Finding a comfy place to lay one’s head and park one’s tookus is the first step in outfitting a dorm room or apartment. It’s a fact, after all, that the hot transfer student on the fourth floor will not sleep over if she’s forced to share a leaky air mattress on cold linoleum. To this end, we’ve pieced together this handy guide to help college students and other impecunious types furnish an abode with minimal abuse to the credit card that just came in the mail.
Santa Cruz Guide 2010: All Things Bicycle
Anyone coming from the sprawl of SoCal and the Inland abyss might not understand Santa Cruz’s love affair with the bicycle. It’s not just a mode of transportation around here, it’s an outlook on life. But don’t let that intimidate you, we’ve got bike lanes on almost every road, a bike freeway that runs along the river (complete with street kid obstacle course) and, occasionally, free breakfast downtown if you ride there.
Santa Cruz Guide 2010: Beaches and Parks
True fact: Santa Cruz County, the smallest in the state of California, has 20 state parks and beaches. That might give us the highest natural beauty-per-capita rating in the state. And we’re no one-trick pony, either. We have sandy beaches, rocky beaches, redwood forests, oak grasslands, marine chaparral and an ecological oddity called the Santa Cruz Sandhills that’s an isolated relic of California’s prehistoric inland sea. For the whole story on local parks and beaches, visit www.santacruzstateparks.org. These are the ones that should under no circumstances be missed, even if you have to get there by musk ox.
Santa Cruz Guide 2010: Transportation
The young and the carless could do a lot worse than Santa Cruz. Those without four wheels to call their own can take the bus for daily business, rent a Zipcar for emergency sightseeing purposes or join the ranks of the two-wheeled and hop on a bike.
The Exhibitionist: 01SJ
In order to use the Zip Line suspended over a wetland that had appeared overnight I joined the Imaginary Airforce. After wetland education and a thrilling ride, I chatted with Angel Borrego Cubero, architectural design professor at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid. We talked about bridges as metaphors for connection but in loco usually separating people, neighborhoods, ecosystems. His Mutant Bridges fit into the ecology of a place.
Five Inmates in SC County Jail Deported
Last month the county initiated a new immigration status-check on prisoners in the Santa Cruz County Jail. Since then, the program has led to the deportation of five prisoners, including a convicted felon. All of them were in the country illegally.
Santa Cruz City School District Consolidating Office Space
Yesterday, Santa Cruz Schools started consolidating on office space, moving employees from rented properties to properties already owned by the school district. Buses are now being parked at Harbor High School, and the maintenance and operations office has been moved to a district-owned property on Palm Street.
County Fair Draws Huge Crowd for Last Day
Thousands of people flocked to the Santa Cruz County Fair on Sunday to mark the 125-year-old event’s final day for 2010.
New Vice Chancellor for UCSC
UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal has appointed Alison Galloway, 56, as Vice Chancellor of the university in charge of academic and financial activities. Galloway, a forensic anthropologist, chairs the Anthropology Department and is the former chair of the Academic Senate.
Scotts Valley Debates Sales Tax Extension
In 2005, voters in Scotts Valley approved a quarter-cent sales tax for five years in an effort to cover the town’s budget deficit. Now the tax is about to expire, and that source of funding will dry up. City Councilmember Stephany Aguilar says that the city has no choice but to extend the tax, and she’s collecting signatures to have an extension placed on the ballot next year. Without it, she says, Scotts Valley is faced with a $926,000 deficit. “We need to keep it at least status quo until the economy rebounds,” she says.
