As California continues to ride its worst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have more unsettling news: Six cases of a worrisome, potentially more infectious new coronavirus variant have been detected in California.
The new strain, first detected in the United Kingdom, also has been seen in Colorado and Florida and 33 other countries.
Last week, San Diego County reported it had identified the new variant, called B.1.1.7, in a 30-year-old man with no travel history. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the discovery in a livestreamed event with Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading national voice in the pandemic. Over the weekend, San Diego county health officials reported three additional cases.
Fauci said this news was expected, since international travel is ongoing and viruses generally mutate. “RNA viruses, they make a living out of mutating,” he said. “The more you replicate the more you mutate.”
However, the lack of travel history in the San Diego case is an indicator that the new form of the virus is circulating among the community, health officials there said. By today, the number of cases with the new variant had grown to six – four in San Diego, with one hospitalized, and two in San Bernardino, the governor announced.
“What’s really important is that detecting this lineage here doesn’t really change what we need to do other than we need to do it better,” Dr. Kristian Andersen, an infectious disease and genomics expert at Scripps Research in San Diego, said in a news conference. That includes wearing masks and maintaining social distance.
Here’s what Californians need to know about the new coronavirus strain.
How was it discovered?
The new virus variant was first reported by England’s public health agency following a surge of cases in the southeastern part of the country. The first two samples were discovered in Kent and in London in September.
While mutations in viruses are common, this particular strain stood out because it carries more genetic changes than is typical, according to researchers.
What’s the concern with this coronavirus variant?
Public health officials say the new strain seems to be more easily transmitted than the standard form of the virus. This means people who are exposed are more likely to become infected.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health secretary, explained it like this in a recent news conference: “For COVID to enter a human cell, it needs to bind to a receptor, a sort of front door on a human cell,” he said. “And the new, mutated COVID virus seems to bind a little tighter, a little more easily and enter the cell of the human body easier than our current COVID virus.”
It remains unclear how this mutant form of the virus has contributed to the current surge in California. Officials have said its prevalence here is still likely low. On Dec. 21, Ghaly said that California had been checking thousands of specimens daily over the last month, looking for mutations.
“We’re concerned because of the unknowns,” Ghaly said. “We’re concerned that we aren’t sure how this impacts the broadscale efforts to contain and mitigate the virus as it exists now.”
What is California doing in response?
The California Department of Public Health said health care providers are collecting specimens for genetic sequencing, and the state is analyzing samples suspected of being variant strains.
“As variants and mutations are found, that information is used to inform public health decisions and critical information is shared with the public,” the department said in an email.
Two variants that share some mutations with the UK variant also have been reported in South Africa and Nigeria, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We know there’s more. We don’t know how many,” said Andersen, the infectious disease expert in San Diego. “Its prevalence for now is relatively low.”
Will it make me more sick?
Right now, there’s no evidence that this new COVID variant has a higher fatality rate or causes more severe illness than the currently predominant strain, according to the CDC. A recent UK government study compared patients infected with the new variant to those with the predominant strain and found no statistically significant differences in severity of illness, deaths or reinfection. Scientists around the world are still studying the UK variant, however, and more answers may come soon.
Will currently authorized vaccines protect against this new strain?
Scientists believe they will. Fauci told Newsom last week that the variant “doesn’t seem to evade the protection that’s afforded by the antibodies that are induced by vaccines.” But scientists are testing the variant against the currently authorized vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna.
The CEO of AstraZeneca, which is developing another COVID-19 vaccine candidate, told the London Times that the company’s scientists believe the vaccine will protect against the new variant. But some scientists believe it’s possible that the UK variant, or future variants, may prove tougher for vaccines to overcome.
CalMatters.org is anonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
The city of Watsonville is cracking down on unpermitted food trucks and weighing whether to rework its rules regarding the mobile food vendors in the coming year.
The city manager’s office has received numerous complaints about food trucks from several brick-and-mortar restaurant owners over the last month, according to Community Development Department Director Suzi Merriam.
“What the big complaint is, is that these are competing with the brick-and-mortar restaurants in town,” she says. “[They say that] it’s not fair that food trucks are not paying rent, they’re not paying property taxes, that they’re not contributing to the local economy.”
And some, Merriam says, do not hold the necessary permits and licenses needed to operate within city limits.
Mobile food vendors require a permit from the police department and a business license from the city of Watsonville. They also need to pass an inspection from the county’s environmental health and fire departments.
Over the course of three recent weekends, code enforcement officers found at least seven food trucks operating within Watsonville city without one or more of the needed permits, Merriam says.
Code enforcement officers did not hand out any citations during their first sweeps, Merriam says. Instead, they gave those trucks a warning, and explained the application process.
Merriam says only two had obtained the necessary permits and another two had picked up the application packet from the city. Most, she says, have been understanding of the requirements.
“If they do not have all of these approvals, they need to leave Watsonville until they obtain them,” Merriam says.
But even if those trucks in question obtain the proper permits, Merriam says the issue might not go away anytime soon.
“It’s very cyclical,” she says. “It’s definitely something that keeps coming back around.”
SETTING THE TABLE
Concerns about food trucks undercutting brick-and-mortar locations are not novel issues in Watsonville or in other cities
Just as in Watsonville, food truck operators in the city of Santa Cruz must seek permission from the Santa Cruz Police Department and apply for a business license before getting clearance from the county health department and the fire department to open up. Vendors also must follow certain rules.
For instance, they can’t stop for more than four hours per stop. In residential zones, they can’t stop for more than 15 minutes. Additionally, there are 17 streets that vendors must stay away from, including West Cliff Drive, Pacific Avenue and Harvey West Boulevard.
