This male puma narrowly avoided being collared by a researcher with the Santa Cruz Puma Project (SCPP). The SCPP captures and collars mountain lions to collect data for better understanding puma behavior. Courtesy of Paul Houghtaling.

Sixty feet high in the forest canopy, the puma begins to fidget. From the tree next to her, biologist Paul Houghtaling shakes branches and yells to frighten her from her perch. Disgruntled, the puma grudgingly descends the tree’s trunk head first, clinging to the bark and hissing at the researchers waiting below.

“It wasn’t the most graceful thing,” said Houghtaling, the field biologist for the Santa Cruz Puma Project (SCPP), when telling the story. “She was backing out, snarling like a dragon.”

Called 38F, this female puma is one of many caught and collared by SCPP. Partnered with UC Santa Cruz and led by UCSC professor of environmental studies Chris Wilmers, SCPP researchers have spent the past five years collecting data to better understand puma behavior, physiology and ecology, and how each are affected by habitat fragmentation in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Since 2008, Wilmers and the 10 graduate students and staff members involved with SCPP have caught and tagged 38 pumas from their 17,000 km² study region in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Today, this landscape is a mosaic of open forest, rural neighborhoods and roads — all of which are surrounded by cities. The researchers collect data from them with GPS collars, samples from deer kill sites and 44 trail cameras.

SCPP published their first study, which encompassed four years of data, on April 17. The results confirmed their prediction that pumas tolerate human activity in their basic subsistence habits — feeding and moving throughout their territories — but they need larger environmental buffers to conduct reproductive behaviors, which include raising kittens, communicating and mating.

“Just because you see mountain lions doesn’t mean it’s good mountain lion habitat,” Wilmers said. “What they really need to sustain their populations are big open spaces that allow them to find mates and reproduce.”

According to the study, healthy reproduction rates in puma populations require access to mates and success at raising kittens. Like humans, puma romance begins with communication — but instead of Match.com, male pumas use scent markings to advertise their presence to females. These occur at scrape sites, where pumas kick up piles of duff and leaves and urinate on them. Often, like in 38F’s territory, multiple male pumas have to duke it out for the strongest scent.

“They’re having a pissing contest with each other, essentially,” Houghtaling said.

When a female puma likes what she smells, she answers with a screeching call, also known as caterwauling. If all goes according to plan, the two will meet up and mate for several days. The female will den and give birth to kittens several months later.

Researches from the Santa Cruz Puma Project use various methods, such as motion-sensor cameras. Photo by Daniel Green.

Wildlife Neighbors

As open space becomes more fragmented, Wilmers said being a responsible wildlife neighbor will become increasingly important to the survival of puma populations.

“The more fragmented a habitat becomes, the smaller the population’s going to be,” he said. “[It becomes] a bigger deal, things like depredation, because you’re killing a smaller and smaller population.”

While pumas are characteristically shy animals that avoid human neighborhoods, the study shows they occasionally eat pets left outside after dark, said Yiwei Wang, a graduate student who is part of the project. At night, when humans go to sleep, the decrease in human activity invites pumas to venture into the rural neighborhoods to look for food.

Wilmers said pumas have the highest chance of being shot in rural neighborhoods, where many people have pets that could potentially be prey for pumas. It is legal in California for landowners to shoot mountain lions that threaten their property — according to the published study, eight of the project’s collared pumas have been shot for preying on domestic  livestock since 2008.

Wang and other members of SCPP reach out to landowners in rural communities close to open space to educate them about how to minimize conflict with pumas.

“It kind of comes down to, are we going to be good neighbors?” Houghtaling said.

For SCPP researchers, being a good neighbor means putting pets in sheds at night, when lack of human activity might entice pumas to infiltrate neighborhoods in search for food.

Roads are another cause of puma mortality, particularly Highway 17. Two of the project’s collared pumas have been hit by cars, one of which died from the accident.

“There’s potential for making these large highways more pervious for animal movement,” Wilmers said, “by building overpasses or underpasses for wildlife to cross the highway rather than crossing the road and risk getting hit by a car.”

SCPP has a working relationship with Caltrans, the state agency that oversees planning and construction of highways, bridges and railways. With help from SPCC, Caltrans is currently working to draw up a plan to implement these changes, Wilmers said.

While being shot or hit by a car is unfortunate for individual pumas, Wang said, habitat fragmentation poses the largest threat to the population in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which is currently at a healthy 70–100 adult individuals.

“Getting some individual [pumas] killed doesn’t necessarily impact the survival of the population,” Wang said. “We’re more concerned for conservation purposes of retaining valuable habitat and making sure that development doesn’t occur in places that are really important to pumas right now.”

Among these important areas are forested corridors connecting areas of open space, which serve as routes of access for pumas. Cutting these off affects their ability to find mates and reproduce. It also limits the ability for new individuals to join the population, Houghtaling said, which is vital to the population’s future genetic health.

Trained hounds are also used to track and capture pumas to study their movements and habits. Photo by Daniel Green.

The Pumas of the Project

“Every individual animal is interesting,” Houghtaling said. “They have their quirks, they’ve had their experiences and their ways of relating to things that are a little bit different from one individual to another.”

Of the original 38 pumas collared, 14 are still alive. One male, 16M, became a local celebrity when stories of his escapades on Highway 17 spread. 16M crossed the highway more than 30 times, survived getting hit by a car and boldly changed the location of his territory, risking being killed by the males whose territories he expanded into. He was a favorite among the researchers, Wang said, until he was shot in November 2012 for preying on livestock.

3M was the first male collared in the Santa Cruz Mountains. According to one of Houghtaling’s SCPP blog updates, 3M taught the researchers lessons about important corridors in neighborhoods, the significance of marking sites and the importance of “patience, ingenuity, perseverance, versatility and humility.”

“3M was like a ghost. His collar was junk, it broke right away and would very rarely send us a data point,” Houghtaling said. “That cat really pushed our edges to think outside the box.”

Houghtaling said 3M’s elusive behavior forced the researchers to become more creative with technology, like using satellite transmitters to monitor when a lion is scavenging a deer and sending updates from GPS devices directly to emails and smartphones.

The researchers have refined their methods since they first captured 3M and now have several ways of catching pumas. They use box traps baited with a fresh kill, padded snare traps or hound dogs to track and “tree” an individual, or chase it up a tree, like with 38F.

“It’s always very awe-inspiring to see such a large, powerful animal and then kind of render it helpless for a little bit,” Wang said.

Out in the field a few weeks ago, a scrape site in Cemex Redwoods caught Houghtaling’s eye. He squatted low to inspect a paw print in the exposed earth, still moist from the puma’s recent presence. This scrape may have been made by the uncollared male in 36M’s territory that had been eluding the researchers.

Houghtaling radioed Dan Tichenor, the houndsman. Tichenor brought out Osage, a wizened Plott hound, to inspect the site. Osage sniffed the scrape and his tail started wagging. He barked in a direction off the trail, but didn’t give the particular howl that signals he found a fresh scent. The uncollared male had evaded the researchers once again.

Tichenor said hounds are effective in chasing pumas because pumas instinctively avoid conflict with other predators they evolved with, such as wolves.

“These hounds may be getting by on the wolves’ coattails, so to speak,” Tichenor said.

Once the hounds have “treed” a puma, the researchers shoot it with a tranquilizer dart. The drugs take several minutes to have an effect. That brief window of time often involves a wild chase to ensure the puma doesn’t pass out in a dangerous situation, such as in water.

“Their safety is our number one priority,” said Veronica Yovovich, a grad student with SPCC. “No data is worth hurting a puma over. If things look risky at all, we will back off rather than ever put a puma at risk.”

When a puma has safely fallen asleep, the researchers check its vital signs, collect various data and samples and put the collar on.

After a puma has been captured and let loose, the researchers monitor its movements with three devices on the collar: a GPS, a magnetometer that serves as a compass and an accelerometer to measure vibrations. Walking, pouncing, running and climbing, among other movements, each have a specific signature in the accelerometer data. The researchers found the key to these signatures by putting captive pumas on treadmills.

“Everyone’s like, you can never get a mountain lion to run on a treadmill,” said Gabriel Elkaim, the project engineer. “Turns out a leg of ham will get the mountain lion to run on a treadmill.”

SCPP researchers investigate kill sites, such as the one pictured above, to get more information about pumas’ movement. Photo by Daniel Green

Collars, Kittens and Deer

Now that one data set has been published, SCPP is looking to broaden the horizons of the original study.

Elkaim and Wilmers have been working on a new collar design that creates its own energy with a Faraday generator — a device that uses energy from friction caused by the animal’s motion — and solar panels. This would allow the collars’ battery life to last for 10 years rather than the current 1–2 years.

Incorporating these generators into the study would save the time and energy taken to re-collar animals on a regular basis, something that would allow for a larger study size.

“It’d be awesome,” Houghtaling said. “Instead of 38 [pumas], we could be at 70.”

Wilmers hopes to collar more kittens to better understand how habitat fragmentation affects their survival. This tricky business involves finding dens and visiting them when the mother isn’t around. Wilmers also hopes to start tagging deer, whose populations are declining in the western United States, he said. This may be due to any number of factors, including being eaten by pumas, but Wilmers said he predicts a future study will point to habitat fragmentation.

Yovovich’s current study — a facet of SCPP’s larger project — focuses on the effect of pumas on subsequent links in the food chain, such as deer and plants.

“Conservation goals are to have a healthy, intact ecosystem,” Yovovich said. “Plants co-evolved with grazers and grazers co-evolved with carnivores, and so the best ecosystem is to have all those pieces in there sort of feeding into each other.”

Along with depredation, predators affect deer with what Yovovich calls an “ecology of fear.” This model suggests prey species avoid places where predators have an advantage, which allows the flora in these “feared” areas to flourish from lack of grazing. For her study, Yovovich predicts that deer will frequent areas higher in human activity because pumas characteristically avoid these areas.

In the eastern United States, pumas and wolves — top predators — went extinct during the 18th and 19th centuries due to human expansion. Today, deer populations have exploded in their absence and forest ecosystems are severely depressed due to extreme overgrazing, said John Laundré, an instructor at Oswego State University of New York.

