The City of Santa Cruz closed a temporary homeless encampment at Depot Park Tuesday, and some 50 people who were living there returned to the Benchlands encampment.
Some 200 unhoused people called the Benchlands home, and when the river rose from the influx of rain during the storm, many of the tents hugging the river’s banks were flooded and people’s belongings were washed down the waterway. At first, the City offered the River Street Garage as a temporary evacuation site for people living in the flooded zones but later moved people to Depot Park.
Now, the City is helping those same people return to the Benchlands. The lower parts of the Benchlands are closed, which are, according to City spokesperson Elizabeth Smith, the areas that are most at risk of flooding. The City has also established an emergency response plan for when future storms hit, which includes the fire department monitoring weather conditions, Smith said.
“This encampment was always going to close in mid-January,” Smith said. “And we feel pretty confident in the safety of folks, should any inclement weather or any storms come again.”
Ultimately, the City is planning on shutting down the Benchlands encampment as well, as it opens new shelters. The largest new encampment that the City is in the midst of getting up and running is a 75-person tent encampment outside the National Guard Armory. That camp will be run by the Salvation Army. The City plans to open that camp in mid-February.
Currently, some 100 people live in the Armory via a County-run program. For a few months, they will live alongside the 75-person encampment run by the City. But come July 1, the county program will close, leaving the living arrangements for some 100 people uncertain.
City Homelessness Response Manager Larry Imwalle told the Santa Cruz City Council that’s a problem for later.
“The status of the county programs does raise that bigger issue, or more long-term issue,” Imwalle said during the Jan. 11 City Council meeting. “Which is, what is the overall shelter capacity within the city?”
[Editor’s Note:In the wake of the 2020 CZU August Lightning Complex Fire, which destroyed 1,490 structures, consumed 86,509 acres and killed one civilian, Lompico resident Ryan Masters volunteered to be a firefighter for the Zayante Fire Protection District. Expecting to “maybe help clear brush or something,” the 48-year-old writer was instead enrolled in a five-month paramilitary boot camp—the 2021 Santa Cruz County Fire Fighter Academy. The 2022 Basic Fire Fighter Academy began on Jan. 16 and runs through May 2. Designed to accommodate volunteers, the 2022 BFFA Academy requires significantly fewer hours than the 2021 Santa Cruz County Fire Fighter Academy, but doesn’t offer a nationally registered Firefighter I certification. The 2022 class consists of 34 cadets from seven different Santa Cruz County fire departments. For more information about joining the fire service or enrolling in the next academy, contact your local fire department or district.]
The three-story training structure was on fire atop Ben Lomond Mountain. As Alpha Company sized up the stack of smoking storage containers, Ben Lomond Battalion Chief Mike Ayers called out, “Fire, second floor, Delta bedroom.” I sent RJ and Jacob to force the Alpha-side door and assigned the nozzle to Trader Joe, instructing him to pull the inch-and-three-quarters pre-connect hose from our engine.
As RJ and Jacob forced the door open with the irons, Trader Joe dropped the nozzle and first coupling at the threshold of the door while I flaked out the rest of our hose in a hasty effort to keep the slack from kinking. Once Trader Joe had called for water and cleared the line, we masked up, advanced the charged hose through the first floor, up a flight of stairs, and into the Delta bedroom, where we found the seat of the fire.
I slipped past my nozzle man’s position at the door, into the fire room, and vented the window. As Trader Joe opened the bail and spun the nozzle right to fight, I hit the floor and hugged the wall. The room roared with smoke and steam as the heat geysered out of the structure.
“Now you’ve got a vehicle fire. Exterior. Delta side,” Chief Ayers bellowed from outside. I jumped to my feet and helped Trader Joe hump the hose out the way we’d come, around the Alpha-Delta corner, and into the teeth of a fully involved van fire. Widening the stream into a perfect curtain through the gaping windshield, Trader Joe extinguished the blaze using less than 100 gallons. Fire doused, we shut down the water, uncoupled the hose, drained it, and prepared to re-lay it in the engine.
In all, it had taken us less than five minutes to douse both of the scenario’s fires. Not bad. Chief Ayers dinged my hose management skills—I could’ve flaked at a better angle to the door—but generally praised our performance. Like usual, I mainly just felt relieved we hadn’t disappointed the old man.
At 2,600 feet, spring may have brought bitterly low temperatures to the summit of Ben Lomond Mountain, but morale hovered at an all-time high. We were officially half-finished with the 2021 Santa Cruz County Fire Fighter Academy. It was hard to comprehend. The end of our Structural Firefighting unit was nigh. All that remained, warned Capt. Dan Bonfante, was “Firefighter Survival.”
Because a RIC, or Rapid Intervention Crew, can’t always reach a fallen or trapped firefighter in time, academy cadets spent two weeks practicing the fine art of saving our own asses. During Firefighter Survival, we trained for situations I prayed none of us would ever have to use on a real fireground.
We kicked off the unit by studying a litany of fatal case studies, including a 2005 Bronx apartment fire in which six firefighters were forced to jump from a fourth-story window after the fire blew up on the floor below them. The tragedy changed the way firefighters operate on the floor above a fire and introduced escape ropes and bailout training as standard safety measures. “We like to say that the fire service is 200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress,” said Chief Ayers. “But you can thank a dead firefighter for just about every safety code we have today.”
Proper window hang technique can save a firefighter’s life. PHOTO: PHOTO: SLV STEVE/STEVE KUEHL
The academy’s Firefighter Survival skills fell into two broad categories: entanglements in confined spaces and window bailouts. You could be forgiven for assuming jumping headfirst out a second-story window was the sketchier of the two, but the Maze was universally considered the academy’s most brutal and spirit-crushing challenge. Packed into a three-story cube, this disorienting and claustrophobic “confidence course” required cadets to crawl through 140 feet of tunnel, its snag-choked corridors a mere 16 inches wide in places. It had inspired years of academy horror stories.
Thankfully, the curriculum called for a gradual progression into the Maze. We each disassembled and reassembled our Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, or SCBA, blind, detecting its various components by feel. We practiced loosening our harness straps and altering our gear’s profile to fit through absurdly tight spaces. We learned to identify various types of building construction and practiced busting through sheet rock with a flat-head axe. And because nearly every house on the West Coast is built with 16-inch studs in its walls, we learned to slip through this slim margin. This escape move required us to proceed cylinder-first through the narrow gap, which meant approaching the wall backwards, rolling one shoulder as if doing the backstroke, and “swimming” through to the other side.
