provides services for those that come first, and know about the service. But those folks that are most vulnerable are usually not the folks that are going to necessarily know about the service.” 

At the same time, he acknowledges that cities and counties are in tough positions, and thinks that, ultimately, these policy changes need to come from the state. 

“State legislators should be providing a statewide solution to this issue,” says Cancino. “So local municipalities aren’t having to be put in awkward situations where they’re having to react ahead of the state, as a result of an issue that they weren’t even in control of to begin with.” 

Regardless, action needs to come soon for struggling Santa Cruz County tenants to remain protected from eviction.

But Rios says she isn’t getting her hopes up that help is on the way. She has talked with her landlord, and will be making additional payments each month until she and her husband are caught up on their back rent. She can’t keep waiting until her application money comes through.

“I have shared my story with the county, with state legislators,” Rios says. “I’ve cried and cried, because every time I talk about it, I get really sentimental. But now I feel like a show. I thought there were so many people there that they were going to help me. And nobody has helped. I’m still waiting.” 

To file for rent relief, visit housing.ca.gov, or call 833-430-2122 between 7am-7pm. Resources for those who need help with their application include (South County) Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, 831-778-4535; Families in Transition, 831-740-2947; (Mid-and North County) Community Bridges-Live Oak, 831-476-7284; Community Bridges-Beach Flats, 831-423-5747 ext. 13; (San Lorenzo Valley) Community Bridges, 831-335-6600.

Capitola City Council Votes Against Flying Thin Blue Line Flag During National Police Week

The Capitola City Council at its latest meeting unanimously decided against flying a “Thin Blue Line Flag” during National Police Week, May 15-21.

The flag, which is typically a black-and-white representation of a United States flag with a horizontal blue line running through its center, was originally used to pay tribute to police officers killed in the line of duty. The thin blue line is meant to represent law enforcement standing between chaos and order.

But since it was created eight years ago, several extremist groups have hijacked the flag and given it new meaning. It was flown prominently at the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and has become a symbol of opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. It also has a strong association with white supremacy. Because of the flag’s controversial ties, Capitola staff recommended against flying it at City Hall.

T.J. Welch submitted a formal request to fly the flag under the city’s policy that welcomes public requests advocating for specialized flags at City Hall. The council was set to hear the request at its March 10 meeting, but Welch asked to postpone the hearing so that the Capitola Public Safety and Community Services Foundation could weigh in. Six of 11 group members voted to oppose flying the flag, highlighting its complicated meaning.

In a letter to the council, Welch wrote that now more than ever, law enforcement needs public support.

“We are in unprecedented times regarding the unprovoked killing of police officers killed in the line of duty,” the letter reads.

According to statistics reported to the FBI, 59 officers were killed in the line of duty from Jan. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2021—a 51% increase when compared to the same period the previous year. Law enforcement killings hit close to home in 2020 with the murder of Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller. He was gunned down by a suspected member of a loosely knit group of heavily armed, violent extremists who say they are opposed to government tyranny and police oppression, and have also advocated for race war.

Civilian deaths in officer-involved shootings have also drastically increased in that time. Police shot and killed 1,055 people in the U.S. in 2021, a record number that police reform activists say is unacceptable.

Thairie Ritchie, a local community organizer and Black Lives Matter activist, called into the council meeting on March 24, and also spoke with GT. He says in light of the fact that people of color are disproportionately targeted by police across the country, and the recent defacing of the Santa Cruz Black Lives Matter mural, he thinks it is important to consider how minorities would perceive a flag with such divisive ties.

“As a Black resident living in Capitola, I believe we should have been mindful of the effects of how our pro-police attitudes affect [Black, Indigenous and people of color] residents,” says Ritchie. “Especially given that a lot of [minorities] are simply afraid of Capitola Police.” 

Ritchie said many people of color he knows steer clear of Capitola due to its hyper policing and accounts of hostile interactions with law enforcement. Ritchie says he himself was profiled by Capitola Police, who suspected him as they looked for a light-skinned Hispanic man who had burglarized a car wash.

“I don’t have an issue personally with officers who are doing good deeds,” says Ritchie. “But I think that that symbolism over time has, unfortunately, been mixed up in more of a pro-white supremacist ideology. And I believe police have always been more supported in this county versus other movements like Black Lives Matter.” 

During the council meeting, Capitola Police Chief Andrew Dally, who was appointed to the position last year, thanked the applicant for the recognition of local law enforcement, but said he ultimately did not support flying the flag.

