Make no mistake about it: the city’s new quarter-cent sales tax measure won’t help fund a new Santa Cruz Warriors arena, or even a revamped Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. Nor does it cover improvements to the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf or Santa Cruz Fire Department’s engine fleet—each of which has been vaguely discussed and eyed for possible future measures.
Instead, the June 5 ballot measure is all about “preserving existing programs and services,” City Manager Martín Bernal says—“essentially public safety, parks and recreation.”
The city may still look for revenue in future years for bigger-ticket projects, but those would be a few years out. “There’s an interest in doing that too,” Bernal adds, noting that investment in local infrastructure fell during the recession.
Bernal and Santa Cruz’s city councilmembers have been upfront about their reasons behind the measure, which the City Council placed on the ballot when it declared a fiscal emergency in February. Part of their explanation is that the state places a cap of 9.25 percent on sales tax. Santa Cruz’s sales tax is already getting close, at 9 percent. City leaders are, in part, looking to snag that last quarter cent before some other group does with a regional measure.
The $3-million-per-year tax should allow Santa Cruz to avoid budget cuts in the upcoming fiscal year, but Finance Director Marcus Pimentel projects that the deficits will reappear in three or four years.
The City Council unanimously voted to put the measure on the June ballot, although Councilmember Sandy Brown expressed deep concerns, calling the tax “regressive” and worrying it would most severely impact Santa Cruz’s poorest residents, who spend a greater portion of their income.
“I’m not opposed to sales tax, per se. It’s more that we weren’t pursuing other taxation measures,” Brown tells GT. Although Brown ultimately voted to place the measure on the ballot, she hasn’t decided how she’ll vote in June.
While the city’s budget has $100 million worth of details, recent news coverage has zeroed in on one cost—government pensions. CalMatters ran a March 18 column about Santa Cruz titled “How Pension Costs Clobbered One Small City.”
Santa Cruz bargained with unions to negotiate new pension contributions and retirement ages in 2011. City leaders also implemented the state’s reforms more recently, but the city only sees savings from those reforms when employees leave. The city’s contributions to California’s Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) will exceed employee contributions for the first time ever in the upcoming fiscal year. Essentially, Santa Cruz is paying for the money that didn’t materialize in the state’s investment portfolio, given the California board’s stubbornly optimistic projections.
Pimentel, the finance director, projects that healthcare and pension costs will go up for the next four years, with more of the weight falling in the pension area. In four years, projected pension and healthcare costs will combine for nearly a quarter of the general fund budget. Pensions alone will come out to a projected 16 percent.
Many union workers are supporting the tax measure—which needs 50 percent voter approval to pass—sensing that its failure would mean layoffs to employees. And the SEIU has endorsed it.
Matt Nathanson, a public health nurse who serves on the SEIU’s local political action committee, says he and his fellow committee members heard overwhelming support for the measure in union meetings.
Bernal thinks the city would need to pass a ballot measure regardless of pension issues. He compares it to any business raising its prices.
The League of California Cities made six fiscal recommendations to local governments in January to help them balance budgets. Bernal says Santa Cruz has implemented four of those and is in the process of doing the final two, which includes the local ballot measure.
He also notes that the city was required to declare an emergency not because of any dire financial straits, but because of a technicality. He says that when Proposition 218 passed in 1996, it required local governments to declare a fiscal emergency whenever they ask for additional revenue at any point besides a general election. In this case, that would have been this November. Bernal says he didn’t recommend putting a tax on the November ballot for fear of impacting an affordable housing bond measure that former Mayor Don Lane is working on with former County Treasurer Fred Keeley. (Crowding too many taxes onto one ballot is seen as a political faux pas, one that can doom otherwise politically popular ideas.)
Elsewhere in California, other cities are asking for sales tax increases as well. Pasadena already has a 9.5 percent sales tax—some cities have secured exemptions to go above the sales tax cap—and the Los Angeles suburb is seeking a three-quarter cent increase to bring the sales tax up to 10.25 percent.
In local polling, the idea of Santa Cruz’s sales tax measure has looked popular, with 59 percent of respondents supporting it.
One measure that polled even better than a sales tax was a sugary beverage tax. Bernal hasn’t recommend pursuing that route for the June election because supporters often need to mount an aggressive campaign to pass such a measure—even in communities where the idea is popular—in order to overcome big spending from the big soda lobby.
Some councilmembers say the soda tax is still on the table for future elections. But Councilmember Brown—who remains ambivalent about the sales tax—says a sugary beverage tax isn’t easy for her to swallow either, and for similar reasons. Brown says soda taxes are similarly regressive, as lower-income families consume more of the drinks than other groups do.
Brown says she would have rather explored taxes on second homes or vacant properties.
The sales tax effectively adds a single quarter to the bill of someone who’s spent $100 at the cash register.
But Brown is still weighing the impact that a new sales tax may have on low-income families. The alternative is the impact of cutting services, which could have a big impact on low-income groups too.
“This is something that I’ve definitely been struggling with,” she says. “I do not intend to be an active member of the campaign, but I have a hard time deciding how I will be voting personally.”
[dropcap]P[/dropcap]hil Lewis, a consultant for the Santa Cruz American Music Festival, remembers last year’s Sunday show on May 27 as “probably the best-run show” he and his team ever did.
That’s going back 25 years, to when Lewis helped create the original Santa Cruz Blues Festival, an annual Memorial Day event at Aptos Village Park that preceded its American Music Festival cousin.
That day’s lineup last year included the Brothers Comatose, Wood Brothers and Mavis Staples—each act bringing more energy to the stage than the last, before the day culminated with Santa Cruz favorites Devil Makes Three, who finished the afternoon with a bang. Looking back, it was a fitting finale to a two-day festival that Lewis says may never happen again.
“Not at that park. If I could find a better venue, then yeah, sure,” he says, looking out the window of his Capitola mortgage lending office.
The event is on indefinite hiatus, and there will certainly be no Santa Cruz American Music Festival in 2018, now that the Aptos Village project—currently under construction—has taken away the plot of land on Aptos Creek Road where the festival organizers used to park tour buses and semi-trucks hauling heavy equipment.
Lewis says running a small festival is more difficult than ever. Artists are asking for more money these days—as are staging companies, unions, county regulators, garbage collectors, security teams, chair rental companies, fencing businesses, bus companies, and even Cabrillo College, where the festival would host most of its parking for concert goers. “Everything,” he says.
“Everybody wants more money. At some point, you’re like, where does it stop?” Lewis says, leaning back in his chair, shaking his head as he crosses his arms. “It doesn’t.”
Lewis remembers one of his favorite acts over the years as B.B. King, back in the Santa Cruz Blues Festival days. “You could feel his energy all the way back to where the food was. From him to that last person. He had that charisma, more than any person I’ve ever met. He would melt people with his eyes. Amazing,” Lewis says.
But Lewis’ favorite memories of the two-day festival are of the fans.
He says he’s had a half-dozen people over the years tell him they met their spouse at the event. And another couple, he recalls, came to a Saturday show about 10 years into their annual Blues Festival tradition, and then had their baby delivered the next day, on Sunday. Lewis got the full story at the following festival, one year later—the baby’s first birthday.
