Lorrie Brewer, 50, who has recorded the discussions and decisions of Santa Cruz City Council since 2008, has resigned her position effective the end of this month. After more than two decades working with City Council, Brewer will be leaving Santa Cruz for Mountain View, where she will also serve as City Clerk.
News
Human Remains Identified
One of the outstanding cases facing the SCPD is on its way to being solved.
Jury Rules in Favor of Vets
When the county closed the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Santa Cruz because of safety concerns, the vets decided to fight back. They argued that the reports were exaggerated and that the replacement facility on Emeline Avenue did not meet their basic requirements. It may have been the same size as the original location, they argued, but it was difficult for elderly and disabled vets to get to. Furthermore, it didn’t even have a kitchen, they added, which is why they decided to forego their traditional Thanksgiving dinner for the needy next week.
UCSC Students Protest Tuition Hike
While the UC Board of Regents was meeting in San Francisco, about 200 students from UCSC gathered at the Porter College quad to protest a proposed tuition hike. At the San Francisco meeting, the regents were planning to decide whether to go ahead with an 8 percent tuition hike, on top of last year’s 32 percent hike. The students were furious at the prospect. In 2001, they noted, tuition was $7,695. In the 2011-2012 school year, it will be $11,124.
Graywater Rebates Going Unused
“Graywater is a great thing,” effuses Ron Duncan, conservation and customer service field manager for Soquel Creek Water District. “We call it wastewater when it goes down the drain, but it’s not. It’s a resource waiting to be had.”
The Exhibitionist: Leo Villareal
Light might well be the most distinctive mark of mankind on the surface of the planet. From space, continents glow and light clusters indicate where people are gathered. Artists long have “painted with light” metaphorically, but at the beginning of the 21st century, light became the medium for a new art form. Using computer programming, the artist creates and sets in motion a sequence of actions expressed in light and directed by mathematical rules or algorithms, then allows that sequence to play itself out without intervention.
Skate Local First
Long before chambers of commerce adopted the “buy local” slogan, before slow food and farm-to-table entered the popular lexicon, Steve ‘Birdo’ Guisinger, founder and co-owner of Consolidated Skateboards, battled mega-corporations and made it his mission to educate skaters about the importance of supporting their local skate shops.
Santa Cruz County: A Bag-Free Zone?
For the most part, complaints about a ban on plastic bags come from three constituencies: dog owners that don’t want to pay for puppy poo bags, grannies that reuse their CVS bags as garbage can liners and the American Chemistry Council, a.k.a. Big Plastic.
Smoking Kills
A Santa Cruz woman died in a house fire on Sunday night. Now investigators are saying that the cause of the fire was an untended cigarette. The fire, which occurred in a duplex at 201 Idaho Ave., was first reported at 5:20am. When firefighters arrived, they found heavy smoke seeping out of the doors and the windows.
Commission Approves Amended Climate Plan
The city of Santa Cruz’s Transportation and Public Works Commission voted in support of the city’s Climate Action Plan on Monday. The plan is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city 30 percent from 1990s levels by 2020 by encouraging alternative energy use, conservation and—most controversially—reducing car trips by 30 percent over the next 10 years.