“There are some in the community that find this flag offensive and divisive,” said Dally. “As your Chief of Police, I want to be inclusive of everyone’s concerns. This proposal could be counterproductive to my goal of ensuring that everyone in the community feels protected and valued.”

Dr. Ginger Charles, a retired police sergeant who is the chair of the Criminal Justice program at Cabrillo College, where she teaches prospective police officers, tells GT she was pleasantly surprised by Capitola’s decision, and even more impressed with Chief Dally’s stance. She says that as a police officer, it is crucial to be conscious of what messages you are sending to the community you serve—especially to people of color.

“If I’m serving a community, I have to take a look at everything that I do, and what that perception is to people of color,” says Charles. “This is a huge change for policing. We’re coming into a time where we police differently, and there’s like that last stronghold that may not want to change or are afraid of changing. But clear statements like (what Chief Dally said) are absolutely beautiful.”

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology: March 30-April 5

Free will astrology for the week of March 30.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): To provide the right horoscope, I must introduce you to three new words. The first is “orphic,” defined as “having an importance or meaning not apparent to the senses nor comprehensible to the intellect; beyond ordinary understanding.” Here’s the second word: “ludic,” which means “playful; full of fun and high spirits.” The third word is “kalon,” which refers to “profound, thorough beauty.” Now I will coordinate those terms to create a prophecy in accordance with your astrological aspects. Ready? I predict you will generate useful inspirations and energizing transformations for yourself by adopting a ludic attitude as you seek kalon in orphic experiments and adventures.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I love your steadfastness, intense effort and stubborn insistence on doing what’s right. Your ability to stick to the plan even when chaos creeps in is admirable. But during the coming weeks, I suggest you add a nuance to your approach. Heed the advice of martial artist Bruce Lee: “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.”

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini-born basketball coach Pat Summitt won Olympic medals, college championships and presidential awards. She had a simple strategy: “Here’s how I’m going to beat you. I’m going to outwork you. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.” I recommend that you apply her approach to everything you do for the rest of 2022. According to my analysis, you’re on course for a series of satisfying victories. All you have to do is nurture your stamina as you work with unwavering focus and resilient intelligence.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In Britain, 70 percent of the land is owned by one percent of the population. Globally, one percent of the population owns 43 percent of the wealth. I hope there’s a much better distribution of resources within your own life. I hope that the poorer, less robust parts of your psyche aren’t being starved at the expense of the privileged and highly functioning aspects. I hope that the allies and animals you tend to take for granted are receiving as much of your love and care as the people you’re trying to impress or win over. If any adjustments are necessary, now is a favorable time to make them.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): TV show creator Joey Soloway says, “The only way things will change is when we’re all wilder, louder, riskier, sillier and unexpectedly overflowing with surprise.” Soloway’s Emmy Award-winning work on Transparent, one of the world’s first transgender-positive shows, suggests that their formula has been effective for them. I’m recommending this same approach to you in the coming weeks, Leo. It will help you summon the extra courage and imagination you will need to catalyze the necessary corrections and adjustments.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain,” wrote mythologist Joseph Campbell. I don’t think his cure is foolproof. The lingering effects of some old traumas aren’t so simple and easy to dissolve. But I suspect Campbell’s strategy will work well for you in the coming weeks. You’re in a phase of your astrological cycle when extra healing powers are available. Some are obvious, and some are still partially hidden. It will be your sacred duty to track down every possible method that could help you banish at least some of your suffering and restore at least some of your joie de vivre.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You know who Jimi Hendrix was, right? He was a brilliant and influential rock guitarist. As for Miles Davis, he was a Hall of Fame-level trumpeter and composer. You may be less familiar with Tony Williams. A prominent rock critic once called him “the best drummer in the world.” In 1968, those three superstars gathered in the hope of recording an album. But they wanted to include a fourth musician, Paul McCartney, to play bass for them. They sent a telegram to the ex-Beatle, but it never reached him. And so the supergroup never happened. I mention this in the hope that it will render you extra alert for invitations and opportunities that arrive in the coming weeks—perhaps out of nowhere. Don’t miss out! Expect the unexpected. Read between the lines. Investigate the cracks.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Poet Anne Carson claims that “a page with a poem on it is less attractive than a page with a poem on it and some tea stains.” I agree. If there are tea stains, it probably means that the poem has been studied and enjoyed. Someone has lingered over it, allowing it to thoroughly permeate their consciousness. I propose we make the tea-stained poem your power metaphor for the coming weeks, Scorpio. In other words, shun the pristine, the spotless, the untouched. Commune with messy, even chaotic things that have been loved and used.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian author Martha Beck articulated the precise message you need to hear right now. She wrote, “Here is the crux of the matter, the distilled essence, the only thing you need to remember: When considering whether to say yes or no, you must choose the response that feels like freedom. Period.” I hope you adopt her law in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. You should avoid responses and influences that don’t feel liberating. I realize that’s an extreme position to take, but I think it’s the right one for now. Where does your greatest freedom lie? How can you claim it? What shifts might you need to initiate?

