As the late Christopher Hitchens reportedly said, “Everyone has a book inside them, which is exactly where it should, I think, in most cases, remain.”
Yet in our highly literate and educated community, there are so many budding authors with important stories to tell, clawing their way to be heard.
The odds are staggeringly bad, as bad as the 10–year-old gamer who wants to make millions as an influencer or the street basketball player who wants to make the NBA.
Some 3 million books were published in the US in 2021, 2.3 million of them were self-published (it seems like that could cover Santa Cruz alone, ha). Those numbers have grown by more than 10 times in the last 16 years, according to Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Authors are lucky if they sell 1,000 books and writers have a 1% chance of getting their work into a bookstore. No other industry introduces as many new products.
The dream of making it big with a book is long gone. So what can a writer do? Author and publisher Steve Kettmann interviews some successful Santa Cruz authors about what they did to sell their works in our must-read cover story, for those who still read!
This is great information for the 300,000 of you with manuscripts in your desk drawers.
Someday soon, we’ll analyze how many podcasts are out there.
Like book publishers, Santa Cruz has a restaurant that claims to have the area’s most eclectic menu. That’s the Santa Cruz Diner. Is there one with more choices? Check Mark C. Anderson’s column to see.
Congressman Jimmy Panetta came to town and those who might have been expecting big protests would be disappointed. It was a depressing talk about healthcare cuts and how the area will be affected, but no real solutions. Read Isabella Blevins’ article for more.
Psychedelics have always been mystical, even if not everyone taking them does it for spiritual reasons. Learn more about the “Church of the Mushroom” in an article by DNA.
Thanks for reading.
Brad Kava | Editor
PHOTO CONTEST
DOG GONE She may look innocent but she’s conjuring up something. My little companion Tazzie. She’s a laugh a minute, I love her so! Hiding in our couch in Aptos.
Photograph by Ellen Merritt
GOOD IDEA
The Surf City Comic Con returns to the Capitola Mall April 5, 9:30am–5pm, with comic artists, collectibles, toys, dogs from the SPCA, costume contests and general fun for nerds and wannabe nerds. Seriously, it’s so great to have this in our town, says the nerd writing this. Prices are $15–$20. Kids under 10 are free with a paid adult. It’s in the old Sears building.
GOOD WORK
Thousands are expected Saturday in Santa Cruz and across the country to protest the current administration’s policies. In their words: “Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. Santa Cruz is fighting back!
“They’re taking everything they can get their hands on—our health care, our data, our jobs, our services—and daring the world to stop them. This is a crisis, and the time to act is now.
“On Saturday, April 5th, we’re taking to the streets to fight back with a clear message: Hands off! “ Where: 701 Ocean St. Santa Cruz, CA 95060 on the Water St. side of the building. When: 12pm–2pm on April 5, 2025”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Only caring about your own rights is exactly how you lose them.” —popular meme
Inside the tiny, sparse office of the Holy Trinity of Divine Church, you are greeted by septuagenarian Bart Clanton. While he doesn’t resonate with titles like pastor, Clanton is behind the formation, and ethos, of the church.
“It’s a syncretic religion,” Clanton begins. “And a syncretic religion basically takes parts of different beliefs and different religions and creates something new.” One does have to “join the church” online, or in person. A California driver’s license is required.
You can prostrate, flagellate, meditate or pray your entire lifetime and never reach a glimpse of enlightenment—the godhead, the source of all sources, or any sign that you are even being heard. Well, if talking to the mystery of mysteries piques your interest, this might be the church for you. Santa Cruz’s The Holy Trinity of Divine Church offers a sacrament that can give you an immediate experience into the infinite. And that sacrament is a mushroom—of the genus Psilocybe.
Don’t immediately dismiss this as all fringe lunacy. Michael Pollan’s 2018 New York Times bestseller, How to Change Your Mind, has an entire chapter dedicated to the history of this particular kind of shroom. Psilocybin cubensis was brought to our modern culture’s attention in 1957, in a photo essay titled Seeking the Magic Mushroom, in Life magazine.
Perhaps it was the mushroom’s reputation as a “wonder drug”—seemingly with positive effects on everything from alcoholism to anxiety and a host of other disorders—that made the tiny shroom a large threat. By 1966 it was made illegal, as a Schedule 1 drug, alongside incredibly addictive drugs like heroin. But due to people like Pollan, and an enthusiastic and organized movement to decriminalize psilocybin in Denver, Colorado—the little shroom that couldn’t can again.
Consider this. What if everyone was dead wrong about most aspects of reality? What if this dimension of iPhones, jobs, rent and social media isn’t all there is? What if the sacrament challenged all your preconceived notions of what your life was actually about? What if there were untold other dimensions that we could inhabit? Not imaginative hallucinations, but tangible ones that you could visit for hours, that cement “the otherness” in your psyche.
Clanton doesn’t mince words when it comes to the church. “When the mushroom is consecrated it becomes the essence of God. It’s called Transubstantiation.”
This is not just an idea of Western civilization. The Aztecs used a mushroom to produce visions, called teonanácatl, which translates to “flesh of the gods.” The mushroom and god have a long history, so if you decide to enter the church, you’re walking into a stream that has flowed for longer than recorded history.
Perhaps the most acknowledged philosopher who spoke about the so-called Magic Mushroom was Terence McKenna, who sought to crush the woo woo nonsense he had heard about the mushroom but instead became its biggest advocate. Like Saul on the road to Damascus, what McKenna experienced was profound. From that point on, McKenna spoke in elegant passages about how it was specifically the mushroom that caused Homo sapiens to evolve. McKenna also espoused that mushrooms could also be a communication tool, used by aliens, to spread knowledge throughout the universe.
