Despite misleading claims that there is huge opposition to a train, 83% of those responding to the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) about alternatives for the rail corridor expressed support for passenger rail connecting Santa Cruz to Watsonville.
The RTC recently published correspondence received during the public comment period ending Nov. 27 regarding the choice of public transit for use in the rail corridor. Of the 255 people stating a preference, 212 (83%) preferred rail transit; 1.6% preferred bus transit; 1.6% preferred another transit system; 2.4% were opposed to rail transit but didn’t want anything else either; 11.4% want a trail only. Furthermore, 100% of the community stakeholder groups that submitted comments expressed support for passenger rail transit in the corridor. Clearly, implementing efficient, quiet, comfortable passenger rail is widely supported. Check the correspondence yourself on the RTC website: sccrtc.org/projects/multi-modal/transitcorridoraa under Milestone 3, Public Comments received and Stakeholder Comments received.
Mark Mesiti-Miller | Santa Cruz
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We usually want a visitor from Mars for perspective, but in our case, Finland would be more appropriate since they don’t let people camp next to highways and they find that it’s more humane and actually cheaper to build public housing and treatment centers and conserve those who don’t seem to be able to care for themselves.
They would also be impressed with the available land a few miles from downtown for managed campgrounds while the housing is built.
They would also be astounded that we are contemplating a hundred million dollar parking structure next to underused structures a few blocks away servicing a sea of empty stores bearded by a few dozen “affordable” housing units and a state-of-the-art library in the digital age. A plan that would also eliminate our last event space, but we don’t have events like other coastal towns anyway.
They would probably turn around when they see the River Street sign.
Paul Cocking | Santa Cruz
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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 Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published).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*****@*******es.sc.
Happy and Healthy New Year! I have been in Santa Cruz a very long time. I went to Soquel High School and graduated in 1966.
I have just found time to read Aaron Carnes’ article about Snail (GT, 12/23). The article failed to mention one member of the very original Snail’s band. Ron Fillmore was the original drummer. He was one of the very best ever. I am sorry he was missed in the article.
Ask me how I know! I used to go to parties when Snail would play. Purely Santa Cruz back then and before Ed Leslie.
Allen Hasty | Santa Cruz
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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*****@*******es.sc.
At the end of last year, we saluted Santa Cruz’s Cat Willis for her work with Black Health Matters, naming it one of the 50 great local things that got us through 2020. Now, just a couple of weeks later, Willis is once again in our cover story, this time for her work with the Tannery World Dance and Cultural Center, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Clearly, Willis is doing important work on multiple issues in our community.
What’s truly amazing is the way the work intersects seamlessly. But then, as you’ll read in Georgia Johnson’s story about Willis and TWDCC, she has a way of bringing a multitude of elements together in unique ways. From the organic way the organization came together to the way it elevates diverse styles and forms that have been underappreciated, TWDCC has made a tradition out of connecting traditions.
As Willis herself points out in the story, “intersectionality” has become a bit of a cliché. Leave it to a Santa Cruz group like TWDCC to get beneath our assumptions and bring real meaning back to the concept. Here’s to another decade of dance that challenges and unites.
I also want to remind everyone to vote for our Best of Santa Cruz awards at goodtimes.sc. It goes without saying in these extremely difficult pandemic times that your favorite businesses need your support more than ever. Getting that award for “Best Takeout” or “Best Bike Shop” or “Best Desserts” can be a huge difference-maker right now. Cast your vote today!
Come on now! Watsonville has beautiful weather and beautiful landscapes, but it is like living under Communist surveillance. We can’t even have a bowling alley! The cops out here get extra pay for gangs. If there are even any gangs here, they are the police. Gang affiliates are being priced out and leaving to Salinas. Watsonville PD pesters students and the working class more than gang members.
I can see the future of Watsonville and it looks very white to me.
— Seven Velez VII
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Five whimsical pumpkins, all of them are colourful, all of them have personalities, one of them is a jerk. Can you guess which one?
This is a virtual event so pants are optional but you’ll need your own supplies.
Recommended Supplies:
– 16″ x 20″ canvas
-#16 brush, #8 brush, a fine tip brush
-blue, red, yellow, black, and white paint
-paint pallet or paper plate, water cup, paper towels, hair dryer
-don’t forget drinks and munchies
Supply kits are available at https://shop.yaymaker.com/, or you can also find what you need at your local craft store. Many dollar stores also have a good selection of art supplies.
See you soon!
(10259755)
Grab the kids and unleash your inner artist at the Original Paint Nite. You’ll all go from a blank canvas to a masterpiece of your own, with plenty of laughs along the way.
You’ll be guided by a talented and entertaining artist, who will:
bring all the supplies and set you and your group up with canvases, paints, and brushes
lead you through step-by-step process to paint “Milky way at the Pines”
entertain and delight your group and make it a memorable experience!