When the festival started, Lewis remembers only two other major Memorial Day weekend events. One was an air show in Watsonville; the other was the Strawberry Music Festival four hours away in Yosemite. In recent years, however, event organizers found themselves competing with an increasingly long list of other festivals, stretching from May through September, including BottleRock in Napa and Monterey’s California Roots Music and Art Festival, both happening that same weekend.
Bill Welch, who owns Moe’s Alley, helped create and run the Blues Festival for 22 years before bowing out in 2015, the year the event became the Santa Cruz American Music Festival. Welch says that as music festivals grew more popular, artists started demanding steeper rates. Headliners would charge the local blues festival—known for its small crowds and laid-back vibes—the same price that artists demand for the bigger-ticket events.
Lewis says festival organizers paid last year’s Saturday headliner, Melissa Etheridge, more than what it cost to put on the original blues festival in 1993. He says that while the event never lost money, “people didn’t get paid for their time, that’s for sure.”
Welch says he and Lewis loved crafting lineups so that the acts would build one on top of the other. The big music festivals of 2018, however, offer a smattering of options with several stages. They’re often also destinations for food, beer, wine, and art. Welch says the shift is indicative of the way music listening has changed, now that phone apps like Spotify let fans hear whatever they want, whenever they want.
Three years ago, Lewis says he and some of his partners noticed that both blues fans and blues performers were getting older. “There were no B.B. Kings coming up,” he says. And Welch says that 30 to 40 performers who played the Blues Festival have died over the years.
That’s when Lewis switched formats to the American Music Festival, experimenting with a day of straight country music for the Sunday shows, and bringing in artists like American Idol’s Kellie Pickler. Lewis loved those shows and their vibes, but attendance was poor. In 2017, he swung the Sunday format a little bit back toward the center, with more of a rocking country-blues feel, for the set that included Mavis Staples and Devil Makes Three.
Going forward in Aptos, the loss of parking may dissuade other events from setting up at the park. If it does, Santa Cruz County could lose a small chunk of change in the short term. The Parks and Recreation department collected $85,000 in fees at the park in 2016. But parks workers also had to do $53,000 in maintenance, amounting to $32,000 in gross revenue—a number that will likely be dwarfed by sales and property taxes after construction crews finish the Aptos Village project.
Lewis says he’s looked at other venues, including the football field at Cabrillo College, but says they wouldn’t let him serve alcohol, which is a deal breaker for the festival financially.
Normally, Lewis would have spent the fall and winter months booking music acts. Now he’s putting more time into his passion for racing outrigger canoes. He’s training for the first race of the season on April 21.
As Lewis talks, his computer plays the Pandora station for Michael Kiwanuka, an artist who Lewis would have loved to bring to Santa Cruz County. Kiwanuka’s station cues up a wide-ranging list of musical acts—from Marvin Gaye to the Lumineers.
Eager to share new music, Lewis does a Google search to show me Kiwanuka’s most popular song, “Cold Little Heart.”
The tune opens with electric guitar and female voices. Then comes the thick base, heavy drumbeat, clapping hands, and vocals. “Did you ever want it?” Kiwanuka sings. “Did you want it bad?”
“This guy has a lot of different influences in his music,” Lewis says. “And I would book him. Nobody knows about him, but he would put on a great show. There’s a lot of performers out there that would be really good together. It’s still fun to play with lineups.”
[dropcap]D[/dropcap]ick Peixoto, CEO of the 2,000-acre Lakeside Organic Gardens in Watsonville, checks calls that come in on his smart watch as we chat in a conference room in a rural part of Watsonville. The soil-stained carpet is evidence of meetings he’s already had that day with his farmers and managers.
Patient and friendly, with a neat grey mustache, Peixoto (pronounced pay-sho-toh) rambles a bit as he discusses the current state of the ag industry in Santa Cruz County. But when asked if he’s been affected by the labor shortage that many farmers are facing throughout California, he gets right to the point: at the height of summer, he says, he loses 5 to 10 percent of his crop yield every day because he doesn’t have enough workers in the field. Deciding what not to pick has become part of his daily routine.
“Every day I sit down with my guys, and we draw up a plan of what we’re going to do in the field at 6 o’clock every morning. We decide what we’re going to irrigate, cultivate, fertilize and everything down the line. When that meeting is done, the harvest crew comes in. The salespeople send over a sheet that says, ‘This is what we want to harvest today,’ and that’s based on what we tell them we have to harvest. We’ll look at that and say, ‘We don’t have enough labor to do this, this and this, but the market is cheap on carrots today, so we’re going to leave carrots in the field,” he explains. “Every day in the summertime we have to leave some crops behind because there’s not enough labor to harvest it all.”
Santa Cruz County farmers, like those in every growing region throughout the state, are enduring an escalating labor shortage that’s forcing them to abandon ripe crops—especially at the height of summer, when competition for labor is the most fierce. A study from the California Farm Bureau conducted in the summer of 2017 showed that 55 percent of farmers surveyed had experienced employee shortages across all areas of production—planting, cultivating and harvesting—and were unable to secure up to 50 percent of their seasonal workforce, despite heavy recruiting, and offering higher wages and other incentives.
This is a drastic change from the abundant labor force the California agriculture industry has enjoyed since World War II, when the Bracero Program was initiated to attract workers from Mexico to work in the fields and on the railroads. Though the program officially ended in 1964, immigrants have dominated the labor force for large and small farms ever since. Today, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that 75 percent of agricultural workers are born in Mexico, and more than half of them are not authorized to work in the U.S.
The 61-year-old Peixoto, who has farmed in the Pajaro Valley since he was 17, says that for the first 35 years of his career, the labor force was so abundant that workers would stand at the edge of the field hoping to be hired.
“We could hold up our hand and 10 guys would come,” he says. “I’ve never seen anything like this. We’ve tried to eliminate [the size of the workforce] in the past just for cost savings, but we’re in a whole different world now, where we need to do it just to survive.”
BORDER OF BUSINESS
Peixoto owns another 1,000 acres in Imperial Valley in Southern California, and says that while the issue is pervasive across the state, certain conditions like housing availability are making the labor shortage more acute in Santa Cruz County. While most of the workers in the lower part of the state live in Mexicali and go back and forth across the U.S. border every day, that commute becomes impossible the farther north you go. “Up here it’s a whole different story, because all of our labor has to live here close to the farms,” says Peixoto.
Dick Peixoto of Lakeside Organic Gardens is considering investing in expensive cutting-edge harvesting and planting technology to offset a labor shortage that he believes won’t fix itself. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
Mexico’s economy has also improved in recent years, dissuading many would-be migrant workers from crossing the border, especially since it was tightened under the Obama Administration. Since Trump took office, policymakers in Washington have increased a sense of fear and anxiety about deportations among undocumented farmworkers. According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency conducted 143,470 arrests of aliens in 2017, the most in the last three years. Deportations resulting from ICE arrests increased 27 percent from 2016.