Laundré said opponents of reintroducing pumas in the highly developed east argue pumas can’t tolerate humans and even pose a threat to humans. Data from SCPP shows the contrary.

“People in the west are beginning to realize that they’ve been living among cougars for quite some time now and they haven’t caused problems,” Laundré said.

Yovovich said aside from having pets eaten, there is nothing to fear from pumas.

“You’re more likely to get killed by your toaster than by a mountain lion,” she said.

Human-puma encounters — in the woods, on roads or in backyards — are inevitable as long as human development cuts into open space and infringes upon pumas’ territories. SPCC aims to educate rural landowners with their findings so these chance meetings can be less harmful for both pumas and humans, Wang said.

“A lot of things about mountain lions are just a matter of conscience,” Houghtaling said. “In the brief encounter that you have with this being — that can be kind of fear-inducing — it’s important to have the context of knowing that it’s having the same experience, asking ‘well, who are you?’”

Paul Houghtaling uses an antenna to scan for nearby pumas. They are tracked through a collar sending radio signals. Photo by Daniel Green.

Illustration by Maren Slobody

I have a deep respect and admiration for plants, whether they are potted, wild or gardened. Plants often remind me how to exist dependently and independently simultaneously — they appear to live effortlessly. I have an interest in plants native to Santa Cruz County because they are experts at surviving and flourishing in the county’s climate and environment, especially those with medicinal and edible properties.

Illustration by Maren Slobody

WARNING: DO NOT USE ANY OF THIS INFORMATION TO TREAT AILMENTS WITHOUT CONSULTING A DOCTOR FIRST.

A memorial exists at the corner of N. Branciforte Avenue and Doyle Street in memory of Loran “Butch” Baker and Elizabeth Butler, two Santa Cruz police officers who were shot during an investigation of a sexual assault complaint on Feb. 26. Photo by Jessica Tran.

Thomas Todd had just returned home from a shift at Bookshop Santa Cruz. He didn’t even have time to kick off his shoes before the crack of gunfire rang out across the street.

“At first my instincts told me, ‘It must be a car backfiring,’” Todd said. “There couldn’t be guns going off in my neighborhood.”

But the noise persisted, so Todd decided to climb to his second story window and use his phone to record what was happening.

What he saw was the aftermath of the Feb. 26 firefight between Sgt. Loran “Butch” Baker, Detective Elizabeth Butler — two seasoned Santa Cruz detectives — and Jeremy Goulet, the suspect of multiple sexual assault allegations.

Goulet was a 35-year-old ex-convict who had received an other than honorable discharge from the U.S. Army on account of rape allegations, according to military reports. He prompted a domestic disturbance call to his home that afternoon, where he had been arrested the week prior for a similar disturbance. When detectives came to investigate what they thought was a routine incident, Goulet stalled behind his door for a few minutes in conversation, before exiting the house from another door and opening fire, killing both the officers.

Sheriff Phil Wowak stated in a press conference that Goulet attempted to flee the scene in the detectives’ patrol car, but was boxed in by reinforcements from the SCPD. Thomas Todd captured the firefight between Goulet and police reinforcements from his window, a heated conflict that lasted several minutes.

According to the police report, over 50 rounds were fired before the suspect was shot and killed. Goulet had been wearing the body armor from the detectives he shot when his body was recovered, Wowak said.

CBS purchased the footage that evening and Todd donated the proceeds to the police department.

A Community in Mourning

Santa Cruz was altered on Feb. 26 in a way that the public had not formerly endured. A member of the SCPD had never been killed in the line of duty during its 150-year history. The double homicide delivered a shock that only intensified

Photo by Jessica Tran.

the anxiety over February’s spike in violent criminal activity.

For six hours, Thomas Todd was unable to leave his home. Several schools in the area were locked down completely and traffic slowed to a stop on N. Branciforte Avenue.

“I was on my way to the gym when I saw the procession,” said Jessica Ladson, a fourth-year biology major at UCSC. “At first I thought it was some kind of event, given the size of the demonstration, but then I saw the horror, the body bags.”

The city of Santa Cruz was dazed and reeling well into the evening before the names of the fallen detectives were released. It was revealed that together the officers had committed 38 years of service to the community.

“How did this happen?” was a common question resounding within the Louden Nelson Community Center the following evening. Thousands of individuals packed into a candlelight vigil there to pay their respects and honor the deceased while many offered up donations to the police department.

“I remember thinking, ‘I wish there was something more that I could do,’” said Audrey Moore, age 37. “As a fulltime mother of three, I couldn’t have been the only one who felt that way.”

Moore was right: Within the week, over $125,000 was raised for a scholarship fund in the name of the fallen detectives. The effort was spearheaded by PredPol, a Santa Cruz-based software company that develops crime-predicting software. PredPol teamed up with prominent local business leaders to manage donations for the victims’ families.

Stranger Than Fiction

Fifteen minutes before Butch and Butler were killed on Feb. 26, the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV) commenced a public rally downtown at the Town Clock entitled “Speak Out Against Gun Violence.”

“We had been planning this event for months,” said Sandino Gomez, a representative for Santa Cruz’s RCNV chapter. “The rally was based upon Sandy Hook’s atrocity from late last year, but sometimes national issues find their way to our own backyards.”

A display of flowers, photos and signs sits in front of the Santa Cruz Police Department in remembrance of two deceased officers. These were the first two officers to be killed in the line of duty in the city of Santa Cruz. Photo by Jessica Tran.

The RCNV held the event to spread awareness and provide a platform for community members who wanted to do more about the state of gun violence in Santa Cruz. To do this, RCNV decided to bring individuals and leaders who were serious about gun control under the same banner in order to affect positive change in the community.

“Goulet had owned a licensed firearm despite his criminal record and questionable mental stability,” said Tyler Young, a local activist who was in attendance at the rally. “That’s the bigger issue we were out there to address.”

Central Coast Congressman Sam Farr released a statement following the events of Feb. 26 that highlighted the violent crime’s pertinence to national firearm discourse.

In response to general inquiry concerning just how Goulet had possessed a legal firearm, Farr wrote: “If we are truly committed to ending gun violence in our communities, we must be willing to [address] that question and seek real solutions to prevent this type of senseless shooting from occurring again.”

Farr went on to laud the bravery and resilience of the fallen detectives, whom he referred to as “heroes representing the best of Santa Cruz.”

“The murders that occurred [in tandem] with our rally were unfortunately all too relevant to the problems our nation currently faces,” said Sandino Gomez of the Watsonville Brown Berets.

City council members refused to comment on the possiblity of future legislation that may come to pass in response to the events of Feb. 26. They held an emergency closed meeting the following week to assess ramifications within the police department. According to the agenda, they plan to open the chambers again for public discourse on March 12.

“People have been looking for what to do,” Gomez said. “It’s high time our community searched seriously for an answer.”

Photo by Daniel Green

Tasty morsels were a-brewin’ in colossal cauldrons at Santa Cruz’s 32nd annual Clam Chowder Cook-Off & Festival. Thousands of visitors made their way to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk last weekend to purchase tasting kits and ballots, partaking in the tradition of having some fun in the sun while promoting local charity.

“We do this every year,” said Anne Rambaugh, co-manager of a booth with the Santa Cruz Kids organization. “It’s always fun and the kids love it.”

The cook-off is a fundraiser for the City of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation Department and it amassed nearly $60,000 last year, according to its organizers. With round-trip tickets, cash awards and the grand prize of admittance to the 2013 World Food Championships in Las Vegas on the table, many of the participants were in it to win it.

“We came in close second last year and that’s not good enough. We’re gunning for number one,” said Tim Bowers of team Wine with Swine.

Bowers’ team won the People’s Choice award in last year’s Santa Cruz Chili Cook-Off, and based on the feedback they received, the team worked new spices into their chowder recipe — a move they hoped would propel them to the top. As a troupe that competes upwards of eight times a year around the nation, Wine with Swine does professional culinary events like these for a living.

A competing chef prepares a batch of chowder at the 32nd annual Santa Cruz Clam Chowder Cook-Off & Festival. Photo by Daniel Green.

“The Boardwalk’s our favorite,” Bowers said. “People are starting to recognize us and it feels good to showcase what you love most — cooking.”

The competition was split into four categories: Manhattan and Boston style chowders, in both individual and professional divisions. Several other categories were eligible for acknowledgment, like “Most Original” and “People’s Choice.” With individuality abounding from contestant’s costumes to booth design, the judges were hard pressed for a decision.

Many prominent members of the community, including Mayor Hilary Bryant and City Councilman Ryan Coonerty were chosen to be judges. They underwent hours of blind tasting, basing their decisions upon consistency, flavor, color, as well as each soup’s overall coherency.

Brigid Fuller, six-year publicist for the boardwalk and UCSC alumna, said the criteria for finding judges was high.

“[Judges] are leaders involved in the community and they take its victories seriously.”

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

What do a recent spike in violent crime, used syringes and the homeless have in common? These three issues have spurred the Santa Cruz City Council to pass new public safety legislation, in the process igniting a debate over the way in which Santa Cruz ought to approach the topic. Street Outreach Supporters (SOS), a local syringe exchange, has become the focal point of conflicting viewpoints in the debate, as SOS comes under fire from the city council.

During a meeting on Feb. 12, the council voted unanimously in favor of measures intended to address crime, drugs and homelessness in Santa Cruz. Along with a decision to increase the budget of the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD), allowing them to hire more police, the legislation also establishes a six-month-long citizen’s task force on public safety and will give $50,000 to the Parks and Recreation Department to be used in cleaning up parks and beaches marred by trash and criminal activity.

Illustration by Caetano Santos

Once Barack Obama gives the go ahead, all it takes is a few crackling words in the headset of a drone operator and the push of a button before houses come crashing down and lives a world away are extinguished.

