Proposition 30 proposes raising taxes to save public schools from more budget cuts

Over-packed kindergarten classrooms are just one example of the ways California public schools are tightening their resources to make up for budget cuts, but Santa Cruz County Superintendent of Schools Michael Watkins says that strategy can only go so far.

“Most of our revenue comes from increasing class size, but you can't just continue to add kids to a class to get more revenue,” he says. “It compromises the quality of our education.”

In the last four years, between $12 and $15 billion have been cut from the state's education budget. Those cuts came as major hits for public schools, but the problems trace back much further. 

West Cliff Drive will become car-free for the first Santa Cruz Open Streets

In 2011, Santa Cruz resident Eleanor Mendoza crafted and sent an insightful, handwritten letter to the Santa Cruz City Council for a class assignment. In the letter, the then-9-year-old implored our elected officials to take a closer look at bicycle-related issues in town.

“I was the only one who wrote a letter to our mayor,” says Mendoza, mentioning her strong interest in working in governmental policy. 

United Veterans Council is eager to return to the Veterans Memorial Building when it reopens next year

Bob Patton of the United Veterans Council is already anticipating the prospect of veterans service programs returning to their old digs when the Santa Cruz County Veterans Memorial Building reopens. According to the county, this will happen in the spring of next year.

The Downtown Santa Cruz building has been empty for more than two years, ever since the county found the structure to be unsafe in January 2010 for use by the UVC and many other veteran outreach groups, some of which had been housed in the historical building since the 1930s.

Thanks for the Good Times

I started my first newspaper job when I was 10 years old, when I sold the Herald Express on the corner of Lankershim Boulevard and Riverside Drive in North Hollywood, Calif. The year was 1956. I stood on the corner trying to hawk the paper to passing cars stopping at the traffic light. It was boring, so I decided to put the papers on my bike and go around to all the businesses in the neighborhood, and wound up creating a route for myself, consisting of local merchants in the area. I found that to be much more productive. I received tips and sold many more papers than when I stood at the corner. My pay for selling each 10-cent paper was 3 cents. I was paid daily, and I would take my earnings down to the nearby bowling alley where I would spend it all on the baseball pinball machine. Little did I know that the newspaper business would be my career for 30-plus years.

TEDx Santa Cruz speakers discuss deeper connections with the world

During the TEDx Santa Cruz conference, which took place on Saturday, Sept. 15, poet and author Albert Flynn DeSilver shared his experience of living with alcoholism, an endless cycle of shame, and a cult whose leaders tied him to a tree in the woods. DeSilver says he experienced a revelation while tied to that tree.

“If I ever get untied from this tree, I am going to open myself to creativity, service, and love,” he remembers thinking.

The theme of this year's TEDx—the second to be held in Santa Cruz—was “open.”

City of Santa Cruz proposes an online business permitting portal in a nationwide contest

In the very near future, long days spent at City Hall trying to get the right information from the right department could be replaced by navigating a single website. The City of Santa Cruz is pitching its tech-smart reputation in a grant proposal that could land the city as much as $5 million for a web-based information service for new business start-ups.

Local school district gets creative in its ongoing fight for better nutrition

“Kids should be healthy and hunger-free,” states Jamie Smith, senior manager of Food Services for Santa Cruz City Schools (SCCS), matter-of-factly. “We practice what we preach.”

Santa Cruz City Council candidates express different views on campaign fundraising

On the national level, campaign spending continues to escalate to mind-bending levels. And with the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United ruling that removed all financial limits to corporate contributions, the financial arms race for candidates has become increasingly controversial.

According to the Washington Post, presidential candidate Mitt Romney was leading President Barack Obama in campaign fundraising in late August, $185.9 million to $123.7 million. The forthcoming election will be the most expensive on record, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Local nonprofit enlists help of UCSC interns to combat Native American exploitation

 “In the 1880s, under a U.S. government policy of forced assimilation, [Lakota] children as young as 5 years old were removed from their homes, shipped to boarding schools, and instructed in the ways of white culture,” reads a passage on lakotalaw.org, the website for the Lakota Child Rescue Project (LCRP).

A modern-day Robin Hood for many Lakota people—the indigenous people of the Great Plains—the organization is currently compiling a federal civil rights lawsuit in favor of the Great Sioux Nation.

With the new school year comes a renewed debate over the future of charter school education

Crimson red banners and golden pennants from universities are the first things visitors notice upon entering Ceiba College Prep.

The second are the children themselves—recently returned from summer vacation, they animatedly slap fly swatters at a whiteboard in a geometry game, spout facts from an article about Asperger’s syndrome, and bow their heads in concentration to solve a math problem. In every classroom, a poster reads, “So much to learn. So little time.”