Retrogrades: A Magical Time: Risa’s Stars May 20-26

 Esoteric astrology as news for the week of May 20, 2020

Last week, three major planets reversed their direction. Saturn (in Aquarius), Venus (in Gemini) and Jupiter (in Capricorn). Retrogrades turn us inward to assess, reflect and to inquire deeply about our past. When planets retrograde, the past reappears, decisions are delayed, plans are set aside for reflection and assessment and all areas and subjects associated with the retrograde planets are reviewed in order to either renew, revitalize, reorganize or set them aside forever. 

Saturn will retrograde till the end of September, Venus til June 24, and Jupiter til September 12. In their midst, Mercury retrogrades mid-June. It’s a magical upside-down time of psychologically turning inward, giving us perspective to the past two months of enforced confinement.

Saturn is time. With Saturn retrograde, our sense of time changes. Retrogrades turn things, including time, to previous times. Often we will ask, “What time is it again?” Saturn is St. Peter guarding the doors to heaven. Saturn is the scales of justice. The rings of Saturn signify needed limitations Saturn places upon us in order to develop discipline, discernment and discrimination. 

With the Venus retrograde we review and reflect upon our values, resources, finances and relationships. We are to discover our real values. It’s good to ask, “Do we have values that we can identify? Do our values comply with the world’s values?” Assessing what actually are our values, and how well we are tending to resources and relationships.

Jupiter expands everything. Sometimes too much. Jupiter is love of knowledge, wisdom, abundance, generosity, temperance. Jupiter is the king of the gods, the teacher, guru, higher mind, college, journeys and understanding the big picture. Jupiter is laws, ethics, religions, spiritual studies. During Jupiter retrograde, unexplored blessings are revealed and an appreciation for all things loving dawns on us. We seek to become goodwill ambassadors. 

During this retrograde time, we will assess our present crisis, the laws we are living under and how to, with our creative imaginations, begin to create the new world we want to live in. Together. Restoring our faith in all things good. 

ARIES: In these magical retrograde times, fulfill all promises, follow rules that make sense to you, act like a Taurus (which may feel a bit restrictive) and make sure that no resistance or opposition influences your attitude and way of being. Honor is most important, and one progresses more easily when the virtues of patience, understanding and grace are cultivated. You can do this. 

TAURUS: Your energy is up and down, high and low, there and not there. Your responsibilities, however, remain, and each day in this crisis more and more appear. You would rather turn away, find friends to chat with, take short trips to town and back, garden, and either envision or research all that’s needed for the future. When responsibilities and the need for freedom collide, it’s best to simply focus on goals. Or garden where you dream with the devas.

GEMINI: Heavens! There are two distinctly polarized situations occurring. One keeps you behind the scenes, and the other desiring to be out in the world where all your values are focused. It’s good to talk about what is of value to you, because our values define us. Often you’re pulled into quietude and silence, a sort of repose before the storm. You need something. Perhaps it’s a lot of praise. In silence, revelations happen.

CANCER: You consider your resources and wonder if they need redirecting, and you wonder if how you’re using them is efficient for both long- and short-term needs. Family necessities crop up, and you worry and fret and don’t sleep nights. Past images and events reoccur and you’re sad and wounded sometimes, and need help. It’s hard to ask for help, isn’t it? And hard to trust it will come. A great teacher said, “Ask and it will be given.”

LEO: Each day, more and more clarity about values, friends, work purpose and resources occurs, and each day you feel more courage to pursue unusual far away goals, to battle for what’s right, to realize that a values shift is taking place in your life and this shift may create a future you know nothing about. A new life cycle has begun. It’s summoning all hopes, dreams and wishes you’ve ever had while asking you to follow your deepest heart’s wishes. Who has your heart?

VIRGO: The past months have been challenging for Virgos. There’s been a shifting of structures, a sense that someone is being your taskmaster and you’ve had many responsibilities to tend to. Soon, this will end and you will feel a freedom and relief from the taxing demands and tests undergone. You have only a few weeks more. Then it’s over. You should quietly celebrate.

LIBRA: A more strict and sober view of life is very quietly beginning to take hold of your thoughts and feelings. This is good. However, it could feel restrictive. Simply consider it as another step in growing up, being responsible, learning how to tend to the demands of life and how to act with more finesse and refinement. There’s a struggle for balance, a struggle to be heard and understood. There is no compromise. Be strong and call for courage.

