With all the bad news around—and there is more than enough—it was a pleasure to read a story about people working on healing in high schools.
Our cover story by Addie Mahmassani about poets helping students find the power of healing in their own voices is just the relief I needed. Good things are happening here, and I didn’t have a clue until I read her work.
“We scattered across the county with pocket-sized notebooks, sample poems and prompts designed to coax teenagers toward the page,” Addie writes. “Our methods and classes varied a great deal, but we shared the same goal: to give young people in Santa Cruz the tools and permission to consider themselves poets.”
Adds school superintendent Dr. Faris Sabbah: “High-quality instruction in poetry offers students a powerful vehicle to name their experiences, speak their truth, and transform their lives and communities.”
Students know poetry, much of it in the form of lyrics and raps. There’s a point in the story when they are asked to identify a great quote and the students assume its a hip-hop artist. Nope, it’s Shakespeare.
What a great way to get students involved in reading the classics and then creating their own. Enjoy this story: it’s our holiday gift.
I wish journalism would get an infusion of energy like this. We need it as much as we need poetry. Schools barely teach news coverage anymore, and a way to investigate and present the truth has never been more needed.
This week has other holiday treats: International Academy of Dance is gearing up for The Nutcracker, as Mathew Chipman reports. And theater reviewer Christina Waters examines Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s A Christmas Carol.
New French pastry over at the Capitola Mall; the return of rock band Snail; and an important article on protecting yourself from holiday scams.
Enjoy and have a great week.
Brad Kava | Editor
PHOTO CONTEST
LIGHT UP THE NIGHT With all that glimmer, here’s a 2025 Santa Cruz Lighted Boat winner. Photograph by Ali Eppy
GOOD IDEA
The City of Santa Cruz encourages public participation in local government through its advisory bodies. These are boards, commissions, committees and task forces that deal with a variety of issues and make recommendations to the City Council. Unless otherwise noted, applicants must be city residents and/or city voters.
The deadline to submit applications is Jan. 11.
Appointments will be made at the regular City Council meeting on Jan. 27, 2026. Includes: Arts Commission, Board of Building and Fire Appeals, Children’s Fund Oversight Committee, Downtown Commission, Historic Preservation Commission, Parks and Recreation Commission, Planning Commission, Sister Cities Committee, Transportation and Public Works Commission, Water Commission and County Latino Affairs Commission.
Applications are available in the City Clerk’s Division, 809 Center St., Room 8, Santa Cruz. Phone: 831-420-5030. City advisory body information, current openings and an application form are also available on the City’s Advisory Body web page.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
‘People don’t realize how quickly they become active teenagers.’
I was glad to see your article on tracks “de-railed” (although you stole my intended pun).
It’s dismaying, however, to learn that the rail has been shelved for over 20 years into the future. So what’s plan B for mass transit?
Highway 1 widening will have consumed about a half a billion dollars, and if you drive from Santa Cruz to Watsonville around 9 in the morning, you’ll observe the widened section is moving (actually not moving) similarly to the previous yet to be widened sections.
Los Angeles built the 14-lane Santa Monica freeway only to see it turn into a miles-long parking lot during commute hours before they wised up and started building mass transit.
Tragically, cutting down 1,100 trees for the latest widening project will similarly offer little relief after several years of additional congestion from construction.
The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC), according to the article, has paid about $1.25 million to consultants for the soon-to-be-buried-for-decades rail line.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to invest a small fraction of that amount to investigate Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)—a method that has existed for over 50 years and is now spreading throughout the world?
PRT—lightweight vehicles for four people or two people with a wheelchair or bicycle—can be built at a small fraction of the cost and would not overburden existing bridges.
It could go on ground level, where privacy issues are concerned, and using simple streetlight-type poles elevated over street crossings, eliminating a major problem with surface rail.
Due to its simple nature, PRT can be in place much quicker and can be solar powered with electricity from collectors on its own right-of-way. PRT can offer many more access points without expensive stations, and this could increase Metro ridership using bus feeder lines.
PRT offers, due to its accessibility off the mainline, faster travel times since it goes directly to your destination. This could greatly reduce traffic on the crowded freeways and be a more environmental modality.
Much more information can be found by googling PRT, including a simulation of PRT traveling around various Santa Cruz locales.
It’s definitely time for the RTC to get its head out of the 20th-century thinking box and move toward solving our transportation quandary.
Fred Geiger | Santa Cruz
ONLINE COMMENTS
POLICE SURVEILLANCE
While I agree with Stephanie Singer’s letter about the hazards of Flock mass surveillance cameras—which recent reporting reveals are hackable in under a minute flat by any basic hacker—there are also very serious related concerns about doorbell cameras. Ring is now a partner of Flock, and allows Ring camera owners to opt in to share their doorbell camera feeds with law enforcement.
Ring makes it sound like doing so is a service to public safety, but what it really does is widen the police dragnet of all our comings and goings, in a faulty system that targets the innocent. A suburban mom was grilled by law enforcement due to being mistaken for being a package thief, by a license plate reader that misread her plate.
So if you have a Ring camera and you don’t want it used to potentially target your migrant neighbors and others under the new mass surveillance state, where the government can query a database and use AI to predict whether you “might” be a criminal based on your travel data (which is faulty, subject to hacking, and has already resulted in accidental arrests of innocent people, US citizens and legal immigrants alike), you can choose NOT to share your Ring footage with the cops. Don’t opt in.
Will Mayall’s excellent, common-sense approach deserves to be seriously discussed by the members of the RTC before they move ahead with the proposed multi-billion grandiose intercity rail and less desirable confined trail project and the inflated sales tax that will be required to cover operating expenses.
