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Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008
Santa Cruz District 1 Candidates Spar Over Public Safety
Danner calls Leopold's opinion piece 'politics at its worst'
The same Saturday morning that the Sentinel published an opinion piece on public safety by District 1 supervisor candidate John Leopold, he and his opponent Betty Danner met in the Capitola City Council Chambers to debate one another on a variety of issues in front of few dozen of the district’s roughly 30,000 residents.
Leopold, whose commentary called for increased law enforcement coverage, illustrated the point that morning with an anecdote from one his neighborhood walks on Koopman Avenue, which had been hit hard by vandals hours before. Graffiti was splashed across garage doors, cars and mailboxes. “It took two hours to get the deputy sheriff out there,” said Leopold. “You don’t have to be a smart criminal to know you’re less likely to be found out if there’s less coverage.”
While the candidates differ on their stances and political style, public safety is one issue on which both would like voters to believe they stand strong. Danner is clearly the law enforcement candidate, distinguished by her former role as director of the Santa Cruz County Criminal Justice Council; she’s endorsed by the Santa Cruz district attorney, former and current county sheriffs, the Watsonville chief of police and the Santa Cruz County Deputy Sheriff’s Association. So when she read Leopold’s editorial Saturday morning, she was none too pleased. “I was surprised. It’s like, what? He has no background in law enforcement, he has no law enforcement endorsements,” she says. “I'm surprised it was printed.” -
Animal Researcher Protections Tightened
Publishing personal information on researchers or families with intent to harm is now a misdemeanor
With Gov. Schwarzenegger’s signature still wet on the recently passed amendments to the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, researchers at UCSC and animal right activists at the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) are sounding off about the law’s implications. -
Jim Fitzgerald: Rebel With A Cause
A little-known independent challenges an entrenched Republican senator
It was the definition of premature bragging: “Maldonado Runs Unopposed In Election,” the Monterey Republican Party crowed on its website. In the text, lifted from the San Luis Obispo Times, a Maldonado aide taunted anyone trying to gather enough signatures to challenge the state senator: such a person would, he said, find it “a mathematical impossibility.”
They had reasons to brag. Abel Maldonado, strawberry farmer-turned-successful politico, had triumphed several times in the 15th state senate district, which extends from Santa Maria to San Jose by way of Salinas, Watsonville, Scotts Valley and Los Gatos, straddling portions of five counties along the way.
And he’d done it shrewdly. He’d sided with Democrats often enough to earn the praise of ultra-Dem Don Perata, state senate president. Maldonado had collected both GOP and Dem signatures; Monterey Democrats hadn’t even bothered putting anyone up against him. And Democratic attorney Dennis Morris, who had launched a last-minute write-in effort, had come up way short.
But still, the Republicans made one mistake. They hadn’t counted on Jim Fitzgerald.
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Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008
Santa Cruz Scholar Wendy Chapkis Co-authors Book on Medicinal Marijuana
Joint effort focuses on Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana
Wendy Chapkis makes no bones about the fact that she was not exactly an impartial researcher when she began writing her new book Dying to Get High with Richard Webb. A UCSC alum who splits her time between Santa Cruz and Maine, where she’s a professor of sociology and women’s studies at the University of Southern Maine, Chapkis first met Valerie and Michael Corral in the ’80s, before they founded the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana and planted their lush marijuana garden in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
That doesn’t mean she was always a believer. “Valerie told me that she used marijuana medicinally and I thought, “Yeah, yeah right, sure. Like most people in the ’80s I had never heard of marijuana used medicinally,” Chapkis says.
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Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008
Santa Cruz Police Clamp Down on Drummers
Police break out batons and threaten tear gas in clash with protesters
Protestors with drumsticks clashed with police officers with nightsticks on Wednesday afternoon when a planned protest at the Cedar and Cathcart Street parking lot turned into a chaotic fray that saw officers in riot gear armed with tear gas launchers facing down an angry crowd of activists after two protestors were arrested.
The scene began as a relatively peaceful assembly involving members of the Rainbow Tribe, Trash Orchestra, Food Not Bombs and others that had come to protest last week’s ban on drumming in the parking lot. But soon, some drummers began removing the plastic mesh fence that had been erected around several trees as a deterrent against the drummers. Shortly after the fence came down, people began beating drums around the trees, but their attention soon shifted to another drummer who had been led away by two officers.