You and the kids will love what your create, and how much fun you have doing it. No experience needed. Come early and grab some snacks!
Please Note:
This event is for children ages 6 and up
Each child must be accompanied by an adult
Every attendee(child and adult) need a ticket
Looking for something besides Plant? At Yaymaker, we do a lot more than Plant Nite and Family Events. Check out some of our other experiences like Paint Nite and Candle Making. For all of our events check out: www.yaymaker.com
Submit to ph****@*******es.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
FALL BACK INTO PLACE
UCSC has begun planning for a return to in-person instruction this fall in the upcoming academic year. A university press release says that everyone in the Banana Slug community is eager to return. The school will share more information as it develops plans for returning to its residential campus, Scotts Valley Center, Silicon Valley Campus, and other sites. Among the details, leaders are currently working on the rollout of a campus Covid-19 vaccination strategy.
GOOD WORK
BETTER TOGETHER
A plan to consolidate two Mid-County fire districts took a step forward last week when nobody from the community registered a complaint. Efforts to consolidate Aptos-La Selva Fire Protection District and Central Fire Protection District began in 2019. Fire officials say the move will help departments streamline their services, and help reign in costs by reducing duplication of staff, resources and overhead costs, according to the report.
It didn’t take long for Santa Cruz, and everyone else, to fall in love with the Tannery World Dance and Cultural Center (TWDCC)—and its founder and executive director Cat Willis—when it opened its doors in 2011.
First conceived by Willis in the ’90s, TWDCC was born out of both her childhood and extensive dance experience. Growing up in a Black church in Rochester, New York, singing, dancing, and community were a part of every weekend, she says. Willis also studied for many years with Garth Fagan Dance, the Edna Manley School of Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica, and the University of Legon in Ghana.
“All of these very influential places taught me the power of the arts and cultural practice, mixed with strong community bonds, and how ‘placemaking’ was really central to a healthy human experience; all of this created a vision inside of me to create a cultural center of some imaginings. I actually confessed all of these imaginings and dreams to my dear friend and board member Mia Birdsong on her Brooklyn stoop in 1999.”
Now, TWDCC is celebrating 10 years as a hub of dance, culture, and creativity in Santa Cruz. Though Willis was relatively new to Santa Cruz 10 years ago, the community welcomed her. Volunteers showed up to help build the studio, artists signed contracts to teach—despite not having many students, initially—and some of the staff sacrificed salaries to pay the studio rent. This was all in the midst of the Great Recession, but Willis had a vision that couldn’t wait.
“I wanted to create something I was not really seeing in Santa Cruz,” Wilis says.
Micha Scott, a longtime professional dancer with the Garth Fagan Dance Company who is both the TWDCC Board vice-president and the group’s artistic director, remembers having classes in the community area of the Tannery residences at first because there was no dance floor in the studio. There were about eight dancers and a portable CD player, she says. Many of those first dancers and teachers are still with the TWDCC family today.
“Looking back, I am not surprised how positively people respond to TWDCC,” Willis says. “Having a cultural hub that brings such a broad intersection of people together through performance and dance is a necessity, especially in times like these. I have always said that I could not have opened TWDCC anywhere other than Santa Cruz. There is an alchemy of growth and optimism that runs through the people of this town, and I see a hunger for connections that are deep and foster understanding.”
EXTENDED FAMILY
Willis assembled a small group of founding advisors, including Scott and longtime friend and Tannery resident Yasmina Porter. Other familiar faces included Carmela Woll, co-founder of Motion Pacific, and George Newell, current board president. Willis also assembled a team of teachers including Haitian dance teacher Shawn Merriman Roberts, Congolese artist and dance teacher Vivien Boussamina, and Tango teachers Devi Pride and Luis Garza.
“A lot of times modern or indigenous art forms are considered ‘lesser than’ or ‘not as technical’ or ‘only for show.’ But there is a lot of richness and depth and tradition involved in these art forms, and it’s really important that they are showcased and elevated,” Scott says. “Creativity is a way that people solve problems. It’s not just about the dance, it’s about how to figure out the problems in life.”
“Places like TWDCC create an anchor of stability and safety, and it is one of a few spaces in the county that has one of the highest demographics of BIPOC teachers, artists, and students,” Willis says.
Part of having a successful dance and cultural organization is the teachers like Bay Area professional dancer Molly Katzman, but also the opportunities for summer intensives with dancers from around the world. TWDCC students have opportunities to study with renowned guests from all over the country like Gregory Dawson, Sharon Skepple Mayfield, N’Jelle Gage Thorne, Guy Thorne and Annique Roberts.
