Permaculture, the Santa Cruz Warriors and Micah Posner’s shelter sleepover strike a chord with readers.

Readers discuss mental health and public safety.

Lydia Corser remembers when, nearly 20 years ago, she told people that she was a “green” interior designer. She got some confused looks.

It’s getting warmer in Santa Cruz these days, festival season is brewing and the North Pacific String Band’s Stevee Stubblefield sits in a friend’s courtyard, wrapped around a breakfast beer and a fresh printed poster for an event that ripped through his contact list like a lawn mower a few months ago.

“It’s spring time,” proclaims permaculture teacher David Shaw, as he clutches a hunter green steel digging fork. “Time to go.”

In the mid-2000s, Blackbird Raum unexpectedly took Santa Cruz by storm. Rising up out of a community of squatters and travelers in 2004, they were set up like a folk-jug ensemble, but played with the intensity and political leanings of an anarchist crust punk band.

Readers tackle the larger issues behind homelessness, violence and drug addiction.

Approximately 5.4 million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer’s disease, the vast majority 65 years and older. But this is only the beginning—a rising life expectancy rate, combined with an enormous population of baby boomers, will balloon that number to nearly 16 million by 2050, according to figures from the Alzheimer’s Association.

All the best of Santa Cruz County’s dining, cultural scene, shopping and more, as chosen by our readers and staff.