The officers pulled the man to the east end of the parking lot, where he was handcuffed while enraged drummers beat loudly on plastic barrels, trash cans and snare drums inches from the officers. The crowd near the subdued man soon grew larger and police formed a semi-circle around him and drew out their batons, screaming at people to “get back.” Countless activists began shouting, “We have a right to be here!” and “First amendment!” and those who got too close were shoved back by police, who used batons and their hands to keep the crowd at bay. -
Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008
Santa Cruz Enviros Stumped by Santa Barbara Drilling Reversal
The county that led the charge to fight oil drilling in the '70s invites it today
Whatever they’re putting in the water down there in Santa Barbara, it probably isn’t petroleum-soaked pelicans—yet.
Nearly 40 years after the massive Central Coast spill that catapulted the anti-oil movement into the national spotlight, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Aug. 26 to send a letter to the governor requesting that the ban on offshore drilling be lifted.
It could be an act of pure pandering, with no possibility of becoming real. Santa Barbara Congresswoman Lois Capps dismisses the board's action as “a political stunt,” which she doesn’t think will have “much effect.” And Gov. Schwarznegger has signaled no change in his stance on continuing the ban.
But Save Our Shores Executive Director Laura Kasa expresses concern that the symbolic impact of the board's letter will be fuel for Republican offshore drilling proponents in Washington.
Analyzing the Impact of Santa Cruz's Failed Measure T
Local voters have approved numerous taxes in recent years, but measure that would have cost the equivalent of a mocha each month went down
The $2.5 million per year Measure T would have raised for emergency services averages about $3.76 per month for each of Santa Cruz’s 55,364 residents. That’s about the cost of a mocha at Lulu’s, five hours of parking on Beach Street or hot dogs, sodas and a tip for two at Costco.
But that extra change proved too much to bear for Santa Cruz voters when Measure T failed by less than 2 percent of the votes cast. The Aug. 26 mail-in ballot would have raised phone line taxes from $1.81 to $3.49 to pay for 911 services and other police expenses. And since Santa Cruzans carry a long history as a tax-friendly voting bloc, Measure T’s failure has many residents and lawmakers blaming poor timing and a lack of campaign effort for its demise.
“I think there was an assumption that the same people who had supported past measures would automatically support Measure T,” says Councilman Ed Porter. “People who had put in long nights supporting other campaigns got tired and there was a miscalculation of the effort that was needed to get it passed. The supporters are out there–they just didn’t vote.”
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Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008
Santa Cruz Smokers Savor the Flavor of Their Cloves
Flavored cigarettes could be banned if Senate follows House's lead
Clove-smoking hipsters may have to find another way to look sexily uninterested without the crutch of their Djarum Blacks. New tobacco legislation that gives the FDA the power to regulate the tobacco industry overwhelmingly passed on July 30 in the House of Representatives, and the Senate may well follow suit.
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act allows for sweeping regulation of tobacco products: flavored and clove cigarettes would be banned; cigarette manufacturers could no longer label products as “lights” or “ultralights” and must disclose the amount of all additives; any new type of cigarette would have to be given premarket approval before being sold; and all tobacco advertisements on outdoor posters would have to be in black and white.
Sterile LBAM Release Plan Draws Criticism from Scientists
Measure deemed "impossible" and pointless; state fires back
Despite scaling back plans to use aerial pheromone spray to eradicate the light brown apple moth, the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s newest plan to release millions of sterile moths as a reproductive monkey wrench is coming under fire from many of the same opponents who stood up against the spray.
“Basically, there is no way it will work,” says James Carey, an entomologist at UC Davis who specializes in invasive species biology. “The bottom line is there is no evidence that a lepidopterous pest has been eradicated by this technology. They are talking about rearing enough (sterile) moths to release over a 500-square-mile area. That’s 500 million moths per week, and it’s impossible.”
Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008
Santa Cruz Enviros Weigh in on State Props 7 & 10
Voting the eco way isn't as easy as it seems this time around
Green may be the trendy hue of choice for the environmental movement, but it was first the color of money. Perhaps no one knows this better than T. Boone Pickens, the Texas billionaire whose natural gas company, Clean Energy Fuels Corporation, has donated more than $3 million in support of Proposition 10. Also known as the California Renewable Energy and Clean Alternative Fuel Act, Proposition 10 is a $9.8 billion bond initiative, the bulk of which would be used for rebates of up to $50,000 to consumers and companies who purchase a "dedicated clean alternative fuel vehicle," which is defined as vehicles that run on natural gas, biomethane, hydrogen or electricity. Read: not gas-electric hybrids.
Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008
Coastal Cleanup Sites to Include Santa Cruz Rivers
Needles, glass and other waste in waterways major culprits in ocean pollution
“I don’t even want to know what that is,” says Aleah Lawrence-Pine, program manager at Save Our Shores, as she steps past a dark lump in the dirt and sand underneath the Water Street bridge. But she knows what it is. It’s one of the least pleasant signs of human presence in and around the San Lorenzo riverbank, one of many that will inevitably be uncovered at the 24th Annual Coastal Cleanup Day, held this Saturday morning, Sept. 20 from 9am to noon. While families with children and Boy Scout troops will be steered clear of the most suspicious conditions, last year’s search in Santa Cruz County yielded 108 condoms, 38 syringes and 84 tampons.
Those items, while by far the most foul, are dwarfed in number by less provocative trash. A glance beneath Water Street turns up the usual suspects: plastic wrappers, a couple of half-empty beer bottles, and the single most common item found in and around bodies of water, both locally and internationally: cigarette butts, which, contrary to what their paper-like texture would suggest, contain enough plastic to stick around five years after they’re snuffed out. Santa Cruz County volunteers had to pluck 20,844 from the water, reeds and sand in 2007, while around the world, 1.9 million were found in total.
Lawrence-Pines says that while the title of the event says “coastal,” more sites have been added to draw attention inland to the rivers, or Santa Cruz’s “glorified storm drains.”
Boardwalk's Haunted Castle Renovation Put Off
The dark ride, more cute than scary, gets another year of pseudo-spookery
There’s nothing scary about the Haunted Castle dark ride on the Beach Boardwalk. Well, almost nothing.
“Smells like someone threw up in here,” chuckles John Kettles, a 46-year-old “rollercoaster addict” and dark ride enthusiast, as the black pod-like car bumps through the front doors. Kettles worked at the dark ride as a teenager in the ’70s and points out the things that have changed since his tenure. He indicates with his voice, in the muddy darkness, where the bus with the ghost driver used to jump out and where a giant bear, now a werewolf, once loomed.
There’s not a lot of movement from the ghouls inside. They mostly pop up in a pool of light as the car rolls past. In one corner a giant tarantula rasps to life, nodding and shivering. In another a diabolical chef is frozen with his spoon dipped in some luckless, slow-cooked person. It’s cute.
The Bike Church Co-op To Expand into Computer Repair
Santa Cruz collective has grown substantially since last year's move to Pacific Avenue
Bike culture is woven into the fabric of Santa Cruz life. As are co-ops, those loose federations of like-minded individuals running businesses or homes in truly democratic fashion. So it’s not surprising that Santa Cruz's venerable Bike Church has enjoyed success since it relocated last year to Pacific Avenue. What may come as more of a surprise, however, is just how successful the new Bike Church has proven to be.
The Bike Church isn't just any old bicycle repair shop. Formed by an egalitarian collective of bicyclists, messengers and grease monkeys, the Church long ago established itself as an activist-minded meeting-hub for bicyclists. With its avowed mission statement to “provide the tools, shop space, and supervision for a diverse community to learn, share knowledge, and effectively repair bicycles at low cost,” the Bike Church has become an integral part of the local bike culture fabric. The new space offers tools, repair assistance and regular classes for those who want to escape the grip of the high-priced bike-repair racket. This is about fishing poles, not fish.
Friday, Sept. 5, 2008
Santa Cruz Council Hopefuls Talk Transportation
Few surprises at citizen-sponsored forum
Of the nine Santa Cruz City Council hopefuls who made the trip to Wednesday’s Candidate Night Transportation Forum at Louden Nelson Community Center, four walked, three biked, one carpooled and one drove.
A good ratio even for a sustainable transportation debate.
But it wasn’t, in all honesty, much of a debate. Since each of the six moderators was allowed to present his or her views before asking any questions—and since candidates were allowed all of a minute and a half to respond—the answers that were expected were clear as day. And when, at one point, the whole audience began belting out, They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, along with the rest of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” it would have taken a candidate with a death wish to say, “C’mon, we need a five-story parking garage there.”