Will wrote: “Fixing the small things first isn’t just practical. It’s the only credible path toward the big things. Until we can deliver on everyday basics—smooth pavement, working buses, safe crossings—grand promises about zero-emission rail are just noise on top of broken tracks.” Or, as one RTC member said, the ZEPRT project “is sucking all the oxygen” from all other county transportation needs.
This lack of attention to fixing the “small things” applies to County infrastructure in general, of course. We have waited for years to have the broken drainage system of the original Arana Gulch Multi-use bike/ped path along Brommer Street Extension repaired. It was installed behind the retaining wall and worked when the $7.5 million project opened in 2014. It was broken two years later. It is still broken. As are three of the Dark Sky-friendly nighttime lights for the asphalt path.
I have enjoyed a funny routine these past two months. Every Friday, I wrap up teaching at my job in Silicon Valley, where rows of gleaming Teslas line the parking lot. I head toward the mountains, watching the traffic thin and the trees multiply. Finally, I pull into San Lorenzo Valley High School just in time to catch the last hour of the school week.
There, a hand-painted sign advertises the student-run farm stand, and mud-splattered trucks abound. Students mill about a track nestled in redwoods. It’s a vibe shift worthy of a poem; and it just so happens, I go there to teach poetry.
This fall, I have been a fellow with Rising Voices, a countywide poetry program created by Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate Nancy Miller Gomez in collaboration with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education to bring creative writing workshops into classrooms that rarely receive them.
“I really wanted to work with the youth in the county,” Gomez says, “specifically targeting under-served youth who could really benefit from the healing value of poetry.”
WORDSMITH Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate Nancy Miller Gomez started a program to help students find their poetic voice. Photo: Chris Schmauch
Over eight weeks, a team of teaching poets that Gomez recruited fanned out across school sites—from comprehensive high schools to alternative education programs and the juvenile hall—working with more than 300 students.
At SLVH, I spent Friday afternoons with veteran teacher and poet Jennifer Ruby’s freshman English class. Meanwhile, fellow writer Heather Duffy, who has worked extensively in county jails with the Santa Cruz Poetry Project, taught in the Alternative Education Program at Seabright High School.
Farnaz Fatemi, the former Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate, came aboard, teaching at Aptos High and Harbor High.
Local poets Bob Gomez (former Poet Laureate of Watsonville), Jen Siraganian (former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos), Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour and Lisa Ortiz have also spent their fall as Rising Voices fellows. The UCSC Humanities EXCEL Program also contributed, providing interns Naomi Garrett and Grace Menagh.
We scattered across the county with pocket-sized notebooks, sample poems and prompts designed to coax teenagers toward the page. Our methods and classes varied a great deal, but we shared the same goal: to give young people in Santa Cruz the tools and permission to consider themselves poets.
“At its core, education is about uplifting and amplifying student voice,” says Dr. Faris Sabbah, the superintendent of schools. “High-quality instruction in poetry offers students a powerful vehicle to name their experiences, speak their truth, and transform their lives and communities.”
In a time of political unrest and enormous uncertainty for arts education, Rising Voices has shown that collaboration and resilience can still create powerful opportunities. A broad coalition of sponsors has made the program possible, including the Academy of American Poets, the Mellon Foundation, the William James Association, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and the Santa Cruz Arts Council. Behind the scenes, these organizations pulled off incredible feats of coordination, orchestrating teachers’ and students’ schedules, work clearances, payments, releases, curricula, training and much more.
But in the classroom, we did not feel the stress of number-crunching or the logic of countless spreadsheets. All that work opened up precious hours in which we were free to experiment with words, to admire them, and to use them to express ourselves in new and surprising ways.
RISING VOICES TEAM Over eight weeks, teaching poets fanned out across 12 school sites to implement Gomez’s program. Photo: Audrey Sirota
Poetry Magic
When Gomez learned she had been appointed as Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate early this year, she had about two weeks before the deadline to submit a proposal for the Academy of American Poets’ prestigious Laureate Fellowship. These $50,000 awards are granted to support poets serving in civic positions around the country in the creation of interactive and responsive poetry projects.
With all due respect to poets, it is a rare one who can both envision a large-scale community program like Rising Voices and compile the extensive paperwork to secure funding in a matter of days.
But anyone who knows Gomez knows she regularly moves (metaphorical) mountains for her community. Her belief that poetry is a healing, connective force—an art form capable of transforming people overlooked by traditional education systems—has shaped every facet of her literary career. For over a decade, she has taught poetry in jails, prisons, juvenile halls and recovery centers, co-founding the Santa Cruz Poetry Project with former Santa Cruz County Poetry Laureate Ellen Bass to bring writing workshops to incarcerated men and women in 2014.
She is also a celebrated poet in her own right. After a storied career in law and entertainment in Southern California, she earned an MFA in poetry from Pacific University and quickly became a force in Santa Cruz literary life and beyond. In 2024, she published her collection Inconsolable Objects, which went on to win the 2025 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her style is dark and whimsical, never shying from life’s tragedies, but finding mythic hints of beauty and humor therein.
“When [Gomez] shared her vision of offering Poetry Workshops to over 300 students in our county, I literally choked on my tea,” says Audrey Sirota, the arts coordinator at the County Office of Education. “I said I was not sure how this would be possible. Ye of little faith! I did not realize the tenacity and driving vision that our new Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate had.”
In fact, Gomez’s proposal for Rising Voices did not stop at the sprawling network of poetry workshops. The project also established the Youth Poetry Collective, where teen writers meet weekly at Santa Cruz High School to study craft, workshop and network with literary professionals. Finally, a Rising Voices Anthology is in the works, with publication and promotion set for this spring.
“Poetry magic happened!” Sirota says.
SPEAKING OUT Vicky Tinnell and Ash Raznik in the KSQD studio. Photo: Nancy Miller Gomez
Knocking Poetry Off Its Pedestal
The hardest part about teaching poetry to teenagers might be the word poetry itself.
