There’s so much interesting scientific work coming out of UCSC that it’s hard to keep track of it. What makes it even harder is that many of the people doing that work are doing so in partnership with other organizations, making the connection to the university less obvious.
What’s really strange is when the project is one of the most important scientific undertakings of the last 30 years, and yet even most people who live here don’t know about the connection to our area. That’s certainly the case with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to launch Dec. 22 as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that launched in 1990. What’s great about Erin Malsbury’s cover story this week is it goes beyond just explaining the role that UCSC scientists played in the creation of the telescope, and dives deep into the rather mind-bending uses they have planned for it.
Elsewhere in this issue, Tony Nuñez writes about some of the groups in this year’s Santa Cruz Gives that are dedicated to improving the lives of local youth, such as Barrios Unidos. Give it a read and then go to santacruzgives.org and donate! Incredibly, we just passed the $750,000 mark, and with 17 days to go I’m hopeful we can reach our goal of raising close to a million dollars for our 80 incredible nonprofits.
Lastly, the voting opens today for our Best of Santa Cruz County awards. Go to goodtimes.sc to vote for your favorite local people and businesses!
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
GOOD IDEA
DOWNRIGHT NEIGH-BORLY
Looking for something different in a Christmas parade? The Horse and Hound parade started out as some friends getting together to do a festive neighborhood horseback ride, and turned into an annual caroling parade. It features horses decorated in lights and Santa playing piano out of the bed of a truck, and will be held this Sunday in Felton, starting at the post office at 4:30pm.
GOOD WORK
TOY STORY
Congrats to Santa Cruz METRO and Santa Cruz County Toys for Tots, who collected an entire busload of toy donations for local youth. Last Saturday, the two organizations hosted their first Stuff the Bus donation event, collecting toys for kids experiencing homelessness and financial hardship ahead of the holiday season.
When the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990, it produced mind-boggling images that changed the way we think about space.
But before the Hubble even lifted off, engineers were already planning its successor.
After decades of engineering, years of delays, $10 billion and a name controversy, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally launch on Dec. 22.
A collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, JWST will help us understand how the earliest galaxies in the universe formed and bolster the search for life beyond Earth.
“JWST is, in a lot of ways, the most powerful scientific instrument that we’ve ever made as humans,” says UCSC professor Brant Robertson.
The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth and captures images mostly in the visible light spectrum, but JWST will operate in the infrared.
Working in this wavelength of light, scientists will soon peer behind dust clouds and see some of the oldest galaxies in the universe.
Space is expanding, so as light travels through the universe, its wavelength stretches out. It becomes redder—and eventually infrared—in a phenomenon called redshift. This means the most distant galaxies from Earth appear redder to us, as the light has traveled billions of light years before reaching us.
To detect infrared light from these ancient galaxies, JWST needs to avoid as much heat and light-pollution as possible. Even a tiny amount of nearby infrared radiation would interfere with the sensitive camera.
The telescope will fly about a million miles away from Earth and deploy a sunshield to block heat and light from the Earth, Sun and Moon.
JWST will end its journey at a stable gravitational point called L2, where it will orbit the sun from behind Earth.
Far out of human reach, the telescope must operate on its own. If something goes wrong, the instrument is literally beyond repair.
A 21-foot primary mirror, made of beryllium and coated with an ultra-thin layer of gold, reflects infrared light and helps make JWST over 100 times more powerful than Hubble.
A tennis court-sized sunshield, made of five paper-thin aluminum and silicon-coated Kapton layers, keeps it a cool -370 degrees F.
But the enormous primary mirror and sunshield won’t fit on a rocket. So engineers began practicing their origami and came up with a solution: They folded it.
Before it begins revealing the secrets hidden in the stars, JWST must successfully unfold and arrange itself.
Over the course of 29 days, hundreds of pulleys and cables will move 18 hexagonal sections of mirror and the five sunshield layers into place.
“There’s a lot riding on all these mechanisms,” says UCSC distinguished emeritus professor Garth Illingworth. “There are hundreds of things where if one of them failed, we would probably lose a lot of capability or even lose the mission.”
After the first anxious month, the telescope will cool down and spend five months calibrating its four main scientific instruments: The near-infrared camera (NIRCam), the near-infrared spectrograph (NIRSpec), the mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) and the fine guidance system/near-infrared image and slitless spectrograph (FGS/NIRISS).
Each of these tools will help researchers learn about the origins of galaxies and planets. The telescope will open our eyes to the universe in ways we can’t yet imagine.
“I can tell you what science I think Webb is going to do and the questions that I’m excited to have answered. But really, at the end of the day, the most exciting things Webb will do are the things that I can’t tell you about: the surprises, because we’re looking at the universe in a different way,” says UCSC professor of astronomy and astrophysics Natalie Batalha.
JWST is an international effort, but Santa Cruz has made a huge impact. Several UCSC researchers will lead or participate in JWST programs, and a few were also instrumental in the telescope’s development.
This web of golden cables and cords is ground support equipment for the James Webb Space Telescope, including the Optical Telescope Simulator (OSIM). PHOTO: CHRIS GUNN
Life, the universe and everything
Garth Illingworth began working on the project in the 1980s, when it was called the Next Generation Space Telescope. Illingworth chaired the JWST Science Advisory Committee for eight years.
“That was a committee that was set up to look at how to maximize the science return from James Webb,” says Illingworth.
