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May 21st
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The Ticker

Blogs - 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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Blogs - 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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Blogs - 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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Blogs - The Ticker

Helping Pets 
In Need

Helping Pets 
In Need

BirchBark Foundation announces its launch this spring

When pets and their owners grow together over the years, they become more than just human and animal—they become companions and friends. And like all good friends that stick around, pets can become an indispensable part of the family. So what happens if an unexpected illness or injury threatens a pet’s life, but the treatment they need to survive is beyond the owner’s means?


When faced with circumstances like these, pet owners of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties had few options other than payment plans, adoption, or euthanasia—until now.


The recently launched nonprofit the BirchBark Foundation was formed for “people that have the heart, the house, and all the resources to care for their pet, but suddenly face a catastrophic medical problem they can’t afford to pay for,” says Dr. Merrianne Burtch, founder and president of the BirchBark Foundation.

Throughout her 14 years of treating animals at Pacific Veterinary Specialists and Emergency Service, which she founded in 1999 and co-owns, Burtch says she ran into these sorts of financial crises all too often. In March of last year, she decided to do something about it. 


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Blogs - The Ticker

Preserving Living Landscapes

Preserving Living Landscapes

Land Trust of Santa Cruz County raises $13.5 million to protect local land

The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County (LTSCC) recently announced the completion of its 18-month campaign to raise $13.5 million from community members to help protect vital habitats within the county, from the subtle sentience of the Cemex Redwood Forest, to the ancient seafloor of the Sandhills habitat, to the rolling Pajaro Hills east of Watsonville. In total, they have helped to preserve 9,900 acres of land because of the campaign.

In 2011, LTSCC partnered with The Nature Conservancy, Peninsula Open Space Trust, Save the Redwoods League, and Sempervirens Fund, to form the Living Landscape Initiative (LLI), which assisted in protecting the recently acquired CEMEX Redwood forest.

The 8,500-acre CEMEX Redwood Forest north of Davenport was one of the largest unprotected habitats in Santa Cruz County until the LLI acquired the property from CEMEX, a concrete supply company. The forest is a key watershed for four creeks, one of which provides drinking water to Davenport, while another supplements the City of Santa Cruz with 20 percent of its potable water, according to LTSCC’s Outreach Manager Calah Pasley.

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Blogs - The Ticker

The Pinnacle Of Parks

The Pinnacle Of Parks

Pinnacles National Monument becomes a national park, bringing good news to the area's economy and its resident condors 

As of this month, the United States has welcomed a new addition to the National Parks Program, and it happens to be in Santa Cruz County’s backyard. President Barack Obama signed a bill on Thursday, Jan. 10 officially recognizing Pinnacles National Monument, located near Soledad, Calif., as a national park.

The bill, which has been in the works since mid-2012, was drafted by Santa Cruz’s congressional representative, Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel). According to a statement released by Farr, the upgrade of the park’s status could boost the area’s economy through increased tourism.

"By elevating Pinnacles National Monument to national park status we also elevate the region’s appeal to potential visitors," Farr said in the statement. "These new tourists will spend their dollars at local businesses and ultimately be the driving force that helps this region ... grow and eventually prosper."

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Blogs - The Ticker

Rooting For Trees

Rooting For Trees

Local third grader is in the running for a $10,000 for TREES ROCK! prize


Third grader Vince Golder is, perhaps, Santa Cruz County’s youngest museum curator.

The bright and energetic 9-year-old keeps a small display of exhibits in his tree fort “museum,” where he spends his time when he isn’t reading, writing, digging for fossils or catching and studying interesting creatures, says Vince’s father, firefighter Mike Golder.

Local flora and fauna fascinate Vince, who says his favorite tree is, in fitting Santa Cruz fashion, the redwood. Inspired by the towering native tree, the Bay View Elementary student entered the TREES ROCK! video contest put on by Scotties Tissues last December, and has now made it to the top 12 finalists.


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Blogs - The Ticker

OpenCounter Goes Live

OpenCounter Goes Live

FRESH DIRT > The city’s new online business hub is up and running

The new online portal OpenCounter, a system that streamlines the process of applying for business licenses, permitting and other legal startup requirements, went live on the City of Santa Cruz's website Wednesday morning, Jan. 9. The launch was celebrated by a small group of city officials, business owners and tech professionals at Cruzio Coworking in Downtown Santa Cruz. 

The system enables users to enter their business information and then see the details of what they must do to implement their plan, greatly cutting down the confusion that is often associated with the bureaucratic requirements for starting a business.

OpenCounter organizes an entrepreneur's business information, which was previously written and filed by hand, and delivers it to the right departments at the city in the correct sequence to maximize efficiency.

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Blogs - The Ticker

Pet Of The Week

Pet Of The Week

GT's pet of the week, brought to you by the Center for Animal Protection and Education

Walter and Peter were tiny puppies when they were brought to the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter after one of their siblings died of Parvovirus. Luckily, both of them tested negative for the disease. Because they were too young to go up for adoption, they were placed in a Center for Animal Protection and Education foster home.

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Blogs - The Ticker

Good Fortune For A Large Charge

Good Fortune For A Large Charge

SANTA CRUZ > Who is to blame when, thousands of dollars later, your fortune has not come true?

If someone promised to improve “your karma” and “your personal relationships,” would you sign up for their services? What if you were told that you had to pay thousands of dollars before seeing any results?

The Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office reported in November that a local young woman made that gamble and came out of the deal feeling scammed. After shelling out $19,000 in a matter of three months, she realized that perhaps the psychic she was seeing was not exactly authorized to do such things.

The woman reported the incident last month.

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    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.