Walk into any classroom and ask how many students like it, and you get a few brave raised hands. Gomez has devised a clever routine for this situation—one that she walked us teaching fellows through in training before we started our individual workshops.
“So my next question is, ‘How many of you listen to rap?’” Gomez instructs. She has seen countless rooms of teens respond with enthusiasm.
“So then I say, well, then you do like poetry,” she explains. “Rap is the most popular form of poetry being written today.”
Students stare back skeptically, so she challenges them. She reads a line aloud, and asks them to guess whether it belongs to a rap song or a poetry anthology.
“It is deadly, terrifying. It is the Inquisition, the revolution. It is beauty itself.”
“Rap,” they say.
It’s William Carlos Williams.
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
“Rap,” they insist.
It’s Shakespeare.
When she reads an actual rap lyric—De La Soul—the room grows noisier, confused and delighted.
In that moment, as Gomez often says, “we knock poetry off its pedestal.” The students’ ideas of the artform as arcane and dreadfully academic collapse.
Any poet knows that even if you want to write a poem, sometimes the words just won’t come to you. Gomez prepared a series of lesson plans and prompts designed to conjure the muse in the limited amount of time we had each week with our students. Teaching poets were encouraged to add their own spin on the activities.
At Seabright High School, for example, Duffy begins with a freewrite: two minutes, no sentences required. Just pour words onto the page. Then the class builds a collaborative poem from the chaos—drawing out every second or third word, throwing them onto a whiteboard, shaping meaning from the chaos. The point is not to produce a poem but to normalize experimentation.
“Get everyone’s voice in the room,” Heather says.
From there, she hands out tiny notebooks provided by Rising Voices—palm-sized books that fit in a pocket—and sends students outside for a brief observation exercise. Notice something. Write it down. Come back. The steps might seem simple, but it is in their very simplicity that poetry begins to percolate.
Inside, with guidance on the theme or the literary device for the day, students start to turn their notes into poems.
A similar process of mindful observation happens at the Hartman Alternative School inside juvenile hall, where Gomez herself has taken on the workshop sequence.
“I’ve had kids say, ‘I can’t write a poem,’” Gomez says. “And I’m like, just write a list of the things that are around you.”
Bars on the windows. The fluorescent lights. The water cooler dripping. The linoleum floor.
“Now title it,” Gomez says.
Suddenly the poem becomes “Juvenile Hall”—an inventory of a distinct and complex space in some teenagers’ lives.
Other list poems we’ve generated have explored the interior world. One SLVH student, Fiona Spear, wrote a list poem thrumming with the defining emotion of modern teenage life:
Anxious that it will all fall apart. Anxious it will never start. Anxious they won’t like me. Anxious I won’t like them. Anxious to look back and see someone I hate. Anxious to end up with a doomed fate. Anxious about everything.
As one of Gomez’s students at the Hartman School reflected, “This has given me a really good coping mechanism. I hope to keep writing poetry so I can use it no matter where I go.”
For every weighty exploration of difficult emotion and experience, there is an example of teenage humor and grace. Right before Thanksgiving, in the spirit of gratitude, I tried out a lesson on odes in my workshop. We read Pablo Neruda’s wonderful “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” and discussed the mystery with which Neruda imbues a mundane market fish. One of Ms. Ruby’s students read the famous first stanza aloud.
The students proceeded to glamorize and glorify unexpected elements of the holiday season, from sweet potatoes to folding chairs, to the crackling leaves outside.
Across the county, at Pájaro Valley High School, former Watsonville Poet Laureate Bob Gomez was teaching poems that week rooted in place. One of his students, José Figueroa, wrote “Watsonville Poem”:
In Watsonville, mornings smell like berries and worn out dreams. A paycheck is thin like fog. Hope hangs on laundry lines.
Meanwhile, Ash Raznik, a member of the Rising Voices Youth Poetry Collective and a student at Cypress High, wrote “Bloody Fruit,” a compressed meditation on pomegranates:
Lovely, goddessly. The coming of spring and fall. Tears, casualties, earthquakes, Queens, revolution, strength, revenge. Bitter coziness, perfection, butterflies, a snack, a journey, grief, heroes lacking blood, not water, goes well with tea, a trap, sleep, death release and that’s that.
Later, Ash reflected on all the metaphorical power of one small object. “I think in a lot of ways a pomegranate is a very simple thing,” they say. “To me it’s a lot more. … It’s one of the few fruits you know best because it’s messy. And I think I like that concept a lot.”
To unlock thoughts and words like these is a great joy for all involved. In these moments, we see ourselves in the world around us; even better, we see the world inside us.
What Cannot Be Measured
Rising Voices began as Gomez’s project. It became our project as teaching poets. But it now belongs most fully to the teenagers who have filled its pages and classrooms with voices that refuse to be ignored.
Earlier this month, Vicky Tinnell, one of the students in the Rising Voices Youth Poetry Collective, stepped up to the mic at the Inter/Act reading series celebration of the Youth Poet Laureates program, a sister initiative that shares Rising Voices’ belief in the power of youth expression. Most readers that night were YPL finalists and ambassadors, but during the open mic portion, Tinnell ventured forward to do her first open mic.
Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tinnell joined the Rising Voices Youth Poetry Collective at the suggestion of one of her teachers at Santa Cruz High. As part of a prompt for epistolary poems, she wrote “Dear Kids in America.” It reads,
Here I’m black, but not the right kind.African, but not the version you romanticize in movies. I’m Congolese, but you don’t know where that is. You ask if I’ve seen lions. I’ve seen worse.
It’s a poem that changes the air pressure in the room, and it keeps building:
You want me to become something But I already was something Back when I was barefoot in the red dirt Chasing goats and dreams with no English in my mouth And no anxiety in my chest Now I have Wi-Fi and panic attacks. I have iced coffee and a heart that beats in two places.