Lauro Barajas, national vice president of the United Farm Workers, and regional director of the UFW for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties, says that the increased fear of deportations has had a chilling effect on the normal seasonal movement by workers to different farms at different harvest times.
“Workers try to stay in one place, and aren’t moving around as much as before,” says Barajas. “Before, workers used to finish one crop and move to the other, but now they aren’t as much.” Farmers surveyed by the California Farm Bureau also reported that in addition to difficulty recruiting and retaining a workforce, agricultural employers now have to contend with an atmosphere where employees worry about being stopped, detained and threatened with deportation as they travel to their jobs.
Meanwhile, the ag workforce is also aging, without a new generation taking its place. Many younger workers from Mexico who come to the U.S. are choosing less physically demanding jobs in the construction and hospitality industries—both of which are also experiencing a high demand for labor, and pay comparable wages.
Even offering higher wages, farmers have not been able to attract non-Latino employees. “It’s hard work, let’s be honest,” says berry farmer Peter Navarro. “In the years that I’ve been in farming I’ve only had two or three non-Hispanic workers. They go a couple hours and can’t take it. I had one that went four days. It’s a hard job. We try and make it as safe as it can be, but it’s fieldwork at the end of the day. You even have second-generation Hispanics, kids whose parents did this work, that are looking elsewhere.”
WEEDED OUT
Competition with cannabis farms has caused further stress on the industry. Local vegetable and berry farmers are raising concerns that while cannabis growers are drawing from the same labor pool, they’re not on a level playing field with other agricultural crops and legalization will only compound this issue.
Navarro, who farms 93 acres of strawberries and 90 acres of blackberries and raspberries in the Pajaro Valley, states that in addition to being physically easier to grow and harvest than other crops, cannabis growers can pay considerably more. “They pay cash—we don’t. Our payroll is all by check. With all the deductions we have to make, they’re able to pay a higher hourly wage. We’re very concerned,” says Navarro. While paying in cash has traditionally been prevalent because of the secrecy of cannabis grows, as of Jan. 1, 2018 cannabis farmers are subject to the same payroll stipulations as other employers.
In Santa Cruz County, berries are one of the most labor intensive crops, and also one of the most lucrative for both workers and farmers. Berry farmers, like many other growers in the state, pay a “piece rate” on top of an hourly wage that pays relative to the volume of produce picked in order to incentivize productivity. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most farmworkers were paid an hourly wage of at least $10-$10.50 per hour in 2017. Workers who are paid piece rate earn around $14 an hour on average, but for labor intensive crops like berries a skilled worker can earn as much as $25 to $30 per hour in a well-tended field at peak harvest.
As a result, one way farmers are competing for workers during peak harvest has been to attend to their fields so that workers are able to achieve these higher piece rates by breeding large, easily visible berries in consistent numbers.
“You try to keep your field as attractive as possible by having a good clean crop with a healthy plant that will have an abundant crop to attract workers. They go around and look at fields, and if they look good, they may ask if you have a job available. If you don’t have a good looking field with a lot of healthy plants, people will look for a job somewhere else,” says Navarro.
At Live Earth Farm, Tom Broz is able to employ a year-round workforce with support from their CSA Program. PHOTO: KEANA PARKER
Aesthetic issues aside, fellow Watsonville berry farmer JJ Scurich has already seen valued employees lured away by cannabis. “We’ve lost some of our best, quickest piece rate employees that were making in the $25 to $30 per hour range in the summer. They were able to get more attractive cash-paying jobs in the [cannabis] greenhouses. Everyone’s been having some kind of experience like that. We have cannabis operations closer to our fields. It’s definitely attracted some of our labor force away from us.”
Gelacio, a 27-year-old farm worker, has worked at the same Santa Cruz County strawberry company for the last five years. He told GT in Spanish that he has not considered working for a cannabis farm and believes that if he or other workers at his company did, his employer would likely increase their wages to entice them to stay. Gelacio already receives a medical plan, paid holidays and a pension plan, and believes that his employer will need to continue to pay at least a dollar over the increasing minimum wage in order to compete with cannabis farms.
The company that Gelacio works for has not been significantly affected by the labor shortage and so far has been able to complete the work with the staff on hand, although he admits that they occasionally work on Sundays in order to finish picking berries. He says that he has not felt threatened by ICE officers because he lives close to work and doesn’t need to drive very much.
In response to the shortage, Navarro, like other farmers in the area, has reduced his acreage from 130 acres of strawberries to 93. “What’s the point of growing that amount if you can’t get to it?” he says. As a result of the labor shortage, he predicts that more production is likely to move out of state to meet market demands. Because California has the strictest food safety regulations in the country, Navarro worries that importing agricultural products from other countries may pose a safety issue, in addition to being more expensive. “It’s a shame because this entire coast of California is the best growing area for strawberries and a lot of fruits and vegetables. We’re very lucky to have an area that can produce such high-quality fruits and vegetables, but there’s areas of the market that are driving things out.”
TECH FUTURES
Farmers are looking toward new technologies for help, and machines to aid all areas of production are creeping their way onto the market. Some local lettuce farmers are already using a water knife to cut romaine hearts, tripling production over hand labor. Martinelli’s, the largest apple grower in the Pajaro Valley, is experimenting with machines that shake ripe fruit to the ground.
Perhaps the most valuable technology is in development in the strawberry industry. The most lucrative edible crop in Santa Cruz County, strawberries brought in more than $229 million in 2016, according to the most recent Crop Report. Raspberries ($158 million) and blackberries ($51 million) were the second and third most valuable crops. Many of the farmers interviewed for this story said that Driscoll’s is leading the charge with berry tech, and understandably so—the fourth-generation Watsonville-based company controls about a third of the six-billion-dollar U.S. berry market, including 60 percent of organic strawberries. Driscoll’s is said to be developing a system for growing berries on table tops that works like a house gutter, with berries grown at waist height that fall to the side, making them easy for a human hand or machine to pick. The L.A. Timesreported in July 2017 that Driscoll’s is also investing in a robotic strawberry picker, the AgroBot, that is currently being developed by Spanish inventor Juan Bravo. Bravo’s website boasts that the cutting-edge technology will feature real-time artificial intelligence to determine fruit ripeness and 3D sensing and customizable adaptations, but a market-ready prototype, by all accounts, is still a long way off. Driscoll’s did not respond to numerous inquiries about their tech projects.
“Our berries are so delicate that there’s really no avoidance of the human touch to place them in their packaging with minimal damage.” — JJ Scurich
Peixoto has also been looking into harvesting machines that have the potential to reduce his need for labor by 30-40 percent. But he isn’t taking the $65,000 to $250,000—or more—costs lightly, and admits that such investments are out of the question for most local farmers. He believes that Driscoll’s and other large growers that can afford to purchase these machines will end up renting or leasing them and their growing technologies out to other farms.
Peixoto emphasizes that they are not replacing people with these machines—they’re replacing labor that they don’t have. “They won’t eliminate the labor, but they’ll reduce the labor. We take for granted that we have a labor force that will do this harvesting, and they always have. But that labor force is dwindling, and you have to look down the road and realize it’s not going to cure itself. It’s not like we’re going to wake up two years from now with all the labor we need.”