This is the state of affairs roughly 40 protesters described and rallied against at an anti-drone demonstration at the Town Clock tower in downtown Santa Cruz on Presidents Day. Displaying tombstones with names of civilians killed by drone strikes and carrying signs with slogans like “Mr. President: Stop Killing Children,” protesters gathered on Monday to express their misgivings about the American drone program and the key role Pres. Obama plays in it.

“He personally reviews the kill list every week. He knows that the program repeatedly kills innocent civilians. And yet he signs the authorization papers,” said Sherry Conable, co-organizer of the event. “This is terrorism. This is violence that targets innocent people who had nothing to do with the conflict in question. And Barack Obama is the one who allows it to continue.”

Conable, who organized the protest in conjunction with the Peace and Freedom Party of Santa Cruz, the Resource Center for Nonviolence and other organizations, also founded the Santa Cruz chapter of Code Pink in 2003. Code Pink is a national anti-war organization created in response to the war on terror.

Protesters condemned the killing of innocent civilians that often results from drone strikes on suspected terrorists and voiced concerns about the program’s lack of accountability and transparency.

“This is a community that comes together to remind the center of Santa Cruz, and traffic passing through, that our government is continuing to kill people, and in the most diabolical of ways,” said Mel Nunez, a local activist. “Today is Presidents Day, and our quote ‘liberal’ President continues to disregard the constitution and singles out anyone, even American citizens, for execution abroad.”

“Drones make all that very easy, and ultimately he’s not held accountable to anyone,” Nunez said.

Another reason for the protesters’ opposition to the drone program is the message they said it sends to the rest of the world.

“The message to the world is that these people don’t matter, that these innocent men, women and children in other countries are expendable, as long as it’s done in the name of protecting America,” Conable said. “The message is that this is okay for us to be doing, but it’s absolutely not.”

Protesters also called awareness to how drone warfare has changed the way taking a life is viewed and understood.

“There’s a certain detachment from this sort of war-making,” Nunez said. “Even the person pressing the button doesn’t realize the full implications of what they’ve just done.”

Drones have recently received increased media attention after the Obama administration two weeks ago released a memo detailing the legal justifications for killing American citizens abroad who are suspected of having links to al-Qaida. So far three American citizens have been killed overseas in drone strikes.

That fact was a cause of contention at the recent Senate confirmation hearing for John Brennan, Obama’s pick for CIA Director and a key figure in the drone program. Protesters with Code Pink repeatedly interrupted that meeting and were eventually escorted out by police. However, Conable said in her opinion the topic of American citizens being killed by drones should only be the starting point of a much larger conversation.

“For the American people to be up in arms over American citizens being killed, and not be concerned about the thousands of Afghanis and Pakistanis being killed, it’s just so upsetting,” Conable said. “[Prominent South African civil rights activist and former Archbishop] Desmond Tutu wrote a devastating piece about this in the New York Times recently. Basically what he asks is, ‘Do we not count as much as you?’ Right now, that’s what we’re saying.”

The passage by Congress on Feb. 1 of legislation that will give the Federal Aviation Administration the authority to allow a predicted 30,000 drones to operate in American airspace by 2015 was also something that weighed heavily on the minds of protesters.

“Soon we’re going to have all these drones flying around, monitoring people,” said Angel Alcantara, a local activist and defendant in an ongoing case regarding his alleged involvement in the occupation of a vacant bank in the winter of 2011. “I don’t want to see our country suppressed any more than it already is, that’s the reason I’m out here. It’s just becoming more of a police state.”

Many voices, among them several senators and Pres. Obama himself, have acknowledged the legal gray area in which drones operate and called for more clearly defined legal proceedings to govern the use of the controversial technology. For many of the protesters on Monday however, that proposition doesn’t go quite far enough.

“The law is not rocket science. It’s open to subjective interpretation, and if they want to do something, they’ll find a way to make the law work for them,” Conable said. “Ultimately though, when what you’re talking about is killing innocent civilians, I think you have to go to your heart and ask what feels right. And to me, this certainly does not.”

THE FOOD BIN, a natural foods store located at the intersection of Mission and Laurel, was robbed on Feb. 13 by two armed men.

An armed robbery at the Food Bin on the night of Feb. 13 is the most recent incident in a string of violent crimes in Santa Cruz. According to an email sent out by the UC Santa Cruz Police Department, two masked men, one carrying a knife and the other a shotgun, burst into the natural foods store around 7:30 p.m. The men demanded everyone get down and proceeded to take an undisclosed amount of cash from the register. One woman was kicked in the face as she attempted to catch a glimpse of the perpetrators, but was treated and released at the scene. No one was seriously injured during the incident and the identities of the perpetrators are still unknown.

The robbery comes just days after a UCSC student was shot in the course of a mugging near Natural Bridges beach and a local man was killed in a drive-by in front the Red Room in downtown Santa Cruz. Also, early in the morning on Wednesday, Feb 20, a Santa Cruz home was broken into and the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) arrived at the scene to find that the victims had scared off their attackers and captured one of them, who was then turned over to the police.

Steve Clark, deputy police chief of SCPD, said this recent crime pattern was concerning, but ultimately nothing to cause panic.

“Certainly it can be said that we’ve had a spike in violent crime, and we’ve had similar spikes in the past,” Clark said. “Anytime we see that, we try to look at a root cause analysis, which helps us in terms of not only solving the case, but mitigating future crime.”

Clark said the SCPD is “putting their best analysis hats on” to develop strategies to mitigate, disrupt and address the recent crime spike.

“There’s a lot that goes into our crime analysis that isn’t readily apparent to everyone in the community — there’s a lot of information out there that we have our fingers on the pulse of, that we regularly monitor,” Clark said. “In this particular case, we think a lot of it is gang motivated.”

Clark said SCPD is now working on further strategies to try and disrupt the ability of gangs to carry out crimes. This includes impairing their communications and ability to house and store weapons.

The SCPD on Wednesday announced several cash rewards totalling $12,500 for information leading to arrests in each of the cases. Clark said SCPD’s investigations remain ongoing but encouraged community engagement with the recent events.

“There needs to be more community conversations about the root causes of what’s going on in Santa Cruz that’s leading to an environment that allows these kinds of things to happen,” Clark said. “Those are conversations that need to focus on gangs, drugs and our attitudes towards these things — you encourage what you tolerate. We need to take that to heart and not allow it to germinate within our community.”

A UC Santa Cruz student was shot in the back of the head at a bus stop near Natural Bridges State Beach while being mugged on Monday evening. Santa Cruz Police said the victim, a 21-year-old female, was waiting at the bus stop when the suspect approached her and demanded she give him the contents of her pockets. The suspect pointed a rifle at her and the victim reported being hit in the back of the head with it, at which point she ran away up Natural Bridges Drive and eventually flagged down a passing car.

Police said the woman was taken to Dominican Hospital, where doctors discovered that she had been shot in the head. The bullet was removed and she is expected to make a full recovery.

The suspect was described as a light-skinned male, 5-foot-7-inches tall with a gruff voice and a red bandana wrapped around his face, possibly driving a white PT Cruiser, according to the police report. Police combed the area with search dogs and thermal imaging equipment after the incident but were unable to find the suspect. Police said the search is ongoing and encourage anyone with information relating to the case to call their anonymous tip line, given below.

SCPD Anonymous Tip Line: 831-420-5995 

 Santa Cruz local shot and killed outside of the Red Room bar

Pauly Silva, a 32-year-old Santa Cruz local, was killed in a drive-by shooting near the Red Room bar in downtown Santa Cruz just after midnight on Saturday. Silva, a martial arts instructor and plumber, was standing outside the bar when several shots were fired at him from a passing car, striking and killing him, Santa Cruz Police said.

Police identified a possible suspect vehicle as a gray or green ‘90s model Mercedes. Two suspects driving a matching car were arrested in Watsonville later that night, and a third suspect was arrested Sunday morning. Police said additional details regarding the possible connection between the arrested suspects and the Silva’s murder will be released at a later date.

There were several witnesses present during Silva’s murder, but police said many of them have refused to cooperate with the investigation so far. Police have threatened to arrest those witnesses under suspicion of shielding the suspects if they do not cooperate. Police said they believe the murder may have been gang related.

Police said that a clear understanding of the incident has not yet been reached and that their investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information relating to the case is encouraged to call the SCPD’s anonymous tip line.

Curtis Reliford, founder of Follow Your Heart Action Network.

Curtis Reliford has said he is an ordinary man just trying to do the right thing. Raised in Louisiana, Reliford was once a troublemaker, experiencing run-ins with the law as well as abusing substances in an attempt to “escape.” Sober since 1985, Reliford is a firm believer in second chances and has been giving back by dedicating his life to helping the poorest of the poor, as well as helping people experiencing troubles reshape their lives and find their passion.

He started his own nonprofit organization called the Follow Your Heart Action Network (FYHAN) shortly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in an attempt to give back and help those in need. Through the FYHAN, Reliford collects food and clothes, among other supplies, from people around the country. Reliford and the FYHAN are based in Santa Cruz, which alongside Watsonville and the Bay Area, is where most of the donated materials come from. Once he has collected all he can, Reliford and volunteers travel across the country in trucks and vans, dispersing the accumulated goods to a variety of different peoples in need of help.

Reliford was the recipient of the Jefferson Award in 2006, an award honoring exemplary public service. He has also received the American Red Cross’ American Good Samaritan Award as well as the NAACP’s Community Service Award.

City on a Hill Press spoke with Reliford over the phone while he was at work in Texas about the reasons he founded the FYHAN and how his life has changed because of it.

City on a Hill Press: What inspired you to create the FYHAN?

Curtis Reliford: The main thing is that when Katrina hit, I took off with food, clothes and building material down there to help those people in New Orleans. I haven’t stopped doing that yet … I get clothes and food and take it to the poorest of the poor. I have traveled throughout the United States — I also give it to people in Santa Cruz, Watsonville and people in the Bay Area. I just give it to them, no strings attached … people give it to me to give it to the people I can help.

CHP: How is the FYHAN able to continue getting supplies to those who need them? 

Reliford: I have volunteers helping me throughout the country because they have trust in my work when I tell them what I do and that I take donated items to the poorest of the poor throughout the country. Mainly it has been Santa Cruz and the Bay Area donating supplies and clothes.