“The Eleusinian Mysteries,” Clanton starts, “were a Greek initiation ceremony that Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was a member of. They would take a psychedelic, be it mushroom or ergot, and talk with god. It wasn’t a belief, it was an actual experience.”
Clanton is very hands-on when you visit, so be sure to listen closely. “We get a lot of different kinds of people. Some tried it in the 1960s and wanted to revisit the terrain. I always try to guide them on what particular mushroom they’re looking for. And what the correct dose would be. It’s not just the gram dosage that I look at, but the concentration within that particular mushroom. They all have different strengths.”
Having spent years getting the church up and running, Clanton is clear on his message. “I’m just here to help facilitate and guide people in direct ways, so they’re having good experiences, and then they come back and they tell the story. Amazing stories of how it changed their lives.”
It had never occurred to Aurore Sibley, a Capitola writer and musician, that the Wisconsin alternative weekly where her late father was arts and entertainment editor through most of the 1970s could be a topic for her to write about—let alone the subject of an entire book.
Then in August 2023 she visited former colleagues of her dad, Gary Peterson, and developed the kind of obsession that leads people to want to write and publish books, no matter how steep the climb.
The result is Sibley’s upcoming book—Some Things Don’t Burn, due out from Wisconsin Historical Society Press in fall 2026—about the founding of the Bugle American, an alternative weekly published from 1970 to 1978.
The 1970s were a period of social change and resulting tension. The Bugle offices were fire-bombed in February 1975, when five staff members were living upstairs from the newspaper offices and could easily have been killed. All five were able to escape “with nothing but their pajamas,” as Sibley puts it.
Sibley’s story of finding a book right under her nose can and should inspire others looking to make some small difference in a world tilting off its axis. Books, despite the romance to which some might wish to associate with them, are really just an expression of the personal journey of a writer.
For Sibley, also a practitioner of craniosacral therapy, and a single mother, this was a project that helped her get to know her father, who died in December 2011 after years of declining health.
“I wanted to hear stories about my dad during those times,” she says. “I started reaching out to former staff, and the more people I talked to the more I was referred to, and it snowballed from an article into a book. I was born in 1976, so a lot of the people I talked to remembered me as a baby. It was really cool to hear so many stories about my dad. One of the most striking things was how many people said, ‘Your dad was my mentor,’ or ‘Your dad was my sherpa.’ He really encouraged other writers and really helped them find their way, trusting new writers and new photographers with new assignments. So that was really fun to hear.”
Pathways to Publishing
The book publishing industry has gone through seismic shifts in recent years. In the 21 years since I published my own first book, One Day at Fenway, in August 2004, through the Atria imprint of Simon & Schuster, the New York publishing industry has less and less room for what are called midlist titles, namely, those unlikely to be runaway bestsellers.
Since then I’ve worked on more than twenty books, as author, coauthor, editor or publisher, including six New York Times bestsellers, and the conclusion I’ve come to is: Better to write books through authentic, quirky, unquenchable passion, better to make it a labor of love powered by a calling to tell a particular story, than to attempt to forge some writerly brand or career to meet the expectations of gatekeepers along the way.
In other words, if you’re inclined to doom scroll through tidbits of Advice for Writers or Tips to Have YOUR Book Bring You Fame and Glory, of even if you expect to make a living on writing, it might be a good idea to just chuck all those assumptions into the dumpster and reassess. Storytelling is for those who have to tell stories, who cannot live without the pursuit. The long slog of bringing a book along is for those who crave a glimpse of the underlying edifice of clarity that emerges when one can bring a narrative together on the page in a compelling and satisfying way.
A number of trends have converged to stifle the imagination required to take a bold approach to finding one’s own path, thinking of books in a fresh and fearless way. Not so long ago, many book authors had spent time as newspaper reporters and though they might have learned some bad habits along the way, they also often had some sense of the world as it actually is, out there in the streets, not just in a book or a classroom or a chatroom. Didion, Garcia Marquez, Twain–all nourished their writerly imaginations through reporting …
That, however, has become harder than ever. A number of trends have converged to stifle the imagination required to take a bold approach to finding one’s own path, thinking of books in a fresh and fearless way.
Here’s a bold proposition: For books to regain their role in the American collective imagination, regaining the moral leverage required to prod and encourage and inspire, we will need more of the do-it-yourself spirit of individual would-be writers daring to do it their way. I’m totally serious. So if you’re a writer or want to be a writer, come to our Wellstone Center in the Redwoods Author Talk Event this Saturday (details below), exploring different routes to publication.
COLLECTING STORIES Samantha Schoech’s ‘My Mother’s Boyfriends’ grew out of a piece she published in a literary journal. Photo: Contributed
Small Press, Big Response
Bay Area writer Samantha Schoech, one of our participants in the talk, has made a nice splash with her first book, a story collection with a grabber of a title—and cover: My Mother’s Boyfriends, which shows a black-and-white image of a man ogling the rear end of a woman who appears very much in color.
Schoech, formerly book editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and currently a staff writer for The New York Times’ Wirecutter section, spent years developing the idea of this particular collection, partly by writing stories and waiting to see if some of the stories told her they wanted to be bound together. (Some of the work on the book came in residence at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods.)
It all started with Schoech’s first story in a major literary journal, “Sudden Fictions,” published in ZYZZYVA in 1997. She did not conceive that work as part of a larger collection, but over the years a vision slowly formed. “At some point, about five or six years ago, I realized I had enough stories that made sense together to start thinking about a collection,” Schoech says. “I have written many, many stories not in the book, but I started to see a thematic pattern emerge that I wanted to follow. The stories in this collection are very much about family connections, mothers and daughters, and people trying to navigate their own morality. I love otherwise good characters making questionable or even terrible moral decisions.”
