However, beneath this gloom there lies an uplifting reality. Art, activism, freedom of expression, environmental stewardship and intellectual query — the cornerstones of this and other institutes of higher learning — are here to stay. These things stem from the minds of students, and are not stamped with a monetary value nor confined to a budget plan.

It is the students who continue to gravitate to this place, who make it a haven for intellectualism and progressivism. It is the collection of young, ripe minds that, since the founding of this university in 1965, transform Santa Cruz into a globally recognized sanctuary for personal and societal growth and change.

Among the endangered programs and facilities at our campus are the Arboretum, which hosts over 300 plant families from around the world; the internationally renowned Shakespeare Santa Cruz festival; and the Community Studies program, which provides volunteers to countless not-for-profit organizations.

And many other programs sit in trepidation of impending financial demise.

While this school will never be the same if these programs disappear, we trust in the resourcefulness and determination of the student body to keep the spirit of a liberal university alive and thriving, continuing to be a beacon for the curious, conscientious and courageous.

Prior to the construction of the university, the City of Santa Cruz was a rather conservative area. As outlined in the book “The Leftmost City,” co-authored by UCSC faculty members Richard Gendron and Bill Domhoff, progressive politics flooded this city in the 1970s as the university grew in prominence. Along with the rise of this progressivism, the number of nonprofit and other charitable organizations in Santa Cruz also rose drastically in those years.

The students at UCSC are part of a spirit of acceptance and creative thought that has become synonymous with “Santa Cruz.” They’re willing to march into pepper spray to save the redwoods, donate more than 20 hours a week to hand out clean needles and even spontaneously dance around a bonfire under the full moon on occasion.

It is not fiscal security that keeps social advocacy groups, humanitarians and progressive thinkers alive and well in Santa Cruz. It is the young minds and bodies willing to shake things up out there.

There may not always be money in the University of California, but there will always be young men and women stepping onto its campuses, pondering how to make the world a better place for all.

Budget cuts are not optional at this point, but regardless, it is possible and necessary for a continued sense of duty to activism and creativity to outlive the declining economy. It is in this way that, when financial tides eventually surge upward again, future generations can revamp and restore the university’s extraordinary programs. We just have to keep their legacies alive in the meantime.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

Last Thursday, on the first day of fall quarter, our 2,000-acre UC Santa Cruz campus was both eerily quiet and triumphantly loud as it straddled both sides of the proverbial fence, with classrooms either echoing emptiness or bellowing with the frustrations of a student body and staff reeling from historic state funding cuts.

In case you’ve been living under a rock — one that has yet to be pelted — here’s what you need to know: people are angry. And there is nothing that UCSC students love more than get angry. Usually it won’t last too long; remember Community Studies? Neither do I.

But this time, no single department is being affected exclusively. We are facing the potential deterioration of the entire UC system, one of the most prestigious public university systems in the world. And after a summer of harsh economics, fiscal finger-pointing and educational mudslinging (still bitter after all these weeks, UC San Diego), students and staff marched to the base of campus this past Thursday, showing their solidarity in the battle against a nearly $800 million cut in statewide education.

That same day, a group of UCSC students began their occupation of the Graduate Student Commons, a building located in what is most easily defined as the center of our ever-growing campus. The occupation began on a Thursday and a dance party ensued on Saturday to further awareness for the cause. Now, in the hopes of furthering the movement, the occupiers have asked for another day of walkouts this Friday.

As the students of a public university, one that is dependent on the action of its student body, it has become increasingly clear that we are facing one of the most uncertain times in the history of not just our campus, but the UC as a whole. In the ‘70s, these campuses provided a safe haven for political discourse. Now, they’re the very reason we protest at all.

The campus-wide walk-outs and teach-ins managed to bring attention to an issue that had, until now, remained both convoluted and faceless. Yes, we were all hyperaware of the sweeping budget cuts, much of which really began to hit home this past school year. But there was no one unifier of the movement; there was no event to progress the student body past its apathy and into action. We have that now, and the challenge is to approach it as carefully as possible.

With the staff on the side of the students (or is it students on the side of the staff?), the occupation of our campus has begun. As students, we know and utilize the power of the revolutionary voice firsthand, and as a result we should lend our support and solidarity to the protesting students and staff. And in times of uncertainty, it’s important to remember one thing: there is no greater gift that we have been given than the right to be able to speak against the injustices occurring daily at our university.