CHP: How are you and the network doing now? 

Reliford: I have a small landscape business, but it hasn’t been doing so well and I’ve been spending a lot of time this year on the volunteer work … I have no money in my pocket, I am really struggling. However I can see a little bit of light … if I can get some grants going and some real solid fundraisers happening for it. I’m focusing on the Crow Creek and Navajo reservations near the Grand Canyon, and there’s one family in particular that I am helping in New Orleans — they had a restaurant down there and I was trying to help them bring their restaurant back.

CHP: Do you travel alone or in groups? 

Reliford: It’s mostly just me, but I get about 10 volunteers when I’m ready to head out — it’s mostly students, retired people and regular middle class working people. The goal is to get young people to go on this with me and observe the conditions of the poor throughout the country. I want young troubled teenagers to go with me to see this and to hopefully get them off drugs and alcohol, and help them find their passion. Just looking at someone struggle worse than themselves out there … hanging with me for a month would motivate them to not take drugs and alcohol and to just stay in school.

The experience I had with that was I had 10 men with me … there were four drug addicts and alcoholics among them. They went with me and two years later they ran up to me saying, “Hey man I’ve been sober for two years since the trip.” The gangbanger — he was in college — came up to me and was telling me how he was in college for two years and how he really appreciated the trip. The guy that got out of prison, he ran up saying he got his family back and was keeping a job for two years … that’s what makes me want to help those people, it’s a win-win situation for the volunteers and the people we’re helping.

CHP: How might students support your cause? 

Reliford: That would be great! They could call me and I would just set up a station somewhere in whatever area that is, and just stay put for a week or two and wait on them to bring the donated items. The donated items that they are asking for at the reservations are warm clothing, jackets, sweaters, kid clothes, infant clothes — really anything you can give.

Illustration by Christine Hipp.

While Valentine’s Day generally conjures up images of happy couples and romantic proposals, for some the holiday represents something else entirely — the beginning of a predicted increased suicide rate on the Central Coast.

“The myth is that Christmas is the most high risk time for people to become suicidal, but actually it’s springtime,” said Diane Brice, director of Suicide Prevention Service of the Central Coast (SPSCC). “Nationally, that’s the time with the highest rate of suicide.”

It’s a scenario Brice has seen play out again and again during her 23 years coordinating and training the volunteers who man the suicide hotline at SPSCC.

The holiday season comes and people make an extra effort to reach out — family gatherings and festivities provide a source of inclusion and distraction to counteract the isolation Brice said is the most dangerous trigger for potentially suicidal persons. New Year’s brings fresh resolutions and it appears that maybe things are about to start looking up.

“And then February comes and you’re supposed to be in love and you’re supposed to be feeling better because it’s springtime, but some people don’t,” Brice said. “That’s when it gets really difficult for people, because of the expectation to feel better.”

In her experience, Valentine’s Day marks the beginning of this cycle, which generally increases in intensity until April when suicides spike nationally.

“[It’s] because there’s so much emphasis put on being partnered [and] being in love, and a lot of people just aren’t,” Brice said.

After a year-long study of the causes callers to SPSCC’s hotline give for contemplating suicide, Brice found that the number one reason was failing relationships, with financial woes a close second.

“It’s so easy for all these different pressures to build up,” said Lynn, a volunteer at SPSCC who declined to give her real name. “People get isolated, disconnected and then they’re left wondering, ‘Where do I go for help? Why isn’t there anyone I can talk to?’”

Operating out of an undisclosed location in Santa Cruz, SPSCC’s five staff members and 88 volunteers are always ready to assist individuals who have hit a rough spot in their lives.

Lynn said the hotline is an excellent way to connect with someone who’ll listen and help callers work through their problems. After losing a friend to suicide a few years back, she said it’s a cause that’s close to her heart.

While Lynn and the others at SPSCC prepare for their busy season, Brice encourages people to rethink what Valentine’s Day means to them.

“I would really like it if Valentine’s Day was just about love and not romance,” Brice said. “It’s just sort of a strange celebration, because it’s not an inclusive celebration. It’s hard to be left out of something like that, especially if somebody’s having a hard time already.”

The SPSCC is able to offer its services to the Central Coast only due to the efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers. They have a spring training period coming up and strongly encourage persons of all age groups and backgrounds to apply.

Their office can be reached at 831-459-9373.The SPSCC’s 24-hour toll free Suicide Hotline is (831)-538-5300. 

Photo by Sal Ingram

A typical play in basketball is when teammate one dribbles the ball, sending teammate two into a cut toward the basket before screening teammate three, who flashes past teammate four into the post, while teammate five cuts hard to the three-point line.

Sound complicated? Now picture this play in math.

When the Santa Cruz Warriors officially relocated last October, fans wanted to see dunks, blocks and steals. Behind the scenes, however, few casual fans could expect the amount of data needed to run a professional basketball team.

“I have one guy who puts together spreadsheets of efficiency metrics [for players]” said Santa Cruz Warriors general manager Kirk Lacob. “We’re looking for a guy who has one elite skill that can translate to the next level.”

The team keeps figures not just on it’s own play, but for every team and player in the league. So far, this method has been reliable: The Santa Cruz Warriors have only lost one home game as of last Monday, the best home winning percentage in the D-league.

“It sounds crazy, but this our version of keeping up with other teams,” Lacob said. “We want to know them better than they know themselves when we make our moves.”

Statistical analysis usage has multiplied the past 12 years in professional basketball and is coming to the forefront with the Warriors organization. While the stats originally have roots in 1980s sportswriters like Bill James, their sophistication has accelerated with time and interest from professional sports teams.

These statistics are collectively known as Association for Professional Basketball Research Metrics, or APBRmetrics. Their focus varies, but many of the newer statistics are about how efficient a player is or how well a player plays in a team setting, as opposed to their individual accumulation of blocks or points.

New technology has made efficiency statistics data more frequent. Lacob spoke of the Stats Inc. cameras released late in 2012 which take pictures and video of any spot on the court, slow the action down and then export raw data back as an Excel spreadsheet.

While these cameras have not yet marked the rafters of downtown’s Kaiser Permanente Arena because of their expense, Lacob believes the capabilities of these cameras to examine how players play may be too great to pass up on in future seasons.

“We could measure anything we want,” Lacob said. “The shot arcs of guys from the first to fourth quarters, how they play defense in specific sets — the possibilities feel endless, but nobody really knows what to do with them just yet.”

Lacob centers much statistical work on five man lineup analysis, a complicated mode which looks to find the most efficient lineup possible on the court in a given situation. This type of statistical analysis can often explain the difference between winning and losing succinctly.

Lacob mentioned his office’s interest in offensive rating and defensive rating stats, a pace adjusted stat which calculates the total number of points scored or allowed over the number of possessions in a game before being multiplied by 100.

The margin between the two numbers is called points margin per hundred possessions, a number many general managers find strongly correlated with winning, according to Golden State of Mind — a blog devoted to all things Warriors.

Lacob said that these numbers can be deceiving at times, without mentioning any of the other metrics his office calculates.

“It’s too easy to get tricked by a big jump or an outlier,” Lacob said. “We have to use a bunch of them, really.”

Taylor Griffin sinks a free throw in Sunday’s win.

Lacob is the youngest general manager not just in the NBA developmental league, but in all of American pro sports at 24-years old. The recent Stanford alum believes his youth and education grants him an interest in taking risks some of his elder peers aren’t inclined to make.

“I grew up in the ‘Moneyball’ era of sports in the Bay Area,” Lacob said. “I’ve been fortunate to grow up when I did because technology has revolutionized the industry around me. That book was extremely influential.”

Fans have flocked to efficiency metrics as they become more popular. RealGM.com — a San Francisco based new media sporting news site —has found that hoops heads prefer their hard stats to go along with their daily digestion of dunks.

“We’ve contributed to an intelligent and in-depth discussion among very committed sports fans,” said RealGM.com chief operating officer Todd Essman.

The site began as a startup on internet message boards and grew as a place where fans could check out which NBA trades were possible under the rules of the salary cap. However, the site has grown to include a wide variety of specialized basketball news and statistics, including D-league analysis and a blog devoted to testing out stat calculations and theories.

Lacob said RealGM.com is a good place to find smart analysis of the evolving statistics. Santa Cruz Warriors head coach Nate Bjorkgren believes Lacob  sends a strong message with his interest in finding better math equations to explain what goes on in a game.

“Most of Kirk’s statistic match up to what I see on the court, but i’m inclined to listen to him when he shows me that a guy is producing really efficiently in a more limited role,” Bjorkgren said. “Usually, that’s when we have the best basketball conversations.”

“Building stories” is an interactive installation at the Museum of Art & History (MAH), created by UC Santa Cruz Digital Arts and New Media graduates, Kyle McKinley and Nick Lally, which creates a space for people to share their experiences about Santa Cruz.

Every other Friday now through March 8, the third floor of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History will become a meeting place for people to tell their own history of Santa Cruz.

The “building stories” installation, which started on Dec. 21, invites residents of Santa Cruz to congregate and share their personal accounts of the town. The highlights from these conversations will then be traced across the walls of the Museum of Art and History (MAH), ultimately creating a map of intermixing histories.

UC Santa Cruz Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) graduates Kyle McKinley and Nick Lally came up with the idea as a part of their larger artistic project called “the building collective.” This collective centers on fostering conversation and active interactions between people.

“[The building collective creates] pieces that build on the idea of participation,” Lally said.

One of their previous projects was to help alleviate anxieties during the student strike last March. The collective offered coffee, conversation and a bench for the picketers to rest and relax on at the strike. The collective passed out postcards with the words “a public university could be: ___” at the top, asking participants to engage in a larger dialogue about the UC system.

For “building stories,” the collective wanted to create a space for people to share their experiences about Santa Cruz.

“We worked to transform this space,” Lally said. “We wanted to make it more active, to invite people to come and hang out and talk. It’s a very different experience than just hanging something up and having people stare at the wall.”