Put another way, Schoech likes to make readers uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable. It’s a balancing act, deciding how far to go. “Many of Schoech’s characters,” wrote Hannah Bae in a San Francisco Chronicle review, “lead lives that haven’t been burnished by privilege and are thus seldom depicted in literary fiction: They’re tenuously employed adjunct professors; divorcées trying, and not always succeeding, at doing their best in their personal lives; children living on the margins; and gravely injured high school teachers.”
It was hardly a given that the book could find a publisher, given its unwillingness to play by a neat set of rules. Schoech refers to her struggle to find a publisher as a “long, twisted tale full of woe,” though in the end the story had a happy outcome. “My agent wasn’t interested in trying to sell a book of short stories and so I didn’t even try to go to a ‘Big Five’ publisher,” she says. “I sent this manuscript out to university presses, and contests for about four years on my own.”
She was a runner-up for many prizes, important positive feedback in its way, but not the kind of validation that could help get the attention of a publisher. She persevered. “I entered a contest with 7.13 Press, a tiny, independent press in LA that specializes in debut fiction, and didn’t win,” she says. “But about a year later the publisher came back to me to say he hadn’t stopped thinking about my book and asked if it was still available. It was. The rest is small press history. It’s now one of their bestselling titles of all time and it’s only been out for a little over two months.”
HELENE SIMKIN JARA
Be Your Own Publisher
Another example of a writer with the conviction to find a path to publication is Helene Simkin Jara, a longtime resident of Santa Cruz, whose one major misstep as a writer, as she likes to tell it, was trusting her third-grade teacher in Maplewood, New Jersey. That was in the 1950s. The teacher, alas, was not properly impressed by the “book” young Helene shared.
Undaunted, she earned a degree in theater arts from UCLA in 1969, and spent some years posing nude as an artist model in LA and the Bay Area in the 1970s—a period she revisits with humor and candor in her 2022 collection Life on the Stand: Memoir of an Artist Model. She has been an active member of the Santa Cruz theater community for years, both as an actor and director, most notably for the annual 8 Tens @ 8 Festival.
Here’s what I find inspiring: A gifted writer and reader of her own work, Simkin Jara has had stories published in numerous outlets, including Catamaran and the Porter Gulch Review, but when it came time to find a publisher, she decided to go the do-it-yourself route and publish via the IngramSpark platform, listing her publisher as “Helene Simkin Jara.” She hired an editor, found a way to have superior cover design, and put out books that have the polish and loving attention of volumes put out by many large publishing houses.
“When I got my first short story published, I thought, ‘Really?’ and then I thought, ‘Maybe I will try to write more,’ and then I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll have a book in a bookstore someday,’” Simkin Jara says.
“So I did all the right things: I went to conferences, got my social media platform, and got summarily rejected by many agents and publishers. After that I thought, ‘I think I’m too old for this. I’m just going to self-publish and see what happens.’ I got editors and put a lot of stories together. I had been writing my memoir for several years as well. I thought, why not? My kids and my grandkids will see what a crazy mother and grandmother they have, which they probably already knew.”
The Power of Storytelling
Mark Nicholson, another local, is an executive coach in Silicon Valley who has been happily married for 35 years and watched after by two wonderful children. Cullen Scott (pen name) has a BSME and an MBA from Santa Clara University. His expertise spans biotech, satellites, mainframes, RFID, and fiber optics, and he is a listed inventor for several patents in the field of Radio Frequency Identification.
Cullen has been published in numerous technical magazines and journals. The Deep Sting Series is his first creative publication. “Along with having fun, I’m looking to test the limits of what future worlds might look like and what readers might believe.”
Nicholson does not consider himself a writer, per se, but when he had an idea for a techno thriller, he decided to pursue it—and published the novel STUNG: A Techno-Thriller, under the pseudonym Cullen Scott, that has found an enthusiastic local readership. How’s this for a setup? “To prevent the world from descending into the chaos of terrorism, scientists and governments devised a foolproof deterrent: if you cause a death, you too will die when your NAC, your neuro-activated chip, bursts inside your skull. Quick, painless, and simple—it works. Every time. No one now dares risk taking a life.”
Nicholson might have the perfect attitude for an author: He does not obsess over his sales rank at Amazon. In fact, he does not worry much about sales at all, that not being the goal of the project, and finds it kind of funny that the book has sold more than 1,000 copies with no publicity. “My wife kids me about it,” he says.
Steve Palopoli, during his many years as editor of Good Times, attended “Mary Shelley Month,” a fiction-writing lab, as we called it, at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, and launched a novel delving into an unnerving future world in which a near-solitary figure lives at a former Google building and tries to stay in contact with people who have drifted off into an odd state somewhere between sleep and death. The book, years in the making, has some of the imaginative inventiveness of Philip K. Dick, a Berkeley High grad, but Palopoli uses fiction to pose very contemporary questions.
All of these writers inspire me in different ways—and can inspire you as well.
Sometimes in a time of great confusion and unwelcome change, it’s best to start with small steps. I’d like to stand on its head the axiom that books as cultural artifacts are increasingly irrelevant in a popular culture in which short videos and short snippets of inflammatory text seem to drive most public attention, and seem to set the tone. How does one step away from all that? Word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph.
What if only books can save us? What if, in particular, the engine of fiction might be a uniquely appropriate tool in an era in which crude, mawkish fictions pushed on us from on high are grabbing an ever larger portion of the public consciousness?
Eight years and one month ago, in a Good Times cover essay, “Orwell in the Time of Trump,” I argued it was time to understand the essentially Orwellian character of Trumpism. Now I would argue: It’s time to create new Orwells and new Atwoods. Let’s get to work. It’s not going to be easy.The Wellstone Center in the Redwoods will host a free public discussion on how to find a publisher on Saturday, April 5, beginning at 3pm. Participants will include moderator Steve Kettmann and local authors Aurore Sibley, Helene Simkin Jara, Wallace Baine, Samantha Schoech and Steve Palopoli. Beverages and snacks will be available. The event is free and will be held at 858 Amigo Road, Soquel, but please RSVP atSa***@***************ds.org.