But rules alone haven’t prevented a sense of frustration. A June executive order from City Manager Martín Bernal further restricted where vendors could set up, due to social distancing protocols in line with the Covid-19 pandemic. Some activists responded in outrage, calling the rules classist, but Santa Cruz stood its ground. After that, tensions ran high in August, when a Santa Cruz restaurant owner flipped an unpermitted food cart and allegedly pushed the cart owner to the ground. Although many came to the defense of the cart owner, she did not have the necessary permits to continue selling hot dogs in Santa Cruz.
In the city of Watsonville, leaders tried to leverage the burgeoning industry in 2012 by starting a weekly food truck gathering downtown. But business owners expressed concern that they would eat into their already thin profits, increase litter and create a negative image for the city.
Watsonville City Council last updated its rules around mobile food vendors in 2008, establishing when and where and vendors could set up and what permits they needed.
In 2015, the council tried to update those regulations, but those efforts were cooked before they began. Dozens of food vendors, worried that their livelihood would be chopped, showed up to the council chambers to push back on a rumored food truck ban. Instead, the council directed city staff to educate the vendors about the needed permits and to help streamline the permitting process.
It was then that the city also found a loophole in the wording of its traveling merchant rules. According to the municipal code, mobile food vendors can only operate in residential areas and they can only stay in one location for no more than five minutes. But an exemption in the rules for soliciting at businesses undermines those restrictions.
That rule reads: “It shall be unlawful to solicit directly to patrons at a fixed place of business without the authorization of the business owner/operator.”
“So that kind of throws everything else out the window,” Merriam says. “This one sentence essentially allows them—as long as the property owner or business owner, in writing, allows them to be there—to just sit there all day.”
City Manager Matt Huffaker says in an email that it is too soon to say when possible changes could come before the City Council. He does, however, say Watsonville will soon begin reviewing what other cities have done to police food trucks. Some have capped the time food trucks can stay in one location. Others have restricted them from setting up in locations with a high number of brick-and-mortar locations.
“Those are possibilities,” he says.
LEVELING THE FIELD
The pandemic has thrown restaurants into flux, as indoor and outdoor dining has opened and closed numerous times over the past nine months. But food truck operations, at least in Watsonville, have mostly remained the same; some have seen a boost in sales.
Food trucks that had deals with breweries and wineries likely saw sales drop, as those locations are currently forced to only offer carryout during the stay-at-home order. But many that serve in city limits operate similar to brick-and-mortar restaurants, setting up daily in parking lots of vacant businesses or busy gas stations.
That creates an unfair advantage over traditional restaurants, says Fernando Munoz, the owner of the Taqueria Mi Tierra restaurants on Freedom Boulevard. While most food truck owners do pay rent to a property manager to set up shop and hold their vehicle overnight, they do not have to deal with similar overhead fees that brick-and-mortars do. Property taxes, garbage, water, electricity, gas, recycling and impact fees for additions and improvements, it all adds up, Munoz says.
“Just my garbage fees are $6,000, but that’s OK because it goes right back to the city—it goes right back to the community,” he says. “Brick-and-mortars are the basis of the city and a community. We support schools, hospitals, police and fire.”
Munoz says several trucks are operating in violation of county health regulations by bringing in food that was prepared at home and not in an industrial prep station or in the truck. Many mobile vendors, he says, also lack access to running water and don’t have a nearby restroom—in violation of the California health code.
Munoz says he’s reported possible health violations to the county, but they’ve yet to take action. That failure in enforcement, he says, is understandable because of the department’s slim budget, which has only been trimmed further since the start of the pandemic. Merriam says Watsonville doesn’t have a lot of resources, either. Code enforcement for mobile food vendors isn’t a high priority and is mostly complaint-driven because of staffing.
Munoz suggests the city charge food trucks a fee that would equate to a small brick-and-mortar restaurant’s annual overhead—$10,000-20,000—and use a portion of those funds to hire an employee to enforce the traveling merchant ordinance.
TRUCKING THE TREND
On average, it costs about $375,000 to open up a restaurant, according to a survey from the website Restaurant Owner. For many in Watsonville, a city with a household median income of $55,000, that price tag means opening a brick-and-mortar location would require taking out a large business loan and diving into a pool of debt.
Food trucks offer a cheaper path to entrepreneurship and to sharing one’s love for food, say Miches and Ceviches owners Perla Pineda and Sergio Ferreira. The couple started cooking Mexican seafood at home for their family and close friends and eventually branched out to sell their wares over social media—a trend that has exploded since the pandemic began.
The weekend side gig turned into a full-time job when Pineda got laid off from her job with a local nonprofit in March. That “blessing in disguise,” she says, pushed the couple to buy a full-service trailer—complete with an industrial prep station, cold storage, wash stations and bathroom—and give Miches and Ceviches her full attention.
The Miches and Ceviches trailer is parked on the 1400 block of Freedom Boulevard behind Hong Kong Express, adjacent to two other brick-and-mortar restaurants. Pineda and Ferreira say they haven’t received direct complaints from their neighbors, but that they have heard from customers that restaurants have been trying to shut them down.
Pineda says she has followed her mother’s words of wisdom: “There’s always sun for everybody.”
“Whenever anybody tries to come and throw negative jabs like that, I always say, ‘There’s room for everybody,’” she says.
During the recent code enforcement sweep, Pineda’s trailer met all city and county requirements. She says the code enforcement officer told her she was one of few food truck owners who could say that, which didn’t surprise her after her experience with government bureaucracy.
The trouble, she says, is there’s no clear and quick way to obtain the necessary permits and inspections from the county. After purchasing their trailer in March, the couple spent 10 months jumping through hoops put forth by the health department. Pineda attributes some of the delays to the pandemic, but most, she says, were a result of unclear instructions.
