Situated in the Santa Cruz Mountains in what is known as the Vine Hill district, Alberti Vineyard is in a sweet spot for growing premium Pinot Noir grapes.
“The slope of the vineyard is quite critical,” says owner and winemaker Jim Alberti. The vineyard’s gentle incline allows air to move within the vines, which minimizes frost in early spring when buds and tender shoot tissues are vulnerable. “The slope also allows the heat of the midsummer day to rise, causing a cooling air flow within the vineyard,” Alberti adds.
The Alberti Vineyard continues in the tradition of producing an estate-grown and limited estate-bottled Pinot from a spot in the Santa Cruz Mountains only 500 meters from the first established vineyard in California, Alberti says.
Jim, along with his wife Peggy, is making some outstanding Pinot Noir (around $30)—the only varietal they produce right now—all handmade and aged in French oak barrels. The result is a fine wine with aromatic flavors of raspberries and cherries, which makes a perfect companion to meats, cheeses and Italian food.
This small winery does not have a tasting room, but they do have a wine club.
Cantine Winepub is celebrating five years in business with an anniversary party. To thank customers for their support, drink specials will be available all day.
The event will run 2-9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10, with raffle prizes, a photo booth and live music. DJ Dustbowl will spin vinyl from 2-5 p.m., followed by Cooper Street Music from 6-9 p.m. If you have never been to Cantine, you’ll love the cozy vibe and selection of food and drinks. (It’s located in the same complex with Akira sushi and Armitage Wines’ tasting room.)
Tucked between hiking trails and Tibetan prayer flags, Land of Medicine Buddha has a one-of-a-kind kitchen.
Chef Stephanie Rentz and her team serve organic, vegetarian, buffet-style dishes like Indian curries, tempeh-style chorizo or housemade veggie burgers to retreat guests, hikers and other visitors.
Rentz earned her culinary stripes doing backstage catering for music acts like Chris Isaak, No Doubt and Def Leppard. Now, as kitchen manager for LMB, she oversees daily breakfast ($10), lunch ($16) and dinner ($14). Walk-ins are welcome, but space is limited, so call to reserve a spot.
What’s different about cooking at LMB vs. other kitchens you’ve worked in?
STEPHANIE RENTZ: We really provide as organic as possible, as local as possible, as sustainable as possible. We have vegans, many people that come with dietary restrictions, allergies. Offering a buffet for up to 70 people where everyone feels nourished, everyones’ dietary restrictions or requests are offered in a safe way, that’s huge. It can be really complicated.
Where do you get your inspiration for your cooking?
A lot of the menus that have become popular when I’m doing the cooking are things I’ve made for my family, or that my mother made for me. If I am delving in for some inspiration, honestly, I think I’m a cookbook hoarder. I have them stacked up in my living room, stacked up in my bedroom.
A lot of people have an image of Buddhist retreat centers being really calm, zen spaces, but kitchens can also be pretty hectic. Does it ever get stressful?
Oh, absolutely. Coming from backstage catering where it’s loud outside, it’s loud inside, the cooks are screaming at each other across the kitchen. Coming to this Buddhist retreat center, I was shushed so many times.
Do you practice Buddhist principles in the kitchen?
Our two main rules are not to harm any sentient beings—and sentient to the Buddhists is any living creature, so from the ants to the bugs that come to me with the organic vegetables, I escort them outside … And no intoxicants, no alcohol, so I don’t cook with any wine.
Land of Medicine Buddha, 5800 Prescott Rd., Soquel. 462-8383, landofmedicinebuddha.org.
As a community newspaper grounded in the alt-weekly tradition, one of the things we like to do here at GT is explore interesting Santa Cruz subcultures. We also write fairly often about locals with interesting or offbeat professions. But this is the first time I can remember publishing a cover story about a subculture that is also a profession. Considering that lifeguards are integral to our beach culture, and that our lives may at some point be in their hands, it’s kind of surprising that we don’t know more about the people in the towers and what they have to go through to get there. I think you’ll find this piece by G.P. Scheppler pretty enlightening, as well as entertaining.
One thing we didn’t know when we first conceived this story months ago was how poorly most of our local lifeguards are paid for looking out for us. As often happens with these stories, this unexpected element of the story turned out to be one of the most important things that it revealed. Thank you to our local lifeguards, and thanks for reading!
Kudos to Good Times and Geoffrey Dunn for the engrossing article on the mysterious presence (and yet mystifying absence) of Ah Fook in the 7/10 issue of GT. I have lived in Santa Cruz since 1987, and consider myself an adopted local. Across those decades, I have caught various murmurings of our legendary local Chinatown, mostly the Front Street incarnation (which I believe burned at some point, possibly from arson?), but never have I felt a true insight into this whole muffled chapter of our history. This piece at last changed all that for me and, with its bell-ringing photo of our noble local entrepreneur and philanthropist George Ow as a child beside Ah Fook himself, I felt a tangible “aha” moment as this secretive, private, and sometimes illicit but almost always industrial society of Chinese immigrants and their American descendants became palpable through Dunn’s transparent and subtly eloquent writing. May Ah Fook and his community continue to haunt us—all lovers of this wonderful town—as long as we have history to tell!
John Roevekamp
Scotts Valley
Extinction Rebellion
It is relieving to see the Good Times—which, formerly as Metro Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Weekly, too, has often been on the cutting edge of news reporting here—make a foray into reporting on the current climate crisis. It’s true that as other species “go,” so too will we. Of course, lizards are not the only species that speak to the profound effects the crisis is having now, here, and the potential for full-blown catastrophe if we reach certain global tipping points—many of which look alarmingly, alarmingly (!) tippy now.
UCSC professors and local biologists are studying the decline of coastal bull kelp beds and sea stars, particularly the Sunflower Sea Star, as related to “wasting syndrome,” atmospheric heating, and the heating of our oceans in response. UCSC Professor Mark Carr says of the Sunflower Star: “We cannot find them anywhere,” and this has led to an explosion of sea urchins and creation of patchy urchin barrens, where urchins have eaten up kelp beds, in Pacific Grove, for example.