Before punk rock sneered its spiky head, before rock ’n’ roll stood up to the man, folk music called out the injustices in the world. A lot of injustice is happening, so the time is primed for another music revolution, and who better to do it than a PhD? Kray Van Kirk has a doctorate from the University of Alaska, but his heart is in music—so much that he spent not one but five years traveling and living out of his van, writing and performing wherever he could. Yet despite his scientific background, Van Kirk writes songs that weave stories and myths together, creating new legends with every pluck of the strings. MAT WEIR
Benmont Tench is best known as the pianist and Hammond organ player in Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. In fact, Petty asked Tench to quit school and come play with him in Mudcrutch, the band that would become the Heartbreakers. He’s also played with Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Alanis Morissette, Eurythmics, Fiona Apple, U2, X . . . the list goes on. It may have been easier to list the bands he hasn’t played with. Tench takes center stage playing from his second album, The Melancholy Season, which came out this month. KEITH LOWELL JENSEN
INFO: 7:30pm, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $45. 427-2227.
ELECTRONIC
SAXSQUATCH
It’s not a legend; it’s the legendary Saxsquatch, the electronic music artist who takes the stage as a seven-foot-tall bigfoot to produce a live show no one wants to miss. Complete with a laser show, the multi-instrumentalist brings his dream of a bigfoot rave to life. Since uploading his first Daft Punk cover in 2019, Saxsquatch has gained a cult following of over three million. His stature and stage presence have captivated festivalgoers worldwide, and he has shared the stage with Tedeschi Trucks Band, Goldfish, and Andy Frasco. The saxophone-wielding Saxsquatch performs a high-energy blend of live saxophone, upright bass and electronic beats. SHELLY NOVA
Nashville is well known as the capital of country music. There’s good news for those unable to make the pilgrimage to the buckle of the bible belt: Nashville Nights kicks off this month with featured performer Jerrod Niemann. Niemann’s a strong performer and hitmaker in his own right and also well known for penning three tunes for superstar Garth Brooks, including the hit “Good Ride Cowboy,” a tribute to rodeo legend Chris LeDoux. The singer-songwriter will serenade the crowd as they watch the sun set into Monterey Bay. KLJ
INFO: 8pm, Chaminade Resort & Spa, One Chaminade Lane, Santa Cruz. $65. 475-5600.
SATURDAY 4/5
PUNK
DESTROY BOYS
For those looking for “good punk rock” in the world, look no further than Destroy Boys. Formed in 2015, the quartet from Sacramento embodies the punk rock ethos, screaming about toxic masculinity, the patriarchy and the political quagmire America has found itself in for years. Drawing influences from Dog Party, Operation Ivy, Against Me! and more, it’s easy to say they’re Riot Grrrl, but that would be lazy. Destroy Boys layers their influences and then cooks to make a sound and flavor their own. Santa Cruz’s up-and-coming group of social norm stompers, Sluttony, opens. MW
INFO: 7:30pm, Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $42. 713-5492.
EXPERIMENTAL
ELLIOTT SHARP
Indexical has featured some of the most interesting and experimental artists living today, and this Saturday is no different. Composer Elliott Sharp’s music has been featured worldwide at festivals and appeared on Grammy Award-winning albums. However, like many true artists, his music was ahead of its time. Sharp is known for using mathematics, fractal geometry, genetics and chaos theory to create songs and sounds that take the listener to a different plane of existence. Joining him are musician, artist, and historian Abe Gibson & GTAR Ensemble. MW
INFO: 8:30pm, Indexical, 1050 River St. #119, Santa Cruz. $20.
SUNDAY 4/6
FUNK
LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES
One of Venezuela’s best-known cultural exports, Los Amigos Invisibles, is trucking in the funk, disco, and acid jazz hybrid dance music they’re known and loved for. While their music is frequently played at clubs with bright flashing nights in the wee dark hours, the Amigos are most definitely an act best experienced live to achieve maximum booty shaking. Their very special guest, DJ Wyze 1, will be on hand to help get things bumpin’. KLJ
Female bodies are constantly debated and scrutinized, but few have taken the time to understand how they work. There are many misconceptions about female bodies. In Eve, author Cat Bohannon challenges how female bodies are thought about, pulling no punches or hiding information when discussing what it means to have a female body. It is full of scientific information, wit and humor, working to shift how the female body is understood. Bohannon and Vicky Oelze will converse to unpack some of the topics covered in Eve, like “Why do women live longer than men?” and “Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s?” ISABELLA MARIE SANGALINE
INFO: 7pm, Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. Free w/ RSVP. 423-0900.
TUESDAY 4/8
INDIE
A SONIC TRIBUTE TO GÁBOR SZABÓ
Two brilliant forces, Jared Mattson and Bobbyy, unite to bring the spirit of Hungarian jazz guitar legend Gábor Szabó to life, weaving together psych-jazz and sampled licks to create experimental but reverent remixes of Szabo’s legacy. The self-taught guitarist’s music is as expansive as his life, from playing dinner clubs at 14 and escaping Hungary to attending Berklee College of Music and dropping for a spot in Chico Hamilton’s quintet. This tribute is a fresh take on Szabó’s distinctively melodic and spellbinding sound through live improvisational grooves and rare archival recordings of his soothing voice. SN
Federal funding comprises just a fraction of the modest budget of the tiny Pacific Elementary School District. The Santa Cruz County district has one school. Its superintendent, Eric Gross, also serves as the school’s principal and its preschool director.