Photos by Jessica Tran

The collective holds meetings that each correspond to a different region in Santa Cruz. For example, the meeting on Jan. 11 was held to specifically discuss memories of the Westside zone of the city.

After hosting these active dialogues, the collective scrawls highlights of the different histories on the walls of the third floor lobby. These collected memories are drawn around maps of each of the city’s major zones.

“We want to gather complicated histories,” Lally said. “There’s not just one history of Santa Cruz. People are already contesting each other’s recollections.”

After working with the cyber-heavy world of new media in the DANM program, McKinley and Lally were eager to explore a more traditional style of artistic expression.

“This project feels totally natural,” McKinley said. “With digital media, you save things along the way and you can always go back to a previous iteration. But with this project, it’s more like a big painting. You have to be more careful not to make mistakes.”

The ongoing interactions that define “building stories” are integral to the larger exhibit currently taking place at the MAH, called “Work in Progress.” This museum-wide exhibit features installations and art pieces that are constantly changing over the course of several months.

“The idea behind [Work in Progress] is that everything in this building is evolving over the time of the exhibition,” said Nina Simon, executive director of the MAH.

For “building stories,” this means that every meeting will help contribute to the wider scope of Santa Cruz’s shared history. Once completed, the installation will demonstrate the rich and varied histories that have compounded over the course of its time in the museum.

“It’s pretty easy for us to bring people together around art experiences,” Simon said. “But it’s much harder to get people together around history experiences … It’s been great working on the ‘building stories’ installation because it’s explicitly focused on creating a diverse set of social interactions around history.”

To the members of the building collective, these social collaborations are the cornerstone of their installation. In gathering these various tidbits of Santa Cruz’s history, the two artists are discovering what it means to create a communal version of history.

“We’re learning what a collective voice might be, through listening to lots of peoples’ stories and abstracting dense little nuggets of history,” McKinley said. “Because everything is so condensed, a lot of the official history of Santa Cruz is excluded. But these small unofficial stories can still cohere as a kind of collective voice.”

Remaining workshop dates include Jan. 25, Feb. 8, Feb. 22 and March 8. Each workshop corresponds to a particular region of Santa Cruz. For more information, visit santacruzmah.org.

Don Lane and sam farr accept the $850,000 grant awarded to support the Municipal Wharf Master Plan by the Federal Economic Development Administration. Photo by Sal Ingram.

Mayor Don Lane and congressman Sam Farr held a small gathering Oct. 26 at the Santa Cruz Wharf to announce the reception of an $850,000 grant. Donated by the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA), the grant will help provide new opportunities for the Santa Cruz Wharf’s future as well as go toward the Wharf’s continued maintenance.

Among the attendees were Santa Cruz elected officials, wharf business owners and the entire wharf maintenance crew. The event also attracted a small group of public citizens, including community members who were eager to hear about the Municipal Wharf Master Plan.

Both Lane and Farr discussed how the money will support the plan, which according to the EDA, will help “to assist the community in recovering from tsunami damage by helping create a master plan that will guide business development for the city’s municipal wharf to increase the number of visitors to the region and attract more businesses.”

The Santa Cruz Wharf was built in 1914 and is nearing its centennial anniversary. Stretching half a mile and host to various dining and shopping venues, it is currently the longest wharf in California. It has acted as a popular tourist attraction throughout its lifetime and is adjacent to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

“This is really a special moment in the 100-year history of the wharf,” said current Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane. “The wharf is a real economic engine … More than two million people a year visit it. It’s also a place that’s beloved in the community. We need to keep it around for another 100 years.”

Lane gave no clear date for the final implementation of the master plan, stating only that it would be a few more years.

Congressman Sam Farr, who represents California’s 17th district, was also there to discuss the accomplishment. Farr recalled early memories of the wharf from his youth in Monterey County.

“When I was a child,” said Farr, “I used to frequent the orthodontist’s office on the wharf. After my appointments, I would wander over to the boardwalk and enjoy the day … There aren’t many wharves that have survived in California. This is a really historic spot, and I think this grant will be able to maintain its legacy.”

Despite being in the early stages of its development, the Municipal Wharf Master Plan will offer the wharf some exciting new changes.

“Maybe the wharf could become a place to generate wave powered energy,” Farr said. “It’s important that we use the money to update and maintain this community so that it can continue to act as one of Santa Cruz’s premier attractions. Hopefully this master plan will be the first in many that will redesign our city and continue to attract visitors.”

Farr also commended Santa Cruz for its ability to accomplish specific goals with its city planning.

“Nowhere else in the country seems to be getting it done,” Farr said. “But [Santa Cruz] is getting it done. Don’t stop asking and don’t stop dreaming. Let’s use Santa Cruz Wharf as an example of these dreams.”

Food Activist john robbins and author michael pollan speak at a public event called, “Every Body Eats,” about topics including Prop 37, the election and the globalized food system. Photo by Mikaela Todd

American energy independence, rising health-care costs, environmental degradation and national security. What do all these things have in common?

A troubled relationship with the food we eat and how it’s grown, at least according to best-selling author, veteran food journalist and sustainability spokesman Michael Pollan. Pollan addressed a sold-out crowd at Santa Cruz High School on Oct. 25 as the featured speaker in a panel discussion on food and its future.

Titled “Every Body Eats,” the discussion was sponsored by Slowcoast and Sustainable Santa Cruz with all proceeds going to the Homeless Garden Project (HGP), a local nonprofit.

In addition to Pollan, speakers included: Jamie Smith, manager of Food Services and Nutrition for Santa Cruz’s public schools, Darrie Ganzhorn, director of the HGP, Randall Grahm, owner of Bonny Doon Vineyards, Jim Cochran, owner and founder of Swanton Berry Farm, and Wallace J. Nichols, a marine biologist. The event was moderated by food activist John Robbins, author of “Diet For a New America.”

The night’s first topic was Proposition 37, the controversial ballot initiative that would implement mandatory labeling on all food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMO) in California.

“I think it’s a real moment of truth for the food movement,” Pollan said. “Up until now we’ve been voting with our forks, and that’s great, but it’s not the same as voting with our votes. And this is a chance to do just that.”

Pollan said even though the level of public interest in food related issues has never been higher — citing the recent surge in farmer’s markets and the organic craze — those issues still command very little respect in Washington D.C. Although President Obama quoted an article Pollan wrote describing the links between food, healthcare, energy and the environment in a speech, Pollan said the President “still hasn’t decided the time is right to invest political capital in these issues.”

Pollan said Prop 37 could change that.

“This is an opportunity to demonstrate that there are actually votes behind this movement,” Pollan said. “This is our chance to make him do it.”

Pollan and Robbins both acknowledged that the fate of the proposition is far from certain. A recent poll showed only 44 percent of California voters support the measure while 42 percent oppose it, a far cry from the 2–1 margin it enjoyed as recently as September. At the heart of that change is an “advertising blitz,” according to the the LA times, against the proposition by its detractors. So far the “No on 37” campaign has outspent Prop 37’s supporters $41 million to $7 million.

“The food industry understands what’s at stake here, that’s why they’re spending a million dollars a day against it,” Pollan said. “What’s at stake is that the public wants to have a say in how their food is produced.”

The panelists also discussed what they see as the broad shortcomings of the U.S. industrial agriculture system and its consequences.

Pollan began his critique with the vast farms specializing in single crops that form the backbone of the industrial agricultural system, a recent development that he views as a long-term challenge to the stability of the system.

“Instead of placing one big bet with regards to how our food is grown, we need to make lots of smaller bets,” Pollan said. “There’s a resilience in diversity, and currently that’s being undermined.”

Robbins emphasized the inequity of distribution within the globalized food system, noting that roughly one billion people worldwide are underfed while another one billion are overweight.

“So there’s this kind of macabre mirror image, a billion here, a billion there, and soon you’re talking about a tragedy of epic proportions,” Robbins said. “The food on our plates ends up touching all these different areas of our lives.”

Pollan said the next president could take a major step toward addressing each of these issues by shifting government support away from industrial agriculture and toward local, sustainable alternatives.

Use less machinery, petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides in our agriculture, Pollan said, and the U.S. could significantly decrease its dependence on oil. Pollan added that the U.S. agricultural system currently uses more fossil fuel than any sector of the economy other than cars.

By promoting a healthier diet centered around fresh produce and removing subsidies that artificially deflate the price of processed food, Pollan said the U.S. could make progress in combating health care costs, the bulk of which are caused by preventable diseases linked to diet and lifestyle.

“It’s a deeply dysfunctional system at the moment,” Pollan said. “There are other ways to do it and that’s what we’re trying to build.”

Pollan said although the government can provide important incentives for moving the U.S. in the direction he described, in the end the task will ultimately fall upon the shoulders of the next generation.

Jamie Smith, manager of Food Services and Nutrition for Santa Cruz city schools, said he is already hopeful change is taking root.

Since being hired in 2009 Smith has eliminated processed foods from the cafeterias and switched them to cooking from scratch, and has since witnessed an upsurge of interest among students in cooking and growing food.

“Getting away from the processed foods was the easy part,” Smith said. “Now we’re on the next step, which is educating our kids about the food they eat.”

This week’s gathering was not an official meeting, since it did not meet its quorum, which is the minimum amount of representatives to conduct business and vote.

Announcements:

- On Oct. 19, the Student Regents will be hosting a conference discussing Prop 30. It will be held at the Cervantes and Velasquez Conference Room from 2:30–3:30 p.m.

- There is one week left to register to vote. An online voter registration tool is available on eCommons.

- This year’s Practical Activism Conference, a student-led conference on activism, will take place on Oct. 20 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the College Nine/Ten Multipurpose Room.

New Business:

- The Resource Center, which serves various diverse communities on campus, is being restructured. They have faced a cut in staffing — the number of program coordinators from 5 to 2.

- The SUA will be voting to amend a new position, the director of student life, which will be in charge of reaching out to students.

- The SUA plans to take 90 UCSC students to the Student of Color Conference held in UC Riverside. The date of the conference is Nov. 9–11.

Presentations:

- Kevin Huang, the Organizing Director for SUA, discussed Voter Suppression Laws, which are laws that discourage or prevent certain people from voting.

