The Santa Cruz Planning Commission roundly rejected the prospect of a three-story, 86-room Fairfield Inn to announce the northern entrance to Santa Cruz, citing inappropriate design, concerns about signage and distance from amenities like restaurants.
Search Continues for Elias Sorokin
The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office has already filed kidnapping and murder charges against two men suspected of involvement in the disappearance of Elias Sorokin, but Sorokin’s body has yet to be found.
Capitola Mobile Home Park Set to Vacate
A cool coastal breeze flows between the coaches lining the uneven asphalt of the Surf and Sand Mobile Home Park overlooking the Monterey Bay. A community made up largely of retirees, the Capitola park’s future is looking dim. While a few residents use the Surf and Sand as the location of a second home, the formerly over-55 park is the only home to many of its residents, and its closure will leave many homeless. (With slide show)
Rally Protests Cuts to Domestic Violence Services
Thursday at the Santa Cruz clock tower, women’s services advocates rallied to protest the complete elimination of state support to domestic violence services under the state’s Department of Public Health.
‘Roadless Rule’ Revived
Ding dong! The witch is dead! Environmentalists are whistling a happy tune after yesterday’s federal appeals court decision to reinstate Clinton-era protections of 58 million acres of national wilderness that were repealed during the Bush administration.
Solar Energy Program Hits a Snag
Though Cash for Clunkers may be zooming along, local initiatives to promote green energy alternatives are hitting a standstill because of cost.
Students Rescued after Sailing Mishap
Four UCSC sailboats overturned yesterday afternoon during a sailing class. The students were brought to shore within 15 minutes of the incident, and no injuries were reported. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Of Film Festivals and Homophobia
We find ourselves in Sweden. A gay couple is on the waiting list to adopt a baby. They have been approved as parents. They receive a letter. A boy, age 1.5, is arriving. The men are ecstatic, although one of them is still a bit apprehensive about this whole adoption idea. They outfit a nursery. The “baby” arrives on a Friday afternoon. He is 15, a troubled teen released from a reformatory, and to say that he is homophobic is to put it mildly.
The Cabrillo Music Festival Bursts into Santa Cruz
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music doesn’t just offer the best of today’s leading American composers, to say nothing of their genius counterparts from other countries. It also proves, summer after summer, that there is a great hunger for excellent new music and, just as important, one that spans many generations.
Tightening of the Santa Cruz Greenbelt
IN THE CRISP light of a spring day, Cathy Puccinelli stands quietly, her eyes taking in the land that has been in her family for more than 100 years. The echo of flowing water from the adjacent Pogonip Creek is a perfect backdrop for the sprawling seven-acre property, made up of a cottagelike farmhouse with a well-kept yard and a large organic farming field.
Puccinelli says the land hasn’t changed much since her Italian immigrant grandparents bought it in 1900 to farm. “But no one wanted it then,” she says. “It was right next to the tannery, so it smelled of blood and hide.” (With slide show)