Nothing can even come close.

It is both a right and a privilege, in every sense of the words. A public university is the student’s university, and we will progress our campus further, whether the administration is ready for it or not. Similarly, our campus houses a unionized faculty, allowing its staff the legal right to bargain with the administration — an ability that none of the other UCs possess.

But the effectiveness of our protests needs to be under stricter scrutiny, more than ever before. Because whether we realize it or not, all eyes are on us. We stood on the sidelines too long, baffled about the changes occurring, desperate to stop it.

So I call out to the students who stand in support of their fellow colleagues and teachers to heed the rules of our campus in an effort to better change them. There is no benefit in defacing university property, because it is now our property, and we must treat it as such. We must support every member of our university — including the janitorial staff, who already do too much for too little — by not furthering the destruction of our campus, but rather its progression. It’s time to actively communicate the events taking place through the tools given to us by the technological revolution.

Similarly, I ask for professors to actively place the future of our campus above their own curriculum, promoting further walk-outs and making the effort to take part in them. This past week’s walk-outs proved to be better in theory than they were in practice. Many students were, frankly, unaware of the intensity of the events taking place. The role of university professor extends far beyond syllabi and lectures — they represent the positive authoritative figures of our university. Teach us to care, to better ourselves, to play an active role in the changing of our university.

We have always been in control of our university, we just never realized it. And after eight years of uneducated leadership, much of which got us into this situation in the first place, the time has come to actively promote the necessitation of higher education.

Until then, President Yudof, a few suggestions: warm milk, a comfortable pillow and lots of layers. Those are my recommendations for how you can sleep at night.

Photo by Maggie McManus.

Illustration by Kenny Srivijittakar.

It’s about that time of night: eleven o’ clock — maybe 11:45 on a lucky night. Less inebriated attendees sense it will happen any minute. It’s sudden but predictable: knock on door, music stops, expletives are hurled, beers fall out of hands — the cops have arrived to break up yet another Santa Cruz house party.

This recurring scenario seems to be something that students have grown to accept. It has become an unavoidable part of attending college in a city that refuses to be called a ‘college town’.

“Basically, the university and the community have been in conflict since day one,” remarked city council member Ryan Coonerty, former mayor of Santa Cruz and legal studies lecturer at UC Santa Cruz. “Both sides have a distrust of each other almost completely.”

Most students can sense that they are not always unequivocally welcome in this small coastal city. What may not be as clear, though, are the exact roots of this acrimonious relationship.

UCSC third-year Uday Mathur says that as a student and member of the Sigma Pi fraternity, he often feels like an outsider in Santa Cruz.

“As students and fraternity members we’re not very accepted,” Mathur said. “When I wear my [Greek] letters in town I stand out — and not in a good way.”

Coonerty explained that the geography of this town, as well as its history, both play a role in the equation.

“If anything causes the tension it’s just that geographic reality of not having specific neighborhoods where students can live like students,” he said.

In addition, Coonerty explained that some residents have objected to the existence of UCSC since its founding in 1965, but often for opposing reasons.

“When the city was recruiting for the university to come here, [more conservative residents] thought they would be getting a football team and city growth was considered a really good thing,” Coonerty said. “Then the university came and it turned out to be a very different university than what Santa Cruzans thought it was going to be.”

Other residents, who tended to be more politically liberal, opposed any university coming to Santa Cruz, rejecting the idea that the city needed to grow.

“It’s hard to be in politics here because the university has historically been disliked by the most conservative and the most liberal residents,” Coonerty explained.

Nevertheless, years later, the university remains.

Santa Cruz Neighbors, a local nonprofit group, is at the forefront of local efforts aimed at relieving tension between residents and students.

The organization, founded in 2000, seeks to foster good relations in the community by engaging students with their neighbors and holding community forums where residents can discuss their concerns.

“I’ve heard every possible story from neighbors saying, ‘Help, help, help!’ and this is how the Loud and Unruly Gathering Ordinance came to be,” said Deborah Elston, founding member and president of Santa Cruz Neighbors.

Illustration by Kenny Srivijittakar.

Party Blues: The Loud and Unruly Gathering Ordinance

Santa Cruz may not accept the college town moniker, but it’s still home to numerous college students and their parties, which has long been a curse to their neighbors.