The further implications of a heating, acidifying ocean on kelp (which thrives within a narrow temperature band) on the oceanic food chain, as well as increasingly severe weather along the global grain belt, cannot be overstated at this time.
As much as we may not want to acknowledge this, we are now in an “all hands on deck” planetary crisis; and that means the City Council, the Board of Supervisors, Anna Eshoo and Jimmy Panetta, along with our state reps and senators must do everything in their power to both educate the public (Extinction Rebellion Demand #1: “Tell the Truth”) about the current state of emergency, and work full-tilt toward mobilization of the population to respond in a manner that may save at least some parts of the ecosystem for generations to come, including current generations.
If there is any doubt a climate emergency is at hand, ask the people of the Micronesian Islands—currently disappearing—of Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana and of Norfolk, Virginia. Ask the Guatemalans, fleeing, in part, because they can no longer farm due to severe drought. If we think there is no crisis, it is only because our focus is overly and dangerously narrow.
Ami Chen Mills-Naim
Santa Cruz
Thanks, Ami! (For those who don’t know, she was formerly a star reporter at Metro Santa Cruz.) We’ve actually done quite a lot of reporting on climate change over the last few years. I recommend readers search for the phrase at goodtimes.sc to see the local and global angles we’ve tackled on the subject. — Editor
CORRECTION
In last week’s review of Cabrillo Stage’s “Into the Woods,” the names of the actors who play the stepsisters were incorrectly listed. They are Morgan Peters and Catrina Contini. Also, Melissa Harrison’s name was misspelled in the photo caption. We regret the errors.
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
PARTY AND PARCEL
Any Santa Cruz resident who has been thinking about getting their neighbors together or wants a car-free afternoon on their street is in for a treat. The Santa Cruz Neighbors 11th-Annual Block Party is coming up on Sunday, Sept. 29. It will run from noon-8 p.m. that afternoon. Santa Cruz Neighbors has directions on how to reach out to neighbors and register an individual block for the event. Forms are due Sept. 19. For more info email em***@sa****************.org, call 423-0745 or visit santacruzneighbors.com.
GOOD WORK
CORPS SUPPORT
A married Santa Cruz couple returned from volunteering in the Peace Corps in Senegal and felt that their work wasn’t done. Abby Edwards and Chad Oliver established a GoFundMe.com campaign in December, and within four days, they raised $4,000, enough for Peace Corps Senegal employee Youssoupha Boye to fulfill his lifelong dream of visiting the U.S. In Washington D.C., Boye, who’s worked for working for Peace Corps Senegal in 2003, was able to meet with Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The problem with the gene pool is that there’s no lifeguard.”
Cowell Beach has been on the “beach bummer” list for nine years running. Let’s lend a helping hand. We suggest dressing in layers, wearing sunscreen and bringing a reusable water bottle, since drinking fountains (and restrooms) are available onsite. Volunteers under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult, and closed-toed shoes are also required. Parking is limited, so make or bring a friend and carpool. Meet at the base of the stairs to Cowell Beach; no RSVPs necessary, but you can print and complete the Save Our Shores waiver online beforehand to save time.
INFO: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Cowell Beach, 21 Municipal Wharf, Santa Cruz. saveourshores.org, ni*@sa***********.org. Free.
Art Seen
Creativity Thrives: Nine Women Artists
Doodles are thought of as absent-minded toss-offs, but in fact, they can be as artistic as any still life. R. Blitzer Gallery is showcasing the work of a group of local women artists working mostly in oil and acrylics, and some of these artists’ work is influenced by doodling. With nature, people and current event themes in mind, this highly personal, unconscious way of working from internal impulses makes the resulting piece authentic to each person.
INFO: Exhibit runs Friday, Aug. 2-Saturday Aug. 31 with an artist talk at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 17. R. Blitzer Gallery, 2801 Mission St., Santa Cruz. 458-1217, rblitzergallery.com. Free.
Sunday 8/11
The 42nd-Annual International Musical Saw Festival
The musical saw, also known as the singing saw, may not be the kind of instrument you find in music class, but it is still one of the most unique music-makers around. In fact, a group of 53 musical sawists hold the world record for largest live saw ensemble event. Santa Cruz’s Musical Saw Festival is a collection of the world’s greatest saw players, plus other acoustic musicians. There will be bluegrass, country, folk, gospel, blues, classical works, and show tunes throughout the day, plus a musical saw contest and workshop.
INFO: 10 a.m.-5p.m Roaring Camp Railroads, 5401 Graham Hill Rd., Felton. sawplayers.org. Free.
Saturday 8/10
River Health Day
Join the Coastal Watershed Council in celebrating the San Lorenzo River. Volunteers will lend a hand removing invasive plants, planting native species and maintaining the site to promote the well-being of the river. Gloves, tools and light refreshments will be provided; it’s recommended that all volunteers dress in comfortable gardening clothes, including long pants, socks and sturdy closed-toe shoes. Bring layers, sun protection and a reusable water bottle. All ages and abilities are welcome, but volunteers under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Can’t make this one? No problem, the event happens every second Saturday of the month, though meeting location will vary each time.
On the 74th anniversary of the fateful Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings, there will be a vigil honoring the tens of thousands of victims, plus reflections and songs meant to call attention to those lives lost with the intention of learning from the past to create a more just and nuclear-free future.
INFO: Noon-3 p.m. Santa Cruz Town Clock, Santa Cruz. Free.
Perched atop baby-blue towers scattered along the coast, the lifeguards who watch the water from behind polarized sunglasses and thick layers of zinc are a staple of the beaches that sustain the Central Coast.