“Cat and Micha aren’t fixated on one genre. They know that dance has different facets, like a diamond, and they can appreciate and know the importance of all of them,” Dawson says. “This appreciation, in my opinion, helps in creating a mindful artist and an incredible human being.”
“These days we talk a lot about intersectionality, and I believe that a community hub like TWDCC really gets to the core of what it means to bring people of many persuasions and backgrounds together,” Willis says. “When people are connecting in a safe space and sharing their cultural traditions and artistic practice, there is a lot of trust, inspiration, and creativity to go around, and people want to return for that over and over again.”
INSPIRATION AND REPRESENTATION
Before Covid-19, TWDCC was serving more than 350 students a week—a big change from the initial tiny classes in the Tannery residences. Looking back on the last decade, Willis says that one of her proudest moments was in 2016 when TWDCC commissioned Micha Scott and Gregory Dawson of dawsondanceSF to create original works for the first annual Winter Dance Festival at the Colligan Theater.
“It was a sold-out show and the work was, as expected, extraordinary,” Willis says. “I was proud and humbled all at the same time by, once again, all of these people believing in the need for this level of work and artistry to be shown in Santa Cruz, and that Black artists were sitting at the top of the billing and shining in a place like Santa Cruz where there are so few of us here. Representation is critical to the work at TWDCC.”
TWDCC has both adult and youth dance programs that are designed to be accessible to everyone and make all students feel seen, heard, and part of something larger than themselves.
“In Santa Cruz, when you look around you don’t see many mixed-race kids; but when I’m at the studio and I see everyone around me that looks like me, it helps me feel at home and helps me feel safe,” 15-year-old TWDCC dancer and SCOPE scholarship recipient Eva Diop says. “In society, I see all these rich, white successful people, but I don’t see as many who are like me. When I see these amazing, powerful women like Micha, Cat, and Angela, it’s inspirational and it makes me feel like I can achieve that someday.”
Eva’s mother Noel Diop said that as a white mother to four biracial children, TWDCC is a place where her children can feel their Senegalese roots. For Noel, as a longtime student of African Dance, TWDCC was a place that her family could land when they moved to Santa Cruz six years ago.
“I felt held and felt safe,” Noel says. “I felt like it was a home. Feeling Cat’s love and strength and her nurturing the community, it felt solid.”
For Eva and Noel, TWDCC has been a dance studio but also a family. Many of the Tannery residents depend on TWDCC as a place that makes living at the Tannery so unique and special. “Cat wants a safe community and to have everyone come together and dance. And she accomplished that,” Eva says. “It makes me feel like I can go out there and do whatever I put my mind to.”
The TWDCC’s Diaspora Performance Project supports the development of new work by artists like Oumou Faye. PHOTO: CLIFF WARNER
CLICK AND MORTAR
For TWDCC, it’s all about togetherness—and Covid-19 won’t stop that. Despite the obstacles that Covid-19 has thrown at everyone, particularly local nonprofits, TWDCC has launched several initiatives to support their dancers and community while everyone is staying at home.
“Covid hit TWDCC the way it hit everybody … swiftly,” Willis says. “We were in the midst of planning our big Spring Showcase, taking our teen company dancers to New York to study with Garth Fagan Dance in the summer, bringing special guest teachers from the East Coast here to Santa Cruz for our summer Intensive, and everything got shut down, all of it.”
But from Covid-19 sprung some good, too, including TWDCC’s Click and Mortar Program, an online dance class program for TWDCC students. TWDCC also wrapped up the dance season in June and hosted two virtual Summer Dance Intensives. Likewise, because the organization was operating online, TWDCC was able to hire teachers internationally—something previously impossible because of cost limitations—that created a unique opportunity for local dancers. While the pivot to online was unexpected, Operations and Facilities manager Lisa Brenner rebuilt the TWDCC website from scratch to accommodate online teaching.
“The goal in moving our operations online is to facilitate a tech space that incorporates everyone’s tech capabilities, one that gives students and teachers the assurance that they are savvy enough to take or teach a movement class from their living room,” Brenner says. “It’s an extension of the methodology that TWDCC has always practiced: Everyone who walks through the doors will be seen and held through what they need. Right now, the doors are virtual.”
The “Mind-Body Medicine: Intro to Self-Care” class has also taken on its own special importance to TWDCC and its students since Covid-19 began. Taught by TWDCC’s Development Director and Programming Manager Angela Chambers, the class initially started as a personal project for her aimed at helping students find the balance between dance and personal life, but the class has since shifted to support overall mental health, self-care, cohort bonding, and mentorship.
“This class has provided an exponentially rewarding opportunity for me to connect with our students during a time when it’s needed most, when so many of them are having difficulty navigating the challenges they and their families are experiencing in the time of Covid,” Chambers says. “So many students have opened up about their personal struggle with mental health, and being able to connect with their peers about it all and find common ground and support has had a visibly significant and positive impact.”
