Acumen Fund founder and CEO Jacqueline Novogratz hits the What’s Next Lecture Series

It really could have been worse: A high school freshman wearing an old blue sweater from childhood arrives at school only to be taunted by a nemesis for the garment’s constricting fit. The girl consequently abandons the sweater in a Goodwill donation pile and returns to the other perils that wait in the realm of teens.

Enter Jacqueline Novogratz: international banker turned socially conscious founder and CEO of the nonprofit venture capital firm Acumen Fund. The old blue sweater is the beginning of her story. About 10 years after the disposal of the sweater, Novogratz had left her career on Wall Street and was in Rwanda working to start the country’s first micro finance bank with a small group of women.

Negotiations could end two decades of local management

The third largest group of doctors in the nation is negotiating with Dominican Hospital to take over management of the Emergency Room. If California Emergency Physicians Medical Group (CEP America) reaches a deal with Dominican, it will end 20 years of management by the Santa Cruz Emergency Physicians Medical Group (SCEPMG). As of press time, no decision had been made public.

“The message we are giving to them, which we think was well received, is that we want them to be partners with us and join our organization,” says Dr. Ellis Weeker, vice president of CEP America's Northern Division.

Local lounge’s hours cut after permit issues and noise complaints

The first sign that things might not go well for supporters of the Cypress Lounge at the Sep. 17 City Council Meeting happened before their topic had even been broached.

Anne Sallie, a local artist who frequents the lounge and sells her crafts there, was standing outside the chambers, explaining all the work the establishment has put into limiting noise and disturbances after complaints from the neighborhood.

Local pirate radio station shutdown, seeks new broadcasting site

Are you wondering why feedback noise and bits of a conservative talk show now crackle in your ears when you attempt to tune into Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC) at 101.1FM?

The popular pirate radio station has its own official “day” in Santa Cruz—declared on March 27 of last year by then mayor Mike Rotkin—but its radio transmitter has been homeless since Aug. 12.

“We’re looking for a [transmitter host] site,” says FRSC programmer “Uncle Dennis,” whose show has aired for 14 of the station’s 16 years on the air. “What we’d like to do is have a couple of sites in the barrel in case one doesn’t work out, but we’re still looking for a site so we can let folks know that we’re back on the air.”

Santa Cruz difference-makers gear up to speak at the first annual Bonfire Heights event in Monterey

Ten years ago, at age 31, Heidi Boynton was the picture of health and happiness. She was a busy stay-at- home mom with two boys, ages 6 and 9, who was involved in the community, helped organize service trips to Mexico, and camped, biked and jogged regularly.

Today, Boynton is still doing all of those things—and much more—but all whilst living with an incurable, rare “Molotov cocktail” of blood disorders. She was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and aplastic anemia in 2002, when she was 31, and then with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) in 2008. “I used to think that you’d get this one thing, and then you’d be done,” says Boynton. “But it doesn’t seem to be the case—and that’s all right.” On top of these blood disorders, she also had skin cancer twice and ovarian cancer during the last 10 years.

Death cap mushrooms made an early appearance in Santa Cruz

Nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea, followed by a brief period of improved health, and then, without treatment, comes liver damage, kidney failure, coma and death.

These symptoms sound like a Pepto-Bismol commercial gone awry. Instead they are the reality of consuming Amanita phalloides, otherwise known as the Death Cap, one of the most dangerous mushrooms found in Santa Cruz County. The Aptos family of six that suffered the death of one and poisoning of five of their members from the consumption of Death Caps in 2007 is still in recent memory. Every year, an average of between six and eight people are seriously poisoned by wild mushrooms they collect and consume in Northern California.

Downtown’s sit/lie ordinance continues to stir discussion about sidewalk performers and vendors

Changes made in 2009 to loitering rules on Pacific Avenue—commonly known as Santa Cruz's “sit/lie ordinance”—have some locals asking whether panhandlers and loiterers should be treated differently than artists and merchants.

The rules aim to keep sidewalks clear for walking and entrances to businesses accessible, according to Mayor Ryan Coonerty. However, there is no nuance written in to distinguish between performers and people who choose to hang out with no apparent purpose.

Before 2009, Chapter 5.43 of Santa Cruz Municipal Code made it illegal for anyone to perform or sit within 10 feet of public art, business entrances or kiosks. The new version extended that distance to 14 feet from any business, sculpture or kiosk, and 50 feet from automated teller machines. Without a special events permit from the Parks and Recreation Department, the law also requires people to move 100 feet down the street after one hour. The permits are given for non-commercial events, which puts artists looking to sell their work in a sort of legal limbo. There is not currently a system set up for permitted sales of work except on the basis that it is by donation.

Local coalition works to overcome racism in Santa Cruz County

For nearly two decades, community organizer Mireya Gomez-Contreras sat in meeting rooms, attempting to help alleviate problems of poverty and social inequality in Santa Cruz County, only to find herself debilitated by the racial dynamics of the spaces she worked in.

“I’d often think about how I was the only person of color in the room,” she says of her Hispanic heritage, “and would have a hard time relating to white people on any level.”

Pam Greeninger looks back on her career as the Capitola city clerk

“My husband and I will always joke about these things,” says Capitola City Clerk Pam Greeninger. “I’ll kid around that my second home is City Hall, and he’ll say ‘No it’s not, it’s your first home—you’re there more than you are home!’ It’s probably true, but I suppose now I’ll be home more than I am at City Hall.”

Greeninger has been in Capitola’s service for 32 years, and served as the city’s clerk since 1984. With a “great deal of thought and mixed emotions,” she recently decided to retire at the end of this year.

“How will the city survive in your absence?” exclaimed Anthony J. “Bud” Carney, AICP of California Land Planning in an email response to Greeninger’s retirement announcement. And it’s a fair question to ask.

Effort to protect sacred site heats up

Some 50 demonstrators marched on City Hall on Thursday, Aug. 25 to protest the development of an Ohlone sacred site and burial ground in north Santa Cruz, in what was the latest action in a seemingly growing movement to respect indigenous rights.

The site, known commonly as “the knoll,” sits on a 32-unit housing development currently under construction near Market Street and Branciforte Creek. Indigenous and environmental activists alike have opposed plans to develop the knoll since the inception of the idea, but opposition has ramped up in recent weeks after the bones of what is believed to be a Native American child were discovered.