The mix of authority, adrenaline, sun, and sand make for a perfect summer job for many of the roughly 140 seasonal guards who swell the county’s ranks from Memorial Day through Labor Day each year.
“I grew up idolizing the lifeguards,” says Patricia Jake Stark, who joined the local Junior Lifeguards at age 8. “I knew from a very young age that ocean rescue was what I wanted to do.”
In pop culture, movies and on TV, lifeguards are routinely fetishized as abnormally attractive watchdogs of the sun-soaked masses. Every pool, lake or beach has a Billy Hargrove prowling to “Moving in Stereo,” or a Wendy Peppercorn like the Sandlot boys drool over.
Still, lifeguarding is rarely a viable long-term career. Stark, a 21-year-old Santa Cruz High alum, is one of many whose dreams of patrolling the sand eventually morph into the pursuit of better-paid and more plentiful jobs in local fire departments, the military or emergency medicine. In Stark’s case, lifeguarding led to becoming a search and rescue swimmer who jumps out of helicopters for the U.S. Navy.
Part of the challenge is that the pressure of preventing drowning doesn’t necessarily translate to high pay. Most local lifeguards make $15-20 an hour, on par with many local restaurants or service sector jobs.
“You don’t get into lifeguarding to get rich,” says Anaiis Nysether, a 22-year-old seasonal lifeguard who plays water polo at Cabrillo College. “Most of us have either another job, or this is just a summer gig while they are home from school.”
At state beaches, the California Department of Parks and Recreation employs two full-time lifeguards charged with enforcing the law at beaches they patrol. These guards also lean on seasonal guards, many of whom return for multiple summers, to help manage tasks like dispatch, scheduling and communication with the public.
All told, Santa Cruz area lifeguards have saved 7,657 souls and presided over more than 66 million beach visitors since the United States Lifesaving Association started keeping records in 1968. Each year, they’ll rescue about 200 people from local waters and keep watch over about 1 million beachgoers.
The result is “a culture that transcends specific postings,” Stark says. On a personal level, she says being a lifeguard “helped me find my voice. I learned how to be assertive in emergency situations, and that I wanted to make a career out of saving lives.”
THE PIPELINE
On any given weekday from June through August, the hundreds of little bodies skittering around the sand at Cowell Beach create the same kind of choreographed frenzy as a flock of Starlings. It takes a cadre of seasoned instructors to corral the Junior Lifeguards decked out in bright reds and navy blues.
“OK guys, let’s keep the energy up for these push-ups,” an instructor yells to a loosely assembled group of nearly two dozen 12-year-olds on a recent Tuesday.
“I can feel my sweats filling with sand,” one junior guard whispers to another as they dive down into plank position.
On this mid-July day, a thick layer of clouds keeps the temperature brisk at the water’s edge. Some make the rookie mistake of starting their daily calisthenics routine while still wearing sweat suits. Veterans know to always ditch your gear before the workout; much like a rescue, you never know how long the push-ups, crunches, lunges, and flutter kicks will last.
By now a rite of passage in Santa Cruz and neighboring cities, the summer Junior Lifeguard program supplies a steady stream of young athletic talent to keep towers around the county staffed. Over 1,000 junior guards enroll in various city and state parks programs each year to learn the basics of ocean safety and conservation.
For Jason Sweatt, a 42-year-old Capitola transplant originally from Alabama, signing his 5-year-old son Cody up for junior guards was a no-brainer. With a lifetime spent in the water as a surf instructor, and as a former lifeguard himself, Sweatt is more familiar than most with the skills his son is learning.
“I have pulled people out of the water that were unconscious in Waikiki and required CPR,” says Sweatt, who co-founded the Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance in 2011 after spending his first few years post-Army service working in Hawaii as a surf instructor. “It’s those basic lifesaving skills that you carry on and never let go. I want that for Cody.”
It takes time to develop a good lifeguard. In addition to runs and workouts on the sand, basic lessons like how to identify a water emergency eventually evolve into more advanced mock-rescue drills.
During more intense rescue drills, a fellow guard simulates the behaviors of someone drowning, such as frantically trying to climb onto a rescuer in the surf. Uninitiated lifeguards can easily find themselves in danger from not only rough water, but the person they’re trying to save.
“We are exposed to some dangerous environmental factors,” says Anna Marie Scott, a 19-year-old in her third season as a summer lifeguard, from riptides and rocks to skin cancer.
Still, it’s hard to argue with the benefits of working on the beach.
Isaiah Mullen, a 21-year-old Santa Cruz native, saw it as a natural step when he became a seasonal guard four years ago while enrolled at UCSC.
“After doing junior guards for years, it just felt like I was setup,” says Mullen, a legal studies major who previously studied and played water polo at Cabrillo. “And who wouldn’t want to work at the beach while they are in college?”
MURKY WATERS
With a steady pipeline of junior guards growing up idolizing heroes in red and blue uniforms, lifeguarding has endured and evolved despite pay that—like many jobs in Santa Cruz County—has struggled to keep pace with the skyrocketing costs of living.
“Everybody knows it’s difficult living in Santa Cruz,” says Brendan Daly, a 33-year-old marine safety officer who transitioned to a full-time position with the Santa Cruz Fire Department after 11 years as a seasonal guard. “You have to really grind to find a job that will allow you to stay in a place like this.”
Virtually every city guard in the towers is a seasonal, part-time employee earning between $14-20 an hour with limited benefits, including health insurance for job-related incidents. Leadership positions like beach lieutenants and beach captains pay $17-24 per hour, compared to a full-time firefighter salary of $35-50 per hour, not including potential overtime.
LONG HAULMarine Safety Officer Brendan Daly spent 11 seasons as a part-time lifeguard before accepting a full-time position. PHOTO: G.P. SCHEPPLER
At state beaches, the majority of lifeguards are also seasonal, with pay starting at $15 per hour and limited benefits. Full-time state peace officers are generally the guards driving white pick-up trucks outfitted with long rifles that supervise and patrol the shoreline, who earn $20-33 an hour not including potential overtime.
