Community programs recoup after budget cuts

Various community programs in Santa Cruz have been on the chopping block since January of this year when the city, in attempt to close a $9 million budget deficit, charged Parks and Recreation, museums and community centers with finding their own funding. Nearly one year later, all of these programs have been able to keep their heads above water through the hard work and efforts of community members.

The Santa Cruz Teen Center is perhaps facing the most unsure future due to budget cuts. The city stopped paying rent for the Teen Center last fall, but property owner George Ow Jr. agreed to temporarily waive the rent until the city could make a decision on the future of the center.

How a Santa Cruz County non-profit continues to change lives

There are more than 62,000 children in foster care in California, according to the California Department of Social Services. That number may seem overwhelming, but New Families, a local non-profit private foster care agency, is up for the challenge.

New Families is a Felton-based organization that has been taking a different approach to the foster care system for over 11 years. They micromanage cases for 40 children in 30 homes throughout Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Clara, San Benito and Sacramento counties.

City council and local residents look for new ways to combat violent crime

On Tuesday, Nov. 10, the Santa Cruz City Council voted on five new initiatives designed to combat violent crime and solicited public comment on other ways to address the problem. The measures, all of which passed unanimously, will revise the zoning definitions and permit process for alcohol retailers, accelerate plans to install improved lighting downtown, allocate new funds for the Juvenile Diversion and Early Intervention programs, review and revise ordinances aimed at combating nuisance properties, and launch a pilot Neighborhood Empowerment Initiative, which will send bilingual two-officer police teams to do door-to-door outreach in three neighborhoods that have been hard-hit by recent violence.

New Five Year Plan for Live Oak and Soquel seems likely to bring the area up to speed—without all the extra baggage

Who needs a mayor when you have the Santa Cruz County Redevelopment Agency (RDA) and Supervisor John Leopold looking out for you? Better yet, who needs elected officials when local residents show up and behave amicably towards one another while discussing controversial issues, such as the dispersal of millions of tax dollars in their community? Admittedly, being unincorporated is not the same as being ungoverned, but it stands that the response of local residents of the Live Oak and Soquel community at the Public Hearing for RDA’s new Five Year Plan showed that they are ready and willing to take matters into their own hands.

Proposed ban may take plastic bags out of Santa Cruz stores

Getting in the car to buy dinner at the supermarket has taken us a long way from tracking a herd of animals to survive the winter. Conveniences have become an important part of our day-to-day lives, but while making life easier, these conveniences have also separated us from the environment in which we live. Not to mention they can take a drastic toll on the environment.

The most recent issue on the minds of environmentalists and local politicians in Santa Cruz County is the convenience of getting plastic and paper bags at the grocery store. On Oct. 30, County Supervisor Mark Stone announced his intention of instating a countywide ordinance that bans single-use plastic bags and drastically reduces the number of paper bags that are used. Stone plans to instate the ban, if approved, on April 22, 2010, also known as Earth Day. The proposed ban will not only ban plastic bags from all supermarkets and pharmacies, but incentives will be provided to customers if they forgo store provided paper bags altogether and bring their own reusable bags.

Reactions to fee hikes and recent occupations divide UCSC community

On Nov. 17 at UC Los Angeles, the University of California Board of Regents will vote on a proposed measure that would raise student fees by 32 percent next year. If approved, student tuitions will have risen by a total of 109 percent since the start of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure. Speaking to an audience of more than 100 students at a forum on the budget crisis on Oct. 29 at UC Santa Cruz, Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and an outspoken critic of the UC system’s administrative and financial practices, accused the governor of trying to create “a radical right-wing free market model” of education, and told students, “Basically, Schwarzenegger is the king of sticking it to you guys.”

How a local nonprofit plans to put an end to stress

Whether it’s taking a test, preparing for work or dealing with relationships, stress is a dominant emotion in today’s busy society. Unfortunately, the tools for managing these ever-present stressors are not taught in school and are not often readily available at home—but one local nonprofit is on a mission to change this.

The Institute of HeartMath (IHM) has been researching the physiological implications of stress since its inception in 1991. With the help of its researchers, IHM has been able to connect stress to the heartbeat and brain activity, creating tools and techniques that assist in minimizing stress.

Community addresses recent crimes, struggles to cope

On the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 21, Santa Cruz Police Department officers addressed a packed auditorium at Santa Cruz High School. The meeting, filled mainly with Santa Cruz High parents and their children, was intended to educate the public about gangs in the wake of the death of Tyler Tenorio, 16, who was stabbed on Oct. 16 on Laurel Street near Chestnut Street, during an apparent argument between the boy and his friends and a group of gang members. On Oct. 19, Daniel Onesto, 19, was taken into custody and charged with murder, gang enhancement, and assault with a deadly weapon; police have also issued an arrest warrant for Paulo Luna, 23, and are seeking one for a third man, whose name was not publicly available at the time of print. The incident followed the rape and beating of a 69-year-old woman in her home on the Westside the Wednesday before. The last two months have also seen four reports of sexual battery in the downtown area. All of these sexual assault cases remain unsolved.

Online market lends power and convenience to Cruzans who want to buy and sell local

“It’s no secret that the Internet has become something of a disconnecting factor in our society—a simulated world of convenience and entertainment that is all too easy to be sucked into. And, in the midst of the over-stimulation, two enterprising young Santa Cruzans have found a way to use the Internet’s omnipotence and convenience to get people to eat healthy, be involved in the local community, and support the local economy.

Santa Cruz Local Foods (SCLF), created by Noah Pinck and Eleanor Taylor just over three months ago, is a year-round online local foods market dedicated to bringing people fresh foods (picked that day in most cases) from within a 100-mile radius of Santa Cruz. “Our intent is to really paint a picture that you can eat local, and it’s not hard, and there’s a great abundance here,” says Taylor.