Despite the popular classes and positive reception TWDCC has enjoyed over the last 10 years, Willis says that one of the biggest challenges over the last decade is that many people still don’t know that TWDCC exists.
“What’s amazing to me is that as soon as people who’ve never before visited TWDCC come to the campus, they are blown away and inspired,” Willis says. “The truth is, the Tannery Arts Center has yet to even begin its ascent as the robust arts hub it is destined to be. We’ve had some really tough times on the campus over the past 10 years. Keeping at it is just what we do; that resiliency in the face of a lot of darkness has defined us in many ways.”
BLACK HEALTH MATTERS
With visibility and community outreach in mind, TWDCC has recently partnered with several local programs, including the Santa Cruz Chapter of the NAACP, Blended Bridges, and the SCC Black Coalition for Racial Justice and Equity, United Way of Santa Cruz County and County Part Friends, to launch their Black Health Matters (BHM) Initiative. BHM is aimed at creating more community support and resources for the Black community in Santa Cruz by providing more access to outdoor park spaces, TWDCC classes, and health resources—so far including a virtual family barbecue and a sunset surf session with Bella Bonner, founder of Black Surf Club Santa Cruz, plus mediation, dance, and nutrition classes.
“Black Health Matters was born out of the direct response to George Floyd and the movement for Black Lives,” Willis says. “I knew that I wanted to create a platform that could address what Black residents were facing in the county in regards to race relations, the lack of data on our community, and structural inequalities that were being highlighted because of Covid-19.”
BHM also involves a community assessment survey conducted by United Way of Santa Cruz County that will report information and feedback from the Black community to fill gaps in county data. “We want to make the invisible, visible,” says Keisha Browder, CEO at United Way of Santa Cruz County. “What gets measured gets done, and if we can start with the gaps, we can begin the work there.”
Browder says that United Way has begun collecting data and a report will be released this spring. So far, she says some of the data they have released is eye-opening, particularly the income and education of Black community members compared to others. “The median household income for the Black community is a little over $78,000, but our Caucasian neighbors are at $123,000,” Browder explains. “So one can look at $78,000 and think ‘not bad,’ but there is a definite gap.”
For many, TWDCC is more than a dance organization—it’s a place of culture, education, and community. “TWDCC is our cultural hub; it is where the Black community gathers,” Browder says. “So while it may look like dance on the surface, it’s having that space and opportunity to look to your left and right and see someone who looks like you.”
THE NEXT DECADE
Looking to the next 10 years, Willis says that TWDCC will further cement its position as a place of cultural significance in the Bay Area. Willis says she also wants to continue to reinvent how the arts, technology, and community partnerships can create what health and sustainability looks like in today’s Covid-19 world.
“Ten years ago, Cat and I stood in this empty dance studio without a dance floor and we just looked at each other and knew that we had such high hopes for the organization,” Scott says. “We built an amazing dance program for youth and opportunities for adult artists coming in and now we are expanding on the cultural center part of outreach. We will continue to grow our school and provide amazing opportunities to our dancers, but we are also going to continue to develop and grow our cultural center side.”
In celebration of the last decade, TWDCC will fittingly be collaborating with the renowned Garth Fagan Dance—a prominent New York dance company. Garth Fagan is a Tony Award-winning choreographic mastermind behind Broadway’s “The Lion King” and will be collaborating with TWDCC to create a special production in Santa Cruz in the coming years.
“I want to expose Santa Cruz to my roots and origins,” Scott says. “They are just an incredible group of dancers, and they are the supreme essence of Black excellence.”
After seeing a Garth Fagan Dance Company production in California, Scott took a Greyhound bus across the country to Rochester in 1990, where she looked up the company in the phonebook. Impressed that she moved across the country alone, Fagan took Scott in as a student, and she eventually became a professional dancer there. Scott also encouraged Willis to join as a student in 1991. Today, Willis and Scott are literally sisters (in-law) and Scott says that the high standards of training and expression that she learned as both a student and professional dancer at Garth Fagan Dance have been very much been instilled in the TWDCC culture, too.
“When we invest in building a powerful platform for these artists, we give a gift to our community,” Willis says. “We establish a professional and cultural institution that builds
understanding, diversified knowledge, and equitable models of a healthy community.”
As a hub of modern dance, TWDCC has brought in artists from all over the world and all areas of dance into the community fold, allowing artists to have an accommodating creative place of expression. TWDCC’s Winter Dance Fest choreographer Gregory Dawson of dawsondancesf says that TWDCC’s history of providing artists with a venue for creative expression and freedom in such an accommodating and welcoming way is rare.