- Another presentation by Huang covered both sides of Prop 32, which would claim to ban corporate and union monetary contributions to local candidates.

- Huang also discussed that the AFSCME 3299 does not currently have a contract with the UC, which affects the working conditions of service and patient care workers.

- Huang discussed Sallie Mae’s relationship with UCSC. Sallie Mae profits 95 cents for each UCSC

student transaction.

Illustration by Christine Hipp

It was a night made for politics. Oct. 11, the night the vice-presidential debate aired on TV, was also the night that the College Democrats at UC Santa Cruz held an open forum with the eight candidates for Santa Cruz City Council.

The objective of the forum was to ask the candidates questions that would help the College Democrats decide who to endorse, or support for the four open city council seats, to be voted on Nov. 6.

The candidates in the running for Santa Cruz City Council are: Pamela Comstock, Jake Fusari, Cynthia Mathews, Don Lane, CeCe Pinheiro, Micah Posner, Steve Pleich and Richelle Noroyan. In a group discussion after the meeting, the College Democrats chose to endorse three of the eight candidates — Don Lane, Steve Pleich and Micah Posner.

Questions ranged from topics such as the expansion of UCSC to the new Warriors stadium, which started pouring concrete this week.

The forum talked to four candidates at a time, split between two sessions for about an hour each session.

One issue both groups of candidates spoke to was Measure P, which would guarantee the right for Santa Cruz voters to decide on desalination before the city could authorize such a project.

While all of the candidates were in favor of leaving the ultimate decision on desalination to a public vote, many did not accept Measure P.

“I don’t support Measure P because the city council unanimously voted to allow the measure to go to the ballot,” Noroyan said. “I’m not quite sure why we need it two times. It will cost thousands and thousands of dollars to put this on the ballot, which is money I don’t want the city to spend. I don’t feel cynical enough to think that the city council members will take their word back on that.”

According to San Jose Mercury News, the cost of the city voting on the measure will be around $2 per registered voter, which means the total cost will range from $70,000–90,000.

The growth of UCSC was a topic discussed at length. There were diverging opinions on the expansion of UCSC. Overall, the candidates supported the growth of UCSC provided that the university worked with the city to maintain a balance that will sustain the city and university both.

“I wish that the UC really wouldn’t grow anymore,” said Don Lane, current mayor of Santa Cruz. “It’s important for the city to push back against growth, and we hope a population of 19,000 will be a cap.”

The Long-Range Development Plan, coordinated between the city of Santa Cruz and UCSC provides for a maximum population of 19,500 by 2020.

Don Lane also expressed the concern that the unmonitored growth of UCSC would negatively affect the environment.

Max Perrey, the president of the College Democrats at UCSC explained the decision to endorse Don Lane, Micah Posner and Steve Pleich.

“Don Lane, Micah Posner and Steve Pleich earned our endorsement by demonstrating their deep commitment to the issues important to students,” Perrey said in an e-mail. “Each showed that they are knowledgeable about the big issues facing our campus and in Santa Cruz, and have bold solutions to address them.”

One issue was only briefly discussed before the end of the forum — jobs after graduation. Pleich explained how the city would generate these jobs hand in hand with graduates.

“Graduates aren’t going to be working in retail, they’re not going to be working at the boardwalk, they’re not going to be working in construction, they’re going to be working in high-tech, high-end jobs,” Pleich said. “That’s why we have to have some kind of a platform for them to come down into the city to develop those jobs, to be the entrepreneurs, to basically create their own opportunities. That’s what we need to be supporting, that’s what we need to incentivize. As city council members, we have the power to do that.”

THE BABY MIXed GREEN SALAD comes with shaved cucumbers and golden beets in a golden beet muscatel vinaigrette was a part of the 515 Kitchen & Cocktails’ special Santa Cruz Restaurant Week menu. Photo by Sal Ingram

Last week, many of Santa Cruz’s upscale restaurants took part in an annual event focused on offering discounted meals to the community. Initiated four years ago by Santa Cruz Weekly and a host of sponsors, Santa Cruz Restaurant Week is a local development focused on cultivating fine dining opportunities for those individuals living on a modest budget. Since then, the first week of October has been a lively seven days filled with delicious and affordable dining experiences.

Santa Cruz Restaurant Week (SCRW) ran from Oct. 3–10. Along with indelible dining atmosphere, each participating restaurant offered a fixed price menu of $25 for a three-course meal — which includes an appetizer, main course and dessert.

This year, 33 restaurants participated in SCRW, which is more than any of the previous years’ lineups. From Davenport to Scotts Valley to Watsonville, the various restaurant locations celebrated the larger Santa Cruz community by spotlighting the many wonderful restaurants that exist within the county lines.

The initial idea to pursue a Santa Cruz based restaurant week was inspired by Santa Cruz Weekly’s sister newspaper, the Metro Silicon Valley. When SC Weekly heard that the Metro had developed a Silicon Valley Restaurant Week, the staff was eager to bring that emerging dining experiment across the mountains.

Lily Stoicheff, the current coordinator for SCRW, commented on the urge to bring a restaurant week to Santa Cruz. She cited the many privately owned restaurants and the small close-knit community as two major reasons for the development of the week. She found that the surplus of small, locally owned businesses in Santa Cruz made the location ideal for a venture such as SCRW.

“Anticipation has been great,” Stoicheff said. “There’s more promotion, more social networking. We’ve reached over one thousand likes on facebook! There’s lots of energy to take advantage of this opportunity. Going out to dinner is a special treat and SCRW puts that treat within grasp.”

Beyond providing discounted meals to the public, SCRW highlights the commitment each restaurant brings to the city.

“SCRW celebrates the interesting things that restaurateurs, owners and chefs are doing within the county,” Stoicheff said. “It celebrates Santa Cruz to the core.”

Ashley Robello, a manager at 515 Kitchen & Cocktails, spoke about the atmosphere of SCRW.

“It’s adventurous,” Robello said. “There are tons of new restaurants this year, and new attention. People are open to trying new things. And we’re excited to give a taste of our signature dishes and encapsulate what we’re all about. It’s nice to offer discounted prices to the community and bring people close together.”

The week can also cause a heightened sense of stress and caution.

“It can be stressful,” Robello said. “Because it’s outside of our normal mode of operation.”

Certainly, the stressful nature of SCRW can weigh heavily upon the restaurateurs. Amid running around and preparing for the week, each restaurant must present themselves with a cool, calm, and welcoming demeanor. It’s a challenge that some managers have to be ready to handle.

Cindy Martino, one of Café Gabriella’s managers, discussed the inevitable anxiety that accompanies SCRW. “It’s thrilling and scary,” Martino said, “but we thrive on stress. We’re in the food industry — stress is our middle name.”

After serving Santa Cruz for 20 years, Gabriella’s quaint fine dining has garnered a great deal of success.

“After 20 years of this, why wouldn’t we want to be involved?” Martino said. “This week is a nice way to say thank you. It’s a gift to give back to the community.”

Stoicheff also promoted the excitement and eagerness every restaurant brings to the table. For her, the week’s primary goal is to develop strong bonds between the restaurants and the larger community.

“Nothing brings people together more than a meal,” Stoicheff said. “Restaurant Week brings the community together to celebrate restaurants and each other.”

With emphasis on accenting local cuisine and fostering a stronger sense of community, Santa Cruz Restaurant Week presents an opportunity for the citizens of the city to gather around the dinner table and enjoy each other’s company.

For more information, visit santacruzrestaurantweek.com or search Santa Cruz Restaurant Week on Facebook and like their page.

Illustration by Leigh Douglas

“In the least f—ed up way that this can sound, it was my drug. It was the revolution, it was the meaning, it was the purpose that I had been waiting for since my late teens.”

This is how one activist, who goes by Wildcat, remembers the initial months of Occupy Santa Cruz (OSC). A former resident of the OSC encampment in San Lorenzo Park, Wildcat stayed until it was cleared out by Santa Cruz Police on Dec. 8 of last year.

Along with other OSC members, Wildcat helped to organize SubRosa café’s “One Year Later” Occupy-themed open mic night on Thursday, Oct. 4. In conjunction with a potluck and general assembly at Laurel Park on Friday Oct. 5, the event celebrated the one year anniversary of OSC and provided its members the opportunity to share memories, stories, and strategies.

Attended by roughly 30 people ranging in age from 19 to 60, the open mic included musical performances, poetry, personal stories and informational presentations.

One attendant, who wished to be identified simply as “an anarchist,” listed a series of best practices to observe when protesting or engaging in other acts of civil disobedience.

“People go down for things as small as a mark on their shoe, a hole in their sweatshirt, a sliver of a tattoo showing. You’ll go to jail for years. You have to plan ahead,” the anarchist said.

Another attendant expressed concern over the personal privacy implications of the National Security Agency’s “Utah Data Center,” a two billion dollar, one million square foot data storage facility slated to come online in 2013.

After the event, participants filtered out into SubRosa’s courtyard to reminisce and share their OSC experiences with one another over coffee and cigarettes.

“For me it was a cleansing,” said Isaac “Lyrical I” Collins, an OSC member and poet. “When I came to Occupy I was working a job, I had a place to live. I walked away from everything to join it. On a personal level everything in my life didn’t make sense, but after I joined, it made much more sense. This movement changed me.”

Collins was the only person arrested at last year’s unsanctioned “420” event in Porter Meadow located at UC Santa Cruz, in which hundreds of students and locals gather to celebrate the cannabis-themed holiday by smoking marijuana. He is charged with a felony for possession of marijuana with intent to sell.

Several OSC members have joined together to raise awareness about Collins and his felony charge, asserting that he was targeted because he is black and was prominently displaying an Occupy sign at the time of his arrest.

Wildcat is one subject of a similar awareness-raising campaign OSC has undertaken. A member of the “Santa Cruz 11,” a group of 11 individuals who participated in the occupation of a vacant Wells Fargo on Dec. 1, 2011, Wildcat and the others have each been charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors. Four of them have since been acquitted, and the trials for the remaining seven are ongoing.

