The class of 2012 gets creative in tough job market

For the millions of twentysomethings graduating from universities across the country this spring, the word “recession” is one they have grown into adulthood with—a profane utterance that elicits thoughts of unemployment lines and moving back in with their parents.

County supervisors urge banks to suspend foreclosures

The state legislature is broken. Not only is it broken, but it has also prevented local governments from doing what can’t seem to get done in Sacramento—such as providing homeowners with legal protection from banks conducting fraudulent foreclosures. That was the consensus of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors at their May 15 meeting, when they adopted a resolution “urging” (but not requiring) local banks to suspend foreclosures until beefed-up, borrower protection laws are passed by the state legislature. The laws are known collectively as the “California Homeowner’s Bill of Rights.”

 Harbor management and dredge operator dispute to be heard by state

Resident Jim Riley joined the dredge operating crew at the Santa Cruz Harbor when he was 17 years old in 1985. That career abruptly halted on July 1, 2011 after negotiations between his union—Operating Engineers Local 3 (OE3)—and the Santa Cruz Port District (SCPD) fell apart on June 29. The dispute was over the SCPD's demand that the dredge operators increase contributions to their benefits by about $2,000 per worker.

The new financial director looks into the future of Santa Cruz’s economy

Following the retirement of the City of Santa Cruz’s financial director, Jack Dilles, in 2011, Santa Cruz County local Marc Pimentel came out on top of a nationwide job recruitment search.

“He competed really well with some very strong candidates,” says City Manager Martin Bernal. “He’s a strategic thinker, not your run-of-the-mill accountant. We wanted somebody that can identify trends and issues in place in the city, look at what might be affecting the city in the future, and be proactive instead of just reacting.”

Regents spare classes—for now—and drain staff healthcare surpluses instead

Gov. Jerry Brown announced a $100 million mid-year cut to the 10-campus University of California system in December, just as UC Santa Cruz staff and students left for winter break. UCSC's share of the cut is $6.5 million, but no classes will be affected through the end of the current school year.

Public nuisance or radical experiment in direct democracy?

The mood at Occupy Santa Cruz (OSC) General Assembly meetings was angry and defiant early last month, especially after protesters heard eyewitness accounts of the violence in Oakland and Berkeley. But the atmosphere became noticeably calmer and less defensive after the City of Santa Cruz’s injunction to shut down OSC was appealed to federal court on Nov. 15. The decision by U.S. District Judge Howard R. Lloyd whether or not to hear the case, and the arguments relating to federal jurisdiction, principally the First Amendment, is scheduled for Jan. 3, 2012 in San Jose.

The appeal delayed a State Superior Court hearing scheduled for Nov. 16 in the Santa Cruz County Court House, which seem to cool down the militant rhetoric of preparing for an eminent, forcible eviction of the Occupiers of San Lorenzo Park. The appeal to federal court of what Santa Cruz City Attorney John Barisone described as a “routine public nuisance suit” has also gained the web-based attention of Occupy movements across the country. It is a big question, after all: Does the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly include OSC?   

Local Fair Trade boutique celebrates one year, reopens for the holidays

Trade As One, an online Fair Trade sales company based in Santa Cruz, first opened their boutique store on the Westside on “Black Friday” last year. Now, a year later, the boutique store has reopened its doors for the holidays, extending their business hours until the end of the year.

Nathan George, the founder and CEO of Trade As One. started the business with his wife, Catherine George, when the couple moved from England to Santa Cruz five years ago. They’d hoped to tap into the surge of success and growth that Fair Trade was experiencing in Europe at the time. George, who spent 18 years in the software industry prior to opening Trade as One, confesses that it’s “not a surprise that Santa Cruz embraces Fair Trade.”

A look at where Santa Cruz County is ‘post’ recession

The recession is over … or is it? There are so many facets to the economy that it’s hard to tell if Santa Cruz County is on the road to recovery in the wake of the economic recession of the past couple years.

For someone like Mina Feuerhaken (pictured here), the owner of Nut Kreations with her husband Brody Feuerhaken, a small business in Downtown Santa Cruz that opened late this April, Santa Cruz County is in stages of recovery.

Her optimism about her business is largely based in the confidence she has in her product. “I feel that a lot of creative ideas and businesses come out of recessions because you have to find something that drives people and makes them want to spend their money with you,” Feuerhaken says. “But even just opening our business was a helpful drive for the economy; the vendors we buy from, the people that helped set up the place—we’re giving them our business and helping give them jobs.”

A conversation with Ingrid Newkirk, president and co-founder of PETA

Governments and organizations around the world will receive startling packages from Ingrid Newkirk after she dies.

Newkirk, 62, is still alive and well, and busy as ever as the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which she co-founded in 1980 with her then boyfriend, Alex Pacheco. But she’s designed her legal will to ensure that, once her days are indeed done, every last bit of her body will be used to make a statement about the injustices carried out against animals globally.

The Canadian Parliament will collect one of her ears to symbolize the screams of seals whose pelts are used for fur; her liver will go to France to protest the force-feeding of ducks and geese for foie gras; one of her pointer fingers will end up with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a posthumous accusation, pressuring the agency to ban animal testing; and the list goes on.

‘Gay textbook bill’ faces public veto as communities react to looming history curriculm

Less than two weeks after Governor Jerry Brown signed California’s “gay textbook bill” into law, opponents of the FAIR Education Act (SB 48) proposed a veto referendum.

Approved by Secretary of State Debra Bowen at the end of July, the referendum must now receive 505,000 supporting signatures before it can be placed on the June 2012 ballot. If approved by voters, the referendum will overturn the first law in the nation requiring teachers to discuss the role of gay citizens in history.

The controversy has left people on all sides of the debate wondering what curriculum changes the law might spur.