“A couple years ago student parties were a large number of [the city council’s] complaints,” Coonerty said. “Both the size of the parties and also some of the impacts such as noise, parked cars, trash, etcetera”

The Loud and Unruly Gathering Ordinance, more commonly referred to simply as the party ordinance, was passed by Santa Cruz City Council in 2005 to combat these problems.

Upon a noise complaint from a neighbor, the ordinance allows police to issue a warning for any house that throws a party as a first-time offense. These houses are then flagged for 12 months, and subsequent offenses result in fines.

Many students believe the ordinance creates an “us versus them” mentality, pitting off-campus students against their buzz-kill neighbors. Santa Cruz Neighbors president Elston insists that the ordinance was created to do just the opposite, however.

“We look at it as an opportunity for better communication,” Elston explained. “Prior to the ordinance, there were no tools for police or students or neighbors to [use] if something got out of control.”

June Coha has been a Santa Cruz resident since 1968, and has lived in a neighborhood close to campus for over 20 years. Coha estimated that in any given year, five houses on her street off of Western Drive may be occupied by students, and if each hosts two parties a month, that amounts to ten nights a month where she is kept awake at night.

Coha also said that engaging students and voicing her concerns directly to them is always her first course of action.

“Calling the cops is a last resort for me and I won’t do it unless I’ve talked to [the students] first,” Coha said. “I hate that it’s us versus them, but with the disparities in lifestyle I don’t know how it’s going to work out.”

Ben Gesing, a second-year UCSC student and the social chair for Sigma Pi Fraternity, agrees that engaging with neighbors is an effective way to prevent the problems caused by differing lifestyles. He feels that the party ordinance goes slightly overboard in its punishments, though.

“This isn’t a college town — Santa Cruz has been around a lot longer than UCSC and it’s not okay for us just to barge in on that,” Gesing said. “The basic problem with the party ordinance, though, is that you can’t legislate morality. College kids are going to keep partying.”

Amid other concerns, Gesing believes the fines specified by the ordinance, which increase with each offense from $250 to $500 to $1000, are too egregious to be applied to struggling college students.

Mathur echoed his fraternity brother’s dislike of the ordinance.

“It’s a bit heavy-handed and harsh,” Mathur said. “And we haven’t stopped throwing parties — nobody has.”

Councilman Coonerty understands students’ concerns, but he noted that actual implementation of the ordinance isn’t quite as harsh as some might assume.

“I think it would be silly to say students have embraced the party ordinance,” Coonerty said. “When its matched up against the reality though, which is that very few people are getting cited and that its mainly being used as a tool, I think in that way it has been effective.”

Economic Engine

While a Santa Cruz free from UC students might make for quieter neighborhoods on Friday and Saturday nights, most agree that the culture and atmosphere of the city would be markedly different without the presence of a major institution of higher education.

Bill Tysseling, the executive director of the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, explained that the commercial influence of the student population on the city is significant.

“The mix of businesses would be substantially different if students were not here,” Tysseling said. “There would be fewer businesses that are entertainment-oriented, such as movie theatres, music venues and even bookstores.”

Bookshop Santa Cruz, a locally-owned store that has been perched on Pacific Avenue since 1966, has seen both the benefits and downsides of doing business in a university town.

Casey Coonerty-Protti, sister of Ryan Coonerty, took over ownership of the shop from her father, who bought it in 1974. Coonerty-Protti explained that being in a university town has helped Bookshop Santa Cruz remain profitable amid the shift toward purchasing books online as well as an overall national decline in independent bookstores.

“For an independent bookseller to thrive it needs to be in an environment that’s debating ideas, and the students and professors bring that to the community,” she said.

However, Coonerty-Protti concedes that the presence of students means the presence of chain store competitors, such as Borders, which opened on Pacific Avenue about ten years ago.

“One segment where we lost sales [when Borders opened] was among students because they’re used to seeing a Borders in their hometown, so they go there,” Coonerty-Protti said. “I wish students would think about supporting businesses that are unique to Santa Cruz and that can help them become Santa Cruzan while they’re here, instead of a large multi-national corporation.”

In addition to the stimulus provided by student pocketbooks, a landmark 2007 agreement drafted by UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal and then-Mayor Coonerty placed greater financial responsibility on the university to compensate for its massive strain on local resources.

“The university actually agreed to provide some subsidies for services like fire and water to the city, and also to participate in repairing some streets and providing transportation subsidies to Metro,” Tysseling said.