“This is handicapping my life,” Wildcat said. “I’m terrified of cops, I’m terrified of doing anything that might be perceived as illegal, because I know a cop can get me in trouble for anything if they want to.”

Becky Johnson is also a member of the Santa Cruz 11. She said she did not enter the bank but faces the same charges as Wildcat.

“I lost my housing, and I’m unable to work,” Johnson said. “I was planning on working as a teacher in September but I’m unable to do that with felony charges hanging over me.”

Three Santa Cruz Police officers watched from across the street as tables, signs and banners were set up at Laurel Park on Friday for the potluck and general assembly. Roughly 40 people assembled to chat and report on what OSC has planned for the future.

Joy Hinz, a member of the OSC Foreclosure Working Group (FWG) told the gathering about the two complaints the FWG filed with the Grand Jury of Santa Cruz County regarding foreclosure fraud. The Grand Jury informed her that the complaints had been forwarded to “the appropriate investigative committee.”

The FWG has also been working with other Occupy groups around California and former real estate broker turned activist C.J. Holmes to sponsor a series of town hall meetings to discuss various solutions to the wave of foreclosures that hit California in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.

“One of those solutions that we’re pretty excited about is eminent domain, which is currently spreading like wildfire across the country,” Hinz said.

That approach involves activists petitioning cities and counties to use their powers of eminent domain to seize mortgages from banks and then renegotiate them with homeowners.

Roxanne Evans, who spearheads the Food Justice Working Group (FJWG) informed those present about the group’s recent creation of an “edible vertical garden” the FJWG constructed on an outside wall of India Joze restaurant on Front Street.

Evans said the FJWG also has plans to sponsor several events during the winter where they will distribute free hot meals to Santa Cruz’s homeless population.

The general assembly also agreed to reestablish a visible presence in front of the county courthouse, the site of the previous OSC encampment.

As darkness fell, a projector was set up to screen “What Are You Doing Here? Inside Occupy Santa Cruz,” a documentary about OSC, while its members reflected on what the camp and movement had meant to them.

“Right now we don’t have an encampment, but it’s still affected me dramatically, on a personal level,” said Freedom, who declined to give a last name. “Since the movement has started I have rejected my car, cellphone, laptop, rent, even money. I stopped using money altogether because I believe in this movement so strongly.”

Nevertheless, Freedom plans to remain an active member of the group.

“We’re at a definite lull after all the police oppression we’ve been facing, but there’s no instant gratification in any movement,” Freedom said. “We just have to continue the struggle and keep working and organizing together.”

September

Photo by Sal Ingram

School Starts

UC Santa Cruz’s nearly 18,000 students return to campus.

 

 

 

October

Photo by Morgan Grana

Downtown Halloween

Many students head down to Pacific Avenue to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve, encountering all sorts of ghouls, goblins and monsters. However, be warned: the night is often all-too realistically scary: In downtown Santa Cruz, in 2011, 50 arrests were made on Halloween, 43 of which were alcohol-related, others of drug possession, parole violations and possession of concealed weapons.

Surf City AIDS Ride

Hundreds of cyclists take off during the Surf City AIDS Ride to raise money for the Santa Cruz AIDS Project, often starting at San Lorenzo Park, where there is live music, food and HIV/AIDS education booths.

 

Photo by Prescott Watson

November

Regents Meet

On Nov. 13, the UC Regents will meet at UC San Francisco at Mission Bay, going until Nov. 15. The first meeting of the UC Regents happened on Sept. 11–13.

Rainbow Theater

The only multi-cultural theater arts troupe in the UC system begins its 2012 season with “Real Women Have Curves” and “Colored Museum on November 1, 3 and 9, and “Down and Out” and “Poets Corner” on November 2, 4 and 10.  Breath Boom will show November 16, 17 and 18.

 

Photo by Toby Silverman

December

Sports Finals

Students can watch UCSC’s NCAA fall sports finals in December. As basketball, volleyball, and other sports finish up, the winter season begins.

 

 

 

January

Chocolate Festival 

Santa Cruz’s Chocolate Festival often draws a large crowd at the Cocoanut Grove, located at the The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Last year’s Chocolate Festival drew in 28 vendors from as far away as Seattle, offering up gourmet chocolate as a fundraiser for re-entry studnets. The festival is organized by the UCSC Women’s Club. Tickets can be found in mid-December through local businesses such as Whole Foods, The Bay Tree Bookstore and Bookshop Santa Cruz.

 

Photo by Morgan Grana

February

Random with a Purpose

UC Santa Cruz’s yearly student-directed dance show “Random with a Purpose” takes place every February. The show’s 20th anniversary performance took place last February and featured everything from the crawling undead to sensual belly dancers, with the standard mishmash of modern dance and ballet.

African American Theatre Arts Troupe

UC Santa Cruz’s African American Theater Arts Troupe (ATTAT) performs yearly under the direction of Don Williams, founder and director of the group. AATAT’s mission statement is “to create unity, higher visibility and an understanding of the African American culture at UCSC.”

 

Photo by Sal Ingram

March

Queer Prom 

Only celebrated for two consecutive years, Queer Prom is a new tradition taking place at UC Santa Cruz. Last year it was hosted by the Queer Student Union (QSU) and Delta Lambda Psi (DLP). The purpose, organizer Nestor Rivera said, is to “build a better union with queer students on campus.”

Earth Summit

The Student Environmental Center hosts the annual Earth Summit event in March. The mission: To educate the UCSC community about sustainability by showcasing student sustainability projects and interactive workshops. The Earth Summit also features live music and guest speakers.

 

Photo by Morgan Grana

April

Acquirefest

The annual Acquirefest — a concert hosted by student-run Acquire A Cappella at UC Santa Cruz — features a panoply of voice-only musical groups.

Queer Fashion Show

The annual Queer Fashion Show event takes place every April. Last year the charity event donated all proceeds to the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center, Planned Parenthood and the Diversity Center, promoting causes advanced by the queer community.

AIDS Walk

The Santa Cruz AIDS Project (SCAP), in conjunction with UCSC hosts an annual Santa Cruz AIDS Walk. According to SCAP’s website, the walk is a fundraiser for HIV related programs and also increases HIV/AIDS awareness.

 

Photo by Morgan Grana

May

Multicultural Festival

The annual Multicultural Festival, which has been running for 33 years, is an event that aims to promote intercultural solidarity at UCSC, and highlight campus diversity. Last year’s festival was themed “Embracing the Beauty of Difference through Culture,” and aimed to recognize students of underrepresented communities on campus by celebrating their presence.

Campus PRIDE 

The campus-wide annual PRIDE event is a celebration of the queer and allied community at UC Santa Cruz. Organized by the Kresge Multicultural Education Committee and the PRIDE Committee, it features a campus-wide parade, culminating in a festival held in Kresge Lower Street.

Greek Week

Last year at Greek Week, 16 fraternities and sororities competed in five different events to bring home glory for their organization. The events included lipsyncing, men’s basketball, women’s football, pizza eating and coed futsal (a type of indoor football). After NCAA sports, Greek Week is UC Santa Cruz’s largest sporting event on campus.

Speaker Blowout 

Last year was the sixth-annual speaker blowout. The jointly organized SUA and Engaging Education event was aimed toward addressing issues that affect access to higher education and the success of under-resourced and under-represented communities on campus.

Photo by Prescott Watson

June

Graduation

Each year UC Santa Cruz says goodbye and good luck to a new graduating class.

 

 

Photo by Sal Ingram

A tourist town by nature, Santa Cruz has many attractions that draw in travellers year after year. However, there are some amazing parts of the city tourists don’t see. If you can keep an eye open and stay curious, you’ll be sure to find some wonderful events and communities in the city.

Photo by Blair Stenvick

Betty’s Noodle House

This pan-Asian noodle house popped up in the Metro Center about a month ago, and it’s already made an impact on Pacific. If you’re looking for a snack, try their scrumptious appetizers like savory-sweet fried sesame balls for 50 cents each or your choice of dumplings at $1.25 each. If your hunger surpasses such trivial offerings, then move onto the main course, where it’s noodles, noodles, and more noodles — the udon and green curry are some of the best, and all at around six dollars a bowl. The assortment of candy by the register tops off the perfect meal.

920 Pacific Ave

Illustration by Leigh Douglas

The first annual Reel Change Film Festival will feature films, art and workshops from students and professionals, illuminating environmental and social issues.

“We can use the powers of our creativity and our intellect in collaboration to make the changes we want to see a reality,”  said event organizer and fourth-year politics and economics major Jeremy Kirshbaum.

Although the event will be held on campus, it is not just for students. The festival’s organizers aim to make the event a collaborative effort for the entire Santa Cruz community.

“We want to incorporate the community with the UC campus as much as possible,” said event organizer and first-year literature major Jacqueline Grohs.

The festival will feature activities and workshops to educate festival-goers in both the arts and the social sciences. One workshop will explain the process of documentary filmmaking and teach the basics of making your own.

“I’m personally hosting a poetry writing and performing workshop,” Grohs said.

Artwork by student and local artists will be on display in Quarry Plaza throughout the festival. Artists will be painting, creating screen prints and performing interactive artwork at the event. Many Santa Cruz organizations have contributed to the event, including the Santa Cruz Film Festival, which provided support and guidance in getting Reel Change off the ground.

The Campus Sustainability Council, Education for Sustainable Living Program and Environmental Education for the Next Generation are also supporting the event.

“There are a lot of chances for collaboration … a lot of really, really talented students on campus who are doing films, and there are a lot of people off campus who are doing film and art,”
Kirshbaum said. “The organizations on campus could benefit from collaboration off campus.”

All proceeds from the festival will be given to the Rise Up Development Collective, a relief organization with aims to provide humanitarian aid in Ghana.

“We are currently raising funds to help build a clinic in Ghana,” said second-year environmental studies student and Rise Up member Daisy Garcia.

The collective hopes to create a sustainable income for the clinic through eco-tourism, Garcia said.

Social and environmental justice are pressing issues with many factors that aren’t that obvious to the public, Grohs said.

