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May 24th
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The Ticker

Students Develop Green Skills, New Pogonip Trail

Students Develop Green Skills, New Pogonip Trail

High school volunteers participate in a yearlong program dedicated to environmental job training

Many—particularly teenagers—find it difficult to wake up early on the weekends, but for 150 local high school students, recent Saturdays have been spent dedicating a total of 700 hours of manual labor to learn environmental stewardship.

These youth are volunteers through the Earth Stewards Program, which began in October 2012 and is a partnership between the City of Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.

The volunteers, who include students from Kirby and Ponderosa high schools, improve parks through trail development while receiving green job training. For the first project in the Earth Stewards Program, they are assisting with construction of the multi-use Emma McCrary Trail in Pogonip.

The idea for the 1.5-mile trail was born about four years ago, and construction began last spring, once the community support, donations and permits had been acquired, according to Heather Reiter, the chief ranger for the Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation Department.

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The Ticker

O’Neill Legacy Memorialized

O’Neill Legacy Memorialized

Mural and plaque honor the original Santa Cruz O’Neill surf shop

When Jack O’Neill opened his first surf shop in Santa Cruz, in 1959, he had no idea just how famous his brand would eventually become.

The shop, which originally opened in San Francisco in 1952, relocated to near Cowell Beach where it had a profound impact on the surfing culture in Santa Cruz County.

O’Neill invented neoprene wetsuits, which allowed surfers to brave the icy cold waters of Santa Cruz. Wetsuits revolutionized the sport of surfing, as well as the Santa Cruz economy.

“A global industry grew from that small family-run storefront,” says Crystal Birns, the city arts program manager for economic development in Santa Cruz. “The business grew steadily, earning global recognition as a pioneer and leader in the world of surfing.”

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The Ticker

Mobile Home Park Residents Revisit Old Wound

Mobile Home Park Residents Revisit Old Wound

Quiet desperation roared at full volume at recent mobile home park rent control symposium

In the almost cartoonish paradise of De Anza Mobile Home Park, with its colorful array of manufactured homes mortared together with flower gardens and draping foliage, birds chirping in the globular trees, and panoramic ocean views one would expect nothing but senior citizens smiling as they take a stroll of the grounds. To the contrary, however, there is a deep despondence that lives within the community.

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The Ticker

International Women’s Day Events

International Women’s Day Events

Tomorrow, Friday, March 8, is International Women’s Day—an annual day for recognizing and showing respect for women’s achievements in society and the many struggles they face. Here is a round up of local events to take note of this International Women’s Day.

Thanks to one local woman, Regal Cinemas Santa Cruz 9 Theater will be screening the documentary Girl Rising tonight, March 7. Michelle DeFields-Gambrel brought the film, which portrays nine girls from around the world who achieve their dreams in the hardest of situations, to town with help from two local organizations, Rising International and Firelight Foundation. The film focuses on just how powerful education can be, especially in terms of ending poverty and changing the world through girls’ progression.

The first showing of the film has sold out, with 250 seats filled. The film will be shown again on Monday, March 11, although, as of this writing, all of the 230 reservations for the public have been filled.

The Rally and March to Resist Rape Culture will be held at noon on Friday, March 8 at Quarry Plaza on the UC Santa Cruz campus, and at 1:30 p.m. at the Clocktower in Downtown Santa Cruz. This event, organized by F-WORD (Feminists Working on Real Democracy), intends to involve the community in the ending of the acceptance of rape culture.

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The Ticker

Walnut Commons Breaks Ground

Walnut Commons Breaks Ground

Cohousing project begins construction in Downtown Santa Cruz

After the recent murders of two Santa Cruz police officers, the builders and future members of Walnut Commons thought about moving their groundbreaking ceremony to a later date, but instead decided to acknowledge the tragedy and stick with their plans.

“It’s so important that we do proceed, because one of the things that is going to get us through this very difficult time is community, and this project is all about community,” Santa Cruz City Councilman Don Lane said at the groundbreaking.

With the recent approval of a loan from Santa Cruz County Bank, construction for the Walnut Commons Cohousing project, a unique residential complex located at the corner of Walnut Avenue and Center Street in Downtown Santa Cruz, begins this week. Project engineers hope to have the building completed by early 2014.