“That’s what happens in a small rural school,” Gross said in a call from his office at Pacific Elementary, total enrollment 183. The school, tucked just east of Highway 1 on a plateau above the Pacific Ocean, is described on its website as a leader in “experiential learning,” and Gross said that many of its students are transfers from nearby districts.
The district’s federal funding—about $135,000 annually—has for several years included a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that enables the district to buy food from local growers as part of its school nutrition program. It isn’t much, about $6,000 total, but the money goes directly to purchase produce from four area family farms.
In early March, the USDA canceled the grant as part of $1 billion in national school-food budget cuts, saying in part that the program “no longer effectuate[s] the goals of the agency.”
“Two of those local [farms] from whom we buy have kids that attend our school,” Gross said. “As we’re talking, I’m looking out my window at the playground, and I see one of those kids. I know that we’re going to give his parents less money, and that’s going to affect him and his parents.
“As a district, we’ll figure out how to absorb that cut. But this is local—it’s a small place,” Gross added. “So this affects our neighbors, and if the farmers have less income, then the farms struggle, and their distributors struggle. These cuts have immediate effects.”
Far removed from the riotous national conversation revolving around the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle whole sections of the federal government, life goes on in school districts like Pacific Elementary—still churning, though not untouched.
The district isn’t exactly isolated. Located in the unincorporated community of Davenport, it’s only about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz, with its 61,000 residents and University of California campus. Pacific Elementary’s families, Gross said, include farmers and farmworkers, but also professors, forest rangers, scientists, fast-food workers—“a mix of people.”
Trump administration budget cuts hit here in the same way as elsewhere, albeit on a miniature scale. But the effects are real enough, and Gross is among the educator first responders, if you will—the people whose immediate instinct is to reassure kids that things at school will be all right.
I reached out to Gross, who has taught or led schools in Santa Cruz County for 30 years, after he used the word “chaos” to describe what he was feeling as superintendent in a Lookout Santa Cruz story examining the effect of Trump budget cuts on the county’s school districts. Pacific Elementary is one of five districts that collectively would have received $213,000 from the USDA’s Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program this year, the Lookout reported.
Again – for Gross’s district, the hit is only $6,000. It is manageable in the sense that it doesn’t derail the entire budget. But it forces the district to decide to either buy less food or cheaper food for school nutrition.
That is the opposite of the intention of that USDA program, which was launched in 2022 by the Biden administration to strengthen the local food chain and make schools slightly less dependent on major companies for their food purchases. The USDA’s own explanation of the program, though, also mentions an emphasis “on purchasing from historically underserved producers and processors,” which may suggest why the Trump administration went after it.
‘Resources, Tools and Support’
The program’s demise is a small part of Trump’s assault on the education system in general and his dismantling of the Department of Education. Coupled with the threat of federal immigration (ICE) officers showing up on school campuses, Gross said, schoolkids everywhere—including at Pacific Elementary—have been thrown into the world of chaos that he described.
A few hundred miles across the state, administrators at the comparatively massive Visalia Unified School District decided to try to get ahead of that. The 32,000-student district serves dozens of schools across 36 square miles of Tulare County, an agricultural powerhouse whose population counts thousands of immigrant workers.
“Families don’t really know me, but they know their teacher, their counselor, their social worker or principal,” said Visalia superintendent Kirk Shrum. “So for us, it was really more about equipping our school sites and the people there with resources, tools and support.”
Particularly on the subject of immigration status, Shrum said, workers at the school sites consistently communicated the same message to families: The district by law does not collect such information and thus has nothing to share with officers; no one can roll onto a campus without first being signed in and vetted; the kids are safe at school.
A few families reached out to their schools’ principals for further reassurance, Shrum said, but none kept their children out of school for more than a day. There have been no ICE sightings, and the Visalia district’s average daily attendance is tracking at or above last school year’s levels.
“I work with our counselors, social workers and families to say that the safest place for you to be is at school,” Shrum said. “We have processes in place, and many of those processes have been in place at most schools for a long time — since Sandy Hook, honestly. We can’t say that nothing bad will ever happen, but we can assure our families that our staff is trained and knows what to do in case of an emergency or other situation.”
Visalia’s budget is also strong enough to withstand a cut. When the Trump administration recently canceled a federally funded teacher recruitment program, Visalia was “about halfway through an $8 million grant, so that impacted us to the tune of about $4 million, but we were able to absorb that impact for this year,” Shrum said. (A federal judge later blocked the cut, which eight states, including California, had sued to reinstate. The case remains in the courts.)
As for what comes next, neither Eric Gross nor Kirk Shrum is forecasting. Shrum noted that major policy shifts—say, attempts to either force or prohibit certain topics being taught—generally are drawn-out processes that often involve court challenges. They loom more on the far horizon than just outside the window.
For Gross, school goes on at Pacific Elementary. With a budget that feels every pinch, the district has to be nimble when it comes to allocating resources—but the superintendent said that, in some cases, taking a hit in federal funding could be worth it if the alternative were to stop a teaching program that works.
“Of course, because there’s so much chaos, we’re not sure what the policy changes are or what they might be,” Gross quickly added. For school districts in the Trump II era, that feels like the ultimate truth.
This article originally ran on capitalandmain.com.
Proposed cuts by the Trump administration would be devastating for new mothers, children, immigrants, seniors and lower- and middle-class community members, Congressman Jimmy Panetta (D-19th District), who represents much of Santa Cruz County, told a packed town hall meeting Friday.
Medicare and Medicaid are at risk of being cut by the federal government, Panetta warned. He brought up a panel of healthcare professionals to back his claims at a 9am meeting at Cabrillo College’s 270-seat Samper Recital Hall. The 90-minute talk was full and as many as 30 people were turned away.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have proposed cutting $880 billion from the federal budget and, according to Panetta, that would inevitably include cutting Medicare and Medicaid because 98% of that money goes to funding those programs.