“The fact that TWDCC has leadership that believes in and understands dance, and knows how to invigorate and cultivate young artists, is a blessing,” Dawson says. “Cat and Micha are, as Black women, feeding their community motion, love, and thought. They are the right people, at the right time, for the community and the center.”
Looking ahead, TWDCC hopes to have a virtual Winter Dance Fest—though the details haven’t been finalized, Dawson says he’s all in. Also, TWDCC recently teamed up with Motion Pacific to co-produce their first BIPOC Queer Fest, slated for this fall. “We’ve been inspired by our dance community and feel a sense of solidarity with them, especially during Covid-19, when our collaboration and partnerships ensure we all survive,” Willis says.
Over the last 10 years, Scott says she has seen a progression of a higher caliber of dance in Santa Cruz. But, at the end of the day, she says that TWDCC focuses on the person as a human being, not just a dancer.
“We are not one of those studios that just runs dancers through the mill and they come out the other side and they have an incredible extension and can turn in the air five times,” Scott says. “Yes, they will get the technical training, but they will learn creative expression. The bigger goal is to create artistry. Why are you doing this movement? There is a level of artistry and creative expression that can be achieved if it’s fostered and nurtured.”
“What the campus was created for was every intersection of art-making and performance and connection to happen in one place,” Willis says. “We’ve achieved that in bursts, but the best is yet to come as far as I can see.”
In the aftermath of a violent swarming of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. by supporters of President Donald Trump last week, Santa Cruz’s Diversity Center made a more positive announcement of national significance: The group’s lawsuit against the Trump administration has succeeded in blocking an executive action that would have banned many diversity trainings.
The executive order, signed by Trump in September, sought to block workplace diversity trainings by federal contractors and grantees that confronted topics like structural racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. Sharon Papo says the order would have had a chilling effect on the Diversity Center, which provides training to all kinds of workplaces and receives federal funding.
But U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman handed down a preliminary injunction in the case, The Diversity Center v. Trump, which was filed by Lambda Legal on behalf of the Diversity Center and several other plaintiffs. And on Dec. 22, Freeman issued her ruling and barred the Trump administration from enforcing its diversity training bans on federal contractors and grantees.
“I felt a lot of relief when the decision came down that this awful, disgusting executive order was not going to go forward,” says Papo.
This victory will allow her to step down from her post with a particularly big bang—after eight years, Papo will be leaving the Diversity Center on Friday, Jan. 15. Papo says she accomplished everything she set out to, and feels the time has come for her to pass the torch to someone else. The center will announce an interim director shortly.
“The lawsuit really let us step up and move forward the part of our mission that says we will advocate for our community,” she explains.
Under Papo’s guidance over the past eight years, the Diversity Center expanded programming, including with the launch of the county’s first-ever LGBTQ prom in Watsonville that grew out of conversations with kids who wanted to have a prom experience but didn’t feel safe or comfortable at school dances. The event became a big hit.
“Young people came and danced and had a fun time just being themselves,” Papo says. “Part of what we do in the Diversity Center’s youth program is we provide support, community and leadership. So we supported the vision of our youth leaders in our program on creating the experience that they wanted in their community to honor them and their experience.”
Papo says it was important to communicate that people don’t have to miss out on important milestones just because they’re LGTBQ.
The center added a variety of new speaker series and trainings, including one for outdoor educators.
The expanded programming covers all ages.
The 60Plus Program, for instance, serves more than 300 LGBTQ elders to give them tools on healthy aging. The program also includes luncheons and other social functions. Additionally, the center’s staffers advocate for those living in elder care facilities who need someone in their corner. They offer support when someone’s partner dies.
Papo stresses that the recipients have more than earned the support they’re getting.
“It is for the trailblazers of our movement, many of whom had the greatest risks when they came out,” Papo says. “They were more likely to be rejected by their families. There were no legal protections, so they could be fired from their jobs if anyone knew that they were out, so that has increased economic instability for many of them. And they’re less likely to have kids and less likely to have partners. There’s increased levels of substance use and other coping mechanisms because of the challenge of those stresses they had the challenge to live through. So having a program that honors our program feels really important.”
“It’s also a lot of fun,” she adds.
On top of that, the Diversity Center has attained a level of fiscal sustainability unlike it’s ever had before.
In 2018, the center bought the building it calls home. But then the Covid-19 pandemic started, kicking off a recession of far-reaching proportions. Papo looked at the mortgage bill and thought about the years of payments that stood in the way of the Diversity Center fully owning the building outright. She says that, meanwhile, diversity centers around the country were closing because of the economic downturn.
So Papo launched a new capital campaign and raised enough money to pay off the Diversity Center’s mortgage. Another success.
Not only will the Diversity Center not have to listen to a landlord, but it’s also debt-free. It was no easy lift. More than 80% of campaign donors, she adds, were making the largest donations of their lives. “So clearly, this was a collective dream, and it is a collective legacy for our community,” she says.