Ultimately, she says that having all of the necessary permits, insurances and licenses has taken a big weight off their shoulders.
“If we’re going to do things, we’re going to do them right,” Pineda says, “and I think all [food trucks] want to.”
The Good Times Best Of Santa Cruz awards are a local tradition and a badge of honor—you’ll find them displayed at the top businesses around the county.
How can you make sure your favorite businesses win? Well, you’ve come to the right place!
With all of the challenges our local businesses have been through in 2020, this recognition means more than ever. Whose takeout got you through the pandemic? Where did you most enjoy dining outdoors? Which business did the most to make you feel safe while shopping? Those are some of the categories we’ve added in this extremely unique year.
Remember: Vote for a minimum of 25 categories to have your ballot counted. Voting ends at midnight on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021.
Guidelines:
1. We appreciate the creativity of local, independent business, and these are the businesses that Best Of celebrates. Therefore, we consider Think Local First guidelines when selecting winners: businesses that have majority ownership based in the counties of Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Clara or San Benito. We make an exception for chain stores that were founded in Santa Cruz County, and are proud to include them.
2. Votes for businesses with multiple locations are divided among the total number of locations.
3. There are a few categories in the food section that are so popular we offer a vote by city. Voters don’t always know where city lines are drawn, so we place the total votes according to where voters tend to ascribe them. For example, Pleasure Point winners are included in Capitola because most voters associate Pleasure Point with Capitola (it’s in Santa Cruz).
4. We reserve the right to eliminate a category with so few votes that it’s imprudent to assign “best” status.
It’s a privilege and an honor, this voting thing. And remember, you only get to vote once.
The results for Best Of Santa Cruz 2021 will be announced in March.
A few days in Carmel was just what we needed. With most overseas trips a thing of the past, it is wonderful to have so many interesting places to visit—and right on our doorstep.
My husband and I stayed at the Hofsas House, a family-owned, Bavarian-inspired inn centrally located in Carmel Village. Warm and welcoming, many rooms have an ocean view, and there is always a good breakfast of pastries from a local bakery.
Lugano Swiss Bistro is an ideal place for an outdoor dinner of melt-in-the-mouth fondue and schnitzel. Their wide variety of Swiss, German and French-style food gives one a feeling of being in the alps—and Lugano even does a Swiss Chocolate Fondue for dessert. Don’t miss that one!
Wine tasting in Carmel is a must. We visited several places, including the well-known Scheid Vineyards. The 2018 estate Chardonnay ($26) is a hit. With its fruit-driven core of pineapple, pear and citrus, the 2018 Chardonnay is made “in a bright and lively style that makes the perfect balance between rich and refreshing.” Scheid is just a stroll down the street from the Hofsas House.
Dinner on another evening at the Rio Grill was absolutely perfect. Surrounded by toasty heaters that warded off the evening’s chill, we enjoyed every mouthful of an inventive dish of corn truffle and wild mushroom tamale. An entrée of braised venison osso buco is dining at its best. Prepared with agave-red chile, street corn, green chile mashed potatoes and crispy corn tortillas, it’s out-of-this-world delicious. And don’t miss the restaurant’s wonderful pumpkin cheesecake. Kudos go to Executive Chef Eduardo Coronel.
After a stroll around the weekly farmers market, we headed for lunch one day at Café Carmel—a café and bakery par excellence centrally located on Ocean Avenue. We have owner and British ex-pat Sarah Cook to thank for impressive quiches, fresh-baked muffins, and a plethora of other delicious goodies she bestows on her customers. The café also does breakfast and a light dinner.
Scheid Vineyards, San Carlos Street and 7th Avenue, Carmel. 831-626-9463, scheidvineyards.com.
BANFF CENTRE MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL VIRTUAL FESTIVAL This year, bring the adventure home! Fluff up your couch cushions, grab a snack of choice, and make sure you have a good internet connection, because the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour is going virtual! For the first time ever, travel to breathtaking destinations, embark on daring expeditions, and celebrate some of the most remarkable outdoor achievements, all from the comforts of your living room. The Covid-19 pandemic has created extraordinary circumstances around the world, and many of our live World Tour screenings have been postponed or canceled. While we can’t replicate the experience of seeing the Banff films on the big screen of your local theatre, surrounded by friends and your community, these curated programs of amazing outdoor films will inspire you to live life to the fullest, however that looks these days! Please visit riotheatre.com for more information about the online programs and how you can support your local screening.
GROUPS
COMPLEMENTARY TREATMENT FORUM This is an educational group, a safe place to learn, for women with a cancer diagnosis. Meets every fourth Saturday, currently on Zoom. Registration required: WomenCARE 831-457-2273. Saturday, Jan. 2, 10:30am-12:30pm.
ENTRE NOSOTRAS GRUPO DE APOYO Entre Nosotras support group for Spanish-speaking women with a cancer diagnosis. Meets twice monthly. Registration required: Entre Nosotras 831-761-3973. Friday, Jan. 1, 6pm.
WOMENCARE: LAUGHTER YOGA Laughter yoga for women with a cancer diagnosis. Meets every Wednesday, currently via Zoom. Registration required: WomenCARE: 831-457-2273. Wednesday, Dec. 30, 3:30-4:30pm.
WOMENCARE ARM-IN-ARM Cancer support group for women with advanced, recurrent, or metastatic cancer. Meets every Monday at WomenCARE’s office. Currently on Zoom. Registration required: WomenCARE: 831-457-2273. All services are free: womencaresantacruz.org. Monday, Jan. 4, 12:30pm.
WOMENCARE TUESDAY SUPPORT GROUP WomenCARE Tuesday cancer support group for women newly diagnosed and through their treatment. Meets every Tuesday currently on Zoom. Registration required: WomenCARE: 831-457-2273. Tuesday, Jan. 5, 12:30-2pm.