Even so, a more immediate and sustainable solution is needed now. Says Navarro, “Simple economics tells you that we need to try to find an alternative. As the minimum wage keeps going up, it’s going to become very, very difficult to grow agriculture. You have to try alternatives. Robotics is being worked on, but it’s down the line. It’s not something you’ll see next year or even two years from now. It’s a process and it will be very expensive. How many smaller growers will be able to invest in something like that?”
A HUMAN TOUCH
Scurich remains skeptical that a strawberry harvesting robot will ever match the dexterity of the human hand. “Our berries are so delicate that there’s really no avoidance of the human touch to place them in their packaging with minimal damage,” he says. He would rather see something on the market that would help the harvester, not replace them.
Mechanization is not a viable option for many small farms, says Tom Broz of Live Earth Farm, not only because of the financial burden but because of their size. He grows about 50 different crops throughout the year on a 45-acre organic farm in Green Valley, nestled against the Santa Cruz Mountains, and mechanization for him would be very difficult. “We’re organic, we’re vegetables and it’s small scale. We can’t invest in a very expensive harvest machine if we’re only growing two to three acres of that crop,” he says.
However, Live Earth’s small size does allow him to more easily adapt to market changes, and during the height of the season he plans to change his growing schedule to plant fewer labor-intensive crops. During that time, Live Earth will grow fewer vegetables that require bunching, or need to be dug up and washed, like cilantro, radishes, carrots, beets and chard, and more crops that are easier to pick at a higher volume, like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.
Broz makes an effort to employ a permanent workforce as much as possible, which is sustained in part by their CSA program and farmers markets. Because he has steady employment to draw from, he says he hasn’t experienced the same kind of fluctuations as other farms have.
“A lot of our workers are husband and wife teams, so we try to commit ourselves to employ at least one member of the family throughout the year,” he says. “We’re a smaller operation, with less workers but more specialized and diversified. The workers we need need to be more specific in what their responsibilities and skills are.”
But he has struggled to bring in seasonal labor during the time-sensitive harvest season, especially if there’s pressure from the weather. During a heat wave last summer, he was unable to bring on enough extra labor to harvest crops before they became damaged.
While every farmer has to make different decisions based on their land, market, production and labor situations particular to their operation, he believes that in order to ensure the future of Santa Cruz’s farming industry, farms will need to provide benefits to their workers, including housing. Broz already provides 70 percent of Live Earth workers with permanent housing, and says other larger growers in Monterey have built their own farm worker housing and have been able to retain a more stable workforce. According to the California Farm Bureau, farmers throughout the state are increasingly seeking to retain more of their workforce year-round as a way to ensure that there are employees on staff for peak times.
Additionally, he believes that a viable guest worker program is absolutely necessary. “It would benefit us tremendously to be able to bring workers in from other parts of the world.We need to streamline and have a program that works for agriculture and for the workers coming over that we can track and have some kind of accountability. That’s not existent right now because in our history of how we have employed ag workers, there has never been the political will to invent something that’s more streamlined.”
GETTING ORGANIZED
A guest worker program currently exists, but is not popular among California farmers. The H-2A program allows U.S. employers to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill temporary agriculture jobs if the employer can ensure that there are not enough U.S. workers who are able to do the temporary work, and that bringing in such workers will not adversely affect the wages or working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers. However, according to a CFBF survey, fewer than 3 percent of responding farmers use H-2A workers. The local farms featured in this story fall into the 97 percent that don’t. Farmers complain that the program doesn’t meet their employment needs because it’s difficult to ensure that they will receive a worker with the appropriate skill set to harvest their particular commodity.
The process is also bureaucratically difficult and expensive. Farmers are required to house their H-2A workers, and in Santa Cruz County that can be especially difficult and costly. They can also create tension with domestic crews, who may become disgruntled when they realize that H-2A workers receive benefits that aren’t offered to them, like housing and a ride to work.
Because of their shorter growing season, berry farmers are unable to hire workers year-round. For farmers like Scurich, a comprehensive guest worker program is essential. “It’s no secret that our immigration system is really broken. The H-2A program is not a well-oiled machine and it’s difficult to get people that you request when you need them. I think the only thing that’s going to help is improvements to the immigration system or a guest worker system that’s more effective than the H-2A program currently is.”
Barajas says he hopes that farmers will consider investing in workers that are already here before possibly displacing them through guest worker programs. Now that there’s real competition for workers, the companies that employ them need to improve wages and benefits to maintain them.
“I live in Salinas. The cost of housing is really expensive in this area, and companies aren’t willing to pay enough for the cost of living,” says Barajas. Workers now have the advantage to demand better wages and benefits, or they’ll go to another company. However, even with this pressure, some farmers have been slow to react.
“I don’t see that at this point that workers are willing to work for the minimum wage. Workers understand that this is their opportunity and they have an opportunity to leave to a different company,” says Barajas.
Barajas cites Swanton Berry Farm as an example that other farms could emulate. The 80-acre organic farm is famous as the first certified organic farm in the U.S. to sign a labor contract with the UFW and offer its workers an employee stock ownership program, in addition to health insurance, vacation and holiday pay, low income housing on site, pensions and other benefits. While some farmers have already integrated some of these benefits, for others it would require a significant change to operations.
Looking toward the future, Peixoto believes that more needs to be done to encourage younger generations to pursue careers in agriculture, an industry that he feels has not earned its bad reputation.
“I really feel like agriculture gets a black eye. But there’s a lot of opportunities in agriculture. Agriculture is changing. We have GPS-guiding tractors and GPS mapping fields and [we’re] flying over them with drones and using automatic irrigation pumps—a lot of technology,” says Peixoto. “We’re going to need more people on a higher level to keep us on course.”
Inspired by this vision, Lakeside Organic Gardens has put aside $2 million into a fund to start a sustainable and organic farming education center. While it’s still in the planning stages, Peixoto hopes the center will educate school age children about opportunities in sustainable agriculture, be a “clearinghouse of information” to teach the next generation how they can own and manage farms, and educate the community about the value of agriculture and the accomplishments of the local industry.
“There are many farmers in this valley that are really committed to their labor force,” he says. “They don’t look at the labor force as a tool; they look at it as their partner in business.”
In his Watsonville restaurant, California Grille, the first thing customers see when they walk in is a huge glass etching of farm life in the valley. “It’s a way to honor the unspoken heroes of the valley, and that’s the farmworkers,” says Peixoto. “They don’t get enough praise. People talk about ‘bad immigrants’ and ‘illegal aliens,’ but they don’t realize that they’re what makes this whole valley go. They’re the locomotive that pulls the train all the way down. You can talk about the mayor or the senator, but they’re the guys that make it happen. If you talk to farmers in this valley, you’ll find that a lot of us are committed to our labor force and we want them to grow as we grow.”