On the weekend before the Maze, we practiced on a 20-foot entanglement prop stuffed full of various gauges of wire, naked bed springs and other jagged metal bits designed to snag on a firefighter’s equipment. I found that navigating the entanglement box was similar to scuba diving through a kelp forest. It required sweeping the wires gently to one side with an arm and making subtle adjustments to my profile, in particular to my air cylinder’s vertical stem. The moment I felt resistance, I paused to assess the situation, identify which wire was taut, retreat a few inches, untangle and move on.
As commanding officer of Alpha for the month of March, my company’s problems were my problems. During our confined-space drills underneath the Boulder Creek fire station a few weeks earlier, I’d discovered that one of my guys, Peter, suffered from claustrophobia. Built like Colossus, Peter was the largest man in the academy, which only compounded the problem.
As Firefighter Survival loomed on the calendar, I tried to downplay the Maze to Peter, but it had become a favorite topic among the cadets. Two years earlier, one firefighter had been hung up so badly, only a reciprocating saw could free him. “Better get the saw!” had become a catchphrase in the days leading up to the Maze.
Santa Cruz Fire Fighter Academy cadets at ease on the tarmac. PHOTO: SLV STEVE/STEVE KUEHL
Firefighter Survival didn’t start well for Peter. He panicked in the entanglement prop, briefly reminding me of a bull I once helped Western Shoshone ranchers funnel into a castration pen. After experimentally poking his big head and shoulders through the curtain of wire and not liking what he found there, Peter had whinnied loudly and backed out, hopelessly entangling himself at the mouth of the prop as he retreated. To his credit, he took a few moments to calm down, reentered the prop and slowly but surely worked his way to the other side.
Unfortunately this modest achievement failed to instill much confidence in the big man. The Maze dominated his mind. He talked about it constantly or fell quiet for long periods of time while we ran other drills, lost in gloomy thought. At times, I caught him staring up at the third-floor of the training structure, where the Maze awaited.
When the time finally came to confront the Maze, no one wanted to do the first lap. What if the instructors had screwed up this year and it was impassable? What if we got stuck and had to be rescued? What if we ran out of air and couldn’t reach our masks? I told everyone to shut the fuck up. “I’m going first,” I said. “If I can make it, anyone can make it.” This appeared to satisfy everyone. Of course, now I had to do it.
Sure, it was my responsibility as C.O., but I also felt very protective of my younger guys. All but Trader Joe were roughly the same age as my son and, in some ways, they all reminded me of him. Raising my son was probably the hardest thing I’d done in my life, and I’d be the first to admit I probably could’ve done a better job. I didn’t need a psychoanalyst to tell me I was probably compensating.
I knelt before the entrance to the Maze, clicked into my air and crawled inside. Built primarily of plywood, it contained three separate levels of tunnels, numerous dead ends and only one correct way through. Little-to-no light penetrated its tight confines, but I could feel various hose lines with my gloved hands. The key was not losing contact with the original hose line once you started. The others led to dead ends.
This, of course, was far easier said than done. Once inside, the Maze’s tunnel tapered into nothingness. I closed my eyes and groped ahead. The dark, ever-constricting space seemed to end at a tiny gap. Beyond, I felt the tunnel make a hard left, nearly a u-turn. I retreated a few feet, loosened my straps, shrugged my cylinder off my right shoulder to clear its stem and jammed my body ever deeper into the Maze.
Because it required a singular focus to progress past each obstacle while simultaneously not losing the hose line or freaking out, I’d be hard pressed to accurately describe the Maze’s layout. In hindsight, it was like crawling blind through a series of increasingly smaller storm drains that had been stuffed with chicken wire.
At one point, the Maze required a nauseating upside-down corkscrew into a space that didn’t suggest any exit on the other side. At another, I was crammed inside what felt like a wooden truss. I could only continue once I’d realized the way out was straight up.
Cadets learn to escape through 16-inch wide gaps in walls during the Firefighter Survival portion of the academy. PHOTO: RYAN MASTERS
As I slipped through the last obstacle, my SCBA’s vibe alert began clicking. I was low on air. Rushing now, I unsnagged a thick metal wire from an SCBA strap and fell three feet headfirst into the exit tunnel with a grunt. As amber and red low-air lights flashed in my mask display, I inch-wormed from the Maze back out into the blessed light.
Kneeling, I stripped off my mask, sweat pouring from my flushed face, vibe alert sounding. “Fucking hell,” I gasped. Pale as a corpse, Peter knelt at the entrance of the Maze, ready to enter. I forced a smile and gave him a weak thumbs up. “No problem,” I lied.
Peter understood the stakes. If we didn’t complete the Maze, we didn’t complete Firefighter Survival, which meant we wouldn’t receive our Firefighter I certification—which meant every ounce of this would be for naught. Peter was in the Maze for 10, then 15 minutes. I could hear the captain from Watsonville Fire whispering advice and words of encouragement. At times, the captain’s light flashed from deep within the Maze as he guided the young cadet.
Stop and consider your phobias for a moment. What turns your guts to mush? Now imagine confronting that fear in front of an audience of peers with your career and reputation on the line. That’s what the fire academy asked Peter to do. When he finally crawled out of the Maze, vibe alert clicking and face flushed, to join me at the rehab station, I wanted to hug the big lug.
Peter unzipped his turnout coat and pounded water, a happy grin on his face. Perhaps sensing this self-satisfaction, Capt. Bonfante altered his direction of travel on the tarmac to pass by the rehab station. His face inscrutable behind aviator sunglasses, red helmet, and blue Covid bandana, he said, “You two have time to do it twice. Get back up there. This time blind.”
“Yes sir,” I replied. With that, the Captain was gone.
Peter’s face calved like a glacier. “I can’t do it again,” he murmured, almost to himself. “C’mon,” I told him. “Now we know the way.”
The idea of reentering the Maze didn’t thrill me either. Ignoring the nervous chatter of the younger Alphas on deck behind us, the captain from Watsonville Fire stuffed paper towels into my mask to ensure total blindness. When he patted me on my helmet to indicate I was good to go, I clicked into my air and, without hesitation, crawled back into the Maze like a crippled mole. As it turned out, total blindness was preferable to partial sight, which could be vague or even misleading in the cluttered space. The second time through, I cut three minutes off my time. More importantly, I only used half my cylinder. All the time in the world didn’t matter if you ran out of air in an IDLH—Immediate Danger to Life or Health—zone.