SCORPIO: You had duties and responsibilities. Then personal hopes, wishes and dreams interrupted your obligations. And you had to choose. And then relationship issues (their value) appeared, and you felt, “This is more than I can handle.” The reality is that something is changing within. It’s pushing you to break all previous beliefs and patterned ways of being. Follow these promptings. It’s a call from your future. What seems to be real, isn’t. Don’t resist.

SAGITTARIUS: Tremendous work was called for this month, and it will continue. If you take each day and work slowly through it (like a Taurus), then you will come to the end of each day with feelings of great success and pride in your accomplishments. “At the end of the day,” we tell our students, “review the day, and know the day was good.” Is there someone you want to contact? Or something you need? Be prepared, after a small respite, for new realities to appear. Rest in between revelations.

CAPRICORN: The force of your creativity and imagination expands when you find yourself in gardens, forests, woods, fields and meadows. It can be found with hands in the dough, hands in the earth, eating plants with deep roots, and in a pantry (or lunchbox) of sweet and savory homemade foods. These are comforting for you and maintain your sense of love, safety and security. There’s everything to be passionate about. Everything loves you. 

AQUARIUS: What we do each day, what we talk about and believe creates within us a sense of identity. It’s possible people from the past may seek your attention. You are delighted yet unsure about others. Careful about things concerning the home. So many changes have occurred concerning home and shelter that continued uncertainty makes one feel jittery and unsure. Pray to the devas for the very best home to be available. A home with safety, beauty and security. Devas are your friends.

PISCES: You are reminded of a long-held vision held in your heart in service to humanity. You seek independence within this endeavor and vast resources. You know you’re fully capable and have the essential qualities and gifts to bring this into form and matter, to move forward into your future and make correct decisions based upon humanity’s present needs. Patience is still needed. You pray for direction. You wear a mantle and a crown. 

Santa Cruz’s Young Writers Program Scaling Back As Director Steps Down

The year-end reading event of the Santa Cruz-based Young Writers Program taking place on May 26 is both the first of its kind and the last of its kind.

It will be the first time that the program will present its young writers—drawn from the pool of Santa Cruz County’s public schools—in a virtual format. Like almost all public events these days, the YWP reading will be presented in a “Zoom room,” an online forum in which everyone—readers and audience members—will be tuning in while sheltering in place. An estimated 18 writers, ranging from the fifth-grade students to high school seniors, will read their best poetry, short stories, and essays.

But the event will also be the last hurrah of the YWP as it has existed for the last eight years. The program has inspired and mentored close to 3,000 local middle- and high-school students, and has published 58 books and other publications featuring the work of its young writers. But it is being dramatically downsized after failing to meet funding goals that it established from its onset. The county-wide program—sponsored by the County Office of Education and supported by Arts Council Santa Cruz County, among other donors—will continue on in diminished capacity at Branciforte Middle School, no longer providing the level of mentoring it has in the past to students at the county’s other schools.

The change coincides with the retirement of the program’s director Julia Chiapella, who founded the organization in 2012 after being inspired by 826 Valencia, the San Francisco nonprofit co-founded by novelist Dave Eggers to provide hands-on instruction and tutoring programs to aspiring school-aged writers. Chiapella and her staff designed and administered the program’s efforts to recruit writers and authors from the community to volunteer in the county’s classrooms, providing feedback and role modeling for aspiring young writers. They also gave writers a chance to see their names in print for the first time through their many publications.

The YWP created such high-profile projects as the Word Lab, an after-school space for kids to gather and engage in writing-based activities, and the Chamber of Heart and Mystery, an immersive themed exhibit that was housed at the downtown Museum of Art and History for almost two years (In 2019, the Chamber moved to Branciforte Middle School, which also houses the program’s Dedicated Writing Room).

“It’s time for me to concentrate on my own writing,” says Chiapella, 65. “I’ll be working to do exactly the thing we’ve been encouraging our students to do, which is to elevate their voices and contribute to the wider literary community.” In fact, Chiapella will be one of the featured writers at a Zoom reading on June 5—which is, like the May 26 YWP event, part of the Zoom Forward! series sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz and the nonprofit Santa Cruz Writes.

Since the program’s beginnings, Chiapella has been an evangelist of providing contemporary kids and teens a chance to express their unique take coming of age in a unique time. And that means reorienting their writing abilities to embrace poems, short stories, personal essays, and other creative outlets.