“Through the power of film and through the power of arts,”  Grohs said, “we can spread a lot of awareness.”

Event Info: 

Location: Quarry Plaza — Films will be shown in the Bay Tree Conference Rooms and the nearby Classroom Units 1 and 2.

Admission: Free, with a suggested donation of $5–10

Date: Saturday

Time: 5–10 p.m.

Illustration by Leigh Douglas

The group behind it is the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC), which aims to bridge the “digital divide” in Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties.

“The digital divide means those who are not connected,” said Gladys Palpallatoc, associate vice president of the California Emerging Technologies Fund (CETF), “those who aren’t seeing the benefits of technology as it advances, much less being online.”

The percentage of Californians with an Internet connection in their home increased from 55 percent in 2008 to 72 percent in 2011, according to a survey taken by the CETF. The 2011 survey also found that this number is significantly lower among underrepresented groups and those who are disabled, with only 55 percent of Latinos and 49 percent of disabled people in California having Internet access in their homes.

“Although we know that the pace of technology is quick and most folks will adapt,” said Gladys Palpallatoc, associate vice president of the CETF, “there are some folks who are already at a disadvantage, and those communities will only become more deeply disadvantaged without help.”

The CETF was born in 2005 from the dual mergers of AT&T with SBC and Verizon with MCI. As a condition of those mergers, the California Public Utilities Commission required that Verizon and AT&T pay $60 million toward creating the CETF, a California nonprofit that works to ensure that rural, poor and otherwise disadvantaged communities are not left behind by the progress of broadband technologies.

A central component of its strategy is to organize and formalize regional groups throughout California already involved in broadband development, so that they might take note of the digital divide and attempt to address it.

“[The CCBC] was fairly loose-knit until the CETF provided some organizational structure in 2006, and then the stimulus of 2009 came along and that provided a real impetus to actually do something,” said Steve Blum, president of Tellus Venture, a private consulting firm specializing in community broadband development and a member group of the CCBC. “So that’s when the CCBC became an operating organization, as opposed to just a talking organization.”

The CCBC includes representatives from the cities of Santa Cruz, Watsonville and Monterey; CSU Monterey Bay; UCSC; local internet provider Cruzio and many other private companies, as well as nonprofits. Together they have recently unveiled two new projects designed to further “the mission of the CCBC, [which] is to plan for, build and connect the region’s disparate telecommunications networks and fill critical gaps,” according to the website of CSUMB’s Center for Wireless Education and Technology (WeTEC), a member of the CCBC.

The first of these was made possible by a $4.9 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will go toward establishing a series of Public Computing Centers (PCCs) throughout the Central Coast.

Spearheaded by Arlene Krebs, professor of communications at CSUMB and the founding director of WeTEC, the project has established over 30 PCCs throughout Monterey County so far and has plans to extend the program to Santa Cruz County.

The CCBC brings in computing equipment and broadband access to provide those who might not have access to the Internet with a place they can go to plug in and connect. The centers are housed in areas that already serve the community, such as Boys and Girls Clubs, libraries, the National Steinbeck Center, and Krebs’ personal project, the upgrading of a pre-existing CSUMB satellite campus into a PCC.

“The federal government says that we are the most diverse partnership in the U.S. that came together to do this sort of thing,” Krebs said.

The six-month-old PCC at the CSUMB satellite campus is in Salinas’ Chinatown, an area with a large proportion of the city’s homeless population who are the main beneficiaries of this center.

“The homeless people in that area have now connected with family,” Krebs said. “When you ask what the impact is, they now have email accounts, they now are on Facebook, they’re finding their friends, they’re finding their family, they’re learning new skills, they’re also enjoying entertainment once in a while — things that most of us just take for granted.”

This project’s second component is a 65-foot flatbed truck outfitted with 21 computing stations, which will serve Monterey’s agricultural workers by pulling up next to the fields and allowing them to use the Internet.

Other groups within the CCBC are in the midst of implementing a three-year-long planning and organizational strategy, aimed at creating a database of the Central Coast’s current broadband access and identifying key areas that can benefit from improvement. The project is funded by a $450,000 grant from the California Advanced Services Fund. Work began on it in January.

As the CCBC’s initiatives take their course, Krebs and the other members are hopeful that they will achieve a lasting impact on the Central Coast’s residents and businesses. Still, money is tight, and the funding that created the PCCs is set to run out in six months.

Krebs is in the process of finding private donors who will keep the project going. She said as long as the CCBC continues to work hard, the Central Coast will see its digital divide become smaller year by year.

“You have to keep your eye on the prize. You have to be vigilant,” Krebs said. “Because I’ve been working on this pup since 2002, and I’m not stopping now.”

Local business owner and Nut Kreations founder Mina Feuerhaken is a Crown College alumna of UC Santa Cruz. Since the store’s opening, it has stirred up a buzz in the community and university.

Feuerhaken is a fourth-generation pistachio farmer who wanted to combine her passion for business with a healthy lifestyle.

“Living in a town that focuses on natural food and a healthy, active lifestyle inspired me to dream into wanting more for my body and soul,” Feuerhaken said. “The professors, students and people I met shared the same life struggles.”

Establishing a successful business as a young and aspiring entrepreneur like Feuerhaken is a challenge that she said takes time and research.

“Research as much as possible,” Feuerhaken said. “You have to jump ahead and find a location, explore your ideas and understand the competition. Know that the first years may be tough. Be prepared to change some aspects. Something may seem exciting, but be flexible and don’t be disappointed to change some things. I got to a point where I had to do this. There is no way in really knowing unless you try.”

Feuerhaken graduated a year early from UCSC in 2006 with a degree in business management economics with an emphasis in accounting. Like many other students, she decided to try out internships related to her degree, but found it difficult to decide what type of career was best.

“I took the ‘normal’ route once I graduated, and I tried to do what most people did by going from one internship to a job, but I was not happy,” Feuerhaken said. “I changed my mind a lot and I realized it was okay to try different things.”

In establishing her own business, Feuerhaken said that taking things slow is no easy task, but it is the best option for students on the verge of graduation.

“I rushed to graduate,” Feuerhaken said. “There are so many internships and honestly, there is no rush. Just absorb all you can.”

Feuerhaken attributes much of her success to people she met at UCSC who fostered the environment she desired in a career.

“UCSC and my professors helped build a great base for me,” Feuerhaken said. “It motivated me to create my own business. It was a space that helped me with dealing with numbers and financial statements. I truly am thankful for the environment that was so helpful, positive, and beautiful.”

Although the future is unknown for Nut Kreations, their plans to expand may be just around the corner.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in franchise,” Feuerhaken said.“It’s definitely in the picture, but just not sure when. I have to say this store is my baby, and like any other baby, you have to nourish it, love it and wait for it to grow. I would like to focus on wholesale more at the moment.”

Illustration by Bela Messex

In light of the federal government’s last-minute budget compromise, many Santa Cruzans are concerned that the California state congress is going in the same direction — toward a budget stalemate.

The Santa Cruz Democratic Party hosted a forum to discuss California’s budgetary problems on April 13 in the Police Deparment Community Room.

At the forum, community members were able to engage with a pannel comprising Santa Cruz mayor Ryan Coonerty, who led the forum and county treasurer Fred Keeley.

Cynthia Matthews, city of Santa Cruz chamber of commerce board member, acted as moderator.

The majority of the topics addressed involved proposals to balance the state budget and encourage compromise in California’s legislature.

“We are all feeling the rotten economy magnified by the state budget crisis,” Matthews said. “There aren’t quick fixes and easy solutions.”

Keeley proposed two major changes that would help resolve tensions in the state legislature and accelerate the budget planning processes: open primaries and public redistricting.

These proposals would allow for greater inclusion of political moderates, Keeley said. Currently, in the state of California 20.4 percent of voters are registered as having “no party preference,” a 5 percent increase since 2003.

Keeley said the growth of the middle gives Democrats “a negotiating partner who can give and take” and “doesn’t laugh, but listens.”

Diane Le, a fourth-year politics major and president of College Democrats at UCSC who was at the forum, was intrigued by open primaries.

“Open primaries are a really interesting idea because it brings forth a more moderate source for candidates to go to, so Democrats aren’t completely leaning on the left or Republicans leaning on the right,” Le said.

Some, however, oppose Keeley’s other proposal — public redistricting — because of the possible implications for the Democratic Party.

Le said that as a representative of the Democratic Party, she did not agree with the idea of public redistricting.

“[Democrats] are the party in power right now, and letting us draw the lines keeps the politicians where they are,” Le said.

Public redistricting, some people — including Le —
believe, would threaten the power balance that currently favors the Democratic Party because it would allow district lines to be drawn by the people, and could result in a change in legislature seats.

Keeley saw the fear of losing power in the legislature as unfounded.

“There’s not a shred of evidence that [public redistricting] will hurt Democrats,” Keeley said. “These are the same voters who elected Jerry Brown governor, who elected Barbara Boxer to another term in the Senate last year, who said no to Meg Whitman, who said no to Carly Fiorina, [and] who said no to repealing the California climate change law.”

While Keeley focused on the state level, Coonerty stressed the importance of maintaining a balanced city budget and the relationship between state and local power.

“[The city and its residents are having] a much more honest conversation than Sacramento is having with the state of California,” Coonerty said. “We simply say, ‘We cannot provide you with all these services that we once did, and we have to raise taxes,’ but that’s what it takes to balance our budget.”

Santa Cruz’s general fund has dropped from over $70 million to $55 million. As part of the city’s pledge for a balanced budget, it has reduced social service programs by 48 percent in the past two years, Coonerty said. The city also raised taxes four out of the last five times it presented proposed tax increases to the community.

Coonerty said it “hurt” to make such decisions but that they were fiscally responsible.

Like Coonerty, Keeley reiterated throughout the night that the solution to the California budget crisis lies in “targeted cutting and temporary tax increases.”

The speakers stressed the importance of including political moderates in the discussion, especially with the necessary two-thirds majority vote needed to pass a budget.

“California has a democracy problem,” Keeley said. “We have set a game where it is impossible to win.”