VIRTUAL YOUNG ADULT (18-30) TRANSGENDER SUPPORT GROUP A weekly peer support group for young adults aged 18-25 who identify as transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, agender, or any other non-cisgender identity. This is a social group where we meet and chat among ourselves, sharing our experiences and thoughts in a warm, welcoming setting. Our meetings will be held on Discord during the shelter-in-place order. For more info, contact Ezra Bowen at tr***@di*************.org.
LGBTQNBI+ SUPPORT GROUP FOR CORONAVIRUS STRESS This weekly LGBTQNBI+ support group is being offered to help us all deal with stress during the shelter-in-place situation that we are experiencing from the coronavirus. Feel free to bring your lunch and chat together to get support. This group is offered at no cost and will be facilitated by licensed therapists Shane Hill, Ph.D., and Melissa Bernstein, LMFT #52524. Learn how to join the Zoom support group at diversitycenter.org/community-calendar.
OUTDOOR
COMMUNITY PERMACULTURE CALLS WINTER 2021 Practice permaculture each week at our ‘village campfire’ of ongoing interactive group calls. Hosted by experienced permaculture mentors including Santa Cruz Permaculture founder David Shaw, Lydia Neilsen of Rehydrate the Earth, and John Valenzuela of Cornucopia Food Forests. The goal of this program is to create thriving and resilient individuals and communities by supporting people to connect with nature, community, and themselves more deeply through permaculture. Each call includes a keynote talk on a relevant and seasonal topic. This is followed by a small group conversation for reflection, and a whole group conversation and Q&A. We close the calls with invitations for how you can apply what you’ve learned in your home and community. The next call begins with a check-in about how you applied what you learned. Learn more about and register for the 10-week call series at santacruzpermaculture.com/communitypermaculture. $25 per call/$250 for the series. Series begins Tuesday, Jan. 5.
The crew at Aptos St. BBQ have a passion for great barbeque, and have spent years and years mastering the process.
They roast, smoke, and serve up their meaty menu at their downtown Aptos location—takeout only for now—seven days a week from 11am-9pm, and even offer breakfast tacos every morning from 7-11am. They are also offering local craft beers to go, and have online ordering. General manager Jacob Marino has worked there for seven years and been the GM for the last two. He spoke to GT about their approach to barbeque.
What style barbeque do you serve, and what is your philosophy on barbeque?
JACOB MARINO: We kind of have a variation of styles, sort of like a blend between Kansas City and Texas barbeque—we call it “California barbeque.” Our philosophy is low and slow, with no shortcuts. We roast and smoke all of our own meats, usually for between 5-14 hours depending on the product. Our approach is quality, quality, quality, and we strive to serve the best meats that we can source.
What are a few of your most popular menu items?
Our brisket is probably our most popular, and that takes about 14 hours to cook. Our pork St. Louis style spare ribs are also a big seller, they take about six hours on the smoker with our secret rub, and then are slathered with our housemade barbeque sauce. My personal favorite sandwich is the Gaucho: It comes with beef brisket, grilled onions, provolone cheese, and a housemade chimichurri on locally sourced garlic francese bread. Our most popular salad is our Berry Bleu. It has mixed greens, berries, apples, pecans, blue cheese crumbles, raspberry vinaigrette and choice of meat.
What’s the deal with the breakfast tacos?
We started serving them about seven months ago, post-pandemic. We were trying to get creative and excite our guests with new menu options. We offer two types of breakfast tacos: pulled pork and brisket. They are served on a flour tortilla with eggs either scrambled or over-easy, and a ranchero salsa. They’ve been a hit. We started them with a slow rollout, and they have quickly turned into a favorite among locals. And really, who doesn’t want a taco for breakfast?
The sweep of an encampment at San Lorenzo Park—per an executive order by City Manager Martin Bernal, and intentionally coincided with the city council holiday break to prevent city council from overriding the order—goes against CDC guidelines, and also goes against Governor Newsom’s shelter-in-place order.
The park is home to over 200 people, many of whom have come to the park after being pushed out of other encampments by the police and told they could relocate to the park. There are not enough shelter spaces for those being displaced, plus shelters are not preferred to isolation placements due to the pandemic, according to Governor Newsom’s March 18 press release. Hotel vouchers are scarce, with priority given to disabled and elderly people, and even for those demographics approval takes months, and their stay is temporary. The encampment is being swept in increments due to its size, and the excuses are that the park is being shut off to the public for cleaning and lawn restoration and that the encampment is a public nuisance. The park is clean, people pick up after themselves or help their neighbors by picking up their trash, and it has a real sense of community. Community members and organizations like Food Not Bombs came out on Monday to stop the police from entering the park to no avail, and the people in the portion of the park the police said they would sweep on Monday were kicked out of their homes and displaced. I am writing to expose the inhumanity of the action to the public, encourage people to pressure the city council to call an emergency meeting, and help bring more people to the park to end the sweep.
Katayun Salehi | Santa Cruz
This letter does not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.
To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@go*******.sc.
Longtime readers know that our annual Year in Review issue is traditionally the time that we let the snark fly. It’s when we look back at all the news that made us facepalm or freak out or just shake our head in stunned resignation. It is, needless to say, usually dripping with irony.
But you know what? Snark and irony just did not feel right this year. I don’t know how we’re all going to even recalibrate our sarcasm meters after what we’ve all been through in 2020. There’s a lot of reason for hope going into this new year—hope that a lot of us haven’t felt in a long time. That got us thinking about the things that bridged the gap from the before times to this moment full of possibility. Especially when things got way grimdark, we needed the people, places and things in this week’s cover story more than we even imagined we could. Coming up with a list of 50 for this salute to Santa Cruz County’s hope-bearers was surprisingly easy—it was whittling down the list that was hard. So please enjoy our heartfelt, snark-free salute to the things that got us through this year.
