The sound of fire engines, walkie-talkies and helicopters may be endemic to the Lockheed fire, but so is the sound of an imaginary cash register ringing every time another engine roars into town. Though Cal Fire did not lose personnel in the latest state cuts, $27 million was lopped off its 2009-10 budget, and more than likely each of the local fire agencies that pitched in to battle the flames had its own troubles at home at budget time.
Articles by Jessica Lussenhop
The Glorious Gas Tax
When District 27 Assemblymember Bill Monning hosted a town hall meeting about two weeks ago with the Campaign for Sensible Transportation, the table seemed set for a conversation on planes, trains and automobiles and the budget cuts to public transportation. But when County Treasurer Fred Keeley showed up, it became clear that the dialog on our abysmal budget deal has already left the station. After a budget session that gutted not just public transportation but every service imaginable, the two seemed to be trying to channel frustration into a call for major tax reform.
Cabrillo Festival Hits The Street
This weekend the Cabrillo Music Art & Wine Festival turns 18 years old—legal and ready to party with 14,000 of her best friends (by last year’s count).
Jamming at the Watsonville Berry Festivals
It started out, simply enough, as a celebration of the crop that put Watsonville back on the map. The Monterey Bay Strawberry Festival had enjoyed 14 summers of peace and prosperity in various locations in and around town, where many of the men and women who pick the county’s top crop live and work, and where nationally renowned apple orchards had once reigned supreme.
State Reform Advocates See Golden Opportunity
In the wake of the budget crisis, both the Commission on the 21st Century Economy and California Forward are trying to channel the same passion with which Californians cried “don’t cut us” into “change us.”
Santa Cruz Cougar Night Misunderstood
I’ll level with you. I walked into the Single Professional Society’s first ever Santa Cruz Cougar Night at the Scotts Valley Hilton last week thinking it would be a convenient anecdotal doorway to my personal opinions on the term “cougar.” Those are, in a nutshell, that the term has been fallaciously embraced by single women over 40 as some kind of womanpower thingy. Allow me to remind everyone: the term is not flattering.
Serpents and The Rainbow
Underneath the front porch of a house in Santa Cruz—the kind of comfy family home that has very thick wall-to-wall carpeting—there is a secret room accessible by a crude path of boards laid over the steep dirt incline under the deck. “They’re out of the house, in here,” says Brad Loofbourrow as his 13-year-old son Tristan opens the door to the small, hot room. This is where Tristan keeps Ellen, Rachel, Shelby, Bruce, Sahra and H.P. “He names them all,” says Brad. “They’re his friends.”
Science of Sex Author at Capitola Book Cafe
Author Mary Roach studies the people who study the nasty.
Life And Death on the Pajaro River Levee
In Watsonville, within certain circles, it is a well known fact that if your wife or parents kick you out, or if you’re down on your luck, or if you just don’t want to be found, you can go down to the river levee. There, hidden along the banks of the Pajaro River in the brush and high grass, out of sight from the apartment complex windows and the prefab homes with their Dish Network satellites, you’ll find the casitas–little houses–built from tarps, bungee cords, tree limbs and blankets, constructed and tended to by a chronically homeless population of monolingual Spanish speakers. If you have nowhere to go, on the levee it’s possible to get a bite, maybe a beer and, if you get there early enough, even a bed. Most nights, that is, except for the night of March 25.
Santa Cruz County Supes Dig Deep, Pass Budget
Last Thursday, as the County Board of Supervisors picked over the last remaining scraps of unfinished business in its 2009-10 budget, the board was asked to accept a 6 percent reduction in LAFCO’s budget. County Administrative Officer Susan Mauriello read off the amount—$5,913—to a few sad guffaws. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” someone quipped. “Every little penny counts,” scolded Mauriello.