“In Santa Cruz, (lifeguarding) is not a feasible career,” says seasonal guard Nysether. The tradeoff, she says, is that the job has allowed her to gain emergency medical experience while doing student nursing work at Dominican Hospital.
Nysether is also one of many guards who pursues year-round work as a rescue swimmer with the fire department’s Marine Safety Unit. While lifeguards do the legwork of standing long rotations in the towers watching the water line, rescue swimmers are emergency responders with specialized medical and rescue training. Unlike lifeguards, rescue swimmers typically have other duties as firefighters, police officers or medical specialists.
Before he became a full-time marine safety officer with the fire department, Daly says he worked a variety of jobs to make ends meet, like doing surf photography or videography for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
At 33, this is Daly’s 16th year as a lifeguard and fifth in a full-time role supervising a small army of seasonal guards. He studied cultural anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, and after graduation was discouraged to find that most of the tribes of the world had already been discovered. He went back to working as a lifeguard as he’d done over summers in college, and though the career path hasn’t always been clear, Daly says the intangible benefits of training young people how to save lives makes up for it.
“Just last year we had several former junior guards rescue a swimmer in distress,” Daly says.
DOLPHIN-DIVING IN
To become a city lifeguard in Santa Cruz, applicants must survive a gauntlet of physical challenges.
Just to earn the chance to interview, an aspiring guard must complete a 1,000-meter open water swim in under 20 minutes, then a 200-meter run, 400-meter swim and another 200-meter run all in under 10 minutes.
With the scarcity of full-time lifeguarding jobs, aspiring guards often try to separate themselves from their peers by shelling out for professional certifications, gym memberships or specialized personal trainers. Many participate in sports like swimming and water polo during the offseason, sometimes while also studying for credentials such as emergency medical technician, or EMT.
“Being an EMT isn’t a requirement,” Daly says, “but it is preferred.”
If city lifeguards want to advance beyond entry-level pay, holding an EMT certification becomes a necessity.
Being familiar with the Central Coast isn’t a requirement, but there is an inherent advantage for those who start training nearby.
“I was lucky to be local and have grown up here in the junior guards program,” Stark says. “I saw outsiders come in and struggle to paddle or navigate the kelp fields or handle the cold water.”
For Stark and other guards, a typical day on the tower starts around 10:30 a.m. and runs until about 6:30 p.m. Aside from a daily fitness break or nature’s occasional call, lifeguards must stay focused on the water while surrounded by a sea of distractions that has only grown with the region’s tourism industry.
Local lifeguards have completed 1,283 reported rescues since 2015. Most often, they leave their towers to help beachgoers who have either over-indulged in seaside libations or overestimated their ability—usually, some combination of the two.
Hazards like riptides, shore breaks, cliff falls, sneaker waves, and medical emergencies on the beach all present potential threats at land’s end. Just go to Youtube and search “Santa Cruz water rescue,” and all kinds of drone footage and news reports will surface. In recent years, the number of rescues has spiked during busy warmer months.
Last month, rescue swimmers pulled out a young boy whose head was the only part of his body visible in rough water near Sunny Cove. In July of last year, a 10-year-old was rushed to the hospital after he was buried in sand while digging a tunnel and had to be pulled out by a lifeguard. Just south in Monterey County, both a lifeguard and a swimmer in duress about 30 feet from shore had to be pulled out of the waves by Cal Fire crews last fall.
Hearing from lifeguards first-hand about these incidents, however, is rare.
Lifeguards are bound by the same medical privacy laws as doctors and nurses, and they’re notoriously tight-lipped about their most harrowing rescues. Rather, they speak in general terms about “an unconscious male” or “distressed elderly female bather” swept out to sea.
“These moments are some of the most traumatic in people’s lives,” Mullen says. “It’s important to always keep that in perspective when talking about the rescues we make.”
POLICING THE BEACH
Depending which department they work for, lifeguards’ tools of the trade might include jet skis, pick-up trucks, rescue boards, helicopters, swim fins, rescue buoys—or, sometimes, guns.
Full-time State Parks Lifeguards are trained peace officers whose authority extends across California. As a result, they carry .40-caliber pistols on their hips and a long rife in their trucks during shifts on the beach. Unlike their seasonal counterparts, peace officers are charged with enforcing state laws and issuing citations, or potentially making arrests.
Far from Baywatch stereotypes, the role many lifeguards play in the coastal ecosystem is as much that of warden as rescuer. They’re the first line of defense in preventing emergencies by telling the public about rapidly changing coastal hazards, shark sightings and more.
“I view myself as an educator and informer, not as an enforcer,” says seventh-season State Parks Lifeguard Jackson Shaffer-Yunger, 28, who went to Harbor High and played water polo at Cabrillo. “I recognize that not everyone who comes to our beaches has grown up with the ocean the way I did, so I try to be patient.”
The vast and dynamic 29 miles of coastline in Santa Cruz County are watched by a network of emergency water-rescue units and personnel from the Santa Cruz Fire Department, Central Fire Protection District, Aptos Fire Department, California State Parks Lifeguards, and the U.S. Coast Guard. These federal, state and local agencies monitor and respond to everything from rocky shores to high-traffic beaches, all on the edge of one of the nation’s largest underwater sanctuaries.
RESCUE SEASONFourth-year local lifeguard Isaiah Mullen says junior guards set him up to spend summer breaks from college watching the water. PHOTO: G.P. SCHEPPLER
When a water emergency happens somewhere in the county, the agencies use a grid to decide who will respond. Guards who work under the city’s fire department cover Cowell, Main and Capitola beaches. State Parks guards cover state parks and sections of unincorporated Santa Cruz County.
Often, the work is more pragmatic than high-risk rescue scenarios.
“We reunite lost children with their families every day,” Nysether, says.