Her reading was the kind of moment that feels sublime to adults looking on, but seems to go almost unnoticed by the teen who created it. Tinnell smiled shyly when she ended and went back to the familiar territory of her phone in a sparkly case, her bubbly chat about friends and purchases and her birthday. Teenagers get a bad rap for being angsty and self-centered, but what I’ve seen through Rising Voices is the opposite: they create electric snapshots of human experience without even noticing how brilliant they are.
Funders sometimes ask for quantifiable outcomes, but Rising Voices’ supporters understand something essential. “No one has asked for numbers,” Gomez says. “Because the proof is in the poems.”
I think of these lines Adyzinha Stepka, a student in my workshop, wrote, and I know Gomez is right about that:
The glow of the streetlights behind the last still green maples illuminated us, captured our laughter in their faint viridescent light. Rarely have I wanted anything more than I wanted that moment to last forever.
How do you quantify a poem? You don’t. You simply make space for it to happen again and again.
To that end, this spring, the Rising Voices Youth Poetry Collective—those teen writers who meet weekly to study craft and debate their favorite lines—will assemble the inaugural Rising Voices Anthology. They’ll select, edit and order poems from the program. They will design the cover, and prepare for a launch event at Kuumbwa Jazz Center during the Ripple Effect arts festival. Soon, the anthology will circulate through bookstores and libraries, slip into backpacks, and live on family bookshelves.
Seeing one’s own poem in print is not a small moment. It rearranges a young person’s sense of self. It tells them that their interior world is not only valid but valuable—that we care about them, that we honor this brief time of life when a human is lightning in a bottle.
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrest undocumented immigrants—there were more than 65,000 in custody as of Nov. 16, according to the website tracereports.org—their children are often left behind with no plan in place to care for them.
The Childcare Safety Plan Coalition—a local group of roughly 200 attorneys and volunteers—is working to change that.
Also known as the Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025, it protects children when their families are unexpectedly separated due to immigration enforcement, incarceration or military deployment.
This includes providing legally recognized plans for custody and making sure schools and daycare centers have updated information.
Advocates say that adoption of the Childcare Safety Plans ensures consistency statewide, thus giving parents tools with which to protect their children.
“We are just trying to work to make sure that kids don’t go home to an empty house, or that they don’t end up getting put into foster care before someone can be there for them,” said volunteer Gwen Berliner, who is a retired PVUSD teacher.
Along with the coalition, a group of local nonprofits known as Pajaro Valley Collaborative held a press conference Dec. 8, calling on California Attorney General Rob Bonta to incorporate their Childcare Safety Plans into Assembly Bill 495.
Salud Para La Gente Director of Community Health Services Darlene Torres said that the coalition has completed 817 plans over the past two months.
“What that means is that over 1,400 children now have a plan,” Torres said.
Santa Cruz attorney Tanya Harmony Ridino, who co-founded the coalition, said that Bonta “has always put the needs of our families first … and we are hopeful that his office will move swiftly and decisively to provide hardworking parents across the state the guidance and tools they need to fully and easily benefit from AB 495. California families deserve a simple, accessible path to keep their children safe, and we believe the attorney general is the leader who can make that a reality.”
Pajaro Valley Unified School District Superintendent Heather Contreras said that schools are more than places for young people to learn.
“They’re safe, stable places where students find belonging, support and hope,” she told the crowd of roughly 80 people.
The ability to learn, Contreras said, hinges on the stability of their families.
“That’s why the CSP is so meaningful,” she said. “It gives families something essential: reassurance during uncertainty and a sense of control in moments no one wants to imagine.”
On Dec. 2, the Watsonville City Council approved a plan to join a countywide network of first responder agencies in a state-of-the-art emergency radio system.
On Dec. 9, Santa Cruz County followed suit, agreeing to be a part of the Regional Interoperability Next Generation (RING) system, a digitized system that will allow all of the county’s law enforcement agencies, firefighters and others to use encrypted lines when responding to emergencies.
It will replace the current outdated system and bring the county in line with the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System.
The system will block the use of scanners by residents who like to know what’s going on and by the press. Some cities have made exceptions and given newsrooms access to encrypted scanners.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Chris Clark said that it is yet to be decided how information will be shared with news outlets.
“That will be a piece of this going forward, to allow our media partners access to what’s going on in near-real time,” he said. “Making sure the community and the media know what’s going on around them.”
It also adheres to a 2020 law requiring that confidential data such as victim information and criminal histories be kept off emergency frequencies.
Officials say the need for a new communications system is evidenced by critical incidents such as the 2020 murder of Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, when numerous agencies were involved in looking for the suspect.
They also say that Watsonville Police chasing suspects into Monterey County frequently cannot communicate effectively with dispatchers there.
Assistant County Executive Officer Elise Benson called the system, run by Irving, Texas-based E.F. Johnson Company, “a new day in critical communications infrastructure for first responders.”
Benson said that the county’s myriad agencies currently use a patchwork of systems that too often do not allow jurisdictions to hear or communicate with each other.
“So we are moving toward a totally modern approach to providing vital communications infrastructure,” she said.
Because many regions are remote and rural, Benson said, the current radio system only covers 65% of the county.
The RING system is guaranteed to raise that number to 95%, said former Santa Cruz Fire Chief Jim Frawley, who is serving as a consultant for the county in its search for a new system.
A master service agreement will be shared by the cities of Watsonville, Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz and Capitola, along with the county and UC Santa Cruz, Frawley said.
All those jurisdictions—which will share governance, operational responsibilities and finances—have already signed on, with the Capitola City Council giving the final seal of approval on Dec. 11.
These will be part of a single governance system to oversee the system, whereas before it was a piecemeal approach with each department managing its own communications.
“So we are moving toward a totally modern approach to providing vital communications infrastructure,” Benson said.