Medicare provides insurance to people over 65 and Medicaid mainly covers disabled and low-income people. Medi-Cal is the California version of Medicaid.
Cutting those programs would hit Californians and Santa Cruz residents hard.
Anita Aguirre, CEO of Santa Cruz Community Health, said that Medi-Cal insures 15 million people in California–40% of the state’s population.
Donaldo Hernandez, a past president of the California Medical Association and physician at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, said that one in three Santa Cruz residents receive Medi-Cal coverage.
He added that 50% of childbirths in California are covered by Medi-Cal.
Aguirre estimated that if Medicare and Medicaid were rolled back, 60% of Santa Cruz Community Health patients would lose their health coverage. Community Health serves tens of thousands of patients in three county clinics, designed as a safety net for those in need.
“This policy change would significantly affect our ability to care for our patients who are the most vulnerable in our community,” she said.
This would also bring cuts to optional benefits such as dental, chiropractic and acupuncture. It would also greatly impact Santa Cruz County’s undocumented immigrant community, as many undocumented immigrants rely on Medi-Cal coverage.
Hernandez explained that if these programs are taken away, they will have to be paid for in other ways.
“Healthcare finance is not an inelastic thing,” he said, adding that people would likely see increases in out-of-pocket medical expenses, more expensive medications and higher deductibles.
“That’s not a sustainable system—for anybody,” Hernandez said. “Particularly where we live here, which is an expensive place just to live.”
Across the board, cutting Medicare and Medicaid would make patient care much harder.
“I can’t care about child health without caring about Medicaid,” said Ananta Addala, a pediatric endocrinologist and physician-scientist.
Addala, who works with children who suffer from chronic diseases, said that over half of the children in the U.S. receive some degree of medical coverage through Medicaid.
She said that people often associate Medicaid solely with low-income people, but that many of the children she works with come from middle-class families who would have to spend “well over half of their income” for access to the expensive equipment and medicines that Medicaid helps cover.
“In order to understand how far-reaching Medicaid is, it’s important to rewrite this narrative, ” Addala said.
Aguirre added that the drastic effects of cutting Medicare and Medicaid would only be worsened by the Trump Administration’s recent bans via executive order on gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. She said that although those bans aren’t directly related to Medicare and Medicaid, they are “just as dangerous.”
Panetta said he is “going to hold this administration accountable” and will work to prevent the House Republicans’ proposed $880 billion in cuts from being passed.
He pointed out that many of the California residents who receive Medi-Cal coverage reside in Republican districts. One of his goals is to motivate the constituents in those districts to reach out to their representatives and try to convince them to vote against the budget reconciliation bill that would end Medicare and Medicaid.
Constituents were notified of Panetta’s town hall only the day before it was held. No demonstrations or protests took place outside of the building, and unlike such meetings across the country, there was no shouting or disturbances.
However, some attendees distributed sets of green, yellow and red paper plates to hold up while Panetta spoke. The green plates read “Good Job,” the yellow plates read “Not Enough” and the red ones said “Talk Less.” Attendees held up these plates throughout the meeting, alternately facing them toward Panetta and toward the audience.
PQ: Cutting those programs would hit Californians and Santa Cruz residents hard.
When Aptos High School Principal Alison Hanks-Sloan sent a letter on March 16 to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District community announcing she would not be returning for the 2025-26 school year—and that her last day will be June 30—district officials said only that “she resigned.”
That statement, coming via text message from PVUSD spokeswoman Alicia Jimenez, doesn’t seem to address a more nuanced truth.
In her letter to the community, Hanks-Sloan said that “serving as the principal of this incredible school has been a true honor, and I am deeply grateful for the trust and support I’ve received from our students, families, and staff throughout my time here.”
But she does not specifically say that she resigned. Hanks-Sloan declined to comment for this story, but according to her father, Rick Hanks, Hanks-Sloan received a letter on March 6 informing her that she would be reassigned to a different position within the district, and that she would be informed of her new assignment later this year.
That decision, the letter reads, was made during the closed session of the March 5 meeting of the district’s Board of Trustees.
“She did not resign,” Rick Hanks said. “When she decides to resign, she will resign and tell people that. But right now she did not.”
Whether Hanks-Sloan resigned, or if she was reassigned, the news has drawn condemnation from many, who say that the move will cause unrest at a time already roiled by financial uncertainty from local and federal sources.
Freshman Abigail Anderson said during the March 26 PVUSD Board of Trustees meeting that she was already concerned about the potential loss of the school’s seven-period schedule—and losing electives such as art—when she got the news about Hanks-Sloan.
“I and many other students are upset by what appears to be the forced resignation of our principal,” she said. “We haven’t gotten any communication from the district about what’s happened.
Anderson acknowledged that personnel matters are confidential, but said the murky details have left the community feeling suspicious.
“We like our principal, and we implore the board to change its mind,” she said. “During such difficult times having a principal in our community we can trust is very valuable to us.”
PVUSD hosted a meeting Monday night to garner community input on the qualities people would like to see in the next Aptos High School principal.
However, many who went expected to receive information on former principal Alison Hanks-Sloan’s controversial resignation.
“The meeting is a farce,” said Karell Reader, who said she went to the meeting on behalf of her friends who have children at Aptos High and PVUSD staff members she knows.
Reader said that it wasn’t fair to “make people give up their time” to attend a meeting where PVUSD “decision makers” were not present. This sentiment was echoed by others who said they had come to the meeting hoping to see board members or Superintendent Heather Contreras.