It’s this kind of work, says State Parks Lifeguard Supervisor Eddie Rhee-Pizano, that keeps the county’s most popular beaches safe.
“It’s the seasonal guards that are the unsung heroes,” Rhee-Pizano says. “These young people step up and make it possible to open up as many towers as we do.”
FUTURE GUARDS
Lifeguarding is one of many professions in California that has had to adapt to a changing economy and surging costs of living.
Local law enforcement departments and the U.S. military increasingly say that recruiting can be a struggle thanks to a shift away from physical labor and the difficulty of paying for housing and other necessities on low starting salaries. Lifeguarding is something of an outlier because of the job’s unusual sun-soaked allure, but state and local departments have expanded junior guard programs in recent years to keep the pond stocked with able-bodied candidates.
Like cops or firefighters, there’s also a hierarchy to lifeguarding. For those who excel in junior guards, like former fire department Lifeguard of the Year Henry Tobias, there are distinctions to strive for. One mark of prestige is becoming part of “Captain’s Corp,” or the Marine Safety Unit within the fire department.
Looking ahead, Tobias hopes that lifeguarding will help give him a leg up applying to state and local fire departments.
“Working as a lifeguard helped me get exposure to local fire departments, and that motivated me to get my paramedic degree,” Tobias said. “I grew up wanting to be a lifeguard and a firefighter.”
He may get the chance to realize both dreams in the same place.
In addition to the Marine Safety Unit, 17 local firefighters are certified as rescue swimmers, enabling them to provide emergency water response during the off-season from fire engines. The 15-year-old program was adopted by the fire department to increase its capacity to protect ocean-goers during the offseason when summer lifeguards go back to school or work.
For those who return to the towers year after year, like State Parks guard Shaffer-Yunger, lifeguarding comes with a sense of purpose that can be hard to replicate.
“Working for State Parks has been one of the best jobs I have ever worked,” he says. “I have bussed tables, worked in food prep and hung drywall, but nothing as rewarding an experience as lifeguarding.”
UPDATE: Aug. 7, 11:10 a.m. — This story has been updated to clarify the Santa Cruz Fire and California State Parks departments’ overtime pay policy, and the title of Santa Cruz Fire Department Marine Safety Officer Brendan Daly.
Wendy Towner was standing behind the vendor tent for her family business, the Honey Ladies, at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on Sunday, July 28.
A staple at many Bay Area farmers markets, the Honey Ladies was selling its garlic and habanero varieties that afternoon. Then, Wendy saw a man climbing a fence behind the row of booths and carrying an assault rifle. The mother of two ran toward him, screaming, “No, you’re not gonna do this here! This isn’t gonna happen!” says Wendy’s sister Christine, who lives high in the Santa Cruz Mountains, as does Wendy.
Christine wasn’t at the festival, but she’s kept in close contact with those who were, particularly her sister.
Over the course of about a minute, the gunman injured 12 victims and took the lives of three more: 6-year-old Stephen Romero, 13-year-old Keyla Salazar and 25-year-old Trevor Irby, a recent Santa Cruz transplant. Christine believes that her sister prevented the death toll from climbing even higher.
In charging gunman Santino William Legan, Wendy momentarily startled him and alerted others to take cover, Christine says. “She was just trying to stop it and slow it down and hope that she could save everybody,” Christine says. “She was so upset that she couldn’t save those three lives.”
Wendy was the first one shot that day. Her husband Francisco Aguilar, who ran after her, was the second.
After the first two victims fell, Legan’s gun jammed. He walked over to where Wendy and Aguilar lay in the grass and asked, in a calm voice, if they were OK, Christine says her sister recalls. They played dead. Then, Legan dropped his magazine next to Wendy’s head and opened fire on the crowd.
Wendy and Aguilar’s 3-year-old son was playing on a nearby inflatable slide, and he started running through the gunfire toward his parents. A family friend’s 11-year-old granddaughter grabbed the boy and pulled him into the booth and under a table.
Santa Cruz’s Brynn Ota-Matthews, 26, and Gabriella Gaus, 26, were also on the slide when Legan opened fire.
The two friends, who work together at Westside pizza restaurant Bantam, ran to the festival parking lot. “We didn’t ever look back,” Gaus said at a press conference last week. There was a moment when she thought the noise of the gun was some kind of joke, but once she saw the shooter, she said her body told her to run.
Legan shot and killed himself once police arrived upon the scene, about a minute after the shooting began. Gaus was grazed by several bullets across her back, and she was treated and released. Ota-Matthews was shot in the back and said she will now live her life with a bullet in her liver.
At the press conference, the first person Gaus thanked was a man named John—at least she thought that was his name. He was the one who picked the two up in his car and drove them to the hospital. She said she didn’t feel safe until she was in the car.
For Wendy’s husband Aguilar, the minutes after the attack were precarious. He was losing blood quickly, and first responders initially didn’t think that he would survive. He was shot twice in the shoulder and twice in the leg. One bullet hit his femoral artery.
“They were not sure he was gonna make it to the hospital,” Christine says, adding that the doctors now expect both victims to make a “pretty good recovery.” Wendy will need plastic surgery, and she will wear a leg brace for the rest of her life. Aguilar will need skin grafts. Between the two of them, they’ve had nine surgeries. In the initial days of the couple’s hospitalizations, Christine brought a cell phone so they could Facetime from separate hospitals. Now, the two are staying in nearby rooms, and Wendy is able to visit her husband in a wheelchair.
Gaus and Ota-Matthews say they’ve been unable to stop the same images from constantly replaying in their minds: escaping the inflatable jungle gym, running through the crowd of people, Gaus screaming at the realization she had been hit. “It was just the most terrifying place for us to be,” Ota-Matthews said.
The women struggled to understand the gunman’s motives, which federal authorities are now scrutinizing in a domestic terrorism investigation announced on Tuesday. Photos released of 19-year-old Legan seemed in sharp contrast to the memories of Gaus, who said she looked the shooter in the eye seconds before she realized what was happening.