Tammie Weigl, the county’s information technology director, called the system “the most important communications project that we have undergone at the county in my entire career.”
Weigl said that the county negotiated a $10 million discount from the original $28 million price tag, and with UCSC agreeing to cover $2.7 million, the remaining $15.8 million will be shared across the other member agencies.
Frawley estimated that those costs could range from $80,000 per year for smaller agencies to around $300,000 for larger ones like the Central Fire Protection District.
The cost will be shared in part by the agencies based on how many of the specialized radios they have.
County senior administrative analyst said that will amount to roughly $110 per device per month.
The project is expected to begin in January, and be completed in June 2028.
Frawley said that first responders’ broadcasts will still be sent over the same frequencies they use now, and that media and citizens with police radios will still be able to hear firefighters’ activities.
That’s because local agencies have signaled they will not use the optional fee-based encryption feature, he said.
Supervisor Manu Koenig called the system “a response to a clearly identified problem.”
“We cannot continue to respond to major disasters in our community with 65% coverage,” he said. “It’s just unacceptable. The inability for our police in Watsonville to conduct a chase south of the county line is unacceptable.”
Supervisor Justin Cummings directed staff to explore funding methods, such as tapping into funds from Measure Q, a parcel tax created to raise money for water quality, wildfire prevention and habitat restoration projects. He also asked whether the county can use Measure K funds. That half-cent sales tax is raising money for general government use. Both were approved in the November 2024 election.
Cummings also told staff to seek state and federal grants and to engage with state and federal officials for funding line items to be added to the state budget.
The financing portion will return to the board during budget talks in June.
Cabrillo College on Dec. 9 named the candidate they hope will take the helm as president and superintendent.
If approved by the Board of Trustees on Jan. 12, Jenn Capps will start on Jan. 20, the college announced in a press release.
“The Superintendent/President Search Committee is very excited about the recommendation of Dr. Jenn Capps to be Cabrillo’s next Superintendent and President,” said Christina Cuevas, immediate past chair of the Cabrillo College Governing Board and chair of the Superintendent/President Search Committee.
Cuevas said that Capps, who currently serves as provost and vice president of academic affairs at Cal Poly Humboldt, developed partnerships with tribal nations that led to the incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge and sustainability throughout the curriculum.
She also worked to advance workforce development programs, Cuevas said.
“We’re looking forward to having Dr. Capps lead Cabrillo into its next chapter,” she said.
Capps co-led the self-study that established Humboldt as California State University’s third polytechnic university, and helped secure a historic $458 million state investment that expanded workforce-aligned academic programs, increased enrollment, and enhanced student success, the press release said.
She previously served as dean of the College of Professional Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
She holds advanced degrees in counseling psychology, is a licensed professional counselor, and specializes in juvenile rehabilitation and crisis response.
“I am thrilled to join the Cabrillo College family,” Capps stated. “I want to express my gratitude to the search committee and the Board of Trustees for their work in the search process. During my interview process I had the good fortune to meet many inspiring faculty, staff, and students confirming what an incredible place Cabrillo College is. I look forward to working with the Cabrillo team on continuing to further student success and develop innovative programs that will advance the College.”
After the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees late Thursday night made sweeping cuts to 78 classified positions, newly appointed Board President Carol Turley cleared the room of roughly 50 people who had stayed through the hours-long meeting to speak on a subsequent decision to slash around 80 teacher positions.
The classified layoffs included behavioral technicians and instructional assistants who work with general education students, as well as those with mild to severe socio-emotional needs.
Turley’s decision to remove the spectators came after she had warned them multiple times to stop shouting out of turn.
The last straw came after the vote, when one woman shouted that the trustees should “walk out there where he died,” referring to a student who committed suicide by jumping off the adjacent parking structure last year.
That statement reflected concerns from previous public speakers that laying off mental health workers will place more students at risk.
But apparently concerned about the implications of the statement, Trustee Joy Flynn asked, “Is that a threat to a public official?”
As the crowd left the room—with three uniformed police officers standing ready—several people shouted, “Shame on you!”
After the crowd had left—and only the trustees, district staff and reporters remained—the board then approved the cuts to teacher positions without public discussion and practically no comment from the Board. Trustee Daniel Dodge, Jr. dissented, and Medina was absent from the dais after he briefly walked away.
Trustee Gabe Medina addresses a crowd who had been removed from the meeting. (Todd Guild/The Pajaronian).
The votes came after a raucous meeting that packed the chambers, and started hours earlier on Main Street in front of the Civic Plaza building with a rally that drew more than 100 teachers and employees.
District officials say that the cuts are necessary to fill a $15.3 million budget deficit, as state and federal budget cuts loom and as schools lose funding from years of projected declining enrollment.
In addition, there are several positions that were funded with one-time Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief ESSER) funds that came from the state to help schools cope with the Covid 19 pandemic.
“We’re carrying multiple different positions that were brought on in recent years that we can no longer sustain to carry in the general fund,” said Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Kit Bragg.
Bragg said that, even with the cuts, the counselor-to-student ratio will allow “a significant amount of staff to deliver those services,” including Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs), which are federally required plans for students with disabilities.
But speech pathologist Lindsey Kent questioned that assertion.
“We are not meeting all of the IEP services as it is, and I can guarantee you that will get worse with these cuts,” she said.
Kent was one of dozens of people who addressed the board, most of them decrying the potential impact they will have on the students who depend on the services.
“Cuts to mental health and special ed services are some of the most damaging cuts I can imagine,” said teacher Jenn Salinas-Holtz. “Students who are struggling with their mental health and students with disabilities who require extra assistance to be able to access their education are some of our most vulnerable students, and these cuts would cause significant harm, not only to these students but to their peers who will negatively be impacted by the lack of support.”
Watsonville High School teacher Bobby Pelz warned that the cuts may save money, but will erode the trust the community has in the district.
