What was the most important message in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address?

It's clear that 2010 will be about the economy and creating jobs, and I think President Obama did a great job of laying out the year's priorities.

Building on the strong foundation laid in 2009, congress will continue to pursue strategies to put Americans back to work.

Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Abraham Cooper confronts Internet hate groups

“It’s there below the surface,” says Rabbi Richard Litvak, senior rabbi at Temple Beth El in Aptos, “as a constant that pops up from time to time.” He’d like to believe that anti-Semitism is a dead issue in Santa Cruz, but recent events remind him otherwise. There were, for example, the Nazi flags a resident at the St. George Apartments in Downtown Santa Cruz hung in his window in late November.

“The father of one of the people in our community came to visit and was shopping downtown with his daughter,” Rabbi Litvak recalls. “He is a Holocaust survivor. He saw those flags, and it was just so offensive and so hurtful to him, and to other people in the community.”

Wage reductions may threaten vulnerable clients

One of Julee Costanza’s clients says she would rather be back on the streets than in an assisted living facility.

“She lives in a small one-room apartment now, but she was homeless for a period of time,” explains Costanza, a Santa Cruz-based homecare worker.  “Even though she might not make it on the streets, she keeps saying she would rather go that route than move into a nursing home.”

It’s possible that if state budget changes are approved, 2,000 disabled Santa Cruz residents will loose their homecare workers—domestic aids that clean, give baths, and make sure pills are taken at the right time within the comforts of the client’s home. In the 2010 budget, Gov. Schwarzenegger altered enrollment criteria for In Home Support Services (IHSS), a program that allows low-income elders and disabled patients to remain in their own homes with assistance.

One of the popular ideas put forth in Live Oak’s Five-Year Plan is moving the Sheriff’s Office to Live Oak. Why is this move important?

As the most urbanized area of the unincorporated part of our county, Live Oak and Soquel generate over one-third of the calls to the Sheriff’s Office. When a call comes in, residents should not have to wait until an officer drives from the City of Santa Cruz to respond. Having the Sheriff’s Center located in Live Oak not only services the needs of residents in those neighborhoods but stations officers in a better location to address law enforcement needs of the entire unincorporated area.

Desalination plant raises questions about water conservation potential

The rain gutter in Rick Longinotti’s backyard descends underground, carrying roof water to an underground storage cistern.

“It didn’t cost anything but sweat and muscle,” says Longinotti, a local environmentalist, founder of Transition Santa Cruz and member of bicycle advocacy group People Power. He believes conservation efforts could make the Santa Cruz Water District’s desalination plant obsolete—perhaps even before it’s built.

The planned plant will pull five million gallons of seawater from the Monterey Bay each day, using reverse osmosis to produce 2.5 million gallons of drinkable water. The remaining brine will be trucked to a water plant, diluted with treated wastewater, and released into the Bay. 

Robert Steffen starts a brand new walk—directly toward a city council seat

Robert Steffen is looking to prove he can talk the talk, not just walk the (very slow) walk. Two years after Steffen, the prominent downtown Santa Cruz character formerly known as “The Pink Umbrella Man,” put away his parasol and pink clothing and ceased walking ever so slowly from one end of Pacific Avenue to the other, he’s announcing a run for Santa Cruz City Council in November.

“There are a lot of local ordinances that I think are completely wrong,” Steffen says. In fact, he hopes to repeal an array of local ordinances, such as those that prohibit panhandlers from being within 14 feet of building entrances, open-air cafés or crosswalks, and 50 feet from any bank or ATM. Steffen calls his political position a “progressive platform very strongly based in humanitarian ideals.”

UCSC’s linguistics department answers old questions with new methods

What is a question? How do you ask one? How do you answer?

These are some of the many queries UC Santa Cruz’s linguistics department is trying to solve and they are using some innovative techniques to get at the answers.

“This is an exciting time in the field [of linguistics],” says Jim McCloskey, chair of the department. “The field is changing fast. The basic questions remain the same … but the methods are changing.”

Until recently, the focus in linguistics research was on informal methods, generally one-on-one talks with a native speaker, asking them questions about the language. Now the focus is shifting toward more large-scale, quantitative, and laboratory-based studies—methodologies more akin to those of the “hard” sciences. UCSC is unique in that it integrates both techniques.

Watsonville’s mayor opens up about his hometown, pressing issues and running for state assembly

Meet Luis Alejo, mayor of Watsonville, holder of several degrees, hometown role model, and now a contender for the 2010 race for the 28th State Assembly District. Born and raised in Watsonville, Alejo left to obtain an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, a master’s in education from Harvard, and a law degree from UC Davis. Since returning home from his academic ventures, he works as a staff attorney with the Monterey County Superior Court. A new member of the Watsonville City Council, Alejo has also decided to shoot for a seat on the California State Assembly and has received endorsements from many local leaders, including the Santa Cruz City Council and Board of Supervisors.

One local instructor talks about the psychology of an attacker, and what to do (and what not to do) if you're assaulted

It's easy to see why Leonie Sherman is a good self-defense instructor. She carries herself with a confidence and a sort of bottled intensity that's apparent even as she sits calmly at a table outside Lulu Carpenter’s on a crystalline winter morning. The strength she radiates isn't automatic, however, nor is it accidental, and for years she's worked in Santa Cruz to show would-be victims how they too can find their inner strength.

Many local educators are skeptical about Race to the Top, the federal program in which states are competing for education funding.  What potential problems are they worried about, and do you agree with them?

Like me, many of the local educators I have spoken with are supportive of the goals of the Race to the Top (RttT) program, which include improving the lowest-performing schools, developing systems that measure student growth, and providing more support and training to California’s teachers.  However, many local educators have also expressed legitimate concerns about how these goals will be met and whether sufficient funding will be provided to carry out the reforms that are being proposed.