Walnut Commons will contain three stories with 19 independent units, as well as a 3,000 square-foot common area with a kitchen, dining room, entertainment center, and recreational space for all residents to use. Most of the units have been filled, but six remain.

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The Ticker

Revel in the Glory

Revel in the Glory

San Francisco Giants World Championship Trophy Tour comes to Soquel High School

San Francisco Giants fans will have the opportunity this Tuesday, March 5 to bask in the glory of the 2010 and 2012 world championship trophies.

The trophies will be on display at Soquel High School from 6-8 p.m., where fans will be able to snap their own pictures or get a professional photo taken with the trophy starting at $20.

The tour is put on by the by the Giants to share the feeling of victory with the public and Junior Giants Leagues across Northern and Central California.

“The pride about our leagues matches the pride I felt when I first saw the trophies,” says Elizabeth Schilling, commissioner for the Live Oak Junior Giants League.

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The Ticker

Honoring The Fallen

Honoring The Fallen

SCPD to hold memorial service March 7

Officers of the Santa Cruz Police Department returned to the streets in their black and white cruisers Friday morning, though their grief following the loss of two of their fellow policemen earlier this week has not yet even begun to subside.

A huge display of support from the community throughout the day has helped police to stay strong and feel the love, said SCPD Deputy Chief Steve Clark.

“People are waving; giving us thumbs up; thank yous; the community support is absolutely humbling,” he says. “It has sustained us through this time.”

The memorial for Sgt. Loran 'Butch' Baker and detective Elizabeth Butler, both killed on Tuesday, Feb. 26 by suspect Jeremy Goulet, also deceased, will take place at noon on Thursday, March 7 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. It had originally been planned for Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz, but the crowd is expected to exceed that venue's capacity.

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The Ticker

Police Deaths Shake Santa Cruz

Police Deaths Shake Santa Cruz

Deaths of two police officers shock and sadden Santa Cruz 

As more than 100 people prepared to participate in a rally against gun violence at the Town Clock tower on Tuesday, Feb. 26, event organizer Gini Bianchi says multiple police cars suddenly screeched past the crowd, heading rapidly in the direction of Water Street and Branciforte Avenue.

Just after 3:30 p.m., more police cars, paramedic vehicles and a Santa Cruz Fire Truck with its horn blaring raced past, and a moment later helicopters were circling overhead.

Santa Cruz Police Department detectives Sgt. Loran "Butch" Baker and Elizabeth Butler, who were following up on a sexual assault charge called in earlier that week, contacted the 35-year-old suspect Jeremy Goulet at his Branciforte Avenue home. He then gunned down both officers on his doorstep, according Sheriff Phil Wowak and Deputy April Skalland, who spoke during a press conference at the SCPD station on the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 27.

Authorities say Goulet then took the officers' weapons and stole Baker's car.

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Free Angela

Political activist and UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Angela Davis commands the spotlight in a riveting new documentary. PLUS:  UCSC’s Bettina Aptheker opens up about the political upheavals of the ’60s and ’70s—and today. Angela Davis is not a human being who can be easily summed up in several sentences or paragraphs—books maybe, but, even then, capturing the political activist, scholar and author in the most comprehensive light is downright complex. That’s because Davis is an undeniably unique political creature, one who should be seen and heard to be fully absorbed and downloaded. Which is what makes Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, the new documentary about Davis and the turbulent political upheavals she faced during the late-1960s and ’70s, so inviting. In it, filmmaker Shola Lynch marks the 40th anniversary of Davis’ acquittal on charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy with a historical vérité style of filmmaking to illuminate a side of Davis few may have seen (or can recall), and captures the events that thrust the woman into one of the most fascinating orbits of notoriety and political intrigue of the 20th century.

 

No Big Surprises

The highly anticipated draft Environmental Impact Report for desal is finally out. Will it change anything? When scwd2, the group pursuing the proposed joint desalination plant for the Santa Cruz Water Department and Soquel Creek Water District, set up a booth at the Santa Cruz Earth Day festival in 2012, its reception was less than warm. Signature gathering for Measure P, the “right to vote” on desal ballot measure, was in full swing, as were tensions over the controversial project, which would produce up to 2.5 million gallons per day of desalinated water and cost an estimated $100 million. What were representatives of an energy-intensive desal plant doing among the recycling and conservation booths? That was the attitude Melanie Mow Schumacher, public outreach coordinator for scwd2 (pronounced “squid squared”), remembers sensing.