And one more personal thank-you to our readers as we wrap up 2020. Santa Cruz Gives’ total is now at more than $625,000—far beyond even our stretch goal and almost a quarter-million dollars more than we raised in total last year for Santa Cruz County nonprofits. The crazy thing is that Dec. 31 is traditionally our biggest day of the campaign for donations. If you gave this year, thank you so much, and if you haven’t yet, I encourage you to go to santacruzgives.org before midnight on New Year’s Eve and do it!
Finally, voting is in full swing for our Best of Santa Cruz County awards at goodtimes.sc. Like our nonprofits, our businesses need your support! Have a great and safe New Year’s, and we’ll see you in 2021!
Years ago after learning of his total devotion to the Sasquatch People, I felt a need to pick up the phone, taking a chance that Mike whom I had just learned about might be at the museum. And I was more than excited (and to be honest a little surprised) to find someone of such unbelievable kindness and patience on the other end. Viewing the Big Guys from a similar perspective to him I had some in depth questions to which he gave me his full attention, never once making me feel I was an imposition upon his knowledge nor time. Such a wonderful quality anytime but especially
nowadays! But as I discovered, when it comes to Mike, you will not find a more devoted–to his fellow humans and Big Brothers alike–anywhere. ANY donation, I’m sure, will be SO greatly appreciated. Thanks for this wonderful article which I plan to share with my various Bigfoot groups on Facebook since such knowledge should not be lost. EVER.
— Laurian Dawkins
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
A perfect metaphor for the end of 2020, taken at Moran Lake Beach. Photograph by Bill Brigham.
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
BIRD’S THE WORD
This week, we tip our caps to the white wagtail, a rare winged visitor that recently landed in Santa Cruz County. These small birds typically breed in Alaska and Asia, including Eastern Russia, but one was somehow blown off course or else found themselves on an exploratory mission to our county, including the San Lorenzo River mouth at Main Beach in Santa Cruz. The black and white bird is slightly smaller than a robin.
GOOD WORK
FAVORABLE RETURN
The Return the Favor campaign, sponsored by Santa Cruz Community Credit Union (SCCCU), ended Dec. 7, bringing $49,000 to local nonprofit organizations along the way. Now, the credit union is extending particular thanks to three generous businesses: UR 1 Stop Auto Sales, Cardinale Oldsmobile GMC and BTW Industries, Inc. Between donations from SCCCU, contributions from members, grant support and annual donations, the institution put $174,000 into the community this year.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Gratitude celebrates life with a joyful ‘yes’ at every knot of the great network in which everything is connected to everything.”
Yes, we all know 2020 sucked. Here are the amazing people, places and things in Santa Cruz County that got us through.
1 Let’s start with this: Where would we have been without firefighters this year? And yes, we definitely mean the volunteer brigades, too.
2 The surfer statue always seems to reflect what Santa Cruz is going through, and this year was no different. First of all, he did a better job of consistently wearing a mask than the entire state of Florida. And the firefighter tribute was a great look, too. But he didn’t forget his greatest hits, like the seasonal jack-o-lantern and Santa hat.
3 Young Black activists stepped up in a huge way in Santa Cruz, showing how the Black Lives Matter movement could bring attention to important issues of race, racism and community locally. Nowhere, perhaps, was that more evident than the Juneteenth march that was both celebratory and unyielding in its participants’ demand for an end to police brutality and racial profiling.
4 When local schools feared students with no internet access would be completely shut out of online learning during the pandemic, Cruzio stepped up in a huge way with its Equal Access Santa Cruz program, working with the County Office of Education and the Pajaro Valley School District to bridge the digital divide by bringing free or subsidized high-speed internet to low-income families.
5 So many health care professionals, grocery staffers, and other essential workers literally put their lives on the line so the rest of us could shelter-in-place. Perhaps the most overlooked of these were farmworkers, making the work of the Watsonville Campesino Appreciation Caravan so important. Not only did the group deliver lunches, Covid-19 safety resources, children’s books, census info and more to local farmworkers, but the caravan raised more than $30,000 through a GoFundMe to keep the appreciation effort going.
Watsonville Campesino Appreciation Caravan, which has provided hundreds of farmworkers in the Pajaro Valley with supplies and information during the Covid-19 pandemic, was one of 20 awardees of Santa Cruz County CARES Act funding. PHOTO: Tony Nuñez
6 It was a big year for diversity in representation. There was the term of Mayor Justin Cummings as Santa Cruz’s first Black male mayor; the election of Mayor Donna Meyers, the town’s first lesbian mayor; and the election of Jimmy Dutra, Watsonville’s first LGBTQ mayor.
7 There were a lot of boring Zoom meetings we had to watch this year to keep up on Covid-19 developments. None of these featured UCSC professor and local infectious-disease go-to guy A. Marm Kilpatrick. Throughout the pandemic, this guy has been a compelling, tireless advocate for a common-sense approach to combating Covid-19 and keeping not just our community but the entire country as safe as possible.
8 A new archway now offers a permanent reminder and way to honor the role of the former Chinatown in Santa Cruz’s legacy.
9 The meaning behind the City Council-approved “Black Lives Matter” mural in front of Santa Cruz City Hall goes without saying—as does its significance.
More than 500 people volunteered to paint the city’s permanent Black Lives Matter mural on Center Street that the Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approved in June. PHOTO: MAT WEIR
10 Reflecting an important national conversation, locals started dialogues about complicated figures like George Washington and how, or even whether, to remember them in public spaces.