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he citizens of California seem to have a talent for pioneering one regrettable socio-political phenomenon after another, years before the country as a whole heedlessly tries the same thing. There are too many examples to catalogue: the embrace of Ronald Reagan, tax cut fever, alarmist immigration phobia, and—most salient to today’s headlines—the election of a cartoonish Republican celebrity with zero government experience.
We Californians often react to the ensuing sense of déjà vu—let’s call it the California Time Warp—much like a teenager whose dad has just discovered Vampire Weekend. But writer and sociologist Manuel Pastor thinks we’d be better off cooling it with the rolling eyes and air of miffed superiority.
“The reluctance to learn from California has been there for a while,” he says. “The country always looks to its founding [East] Coast, and not to its left coast. So, we in California can either talk about this in an arrogant fashion, or we can talk about this with the humility of someone who is in recovery. Because we are. This state is in recovery from its own addiction to allowing race to divide the polity, its own addiction to quick-fix schemes, its addiction to ‘Only I can fix this problem’—which was Arnold’s pitch as well as Trump’s. We can puff out our chest and brag about some wisdom we have, or we can share the lessons from some of the mistakes we’ve made with some humility.”
Pastor is the author of a new book titled State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s Future. It’s a deep dive into the political, social and cultural upheavals that have characterized California’s history since the middle of the last century, and how those upheavals have predicted what the U.S. at large was to experience later.
Pastor, who comes to Bookshop Santa Cruz on Sunday, April 8, likes to call California “America fast-forward,” and asserts that the demographic anxiety, the economic uncertainty and the profiteering from political polarization that has characterized the Trump Era is essentially the story of California in the 1990s. “The United States right now is going through its own Prop. 187 moment,” he says, in reference to the infamous 1994 “Save Our State” ballot initiative that sought to crack down on illegal immigration. Though approved by voters, the law was later ruled unconstitutional.
“Think about all that happened [in California in the ’90s]—Prop. 187, the elimination of bilingual education, the elimination of affirmative action,” says Pastor, a former UC Santa Cruz student who also taught at UCSC for a decade. “We thought that scapegoating immigrants would somehow recover the economy. It didn’t work. And it sounds a lot like what the nation is doing right now.”
State of Resistance was not conceived as a reaction to the election of Donald Trump, says Pastor. In fact, he had begun work on the book long before the 2016 presidential election, and was anticipating a Hillary Clinton presidency. “I started writing this book mostly because I was afraid that what happened when Obama won would continue to happen when Hillary won.” He’s referring to heavy Democratic Party electoral losses in state houses during the Obama years.
After the 2016 election, Pastor’s calculus changed. Led by majority Democrats and Gov. Jerry Brown, California began to position itself in opposition to the Trump administration on a number of issues, and Pastor began to trace California’s recent transformation to a citadel of blue-state values. But he’s careful not to go overboard on the California Dream narrative, pointing to huge challenges the state faces in such areas as income inequality and the ongoing housing crisis, “which is indeed pushing people away from the coast and even out of the state.”
Pastor stresses that State of Resistance is not only for Californians. It’s an American story, and as such, his book has been getting attention in states beyond California.
“It’s on people’s radar for a number of reasons,” he said, citing upcoming dates in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. “When you look at the parallels between the U.S. today and California in the ’90s, it’s so obvious that people are really intrigued. And within the state, we’ve lived through this dramatic 25-year transformation. And people are excited to see the story being told in a way in which they can see themselves in it.”
INFO: 7 p.m., Sunday, April 8. Bookshop Santa Cruz. Free.
How would you write a love song if you were living in apocalyptic times? That’s the idea behind the song “Roselit Bone” on the debut album by the band of the same name, 2014’s Blacken & Curl.
“Love me like you love the ocean/love me like you love the open sea/There are horses on the road and my legs are weak,” sings Joshua McCaslin. Not every song on the record is so obviously about love in the apocalypse, but this backdrop is where McCaslin finds himself when he’s writing music.
“There was a time where I was pretty emotionally affected by global warming and how I saw the future of the planet,” McCaslin says. “When you’re writing a love song or something, the backdrop to that—if you’re looking into the future—is that things are going to be pretty bad outside of that relationship [even] if the relationship is good.”
Musically, it’s a tight fit. The songs are dark, folk-rooted songs, with an ensemble of seemingly random instruments producing what sounds like the soundtrack to a depressing end-of-the-world film where all the characters can do is wait for their imminent deaths.
Clearly, Roselit Bone’s Western-dive-bar-meets-dystopian-future isn’t a gimmick; it’s exactly what McCaslin feels.
“For a while, the way I saw things going was there was going to be some sort of global catastrophe. It’s still happening. Florida is probably going to be half underwater. New Orleans isn’t going to be there anymore in 50 years. That is always in the back of my mind when I’m writing songs,” McCaslin says.
Originally from Orange County, McCaslin moved to Oregon with his then-girlfriend (now wife), living in the unfinished basement of her parents’ cabin in rural coastal Oregon, which was miles away from any city. Unable to find work and barely scraping by, this is where McCaslin started writing the music that would land on Roselit Bone’s debut.
“All there was to do was go to the local library and grab music theory books and jazz albums and sit down and study them. I would spend 10 hours a day studying music theory on my own,” McCaslin says. “That sound came together once we left that place. I feel like you can’t appreciate a place until you move away from it. I was scrambling for money in the middle of the woods, just try to stay alive.”
The band started as a duo with McCaslin on guitar and vocals and Ben Dahme on drums. The songs were dark, but much more folk-oriented in those days.
As they played more, McCaslin thought it would be a good idea to expand into an unexpected instrument: the trumpet.
“The trumpet seemed like a good addition for what we were doing. Eventually I decided that the two-trumpet sound was what I needed, so we added a second,” McCaslin says.
Today they are a nine-piece, including a flute, pedal steel and accordion. The lineup seems like it was assembled by the spin of a roulette wheel—which is sort of true, but it also helped to create a uniquely dark and musically ambiguous sound.
“As I added instruments, I got better at arranging things and would hear space for something else. I wasn’t necessarily looking for these different instruments, but when I saw these members playing I sort of made a place for them in the songwriting,” McCaslin says.
By the time McCaslin wrote their second album, Blister Steel, he found himself interested in how people are affected by mental illness. The world in Blister Steel isn’t exactly a friendly place, but let’s just say that it’s not so completely bleak.
McCaslin feels the improvement in his own living situation has tempered his outlook at bit. He still believes everything is heading toward destruction, but now he sees more people pushing back against the void.
“Everyone I see is losing their minds about what’s going on in politics. Now I feel like the person that’s like, ‘It’s going to be alright. We’ve been living with these things for a while now,’” McCaslin says. “But I still think it’s going to be bad.”
Roselit Bone plays at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, April 11, at the Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $10. 429-6994.