Coonerty explained that he and Blumenthal, who is the first UCSC chancellor to also be a longtime Santa Cruz resident, drafted the agreement with the intent of finding ways that the university could lessen its overall impact on the city.

“It’s not just about paying their fair share, it’s about actually doing things that improve life here,” Coonerty said. “[The city] gave UCSC incentives so the more traffic they reduce, the less they have to pay, and the more students they house on campus, the less they have to pay.”

Won’t you be my neighbor?

If goodwill is to prevail despite the drastically different lifestyles of residents and students, active engagement from both sides will undoubtedly be key.

In an attempt to foster community engagement, Santa Cruz Neighbors enlists the help of two student interns from the Good Neighbor Initiative, part of UCSC’s Office of Government and Community Relations. These interns run outreach programs and provide resources to students and residents alike.

Sarah Finder, a second-year student and Good Neighbor Initiative intern, focuses her efforts on educating students before they move off-campus.

“We target on-campus tenants and begin teaching them that when they move off-campus they have to be respectful and responsible,” Finder said. “It’s an ‘us and them’ situation and not an ‘us versus them’ anymore.”

Coonerty observed that, in fact, students and residents get along more often than they realize.

“I think the reality is that the tension is more loud,” he said. “If you have one interaction where someone says something negative to you because you’re a student, you’re going to remember the one negative one rather than the twenty positive ones. The positive ones are everyday events in which we all live harmoniously together.”

Chamber of Commerce director Tysseling agrees with the notion that it’s not all tension, all the time. He holds a more measured view of the daily interactions in Santa Cruz.

“Obviously when you live with a lot of people in a small space you’re going to have problems, but don’t mistake that for a general judgment about UC students,” he said. “It could just as easily be the farmer down the street that’s taking your parking space.”

On Sunday, October 4th Santa Cruz Neighbors and the Good Neighbor Initiative will host ‘Santa Cruz Neighbors Night Out’ — a series of block parties hosted throughout the city to promote friendliness and familiarity among all residents. http://www.santacruzneighbors.com

(from left to right)

“Evacuate the area! Make sure they don’t see you! Smash their windows! Psyche!”
Mike Madriga
College Eight, Third-Year
Business / Economics

“A nice recovery of ice cream somewhere cozy.”
Kaylie Caires
Kresge, Third-Year
Theater Arts

“Try and leave because if the cops are there, party’s over. Hopefully find another place to go hang out.“
Alvaro Franco
Crown, Fourth-Year
Legal Studies / Latin American and Latino Studies

“A really cheap food place like Taco Bell or the Santa Cruz Diner.”
Joy Palieow
College Eight, Fourth-Year
Film and Digital Media / Art

Got something to add? Chime in with your comment below!
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(from left to right)

“More campus buses on campus, rather than city bussess so the school can save money on transportation.”
Valerie Miller
Second-year, Porter
American Studies

“More information about the walk-outs.”
Jose Rodriquez
First-year, College Eight
Undeclared

“Smaller classes.”
Jackson Hart
Second-year, Kresge
Environmental Studies and Economics

“More funding for the athletics program.”
Amanda Rabe
Second-year, Merrill
Biology

Got something to add? Chime in with your comment below!
Don’t have a Commenter Account yet? Sign up here.

Photo by Melissa Abel.

I stand in support of our fellow Californians adversely affected by cuts to higher education. Pulling over a billion dollars out of colleges and universities across California has real implications, and we’re just now starting to see the unrest that accompanies such drastic cuts.

I believe in fully funding the UC, CSU, and community college systems in this state.

Our state’s greatest asset is the vast concentration of human potential that’s defined us for generations. We’ve always been a land of dreamers and doers.

However, through these tough times, I strongly believe that by investing in our people, we can grow our way back to being the world leader in innovation and progress. Now, more than ever, we must recommit to developing and supporting the pathways of human capital investment in California.

The robust web of colleges in California and the millions of students enrolled in them are the backbone of our economy. But the way we’ve treated universities’ and colleges’ budgets doesn’t reflect their critical role in preparing our workforce.

Community college students experienced a 30% increase in per-unit fees this year. UC and CSU cost five times what they did in 1990, far outpacing inflation. California’s broken system of government leads to massive structural deficits, and our leaders have responded in recent years by thrusting the cost burden onto the backs of students.