Although Peter’s second lap wasn’t much faster than his first, he also emerged from the Maze with plenty of air. That was huge. All told, only four of us would be tested by the Maze twice. Peter was the largest and most claustrophobic among us, yet the big man screwed up his courage to the sticking place and—twice!—didn’t fail. It was no small achievement.
After enduring the Maze, the second-story ladder bailouts seemed totally doable. After all, a rope belay would protect us from falling to our deaths. Yet Capt. Bonfante warned us not to be complacent. Cadets had torn shoulders and broken arms performing the bailout.
We began by practicing the window hang. “You don’t want to be hanging by your fingertips. You want to use your larger muscles,” Bonfante said, demonstrating how to maintain a low profile while exiting the window to minimize exposure to heat and smoke.
Over and over, we practiced clearing the window of glass, slipping out, hanging from its metal sill by the crook of one elbow and knee, then pounding the side of the structure and calling for a ladder. With each rotation, I could feel the bruising settle deeper into the soft meat behind my joints.
Next, we clipped into a harness and practiced the head-first ladder bailout from the structure’s second-floor window. As you exited the window, the key was to focus on the ladder, not the ground. On your way out, you slid your right hand under the second ladder rung from the top, grabbed the third rung with the same hand, then extended your left hand to the fourth rung on the opposite side of the ladder and grabbed it. In one motion, you let the rest of your body follow your head and torso out the window. The more compact you remained, the less impact and stress your body endured when your feet swung around to find the rungs of the ladder. You wanted your boot heels to almost kick your butt as you rotated out the window and onto the ladder.
I felt comfortable with the ladder bailout—perhaps too comfortable. When we moved on to the final Firefighter Survival skill, the hose slide, I rushed things a bit. While transferring onto the hose, I slammed my rib cage against the window’s sharp metal sill. The pain was immediate. I felt like I’d punctured an organ, but I continued down the hose and tried to ignore the injury.
Adrenaline and pride carried me through the remaining hose slide rotations, but a few hours later, while rolling up a 50-foot length of hose and carrying it back to the engine during clean up, I began to suspect I’d seriously injured myself. I could feel something popping in and out of place where my torso met my abdomen. I prayed it wasn’t my rib. Everyone in the academy was dealing with one or more significant injuries, but we all dreaded something major—something that could jettison us from the academy. Only ten weeks remained until graduation. Quitting would kill me. It was unthinkable.
That night, while I lay in the bath, bruises formed like storm clouds along my right arm and ribs, inner thighs and calves. The injured rib area constricted my breathing. The excruciating popping had become so bad, I needed my wife’s help to even get out of the tub. As I lay in bed trying to sleep, I experienced profound dread.
The next day, I hesitantly visited the doctor for x-rays. When they proved negative, I wanted to hug the physician’s assistant. A broken or fractured rib would’ve ended my academy. A bad muscular injury, on the other hand, could be endured. It might even heal up over the upcoming Easter holiday if I remained totally immobile.
Yet the pain was considerable. If I bent over or leaned back in any way, the muscle felt like it was detaching from the bone. Maintaining the proper posture at all times quickly became a cold sweat-inducing exercise. The anticipation of the muscle popping out became worse than the actual pain. It was fucking miserable.
The following night, the academy gathered at Zayante Station 1 to take the written portion of our national registration exam for Structural Fire Fighting. As I eased slowly into my desk, the muscle popped and I winced. “You ok?” Capt. Bonfante asked. “Just a little tender,” I assured him with a nauseated smile. “All good.”
I took that test in physical agony, finishing first and passing with a tidy, but unspectacular 77 percent. I was more relieved to go outside and suffer in private while I waited for everyone else to finish.
When the academy parted ways for its “spring break,” I limped home to begin my convalescence. Ideally, I could recover in time to train for the skills portion of our national registration exam for Structural Fire Fighting, which would take place the following weekend on Ben Lomond Mountain. I’d be expected to perform complex firefighting skills that required a fully functioning rib muscle, including throwing ladders and advancing charged hose up stairs.
Resigned to physical rest, I spent the week working my 9-to-5 from the couch, gobbling ibuprofen, and applying ice to my lower right rib. Yet cruel fate wasn’t finished with me. At 1:20 p.m. on April Fool’s Day, my cell phone exploded with messages of a confirmed structure fire in Lompico. I couldn’t believe it. All of my gear was right outside my door. Yet, instead of responding to Station 1 and jumping on a rig, I was forced to listen to the sound of Engine 2410’s distant sirens approaching Lompico Canyon.
Before long, the sound of Felton’s engines joined in as 2310 and 2311 arrived to provide mutual aid. When the units arrived on scene, they found heavy smoke and active flames pouring from the home. A crew from Zayante quickly engaged the fire and prevented it from spreading to nearby structures and wildland.
Listening to the sirens from my couch was almost too much to bear. I experienced the same sense of powerlessness that our evacuation from the CZU August Lighting Fire had inspired. Yet the structure fire was also a stark reminder of why I was in the fire academy.
Lompico was considered one of the riskiest communities in the state for wildfires. This box canyon had just one road in and out and was home to nearly 1,500 souls. What really scared me was the idea of a fire originating within the canyon. If we lost control of a structure fire during the dry, hot fire season and it spread into the surrounding wildlands, how in the hell would we evacuate everyone in time?
When I’d shown up at Zayante Fire Station 1 on Sept. 8, 2020 for a volunteer firefighter orientation, the CZU August Lighting Fire was still burning just a few miles to our west. During that introduction, we learned that the Zayante Fire Protection District had been short-handed for some time now. In fact, the community of Lompico had only one resident firefighter, Chief John Stipes, and he was set to retire the following year.
That meant Zayante Fire Station 2, located within Lompico Canyon, had been sitting idle for years. If just two of us managed to complete the necessary firefighter training, Chief Stipes had said, it would be possible to reestablish the Lompico substation, greatly increasing public safety inside the box canyon. The weird serendipity and startling clarity of this mission had appealed to me, and I’d signed up.
We needed to get Station 2 operational again. That was the goal. But to help reopen the Lompico substation, I needed to finish the fire academy. And to finish the fire academy, I needed to get healthy. As the crews began the salvage and mop-up process down the street, I gingerly returned to my place on the couch.There was plenty of fire in my future—of that I was certain.
On July 29, criminal defense attorney T.J. Brewer stepped into the Rountree Medium Facility in Watsonville to meet privately with an incarcerated client. Normally, during these abnormal Covid times, attorneys and clients meet over Zoom or other teleconferencing sites.
However, this time was different.
“It was one of those conversations that could not be on Zoom. It had to be face-to-face,” Brewer recalls.