The committee would discuss everything from telescope operations to funding and data rights.
“One of the aspects of these missions, which I find to be not very good, is that people can keep the data to themselves for a year,” he says. “We felt that having a lot of data that wasn’t accessible to others was not only in a way unfair, but very unwise for a big, publicly funded facility.”
NASA opted not to reduce the one-year period of data exclusivity—called a discretionary period. So the committee came up with a compromise. They proposed an early-release science program, where data will immediately become public for certain projects.
Illingworth also helped save the telescope from extinction. As JWST’s price tag increased and delays pushed the launch date back, representatives considered scrapping the project all together.
“You don’t get congressional support just by having great ideas,” says Illingworth. “When you’re spending that much money, you’ve also got to work with politicians and staff to gain their support and interest.”
The director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center at the time asked Illingworth and a few others to review the project.
“We were sort of a quiet little group,” he says. “We would sit and watch and talk amongst ourselves and then get back to people later with things that we were concerned about.”
By the end of it all, Illingworth felt optimistic.
“They really came together and produced what was a good telescope and overcame obstacles and kept the scientific capability,” he says. “So I think at this stage, we’re in great shape.”
After the launch, Illingworth’s roles will shift to, among other things, examining data from JWST as the U.S. lead for a program called PRIMER.
The project will help scientists understand the first galaxies of the universe and provide public data immediately.
UCSC astronomy and astrophysics professor Brant Robertson will also work as a co-investigator on PRIMER. He will play an even larger role on the steering committee of another first galaxies program called JADES.
JADES will use more of the telescope’s time during its first year than any other program—about 800 hours—as it takes deep images and spectra of the oldest galaxies in the universe.
In case that wasn’t enough telescope time, Robertson will also work as a lead theorist on COSMOS-Webb, another of the largest galaxy origins programs.
These research programs differ in what portions of the sky they focus on and how deep they look, but the overall goal remains similar.
“All of these surveys are geared toward trying to find extremely faint, very distant galaxies in the early universe,” says Robertson.
In some cases, scientists will be able to study how galaxies evolve over time. COSMOS-Webb will survey a large portion of sky. It will enable researchers to study the variations in density of the universe and how the surroundings of galaxies affect them.
The telescope will provide us with extremely detailed images and an overwhelming amount of data.
An interactive map of a COSMOS-Webb simulation shows just how deep into space the survey could go. It covers an area of sky equivalent to about three whole moons, and within that tiny sliver, it will image hundreds of thousands of galaxies.
To make things more manageable, Robertson worked with Ryan Hausen, a UCSC computer science graduate student, to develop and test an AI program called Morpheus. It will work pixel by pixel to classify different types of galaxies.
“I’m excited about applying AI to that survey,” says Robertson. “It’s difficult to do by eye—too many objects. And that will produce a beautiful picture,” he adds.
The gold-coated Engineering Design Unity (EDU) Primary Mirror Segment, and supporters. PHOTO: DREW NOEL
Planet Hunting
Several UCSC researchers will also study exoplanets, another major early goal of JWST.
Natalie Batalha began working in exoplanet research before it became a field. As a UCSC graduate student, she attended the conference where scientists first announced the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a normal star.
She ended up working on NASA’s Kepler mission in 2000, which revealed thousands of planets orbiting stars in the galaxy.
Now, Batalha serves as the presidential chair for the UCSC Astrobiology Initiative, an interdisciplinary group working to understand the formation of life and its prevalence in the universe.
“The diversity of planets in the galaxy far exceeds the diversity of planets in our own solar system,” says Batalha. “And in fact, one of the most common types of planets that we know about in the galaxy are a type of planet we don’t have in our solar system.”
These planets fit somewhere between gas giants and small terrestrial planets in size.
“We don’t even know what to call them,” says Batalha. “Are they scaled-up Earth-sized planets? Are they scaled-down Neptunes? We don’t know.”
Some of these terrestrial planets might have started out as gaseous and lost their atmospheres over time to radiation.
“Could a planet like that be potentially habitable? What are the implications for life?” asks Batalha.
Engineers practice “snow cleaning” on a test telescope mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. By shooting carbon dioxide snow at the surface, engineers are able to clean large telescope mirrors without scratching them. PHOTO: CHRIS GUNN
Current methods allow exoplanet researchers to measure things like mass and radius. But JWST will allow scientists to go further and tease apart the chemical makeup of exoplanet atmospheres. The spectrographs aboard JWST help make this possible.
“It is largely going to be collecting light and spreading it out into a rainbow. And then looking in great detail at the amount of energy that we’re receiving at every single individual color,” says Batalha.
She will join her daughter, Natasha Batalha of the NASA Ames Research Center, to collaborate on the largest exoplanet program in the first phase of JWST research.
Other UCSC scientists, including Jonathan Fortney, Andrew Skemer and postdoctoral researcher Aarynn Carter, will lead different types of JWST exoplanet research programs, including direct imaging.
“We’re going to be James Webb exoplanet central here,” Skemer said in a press release.
In the coming years, UCSC scientists and researchers from around the world will change the way we see the universe and our place in it. Engineers designed the instruments with growth in mind.
“It’s quite a feat to achieve these new technological advances while at the same time maintaining flexibility to respond to new scientific discoveries,” says Batalha. “Webb did that beautifully.”
If successful, JWST could create entirely new fields of astronomy.
“We’re going to probably find more questions than answers,” says Illingworth. “But it’s also the case that we will reveal a hell of a lot with James Webb.”
