In the 1960s, steelhead trout were a common sight in the rivers and lakes of Santa Cruz County and throughout the Central Coast. Since then, however, their numbers have dropped by as much as 80 percent, and their future looks grim. A major culprit, say environmentalists, are poachers, particularly poachers who catch the fish with illegal gill nets.
News
Wild Irises: A Short Happy Tale
First Saturday in May, 2003. Spring on the Atlantic seaboard had settled into a sultry, perfumed affair that hinted at the damp torpor to come. Throughout the city unremarkable lumps of hedge had burst into bloom: azaleas, lilacs, roses, all the botany of domestication. To a lifelong Westerner raised amid rabbitbrush, they seemed impossibly exotic.
PRIDE in Santa Cruz
Gang violence still isn’t a problem in Santa Cruz the way it is in other Bay Area cities, and the SCPD wants to keep it that way.
Santa Cruz Makes a Bid to Google
San Jose is doing it. So is Topeka, Kansas, which renamed itself Google for the month. Duluth, Minnesota called on one of the state’s favorite sons (no, not Jesse Ventura) to make their pitch, while the mayor of Sarasota, Florida, took a dive into shark tank to get Google’s attention. Everybody wants Google (except the Germans). Everybody wants to be the first in America to test out Google’s new high-speed fiber-optic network. And everybody means Santa Cruz too.
Marine Sanctuary Center Coming to Santa Cruz
Seven years ago, Santa Cruz beat out 22 locations along California’s Central Coast in its bid to house the new Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center. After seven years, the bids to construct the $17 million center will be going out this spring. Construction is expected to begin this summer.
Ten Questions for Cynthia Sandberg
The owner of Love Apple Farm on growing vegetables for Manresa Restaurant and doing what all good people from Los Gatos do.
Single in Santa Cruz? Forget About Home Ownership
Interest rates may be historically low and the cost of houses may be dropping, but if you are single don’t expect to be buying a home in Santa Cruz any time soon. According to the 2010 Paycheck to Paycheck study, which was released on Tuesday by the Center for Housing Policy, it takes $128,656 in income to qualify to buy a median priced home for $431,000. That’s because Santa Cruz is one of the five most expensive places to buy a home anywhere in the U.S.
Teachers Slam School District for Retirement Deal
In a desperate effort to save money, the Santa Cruz City District hired an outside firm, Public Agency Retirement Services, to come up with a new retirement plan.
Santa Cruz Jazz Fest Goes Aloha
Ken Emerson remembers a time when Hawaiian music was largely unknown in Santa Cruz. These days, of course, it’s easy to mistake Surf City for the 50th state’s easternmost outpost, but in the mid-1970s the ukulele was a novelty for lucky Santa Cruz tots rather than a highly expressive instrument embraced by hundreds of musicians around the county.
LBAM Effort Downgraded
Following in the footsteps of the federal government, the state of California has decided to focus on controlling the spread of the light brown apple moth rather than eradicating it.
On Tuesday the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced the policy shift along with its plans not to pursue aerial spraying of pesticide. Instead, the department intends to use ground-based measures and sterile moths.