He says officers placed him in the attorney box—a private area where attorney-client privilege could be kept confidential.
“Or what they told me was the attorney box during Covid,” Brewer says.
A week later he was representing the same client in court when the District Attorney approached him with shocking news.
“He informed me the jail had not turned off the recording devices in that room,” he says. “A number of things were [turned over] to him, including my conversation.”
Not only is this a major—and illegal—breach, but also a violation of his client’s Sixth Amendment constitutional rights. To Brewer, it’s one more reason why Santa Cruz County should have a Sheriff Oversight Committee, a call that has gained momentum over the past two years.
“Having an independent entity outside the civilian base to hold them accountable is appropriate,” he says. “It’s just an appropriate way to exercise power.”
In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1185—which went into effect on Jan. 1—granting counties the ability to create watchdog agencies over their respective sheriff’s offices. This could either be in the form of an oversight committee, an independent investigator or both, with subpoena power giving them considerable authority to investigate and expose misconduct.
The bill was first introduced in 2017 by Sacramento District Assemblyman Kevin McCarty in the wake of the killing of Mikel McIntyre, an unarmed, mentally disabled man who Sacramento police shot six times in the back as he ran.
Prior to the passing of AB1185, counties like Los Angeles and Santa Clara already had their own versions of oversight committees in place. Since its passing, Sonoma and San Francisco have joined in creating watchdog groups, bringing the total number of cities and counties in the state with some form of police or sheriff oversight to 21.
Of all the law enforcement offices within Santa Cruz County, only the Santa Cruz Police Department has an independent auditor to investigate claims of abuse, misconduct or public complaints.
Last week, the Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to explore establishing an independent investigator to oversee the Sheriff’s Office, reversing a previous decision made last September. Sheriff Jim Hart, who attended the meeting and provided the presentation, supported the move, but was also quick to point out that his office is overseen by the Board of State and Community Corrections, the County Supervisors and the Civil Grand Jury.
“I disagree there is no oversight,” he said.
During the public discussion, many people said that an independent investigator was not enough, and that only a citizens committee would be diverse and transparent enough to investigate law enforcement officials. County staff said having a single auditor would be the more financially prudent model in a time of already limited resources, but did not rule out investigating a citizens committee for the future.
“The recommended actions here do not exclude further investigation into a citizens commission,” said Supervisor Manu Koenig. “That can certainly be another step this board considers at another time.”
Lisa McCamey, the president of the Criminal Defense Bar, tells GT that an independent third-party investigator should be the standard for all law enforcement agencies.
“If the Sheriff’s Office is accused of doing something wrong, I don’t know if it’s necessarily appropriate for them to be investigating themselves,” she says.
TROUBLE ON TAPE
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Office spokeswoman Ashley Keehn said an investigation into the illegal recordings found that between March 1, 2020 and July 26, 2021—the day they were brought to Sheriff Hart’s attention—351 recordings were made. Keehn says they were a result of human error, and that the people involved were notified as soon as they were discovered. All recordings have been deleted, Keehn says.
“It was an oversight on our part,” she adds.
McCamey says the problem occurred because the privileged meetings took place in the facility’s normal visiting rooms, where families can place phone calls to their incarcerated loved ones through glass. These calls are always recorded with clearly posted signs notifying visitors.
“[Brewer] repeatedly asked if he was going to be recorded and was told, ‘No, no, these will not be,’” she says. “So I don’t know how that disconnect happened.”
The issue is one of many that has plagued the corrections bureau over the years. Most recently, that includes charges of sexual assault by officers, power outages at the Main Jail, overcrowding, understaffing and multiple deaths.
The Sheriff’s Office also banned physical mail delivery within the correctional system as of Dec. 1, 2021. Instead, any snail mail that isn’t monetary, or related to court cases or attorney-client interactions, is sent to a contracted vendor, Smart Communications MailGuard, in Florida to be scanned. The recipients can then view their mail via tablets they can check out. The physical copies are then destroyed.
Authorities say this is another step in preventing contraband from entering the facilities. The announcement came in the wake of multiple reported overdoses within the Main Jail in September, but Keehn says there is no direct correlation.
“It’s something we’ve been looking into for a while,” she says. “But, yes, it has everything to do with contraband coming in and doing our best to keep staff and the incarcerated safe.”
Yet sources close to the matter say it is an unnecessary added step that dehumanizes and further disenfranchises the jail population.
“If you ask the inmates if [contraband] comes in like that, they say, ‘No, it comes in with the correctional officers, cooks or new inmates,’” explains one source who asked to remain anonymous, pointing out that every piece of outside mail is already physically searched for contraband prior to inmate delivery.
In August, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) decreased the high rates and fees normally charged to incarcerated individuals and families for phone calls, limiting the charges to seven cents per minute and cutting many of the additional third-party fees. However, the anonymous source says that since the CPUC’s cap, the jail phone service provider canceled inmates’ two free calls a week, something many indigent inmates relied on.
The source also says that since Wellpath LLC—a private clinician based out of Nashville, Tennessee—has taken over, medical oversights are a common occurrence. In one example, the anonymous source states inmates are supposed to receive medication three times a day, in the morning, afternoon and dinner.
“However, they don’t have enough staff, so now they’re giving [inmates] two medications at once,” they state. The source also says they’ve heard that inmates have received the wrong medication due to distribution changes with Wellpath.
“But how do you prove that?” they ask. “That’s why you need oversight, because we don’t know.”
It was a claim also raised by a member of the community during the public comment portion at last week’s supervisors’ meeting.
Keehn says she is not aware of these allegations, but that there are proper channels inmates can take to report any issue.
“If one does feel like they aren’t getting the right dosage of medication or something they aren’t prescribed, they should let correctional officers or medical staff know to get that corrected,” she says.
Wellpath contracts with over 300 counties and departments throughout the country, and roughly 38 within the state, including Monterey County. They are owned by H.I.G. Capital, a private “alternative investment” equity firm based in Miami worth more than $45 billion.
As reported by nonprofit watchdog group the Project on Government Oversight, Wellpath and its subsidiaries have been sued almost 1,400 times since 2003. This includes multiple lawsuits in Santa Cruz and neighboring counties. In a 2019 article, CNN exposed Wellpath—then Correct Care Solutions—as the company providing healthcare to federal immigration detention facilities, which have been riddled with malpractice and wrongful deaths.