The meeting, which took place in the high school’s cafeteria, saw about 50 attendees, many of whom were concerned community members and parents of Aptos High students.
PVUSD Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Michael Berman was the main speaker.
After about 30 minutes of discussion, Berman passed out pieces of poster paper and multicolored markers for people to write down attributes they want the next administrator to have. The papers were collected at the end of the meeting to be shown to the faculty members who will interview candidates for that position.
Audience members said they were displeased with the meeting’s agenda. Many wanted to know why Hanks-Sloan resigned.
Several community members wanted to know whether there was any chance of her being reinstated as principal in the future. “Is there something we can do as a community to get Sloan back?” one audience member asked.
Berman said several times throughout the meeting that he could not discuss the details of Hanks-Sloan’s resignation, causing some to say they felt “frustrated” and that the meeting was a “disrespect to us as parents.”
When asked why he had been selected to host the meeting, Berman responded “I don’t know that I recall. I might’ve volunteered.”
According to PVUSD spokeswoman Alicia Jimenez, Berman was the person responsible for this meeting because he is a cabinet member who oversees different district sites.
“The board does not get involved in the hiring of staff other than the superintendent,” Jimenez said.
Berman said that since he is a member of the community, he found everyone’s concerns important.
Although the aim of the meeting was to focus on Aptos High’s next principal, he had expected people to raise concerns about Hanks-Sloan’s resignation. “We knew we were going to have this conversation,” he said.
The meeting did little to quell people’s concerns.
Kelly Allari, an Aptos High parent, said she left the meeting “feeling frustrated, because there isn’t a clear avenue to hear community concerns.” She also felt Berman had been placed in an “unfair position” as the meeting’s host. “He had a purpose to the meeting that wasn’t what the people here were wanting to discuss,” Allari said.
She added that she has contacted two members of the Board of Trustees to inquire about Hanks-Sloan’s resignation, but they didn’t divulge any information. She also reached out to. Contreras, but did not receive a response.
An online petition calling for her reinstatement circulated by an Aptos High parent says that Hanks-Sloan communicated with her staff about ongoing talks regarding budget cuts, layoffs and schedule changes. PVUSD Superintendent Heather Contreras, the petition reads, wanted that information to come from her.
That petition had 573 signatures as of March 21.
The petition states that Contreras is therefore punishing Hanks-Sloan by removing her from the position.
Jimenez said that the petition is inaccurate, but did not say which parts she was calling into question.
PVUSD Trustee Gabe Medina says he cast the sole dissenting vote during that closed-session meeting.
“I don’t think this was done in the right way,” Medina said.
A separate petition, posted days later and signed by 238 people as of March 27, calls for a no-confidence vote against Contreras by the Board of Trustees.
I hope that many readers had a chance to experience the unbridled joy of the Santa Cruz Symphony’s family concert at the beginning of March. Children and elders and everyone in between sang and danced and connected. In this time of anxiety for our world, we had an afternoon to celebrate the joy of music, the strength of our community, and the reminder of how to feel HOPE for a couple of hours! If you haven’t tried an afternoon or evening of music to reconnect you to what is joyful, come to our Symphonic Shakespeare concerts at the end of March. We have a jewel in our midst with our dynamic maestro, Danny Stewart, and live symphonic music right here!
Deborah Bronstein | Aptos
NO BUCK, SHERLOCK
As you know, our current president is eliminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs that are intended to have the federal workforce represent ALL of us. He believes nonwhite men and/or females hired under these programs to be incompetent.
You may remember that during Mr. Trump’s first term, despite his claim to hire “only the best people,” his main criterion for cabinet appointments was not their competence, but their loyalty to him. This is called nepotism, a form of corruption, and resulted in numerous Department of Justice investigations and subsequent resignations. Seven of those disgraced hires come to mind: Secretaries of the Interior (Zinke), Transportation (Chao), Labor (Acosta), Energy (Perry), EPA (Pruitt), HHS (Price) and VA (Wilkie). Government scandal and corruption on this scale is unique in US history.
Mr. Trump is doing it again. The incompetence of his cabinet secretaries is becoming obvious. As usual, when they screw up, Mr. Trump first claims to know nothing about it and then vilifies and fires them. The buck stops nowhere.
Don Eggleston | Aptos
ONLINE COMMENTS
RE: Bye Bye Bezos
How about a shout-out to Staff of Life, please? Like Shopper’s too, but Staff has a lot more organic produce; that in turn supports other local businesses (farmers who are also stewarding the environment).
And where do I go for basic, everyday clothing? Sure, REI is good too, and a co-op, but what if I need a pair of sturdy jeans, and don’t have time to dig for my size and fit at Grey Bears (which is also a go-to for me)!
Ann/Farm Organic
RE: SAFE COASTERS
Whoa! What a great thing! I’m past the age of socializing in bars, but when I was younger, I used to worry about leaving my drink unattended. Even if it was just ginger ale. If I had to leave the table to dance or use the restroom, I wouldn’t touch my drink when I returned. I’d have to order another. This coaster test is a great idea, and I hope all the bars and pubs in the county take up on the practice.
Donna Maurillo
Correction: In the March 12 issue of Good Times, author Jason Isralowitz’s name was misspelled in an article about Scotts Valley’s Hitchcock Festival. We regret the error.
Published in cooperation between Serpier and Good Times
The federal Department of the Interior has granted approval for a $700 million casino project proposed by The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians. Authorization permits the construction of a large casino resort featuring a gaming floor, hotel, entertainment venues, dining facilities and retail outlets. The tribe intends to use this project to enhance its economic status and support the surrounding community.
The casino will function as a tourist attraction, offering gaming and non-gaming amenities to visitors. For those who prefer online experiences, the development also aligns with growing trends in digital gaming, including the best casino options in California, offering a unique blend of both physical and virtual gaming.