When Daniel “Nane” Alejandrez returned home from the Vietnam War in the 1970s, he says that it was clear that his true fight had just begun.
“It seemed like I came from one war to another one,” Alejandrez says.
A son of migrant farmworkers from Texas who was born in a cotton field in Merigold, Mississippi, Alejandrez says violence and poverty among the Chicano population in his eventual hometown of Fresno had reached a dangerous tipping point. And after he arrived in Santa Cruz with hopes of earning a film degree at UCSC, Alejandrez says he remembers seeing the same violence around Santa Cruz County’s Chicanos.
It was clear then that if anything was going to improve in the community, he says, the change would need to come from within.
“We knew that no one was coming to our communities,” he says. “We had to rise ourselves.”
Alejandrez is the executive director of Barrios Unidos, a nonprofit he first started as a volunteer organization in 1977, and then officially incorporated in 1993. For more than 40 years, Barrios Unidos has helped tackle the social issues affecting Santa Cruz County’s Latinx youth, while also playing a key role in the move toward restorative justice in this area and beyond.
Barrios Unidos, which at a time had 27 chapters throughout the nation, does this through preventive programs offered at its headquarters in Santa Cruz, dubbed The Spot. There the organization offers afterschool programs, a food pantry and job training through its silkscreen business, recording studio and tiny-home project in which youth are taught how to construct the small houses.
It also does the work that many organizations would not: working with incarcerated individuals—both youth and adult offenders—that society has allowed to fall through the cracks. On top of steering youth in juvenile hall away from a life behind bars, Barrios Unidos offers an adult ReEntry program and Prison Project that addresses recidivism by dealing with one of the largest root causes of crime: a lacking support system.
Alejandrez says that at a recent visit to Soledad State Prison, Barrios Unidos had some 40 men graduate as “Peace Warriors,” taking an oath of nonviolence. The graduates, Alejandrez says, had been in prison for as long as 46 years.
“All those men at some point didn’t have someone in their lives as kids, and they made wrong decisions, or they were involved in the wrong things,” he says. “And they all said, ‘If we had somebody like you guys, it would’ve made a difference.’”
Participating in Santa Cruz Gives for the first time in the holiday crowdsourcing campaign’s seven-year run, Barrios Unidos aims to make a bigger difference in 2022. The organization’s “Big Idea” for the upcoming year is “Santa Cruz Cares for Kids,” an initiative that would build on the nonprofit’s popular after-school program for children ages 5-17.
Barrios Unidos’ youth offerings are unique. The organization not only provides a safe place for kids, but also emphasizes cultural teachings that are sometimes not passed down from the previous generation because of split households. Alejandrez says Barrios Unidos helps these young people, the majority of whom are Latinx, reconnect with their roots.
“You have to teach that, you have to keep that alive so they feel proud of who they are and they know who they are,” Alejandrez says.
It’s this pride in what Barrios Unidos calls the “authentic self,” Alejandrez argues, that will ultimately bring about change in the Latinx community. It’s not lost on him that the majority of kids in juvenile hall are Latinx residents from Watsonville, and that the county’s jail population is 58% Latinx. In contrast, he says, there are few Latinx people that hold key positions of power in the county.
“There’s an inequity there that needs to be addressed, and if we start educating our young kids in a safe place to look at that dream and say, ‘One of these days, I’m going to be the district attorney or the judge in this county,’ then we’ll start to see real change,” he says.
Alejandrez’s impact on the community and his impressive resume could serve as inspiration for young people, too. He’s been mentored by Harry Belafonte, Delores Huerta and Danny Glover. He’s also traveled to Columbia, El Salvador, Kenya and Tanzania to share his teachings. In addition, he’s spoken to the United Nations multiple times about Barrios Unidos’ work, and was most recently awarded the Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award, an honor that has gone to the likes of Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks.
Even more rewarding, Alejandrez says, is seeing some of Barrios Unidos’ alumni now leading organizations throughout the country.
“This community has given me and my family so much,” he says. “I have to give back.”
But his work is far from over, and in many ways, the battle he took up some 44 years ago has only become tougher because of the ongoing housing crisis and the economic downturn as a result of the pandemic.
“We have to give a way for our young people that were born and raised in this county, whether it be Watsonville or Santa Cruz, a way to be able to stay here,” he says. “In the long run, that’s what we’re trying to create in Barrios. We can have a place for kids, we can have teachings for the community and we can have housing. But we can’t do it alone. That’s why we need the community to step up.”
Creating Links
In today’s nonstop, now-now-now world, a stagnant list of potential jobs seems counterintuitive for an organization that prides itself on quickly linking young people to career opportunities and training. So when Yvette Brooks came aboard as Your Future Is Our Business’ (YFIOB) executive director just a few months ago, her goal was to fill the gaps still present in the nonprofit’s wide-ranging web connecting local schools with employers.
To do this, YFIOB, with the help of Santa Cruz Gives, plans to establish an online platform that would house vital information about prospective employers. Their “Big Idea” would connect schools and businesses, and give teachers access to career-based curriculum, business and community opportunities for students. It would also house virtual tours of companies and other tools for use in curriculum.
The idea is, Brooks says, to remove as many barriers as possible for teachers hoping to expose their students to the career possibilities available in their own backyard.