ACTION ITEMS
Last June, a Civil Grand Jury investigation into the Main Jail concluded that the “Board of Supervisors has failed to assert and exercise proper oversight within their purview of the Main Jail.” The adoption of an inspector general or oversight committee, the Civil Grand Jury stated, would “provide necessary public transparency and structure to support the Board of Supervisors’ supervision of the Sheriff’s Office Corrections Bureau.”
The Civil Grand Jury recommended that within six months after its investigation was published the supervisors should either establish an inspector general or oversight committee or place the issue before county voters.
Later that month, a virtual town hall—attended by 96 people—was held to discuss the Civil Grand Jury report and AB1185. Along with Sheriff Hart, the town hall was attended by Brenda J. Griffin, president of the Santa Cruz Chapter of the NAACP, Marshal Arnwine, Jr. from the Northern California ACLU and Santa Cruz Public Defender Mandy Tovar.
Activists hoped it would be the first step of many in establishing the need for an oversight body. However, in required responses released in September, both the Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff’s Office disagreed with the Grand Jury’s conclusions.
At the time, the Board of Supervisors rejected the idea that such a body would provide transparency, saying, “The Board of State and Community Corrections and the Civil Grand Jury already provide effective oversight.” It also rejected another Civil Grand Jury recommendation of opening the discussion to public comments, stating every Board of Supervisors meeting has a public comment section where people are granted two minutes to bring issues forward.
“Every recommendation made to elected officials aren’t effectuated, and not even everything elected officials bring forth to their bodies are passed,” County Supervisor Zach Friend tells GT. “Things in a public process take time, even good ideas take time. We shouldn’t live in a zero-sum expectation.”
In November, the Santa Cruz County Criminal Justice Council’s (CJC) Ad Hoc Committee on Law Enforcement Policies and Procedures released their highly anticipated report.
A joint effort by Watsonville-based Applied Survey Research, the Sheriff’s Office and police chiefs from every department in the county, the report gathered the procedures of each department to determine how they differ, how they are the same and what they can do to improve. The report represents 10 months of work spearheaded by Santa Cruz City Councilman Justin Cummings, who is running for the 3rd District Supervisorial seat, and Friend. It was initiated as a response to local and national calls for police reform in the wake of the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of police.
“It was important to have a transparent and open look at law enforcement policies and procedures in the community, particularly around the use of force,” explains Friend.
The report found that all of the county law enforcement agencies practiced de-escalation, have banned facial recognition and predictive policing technology, do not participate in no-knock warrants and that none receive military equipment from the federal government.
It is the first report of its kind in the country, and will be followed up later this year when the CJC investigates behavioral health within the justice system.
“The value of the CJC is taking a deeper dive to present the information to the greater community and policymakers,” Friend says. “It’s to say, ‘This is a snapshot that is happening in your community. Should there be changes to have a broader discussion?’”
[Editor’s Note: The online headline for this story has been changed, as it inaccurately reflected Sheriff Jim Hart’s position on the Board of Supervisors vote.]
Over the next eight years, the state will require cities in Santa Cruz County to build hundreds of new housing units—even as these municipalities are failing to meet the goals set forth by the state a decade ago.
Between 2014 and 2023, California set the expectation for Santa Cruz and Monterey counties to permit roughly 10,430 homes, in an attempt to address the region’s housing shortage. Many of these homes are required to be affordable for people with lower incomes. This year, the state more than tripled the number of houses it expects the counties to build over the next eight years, setting a goal of 33,274 units to be built by 2031.
How to distribute these housing units between the two counties was decided earlier this month, and has been a point of contention for Santa Cruz County cities. Capitola, Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley all saw their housing goals increase to what the cities’ representatives claim are unattainable numbers.
“The state’s housing expectations are laughable, when you look at the space and budget our city has,” says Scotts Valley City Councilman Derek Timm.
Timm claims the burden of building these units was disproportionately placed on cities in Santa Cruz County, and that Monterey County was able to get off easy in comparison.
But Rafa Sonnenfeld, director of legal advocacy at Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) Law, said that the housing goals each city is expected to meet are fair, and it’s simply a matter of cities being resourceful and committed to creating affordable housing.
“I think it really says something that the wealthiest cities in our region—Carmel, Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz, Capitola—were the only cities that didn’t vote for this, and the only cities that are really complaining about their numbers,” Sonnenfeld says.
The Methodology
To ensure enough housing is being built, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) uses a methodology called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, or RHNA (pronounced “ree-na”), to determine how much housing at each affordability level should be built in different regions across the state. A council of local jurisdictions, in Santa Cruz County’s case the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG), then divides that number up among its member cities.
This year, HCD expanded its criteria when defining housing needs, which is why the goals it set increased by more than three times from last cycle. HCD also put forward new criteria by which jurisdictions could divvy up the housing units across cities.
“The way that we’re distributing housing units now is basically encouraging more development in the high-wealth, high-opportunity areas. So for the likes of Scotts Valley, in particular, which got much larger numbers than they’re used to, it’s because they have good schools, they have high-paying jobs,” Sonnenfeld says.
City representatives like Timm and Capitola City Councilwoman Kristen Petersen say they think their cities were unfairly saddled with too many units when factoring in things like space and budget, compared to Monterey County.
Originally, AMBAG discussions had placed Santa Cruz County’s goals for new housing units between 10,800 and 10,500 by 2031. But at AMBAG’s Jan. 12 meeting, the board voted to increase the number of housing units assigned to Santa Cruz County to 12,979. This draft was sent to HCD in a 21-6 vote, with Santa Cruz City Councilman Justin Cummings, Petersen and Timm all voting against this allocation.
“After spending three years on this and having a general feel of what the numbers would be, this was a dramatic shift,” says Timm.
Ultimately, Timm’s gripe is with AMBAG’s decision-making process, which gives Monterey County more voting power than Santa Cruz County. San Benito County also voted in favor of the increase, despite not having a stake in the game—but because San Benito is on the Board of Directors, they have the voting power when deciding the RHNA cycle numbers for the two other counties.
The other problem with this big of an increase, city representatives like Timm and Petersen point to, is that smaller cities like Capitola and Scotts Valley don’t have the space or the funds to build out the number of affordable units assigned to them.
“We expected our numbers to go up. But zoning for this many units represents such a challenge, especially for a community like Capitola or like Scotts Valley, where you are already built out with residential neighborhoods,” says Timm. “We have a percent of the valley that has fire-safety access issues, and our undeveloped land has hillsides and other reasons why it cannot be developed.”
But Sonnenfeld said cities might just need to rethink their approach. Developing vacant parking lots and high-density housing could be solutions to space limitations, he said.