11 Our local nonprofit community absolutely outdid themselves this year, first scrambling to adjust to Covid-19, and then throwing themselves into the CZU fire evacuation and recovery effort. Whether it was the Animal Shelter pet-sitting in the burn zone, the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County staffing evacuation sites, or Hope Services providing activities for the developmentally disabled over Zoom, seemingly every nonprofit had to relearn how to best serve our community this year.
12 In gratitude, it seems, donors made this Santa Cruz Gives’ biggest year ever—by press time, our holiday giving drive had already raised more than even its stretch goal of $600,000 for 40 of the county’s hardest-working nonprofits.
13 Not only did the “Love You Madly: Artists for Santa Cruz Fire Relief” campaign (both the weekly video drops and the fantastic livestream event that will be rebroadcast on Jan. 15—go to santacruzfirerelief.org for details) help raise a lot of money for fire victims, but, damn, it really hit us in the feels. Louie Pérez talking about how much Santa Cruz means to Los Lobos? John Doe of X singing us “Don’t Forget How Much I Love You?” We’re not crying, you’re crying!
14 That Love You Madly campaign was created to encourage donations to Community Foundation Santa Cruz County’s Fire Response Fund—which has been the center of our community’s attempt to aid fire victims as we attempt to wrap our minds around the scope of this disaster—and only begin to understand just how long the recovery will take. It’s one of so many ways the Community Foundation has lived up to its name this year, when we needed it most.
15 As the smoke from the CZU Lightning Complex fire cleared, a debate flared both on Twitter—and at GT—over which Hollywood star Cal Fire Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox most resembles. Nominees included Roy Scheider, Topher Grace, the guy from Twin Peaks and the guy from Santa Clarita Diet.
16 Santa Cruz resident Dave Andrade, a singer in the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, won big on Wheel of Fortune. We assume drinks are on him when the bars reopen.
17 In August, glow-in-the-dark bioluminescent plankton filled up the ocean waves for a beautiful display.
18 Recent Santa Cruz Warrior Kendrick Nunn played for the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals in September. He did well, and we felt proud.
20 Hands and mouths aren’t normally associated with cleanliness. But a charming “Clean Hands Save Lives” rebrand of the local Screaming Hand logo artwork did a great job reminding everyone to be safe.
21 Young activists hung a sign reading “OUR PLANET IS ON FIRE CLIMATE ACTION NOW” on the River Street sign—both powerfully true and an improvement for that sign.
Climate activists hung a sign calling for climate action early on Dec. 11, 2020. PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA
22 The Santa Cruz Works-sponsored Ride Out the Wave effort supported businesses with tens of thousands of dollars in local gift card sales.
23 Led by the Tannery World Dance and Cultural Center’s Cat Willis, the innovative Black Health Matters program showed how an arts program could work to further both social justice and public health, bringing Covid-safe TWDCC “click and mortar” classes, cultural programs and health resources to county parks. The goal: bringing people and organizations (including the local NAACP, Blended Bridges, the SCC Black Coalition for Racial Justice and Equity and United Way of SC County) together to address how Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting the Black community, and promote healthy outdoor activities.
24 Watsonville reckoned with the anti-Filipino race riots of its past, issuing an official apology for the discrimination of the 1930s.
25 Just when we thought we’d have to watch one of those Adam Sandler Netflix movies, the Rio Theatre stepped in with its Virtual Cinema program to fill the gap left by the shutdown of movie theaters. Meanwhile, the venue’s hilarious marquee messages filled that Rio-sized hole in our hearts.
26 Working with city councilmembers, Santa Cruz beekeeper Donna Gardner hammered out reforms to the city code to eliminate permitting requirements for hive owners. The buzz is this will be good for local pollinators.
27 KSQD’s radio program “Cruz News and Views” launched, with host Nada Milijkovic and weekly contributions (every Wednesday at 3pm!) from reporters and editors at GT, the Pajaronian, and other Santa Cruz County media outlets. Now when we’re done writing local stories, we go on the radio and talk about the local news we just wrote. It’s kind of meta!
28 Local musicians—from singer-songwriters to rappers to the Santa Cruz Symphony—highlighted their creativity and adaptability by making the most of “quaranstreaming,” using the internet to share their music with the world when live music was a no-go. Dan Bern alone did, like, more than one a day there for a while! (And they were awesome.)
Lindsey Wall and Anthony Arya performing for a ‘Save Our Music’ quaranstream on May 16. PHOTO: JAKE J. THOMAS
29 Art and museum organizations across Santa Cruz County took their exhibits virtual, ensuring we can all still safely learn about local history and peruse art.
30 In February, a Twitter thread of journalists who had Santa Cruz ties picked up momentum. Ezra Klein, Jesse Thorn, Stephanie Foo and Sean Rameswaram all chimed in, waxing about Good Times and about how much they love Santa Cruz.
31 Leave it to Santa Cruzans to design masks with creative slogans, and even some f-bombs, to remind people to keep their distance and help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
32 Three years ago, Bill Simpkins imagined a multimillion-dollar sports complex in Live Oak where local kids could play soccer, run and picnic with their families. In May, that vision was realized when the artificial-turf field with surrounding running track and picnic area opened at Shoreline Middle School. Decades after bringing us the Simpkins Swim Center, the guy still knows how to get things done.
33 The designer/artists behind Pivot, Tina Brown and Rose Sellery, had plenty of obstacles to hurdle if they wanted to keep Santa Cruz’s premiere fashion event alive during the pandemic. So what did they do? They doubled down by not only making the runway show into a film, but then turning it back into a live event by showing the film as a drive-in screening at the Boardwalk. And a spectacular show it was, one of Pivot’s best ever.