 

The Maya-Ixil Move Forward

Local nonprofit works to educate and create opportunity for indigenous communities in Guatemala In an isolated region of the Guatemala mountains called Ixil, the indigenous Maya population was devastated by a civil war between the government and leftist guerrilla factions that spanned 1960 to 1996. During that 36-year war, the Guatemalan military eradicated entire Mayan communities. In what amounted to genocide, soldiers burned Mayan farmlands and homes, raped and tortured the people, and scattered families. By the end of the war, 200,000 Mayans had been killed, 7,000 of whom were Maya-Ixil.

 

Public Thinking

Watsonville teens host TEDx event Santa Cruz County is no stranger to the TED brand. TED—which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design—talks have come to the area through independently organized events 10 times since 2011. This month, the gathering returns to the county with a new twist, thanks to the Watsonville Youth City Council. TEDxYouth@Watsonville, which will take place Sunday, May 19 at the Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts in Watsonville, will feature only speakers younger than 19 years old and will traverse topics from racial stereotypes and renewable energy to traditional Mexican dance.

 

Transoceana

Danny Moriarty’s musical influences have been known to impact his life beyond his local rock band, Transoceana. “I went through two periods,” confesses the singer, guitarist and songwriter. “I borrowed Bono’s mullet look from the ’80s for a while, and then I dressed like I was from the ’70s and had big hair like Jimmy Page.” Bono and Page are also symbolic of Transoceana’s evolution as a band during their three years together.

 

Cruzin’ for Inspiration

Former resident pays homage to Santa Cruz with locally shot thesis film When he left Santa Cruz for the University of Southern California’s graduate film program in 2010, Christopher Guerrero had completed the film major at UC Santa Cruz in 2008 and worked on campus in the film and digital media department. It wasn’t until he headed south, that Guerrero began to reminisce about the coastal town. “It was really really hard when I moved to L.A., to acclimate and find friends,” he says, adding that—counter to the philosophical, conversational culture of Santa Cruz—he found nowhere in his new town where he could simply sit and talk about life with someone. “I didn’t really realize why I love [Santa Cruz] so much until it was gone.”

 

Beck to the Future

In celebration of Beck’s solo acoustic show at The Rio, GT explores Song Reader, the alternative rock icon’s most ambitious interactive art piece yet. Here’s an odd little paradox of the digital revolution: The more sophisticated our technology gets, the more our musical milieu begins to resemble that of a bygone era, when song ideas were passed around from musician to musician, perpetually taking on new twists. Dozens of different YouTube users might try their hand at setting somebody’s rant about cats or double rainbows to music, or you might hear the Belgian musician Gotye turning the many and varied covers of his song “Somebody That I Used to Know” into a virtual orchestra (see below).

 

Growing Berries Without Bromide

Researchers test a new alternative to a controversial chemical The scarecrows perched in Santa Cruz strawberry fields do little to scare away the birds, much less the insects and fungi harbored in the soil. Everything likes to eat strawberries, which makes growing them a risky business. This predicament led UC Santa Cruz professor Carol Shennan to take an unconventional approach to pest management. Nine years ago, the fatal plant disease Verticillium wilt was wiping out strawberry plants at the university farm. Chemicals hardly phase the pathogen, and Shennan saw little improvement with crop rotation, which is typically used to treat infested fields. A visiting plant pathologist from the Netherlands recommended a little-known organic technique called anaerobic soil disinfestation, and, with so few other options, Shennan decided to give it a try. 

 

Uniting All That Has Been Separated

 

Legal Battles Drag On

More than a year after the 75 River St. occupation, four defendants remain embroiled in ongoing case  More than a year and a half since a group occupied the former Wells Fargo building on River Street in an act of protest, felony charges linger on for four of the original defendants and a trial may be imminent. Gabriella Ripley-Phipps, Brent Adams, Cameron Laurendeau and Franklin Alcantara were scheduled to begin trial May 13 in connection with the late 2011 protest. That trial now has been pushed back to September due to scheduling conflicts. The four face a felony charge of vandalism and a misdemeanor for trespassing.
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