“When trust is broken, the culture of our schools suffers in ways that no spreadsheet can capture,” Pelz said. “You can stabilize the budget by manipulating numbers, but rebuilding trust is much harder to do.”
Jessica Showalter, who teaches in Watsonville High School’s Resilient Impactful Students in Education (RISE) program, described events that occurred with students who have since graduated, who experienced crises that were staved off by behavioral technicians.
This includes a student taking an employee hostage, one who brought a butcher knife to school and another one who came in having been sexually assaulted.
Pointing to several people in the room, Showalter said, “There’s three mental health clinicians and this person right here who have saved many students at many different schools.
“You take those behavioral technicians away, these students are going to be severely hurt, because my behavioral techs and my staff are not there to step in and take care of these kids.”
Ryan Alba said his 9-year-old son would lose the behavioral services he depends on.
“He deserves the care and education he is entitled to,” Alba said. “Cutting these services doesn’t just change the budget, it changes children’s lives.”
The item passed with trustees Daniel Dodge, Jr. and Medina dissenting.
Medina later questioned whether the board had made a Brown Act violation by holding the vote without public input.
Attorney Sarah Kaatz from Lozano-Smith—the law firm the district has used for years—told him it had not.
“When there is disruption at a meeting and multiple warnings have been given to the group, you can clear the room and continue the meeting having only the media present, and board members present and that would include not having public comment,” she said.
In other action, the trustees approved the first interim budget report, which shows that the district will not be able to meet its expenses over the next three years.
Chief Business Officer Gerardo Castillo predicts an ending fund balance of $50.3 million this year, and $32.8 in 2026-27. But that number drops to $3.2 million in 2027-28, well below the state-mandated 3% reserve, Castillo said.
And while that financial picture could change when Gov. Gavin Newsom presents his budget in January, it will not be enough to move the needle to a positive, he said.
And if that financial picture does not change, and the district is unable to pay its bills and meet payroll, it is at risk of state takeover, Castillo said.
Jane Barr, who served on the Board from 1990-2000, said that the employee cuts are necessary, and that failing to make them could have dire financial impacts.
“Should you not approve all of the cuts, you are at risk for bankruptcy, takeover by the state under (Assembly Bill) 1200, and the loss of controllability to make decisions.”
Also during the meeting, the board appointed Carol Turley as board President, and Joy Flynn as vice-president.
The 6–1 vote for Turley—with Gabe Medina dissenting—came after trustees Medina, Turley, Joy Flynn and Misty Navarro threw their hats in the ring for the position, and asked for their colleagues’ support.
Flynn was appointed with Medina, Navarro and Daniel Dodge, Jr. dissenting.
In her inaugural address, Turley told the crowd that she will work to maintain decorum during meetings.
“We are dealing with some heavy emotional topics,” she said. “Please understand that each one of us—trustees, district staff, district leadership, and all who are a part of PVUSD—are here because we care about students and want the best for them. There are no enemies in this room.”
Turley also said that she wants to allow space for everyone to be heard, “but I also need to ensure that the Board is able to accomplish the board’s business at the meetings.”
Turley added that she plans to hold open listening sessions within a week before board meetings to give the board more opportunities to hear from the public.
She also reminded the people in the room that students were present.
“We should set an example for how we expect our students to conduct themselves in a classroom,” she said.
Home is a building you live in. It’s also a metaphor for the inner world you carry within you. Is it an expansive and luminous place filled with windows that look out onto vast vistas? Or is it cramped, dark and in disrepair, a psychic space where it’s hard to feel comfortable? Does it have a floor plan you love and made yourself? Or was it designed according to other people’s expectations? It may be neither of those extremes, of course. My hope is that this horoscope will prod you to renovate aspects of your soul’s architecture. The coming months will be an excellent time for this sacred work.
TAURUS April 20-May 20
During the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1872, workers made an uncanny discovery: They could detect approaching storms by observing vibrations in the bridge’s cables. The massive metal structure was an inadvertent meteorological instrument. I’m predicting that your intuition will operate with comparable sensitivity in the coming months, Taurus. You will have a striking capacity to notice subtle signals in your environment. What others regard as background noise will reveal rich clues to you. Hot tip: Be extra alert for nuanced professional opportunities and social realignments. Like the bridge workers, you will be attuned to early signs of changing conditions.
GEMINI May 21-June 20
Sloths are so energy-efficient they can survive on 160 calories per day: the equivalent of an apple. They’ve mastered the art of thriving on minimal intake by moving deliberately and digesting thoroughly. Life is inviting you to learn from sloths, Gemini. The coming weeks will be a good time to take an inventory of your energy strategies. Are you burning fuel frantically, or are you extracting maximum nourishment from what you already possess? However you answer that question, I urge you to experiment with being more efficient—but without depriving yourself. Try measuring your productivity not by speed and flash but by the diligence of your extraction. Dig deep and be thorough. Your nervous system and bank account will thank you.
CANCER June 21-July 22
The Danish concept of arbejdsglæde refers to the happiness and satisfaction derived from work. It’s the joy found in labor itself, not just in its financial rewards and prestige. It’s about exulting in the self-transformations you generate as you do your job. Now is an excellent time to claim this joy more than ever, Cancerian. Meditate with relish on all the character-building and soul-growth opportunities your work offers you and will continue to provide.
LEO July 23-Aug. 22
In the deep Pacific Ocean, fields of giant tube worms thrive in total darkness around hydrothermal vents, converting toxic chemicals into life-sustaining energy. These weirdly resilient creatures challenge our assumptions about which environments can support growth. I suspect your innovative approach to gathering resources in the coming months will display their adaptability. Situations that others find inhospitable or unmanageable will be intriguing opportunities for you. For best results, you should ruminate on how limitations could actually protect and nurture your development. You may discover that conventional sustenance isn’t your only option.