While the tribe’s casino will offer a traditional in-person experience, online platforms continue to provide a convenient and accessible way to engage with gaming from home. Many tribes across the country are embracing this dual approach, offering both land-based and online casino options alongside offshore operators that cater to a broader demographic.
According to industry expert Genevieve Cruz, online casinos that are available to players in California come with a range of benefits like fast payments, a wide range of games and fewer restrictions. However, at the moment, California has no legalized iGaming industry, so the state isn’t able to directly benefit from online casinos.
This is mainly down to protecting tribal gaming interests, though the allure of this industry could soon lead to policy shifts that integrate online casinos into the existing local gambling ecosystem. Against this backdrop, the Pomo tribe’s ultimate goal is to ensure that its newest project becomes financially self-sufficient.
By investing in the casino, the tribe plans to create a sustainable revenue stream that can support vital services for its members. These services are critical for improving the quality of life within the community, including accessible healthcare, enhanced education programs and the development of affordable housing.
The proposed casino will include several components designed to attract a broad audience and generate significant revenue. These include a spacious gaming floor featuring a mix of slot machines, poker tables and other popular table games. The attached hotel will provide convenient accommodations for visitors, and a selection of dining facilities will offer diverse options. In addition, the casino will feature retail spaces for shopping and dedicated entertainment venues for live shows, unique dining experiences and events.
The resort design will incorporate indigenous cultural elements intended to reflect the tribe’s history. Meanwhile, the integration of art and cultural references into the resort’s design will educate visitors about the tribe’s traditions.
The casino project received approval following evaluations, including environmental impact assessments. The tribe’s casino would be covered by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), governing casino operations on tribal lands.
Several local, and state officials express support for the casino, acknowledging the potential to generate economic growth. Despite concerns regarding the social impact of casinos, many stakeholders view economic benefits as significant. With no online casinos available in the state, the added gaming revenue also would be welcomed. However, despite this, the local gambling operators’ environment remains strained due to ongoing legal disputes between local tribes and local cardrooms.
This $700 million casino project is projected to provide substantial economic benefits to the tribe and surrounding area. Employment opportunities will increase, with thousands of jobs anticipated. Jobs available in areas such as gaming, hospitality and retail. The construction phase of the project will create temporary jobs, providing immediate economic value.
Once operational, the casino is expected to attract visitors from various regions, generating income for local businesses and services. In addition to direct employment, resorts will increase tourism, leading to greater spending on nearby hotels, restaurants and attractions. Local governments benefit from tax revenue generated by activities, contributing to funding of public services and infrastructure.
This tribe plans to allocate a portion of the casino’s revenue to support community programs. Programs focus on healthcare, education, housing, employment training and providing essential services for tribe members. Revenue from casinos helps reduce the tribe’s reliance on external financial assistance.
Although the primary objective is economic, this tribe emphasizes the importance of cultural preservation in resort design. Its casino floor and hotel feature indigenous art, architecture and historical references reflecting the tribe’s heritage. These elements create an environment honoring traditions, appealing to a broad audience. Exhibits and events will provide opportunities for cultural exchange, enabling individuals to learn more about the history, language and local traditions.
This project is expected to benefit the broader region by providing local economic stimulation to local communities. Surrounding areas, especially rural communities, can expect to experience economic improvements due to increased demand for goods and services.
Therefore, the development is anticipated to bring long-term benefits to areas facing economic challenges. On the other hand, the casino’s construction and ongoing operations create a more diversified economy, providing sustainable income sources, helping reduce poverty and improving living standards in the region.
With the project’s approval, the tribe can commence construction on the casino, progressing toward its planned completion. Final architectural designs have been finalized, and the tribe has begun hiring workers for the construction phase with priority given to local residents, particularly from nearby communities, for employment in construction and permanent casino roles.
These jobs will contribute to the region’s economic stability, providing a reliable income source for workers. The approval of the $700 million casino project marks a significant development for this California tribe.
Just when I thought I knew everything about Santa Cruz, having lived here long enough to have had three dogs with complete life spans, I see great recommendations in this issue that I never knew. There’s a man-made waterfall near Medicine Buddha? Wow. I’ve been there a million times and didn’t know it. A massage place where you keep your clothes on? Had no idea. A shop with a major selection of beans? Bro…
The thing about Santa Cruz is we have so many newcomers, between refugees from red states and freshpersons at two colleges, there’s a constant turnover. We all need tips about what’s cool and what’s hot. That’s what we give you in the Best Of issue. A tour guide to the best things in your Santa Cruz life in one place—in print and online—that you won’t find anywhere else.
We should charge for it, but we don’t. I’ll nominate this for best guide to the best things in Santa Cruz. Read it, keep it, put it on your coffee table and start your treasure hunt for the best of the best.
I bet no matter how long you’ve been here, you’ll see some things you didn’t know.
As the late Christopher Hitchens reportedly said, “Everyone has a book inside them, which is exactly where it should, I think, in most cases, remain.”
Yet in our highly literate and educated community, there are so many budding authors with important stories to tell, clawing their way to be heard.
The odds are staggeringly bad, as bad as the 10–year-old gamer...
Santa Cruz’s The Holy Trinity of Divine Church offers a sacrament that can give you an immediate experience into the infinite. And that sacrament is a mushroom
It’s easy to say they’re Riot Grrrl, but Destroy Boys layers their influences and then cooks to make a sound and flavor their own. Saturday at The Catalyst.
Published in cooperation between Serpier and Good Times
The federal Department of the Interior has granted approval for a $700 million casino project proposed by The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians. Authorization permits the construction of a large casino resort featuring a gaming floor, hotel, entertainment venues, dining facilities and retail outlets. The tribe intends to use this project...