This is unconscionable.

We should be talking about preparing people for the jobs of the 21st-century and growing a new economy, but we’re stuck fighting the same budget battles over and over again. The status quo just won’t do any longer. It’s time for a new direction.

Let’s make it easier and more affordable for Californians to obtain higher education. Let’s stop implementing enrollment caps and raising fees. This is the wrong course of action. We need a new way of thinking about providing educational opportunities. This begins with getting as many students as possible enrolled in post-high school education, ensuring funding for financial aid programs, and making sure fees are affordable for all Californians.

So we start with strengthening the Cal Grant system and rolling back fee increases. But money isn’t the whole story – California has to provide more college readiness-focused curriculum in public high schools and directly link college coursework to post-graduation work opportunities. This will take a combination of more workforce development specific coursework and investments in job placement.

Jobs in the 21st-century economy will increasingly require employees to have expertise in engineering, applied sciences, and math. College is the ideal venue for instilling these skills in tomorrow’s workforce.

A PPIC report indicates California will need one million more college graduates by 2025 than we’re on pace to produce. We must begin educating our workforce now. We cannot wait until the economy is rosy again; by then it’ll be too late.

In times of great challenge, we have to renew our resolve to fully fund our systems of higher education. Our future economic prosperity depends on it.

Students linger in the back of the Graduate Student Commons just moments after Occupy California, a UC student political activist group, takes over on the building on the evening of Sept. 24. Photo by Alex Zamora.

A fluctuating number of students affiliated with Occupy California, a UC student political activist group, remain barricaded in the Graduate Student Commons (GSC) located above Joe’s Café in Quarry Plaza, as this goes to print. Occupy California aims to resist the budget crisis by using occupation as a strategy tactic.

The UC Santa Cruz occupation of the GSC building comes in response specifically to furloughs, lay-offs, rising tuition costs and other actions taken by the University of California administration.

“The goal…is [to use] this space as a place for organizing towards more actions in the future to address the budget cuts that have taken place,” said an anonymous source affiliated with the Occupy California movement.

Those close to the matter are calling the occupation a “demandless protest” with the overarching purpose of bringing students together to critique how the UC administration runs itself.

“There are no concrete demands that speak to the administration. But there is a message — a communiqué — with students, workers and faculty at this campus that the time is now to escalate, because demands have not been met in the past … the administration has outright ignored us.”

The occupation began the night of Sept. 24 following the statewide rally against budget cuts. The rally was carried out in various ways at all UC campuses and attended by faculty, students and union members.

At UC Santa Cruz, a day-long strike resulted in a march that started after the general assembly. The march went from the base of campus to Quarry Plaza where Occupy California took over the GSC and have remained since. Although occupants of the building said their act is separate from the strike, those leading the march at the general assembly were seen inside the GSC building on Sept. 28, the fourth day of the occupation.

“Santa Cruz has allowed [the occupation] to happen,” said a man inside the building who wished to remain anonymous. “We have now broken a record for longest student occupation of a building to take place in America post-1960s.”

In the past year students across the nation have taken similar action in response to budgetary issues facing higher education. At New York University, a student activist group called Taking Back NYU (TBNYU) organized similar actions in February.

TBNYU and collectives of radical students have been in support of the Occupy California movement. A group of radical students at Columbia University released a statement addressing the UCSC occupation, saying: “As you are showing, students refuse to be controlled. We refuse to be complacent consumers and victims of a ‘market’ pitted perpetually against us. We refuse to have a line drawn before us — of gender, class, race, sexuality, or any other form of privilege, of unpayable tuition hikes, of asphyxiating budget cuts.”

UCSC’s Graduate Student Association (GSA), the group in charge of the student building, has the ability to evict occupants. The GSA did not return City on a Hill Press requests for comment but an anonymous source involved with the occupation said that, “GSA is very angry at us for taking over their space, quote-unquote. They never directly asked us if they were welcome into this space — which they would have been, had they asked.”

Other occupants said that GSA members were seen at Occupy California meetings in support of the movement.

Occupants have placed a notice on the doorway that lists the risks of illegal action of entering the building. The notice includes a lawyer’s number to call if thrown into jail. The same number can be found scrawled on the forearms of many occupants.

Occupants said their action has been successful largely due to their affiliates on the outside.

“We’ve had many people associated with this. There is no central group,” one occupier said.