At a time when insecurity is increasing for so many, Papo is happy that the Diversity Center will be able to stay the course and lend a hand to those in need.
“Over the past eight years, we have done so much,” Papo says. “I’m so proud of what the organization has accomplished and how the Diversity Center has grown and served so many people.”
I reported a five-part series on the debate over a proposed rail trail corridor in April 2018, when the only logical conclusion was that the caustic discourse wasn’t going to get any better until everyone developed an agreed-upon set of facts.
And although the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) is inching forward with a plan nearly three years later, many public perceptions of the issues around the corridor are stuck in gridlock.
The RTC is now getting ready to hold a public hearing to take community input on the Transit Corridor Alternatives Analysis on Thursday, Jan. 14, at 9:30am via Zoom. The commission has already signaled that it wants some form of transit—likely a train or a bus—along the bike and pedestrian route, which is now a reality on the Westside. The RTC is not currently pursuing the trail-only route that some anti-train groups, like Greenway and Trail Now, had pushed for.
That sense of direction hasn’t totally calmed the discussion, and the commission now has its first staunchly anti-train member in Supervisor Manu Koenig. Meanwhile, identity politics is driving the whole discussion, with the most emotionally invested Santa Cruz County residents picking a team to identify with—in much the same way political junkies across the country identify as liberal or conservative. Santa Cruz has seen similar phenomena play out between warring factions in fights over housing affordability in Santa Cruz the past two years, although the coalitions in that space are not quite so neat.
When it comes to transportation, many trail-only activists are partial to the bus-rapid transit option, which is not RTC staff’s top recommendation. The recommendation is for a new commuter train. While a proposed bus option has higher projected ridership, staff findings say that the train would use more of the trail, have faster travel times and be more accessible to those with disabilities.
Many of the questions from trail-only activists, however, haven’t changed in the last three years: For instance, will large portions of the trail need to be routed off onto city streets because the corridor isn’t wide enough? Where will the train stops even go? Will Santa Cruz County ever have the political will to pass a sales tax measure? How should the declining ridership of the relatively new SMART train in Sonoma and Marin counties change the calculus here?
The general answer to many such questions—the RTC staff and train supporters will argue—have remained constant as well. It’s too early to know, they explain, and the studies are still working on a higher level of analysis, so it is not the time to get into the nitty-gritty details.
“That’s not where we are right now,” Senior Transportation Planner Ginger Dykaar told me in November. Patience, she said, will be key.
With the RTC ready to hear more community input Thursday, the stated focus will be on identifying a preferred local transit alternative to Santa Cruz County’s most congested routes.
I used to think that the questions activists ask or the way they rationalize the big-picture answers about a given topic helps inform their stance on the relevant policies.
But I’m not so sure it isn’t the other way around—that perhaps people decide how they feel about a policy before they even decide how best to engage with the concepts at play.
For information on how to join the Jan. 14 meeting, visit sccrtc.org.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): As you ripen into a more fully embodied version of yourself, you will summon ever-greater discrimination about where to seek your inspiration. I trust that you will increasingly divest yourself of any tendency you might have to play around with just any old mediocre fire. More and more, you will be drawn to high-quality blazes that provide just the right amount of heat and light—neither too much nor too little. And you will steadfastly refrain from jumping into the flames, as glamorously dramatic as that might seem—and instead be a master of deft maneuvers that enable you to get the exact energy you need.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Denstu is a major Japanese advertising agency headquartered in Tokyo. Annually since 1925, its new employees and freshly promoted executives have carried out a company ritual: climbing 12,388-foot-high Mount Fuji, Japan’s tallest peak. The theme of the strenuous workout is this: “We are going to conquer the symbol that represents Japan more than anything else. And, once we do that, it will signify that we can do anything.” In anticipation of what I suspect will be a year of career gains for you, Taurus, I invite you to do the following: Sometime in the next six weeks, go out in nature and perform an equivalent feat.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Today I received a new email from a Gemini friend who lives in London. It was date-stamped January 15, 2015. Weird! In it, she talked about applying for a new job at a publishing company. That was double weird, because February 2015 was in fact the time she had gotten the editing job that she still has. Her email also conveyed other details about her life that I knew to be old history. So why did it arrive now, six years late? I called her on the phone to see if we could unravel the mystery. In the end we concluded that her email had time-traveled in some inexplicable way. I predict that a comparable event or two will soon happen in your life, Gemini. Blasts from the past will pop in as if yesterday were today.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Eugene Sue (1804–1857) was a popular French author whose stories often offered sympathetic portrayals of the harsh living conditions endured by people of the lower economic class. Writing generously about those downtrodden folks made him quite wealthy. I’d love to see you employ a comparable strategy in the coming year. What services might you perform that would increase your access to money and resources? How could you benefit yourself by helping and uplifting others?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The beautiful and luxurious fabric known as silk comes from cocoons spun by insect larvae. Sadly for the creatures that provide the raw material, they’re usually killed by humans harvesting their handiwork—either by being stabbed or boiled alive. However, there is a special kind of silk in which manufacturers spare the lives of their benefactors. The insects are allowed to mature into moths and escape. I propose that we make them your spirit creatures in the coming weeks. It’s an excellent time for you to take an inventory of everything you do, and evaluate how well it upholds the noble principle of “Do no harm.”