“They do not get to do this ordinarily in their school work,” she says. “Because we’ve been able to identify the level of trauma that many kids experience as part of their normal everyday lives, and as a result of some of the things that are happening today, writing is such an incredible way for them to address it and understand that they are not alone in their struggles.”

The YWP was designed to recreate for students the precise process by which professional writers do their work, including honing an idea, working through drafts and incorporating edits, thinking about clarity and word choice, understanding the principles of effective communication, and polishing a piece into a finished product. Students also got to develop relationships with professional writers and see firsthand what the life of a writer is like. More than 500 writers and community volunteers participated as mentors in the program, logging more than 8,000 volunteer hours.

But the assistance the YWP has provided is not only for general creative purposes. The program also gives students help in writing the essays often required for college admission. (Chiapella says that the college essay portion of the program will continue with the Office of Education). The program has also formed partnerships with UCSC—60 students from the university have participated in the program over the years—and the local-based Museo Eduardo Carrillo, which has served Latinx students.

At the Zoom Forward! event, the 18 young writers will share their work, which has been recently published (or will be published soon). The topics range from the importance of music to revolutions they hope to see in the world to turning-point moments in their lives.

“It’s extraordinary to see what they’re grappling with, and how they’re processing what’s going on in their contemporary world,” says Chiapella, “because they’re dealing with things that young people typically have not had to deal with before.”

As she moves on to other endeavors, Chiapella has a chance to reflect on the thousands of kids—many now young adults—who have participated in the program, and how the YWP has contributed not only to creating new writers, but in helping young people grow through their struggles and challenges.

“I’m particularly proud of being able to have served those kids who exist at the margins of our schools: students of color, underserved kids, trans and queer kids. Those kids have particularly needed a voice to be heard. And I’m particularly pleased that, through the Young Writers Program, they’ve been able to find that voice.”

The Zoom Forward! Year-End Reading of the Young Writers Program takes place Tuesday, May 26, at 6pm. To participate in the free event, register at youngwriterssc.org/events-workshops.

India Joze Takeout Highlights Chef’s Energy in Each Dish

After writing about this man for at least 30 years, you’d think I’d run out of passion for his cooking. But then you would be among the very few who are un-woke to the genius of India Joze and the eponymous Jozseph Schultz. Every year he spent traveling, tasting, and cooking around the world—and there were many—shows up in his menu, a confident gastrotour through Persia, Cambodia, India, Turkey, Vietnam, and Greece, among others.

Every bite I took of our substantial pickup meal was filtered through memories of Joze past. Yet the food is as good as ever. You can taste the chef’s energy and intelligence in each dish, which included (where are new adjectives when you need them?) a pad thai ($14) with basa fish filet and vegetables, with fresh cilantro and peanuts to play with, in a spicy sauce that takes your tastebuds on a joyride. With it we feasted on the legendary Persian chicken ($19), wok’d with mushrooms in a mint-pomegranate-cream reduction. Oh God.

But it was a humble dish of sumac spuds ($5), red potato wedge-cut fries tossed in black pepper and sumac, one of the world’s underrated spices, that went supernova. With it came Joze organic ketchup—also life-changing. The guy in my house hoarded the sumac spuds, carefully portioning out potatoes for three days! Sumac spuds with ketchup. Sumac spuds the next day with eggs. Sumac spuds the next day all by themselves. Just so damn good. Plus those crisp, light pappadam bean wafers ($3) for dipping into assorted chutneys and sambals ($2). Also a coco bomb dessert, essentially a giant soft coconut macaroon ($3) ringed with dark muscovado sugar.

Part of the special fun of Joze’ menu is the anticipation of complex spicing, whether in the wok’d entrees, like the fiery intense chili handling of the pad thai—a heat that became unobtrusive after a few bites—or the jewel-hued chutneys. We sampled the incredible Indonesian soy/jalapeno ketchup, a raisin/ginger chutney, and another condiment of cashew, mint, chili, and lime. All equal in their flavor diversity and each somehow perfect with each dish, suggesting to me that on some celestial plane all spices ultimately belong in a single fusion. 

Incredibly, chef Jozseph can manage to put together a coherent take-out dinner, even though each complex dish must be cooked sequentially. This style of cooking makes sense if diners can sit down, sipping drinks and watching the action in the kitchen as the various dishes arrive one at a time. But it must be insanity to undertake sophisticated preparation of multiple dishes that have to go out all at once. Yet India Joze can do this with focus, expertise, and playfulness. Each dish contains the chef’s wit as well as his culinary wisdom. Miraculous prices. 