As far as funding is concerned, Sonnenfeld agreed that the state should help cities fund more affordable housing projects. But municipalities need to do their part in prioritizing the projects that are submitted by developers, he added, pointing out that Scotts Valley has permitted many market-rate units and few low-income units.
Scotts Valley has already surpassed its current RHNA allocation for total units permitted, but fewer than 3% are considered affordable by the state’s guidelines. Capitola has similarly not reached any of its 2023 housing targets. And although Santa Cruz has surpassed its 2023 RHNA goals for low, moderate and above-moderate incomes, it has only issued permits for 12 of 180 required very-low-income units.
When a city doesn’t meet its housing target, state law allows streamlined approval of some housing projects under Senate Bill 35. That’s what’s playing out in Santa Cruz right now with the affordable housing project on Water Street. Developers submitted plans under SB-35, which means Santa Cruz city officials have limited authority to deny the project, and developers can bypass some requirements.
“It’s that fear of losing that local control that I think is driving those comments about unrealistic, infeasible, unachievable numbers,” says Sonnenfeld. “But I think if cities really want to lean into meeting their goals, they can do it.”
While AMBAG has approved its draft RHNA numbers, they are not final yet. HCD still needs to review the draft. But Timm thinks they are as good as final.
“There’s no reason to think HCD won’t approve them,” says Timm. “We’re stuck with a ruling that we couldn’t really have an equitable discussion about with Monterey County.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In October 2021, the Vancouver Canucks hockey team played the Seattle Kraken team in a Seattle arena. A fan named Nadia Popovici noticed that the Canucks’ equipment manager Brian Hamilton had an irregular mole on the back of his neck—possibly cancerous. She found a way to communicate her observation to him, urging him to see a doctor. In the ensuing days, Hamilton sought medical care and discovered that the mole was indeed in an early stage of melanoma. He had it removed. In the spirit of this inspiring story, Aries, I invite you to tell the people in your life things they should know but don’t know yet—not just what might be challenging, but also what’s energizing and interesting. Be their compassionate advisor, their agent for divine intervention.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Canadian-Jamaican songwriter and recording artist Kreesha Turner isn’t a mega-star like Beyoncé or Rihanna, but she has had a successful music career. What’s the secret to her constant creative output? Here’s what she has said: “I love to surround myself with people who are the best at what they do. My idea is I want to be a sponge and absorb everything they teach, experience their energy, view them in their element and have the opportunity to ask them questions.” The coming year will be one of the best times ever for you to emulate her strategy, Taurus. And now is a perfect moment for formulating plans to make it happen.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini author Lisa Cron says that when we’re telling a story, we should give each successive scene “new information, rather than rehashing things we already know. Never tell us the same fact twice. Because it’s boring and stops the flow of the story. Never tell us the same fact twice. Because it’s boring and stops the flow of the story.” In accordance with astrological omens, Gemini, I suggest you apply this counsel to everything you say and do in the next three weeks. Don’t repeat yourself. Keep moving right along. Invite novelty. Cultivate surprises and unpredictability.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Years ago, I reluctantly gave up my music career. To do so was sad and hard. But it enabled me to devote far more time and energy to improving my writing skills. I published books and developed a big audience. I’m glad I did it. Here’s another redemptive sacrifice I made earlier in my life: I renounced the chaotic pleasure of seeking endless new romantic adventures so I could commit myself to a relationship with one particular woman. In so doing, I learned a lot more about how to be a soulful human. I’m glad I did it. Is there potentially a comparable pivot in your life, my fellow Cancerian? If so, the coming weeks and months will be a favorable time to make a move.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo actor Claudia Christian has appeared in over 50 films, including many in the science fiction genre. She has played a variety of roles in movies with more conventional themes. But as for the sci-fi stuff? She says, “Apparently, I’ve been typecast: I’m a Russian bisexual telepathic Jew.” If Christian came to me for astrological advice right now, I would suggest that the coming months will be an excellent time for her and all of you Leos to slip free of any pigeonholes you’ve been stuck in. Escape the mold! Create niches for yourself that enable you to express your full repertoire.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The coming weeks will be a favorable time to meditate on your job and your calling—as well as the differences there may be between your job and your calling. In fact, I regard this as a phase when you can summon transformative epiphanies about the way you earn a living and the useful services you provide to your fellow humans. For inspiration, read this quote from photographer Margaret Bourke-White: “Even while you’re in dead earnest about your work, you must approach it with a feeling of freedom and joy; you must be loose-jointed, like a relaxed athlete.”
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Author Marguerite Yourcenar wrote, “All happiness is a work of art: The smallest error falsifies it, the slightest hesitation alters it, the least heaviness spoils it, the slightest stupidity brutalizes it.” If what she says is true, it’s bad news, isn’t it? She makes it seem like cultivating joy and well-being is a superhuman skill that few of us can hope to master. Personally, I am not as stringent as Yourcenar in my ideas about what’s required to generate happiness. But like her, I believe you have to work at it. It doesn’t necessarily come easily and naturally. Most of us have never been taught how to cultivate happiness, so we must train ourselves to do it and practice diligently. The good news, Libra, is that the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to upgrade your happiness skills.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In 1891, a cultural organization commissioned Scorpio sculptor Auguste Rodin to create a statue of beloved French author Honoré de Balzac. The piece was supposed to be done in 18 months, but it wasn’t. For seven years, Rodin toiled, producing over 50 studies before finally finishing the piece. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that one of his mottoes was “Patience is also a form of action.” I’m recommending Rodin-like patience to you in the coming weeks, Scorpio. Yours will be rewarded long before seven years go by.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “I am ashamed of confessing that I have nothing to confess,” wrote author Fanny Burney. Actor Jennifer Lawrence said, “I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for.” I nominate these two souls to be your role models for the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, you are currently as immune to karmic boomerangs as it’s possible to be. Your guilt levels are abnormally low. As far as I can determine, you are relatively free from having to answer to the past or defend your actions. How do you plan to make maximum use of this grace period?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “New truths become evident when new tools become available,” declared Nobel Prize-winning medical physicist Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921–2011). She was referring to developments in science and technology, but I think her idea applies to our personal lives, too. And it so happens, in my astrological opinion, that the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to acquire new tools that will ultimately lead you to discover new truths.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Self-help teachers and New Age gurus are fond of using metaphors about opening doors. They provide a lot of advice that encourages us to knock on doors, scout around for doors that are open just a crack, find keys to unlock doors and even kick down doors. I will not be following their lead in this horoscope. In my opinion, the coming days are an excellent time for you to heed the contrary counsel of author Paulo Coelho: “Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.” Once you carry out this assignment, Aquarius, I believe you’ll start finding interesting new doors to open.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In 2017, Piscean film director Jordan Peele released his debut film, Get Out. It was a success with both critics and audiences. A year later, Peele became the first Black screenwriter to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. As he accepted the Oscar, he said, “I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible.” Personally, I’m glad Peele didn’t give up his dream. Here’s one reason why: He will serve as an excellent role model for you throughout 2022. As you reinvent yourself, Pisces, don’t give up pushing ahead with persistence, courage and a quest for what’s most fun.