“We have to evolve with the times, and it’s so imperative to support students in providing workplace learning opportunities—and as many as possible,” she says. “For me, growing up I was taught that you go to college, you graduate and find a job for that career you went to college for and that was it. But, in reality, most of us have 10, 20, 30 jobs in our lifetime. It’s organizations like these who tell kids that there’s so much opportunity out there, explore them all, let me help you explore them all.”
Since 1993, YFIOB has worked to provide every Santa Cruz County student with opportunities to discover a fulfilling and successful career by partnering with local school districts and local employers. Through their countywide network of community leaders and businesses, they host monthly career panels and expos at various schools and give students real-world experience along with advice on career paths.
Future leaders
Peer pressure doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, the local chapter of Girls Inc. hopes to harness it to address drug and alcohol abuse in young girls.
Their “Big Idea” for this year’s Santa Cruz Gives campaign is a “Friendly PEERsuasion program” in which they train seventh-grade girls (ages 11-14) to improve their decision-making, assertiveness and communication. They also practice walking away from situations where they feel pressured to use alcohol or drugs. Those girls, in turn, will work with fourth- and fifth-grade girls (ages 6-10) as role models and leaders, guiding activities that help avoid girls’ use of harmful substances, especially by giving them skills to refuse and walk away.
“It’s a beautiful way that we can build leaders amongst all different girls,” said Deanna Zachary, a donor relations officer with Girls Inc. of the Central Coast.
That organization has been around since 1999 and currently pairs some 1,700 young girls with mentors that inspire them to pursue secondary education, develop leadership and decision-making skills and serve their communities.
They do that in several ways, including the organization’s summer camp at UCSC, in which the girls stay in the dorms at the university. Zachary says it’s a life-changing experience for several girls, the vast majority of which are girls of color (some 90% Zachary says) who have grown up believing a college education is out of their reach.
“A lot of our girls are the first generation to go to college and the first generation to have a career,” Zachary says.
Safe future
As Santa Cruz County—and the greater state of California—continues to embrace the move toward pedestrian- and bike-friendly communities, it is essential that the next generation of commuters know how to properly navigate the roadways safely, says Kirsten Liske, vice president of community programs at Ecology Action.
That nonprofit’s “Big Idea” hopes to address that issue. Its initiative, “Youth Pedestrian + Bicycle Safety Education for All,” aims to bring its cutting-edge school-based bike and pedestrian safety skills programs to all second- and fifth-grade students in the county. The second-graders would undergo Ecology Action’s Walk Smart program while the older students would get the Bike Smart program.
“What that’s gonna do is reduce the disproportionately high youth fatality and injury rate that cities like Watsonville have for bike and pedestrian [collisions], and then … if kids are biking and walking more, even if it’s not to school, they’re in better health,” Liske says.
Ecology Action, established in 1970, has for years helped communities slowly transition away from car-centric commute patterns by helping them construct action plans that they, in turn, use to gather state and federal funding to implement road alterations promoting environmental sustainability.
Santa Cruz Gives is presented by Good Times in partnership with the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County and with support from the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County, The Applewood Fund, the Bud & Rebecca Colligan Fund, The Joe Collins Fund, Driscoll’s, Inc., Santa Cruz County Bank, Wynn Capital Management, Oswald Restaurant, the Pajaronian and the Press Banner. For a list of all nonprofits and to donate, visit santacruzgives.org.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Key questions for you, beginning now and throughout 2022: 1. What do you need to say, but have not yet said? 2. What is crucial for you to do, but you have not yet done? 3. What dream have you neglected and shouldn’t neglect any longer? 4. What sanctuary is essential for you to visit, but you have not yet visited? 5. What “sin” is it important for you to forgive yourself for, but you have not yet forgiven yourself? 6. What promise have you not yet fulfilled, even though it’s getting late (but not too late!) to fulfill? 7. What secret have you hidden so well that you have mostly concealed it even from yourself?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus novelist Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) took one of his manuscripts to a publishing company, hoping it would be made into a book and sold to the public. A few weeks later, he got word by mail that his masterpiece had been rejected. He took a train to the publisher’s office and retrieved it. On the train ride home, he turned the manuscript over and began writing a new story on the back of each page. He spent no time moping. That’s the spirit I recommend you embody in the coming weeks, dear Taurus.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “John Coltrane was an addict,” wrote author Cornel West about the renowned jazz saxophonist and composer. “Billie Holiday was an addict. [Nobel Prize-winning author] Eugene O’Neill was an addict. What would America be without addicts and post-addicts who make such grand contributions to our society?” I welcome West’s sympathetic views toward addicts. Many of us who aren’t addicts understand how lucky we are not to have the genetic predisposition or the traumatic experiences that addicts often struggle with. We unaddicted people may also have been spared the bigotry and abuse that have contributed to and aggravated some addicts’ addictions. Having acknowledged these truths, I nevertheless hope to do whatever I can to help you convert any addictive tendencies you might have into passionate obsessions. Now is an excellent time to launch a new phase of such work. Invitation: Make a list of three things you can do in the coming months to nurture the process.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Actor and model Kate Beckinsale unleashed a cryptic boast: “My best feature is unfortunately a private matter, although I’m told it is spectacular. But you can’t really walk it down the red carpet. What can I say?” Are you imagining what I’m imagining? I bring this oddity to your attention in the hope that I can convince you to be more forthright and expressive about your own wonderful qualities. It’s time to be less shy about your beauty, less secretive about your deep assets. Show the world why you’re so lovable.