I intend to eat my way through the India Joze menu. And then begin all over again. Don’t miss the hottest chef in town still cooking like it was the golden age of Santa Cruz dining. Call, order, pay, park, receive food. That’s it. 

India Joze, 418 Front St., Santa Cruz. Curbside pickup Tuesday-Saturday, 5-8:30pm. Indiajoze.com.

Ocean2Table Rocks

I took delivery of our first local King salmon of the season a few days ago, thanks to this enterprising fish and produce team. Dreamy salmon; great price. More details are coming in the next column.There are more openings around the county! I’m excited to have Gayle’s Bakery and Rosticceria open 11am-5pm and Oswald open Wednesday-Saturday, 4-8pm, with both back online offering curbside pickup menus. Persephone is open Wednesday-Saturday 11:30am-2pm in Aptos, making lunch sandwiches so beautiful as to defy belief. The Mediterranean is a mouthwatering creation of sliced lamb, feta, cucumber, pepper cress and mint mayo on house made ciabatta.

Farmers’ Markets Return

The Felton Farmers’ Market will start its 2020 season on June 2. The Scotts Valley Farmers’ Market will open June 6. Find more details at santacruzfarmersmarket.org.


Check out our continually updating list of local takeout and delivery options.

Santa Cruz in Photos: A Personal Chalk Art Open Studios

This chalk art was created by Santa Cruz artist Janice Serilla in reaction to the Covid-19 crisis.

Serilla says she took her talents to the sidewalks of her Westside neighborhood to help express herself in an open public forum since galleries, museums and such are currently closed.

“Since Open Studios will most likely be closed this year, the sidewalks are now my open studio,” she says. Her work, which has now been flushed away with the rain, covered about six squares of the sidewalk.


See more from the Santa Cruz in Photos series.

Santa Cruz Tourism Industry Sees Major Layoffs

With businesses fighting to stay alive during pandemic-induced shutdowns, the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, which owns the Beach Boardwalk, temporarily laid off 1,097 employees on May 1, state filings show.

Chaminade Resort and Spa, meanwhile, notified 173 employees of temporary layoffs on March 23, one week after Santa Cruz County announced its shelter-in-place order. Santa Cruz’s Dream Inn issued temporary layoffs to 193 workers on March 25.

Companies that employ at least 75 workers are required by state law to give employees at least a 60-day notice of layoffs or closures under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The WARN notice must also be submitted to the state.

However, a March executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom temporarily suspended the 60-day notice due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

These numbers are an unknown percentage of the total number of employees laid off because of the economic downturn, as employers with less than 75 workers do not have to file a notice.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the California Employment Development Department (EDD) processed 615,809 unemployment benefit claims and paid $4.5 billion in benefits during the week ending on May 2. In total, between the week ending March 14 and May 2, the EDD processed a total of 4.1 million claims for benefits and paid a total of $8.9 billion in benefit payments.

The state unemployment filings show a wide spectrum of layoffs locally, afflicting everyone from Western Dental Services to the sex shop Good Vibrations. But the magnitude of layoffs was particularly acute in the tourism industry.

On May 8, Felton-based Roaring Camp Railroads laid off 48 workers due to its temporary closure.

State’s Undocumented Immigrant Assistance Program Starts Monday

The Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County on Monday will begin accepting applications for the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants program.

Announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom in mid-April, the program will provide roughly 150,000 undocumented adults a one-time cash benefit of $500 per adult with a cap of $1,000 per household to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

It serves as a safety net for the state’s estimated 2.8 million undocumented individuals, including the 92,000 living and working in the Monterey Bay, who did not qualify for help from the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

CAB was one of 12 community organizations selected to administer the program and distribute funds. It will be in charge of applications in Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz counties.

To qualify, a person must provide information proving they are undocumented and that they did not qualify for CARES act funding.

Funds will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

To apply, call 800-228-6820 or visit: cabinc.org 

For information about the program visit: https://bit.ly/2LDsVIl

Undocumented Monterey Bay residents can also apply for monetary assistance through UndocuFund Monterey Bay. Created by Santa Cruz Community Ventures and supported by a half-dozen other nonprofits from the area, UndocuFund Monterey Bay distributes cash to undocumented people in both Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.