Part of ‘Pivot in the Pandemic,’ the film version of the annual art show presented by Santa Cruz-based fashion presenter Pivot: The Art of Fashion. Design: Peter Esparza. Photo: Victoria Medina
34 Speaking of drive-ins, did we mention drive-ins came back in every possible way? Whether it was DNA’s drive-in comedy shows, the Boardwalk’s drive-in movie series, or even Mira Goto’s pickup concerts (which were kind of a reverse drive-in, since she did the driving), we were lucky to have all of them bringing movies, music and comedy back into our lives in the most live way the pandemic allowed.
35 Mountain musicians collaborated virtually on a moving cover of Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” in May to spark solidarity amid the pandemic.
36 Victory gardens made a comeback as people decided to dig in and make the most of having more time at home.
37 The young volunteers of the Teen Kitchen Project increased their production by 100% over three months to meet the need for fresh-cooked and delivered meals for people in need.
38 There were many NBA things to be happy with—the NBA season restart in the Orlando bubble, the NBA strike for social justice reasons and the NBA restart restarting.
39 Before stay-at-home orders began, GTNews Editor Jacob Pierce performed comedy at DNA’s Comedy Lab on March 4—the venue’s last in-person Friday night show before it became the first local business to close due to the pandemic. We love the virtual shows, and hope the Lab can one day reopen somewhere, somehow (see DNA’s perspective here).
Santa Cruz comedian DNA had a little fun with the marquee in the front of his business. PHOTO: JACOB PIERCE
40 State Senator Bill Monning bestowed a certificate of recognition on Good Times in November, “in appreciation for your commitment to journalistic integrity, community building, and the promotion of local arts and culture.” Monning praised GT for coverage that has “served to keep readers informed” and been “always inclusionary of all sectors of our diverse communities.”
41 Santa Cruz’s own Oliver Tree delivered the late-night-TV performance of the year on TheLate Show with Stephen Colbert in October, doing “Life Goes On.” Dude did a vertical flip on a scooter! And then rode another, gigantic scooter? And flew the American flag upside down! If you didn’t understand why we’ll watch anything this guy does before, you probably do now.
42 With Event Santa Cruz, Matthew Swinnerton has made a career out of bringing people together and keeping the vibe of Santa Cruz alive. We’re not able to gather in person, but events can happen online. And so a year marked by wildfires, an international pandemic and social isolation have made Swinnerton’s virtual efforts more impactful than ever.
44 The Carolyn Sills Combo’s “Ghost Reindeer in the Sky” video. Don’t even ask, just go watch it right now. We’ll wait.
45 There were a lot of great causes to support this year, but for some reason it was particularly heartwarming when the community showed up to save Oswald Restaurant. It wasn’t an event, or even an organized campaign, really—just owner Damani Thomas laying out the reality that the dining-scene fixture couldn’t survive without some financial help. He set a GoFundMe goal of $10,000—and got more than double that in 24 hours, ultimately raising more than $40,000. The comments were filled with fans remembering all of the times that Thomas had donated his own money, time and talent to local causes—not to mention all the great meals they’ve had at Oswald, and the ones they look forward to in the future.
46 Stay-at-home orders dealt devastating blows to many businesses, bookstores included. The good news is that lately many of us have had more time to buy books from Bookshop Santa Cruz and actually read them.
47 The New York Jets signed and drafted Santa Cruz High School grad Ashtyn Davis. Go Ashtyn!
48 The CA Notify app allowed Californians to find out if they may have been exposed to the novel coronavirus, just by adjusting their phone settings.
49 In-person art carried on safely with outdoor events like the “Color Our Street! Chalk Art Event” on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz.
Dennis Scott of Santa Cruz draws a giraffe on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA
50 You know who really got us through 2020? Our readers! For continuing to pick us up every week and checking out our daily stories online, for offering feedback on what we’re doing well and can do better, and for donating and subscribing to help keep us in business through the toughest year of our existence, we say a heartfelt “thank you.” We couldn’t have done it without you, and we look forward to great things in 2021!
I’ve spent more one-on-one time with my wife (and dog) in the last nine months than I had in the last 17 years.
And like everyone in Santa Cruz, America and the world, because of Covid-19, I’ve had to redefine my relationship to my job, my family, my hopes, my dreams and my community. Whether you are living with your grandparents, parents, extended family, friends, enemies, lovers or others, or are making it through this strange time alone, quarantine has called into question, blown apart and mutated all our notions about relationships. How are you getting through? Are you OK? What does the future look like? Who or what do you turn to for inspiration?
No time for dancing, or lovey-dovey
I ain’t got time for that now
Give me some dystopic end-of-the world movies and I will have a perfect night. I consider The Day After Tomorrow and 12 Monkeys to be classics. After watching John Cusack drive a limo through a disintegrating Los Angeles in 2012, I feel empowered. I feel like I’ve upgraded my skill set and honed my affinity for dealing with apocalyptic, shit-is-going-down scenarios. After every viewing of The Road, I feel like I just took a master class on how to survive in a grim, treacherous future. But in reality, before this summer, I have only had to deal with a blockbuster catastrophe, one time.
Lived in a brownstone, lived in a ghetto
I’ve lived all over this town
In March 2011, there was 9.0 earthquake in Japan. This caused a tsunami that threatened the coastline of Santa Cruz. At the time I was living in La Bahia, that Spanish-Italian building with the bell tower on Beach Street, whose wrought iron gate and, surprisingly, my old apartment still stand, though the other 40 apartments have been bulldozed. But in the early part of the 21st Century, La Bahia was a vibrant structure filled with international students during the summer and bohemians and weirdos in the off season. It was spring, it was morning, I waked and baked, as it was 8am and that was my routine. I heard a knock on my door. I opened it up, it was a cop. He said, “Tsunami warning, mandatory evacuation.” I said, “When?” He said, looking at his wristwatch, “Five minutes.” It was then that I said something that I never had said to a cop before, I said, “Are you high, because I am and that sounds like something I would say.” He said, “Did you say you’re high?” I slammed the door. I only had four minutes to evacuate the premises, and I had no time to argue about semantics.