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I’m glad you have been exploring your past and reconfiguring your remembrances of the old days and old ways. I’m happy you’ve been transforming the story of your life. I love how you’ve given yourself a healing gift by reimagining your history. It’s fine with me if you keep doing this fun stuff for a while longer. But please also make sure you don’t get so immersed in bygone events that you’re weighed down by them. The whole point of the good work you’ve been doing is to open up your future possibilities. For inspiration, read this advice from author Milan Kundera: “We must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian historian Mary Frances Berry offered counsel that I think all Aquarians should keep at the heart of their philosophy during the coming weeks. She wrote, “The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can’t be done.” I hope you trust yourself enough to make that your battle cry. I hope you will keep summoning all the courage you will regularly need to implement its mandate.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): What’s the leading cause of deforestation in Latin America? Logging for wood products? Agricultural expansion? New housing developments? Nope. It’s raising cattle so people everywhere can eat beef and cheese and milk. This industry also plays a major role in the rest of the world’s ongoing deforestation tragedy. Soaring greenhouse gas emissions aren’t entirely caused by our craving for burgers and milk and cheese, of course, but our climate emergency would be significantly less dramatic if we cut back our consumption. That’s the kind of action I invite you to take in the coming months, Pisces. My analysis of astrological omens suggests that you now have even more power than usual to serve the collective good of humanity in whatever specific ways you can. (PS: Livestock generates 14.5 percent of our greenhouse gases, equal to the emissions from all cars, trucks, airplanes and ships combined.)

Homework: What’s the biggest good change you could imagine making in your life right now? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

Tannery Arts Center to Use Grant For New Performance and Dance Building

The Tannery Arts Center is about to get an upgrade, to the tune of $4 million.

The money comes from a grant awarded to the city of Santa Cruz on March 22 by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) Travel, Tourism, and Outdoor Recreation program. Funded by President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, the program hopes to help communities that rely on tourism accelerate their post-pandemic recovery.

The grant will fund the construction of a new, 5,360-square-foot performance and dance building within the Tannery Arts Center complex, with the hopes of increasing tourism and expanding Santa Cruz’s arts and entertainment sector. 

The new facility will include two performance bays, office space and changing areas. The EDA grant will be matched with $990,000 in local investment and is expected to create 60 jobs, support 70 existing jobs and generate $1.3 million in private investment. 

In all, the EDA’s tourism program included in the American Rescue Plan will distribute $240 million across the U.S.

Hahn Family Wines’ 2019 SLH Pinot Noir is a Fruit Cornucopia

Made under Hahn Family Wines, the SLH 2019 Pinot Noir ($30) is really delicious. All the grapes for this wine come from the family estate in the Santa Lucia Highlands—an American Viticultural Area located in Monterey County.

Their winemaker chooses only a limited number of barrels to carry the SLH name, and the wine made is guaranteed to be a superior mouthful of vino. 

This rich and velvety Pinot Noir shows notes of black cherry and crushed red plums with hints of earthiness and toasty oak. Wine Enthusiast awarded this flavorful red wine 90 points in November 2021. 

Hahn SLH wines showcase their four prized Santa Lucia Highlands estate vineyards: Lone Oak, Smith, Doctor’s and Hook.
“Only a few barrels of each varietal are deemed worthy of these select blends and are chosen to showcase the appellation’s forward aromatics, rich mouthfeel, distinct mineralogy and beautifully balanced acidity.”

The Sun, Wind and Wine Festival celebrates 30 years of the Santa Lucia Highlands appellation. Hahn Family Wines participates in the May 14 event held at the beautiful Mer Soleil Winery in Salinas—usually not open to the public. santaluciahighlands.com.