Inside, blankets and pillows line the building’s biggest room. For the past week the organization has held several meetings of up to 60 people to decide on their next plan of action.

A hallway attached to the common room leads to a smaller room where students sleep and study. Near the hallway’s exit sits a yellow legal pad that reads: “Emergency Text List (in the event of police action).”

While some students who pass by the occupation appear indifferent, others eye the balcony curiously. Lauren Abbott, a UCSC second-year, has spent many hours this week tabling just below the occupation for on-campus sorority Alpha Psi.

Abbott thought the signs posted around the occupation by those involved were “ambiguous.” “I don’t think [the occupation] is really making a difference right now because a lot of people see them but they really don’t know what they’re trying to do,” Abbott said.

Nathan Kimmel, a fourth-year engineering student, views the occupation in a positive light.

“I think it’s very important students are taking back their education and standing up for people that are hurt by this crisis,” Kimmel said.

An employee at Joe’s Café, who says he was advised to stay away from the occupation by unnamed local authorities, explained that business at Joe’s was negatively affected by the occupation in its first few days.

“We were hurting Friday and Saturday. But today we are doing fine,” the employee said.

He also noted that the Café needed to pull down the large window dividers between the interior of the restaurant and the outdoor patio in an effort to block out loud music being played by the occupiers.

The occupants love their music. When they’re not hosting dance parties, they’re passing the time listening to songs like Pat Kelly’s “Tracks of my Tears” and “How Long.”

Outside the occupation, in front of Joe’s patio, a UCSC alumnus participating in the occupation stepped outside of the GSC to dance freely while his friend passed out fliers about the occupation.

“[Dancing is] a way to pass the time while I smoke my cigarette — and before I go back inside.”

Screams of terror can be heard eminating from the Del Mar Theatre showings of ‘Paranormal Activity,’ a film that’s gaining buzz for its ‘Blair Witch’ style filming and seriously spooky subject matter. Photo by Alex Zamora.

It was enough to a make a grown man bolt from the theater mid-movie, hightailing it to the restroom after being overtaken by the terrors he’d just witnessed onscreen.

And it was enough that those who couldn’t take it any longer decided to leave their seats and instead cluster along the Del Mar Theatre’s benches to swap ghost stories while the brave masses cringed through the rest of the film.

At Paramount Pictures’ request, the Del Mar Theatre in Santa Cruz was among only 12 theaters in the country — and the only theater in California — to premiere the low-budget, high-fright horror film “Paranormal Activity,” starting Thursday, Sept. 24.

Thrill-seekers, including folks from as far away as Los Angeles and San Diego, assembled downtown for midnight showings throughout the film’s opening weekend, with lines filling the sidewalk for an entire city block.

“The film opened for only midnight showings, mainly in theaters that are nationally known as ‘special theaters.’ To be included in that is a big deal,” said Scott Griffin, the midnight movie programmer for the Del Mar and Nickelodeon Theatres. “We’ve been doing well — selling out.”

The 500-seat Del Mar grossed the second highest single-venue sales during the film’s successful opening weekend. It was second only to Seattle’s Neptune Theatre, which has approximately 700 seats and was the only other West Coast theater to screen the film last weekend.

“I guess Paramount wanted us to play it because this is a college town with a larger theater, but if you ask me, I think they decided to give it to us because we’re haunted too,” said Ashley Barnett, a Del Mar employee and recent UC Santa Cruz literature graduate.

Marianne Lawlor, a third-year UCSC film major and Del Mar employee, worked all three nights of opening weekend.

“It was really chaotic because we were doing the regular midnight movie as well as ‘Paranormal Activity,’ but we had a bunch of extra people working,” Lawlor said. “The concession stand line was longer than I’ve ever seen it, and when the movie was playing we could hear people screaming all the way from the lobby. I heard one guy come out of the theater and go, ‘This is a million times scarier than ‘The Blair Witch Project!’’’

“Paranormal Activity” was filmed on a hand-held camera, in a style similar to 1999’s low-budget horror sensation “The Blair Witch Project.” Where “Blair Witch” depended on bloody, gory antics, “Paranormal Activity” opted for psychological methods of inducing terror.

“The house in the film could belong to any one of the people sitting in that theater, so that helps make it more frightening,” Griffin said. “This [Santa Cruz] audience gets a lot of slasher movies. This one’s more old-school scary. It’s legitimately scary.”