The tsunami ended up terrorizing a bunch of boats and yachts, but it was certainly nothing I couldn’t handle. I felt like my decades of watching The Poseidon Adventure had paid off. I’m not going to end up like Shelley Winters. I’m a survivor and I’m ready for any situation.
And then came the pandemic of 2020.
I got three passports, a couple of visas
You don’t even know my real name
Before quarantine, I worked an easy 70 hours a week at my fledgling comedy club in downtown Santa Cruz, DNA’s Comedy Lab. I’m not special in doing that. Many people were working at their self-owned business at the beginning of this year. The Lab was about to celebrate its one-year anniversary when the week of lockdowns began. We had just hired a new chef and were ready to launch our updated menu. We had just come off the busiest weekend we had all year, and I remember thinking that we had turned the corner, we could finally have a month where we broke even. The hard work was about to pay off.
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I’m getting used to it now
I had been reading the headlines about a virus that was devastating China and Italy. It sounded very serious. I knew something wicked this way comes. How did I know? Did I mention Contagion? I had already vicariously lived through a worldwide pandemic and watched in horror as Gwyneth Paltrow died. I was self-taught on recognizing a plague. I told my business partners that we needed to close, and like a slow-motion version of the train crash in Super 8, they agreed. We closed and, according to the governor of California, it is still illegal for us to reopen.
By the end of this year it is estimated the rate of business bankruptcies will be up 158% from 2019 levels, according to one estimate. Will we ever be allowed to open again? What’s the baseline for reacting to all this? Calm terror?
A place where nobody knows
Remember back in January 2018 at 8:07am, when the citizens of Hawaii got an alert on their phone that said a nuclear bomb was heading their way and its arrival was imminent? It was an islandwide Defcon One. Nuclear war is an absolutely terrible way to start your morning, worse than having a cop knocking on your door. So how did people respond? Well, some people panicked. One man put his kids in a manhole. I remember one couple took one last selfie and tweeted, “Worst honeymoon ever.”
With the Covid-19 pandemic we never all received a singular text. We learned about it and it’s seriousness at different times. The news of Covid-19 was in the headlines for months before most realized what it meant.
Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons
There’s no escaping seeing downtown Santa Cruz change its character and nature. It is evolving and transforming in the face of lockdowns and new protocols. The very essence of downtown, the vibrant stores and staff that made Santa Cruz unique, is vanishing before our eyes. Like in the movie The Neverending Story, the Nothing is slowly eroding and erasing the very things we loved about our town. Compound this with summer’s CZU fire and the extremist Boogaloo who murdered Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, as well as the swelling number of people without homes who have inundated San Lorenzo Park, and it can be quite overwhelming. In fact, it’s shocking.
Hope for an answer some day
Shock. Where were you when you first realized that Covid-19 was going to change everything? Do you recall the second you knew things were not going to be the same? How could we not be in shock? I dare say that if you never recognized you were in shock, you might well still be in it.
Look at the Great Toilet Paper Rush of March 2020. You might think those people had gone mad, reacting to the news of a pandemic by crazily buying hordes of toilet paper. But they were just the canaries in the emotional coal mine of our national psyche. They were an indicator species that showed that our nation was undergoing an imbalance.
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the night time
Like all small businesses going through this crisis, April was particularly brutal as the reality set in. We were getting daily phone calls and emails at the Lab from renters who wanted to cancel their events and get refunded their deposits. What seemed like a short-term crisis began to have long-term ramifications. Would we be able to open our business legally in spring, summer or winter? The shifting landscape made it impossible to plan ahead. By the time Easter rolled around, we had cancelled 100 upcoming events.
I didn’t sleep a lot. I was up every night, mostly deadening my brain, but also researching grants, loans and trying to find an emergency exit. Would live events, comedy, music, theatre ever bounce back? It would have to, right?
I might not ever get home
Depression is where I find almost all my family and friends and myself. Most put on a good face (on Zoom). But in private, everyone is floundering on some level.
The mental health consequences of disasters have been written about, but we’ve never been in a worldwide pandemic of this magnitude in recent history. One study out of Boston University concluded that depression is three times higher than it was before Covid-19. In my comedy world, I have friends that were so close to “making it” and just on the edge of a career. Now, an entire generation is on pause. It is life interrupted on a grand scale, and nine months isn’t a long time to adjust. Heroically, I know a lot of friends and family doing their best, digging deep into their personal reservoir of strength and boldly plowing forward. And yet, no matter how busy we keep ourselves, depression seeps in like rainwater.
Packed up and ready to go
No epic story ends happily, and this story is no different. The weight of running a small business when it’s illegal to be open has become crushing and impossible to maintain. We are leaving the Riverfront Twin space we had called home. DNA’s Comedy Lab will survive with our weekly online shows and an outdoor comedy series starting in the spring. And when it’s safe, after the alien invasion has been thwarted, and coming together to laugh indoors seems sane, we will reopen in a new location. As Bill Pullman said at the end of Independence Day, “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!”
Lyrics: “Life During Wartime” by Talking Heads.
Watch Blind Tiger Open Mic on Wednesdays and Sloth Storytelling on Thursdays at 8pm at DNA’s Comedy Lab on Facebook. For the Spring Comedy Series and specialty shows, join the mailing list at dnascomedylab.com.