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo-born Edna Ferber (1885–1968) was a celebrated author who won a Pulitzer Prize. She was witty and outspoken. Her stories featured strong women and characters struggling against discrimination. “I never would just open a door and walk through,” she said about her career. “I had to bust it down for the hell of it. I just naturally liked doing things the hard way.” At least in the coming weeks, Leo, I urge you NOT to adopt Ferber’s attitude. In my view, you’ll be wise to do everything possible to open doors rather than bust them down. And the best way to do that is to solicit help. Cultivate your ability to ask for what you need. Refine your practice of the arts of collaboration, synergy, and interweaving.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built or invented except literally to get out of hell,” wrote Virgo dramatist Antonin Artaud. That’s a ridiculous generalization, in my opinion. For example, I occasionally generate songs, stories, and horoscopes to help me escape from a momentary hell. But most of my creations are inspired by my love of life and a desire to inspire others. I’m very sure that in the coming weeks, your own motivations to produce good things will be far closer to mine than to Artaud’s. You’re in a phase when your quest for joy, generosity, blessings and fun could be fierce and productive.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Author Barbara Sher offered this wise counsel: “Imaginary obstacles are insurmountable. Real ones aren’t.” I bring this to your attention because I believe the coming weeks will be an excellent time to identify the imaginary obstacles you’ve erected in your inner world—and then smash them or burn them or dispose of them. Once you’re free of the illusory interference, I think you’ll find you have at least twice as much power to neutralize the real obstacles.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Prolific author Ray Bradbury liked to give advice to those with a strong need to express their imaginative originality. Since I expect you will be a person like that in 2022, I’ll convey to you one of his exhortations. He wrote, “If you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.” Keep in mind that Bradbury was referring to constructive craziness, wise foolishness, and divine madness.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The coming months will be a favorable time for you to redefine the meaning of the term “sacred” and to deepen your relationship with sacredness. To spur your imagination, I offer four quotes: 1. “Recognizing the sacred begins when we are interested in every detail of our lives.” —Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa 2. “When you notice something clearly and see it vividly, it then becomes sacred.” —poet Allen Ginsberg 3. “Holiness begins in recognizing the face of the other.” —philosopher Marc-Alain Ouaknin 4. “Modern culture, in its advertising of sex, is in a misguided fashion advertising its longing for the sacred.” —teacher Sobonfu Somé
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn author E. M. Forster wrote, “The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.” I propose we universalize that statement: “The only people, information, and experiences that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.” I believe this principle will be especially fruitful for you to embrace during the next three months. Prepare yourself for lessons that are vital for you to learn—and on the frontier of your understanding
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Among America’s Founding Fathers was Aquarian William Whipple (1730-1785). He was one of 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, instigating war with Great Britain. Unlike many of his colleagues, however, Whipple believed it was hypocritical to enslave human beings while fighting for freedom. That’s why he emancipated the person who had been in bondage to him. The coming months will be a favorable time to make comparable corrections, Aquarius. If there are discrepancies between your ideals and your actions, fix the problem.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): According to Piscean author Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “People sometimes devote their lives to a desire that they are not sure will ever be fulfilled.” So true! I can personally attest to that behavior. Is such a quest misguided? Delusional? Naive? Not in my view. I see it as glorious, brave, and heroic. Akutagawa did too. He said that those who refrain from having inspirational desires are “no more than mere spectators of life.” In any case, I recommend you think big in 2022, Pisces. From an astrological angle, this could be the year you home in on and refine and upgrade the single most important desire you will ever have.
Martin Ranch Winery’s 2017 Santa Clara Valley Malbec is a rich and silky red wine that is made under their Thèrése Vineyards label, named after winery co-owner Thèrése Martin. She and her husband Dan are both winemakers and run Martin Ranch together. The Martins’ other trademark labels are J.D. Hurley and Soulmate—all well-made wines. And kudos to David Dockendorf, their right-hand man, who oversees winemaking and production “from harvest to bottle.”
Fruit for the Malbec comes from Dos Niñas Vineyard, which lies at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains, producing fruit reflecting true Malbec character.
“Blackberry, boysenberry and vanilla coat the palate,” say the winemakers, “while luscious plum tannins finish off this beautiful wine.” Full of lip-smacking ripe fruit flavors, this gorgeous ruby-red Malbec ($42) is well worth a visit to Martin Ranch to taste this and all their other wines. In September, the Malbec won a silver medal in the 2021 Sunset International Wine Competition and was awarded 90 points by Wine Enthusiast.
Martin Ranch is open for tasting reservations (for up to 75 minutes) 11:30am-4pm the first and third weekend of every month. Small snacks are available for purchase, but outside food is permitted, so pack a picnic and have a good time!
Martin Ranch Winery, 6675 Redwood Retreat Road, Gilroy. 408-842-9197; martinranchwinery.com.
Pacific Catch
Pacific Catch restaurants are now expanding throughout the Bay Area, where it started, and beyond—there’s a new location coming to San Diego. We stopped for lunch recently at their Campbell restaurant in the Prunedale Shopping Center and enjoyed some items from their new menu. Our Crab Melt, Spicy Cioppino and Pan-Seared Petrale Sole were simply delicious—all perfectly presented and served. Their Crab Mashed Potatoes are absolutely scrumptious—and available a-la-carte. The restaurant company focuses on Pacific Rim seafood—“a flavor journey brought to you straight from wave to table.” Visit pacificcatch.com for more information.