Free Will astrology for the week of April 4, 2018.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Eighty-three-year-old author Harlan Ellison has had a long and successful career. In the course of publishing hundreds of literary works in seven different genres, he has won numerous awards. But when he was in his 30s, there was an interruption in the upward arc of his career. The film production company Walt Disney Studios hired him as a writer. During his first day on the job, Roy Disney overheard Ellison joking with a coworker about using Disney characters in an animated pornographic movie. Ellison was fired on the spot. I am by no means predicting a comparable event in your life, Aries. On the contrary. By giving you this heads-up, I’m hoping you’ll be scrupulous and adroit in how you act in the early stages of a new project—so scrupulous and adroit that you will sail on to the next stages.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Are you an evolving Taurus or an unevolving Taurus? Are you an aspiring master of gradual, incremental progress or a complacent excuse-maker who secretly welcomes inertia? Will the theme of your next social media post be “The Smart Art of Compromise” or “The Stingy Glory of Stubbornness”? I’m hoping you will opt for the former rather than the latter in each of the three choices I just offered. Your behavior in the coming weeks will be pivotal in your long-term ability to animate your highest self and avoid lapsing into your mediocre self.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): If you fly in a passenger jet from New York to London, the trip usually takes more than six hours. But on January 8, 2015, a powerful jet stream surging across the North Atlantic reduced that time significantly. With the wind’s extra push, several flights completed the trip in five hours and 20 minutes. I suspect you’ll have comparable assistance in the course of your upcoming journeys and projects, Gemini. You’ll feel like the wind is at your back.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Actor Keanu Reeves’ career ascended to a higher level when he appeared as a lead character in the film Speed. It was the first time he had been a headliner in a big-budget production. But he turned down an offer to reprise his starring role in the sequel, Speed 2. Instead he toured with his grunge band Dogstar and played the role of Hamlet in a production staged by a local theater company in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I admire him for being motivated more by love and passion than by fame and fortune. In my estimation, Cancerian, you face a choice that in some ways resembles Keanu’s, but in other ways doesn’t. You shouldn’t automatically assume that what your ego craves is opposed to what your heart yearns for and your soul needs.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A Leo sculptor I know is working on a 40-foot-long statue of a lion. Another Leo friend borrowed $30,000 to build a recording studio in her garage so she can pursue her quixotic dream of a music career. Of my other Leo acquaintances, one is writing a memoir of her time as a black-market orchid smuggler, another just did four sky dives in three days, and another embarked on a long-postponed pilgrimage to Slovenia, land of her ancestors. What about you? Are there any breathtaking challenges or smart gambles you’re considering? I trust you can surf the same astrological wave.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): How sexy is it possible for you to be? I’m referring to authentic soul-stirring sexiness, not the contrived, glitzy, counterfeit version. I’m alluding to the irresistible magnetism that wells up in you when you tap into your core self and summon a reverent devotion to your life’s mission. However sexy it is possible for you to be, Virgo, I suggest you unleash that magic in the coming weeks. It’s the most reliable strategy for attracting the spiritual experiences and material resources and psychological support you need.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): According to my analysis of the cosmic omens, your impact is rising. You’re gaining influence. More people are tuning in to what you have to offer. And yet your stress levels also seem to be increasing. Why is that? Do you assume that having more power requires you to endure higher tension? Do you unconsciously believe that being more worried is the price of being more responsible? If so, banish that nonsense. The truth is this: The best way to manage your growing clout is to relax into it. The best way to express your growing clout is to relax into it.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The immediate future will challenge you to revisit several fundamental Scorpio struggles. For best results, welcome these seeming intrusions as blessings and opportunities, and follow these guidelines: 1. Your control over external circumstances will increase in direct proportion to your control over your inner demons. 2. Your ability to do what you want will thrive to the degree that you stop focusing on what you don’t want. 3. Your skill at regulating and triumphing over chaos will be invincible if you’re not engrossed in blaming others.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I’m about to say things that sound extraordinary. And it’s possible that they are in fact a bit overblown. But even if that’s the case, I trust that there is a core of truth in them. So rejoice in their oracular radiance. First, if you have been hoping for a miracle cure, the next four weeks will be a time when you’re more likely than usual to find it or generate it. Second, if you have fantasized about getting help to address a seemingly irremediable problem, asking aggressively for that help now will lead to at least a partial fix. Third, if you have wondered whether you could ever retrieve a lost or missing part of your soul, the odds are more in your favor than they’ve been in a long time.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The French government defines books as an “essential good,” along with water, bread, and electricity. Would you add anything to that list of life’s basics? Companionship? Stories? Deep sleep? Pleasurable exercise and movement? Once you identify your “essential goods,” I invite you to raise the level of reverence and care you give them. Take an oath to treat them as holy treasures. Boost your determination and ability to get all you need of their blessings. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to enhance your appreciation of the fundamentals you sometimes take for granted.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Buckingham Palace is the home and office of the Queen of England. It has been the main royal residence since Queen Victoria took the throne in 1837. But in earlier times, the site served other purposes. The 17th-century English lawyer Clement Walker described the building occupying that land as a brothel, a hotbed of “debauchery.” Before that the space was a mulberry garden where silkworms tuned mulberry leaves into raw material for silk fabrics. I see the potential for an almost equally dramatic transformation of a certain place in your life, Aquarius. Start dreaming and scheming about the possibilities.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Poet Carolyn Forché is a role model for how to leave one’s comfort zone. In her early career, she earned writing degrees at placid universities near her childhood home in the American Midwest. Her first book mined material about her family; its first poem is addressed to her grandmother. But then she relocated to El Salvador, where she served as a human rights advocate during that country’s civil war. Later she lived and wrote in Lebanon at the height of its political strife. Her drive to expand her range of experience invigorated her poetry and widened her audience. Would you consider drawing inspiration from Forché in the coming weeks and months, Pisces? I don’t necessarily recommend quite so dramatic a departure for you, but even a mild version will be well rewarded.
Homework: Buy or make yourself a present that encourages you to be more generous. Report results at Freewillastrology.com.
We are in the midst of the Three Spring festivals—Aries (Easter, last week), Taurus (Wesak, Buddha Festival) and Gemini (Festival of Humanity). All festivals in all religions are based upon astrology, the timing of the heavens. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “The path of Souls to Ascension (Resurrection Initiation) lies through the 12 signs of the zodiac,” and all church (and esoteric) festivals today are based, not upon historical dates in connection with the outstanding religious figures to which they refer, but upon the times and the seasons (astrology).
The Three Spring Festivals create a template for the new spiritual year. Along with the new and full moons that follow (which are also festivals) the Three Spring Festivals (Aries, Taurus, Gemini) direct humanity toward the Path of Return through the use of the sacred astrological knowledge. And so, the question: what is astrology?
Astrology is a “unified field theory that directs us along in our search for spiritual truth. Astrology (as we study it here) allows one to “know the self” (words inscribed over the Mystery Temples) and cultivates within each of us the knowledge that we are each of great value (to self, to others and to the world). At each of the Spring Festivals, great Forces stream into the Earth to assist humanity. At Easter/Aries, the Forces of Restoration, “restoring humanity’s psychological health and well-being.” At the Wesak (Taurus) Festival, when the Buddha makes his yearly visit, the Forces of Enlightenment stream forth. At Gemini, it is the forces of Reconstruction. The New Group of World Servers stand with these Divine Forces. Join us, everyone.