“I remember looking at him and just like staring at him until he started rapid-firing. Shot once, pause, and then rapid fire,” Gaus said. “So I remember in between those few seconds just staring at him, and he was like a trained military professional.”
The women said neither of them have fully grasped how this will change their day-to-day life. Gaus was discharged from the hospital the night of the shooting but had barely left her house four days later.
“I sound really bleak and sad, but I hope that I feel a sense of general trust towards humanity—because right now, I really don’t,” said Gaus. “I feel paranoid when I leave my house. I don’t know who I can trust. Even going to the grocery store, people are looking at me, and you don’t know I’m a victim because my clothes cover my wounds and whatever. But it just feels really sickening to me every time I leave my house. So, I think someday, I hope to feel really positive, to have a positive outlook. But right now, it’s not really there.”
Neither Ota-Matthews nor Gaus have health insurance, but as of Monday, GoFundMe.com campaigns had raised $36,000 for Ota-Matthews and $15,000 for Gaus.
Christine can’t forget when she first arrived at the hospital with Wendy’s 15-year-old daughter, their pulses racing and pumping with adrenaline. Wendy had a breathing mask over her face and was wrapped up in cords attached to machines. But as soon as the two of them saw Wendy, they felt a sense of relief wash over them.
“It’s one thing to have someone tell you that your family member’s alive,” Christine says. “It’s another to actually see them and physically touch them. That sense of relief that they’re actually OK—you don’t get that full effect until you can actually see for yourself.”
Santa Cruz mayors often pick an area of focus for their one-year term. In 2017, Mayor Cynthia Chase zeroed in on the housing crisis. Last year, Mayor David Terrazas talked of wanting to work on issues surrounding property crime, homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health.
This year, Mayor Martine Watkins has set her sights on public health, spearheading a framework she calls “Health in All Policies.” It’s the kind of high-level program that can be difficult to conceptualize, but she’s found that it helps when people use their imaginations.
While talking to a UCSC public-policy class in the spring, Watkins asked the students to picture an unhealthy, unsustainable community. They said that it might have a depressed economy, blight, poor safety, and aging infrastructure.
She then prodded the class for details about the opposite: How would a healthy, sustainable community look? It would be safe, they said. It would have quality education, good roads, secure parks.
Watkins’ Health in All Policies concept centers around promoting equity, sustainability and well-being in government decision-making, with an emphasis on engaging a wide range of community members and improving collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Watkins says the approach could take the shape of funding after-school programs, for example, or reducing air pollution.
Santa Cruz is far from the first to adopt the idea. The city of Richmond, which implemented a Health in All Policies plan of its own, has set aside funds for college-bound students, made plans to develop new green spaces and a park, and built low-income family housing. Watkins, who works at the county Office of Education, has brought in policymakers from Monterey County and the city of Gonzales to talk with the Santa Cruz City Council about their experiences implementing similar programs.
Watkins also has a key partner in Mimi Hall, director of the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency, who previously led an award-winning program using the same framework in Plumas County. A City Council subcommittee anchored by Watkins, Vice Mayor Justin Cummings and Councilmember Cynthia Mathews is looking into how health-centric policies may already be at work in Santa Cruz. Watkins hopes to embed a long-term approach that outlasts her year as mayor.
City department heads have already taken to the program, she says.
“People are seeing how it fits within their work and what they do,” Watkins says. “It also is a really nice way to name some of the efforts that are already currently underway.”
Watkins has scheduled meetings with groups including schools, businesses, nonprofits, and health providers to gather feedback and talk about ways they can collaborate. As a result, Watkins says the full council should get to vote on a policy recommendation and implementation plan by the end of the year.
The biggest challenge may simply be for staff and councilmembers to carve out the time for a different way of thinking.
“We have a lot of big issues happening in our city,” Watkins says. “It’s really hard when you have major crises on your hands … You’re trying to put out the fire that’s in front of you. So this is a long-term vision and approach, and to shift that requires a different level of capacity.”
The city is hosting a community meeting on Sunday, Aug. 11, at 11:30 am at the downtown library, where Watkins and other employees will share information and seek input.
Hall says one key benefit of a Health in All Policies approach is that related programs can help address multiple root causes of “seemingly insurmountable problems,” like homelessness, food insecurity and access to healthcare.
The government, she says, doesn’t have the capacity or the resources to fix these programs alone. “So we have to work with those who impact where people spend their time,” such as businesses and nonprofit groups, she says.
Hall is no stranger to tackling big issues. Plumas County had the highest opioid-related death rate of any county in California, and she helped lead a 20,000 Lives initiative to improve health overall. Opioid safety was the subject of the initiative’s first workgroup. The county joined forces with the three district hospitals in its borders, a tribal group and more than 20 community organizations.
“The concept was we have everything that we need to make a difference in our community,” Hall says. “We don’t say we’re not going to address the opiate problem unless we get additional funding or unless we get a grant. Let’s use the resources and the partnerships that we have already to make whatever we can.”
The effort, which successfully helped lower the opioid-related death rate to zero in Plumas County, earned the 2016 Innovation Award from the California State Association of Counties.
Now, Hall is drawing on lessons from that initiative in looking at how Santa Cruz County can collaborate with cities and regional partners.
“There’s no single entity, or even two or three together, that are going to be able to solve these huge problems that we have,” Hall says.
Gonzales City Manager Rene Mendez, who gave a presentation on the topic at a June 4 Santa Cruz City Council study session, tells GT that the framework is an important way to start a community conversation about quality-of-life issues.
His recommendation for Santa Cruz?
“Don’t shortcut the public participation. Sometimes the hardest thing we can do—and we all struggle with this—is listening,” Mendez says.