Signs Point to UCSC Classes Being Offered Only Online in the Fall

Like most college seniors, graduating UCSC students will have their commencement ceremonies online this June, instead of graduating in large in-person gatherings. That is, of course, due to shelter-in-place orders issued during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On June 22, UCSC’s summer session will begin via webinars. Even once the summer is over, there is no reason to think that any University of California (UC) campus will be throwing open its gates for on-campus instruction in the near future.

The California State University (CSU) system already announced last week that almost all fall classes will be online this year. The UC branches can take a little more time to make their decision, as they generally begin instruction later than the CSUs do.

UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason told GT via email on May 7 that university leaders were cautioning that “some or all of fall or the [upcoming] academic year may be remote.” Discussions on the topic were underway, he said. The University of California Office of the President (UCOP) has all but confirmed that a full reopening isn’t on the table. Here’s UCOP’s statement:

As we work to protect the health and safety of the University of California community during this unprecedented time, we are carefully planning for a wide range of possibilities.

Currently, all campuses have determined initial summer sessions will be conducted via remote instruction. At this juncture, however, it is too soon to predict and evaluate the impacts of Covid-19, if any, on UC instruction beyond summer.

We will continue to carefully monitor the rapidly evolving situation and will keep the UC community informed as decisions are made.

A working paper from Kim A. Weeden and Benjamin Cornwell, two Cornell University sociologists, looked at the possible risk of disease spread posed by in-person classes.

Given the interconnectedness of any sizable campus community’s academic classes, the paper shows that in-person classes would pose significant risk, even if schools banned all in-person classes of more than 100 students.

Watsonville Nonprofit Owner Says She Was Scammed By Tara Reade

Lynn Hummer, founder and president of the Watsonville-based Pregnant Mare Rescue, remembers a woman named Tara McCabe emailing her in 2014 and asking if she could help out and volunteer with her nonprofit.

Things started out fine, but Hummer says the relationship frayed after two years—once her volunteer had taken more than a combined $2,000 from Hummer herself and from her organization. Hummer grew to believe that the woman was constantly playing the angles or looking to run a scam. “She was always in crisis, always looking for money,” Hummer says.

That woman, Tara McCabe, is better known these days as Tara Reade. 

Reade is the former Joe Biden aide who has accused her former boss, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, of sexually assaulting her in 1993. Hummer told her story to Ed Krassenstein, one half of the Krassenstein brothers, who posted a story about Hummer’s experiences to the site Medium. Hummer has since learned that the pro-Biden Krassenstein brothers duo has a less-than-stellar reputation, having been banned from Twitter last year for operating fake accounts. None of that changed how Hummer felt about their finished product—the details in their post, she says, were all correct. “They did a good job,” Hummer says of the Krassensteins. “They got the facts right, and they got the timeline right.”

In 2015, Hummer says Reade fell in love with Charm, one of the horses Hummer had rescued. Reade asked Hummer to let her take Charm home and also waive the adoption fee. Hummer agreed. Hummer says that Reade later called a veterinary doctor from out of the county, racked up $1,400 in veterinary bills and tricked Pregnant Mare Rescue into paying Charm’s medical bills by having the bills sent to the nonprofit, where the bookkeeper paid the expenses without understanding the backstory or asking any questions, Hummer explains. Prior to that, Hummer says that Reade repeatedly begged for money. She says she ended up lending Reade more than $800 on three occasions—none of which Reade ever repaid. Additionally, Reade once hid her car on Hummer’s ranch to avoid having it repossessed, Hummer says. One time at a fundraiser, Reade hid a raffle ticket jar under a table to ensure that she would win the drawing by only entering one ticket, Hummer says. The bottom line, she says, is that Reade can’t be trusted.

“I feel in my heart as an American citizen that this woman is a very big fraud. In my opinion, she’s very dangerous, especially in this year, this time,” Hummer says.

FOALS RUSH IN

Reade was born locally, in Monterey—as she recently told interviewer Megyn Kelly in a sit-down interview posted to Youtube.

In the discussion, which focused primarily on Reade’s allegations about Biden, Reade accused Biden of digitally penetrating her in a Senate hallway. Reade first went public in April 2019 with allegations of sexual harassment, including how Biden would touch her shoulder and run his finger up her neck. In March of this year, Reade came forward with her additional allegation, one of sexual assault.

Reade, who voted for Biden’s opponent Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary, has said that she filed a formal complaint and told three colleagues about Biden’s inappropriate behavior—but not the sexual assault. Those former colleagues have all denied ever hearing a complaint of any kind. The Senate personnel office does not have a record of such a complaint, nor does Reade herself. The Biden campaign also says it has no record of the complaint, and Biden has emphatically denied that the assault ever happened, with the former vice president recently telling MSNBC that anyone who believes Reade “probably shouldn’t vote for” him.