ARIES: Often your compassion and sympathy are so well hidden it’s thought you don’t possess these virtues. You do, but it takes effort to bring these forth and this will occur this month. No longer can you draw the curtain on spiritual realities. No longer will we think you don’t have tender feelings. No longer can you push these away believing they interfere with daily life. They are actually guide posts, talismans, amulets, and protective magnetic charms.
TAURUS: It is important to begin to assess your goals, hopes and wishes for the future. As you do this, others are reaching out to you from groups and organizations asking for your professional sense of the world and direction forward. Cultivating, encouraging and strengthening the intelligence within your group is a task only you can do at this time. The group needs nurturing, too. Can you step into these shoes?
GEMINI: There’s a continued assessment concerning your work in the world and how you’re recognized. Soon there will be a new sense of vitality and invigoration and how you see your potential coming forth. Why not make a list of all the things you can do? Then list all that you hope to do and how you aspire to serve others. These lists allow you to have a deeper and greater self-identity. How do you want to be remembered? And what do you idealize?
CANCER: In college I was asked to write a paper on altruism. That word has since been a part of my life and it appears in the most unexpected times and places. I would suggest you write a short paper on altruism because it is responsible for creating new philosophical ideas, attitudes and visions in your life from now on. Whether you travel or not, your mind is traveling far distances. Seeking a greater life plan.
LEO: You will be thinking of new things to do, new endeavors, challenges, and new ways of using your resources. Notice that your intuition and perception are very strong at this time. If you tune in quietly within, you will know who loves you. Concern about resources continues. However, soon this concern will evaporate. Did you expect something that didn’t occur? What would fulfill you these days?
VIRGO: Are you being diplomatic, re-defining relationships and sharing more? Someone significant is either in need or you need them. Do you feel there is a lack of support? If so, begin to support others and that which you give is returned. Be truly gracious. Don’t put on an act or act in terms of others’ expectations. Learn how to be authentically gracious. It has to do with the heart.
LIBRA: It will be time this week to get down to business, to begin to be practical every hour of the day and to establish routines that will handle the detail of changes occurring in your life. Attempt to work with enthusiasm, summon efficiency and organization, ask for assistance (from humans and angels), eliminate everything not needed, and make health and well-being your first priority.
SCORPIO: You need some just-for-fun endeavors, things playful yet passionate. You also need something or someone calling forth your creative gifts. Only when creativity is involved are you truly pleased. Always you think of your impact on the world. This is good, allowing you to be brave and bold and always rebuilding your confidence and self-identity. You’ll express yourself this week and the next and the next.
SAGITTARIUS: Are you paying attention to what your feelings and intuitions are telling you? Are you assessing what creates safety and security for you? Are you stirring up activity at home, leaving home, seeking home, or needing a home? What are your support systems? Everything that leads to re-organization is occurring and this will continue. What new creative arts are following you around these days?
CAPRICORN: Are you feeling hopeful concerning creative endeavors, children, family and loved ones? Are you to transform parts of your life? Know that being creative offsets all disappointments. Sometimes you dream of things so significant and beautiful they take a long-time manifesting. Over time they actually will. Express your feelings in a neutral tone. Be conscious of love in your heart. Ask everyone to listen.
AQUARIUS: An ease in public and social situations may be felt this week. However, tend carefully and with detail to daily life tasks. When you are at ease with yourself a rapport with others develops spontaneously. Walk around the neighborhood, stroll down the middle of town, make phone calls, tend to bills and monetary responsibilities, assess your environments, be alert, contact others, be gracious and communicative. And realize with gratitude all that you value surrounds you.
PISCES: You’re wondering how to recreate, look and express yourself differently. You find it most important to present your authentic self. You think of stopping some things. Perhaps going on retreat for a while. It’s important for you to be both strong and kind, to seek understanding and harmony with others and for your actions to be understood and not misinterpreted. Often you dream your way through life, learning self-confidence through self-realization. You are brave.
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s if the fresh harvests aren’t reason enough to earn our devotion, the Farmers Markets summer Pop-Up Breakfast Series promises delicious culinary experiences. The summer gatherings starting at 10 a.m. are a chance to sit down to a zesty morning meal with friends and neighbors, listen to live music, and share seasonal plates created by top local chefs and graduates of the FoodWhat program. On-site cooking creates mouth-watering aromas that permeate the entire market. Four breakfasts are planned for the summer, $45 each, with the last one—a benefit for special market programs—priced at $75 per ticket. On June 9, join Chef Brad Briske of Home Restaurant as he makes breakfast magic up at the Scotts Valley Market. June 30, at the Westside Market, join Chef Marshall Bishop of Soif. On July 28 Chef Katherine Stern of La Posta will do breakfast honors at the Westside. And the final Aug. 18 Breakfast Pop-Up features the handiwork of Chef Kendra Baker of Assembly.
Sneak previews: on June 9, Briske will be whipping up a luxurious egg salad on Home’s house bread, plus a beef, lettuce and heirloom tomato sandwich with aioli, and dessert of bacon fat shortcake with stone fruit and sauce. On July 28 Katherine Stern plans a breakfast of savory rice porridge with pickled chili, Fiesta Farm chicken sausage, and a sweet finish of almond cake with stone fruit and whipped ricotta. Yes, I am getting hungry. For details and tickets go to santacruzfarmersmarket.org.
Market Share
Only if your tastebuds are in a coma do you fail to anticipate the seasonal renaissance that happens this time of year at the Downtown Farmers Market. Spring brings the most delicate and sought-after harvests, those primavera specialties that foretell the full blossoming of summer and its robust landscape of fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, and their produce friends.
Starting April 4, the Downtown Farmers Market kicks into high gear with its spring/summer hours, 1 to 6 p.m. every Wednesday. The days are longer, and more sun means more everything! Fava beans, strawberries, green garlic, and cherries—these always mean spring to me. It’s been a year since I could inhale the perfume of berries at their very best, and right now they’re all worth indulging. Fresh asparagus is one of the jewels of the spring harvest, and the gorgeous colors of soft multi-petaled ranunculi are impossible to resist. This is the time of year that I can truly adorn my table with fresh flowers, adding visual pleasure to our dinners.
Don’t miss the must-have bok choy blossoms waiting for you at the Happy Boy farm stand. Try them in any stir-fry, on salads, or atop your favorite burger.
Extended spring/summer hours mean you have more time to stroll, graze, and fill your grocery bag at the Downtown Market. Nothing beats locally sourced produce or the best from artisanal chefs. Join me, your friends, and your neighbors in this vibrant tradition.
Dare to Pair
Always so much fun is this chance to check out the intriguing alliances between wines made by the Surf City Vintners group (the ones clustered near Kelly’s on the Westside), and culinary students from the Cabrillo College Culinary Arts Program. Sunday, April 15, graze from noon to 3 p.m., sample the food and wine pairings and vote for your favorites. Tickets ($75), benefit the Cabrillo culinary arts program—lots of wine and lots of seriously woke food. Winners will be announced at 4:30 p.m. during a block-long after party. Wineries include Bartolo, Equinox, Quinta Cruz, Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, Silver Mountain Vineyards, Sones Cellars, Stockwell Cellars and Storrs Winery. For tickets or more information, visit daretopair.org.