Following a 25-year stint working in the Santa Cruz restaurant scene, Jonathan Glass was ready to open his own spot. But it wasn’t that easy: It took the veteran chef five years to find the perfect place. When Glass first walked into Avanti, it just felt right. Beyond the “feeling,” it had everything on his checklist: it’s a stand-alone building with a parking lot, it has an open kitchen and a liquor license. Plus, it already had a built-in Westside customer base.
Three years in, that customer base has grown due to Glass’ revamped menu, which he describes as “seasonal farm-to-table California cuisine.” In addition to the fresh seafood and pasta dishes, his slew of small plates, including a pistachio steak, are widely popular. There’s also a full bar serving up a variety of craft cocktails. Avanti is open 5-9pm, Wednesday-Sunday. Glass recently spoke about his passion for local seafood and Avanti’s outdoor space, a pandemic must-have.
Tell me about your love for local seafood?
JONATHAN GLASS: Something that really gets me excited is to offer some local seafood items that aren’t as often seen on menus around town. When I have the opportunity, I like to offer a simple dish featuring some locally sourced seafood favorites such as fresh anchovies, whole pan-roasted sand dabs and even seared mackerel. And, of course, local calamari, both traditionally fried, and we also offer a unique grilled option. I just find these less often menued seafood items really fun and flavorful, and it gives me joy to eat them and to see them on the plate going out to guests.
How has your outdoor dining space evolved?
Our outdoor patio has been a work in progress that we’re now very happy with, and it keeps our guests comfortable. It’s fully covered, with new electric heaters that pump out a lot of warmth. We have strings of lights, lots of plants and hanging ferns to really provide a garden feel. It’s even comfortable in colder weather. We also have cushioned seats and outdoor speakers for music. I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s a really beautiful place to have a meal.
1917 Mission St., Santa Cruz, 831-427-0135; avantisantacruz.com.
The Strawberry Patch Cafe is ready to welcome all its devoted regulars—the ones who loved it as Ella’s Café (not the same place as Ella’s at the Airport), as well as newcomers looking for delicious housemade breakfasts and lunches.
The handiwork of owners Jennifer DeVault and her twin sister Erika Conrad, the new Strawberry Patch will offer flavor invention amidst a whole new cafe look.
“It took us forever to decide on a name,” Jennifer admitted. “We’ve owned Ella’s for two-and-a-half years, the neighbors know and love the place, so we’re not making radical changes,” she told me. “Why change it?”
But there are in fact a few changes to the popular eatery on the way to downtown Watsonville. “We’re now staying open until 6pm, and we’re also open now on Sundays. That’s new,” DeVault says. “We’ve had so much business on Saturdays that we thought we should extend hours into Sunday.”
Also new: there’s now beer and wine, plus creative cocktails featuring low-alcohol spirits. DeVault said that while they do have a staff, the sisters pretty much have their hands on all aspects of the food service.
“We both do everything, the fresh soups and the specials. Yes it is a lot of work, but it’s so much fun,” she says. Both sisters have been involved in the food and beverage industry for many years. “But we always wanted to work together on a project—and now we can!”
The owner’s excitement is obvious. And the menu gives some insight as to why.
“We have pesto pasta salad, panini, soup and salad combos, fresh pastries, freshly squeezed juices, lemon mascarpone cake, red velvet cake, strawberry cheesecake and fresh soup everyday.”
And there’s more. New salads, new breakfast items like the Patch Burrito loaded with eggs, cheddar cheese, avocado, mushrooms, organic spinach, caramelized onions and choice of bacon, sausage or ham. Brie and blackened ham croissant, smoothies and espressos. I’m getting hungry just thinking about this menu! Bellinis, mimosa, bloody mary, micheladas.
Stop by and see what’s cooking at the vibrant redesigned cafe. The Strawberry Patch Cafe is located at 734 E. Lake Ave, #1 in Watsonville. Open 6:30am-6pm Mon-Sat., 7am-4pm on Sunday.
Breakfast by Candlelight
I’m not kidding. Early on, we found candlelight to start off the morning was a good way to take back the darkness from the pandemic shutdown. Eggs, toast and a pot of English breakfast tea tastes even cozier by candlelight. And now, approaching the winter solstice, mornings are so dark—and candlelight is as practical as it is soul-warming. Stop chuckling and try it for yourselves. You’re welcome.
Warm Rooms for Chilly Nights
The Rock Room at Shadowbrook comes to mind, for many reasons … sentimental dates, memorable occasions, lovely desserts … but especially during the cool weather, the room seems to glow with its own energy and romantic lighting. Shadowbrook at 1750 Wharf Rd., Capitola. 515 Kitchen & Cocktails, open Tuesday through Saturday, is one of those timeless interiors that might have been as perfect for your great-great grandfather as it is for you and your date. Love the deep plush couches and overstuffed armchairs. A vintage salon with complex Asian-fusion plates to share. An inviting outdoor patio, too, at 515 Cedar St. in downtown Santa Cruz.Mentone in Aptos Village offers a sophisticated welcome thanks to exceptional pizzas, amazing cocktails and a vivacious crowd. Warm, attentive service guarantees that you feel instantly in the right spot. 174 Aptos Village Way, Aptos.
Nance Parry says she’s sent out more than 1,000 resumes since she got laid off in September 2019. She’s gotten one interview.
