This is an exciting, fulfilling position for the right person. Applicants must love to stick their nose in other peoples’ business in the following ways: If an owner doesn’t pick up his dog’s poop, rush over and point out this etiquette breach to him in no uncertain terms. If a pickup is spotted with a dog in the back, follow it to the ends of the earth, if need be, and point out the dangers as well as illegality of this. Be prepared to eat crow after discovering the dog was safely restrained, after all.
Roughing It On Skyline-to-The-Sea
We’re hoofing it through a shady oak grove when suddenly—I see it as if in slow motion—my friend whips around, his face stricken like he’s just tripped the wire on an IED. “RUN!” he yells, but I can’t, because he has already practically lifted me off my feet and is pushing me back up the trail like a linebacker driving a tackling dummy across the field. We’re 50 feet away before I hear him say, “I saw it raise its tail!” Mystery solved. Matt has just seen a skunk. (With slide show.)
Warrants Served in Stow Beating
A Los Angeles SWAT team descended on an East Hollywood apartment on Sunday and detained several people. The arrests were connected with the beating of Santa Cruz resident Bryan Stow in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Stow is still in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital.
School Launches $1 Million Drive to Update Computer System
“Our students are going to be competing in the global marketplace in the 21st century, and they deserve 21st century classrooms,” says Casey O’Brien, principal of Aptos High School. His school is facing a serious problem. While it strives to prepare students for the 21st century, the technology at its disposal is very much 20th-century, slow and often incapable of running the latest programs.
Happy Trails At State Parks
Greg Snyder is hauling brush to the side of a trail he’s just helped clear at Wilder Ranch State Park. The new Twin Oaks single-track cuts across the slope of a hill before disappearing into a sweeping view of the Pacific Ocean. Not bad for a job that promises “hard work, low pay, miserable conditions and more.”
Video: Gold Awards Party
On April 6, Santa Cruz Weekly threw a party for all the winners of the 2011 Gold Awards. Here’s a Dunbar Productions video from the event starring the winners themselves.
‘Landslide’: SC Anthem?
When Stevie Nicks wrote the words “I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills, till the landslide brought me down,” she could have been thinking about Santa Cruz. The Sentinel reports that ccording to the California Geological Survey, the county has one of the highest risks of landslides in all of Northern California. Says State Supervising Engineering Geologist Chris Wills, “Santa Cruz stands out even within the Bay Area because it has higher mountains, steeper slopes, and it has weaker rocks.”
‘Durbinomics’ Hits Santa Cruz
Durbinsanity continues to affect Santa Cruz, and it’s having an impact on the local economy. A Sentinel report laid out the details.
Funny Man Shearer Is Serious About Katrina
To readers who are running out of things to get outraged about: There’s always Katrina. Satirist, filmmaker and radio host Harry Shearer is all too happy to provide fresh grist for the mill in his new documentary The Big Uneasy, showing Thursday at the Del Mar in a special event featuring a question-and-answer session with Shearer himself.
UCSC Budget Cuts Called “Grim,” “Devastating”
Senior administrators at UCSC met with students on Tuesday night to talk about looming budget cuts, which could intensify if voters reject the governor’s tax extension. The prognosis agreed to by everyone at the meeting was that the situation is “grim,” and that the impending cuts would be “devastating.”