Paramount Pictures came out successful in its efforts to entice college crowds to the film. The film sold out opening night in 11 of the 12 college towns that hosted it. The exception was in State College, Pennsylvania, where a Penn State football game distracted the attention of many students and left the theater at 75 percent capacity.

All week the Del Mar answered phone calls from people across the state planning to fly into Santa Cruz to get the chance to view the film. Following the opening weekend’s extraordinary success, though, Paramount informed the Del Mar on Tuesday night that nation-wide showtimes and venues would be expanded by this coming weekend. As a result, about 15 out-of-towners called to cancel their ticket orders on Wednesday. According to the Del Mar, however, people snatched up the cancelled tickets as soon as they became available.

Griffin, who has closed up the Del Mar alone after countless midnight showings, said he has never experienced any paranormal activity at the venue firsthand.

“I’ve heard all kinds of ghost stories about the Del Mar. I’ll just say this to ‘Paranormal Activity’ audiences: our ghost at the Del Mar does not take kindly to texts during the film,” Griffin said with a smile. “So far the audiences have been great, and we’re expecting another successful weekend.”

After a busy summer, the Boardwalk’s roller coasters and rides are now empty. Local business owners prepare for Santa Cruz’s off-season. Photo by Isaac Miller.

Every year after Labor Day, the neighborhood surrounding the Boardwalk transforms from a bustling pool of congestion to a near ghost town.

But even this year’s summer season — which traditionally brings with it lots of Boardwalk area bustle — was significantly more quiet than in previous years according to Praff and Sunni Patel, who own and manage the Super 8 Motel at 334 River Street, located just a few blocks from the Boardwalk.

“It was definitely slow,” Praff said. “It was harder to fill the rooms compared to previous years. Obviously, when the economy’s strong, people have the money to travel. This year, for sure, it was much harder. But you know, we’ll have to survive.”

According to the Santa Cruz Conference and Visitors’ Council (CVC), hotel occupancy in Santa Cruz County declined 7 percent this year from the previous summer, and the average daily rate was down 10 percent.

The CVC also reported that between 75 and 80 percent of summer visitors to Santa Cruz County came from Northern California and the Central Valley.

Tom Cole, manager of the Babbling Brook Inn, a 13-room bed and breakfast located about a mile from the Boardwalk and near UC Santa Cruz and Mission Street, said that the city tends to be a destination for people who live within a few hours a way.

“We always used the expression that, ‘If you can get there and back on a half-tank of gas, then let’s go.’ We’ve got quite a few communities within a half-tank of gas of us that are very [interested in Santa Cruz].”

While many of the visitors to Santa Cruz this summer live within a half-tank radius, local business owners, hoteliers and restauraunt employees noticed that fewer of them stayed overnight, creating a loss in total summer revenue.

“We do have a very strong market in terms of day-trippers,” said Christina Glynn, communications director for the CVC. “The challenge is encouraging them to stay overnight. Those reductions have a trickle-down effect and they will also [lead to] reductions in spending in the community.”

This year’s summertime decrease in business was detrimental enough to cause shops like Central Coast Running and Super Silver, formerly housed further from tourist thoroughfares, to reevaluate their locations.

“I needed to move somewhere downtown or I was going to cease to exist,” said Adam Boothe, owner of Central Coast Running. “With the drop-off in the economy, I needed to be somewhere more visible.”

Many businesses experimented this summer with different hours, lower prices and special offers to get visitors in their doors.

Surfrider Café, which opened in February, was one of many businesses that offered its patrons coupons for the Boardwalk this summer. Kris Reyes, community relations director for the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, which owns the Boardwalk, said that such coupons have proven to be a great success for the both parties involved.

“One of the things we saw this year was a growth in our discount offers because people were so value-conscious, probably more so than in years past,” Reyes said.

Unfortunately, although business at the Boardwalk was steady this past season, value-conscious visitors failed to produce a sizable amount of revenue at nearby hotels like the Patel’s Super 8.

“The challenge is going to be the slow season,” Patel said of the upcoming fall and winter months. “[The question] will be: ‘How slow does it get?’ If it gets really slow then it’s a cause for worry. But if we’re down like summer — 20 or 30 percent — I think we’ll survive. We’re just hoping that it’s going to pick up next year.”