Just five weeks into what Parry thought would be a six-month contract, she was laid off from a job as a document specialist for an engineering firm. She says she’s sent out two to three resumes per weekday since but that’s netted a grand total of one interview, leaving her to live off of a monthly $1,200 Social Security check, $1,030 of which is used to pay rent for her apartment in Duarte.
“I’ve tried to survive, you know, paid bills and food and everything on $200 a month after the rent is paid,” Parry said. “I need to work.” She needs new glasses and electrical work done on her car, but won’t be able to pay for either of those things until she gets a new job. Her landlord has tried to evict her three times, she says, and she’s worried about what will happen when LA county’s eviction protections end in January 2022.
“I don’t know if I’m going to end up living in my car or what because without a job you can’t get an apartment,” she said.
Parry is one of roughly 1.4 million Californians who are out of work and looking for jobs. In October, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state recorded a 7.3% unemployment rate,, the highest in the country, a distinction California shares with Nevada. October’s national unemployment rate is several points lower, at 4.6%.
One contributor to the state’s lagging employment situation is that California’s large leisure and hospitality sector — made up of hotels, restaurants and more — hasn’t rebounded as quickly as the rest of the country’s. But other data suggest the news isn’t all bad: There are lots of job openings and workers are quitting their jobs in droves, which is often a sign that people are optimistic they can find a better job.
Why is California’s jobless rate bouncing back more slowly?
Even pre-pandemic, California’s overall unemployment rate was usually slightly above the national rate. But the fact that so many Californians work in the leisure and hospitality industries — which saw massive layoffs in the beginning of the pandemic — contributes to the state’s lagging employment recovery now. Leila Bengali, an economist at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, pointed out California’s leisure and hospitality sectors employed almost 18% fewer people in September 2021 than pre-pandemic, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationwide, the industry was just 9% smaller in September than it was pre-pandemic.
One explanation for the gap between the rate at which California’s leisure and hospitality industry has recovered jobs and the rate at which the industry has recovered jobs nationally, Bengali said, is that international tourism, a large part of the state’s economy, was particularly hard hit during the pandemic. Visitors buy lunches at cafes and stay in hotels; when travel dried up, those businesses bore the brunt.
“It’s not a coincidence that two states (California and Nevada) that are heavily reliant on tourism and entertainment have not done as well, given the demise of tourism and entertainment under COVID,” said Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
New York, which also has a large tourism industry, has an overall unemployment rate of 6.9%. Florida, another high-tourism state, stands apart among high-tourism states with a 4.6% unemployment rate overall. The leisure and hospitality sectors in California, Nevada, New York and Florida have all added jobs back more slowly than the sectors have nationally.
Another potential explanation comes from research by Harvard economics professor Raj Chetty and several other economists, who found that low-wage workers who worked at small businesses in high-rent zip codes — of which California has many — lost their jobs at higher rates early in the pandemic than low-wage workers who worked in small businesses in lower-rent areas.
“If you lived in East LA, but you got on your bike and a bus to get over to Beverly Hills to work in a restaurant, or to clean a house or to take care of kids, a lot of that demand disappeared,” said Pastor.
But aren’t employers struggling to fill jobs?
Yes. Walk down any commercial strip in a California city and there’s a decent chance you’ll see a ‘Now Hiring’ sign in a restaurant or shop window. Employers have been offering cash bonuses and beefed-up benefits to fill empty positions.
California’s unemployment situation “certainly isn’t a question of a lack of job opportunity; that’s not what’s going on,” said Chris Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics, an economic research and consulting firm. “There are an insane number of job opportunities in our state and in the nation overall.” People may just be taking their time to find a good job, he said.
There are also some indications that lower-income families aren’t experiencing economic stress, said Thornberg. For example, the share of Californian consumers with new bankruptcies is lower than it was pre-pandemic.
A lot of the job openings also require in-person, physical work with unpredictable hours — like serving in a restaurant, or packing goods in a warehouse. Some people aren’t willing or able to do that work.
Parry is worried about working in person while the pandemic is ongoing. “I keep seeing signs in restaurants and stuff like that, it really makes me feel bad because I need work,” she said. She worked at Cost Plus over the holidays once in the past, and it made her legs hurt. “I am 71 years old,” she said. “I mean, the last thing I want is a job where I stand all day because it kills the legs and the back.”
“I think right now we’re seeing a lot of people move out of retail, leisure and hospitality and start looking for other employment,” said Somjita Mitra, chief economist at the California Department of Finance. Unpredictable schedules make it hard for workers in those industries to find child care and use public transit to get to work. “There’s going to be some structural changes in those industries long term,” she said.
It’s not all bad
Compared to California’s jobs recovery after the Great Recession — when unemployment peaked around 12.6% and took more than four years to get down to the state’s current 7.3% unemployment rate — the state’s post-pandemic recovery has been a roaring success. During the pandemic, unemployment in the state crested at 16%, but just a year-and-a-half later, that number had fallen by more than half.
If workers are holding out for jobs that better match their needs and goals, that can prompt employers to increase wages for the lowest wage workers, for example, or offer them more stable schedules — concessions that are good for the economy, said Irena Asmundson, managing director of the California Policy Research Initiative at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and former chief economist for California Department of Finance.
“Our economy really does work better when we have more of a balance of power between employers and employees,” Asmundson said.
When will the unemployment rate come down?
A May 2021 report from the Department of Finance projected that California’s unemployment rate would return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024.