     

    Bringing the Message Home

    Former mayor and UCSC student recap their experiences at the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women While traveling to New York for the 57th United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), seasoned local activist Jane Weed-Pomerantz had a notion of what to expect. But, with the vast scope of worldwide women’s rights violations presented at the commission, she knew she would still be taken aback at times. “I was worried because I had a feeling I would be finding out what I did find out about women and girls in the world,” says Weed-Pomerantz. “I was trying to brace myself for the knowledge of the reality, because we are really very protected in this country.”

     

    The Tilt

    Although Jesse Malley, lead singer of the outlaw country, blues and rock ’n’ roll band The Tilt, no longer lives in Santa Cruz, she was born and raised here and this is where her love of music and performance began. “My dad worked at The Catalyst for 27 years, so I got to see a lot of music acts come through town,” she says. “Music always seemed to me to be such an incredible way to express yourself that I just stumbled upon my voice and jumped into it.” That jump eventually led to Malley heading down to San Diego to pursue a music career, and her band The Tilt has just released their full-length debut, Howlin’.
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    May Day in the Alps

    When my daughter returns to Santa Cruz from her new home in Los Angeles, she comments on how quiet it is here. It was even more so during a trip to Ben Lomond, when we set out for a sample of her second favorite macaroni and cheese. Sitting at the front of the Tyrolean Inn restaurant, the green tarp with plastic windows kept out the chill as well as the noise of an occasional passing car. A new draft beer celebrating the German spring, Maibok ($6) was refreshing, served in a hefty glass stein, but specialty cocktails are unique as well.

     

    The Power of Conversation

    Local author Cecile Andrews emphasizes importance of community engagement in newest book Cecile Andrews, author of the new book “Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good,” probably wouldn’t get along too well with Larry David’s character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, known for hiding his face and avoiding communication with anyone he runs into on the street. Andrews is a longstanding part-time Santa Cruz (part-time Seattle) resident who says something that’s struck her about this town over the years is people's willingness to participate in a practice she’s dubbed the “Stop and Chat”—which is exactly what it sounds like.

     

    What are you a total sucker for?

    A cold beer after a long bike ride, gossip, and fighting over politics. Kyle McKinley Santa Cruz | Lecturer

     

    Best of Santa Cruz County

    The 2013 Santa Cruz County Readers' Poll and Critics’ Picks It’s our biggest issue of the year, and in it, your votes—more than 6,500 of them—determined the winners of The Best of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll. New to the long list of local restaurants, shops and other notables that captured your interest: Best Beer Selection, Best Locally Owned Business, Best Customer Service and Best Marijuana Dispensary. In the meantime, many readers were ever so chatty online about potential new categories. Some of the suggestions that stood out: Best Teen Program and Best Web Design/Designer. But what about: Dog Park, Church, Hotel, Local Farm, Therapist (I second that!) or Sports Bar—not to be confused with Bra. Our favorite suggestion: Best Act of Kindness—one reader noted Café Gratitude and the free meals it offered to the Santa Cruz Police Department in the aftermath of recent crimes. Perhaps some of these can be woven into next year’s ballot, so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the following pages and take note of our Critics’ Picks, too, beginning on page 91. A big thanks for voting—and for reading—and an even bigger congratulations to all of the winners. Enjoy.  -Greg Archer, EditorBest of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll INDEX | Shops | Food & Drink | Arts & Entertainment | Health & Fitness | Professionals | The Rest |

     

    Vine & Dine: Pine Ridge Vineyards

    Chenin Blanc + Viognier 2012 On a recent trip to Palm Springs, I came across Pine Ridge Vineyards’ Chenin Blanc + Viognier at a new downtown restaurant called Lulu. Superbly decorated in Hollywood-esque style and with a very hip vibe, this California bistro is one of the hottest new dining spots—and the Chenin Blanc was just the right wine to pair with some of Lulu’s Happy Hour tapas-style food. And eating outdoors in the desert’s warm night air makes a chilled white wine taste even better.

     

    The Gypsy

    French-born jazz vocalist Cyrille Aimée lives for musical freedom and improvisation Cyrille Aimée is a musical gypsy. Her sound incorporates elements of Latin American, American, Brazilian and other styles of jazz, she has recorded albums as a duet with Diego Figueiredo, she currently performs with the Surreal (same pronunciation as her first name) Band, and she is working on a new album with yet another band. As it happens, Aimée can actually blame gypsies for her love of jazz. “I grew up in Samois-sur-Seine, which is a little town in France where Django Reinhardt used to live,” she says. “Every year they have the Django Festival in his honor, and so gypsies from all parts of Europe come and honor him and play guitar. I started hanging out with the gypsies and became obsessed with their music, their way of living, their freedom. What drew me to jazz music was the freedom of it, all the improvisation, and the fact that it’s a style of music that is constantly changing.”

     

    Step on up to the Bar

    Here in Santa Cruz County, we are privileged to have farm-fresh greens year-round. Making a nightly salad at home is a snap since the emergence of pre-washed greens, and vinaigrette dressing is made easily with your favorite vinegar and small spoon of Dijon mustard whisked with a bit of olive oil.

     

    Exposed

    David Cay Johnston’s new book explains how big companies rob us blind In his late teens David Cay Johnston started to ask questions. “Why do we have these guys in uniforms with guns driving around in cars all day?” “Why is the Santa Cruz County Courthouse being built in such an unusual shape?” He wrote an article, while still living in his hometown of Santa Cruz, proving that the off-kilter courthouse building, which officials had promised would save money, actually cost more than a conventional building.

     

    Do you unplug often enough? Or do you need help?

    Santa Cruz | Caregiver