Reade could not be reached for comment. But her lawyer Douglas Wigdor—a Republican, who donated to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign—tells GT via email that “sadly, unsubstantiated attacks” like Hummer’s “will have a chilling effect on other survivors grappling with the prospect of coming forward.” In the absence of an independent and nonpartisan investigation from the Democratic National Committee, Wigdor, who represented several sexual assault victims of Harvey Weinstein, says that he and Reade are “exploring next steps in an effort to get to the truth.”

Hummer has taken a lot of phone calls about her experience. Many callers come with their own agendas, and some are looking to poke holes in Hummer’s narrative. Some of Hummer’s friends think she should be more careful about which calls she takes. But Hummer stresses that she has the receipts and emails to back up her version of the events, and regardless, she says she’ll share her experience with anyone who will listen.

“Of course, now I’ve learned that some are in the Trump camp and they’re gonna support the story,” she says. “And I keep telling people, ‘For me, it’s not about any of that. It’s about showing this woman for her true colors. I think she’s really dangerous. I think she dishonors women. She could affect a presidential campaign. That is heavy stuff, regardless of how I feel about the candidates. I’m waiting for someone other than the Krassensteins to make the story. I’ve talked to the Rolling Stone. I’ve talked to Politico. I’ve talked to the Washington Post. I’ve talked to CBS, NBC. I’ve talked to Atlantic.”

On Friday afternoon, Politico broke a story about Reade, outlining her pattern of apparently leapfrogging from one California property to another, often leaving her aggrieved landlords and other acquaintances feeling manipulated or deceived in her wake.

Hummer says McCabe repeatedly bragged about her work on behalf of Biden. Other skeptics have noted that Hummer liked and retweeted praise for Biden, including his work combating sexual assault.

“I’ve always been conflicted about Joe Biden,” Reade told Kelly in their chat. “I didn’t want to talk badly about him, and I wasn’t ready to tell my history with Joe Biden at that point at all.”

Reade also said that Biden’s work on the Violence Against Women act was very important to her. Last year the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office cited Reade as “a domestic violence expert,” who “provided critical testimony” in achieving a conviction for a man who assaulted his girlfriend.

TRUTH OR MARE

In her discussion with Kelly, Reade remarked that it’s been oddly “freeing” to watch skeptics dig into her past and excavate skeletons from her closet, including the details of her bankruptcy.

Reade’s bankruptcy happened in 2012, when Reade was living in Santa Cruz’s Midtown area. She owed $400,000 in various debts, including taxes, according to court documents.

Hummer’s account of her experiences with Reade is corroborated by local attorney and fellow equine rescuer Kelly Klett, who briefly had Reade as a tenant in the late spring of 2018. Klett checked in with Hummer just before Reade moved in. Hummer warned Klett about her own experience with her former volunteer. Reade ultimately only stayed with Klett for a couple months before moving out. “She misrepresented her financial status and couldn’t pay,” Klett says.

While living in Klett’s home, Reade damaged a fountain on the property. She pleaded with her landlord to return her full deposit, promising to repair the fountain herself. Reade never fixed the fountain, Klett says. Klett says Reade also took some of her law books. At this point, Klett says she doesn’t expect to ever see those books again.

Hummer says she last saw Reade at a local feed store in October 2018. Reade said hello, Hummer remembers, but she ignored her onetime volunteer.

In regards to her own allegations, Hummer says she never thought to file a report with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. She also never seriously considered taking Reade to court.

“Well, number one, that takes money,” Hummer says. “I’d rather spend it helping horses than chasing after someone who I know doesn’t have a dime. Number two, it takes resources. We don’t have any staff. We’re small. I have a bookkeeper and a barn manager and me. We’re the three main peeps. I don’t have someone doing my internet and my blogging and someone else doing my social media. That’s not how it works.”

Additional reporting by Jennifer Wadsworth.

Initiative Celebrates Farmworkers as Lawmakers Call for More Support

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After working a long shift picking strawberries and greens, dozens of farmworkers and their families received the royal treatment thanks to a new program from El Pájaro Community Development Corporation.

Called the Farmworker’s Family Dinner, the initiative treated 38 families—roughly 230 people—to meals from El Pájaro CDC’s entrepreneurs that prepare food at the organization’s commercial kitchen incubator off Riverside Drive.