The city will hold a community meeting to discuss Health in All Policies on Sunday, Aug. 11, from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Public Library Downtown Branch, 224 Church St., Santa Cruz. For more details, go to cityofsantacruz.com.
Over the past year and a half, GT has been getting bigoted online comments from an email address that seems to belong to Roger Grigsby, Nuz has learned.
Grigbsy, of course, is the one-time local Chinese restaurant owner who earned the wrath of the Santa Cruz community for his $500 campaign contribution to former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in the white supremacist’s Louisiana campaign for the U.S. Senate. Before everyone could forget about the fiasco, he became even more infamous for quickly doubling down, decrying “a war on whites” for bringing an end to his business.
These more recent comments compare GT’s reporters to rats and cockroaches. Oh and also, he’s all in on this whole racism thing. The “social space,” this latest comment argues, can be divided into just two camps: “pro-whites” and “anti-whites.” You’ll never guess which side he says GT is on.
Anyway, although we weren’t able to 100% confirm that the email belongs to Grigsby, the same address has been linked in online listings to Shen’s Gallery, which was associated with the now-retired restaurateur for years. If he isn’t the guy leaving these racially motivated comments, he really should let us know.
WHEREFORE ART THOU?
Now that Chip has left the Downtown Association and moved to Boulder, Colorado, his wife Abra Alan has temporarily taken the reins as interim executive director—a role she’s expected to hold until moving out to the Rocky Mountain State herself. The Arts Council also has an interim executive director right now, as does the Museum of Art and History.
Could all this portend a change in vision for the downtown Santa Cruz arts scene? Nuz hopes so … ’cuz that ugly automobile-oriented art on the side of the Soquel/Front Garage has been up for 10 years too long, and we’ve just been waiting for an excuse to say something. It looks like it was dreamt up by a 4-year-old with a lousy black-and-white photo album and overzealous Adderall prescription.
NO LESSON PLAN
Santa Cruz Mayor Martine Watkins will receive an award from the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce at a gala this October.
Old-timers occasionally reminisce on the toughest mayoral years in Santa Cruz history. There was Mardi Wormhoudt’s 1989 term, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck, and then Hilary Bryant’s 2013 stint when two police officers were killed, putting the town’s crime rate under a microscope. But given the level of dysfunction at the city right now, Watkins’ 2019 term has got to be up there. Whereas Wormhoudt and Bryant were remembered as courageous heroes, Watkins’ role is more thankless in nature—sometimes more akin to that of an especially underpaid preschool teacher.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When it came time to write your horoscope, I was feeling unusually lazy. I could barely summon enough energy to draw up the planetary charts. I said a weak prayer to the astrological muses, pleading, “Please don’t make me work too hard to discover the message that Aries people need to hear; just make the message appear in my mind.” As if in response, a voice in my head said, “Try bibliomancy.” So I strolled to my bookcase, shut my eyes, pulled out the first book I felt and went to a random page. Here’s what I saw when I opened my eyes: “The Taoist concept of wu-wei is the notion that our creative active forces are dependent on and nourished by inactivity; and that doing absolutely nothing may be a good way to get something done.”
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): There’s an old Rosicrucian vow you might have fun trying out: “I pledge to interpret every experience that comes my way as a communication of God with my soul.” If you carry out this intention with relaxed playfulness, every bird song you hear is an emblem of divine thought; every eavesdropped conversation provides hints of the creator’s current mood; the shape that spilled milk takes on your tabletop is an intimation of eternity breaking into our time-gripped realm. In my years of offering you advice, I have never before suggested you try this exercise because I didn’t think you were receptive. But I do now. (If you’re an atheist, you can replace “God,” “divine,” and “creator” with “life.”)
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Below are unheralded gifts possessed by many Geminis but not commonly identified by traditional astrologers: 1. A skill for deprogramming yourself, for unlearning defunct teachings that might otherwise interfere with your ability to develop your highest potentials; 2. A sixth sense about recognizing artificial motivations, then shedding them; 3. A tendency to attract epiphanies that show you why and how to break taboos that may once have been necessary but aren’t any longer; 4. An ability to avoid becoming overwhelmed and controlled by situations you manage or supervise.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In 1993, I began writing a book titled The Televisionary Oracle. By 1995, I had generated over 2,000 pages of material that I didn’t like. Although I was driven by a yearning to express insights that had been welling up in me for a long time, nothing about the work felt right. I was stuck. But finally I discovered an approach that broke me free: I started to articulate difficult truths about aspects of my life about which I was embarrassed, puzzled and ashamed. Then everything fell into place. The process that had been agonizing and fruitless became fluidic and joyful. I recommend that you try this strategy to dissolve any mental blocks you may be suffering from: dive into and explore what makes you feel ashamed, puzzled or embarrassed. I bet it will lead to triumph and fulfillment, as happened for me.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I am overjoyed that you’re not competing for easy rewards or comparing yourself to the mediocre crowd. Some people in your sphere may not be overjoyed, though. To those whose sense of self isn’t strong, you may be like an itchy allergen; they may accuse you of showing off or acting puffed up. But freaks like me appreciate creative egotists like you when you treat your personality as a work of art. In my view, you’re a stirring example of how to be true to one’s smartest passions. Keep up the good work! Continue to have too much fun! I’m guessing that for now, you can get away with doing just about anything you want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Let’s enjoy a moment of poignant silence in honor of your expired illusions. They were soulful mirages: full of misplaced idealism and sweet ignorance and innocent misunderstandings. Generous in ways you may not yet realize, they exuded an agitated beauty that aroused both courage and resourcefulness. Now, as those illusions dissolve, they will begin to serve you anew, turning into fertile compost for your next big production.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Old rules and traditions about how best to conduct intimate relationships are breaking down. New rules are still incubating. Right now, the details about how people express their needs to give and receive love seem to be riddles for which there are no correct answers. So what do you do? How do you proceed with the necessary blend of confidence and receptivity? Can you figure out flexible strategies for being true both to your need for independence and your need for interdependence? I bring these ruminations to your attention, Libra, just in time for the “Transforming Togetherness” phase of your cycle.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It’s time for your once-a-year shoutout to your most audacious possibilities. Ready? Go ahead and say, “Hallelujah! Hosanna! Happiness! Hooray for my brilliant future!” Next, go ahead and say, “I have more than enough power to create my world in the image of my wisest dreams.” Now do a dance of triumph and whisper to yourself, “I’m going to make very sure I always know exactly what my wisest dreams are.”
