Felton has a few things most little towns its size don’t: two state parks, two Chinese restaurants and one 100-foot heritage redwood tree right in the middle of town. For seven years now, Christmas lights have bedecked the big fella during the holiday season, making a mighty pretty sight for anyone driving into the valley on a cold December night. In recent years the good people at the Felton Business Association have seen to it that the lights are low-energy LED models powered by solar panels, bringing that much more joy to the world.
Dropout Rate Climbing in Santa Cruz County
Let’s face it. The U.S. is competing with China, and we’re not doing as well as we used to. The Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development released its 2009 Program for International Student Assessment on Tuesday and the news is grim for America. While 15-year-olds in Shanghai China ranked top in the world, beating even that stalwart educational powerhouse Singapore, kids in the U.S. didn’t fare too well. They ranked 25th in math and 17th in science among 34 countries. “This should be a massive wake-up call to the entire country,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
Watching Our Salt Intake
According to statistics from the city of Santa Cruz and the Soquel Creek Water District, it requires approximately 1.4 to 2.1 kilowatt hours per thousand gallons (kWh/kgal) to collect, treat and distribute the traditional water supply—that’s surface water and groundwater—for the city and the water district.
Why Fish Biologists Are Plugging for Desal
During a rainy year—that is, a good year for fish—adult steelhead salmon swim in from the ocean and up the San Lorenzo River between December and March to lay their eggs in gravel on the river bottom. After hatching in early spring, the juvenile fish linger in the river for at least a year (and sometimes two or three), feeding and maturing. When they’re finally ready, the smolt, or teenage steelhead, head downstream into a lagoon, a sort of all-you-can-eat buffet for oceanbound young salmon.
Santa Cruz Poets, Santa Cruz Inspiration: Joe Stroud
From the laureled poet, who divides his time between Santa Cruz and the Sierras, a poem titled “Spring in the Santa Cruz Mountains With Li Po.”
The Exhibitionist: Ursula O’Farrell
It’s long past time to break out the bubbly on behalf of the success of Aptos painter Ursula O’Farrell, whose star was already swiftly ascending when I was introduced to her work in 2008 in the provocative “Visual Politics” exhibition juried by revered art scholar Peter Selz at the Santa Cruz Art League. Seared into my memory was O’Farrell’s painting Flying into It, a moment caught like an intake of breath as a cataclysm erupts skyward, while in the foreground people innocently engaged in park pastimes bear witness. This dramatic work represents what I have come to see as the distinctive hand of O’Farrell: the bold, expressionistic brushwork, juicy color upon unlikely color alluding to depth and foreground; figures and their relation to each other suggested by compositional distance and direction, all creating meaning by intimating a gesture, an atmosphere, a mood.
Dream Inn Hotel Workers Keep Bennies
The owners and operators of Santa Cruz’s Dream Inn can rest easy now that the unionized employees at the hotel have finally ratified a contract following nearly a year of negotiations and union demonstrations. The employees, represented by UNITE HERE Local 483, voted to accept a new four-year contract last Tuesday, Nov. 30.
Santa Cruz Poet Up For National Award
The first poem Robert Sward ever published was about a dog, so it’s fitting that the verse that got him nominated for one of poetry’s top honors also concerns Canis familiaris. On Tuesday, Nov. 30, Sward got an email from Joseph Zaccardi, editor of the Marin Poetry Center Anthology, telling him the Center had nominated his poem “Inter-Species Healing A Specialty,” which features a dog taking humankind to task over its narcissism and neuroses, for a Pushcart Prize. (Poem reprinted below.)
Watsonville Nurses Stonewalled Again
Relations between Watsonville Community Hospital nurses and hospital management have been ailing since January, when the two parties entered into contract negotiations. Things heated up in October, when a one-day walkout turned into a three-day lockout and strike. Talks were slated to start back up Dec. 10, with a bargaining day that the hospital offered nurses shortly after the strike. But days away from the planned meeting, the situation needs life support.
Sheriff Under Scrutiny in Hiker Incident
Debra Collins is safe and recovering from her six traumatic days in the woods. Now attention is turning to the Sheriff’s Department, which did not launch a search for her. She was eventually found by a neighbor and his son, who followed a route she liked to run in the Fall Creek unit of the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. The Sheriff’s Office reportedly asked State Parks rangers to search only one of her favorite running routes, in the main part of Henry Cowell, saying at the time there is little likelihood of finding a missing person by conducting random searches over a large area. Today the Sentinel reports that Chief Deputy Don Bradley said, “Having the luxury of hindsight, we would get our search and rescue director involved earlier.”