The hope, El Pájaro CDC Executive Director Carmen Herrera-Mansir said, was to give farmworkers a break from cooking dinner for one night and “honor” them with a free meal.

Herrera-Mansir said her father worked in the fields and her grandparents came to the U.S. through the Bracero Program, a part of the 1942 Mexican Farm Labor Agreement that allowed growers to import low-cost agricultural labor from south of the border.

“When we were doing this last week, it made me think back to my dad and his family…I’m pretty sure this would’ve been something very nice for the family,” Herrera-Mansir said.

The program was, too, a boost for the entrepreneurs working out of the incubator kitchen who have been devastated due to the restrictions put in place to slow the novel coronavirus. Most caterers’ summer plans have been axed, and Herrera-Mansir said they have lost at least 75% of their typical income.

Although the kitchen is hosting daily pop-up lunch and dinner for takeout, they are still struggling to make ends meet and most did not qualify for support from the more than $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Through the Farmworker’s Family Dinner program, sponsors pay caterers such as Rogue Pye and Cuevas Express Foods $50 to make and deliver the six-person meal.

Every dollar goes to the caterer.

“It helps everyone,” Herrera-Mansir said. “For me, it’s a win-win.”

El Pájaro CDC delivered meals to farmworkers at JSM Organic Farms and Sun Valley Farms during its first week. Herrera-Mansir said she hopes to deliver at least 10 meals per day Monday-Saturday and eventually expand to other farms.

To sponsor a meal, visit: bit.ly/2zqByn1. 

“I’m a big dreamer,” she said. “It all depends on the community. We’ll let the community decide how big this gets.”

The program is one of many that have rallied to support and celebrate the farmworkers who are still sprinting up and down fields during the statewide stay-at-home order as essential workers.

According to the Center for Farmworker Families (CFF), a nonprofit that advocates for that community’s rights, roughly 75% of the state’s farmworkers are undocumented. In Santa Cruz County, the CFF says, 83% of farmworkers do not have documentation, and, in turn, did not receive any help from the CARES Act.

That lack of support has put pressure on officials and organizations to find ways to aid that population.

Locally, the City of Watsonville collected thousands of diapers, baby wipes, cans of formula, masks and gloves—much of it coming through a large donation from the Watsonville Police Officer’s Association—during a week-long farmworker relief drive. 

The supplies, according to Deputy City Manager Tamara Vides, are enough for two months of distributions through CFF.

The state, too, recently endowed Monterey County with 750,000 masks specifically designated for agricultural workers. The supply, which will benefit roughly 25,000 workers over 30 days, came weeks after county officials and Assemblymember Robert Rivas called for greater protections for farmworkers.

Rivas, who represents the Pajaro Valley, Salinas and South Monterey County, said the mask delivery was “an important step in providing the necessary protection for farmworkers who do the hard work that puts food on our tables.” But, in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rivas last month also requested that the state expand testing and temporary housing for farmworkers.

Through a deal with OptumServe, the state established community testing sites in Watsonville, Salinas and Greenfield—three of 80 earmarked for rural towns and underserved communities. Rivas last week asked Newsom for an additional $25 million to expand Project Room Key, an initiative aimed at housing homeless people during Covid-19, to sick or at-risk farmworkers. That cash, Rivas said, would be enough to guarantee at least 3,000 rooms for three months, benefiting as many as 40,500 workers.

“There have already been Covid-19 outbreaks among agricultural workers in such places as South Dakota, Nebraska and Pennsylvania,” Rivas said in a press release. “A similar outbreak here in California would threaten our state’s food supply chain at a critical time.”

Covid-19 cases in Santa Cruz County have remained low, with 149 confirmed cases from more than 5,000 tests. Neighboring Monterey County, however, has performed about 1,000 fewer tests but has roughly twice the number of cases. Almost half of those cases have been in people working in agriculture, underscoring the uncertainty farmworkers are currently facing.

In response, a community group has organized a weekly show of appreciation called the Watsonville Campesino Appreciation Caravan. A long line of cars winds down Watsonville’s outskirts, stopping at a half-dozen fields to honk their horns, blare Spanish music, shower farmworkers with applause and hold signs reading “Farmworkers are essential.”

The group has received recognition from national media and inspired other caravans in Salinas, Brentwood and Gilroy, among other cities. On Cinco de Mayo, they hired mariachi band Nuevo Jalisco to serenade workers during their lunch break, and on Mother’s Day weekend they sang “Las Mañanitas” and delivered cards and gifts to the mothers performing essential labor. 