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): During the next three weeks, I advise you to load up on copious amounts of caffeine from Monday at 8 a.m. until Friday at 6 p.m. Then drastically cut back on the coffee and consume large amounts of alcohol and/or marijuana from 6:01 p.m. on Friday through 6 p.m. on Sunday. This is the ideal recipe for success. JUST KIDDING! I lied. Here’s the truth, Sagittarius: Astrological indicators suggest you would benefit from making the coming weeks be the most un-drugged, alcohol-free time ever. Your potential for achieving natural highs will be extraordinary, as will your potential to generate crucial breakthroughs while enjoying those natural highs. Take advantage!
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I don’t presume you should or will gleefully embrace the assignment I’ll propose. The task may indeed be too daunting for you to manage right now. If that’s the case, don’t worry. You’ll get another chance in a few months. But if you are indeed ready for a breathtaking challenge, here it is: Be a benevolent force of wild nature; be a tender dispenser of creative destruction; be a bold servant of your soulful dreams—as you demolish outmoded beliefs and structures that have been keeping a crucial part of your vitality shackled and latent.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I have cast a feisty love spell that will be triggered in anyone who reads the first line of this horoscope. And since you have done that, you are now becoming even smarter than you already were about getting the most out of your intimate alliances. You’re primed to experiment with the delights of feeling with your head and thinking with your heart. Soon, you’ll be visited by revelations about any unconscious glitches that might be subtly undermining your togetherness, and you’ll get good ideas about how to correct those glitches. Astrological rhythms will be flowing in your relationships’ favor for the next seven weeks!
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I estimate that about 25% of your fear results from your hesitation to love as deeply and openly and bravely as you could. Another 13% originates in an inclination to mistake some of your teachers for adversaries, and 21% from your reluctance to negotiate with the misunderstood monsters in your closet. But I suspect that fully 37% of your fear comes from the free-floating angst that you telepathically absorb from the other 7.69 billion humans on our planet. So what about the remaining 4%? Is that based on real risks and worth paying attention to? Yes! And the coming weeks will be an excellent time to make progress in diminishing its hold on you.
Homework: Make a playful effort to change something you’ve always assumed you could never change. freewillastrology.com.
“I look at it as I’m a part of this continuum,” says the 32-year-old trumpeter. “If you listen to someone like Kendrick Lamar—the rhythms that he’s spitting when he raps—and you listen to someone like Charlie Parker, or Dizzy Gillespie—the types of bebop, tap-dance rhythms that they’re playing—it’s the same thing. The flow is exactly the same.”
Hill first rose to international acclaim in 2014, when he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. The following year, he was profiled by PBS on an episode of Jazz Night in America.
Last November, Hill released Modern Flows Vol. II, a bold, exciting album which develops his theory on music and time. Though it’s very much a jazz record musically, it is as in touch with contemporary musicians like Lamar and Flying Lotus as it is with Miles Davis, Roy Hargrove or Donald Byrd. Often, it puts them all in the same conversation at once.
In a rare move, the album opens with a kind of mission statement. Before a single note is played, the listener hears a voice: “My flow is rooted. My flow is modern. Modern Flows Vol. II.”
The speaker is Chicago rapper Brandon Alexander Williams, who reappears periodically throughout the album. Over a hypnotic vibraphone line, Williams develops the album’s themes: black history, art, time, and consciousness. On the next track, the vibraphone line morphs slightly, a shift in its own musical continuum, as it leads the charge for the excellent “Twin Flame.” Sprightly and packed with melodies, it’s almost easy to forget that you’re listening to jazz music until the two-minute mark, when the song opens up for Hill and saxophonist Josh Johnson to trade improvisational passages. The two go back and forth, trading bars like battle rappers before meeting back up again on the melody.
“Twin Flame” leads to the metamorphic “Ego vs. Spirit,” a track which features J Dilla style beats, a Miles Davis-like melody, and a choir straight out of Kamasi Washington—and that’s all before the spoken word passage kicks in. Somehow, it all hangs together, each element sounding less like separate pieces stitched together, and more like points of reference along a line.
“It keeps bringing me back to that word ‘continuum,’” Hill says. “We’re all connected.”
Raised in a music-loving household on the south side of Chicago, Hill picked up the trumpet at age 10, playing in his elementary school’s jazz band. There, he was forever changed when he heard the music of Lee Morgan.
“It was mind-blowing,” he says. “I had never heard that form of black music before. I had heard the horn solos on Marvin Gaye records, and on Al Green records, but never heard actual Lee Morgan, Dizzy Gillespie—actual jazz, from the diaspora of bebop. I believe that I fell in love with the music at that moment. I’m grateful that I was exposed to it at a young age.”
An early point on his own continuum, Hill still credits that Lee Morgan record with shaping his sound today.
“Specifically the tone on track two, ‘Since I Fell For You,’” he says. “I’ll never forget, I heard that track and just fell in love. He had a very warm, dark, fluffy sound on that record, and it just stuck with me.”
While he keeps his early influences present today, Hill always keeps his eye on the far end of the continuum: the future, and the musical possibilities it brings.
“Everything is very open musically now,” he says. “I think it’s beautiful. It creates newness. It creates new ideas. It creates new sounds. It creates new concepts and directions. It’s a beautiful thing, and I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
Marquis Hill performs at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 8, at Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $29.40 adv/$34.65 door. 427-2227.