After hearing concerns from environmentalists who hated the city of Santa Cruz’s plan to build a library below a parking garage downtown, city leaders today announced an unprecedented flip-flop.
“We’ve literally turned our plans upside down,” City Manager Martín Bernal says. “We are looking at this with a whole new perspective. We’ll no longer be putting a brand new library below five levels of parking. Instead, we’re suggesting that the city build a brand new library on topof five levels of parking.”
Bernal says he and Mayor David Terrazas always believed the previous version would have been great for Santa Cruz, citing a parking shortage, as well as needs for a fully revamped library.
“But we listened to community input, and we’re very happy with the new direction,” he adds. “We think the community will be as well.”
Terrazas views the new plan as a win-win for everyone. On the one hand, it offers the exact same number of parking spaces as the previous version. And at same time, Terrazas notes, this new plan has no library underneath a parking garage. “Because the library would be on top of the parking garage,” he says.
Bernal provided us with the following schematic:
The plan has also calmed the nerves of Don’t Bury the Library members and activists worried about the library and garage combination.
“I like the new approach because we won’t have to worry about reading books while cars are parking overhead,” says environmentalist Rick Longinotti. “Honestly, we would have preferred a bike shop or garden on top of the garage, but for the most part, it addresses our concerns.”
To submit comments on the city’s new plan, email ap*********@*************uz.com, or call 831-APRIL-FOOL. No, seriously, it’s a joke.
Here’s a crazy fact to kick off this issue: more people voted in our Best of Santa Cruz County balloting than ever before. This, at a time when newspapers are supposedly headed the way of the dinosaur, and the public’s trust in the media is allegedly at historic lows. I don’t want to get mushy here, but sometimes it honestly blows my mind the way Good Times’ relationship with the Santa Cruz community seems to buck every trend. The specialness of that relationship is always in the back of my mind when I’m looking over the paper before it goes to press, but there are two times a year that really hits me where I live: our Santa Cruz Gives edition, and the Best of Santa Cruz County issue.
For Best-of, there’s a certain cycle that starts every year—with panic, when I realize I’ve temporarily forgotten how this 164-page monster even gets done. Then I start to talk with our writers and art director about everything we could do, and remember what an opportunity this is. Maybe it’s because this is the biggest issue of the year, but for some reason everybody involved does their best work—not just our writers, designers and artists, but also the ad staff, publisher, circulation manager, delivery drivers. Everybody pulls together a massive effort to make this happen.
Which brings us to now, as I’m reading over the paper and marveling at the look of it, as created by Rosie Eckerman and Tabi Zarrinnaal; the eminently entertaining editors’ picks from the editorial staff; and even just the insane anecdote about the Flower Shack that Lily Stoicheff uncovered for her write-up of Best Flower Shop. (It’s in the Shopping & Services section.) I can’t wait for you to read it—that’s when this whole thing that readers started by voting for their favorite people, places and things comes full circle.
Above all, I’m struck by one thing: I’ve already forgotten how we did this. I hope I remember by next year.
In the last five years, there have been 302 school shootings in the U.S.; this year alone, 19 children have been murdered in berserk massacres at their schools. We grieve for every one of them, for their families and for the teachers and friends who loved them. We now know that last month’s shooter in Florida bought his AR-15 in one of 39 states that don’t have restrictions on purchasing semi-automatic weapons.
This is a public health crisis. And a moral one.
It’s puzzling and appalling to us that so much resistance around gun control comes from decidedly Christian quarters. Is Christianity really compatible with the tenets and orthodoxy of the NRA? What might Jesus or Buddha have said to those who support “the right to bear arms” (and especially the murderous assault weapons recently used in school shootings) at the expense of the lives of children, teachers and others?
Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars agree that Jesus chased money changers from the Temple courtyard, in brave protest of the ways greed corrupts public life and deadens moral courage. As a faithful Jew, Jesus was moved by a prophetic vision of peace and nonviolent compassion among all peoples. What would he say about the NRA funneling huge donations to legislators who oppose sane restrictions on guns and automatic weapons? What would Jesus do in response to weapons manufacturers who profit by upwards of $30 billion annually by creating the means for horrifying violence around the world?
Would Jesus sit idly by?
The way of life Jesus taught means giving one’s own life rather than taking the lives of others. “Who would save one’s life will lose it; who would lose one’s life will save it.” The way of life Buddha taught means understanding that harming others also harms oneself, that having integrity and a strong moral compass means valuing all life.
Almost a year to the day before the Parkland high school shooting, President Trump signed legislation, passed by the Senate and House, striking down a sensible Obama rule designed to prevent individuals with debilitating mental conditions from buying guns. It is high time—as student survivors in Florida are now insisting—to stop this madness.
And it is time for Christians to stand up, be counted, and reject the obscenely dangerous dictates of the gun lobby.
We plead with our sister and brother religious leaders of all spiritualities to take this moment to heart. “Do not stand idly by . . . ” we read in T’nach, the Hebrew Scriptures, the same scriptures Jesus called his own, “ . . . while your fellow human being is bleeding.” We urge our friends to get involved, speak truth to power and end the carnage in our American schools.
Rabbi Philip Posner & Rev. David Grishaw-Jones | Progressive Interfaith Forum of Santa Cruz County
The 1960 agreement between Santa Cruz and the new UCSC was 27,000 students. That should be honored. The fact is UCSC has done a terrible job in planning, designing and building a campus that is remotely desirable for students and faculty alike when you consider they were given a 2,000-acre blank slate. They sold it as a City on the Hill and came up way short. At this point, a public-private partnership should happen and a new Student Only Village needs to be built on the Westside in the old industrial area. It would take a lot of pressure off the local rental stock by giving students a no-brainer place to live while also providing a nice temporary labor pool for the tourist industry. A win all the way around.
— Bob Schneider
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@*******es.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
MOVING TARGET
The county’s annual activity guide is now available from the Santa Cruz County Department of Parks, Open Space and Cultural Services—offering residents new ways to learn, play and see the world. The 2018-19 guide is currently being mailed to those living in the unincorporated area. It’s available online at scparks.com. The guide includes pickling, meditation, stargazing, gardening, and Zombie Camp for kids. The city of Santa Cruz now has its summer guide out too, and sign-ups begin April 14 at cityofsantacruz.com.
GOOD WORK
SCORE SUBJECT
Life in Warrior Nation hasn’t been all golden lately. The Santa Cruz Warriors missed the playoffs by a significant margin, losing three of their last four. Meanwhile, the Golden State Warriors are losing too, as their stars recover from injuries and rest for the playoffs, where two-time NBA Stephen Curry will miss at least a few games. In has stepped guard Quinn Cook, who’s been playing on a two-way contract with Santa Cruz and Golden State. Cook has averaged 20 points, five rebounds and five assists over five games.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.”