They also provide farmworkers with a bag full of informational fliers about the Census and social distancing requirements, as well as the resources available through nonprofits such as the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, the CFF and Regeneración-Pajaro Valley Climate Action.

“Our purpose was to not only thank the campesinos but to also provide some information,” said Ruby Vasquez, one of the dozen local organizers that helped start the caravan.

Many of those organizers have deep roots in the fields. Vasquez’s parents made their living as farmworkers and still sell strawberries today. Others, such as Angela Martinez, spent their summers during high school picking Pajaro Valley’s top crop to help their parents feed their family.

“It’s long hours, it’s a hard job and no one ever says ‘thank you’ when we’re out there,” said Martinez, who was born south of the border in Oaxaca and raised in Baja. “They deserve thanks, now more than ever.”

Martinez now attends CSU Monterey Bay and is earning a degree in education. She hopes to teach bilingual (English-Spanish) elementary classes while integrating her first language, Mixteco, a dialect spoken by natives from Oaxaca. 

She provides Mixteco translation for the cravan during its stops.

She said her parents and siblings worked arduous hours in the fields to put her through college. She hopes her work with the caravan can lift the spirits of those working in the fields today.

“Every time I’m out there, I think about my family,” she said. “I’m receiving an education thanks to them.”

To sign up to participate in the caravan visit the “Watsonville Campesino Appreciation Caravan” Facebook page.

County Weeks Away From Opening Restaurants for Dine-in Service

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Though some rural counties are allowing restaurants to open for dine-in service, Santa Cruz County officials are still several days away from giving their restaurateurs the green light.

That’s according to county spokesman Jason Hoppin, who on Tuesday said testing and contact tracing capacity still needs to be ramped up in order for the county to meet state requirements to advance further into the second phase of the so-called “Resilience Roadmap.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday released a lengthy document on how restaurants could reopen at a reduced capacity for dine-in service. It requires eateries to, among other things, increase disinfecting routines, enforce strict social distancing guidelines and provide additional protection, training and symptom screening for their employees.

Hoppin said restaurants interested in reopening should study this document and ready their so-called “Workplace Specific Plan” as the county works toward meeting the requirements for the local variance.

In order for the county to receive that designation, it must prove several things, including that it has “flattened the curve,” can effectively protect its essential workers, has a large hospital bed capacity and can provide temporary housing for those who cannot self-isolate at home.

Hoppin said the county has made progress on most items on the checklist but must still increase its testing capacity above 400 tests per day and hire 42 contact tracers, who will be tasked with locating and talking with the patients, assisting in isolating them and identifying people with whom the patients have been in close contact with. It is closing in on both numbers, Hoppin said. 

Santa Cruz County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel said at Thursday’s press conference that it would be roughly four weeks before the county meets those requirements.

The county will pursue the variance when it meets the requirements, Hoppin said.

“We’re trying to move in that direction to get them open,” he said. “We believe we’ll get there, possibly, a bit ahead of our neighbors.”

Even if the county meets those requirements and allows restaurants to reopen for dine-in service, it is still unknown how many people will walk through their doors while Covid-19 is still a threat. A recent poll conducted by Emerson College found that just 35% of diners would be comfortable eating inside of a restaurant even with some social distancing requirements.

That underscores the current volatility of the industry, which in California has mostly shifted to pick-up orders since the statewide stay-at-home order went into effect in March.

“It’s not just going to be the rules, it’s going to be the confidence of people wanting to go out,” Hoppin said.

Several restaurateurs in Watsonville said they have been bombarded with clients, mostly young people, asking when they will eventually reopen. Most were confident their customers would visit their establishment if they were allowed to open.

Their biggest hurdles to reopening, they said, would be meeting the guidelines, training their staff and the hidden costs with small items such as masks, gloves and disposable menus.

“All of those small things add up for us,” said Andrea Saavedra, manager at The Farm House restaurant on Green Valley Road. “Small business owners have been left with that bill.” 

Slice Project co-owner Brando Sencion said business has been up and down during the pandemic, as his Main Street pizzeria has offered pickup orders of whole pies and craft beer. Sencion said he would not immediately open when the rules are relaxed, and is instead focusing his efforts on their budding takeout service.

“I think we’re doing fine right now,” he said. “You might say we’re taking a very slow approach, but I think we’re going to be OK with what we’re doing.”

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