VIRGO Aug. 23-Sept. 22
For a long time, scientists didn’t understand why humans have an organ called the appendix. Most thought it was useless. But it turns out that the appendix is more active than anyone knew. Among other functions, it’s a safe haven for beneficial gut bacteria. If a health crisis disrupts our microbiome, this unsung hero repopulates our intestines with the helpful microbes we need. What was once considered irrelevant is actually a backup drive. With that in mind as a metaphor, here’s my question, Virgo: How many other parts of your world may be playing long games and performing unnoticed services that you haven’t understood yet? Investigate that possibility!
LIBRA Sept. 23-Oct. 22
In the coming months, you’ll be asked to wield your Libran specialties more than ever. Your allies and inner circle will need you to provide wise counsel and lucid analysis. For everyone’s sake, I hope you balance compassion with clarity and generosity with discernment. Certain collaborations will need corrective measures but shouldn’t be abandoned. Your gift will lie in finding equilibrium that honors everyone’s dignity. When in doubt, ask: “What would restore harmony rather than merely appear polite?” True diplomacy is soulful, not superficial. Bonus: The equilibrium you achieve could resonate far beyond your immediate circle.
SCORPIO Oct. 23-Nov. 21
The Hubble Space Telescope is a school bus-sized space observatory orbiting 320 miles above the Earth. There, it observes the universe free from atmospheric distortion. Its instruments and detectors need to be recalibrated continuously. Daily monitors, weekly checks and yearly updates keep the telescope’s tech sharp as it ages. I believe it’s a good time for you Scorpios to do your own recalibrations. Subtle misalignments between your intentions and actions can now be corrected. Your basic vision and plans are sound; the adjustments required are minor. For best results, have maximum fun as you fine-tune your fundamentals.
SAGITTARIUS Nov. 22-Dec. 21
Leonardo da Vinci painted his iconic Mona Lisa on a thin panel of poplar wood, which naturally expands and contracts with changes in humidity. Over the centuries, this movement has caused a crack and measurable warping. One side of the classic opus is bending a bit more than the other. Let’s use this as a metaphor for you, Sagittarius. I suspect that a fine quality you are known for and proud of is changing shape. This should be liberating, not worrisome. If even the Mona Lisa can’t remain static, why should you? I say: Let your masterwork age. Just manage the process with grace and generosity. The central beauty may be changing, but it’s still beautiful.
CAPRICORN Dec. 22-Jan. 19
“Apoptosis” is a word referring to programmed cell death. It’s a process by which your aging, damaged or obsolete cells deliberately destroy themselves for the benefit of your organism as a whole. This “cellular suicide” is carefully regulated and crucial for development, maintenance and protection against diseases. About 50-70 billion cells die in you every day, sacrificing themselves so you can live better. Let’s use this healthy process as a psychospiritual metaphor. What aspects of your behavior and belief system need to die off right now so as to promote your total well-being?
AQUARIUS Jan. 20-Feb. 18
Which parts of your foundations are built to strengthen with age? Which are showing cracks? The coming months will be an excellent time to reinforce basic structures so they will serve you well into the future. Don’t just patch problems. Rebuild and renovate using the very best ingredients. Your enduring legacy will depend on this work, so choose materials that strengthen as they mature rather than crumble. Nothing’s permanent in life, but some things are sturdier and more lasting than others.
PISCES Feb. 19-March 20
Along the Danube River in Europe, migrating storks return each spring to rebuild massive nests atop church steeples, roofs and trees. New generations often reuse previous bases, adding additional twigs, grass, roots, and even human-made stuff like cloth and plastics. Some of these structures have lasted for centuries and weigh half a ton. Let’s make this a prime metaphor for you in the coming months, Pisces. I see your role as an innovator who improves and enhances good traditions. You will bring your personal genius to established beauty and value. You will blend your futuristic vision with ancestral steadiness, bridging tomorrow with yesterday.
In a year stuffed like a happy kid’s stocking with savory restaurant developments and sweet eatery news—see “Twelve Bites of Christmas,” page 16—arguably the most delicious debuted right after I filed that piece.
Home Away (4901 Soquel Drive, Soquel) honors the same formula of hyper-local sourcing and thoughtful preparations by Chef Brad Briske at its big sister and nearby neighbor Home (3101 N. Main St., Soquel), itself one of the very best restaurants in the area.
Instead of signature Home dishes like beef cheek with ricotta gnocchi, gorgonzola kale cream and wild mushroom demi, at Home Away there are sumptuous beef cheek empanadas in collaboration with Briske’s brother-in-law Diego Felix of Collectivo Felix (402 Ingalls St, Santa Cruz).
In place of oysters with caviar and sculpted habanero apple granita in the lush Home gardens, it’s mignonette and house-fermented hot sauce splashed on oysters shucked at the Away bar by Briske, a shell’s toss from where diners sit.
Home Away occupies the former VinoCruz and provides its own version of a dynamic wine bar experience, with infusions of local Tanuki Dry Farmhouse ciders from Robby Honda, whose wife, Hannah, happens to be Home’s GM.
Items to anticipate include hand-cranked prosciutto, aguachiles, crudos and other more casual takes on Home classics, like a chicken noodle soup inspired by next door’s flagship fried chicken.
“Similar, recognizable flavors,” Briske says. “This tastes like Home, but in a very different format.”
I’m pretty sure that pun was unintended. Either way, the new place is very intentionally accessible and excellent. In short, another sublime 2025 addition worth celebrating.