Thirty of us gathered at Café Cruz for a festive lunch during the holidays. Divided into tables of 10 in a private section of the restaurant, we all had a splendid time. Our group had a special menu to choose from with a list of about a half dozen items. My husband loved his Café Cruz Cheeseburger, and I was equally delighted with my grilled local rockfish sandwich. The sandwich is served on a Gayle’s Bakery Francese roll and it’s delicious. Part of getting it right is using good bread, and Café Cruz does just that.
I took along a bottle of Hahn 2019 Pinot Noir to share—nowhere near enough for our table, but at least everybody got a taste. Wine is meant for sharing!
Hahn’s 2019 Arroyo Seco Pinot Noir ($25) is a ruby-red wine with aromas of red cherry, ripe raspberry, toasted oak and subtle hints of roasted coffee. Flavors of red fruit, cherry, vanilla and a touch of spice round out this lovely Pinot.
Hahn established its winery in 1980 in the hills of Monterey County. The family still owns the winery and farms its six certified sustainable estate vineyards. Based in Soledad, with a tasting room in Carmel, Hahn Family Wines is one of the better-known operations in the area.
Visit hahnwines.com for more info.
Burrell School Vineyards’ Wine & Crab Feed
The fifth annual Wine & Crab Feed at Burrell School will be held 1-4pm on Feb. 5 and 6. Back by popular demand, this event features Chef Kyle Davis. Each take-out box includes fresh local crab with garden lemons, homemade clam chowder, fresh sourdough, Caesar salad, crab-themed cupcakes and a bottle of the newly released 2020 Teacher’s Pet Chardonnay ($85 or $140 for two). Add an extra bottle of 2018 Pinot Noir or 2020 Chardonnay for $15. For pickup times and more info, email ky**@bu***********.com.
Burrell School Vineyards, 24060 Summit Road, Los Gatos. 408-353-6290. burrellschool.com.
Paula’s current owner, Santa Cruz native Russell Fox, left the area for a while to run multiple restaurants and bars in Santa Barbara. However, he could only stay away from his hometown for so long. When Fox returned to Santa Cruz, he was hired as the manager of Paula’s, a neighborhood coffee joint that’s been a Portola Drive fixture for decades. By 1995, Fox had moved into the ownership role. He transformed the spot from unextraordinary to a distinct breakfast/lunch joint that showcases the city that had beckoned Fox to return.
The food’s not fancy, but you won’t find many other $5 sit-down breakfasts that come with two eggs (cooked any style), potatoes and toast. Pancakes and waffles with various toppings are also on the menu. There’s also the beloved “Walk Away”: a freshly-baked hoagie roll filled with potatoes, cheddar cheese and an egg. The lunchtime menu features hotdogs, tuna sandwiches and other staples. Paula’s is open 7am-1pm Monday-Friday, and 8am-1pm Saturday and Sunday. Fox rapped with GT recently about Paula’s unique ambiance and his clairvoyant powers.
How would you describe Paula’s interior?
RUSSELL FOX: It’s a mini-museum inside the restaurant dedicated to old-school Capitola and Pleasure Point. There’s a life-size replica shark head, hanging paddleboards and surfboards, classic local pictures and surfer magazines and journals. Our outside patio is probably the best anywhere because it has plants, pictures, umbrellas, benches, tables and swings. And there is also a 1979 Dodge surfing van that guests can eat inside of. It’s not like any place else.
Tell me about your ability to predict the future.
In 1970, I predicted that two things would come true: One was that marijuana would be legalized; and two, that Santa Cruz would become the number one place to live in the entire world because of access, access, access. What I mean by this is we have Monterey Bay, top pro sports teams like the Warriors, Giants and 49ers, Big Sur, Laguna Seca etc., all within 100 miles. You can surf in the morning and ski that same afternoon. Given the popularity of Santa Cruz now and the cost of living here, it turns out I was right.
3500 Portola Drive, Santa Cruz. 831-464-0741. paulas-santa-cruz.edan.io.
Fungiphilia! When I saw that the intrepid hunter/gatherers of Ocean2Table were offering fresh harvested porcinis, I was transported to a visit to Rome in October. Every menu offered some mouth-watering version of fresh porcinis, and we ate our fill. During prime mushroom seasons past here in Santa Cruz, Paul Geise of Ristorante Avanti used to come to the tables with a basket of enormous fresh porcinis (Boletus edulis, boletes, alsoknown as cèpe in French, Steinpilz in German) to tempt us. Porcini risotto remains one of the top dishes in my culinary memory.
Lately I’ve noticed persistent foragers in the oak groves near the UCSC campus. Obviously looking for mushrooms, mostly harvesting chanterelles. The Ocean2Table folks currently carry fresh porcinis found in Monterey County by Jason Collins; the earthy umami flavor and texture make these babies justly prized. Porcinis sauteed in garlic and olive oil over pasta create an unforgettable flavor.
A local expert and veteran fungiphile shed some light on why our local mushrooms are springing up just now, in January. “Mushrooms have a mind of their own,” he reminded me. “The only reliable rule is that they never come up where and when you expect them. A January first bloom is not surprising.”
Chanterelles are influenced not only by the current year’s heavy rains, but also by the preceding years of drought, he contends. “It’s also possible that dry weather and cold temps for a month after the heavy rains in fall delayed the bloom.” The longtime forager told me that “chanterelles typically would show up in fall, a couple of weeks after the first serious rains. I took bucket loads to a Thanksgiving feast at Tandy Beal’s about 10 years ago.”
There can also be a spring bloom, though not as vigorous. “The heavy rains of decades ago would produce continuous blooms for months on end—of big, wet, soggy, mud-splattered, delicious ’shrooms, an endless bonanza if you were willing to spend the time in the kitchen cleaning them and reducing the liquor.”
Around here, they tend to be found in oaky meadow margins that get at least “a kiss of sun. This might be a good year for morels in the wildfire burn areas come spring,” he predicts. “Conversely, alas, the destruction of pine-forest by fire and disease is bad news for the porcini that inhabit almost exclusively old pine forests.”
