The Santa Cruz public library system is facing a crisis. With the steep decline in property and sales tax revenues, the system is facing a $500,000 deficit, a considerable chunk of its annual $11.3 million budget. Even more daunting is the threat that this deficit could grow to $5 million by 2013.
Do County Execs Need the Pay Raise?
There’s something wrong in Santa Cruz County. The county is desperately short on cash, with the general fund expected to slip below $369 million, departments across the board taking pay cuts and furloughs, workers being let off, public health clinics open fewer hours, and sheriff’s investigations on hold. Senior county executives, however, all received pay raises, some of them amounting to tens of thousands of dollars. The top-paid administrators in the county made, on average, 11 percent more in 2009 than they did in 2008.
Frogophiles Make Santa Cruz Their Home
There’s a lot that people can learn from frogs, like how they never drink up the pond in which they live. We’ll be learning a lot more about frogs soon now that Save the Frogs, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to saving the world’s best known amphibian, has decided to move its headquarters to Santa Cruz.
Local Counties Submit Joint Broadband Grant Request
More than 1,000 cities across the nation have applied to Google to be the first to test its hyperspeed fiber-optic network. Along the California Central Coast, a coalition of public and private interests from Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito counties are taking a different approach to obtaining high-speed Internet. They have submitted a $56 million grant for money from the $7.2 billion allocated to improving broadband access in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The funding would go to install 112 miles of underground fiber and 200 miles of above-ground linking, making Internet speeds 10-100 times faster in the region than they currently are.
Ten Questions for Philippe Kahn
The Santa Cruz-based inventor of the phone camera gives up the goods on his hobbies, recently acquired wisdom and preference for simple foods.
Notes From the Aerophant
Thirty years ago Abdul Kareem bought a cheap five-acre piece of land in Kasaragod, in the Indian state of Kerala. People thought he was crazy; it was an arid, rocky wasteland, devoid of vegetation or water. But Abdul Kareem had an idea.
Scotts Valley Teachers Considering Furloughs
Eight high school teachers in Scotts Valley have received preliminary pink slips in an effort to shave $1.9 million off of the school board’s budget over the next two years.
Rail Line Purchase Passes Hurdle
The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission voted unanimously to purchase the 32-mile Union Pacific rail line for $14.2 million.
Red Cross Starting to Consolidate
Only five people now work at the Santa Cruz branch of the Red Cross, located on Highway 1.
Interactive Crime Mapping in Santa Cruz
Wondering where all the crime is taking place in Santa Cruz? You can check it out on the new website being used by SCPD. The site offers an interactive map with icons for a wide range of crimes, ranging from fraud to breaking and entering, and from disturbing the peace to arson.