A new report from UCLA Anderson Forecast predicts that California’s unemployment rate will fall to an average of 5.6% in 2022, and will drop further to an average of 4.4% in 2023. Authors Jerry Nickelsburg and Leila Bengali also expect job growth to slow in industries with a lot of personal contact, and in sectors that cater to tourists.
It’s unclear if California’s pre-pandemic jobless rate of about 4% was sustainable, said Asmundson. There’s a sweet spot, she said, and while economists disagree on exactly what that sweet spot is, she puts it at 5% for California. She predicts we will get to that rate in mid 2022.
Other economists think we shouldn’t worry about the unemployment rate. “Who cares?” asked Chris Thornberg. “People shouldn’t care,” he said. The more important question, he said, is whether there are job opportunities for people. “The answer is yeah, more than ever before.”
A high-ranking administrator at Cabrillo College has been charged with embezzlement by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Paul De La Cerda, the current Vice President of Instruction at Cabrillo, faces one felony count of misappropriation of government funds, and another felony count of embezzlement of government funds stemming from his time as dean of East Los Angeles College (ELAC).
De La Cerda is expected to be arraigned on Jan. 7.
“My office will continue to strive to root out public corruption in order to make government clean,” Gascón said in the release.
De La Cerda was hired by Cabrillo College in June of 2021.
He has not responded to two separate requests for comment.
Cabrillo spokeswoman Kristin Fabos said that De La Cerda was still employed by the local community college but declined to comment further, citing personnel laws.
De La Cerda, according to multiple media reports, was dismissed from ELAC in March 2021 by Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) officials.
When asked about De La Cerda, a spokesperson for LACCD said they could only confirm that De La Cerda was a former employee of ELAC.
Cabrillo President Matt Wetstein said in a late October interview that De La Cerda resigned from the LACCD in June to join Cabrillo. He declined to comment further but said that the circumstances of De La Cerda’s departure from ELAC were known to him and Cabrillo’s board of trustees.
“We made a decision to hire Dr. Paul De La Cerda that followed our normal hiring process for Vice-President-level positions, and that included input from a broad representation of our College community,” he said.
He added: “We are pleased to have him as a member of the Cabrillo family.”
The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, in the Fraud and Cyber crimes division.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company is moving into the next phase of wildfire clean-up efforts—clearing out thick tree trunks it chopped down previously.
According to Santa Cruz County’s Office of Response, Recovery & Resilience, the electricity provider is taking action in the wake of a legal dispute.
“Under the terms of a settlement reached with the County, PG&E agreed to implement a wood waste removal program and provide additional measures meant to protect the community from the threat and impact of wildfires,” a county spokesperson said in a release. “The County filed suit with the Public Utilities Commission following complaints from impacted residents that PG&E’s vegetation management and hazardous tree removal practices following the CZU Fire were insufficient.”
In a Dec. 1 announcement, the power company said it had already started reaching out to landowners for permission to get rid of the thick tree chunks.
“With landowner permission, PG&E will begin the wood removal program in the coming weeks, weather and safety permitting,” a PG&E spokesperson said in a release. “This includes planning and implementation steps to ensure the safety and success of the program, such as environmental review, site visits, landowner coordination and resource management.”
Following the CZU Lightning Complex fires, PG&E and its tree-removal contractors raced to restore power, including inspecting and cutting down hazardous trees that put workers or electric equipment in danger.
At the time, according to PG&E, crews were able to chip wood that was less than four inches in diameter, often spreading the chips on-site.
“Because wood is considered property that legally belongs to the landowner, any wood larger than four inches in diameter was left on-site,” the company’s release states.
But PG&E got a lot of flak for leaving many felled trees to rot.
The County says PG&E’s decision not to remove large wood debris in the first place put extra burdens on homeowners.
“After hearing from our constituents, it became clear that we needed to take strong action to remedy PG&E’s neglectful actions during the recovery process,” 5th District Supervisor Bruce McPherson said. “We look forward to PG&E working more collaboratively with the County and our residents in the future to assure that their needs are met following major disaster events and outages.”
PG&E says its tree-removal contractors will carry identification with them so residents know what they’re up to.
“In response to customer and community feedback, PG&E is preparing to remove wood debris and trees that it cut down,” a spokesperson said. “For the safety of PG&E’s customers, communities and crews, wood management that may require additional equipment or coordination will be addressed once PG&E is able to determine a path forward.”
Third District Supervisor Ryan Coonerty said he’s pleased with the settlement that he says will help reduce the risk of future wildfires.
“Our role as elected officials is to look out for the interests of residents when they need us most,” he said.
Under terms of the settlement, PG&E will notify customers regarding the opt-in wood waste removal program, which expires Jan. 31.
By Grace Gedye, CalMatters
Nance Parry says she’s sent out more than 1,000 resumes since she got laid off in September 2019. She’s gotten one interview.
Just five weeks into what Parry thought would be a six-month contract, she was laid off from a job as a document specialist for an engineering firm. She says she’s sent out two to three...
By Lucia Meza
A high-ranking administrator at Cabrillo College has been charged with embezzlement by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Paul De La Cerda, the current Vice President of Instruction at Cabrillo, faces one felony count of misappropriation of government funds, and another felony count of embezzlement of government funds stemming from his time as dean of East Los...
PG&E agrees to 'implement a wood waste removal program and provide additional measures meant to protect the community from the threat and impact of wildfires'