After several decades of hunting in our neck of the woods, this forager believes that “climate change is the likely culprit for noticeable changes in the quantity of mushrooms and changes in the timing, which is even less predictable than ever.” If by now you’re salivating for some plump locally-harvested porcinis, ($18/.5lbs), then head over to the Ocean2table website and place your order.
Spade and PlowAt Mentone, Jan. 19 and 20 (two seatings each night) features a prix fixe menu of harvests from the renowned Santa Clara County organic farm Spade and Plow, with optional wine pairings. The special menu from the kitchen of Mentone includes scallop crudo with yuzu citrus and Calabrian kosho sauce made from chilis fermented with salt and yuzu peel. Following a root veggie carpaccio will be cioppino of crab, black cod, mussels and torn bread, as well as rack of lamb with artichoke, farro and sun-dried tomato. Dessert is still in the conceptual stages. Price is $115 per person, a bargain, plus additional wine pairings for $45 selected by ace sommelier Alyssa Twelker. A delicious way to work your way through January. Mentone, in Aptos Village. Book your spot now.
The Sempervirens Fund—a group instrumental in the creation of Big Basin State Park more than 120 years ago—plans to buy a 153-acre property bordering the park by Jan. 31. They hope to open the land to the public for recreation and eventually make it part of the historic state park.
“We’ve got files and files going back decades trying to conserve this property,” says Sara Barth, executive director of the Sempervirens Fund. “And it was only in the last year that things really turned around, and we finally got the opportunity that we’ve been waiting for.”
The previous owner, Roy Kaylor, had piled up rusted cars and garbage around the property since 1984. The mess appeared on an episode of the TV show Hoarders in 2011. After years of ignoring cleanup orders and fines from the county, Kaylor lost the property to court-appointed receivers, who began cleanup efforts.
Verve Coffee Roasters co-owner Colby Barr purchased the land in 2020 and continued the restoration.
“You would never imagine that it’s the same property,” says Barth. “It looks beautiful.”
The area boasts healthy second-growth redwoods, Douglas firs, madrones and tanoaks.
“It’s really the old-growth of the future right there on that property,” says Barth. She describes waterfalls, deep ravines and burbling streams. “The property is of a caliber that is worthy of addition to Big Basin, and it’s worthy of public visitation,” she says.
Sempervirens approached Barr about the property last spring.
“It felt serendipitous when we started talking,” says Barr.
Barr says he loves the redwoods and the Santa Cruz Mountains and did not have plans to develop the land.
“There’s no better place this property could end up,” he says, citing his admiration for the Sempervirens’ work and their role in creating California’s first state park.
“What foresight people had back then, at a time when I’m sure it was very not-cool to try to protect the trees,” he says.
“I always thought maybe someday they would end up with the land anyway,” Barr says with a laugh.
The property burned in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire, but not as intensely as neighboring Big Basin. PHOTO: Jordan Plotsky
Branching out
The Sempervirens Fund calls the property the Gateway to Big Basin. It borders the park and is split by highway 236.
“It has representatives of all of the other ecosystem types found in Big Basin,” says Barth. “The hope is that this becomes an alternative way for the public to experience the forests and the feel of Big Basin.”
The area burned in the CZU fire, but not as intensely as the neighboring state park. With a bit of effort to improve trails and access, the land could open to visitors much sooner than Big Basin’s fire-scarred backcountry.
“And if state parks can plan during their ‘Reimagining Process’ for this property being part of the park, it opens up a world of additional options for them around where they might put campgrounds, and trails and things like that,” says Barth.
Sempervirens will manage the land directly after the purchase, but they hope to transfer it to California State Parks relatively quickly.
The property could prove important for the recovery of the forests in the park. In Big Basin, most of the Douglas firs died, but many in the gateway property survived.
“The survival of the Douglas firs on the Gateway property will be a gift to regional forests that lost so many firs in the CZU fire, including most of the firs in Big Basin,” said Laura McLendon, the Sempervirens Fund’s director of conservation, in a press release.
The gateway property also contains part of the headwaters—or beginnings—of the Boulder Creek watershed.
“It feeds into a larger watershed that’s really key to salmon recovery efforts in the region,” says Barth. Keeping headwaters clean improves the health of ecosystems and waters downstream.
The group created a $2.86 million Campaign to Preserve the Gateway to Big Basin to cover the $2,415,000 property cost and $346,500 for stewardship and management programs. They have currently raised $2.18 million toward the goal and have until Jan. 31 to come up with the rest.
“We do have a donor who’s offered to match up to $100,000 in gifts,” says Barth. “So if people are inspired to give, they should know that at the moment, it’s a good time because the donation will be doubled.”
Barth feels optimistic about the final push and future of the property.
“To me, this story is both one of great hope and resilience,” she says. “We’ve been trying for so long. The property’s gone through so much. And now it’s in great condition, and it’s finally the moment where we’re going to be able to see it protected.”
Last Friday night, a car plowed into Platt while he was crossing the street in front of his Santa Cruz restaurant, The Crepe Place. He was airlifted to a Bay Area hospital after sustaining a broken ankle, a knee injury, a broken collar bone and lacerations to his face and hands.
According to the GoFundMe campaign, launched by Sean McGowan, Luke Pabich and his Good Riddance and Seized Up bandmates, Platt’s ankle and knee injuries are quite extensive and will require surgeries and rehabilitation.
Saturday marked surgery number one, which went well.
“He’s in good spirits,” reads a post-surgery update on the GoFundMe page.
Platt’s wife, Vanessa, expressed gratitude to the Santa Cruz community and fans worldwide for the $50,000-plus raised thus far for medical expenses, which will be substantial.
“Chuck and I would like to thank everyone of who contributed to this fund. We are overwhelmed by your generosity! We always knew we were a part of a special community. We have just experienced the love first hand, not only with these donations but also through the phone calls, personal messages of encouragement, offers to help, and thoughts and prayers.
These funds will help us with the medical bills and rehabilitation costs as well as the next couple of months when Chuck is immobilized and unable to work.”
It’s apparent that the beloved father/husband/rocker/restaurant owner has a long and tedious road to recovery ahead of him, but there’s no doubt Platt will eventually make his way back to one of the places he’s always felt most at home: on stage.
For updates and to help Platt and his family, visit GoFundMe.
The Sempervirens Fund—a group instrumental in the creation of Big Basin State Park over 120 years ago—plans to buy property bordering the park by Jan. 31