There are a lot of other holiday happenings going down in…downtown. The Downtown Santa Cruz Makers Market pops up every weekend of the season with 25+ local creators at the former Palace Arts space (1407 Pacific Ave.). Bad Elf Trivia gathers tonight, Dec. 10, at Abbott Square Market’s Front & Cooper with prizes for both winners and most awkward holiday attire, followed by Family Trivia at Abbott Dec. 13. Meanwhile, a “surprise elf” looks to hand out one of 400 Golden Envelopes at participating downtown businesses, with gift cards valued at $10-$100, hot chocolate vouchers and Downtown Dollars. scmmakersmarket.com
BONUS SIPS ’N’ BITS
Not to be left out of the downtown developments, Collective Santa Cruz will host two downtown holiday markets, 11am–5pm Dec. 21 and Dec. 22, in the former Logos Books & Records (1117 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz), featuring more than two dozen area artists, plus curated food vendors and fly small batch beer by Humble Sea, collectivesantacruz.com…Venus Spirits shakes up the third edition of its annual bartender competition 8pm Monday, Dec. 15, at the Westside Santa Cruz tasting room (200 High Road, Santa Cruz), free to attend, with great food and—yup—smart spirits, venusspirits.com…Road note: Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters in Sacramento earns high honors for its beans and brews, but I want to award flowers for its unique dog policy: No non-service pooches are allowed inside, but staffers will wait with your bestie while you order joe (!)…Second Harvest Food Bank Santa Cruz County continues its 2025 Holiday Food & Fund Drive at thefoodbank.org…Frank Ostaseski, guiding teacher and founding director of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, coach us out: “We waste our energy and exhaust ourselves with the insistence that life be otherwise.”
I spent last Friday night downtown surrounded by Santa Clauses. Hundreds of them.
It’s an annual event, also done in other towns, organized here by party domo Rupert Hart and it shows off our downtown in the best possible light.
We need things like that downtown to stave off the bad rap it gets from some suburbanites and if you don’t love the diversity and enthusiasm of a downtown celebration, you are really missing out.
The next day was the Holiday Parade, which packed downtown with spirit and floats and that night was the lighted boat parade in the harbor. There was also a giant holiday fest at the Watsonville Fairgrounds.
I’ve lived in a lot of places and nowhere does it better than Santa Cruz. We have the benefit of a small-town feel with big-time cultural events, a mix of Mayberry and Greenwich Village, plenty of down-to-earth folksiness with piercings and tatts and people of all ages.
And speaking of good ideas, it’s great to see Mayor Fred Keeley and County Supervisor Manu Koenig propose an alternative to the $4.5 billion rail/trail by temporarily covering the tracks and making it a bike/pedestrian trail until the county can afford or demonstrate a clear need for a train. Public agencies have spent tens of millions of dollars on the train proposal, much to out-of-town consultants, which has been hampered by affordability and logistical challenges from the start.
Sure, who wouldn’t want a train rolling across the county and preferably someday leading over the hill to Los Gatos, like it used to? But despite the claims made by proponents of the rail when we voted on the idea several years back, the actual costs didn’t come near matching the projections. There was some serious incompetence, ignorance or plain wishful thinking by those who claimed it would cost millions rather than billions of dollars.
A bike and pedestrian path for now will be one of the great local tourist attractions, as it is in Monterey, Davis or Santa Monica.
The next big issue we’ll have to figure out is whether we can or should build battery plants in light of the Moss Landing fire and the recent study that shows tons of hazardous metals in our fields. It’s a real balancing act: on one hand we want to move away from burning carbon for electricity and we need batteries to store the solar and wind energy that would replace gas and oil.
On the other hand, we see that lithium batteries cause fires that can’t be put out and that contaminate soil and air when they burn. The decisions we make now will have long-lasting effects.
OK. To lighten up a bit, check out the holiday festivities in this issues: a dozen new restaurants–yay!!—experiential gifts you can give rather than more stuff; the return of two great fun-packed performers, El Vez and the Beat Farmers; and Christina Waters’ picks for high-culture presentations.
Learn to paint your pet and take home a frameable piece of art. Sign up for Suzy Rad’s next Tails on Tap Pet Painting Class happening on Sunday, Dec. 15 from 1-4 pm at Steel Bonnet Brewing in Scotts Valley. Ten percent of the $75 ticket sales go back to the county’s animal shelter. Steel Bonnet is at 20 Victor Square, ext B. For more info: Suzyradarts.com
GOOD WORK
Internet radio station Santa Cruz Voice along with Think Local First Radio will produce interviews—listen live or on their archive—with local nonprofits that participate in the annual holiday fundraiser Santa Cruz Gives from December 7-21.
Listen live throughout December to learn about local nonprofit work. See the schedule of interviews at santacruzvoice.com/santa-cruz-gives-schedule. A link to the archive is posted after each show airs. Heaps of gratitude to program hosts Susan and Tam O’Connor Fraser for this generous offer. Make donations to local nonprofits now through Dec. 31 at santacruzgives.org.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
‘These metals bioaccumulate, building up through the food chain.’
—Ivano Aiello, SJS professor about tests of Moss Landing after the fires
With all the bad news around—and there is more than enough—it was a pleasure to read a story about people working on healing in high schools.
Our cover story by Addie Mahmassani about poets helping students find the power of healing in their own voices is just the relief I needed. Good things are happening here, and I didn’t have...
A countywide poetry initiative is giving Santa Cruz teens the tools—and the permission—to tell their stories, discovering healing, confidence and power through the written word.
After the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees late Thursday night made sweeping cuts to 78 classified positions, newly appointed Board President Carol Turley cleared the room of roughly 50 people who had stayed through the hours-long meeting to speak on a subsequent decision to slash around 80 teacher positions.
The classified layoffs included behavioral technicians and instructional...
ARIES March 21-April 19
Home is a building you live in. It’s also a metaphor for the inner world you carry within you. Is it an expansive and luminous place filled with windows that look out onto vast vistas? Or is it cramped, dark and in disrepair, a psychic space where it’s hard to feel comfortable? Does it have a...