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Any time that is not spent on love is wasted,” declared the Italian poet Torquato Tasso. Although I am sympathetic with his sentiment, I can’t agree that acts of love are the only things ever worth doing. Sometimes it’s healthy to be motivated by anger or sadness or skepticism, for example. But I do suspect the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to be in intense devotion to Tasso’s counsel. All the important successes you achieve will be rooted in an intention to express love and compassion.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I heard a story about how a music aficionado took a Zen Buddhist monk to a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. The monk wasn’t impressed. “Not enough silence!” he complained. I’m puzzled by that response. If the monk were referring to a busy intersection in a major city, I might agree with him, or the cacophony of a political argument among fanatics on Facebook. But to want more silence in one of history’s greatest pieces of music? That’s perverse. With this in mind, Libra, and in accordance with astrological omens, I encourage you to seek extra protection from useless noise and commotion during the coming weeks—even as you hungrily seek out rich sources of beautiful information, sound and art.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “Some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal,” wrote Scorpio author Albert Camus. If you’re one of those folks, I’m happy to inform you that you have cosmic permission to relax. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to explore the pleasures of not being conventional, standard, ordinary, average, routine, prosaic or common. As you expansively practice non-normalcy, you will enhance your health, sharpen your wits and clarify your decisions.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Our lives tend to be shaped by the stories about ourselves that we create and harbor in our imaginations. The adventures we actually experience, the problems we actually face, are often (not always) in alignment with the tales we tell ourselves about our epic fates. And here’s the crux of the matter: We can change the stories we tell ourselves. We can discard tales that reinforce our pain, and dream up revised tales that are more meaningful and pleasurable. I believe 2021 will be an excellent time for you to attend to this fun work. Your assignment: Be a self-nurturing storyteller.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn author Edgar Allen Poe named “four conditions for happiness: life in the open air; love of another human being; freedom from all ambition; creation.” I’m accomplished in three of those categories, but a failure in being free of all ambitions. In fact, I’m eternally delighted by all the exciting creative projects I’m working on. I’m very ambitious. What about you, Capricorn? I’m going to contradict Poe and speculate that your happiness in the coming months will require you to be at least somewhat ambitious. That’s what the planetary omens are telling me. So what are the best goals and dreams for you to be ambitious about?
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): It’s time to launch Operation Supple Watchdog. That means you should be tenderly vigilant as you take extra good care of everyone and everything that provides you with meaning and sustenance. It means you should exercise rigorous but good-humored discernment about any oppressive or demeaning ideas that are flying around. You should protect and preserve the vulnerable parts of your life, but do so with tough-minded compassion, not ornery overreactions. Be skeptical, but warm; breezily resilient but always ready to stand up for what’s right. (P.S. The better you shield yourself against weird surprises, the more likely it is you’ll attract interesting surprises.)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The atoms that compose your body have existed for billions of years. Originally created by a star, they have been part of many forms before you. But they are exactly the same in structure as they have ever been. So in a very real sense, you are billions of years old. Now that you know that, how do you feel? Any different? Stronger? More expansive? More eternal? I bring these thoughts to your attention, Pisces, because 2021 will be an excellent year for you to come to a more profound and detailed understanding of your true nature. I hope you will regularly meditate on the possibility that your soul is immortal, that your identity is not confined to this historical era, that you have been alive and will be alive for far longer than you’ve been taught to believe.
Homework: What’s the first adventure you will embark on when the pandemic subsides? freewillastrology.com.
When Katie Ekin moved back to Santa Cruz, she found a recording she’d made while up in Seattle, where she lived for a year. It was a song she’d forgotten about, one that documented the raw emotions and intimate details of her recent breakup.
Upon listening to it with fresh ears, she decided that it should be released, though she also knew it wasn’t finished.
“It was right in the thick of things, while experiencing loss and heartbreak. The song turned from pure sadness to a little bit of anger,” Ekin says.
She finished the song “Come On Back To Me,” with the addition of a final verse that evoked the healing she’d gone through since moving back to Santa Cruz, and released it last month. Along with two upcoming singles, “Wild Thoughts” and “Remember You Like That,” it represents a return to music for her.
