When Santa Cruz-based comic Richard Stockton went on tour this past fall, he got an eye-opening window into how the rest of the world sees Santa Cruz. Anytime an MC doing introductions at a club told the crowd where Stockton came from, the audience whooped, hollered, groaned and made lots of noise.
“That alone gets a response,” Stockton says. “You’re 2,000 miles from home, and you think no one’s heard of Santa Cruz. But no, everyone’s heard of Santa Cruz.”
If his experience on the road is any indicator, Santa Cruz has indeed built a reputation as a haven for drug culture and leftist politics. Stockton isn’t saying there’s anything wrong with that, but it surprised him to see how prevalent that image was. And it speaks to a larger discussion happening here in the county about Santa Cruz’s identity.
The recent buzzword is “re-branding,” and has floated around for a few years in local business circles, although it’s picked up more lately.
The question with no easy answers is: does Santa Cruz need one? Does it really have a reputation for drugs, crime and wacky politics that’s bad for tourism? Many public safety hawks also believe the city is seen as a place to hang out without any money, do bad things and get cheap scores.
Last year, at a Chamber of Commerce forum for the city council race, moderator Doug Ley asked candidates what Santa Cruz’s brand was to them. Steve Pleich and Jake Fusari both said “Surf City.” Other candidates, including the four that were later elected, gave more free-form answers—“creative,” “fun,” “incredible outdoor recreational community” and so on.
The issue came up again in public safety task force meetings, where members discussed whether or not the city should start a campaign to re-brand. The task force ultimately decided to leave the re-branding out of its recommendations, which go to city council Tuesday Dec. 3, and might require a new tax if approved. The task force suggested the bad reputation was partly due to perceived lax sentencing by the county courts.
“Many believe the civil process to be ineffective, and partially responsible for the perceived draw of criminals to Santa Cruz,” reads a narrative draft that accompanies the task force’s recommendations.
But it’s still a hot topic. Civinomics posted an online forum about re-branding earlier this month, and second district County Supervisor Zach Friend has said the city needs to do a better job of getting its messages across. The ideas for how to tackle that are, like the problem, abstract.
City councilmember Pamela Comstock says when she talks to her family members about Santa Cruz, the first words that come to their minds are “Boardwalk” and “hippie.” She says the city could work to better highlight its art scene, but adds that she believes Santa Cruz needs to create the kind of community locals want first, instead of marketing free-form ideas and expecting tourists to bring in those elements.
Joe Foster, executive director of the Santa Cruz County Business Council, says leaders need to work together to solve these problems and bring the public and private sectors together. “It really has to be a countywide approach,” he says. “Geographically we’re not that big, but our economy’s so diverse, and our people are diverse.”
Maggie Ivy, CEO of the Santa Cruz County Visitors Council, says the CVC’s studies on recent visitors shows tourists think of Santa Cruz as a fun, laid-back unique beach town—quintessential California. Additionally, the CVC unveiled a new logo and commercial this past year.
For his part, comedian Stockton says the city should embrace the liberal image and publicize the progressive politics that make it famous—even the benefits of medical marijuana—and set an example for the rest of the country. But that’s not everyone’s vision.
“That’s not my experience of Santa Cruz,” says Chip, executive director for the Downtown Association. “That part exists. People often talk to me about ‘Santa Cruz: that’s where the Cabrillo Music Festival is.’”
Chip says the town has garnered a lot of positive media attention these past three years from the Amgen Tour of California, the Mavericks surfing competition and the new D-League basketball team going to the championship.
He adds that it’s okay if this whole conversation stays abstract. “If you look at the taglines the Downtown Association and the community have used, they’re all innocuous,” he says. “Our last tagline was ‘It’s all right here,’ and that doesn’t mean anything because we’re trying to create a tagline that encompasses everything. The best tagline for Santa Cruz is ‘Santa Cruz.’ That does encompass everything.”