Hahn Estate Tasting Room, 37700 Foothill Road, Soledad (there’s another location in Carmel). 831-678-4555. hahnwines.com.

Gayle’s Bakery’s Hot Cross Buns

Gayle’s Bakery & Rosticceria makes traditional Easter hot cross buns—something I love and grew up with in England. Very few pastry shops are making these now, so I’m thrilled that Gayle’s in Capitola still bakes them for a few weeks leading up to Easter. These lightly sweet yeast buns contain raisins, currants and candied fruit. Before baking, a cross is slashed into the top of the bun—the cross is later filled with icing. If you haven’t tried one, head to Gayle’s! Also, try hamantaschen, a triangle-shaped cookie made during the Jewish holiday of Purim, which recently ended March 17. A percentage of Gayle’s sales goes to help Ukraine. gaylesbakery.com. 

Vino Cruz Delivers a Variety of Innovative Dishes to Soquel Diners

While Kaitlyn Woodward’s UC Santa Barbara global studies buddies pursued careers like international trade and national security, she landed a job as a baker at IV Drip Bakery in Goleta.

The Santa Cruz native excelled, and, more importantly, she loved it. With some convincing from IV Drip’s owners, Woodward headed back to school and picked up a culinary degree from Santa Barbara City College. Upon graduation, she worked as a baker for Handlebar, an upscale Santa Barbara joint.

When the pandemic struck, and the restaurant shut its doors, Woodward returned to Santa Cruz, where she’s now head chef of Vino Cruz. Her menu highlights include a signature ricotta toast with “pain de Campagne,” a special type of homemade sourdough bread, topped with homemade ricotta, butternut squash, brussels sprouts, brown butter vinaigrette and candied hazelnuts.

For burger fans, Woodward delivers big time: truffle, brie and bacon piled high. Still a baker at heart, she doesn’t disappoint in the dessert category. Try her pot de crème chocolate custard base with hazelnuts, dulce de leche caramel and a homemade snickerdoodle cookie.

Vino Cruz opens 2pm-8pm every day (until 9pm Fri-Sat and opens at noon Sat-Sun). Woodward spoke about the blending of sweet and savory talents and the inspiration behind her culinary career. 

How was the switch from baker to head chef?

KAITLYN WOODWARD: In baking, there are more exact measurements and more rules you have to follow, whereas, in other cooking, there is more freedom, more room to play around, less rules and less of a margin for error. Even though now my focus is more on making dinners instead of pastry, my background in baking still informs the work I’m doing today.

When did you realize your culinary calling?

It actually started back in high school at Aptos High. I would always make my friends cupcakes for their birthdays, and one time a friend told me that it was the best cupcake he had in his life and that I should open a bakery and sell them. That was when I realized that my lifelong passion for food should be my career. And even though I’m no longer baking cakes professionally, I still make one and bring it in for every co-worker’s birthday here at Vino Cruz. 

4901 Soquel Drive, Soquel, 831-426-8466; vinocruz.com.

Letter to the Editor: Trains and Irony

A letter to the editor of Good Times.

Letter to the Editor: What the Cluck

A letter to the editor of Good Times.

Opinion: A Personal Look at the ‘Murder Capital’ Years

Geoffrey Dunn offers perspective as a new book opens old wounds in Santa Cruz.

When Santa Cruz Was the ‘Murder Capital of the World’

A new book dives deep into the serial killings of the early 1970s.

Eviction Protections to End as Thousands of Renters Still Await Promised Relief

A new California bill would extend evictions protections for those with pending applications.

Capitola City Council Votes Against Flying Thin Blue Line Flag During National Police Week

Extremist groups have adopted the flag as a symbol of hatred, and Black Lives Matter opposition.

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology: March 30-April 5

Astrology, Horoscope, Stars, Zodiac Signs
Free will astrology for the week of March 30

Tannery Arts Center to Use Grant For New Performance and Dance Building

The new facility will also include two performance bays, office space and changing areas.

Hahn Family Wines’ 2019 SLH Pinot Noir is a Fruit Cornucopia

Also, Gayle’s Bakery & Rosticceria offers traditional hot cross buns, hamantaschen and support for Ukraine.

Vino Cruz Delivers a Variety of Innovative Dishes to Soquel Diners

Head chef Kaitlyn Woodward discovered her culinary calling after graduating with a global studies degree.
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