“Once I moved back to Santa Cruz, I really started to write again. I used to write new songs every week. When I was in Washington, I think I wrote maybe three songs in an entire year, which is really weird for me,” Ekin says.
The process of writing “Come On Back To Me,” helped her work through the heaviness of her emotions around the breakup she’d gone through after moving to Seattle in 2018. She even showed it to her ex—and he was very supportive, she says.
“We’re definitely on good terms. He’s heard the song back in the beginning stages of it getting recorded,” Ekin says. “One great thing with him is he was very supportive of music and me doing that. Just making sure he heard it and knew it was going to come out was important.”
Once she got that song off her chest, she started writing more regularly. Last year, she met up with her friend and producer Andy Kong, and showed him 20 songs she’d either recently written or had been waiting to record. They whittled these down to the ten best, then down again to the three she is currently releasing. They both liked how they tied in thematically.
“I think they’re different stages of relationships,” Ekin says. “The next song doesn’t have a sad feeling. It’s more of a sultry, soulful song and more relates to being in a relationship. The third song is even more of a conclusion. It still has a sad feel, but it’s more powerful.”
The recording process for these three songs began before the pandemic, but wasn’t finished when the shelter-in-place orders were given in mid-March. So it was a slow, challenging process to finish them up, working remotely with Kong.
As she goes into this year, she still has seven more songs from that batch of ten that she may or may not record. She continues to adjust to the new rules of the pandemic and use music as a tool for healing.
“In the moment [I wrote “Come On Back To Me”] it was just me getting out the first emotions that I was dealing with. And by the time I finished it, I realized that my healing had come to a good place,” Ekin says. “I’ve always written very personally, and it definitely has helped me heal. But it also plays other roles in my life. With any sort of emotion, having kind of a soundtrack going. Music has done that throughout my life. Healing is a big one, but definitely other things as well.”
Headed by Chef Diego Felix, Colectivo Felix is one of the local partners with California’s Great Plates program, a delivery service that brings fresh, hot meals to qualifying seniors. Several friends of mine who are in the high-risk Covid-19 group have praised the system that brings a variety of deliciously designed hot meals directly to their front door.
Currently working from the Westside kitchen at the former Kelly’s French Pastries—where people can order empanadas and other menu items for pickup—Colectivo delivers dishes from its extensive menu of authentic South American cuisine to approximately 30 homebound clients. Founder and entrepreneur Felix explains his work with Great Plates.
GT: How did Colectivo Felix get involved with the Great Plates program?
DIEGO FELIX: While partnering with a group called Covid Meals, they let us know that the county was looking for vendors for the Great Plates program, and so my wife Sanra [Ritten] applied.
Does this sort of social outreach fit into your overall culinary mission?
Yes. Our overarching goal is to promote Latin American culture through food and be an active part of better food systems. This program has introduced us to a new audience who would not otherwise have known our food.
How has it worked?
It is totally different from our usual multi-course celebratory dinners. It is a challenge meeting the needs of a diverse set of seniors who have varied dietary restrictions and many of whom are not familiar with Latin American cuisine.
What gives you the most pleasure in this program?
The most rewarding has been when they tell me that they have never tried vegetables my way and that they can feel the love we put into the food. It means a lot to us that they are nourished and happy.
Has Great Plates been important for you during this pandemic shutdown?
Great Plates was a huge help and source of income for our business when we first started. We had a summer booked almost full with weddings, winery dinners and private events, and then all of these large gatherings had to be cancelled, so we quickly pivoted and developed an Argentine empanadas business and our own social program called Empanadas for Farmworkers. We also do drop-off caterings in Santa Cruz and virtual online cooking classes for individuals and groups.
What dish seems to please your clients most?
Our seniors have a wide array of preferences, but they all love the empanadas.
How long will you continue with Great Plates?
The Great Plates program is confirmed until Feb. 6, and they renew the contract every month depending on funding.
To order from the large array of Colectivo Felix Argentine-style empanadas stuffed with chicken, beef, and winter squash, plus complex chimichurri sauce, visit colectivofelix.square.site. To find out more about the Great Plates program, email hs*************@*************ty.us.
Pizza Salvation
Chef/owners Hugo and Rene Martinez have worked tirelessly and successfully for 10 years to make sure that Pizzeria Avanti offers great pizzas, pastas, and that legendary brussels sprouts salad to their countless patrons on the Westside and beyond. Remember how many cozy dinners you’ve had in those booths? Or appetizers at the wine bar? Of course you do!
But like so many restaurants in these weird shutdown times, Pizzeria Avanti could use some extra love to make ends meet and keep the pizza oven fired up. Join me and scores of Pizzeria Avanti fans in the current GoFundMe campaign for this local landmark. Lend your support atgofundme.com/f/pizzeria-avanti-support-fund.