According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Santa Cruz County saw its GDP decline for the second year in a row in 2008, making a pick-up in business a major question for 2010. But the Patels — and many other business owners — remain optimistic.

“You can’t take the ocean away, so more people [will always] like to come here,” Sunni said. “We are very lucky. It’s a great paradise we live in.”

This week, we’re featuring two photos from Photo Editor Alex Zamora that he took while on summer vacation in Chicago. If you like ‘em, check out the links below to grab a copy for your desktop!

Photo by Alex Zamora.

Wallpapers: 800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×1024 | Widescreen

Photo by Alex Zamora.

Wallpapers: 800×600 | 1024×768 | 1280×1024 | Widescreen

Coach Runeare explains how a passion to prove themselves has wrought success for men’s soccer players. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

The UC Santa Cruz men’s soccer team is out to prove the adage that numbers don’t lie. With an 8-0-1 record they’re well on their way to proving that they deserve their current ranking as the fourth-best Division III team in the nation, according to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA).

Head coach Michael Runeare won’t let the numbers get to the players’ heads, though.

“We’ve been talking a lot about how they’re just numbers and not indicative of where we want to be at the end of the year,” Runeare said. “It’s just coaches making evaluations early in the season so it’s not relevant to whether we will get into the postseason.”

He added that while the team is proud of the recognition, it’s the rankings by the main governing body, the NCAA, that really matter in the end.

“The NCAA rankings don’t come out until mid-October, and you need to be ranked in the top seven in the Western region to qualify for the playoffs,” Runeare said. “Then there’s a selection Sunday [where the NCAA picks who will go to the playoffs].”

Third-year center forward C.J. Villalobos agrees with his head coach, saying that although the team is fully aware of their stature on the NSCAA list, they don’t take it too seriously because they realize how short-lived it could be.

“We realize it’s so early in the season that we could be dropped right away if we lose a game, so we don’t really think about it and let our performance speak for the numbers,” Villalobos said.

UCSC wasn’t actually ranked in the NSCAA Top 25 Poll at the start of the season. They cracked the top 10 after two overtime victories on the road against the University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran to start the season, two games which Coach Runeare points to as indicative of the team’s overall success.

“I think the two victories we had in Seattle showed the players we could win in that they played in away games in overtime and were able to win and it gave them confidence,” Runeare said. “I think last year they lacked an ability to overcome those hurdles, [but] this year they have an identity.”

Villalobos agrees that the team has a different attitude this year and thinks that a large part of its success comes from motivation to make up for last year, when the team finished with an 8-7-2 record and didn’t make the playoffs.

“We all came out this summer training harder than we’ve ever trained because we’ve wanted to prove something, and that’s why our team is so good,” Villalobos said. “We’ve got the passion from not making the playoffs last year that [makes us] want to go all the way.”

Brendan Ward, senior central defender and co-captain, credits Coach Runeare with improving overall team play. Runeare is entering his first full year as the head coach of the men’s team after spending six years with the women’s team.

“Coach Michael Runeare has helped us out a lot this season,” Ward said. “The players connect better with Mike and he gives us a lot of good info on the field that’s really helped our team out.”

Runeare says it is critical that the team keep the momentum going, especially over the next couple of weeks when they will run into some tough opponents. He points to this Friday’s home game against Chapman (6-1-0) as one of those potentially challenging match-ups, as well as an upcoming trip to Dallas to play Austin College and the University of Dallas (who beat UCSC at home last year).

“Friday’s game against Chapman is going to be a really big test for us, [especially since] they’re also a D-III independent,” Runeare said. “Generally if someone goes to the postseason as an independent it’s going to be one of us two teams.”

Meanwhile, Ward says the key to continuing to be successful this season lies in the team chemistry.

“We really just have to keep improving every day. We have to respect and love each other and be extremely close like a family, and I think we’re getting to that.”

Men’s Soccer
9/22 vs. Menlo (home) 2-0 (win)
9/27 vs. La Sierra (home) 4-0 (win)

Women’s Soccer
9/25 vs. Southwestern (home) 5-0 (win)
9/27 vs. La Verne (home) 2-1 (win)

Women’s Volleyball
9/26 vs. Luther (home) 3-2 (loss)
9/26 vs. La Sierra (home) 3-0 (win)
9/29 at Mills (away) 3-0 (win)

Upcoming Athletics:

Men’s Soccer
10/2 vs. Chapman (home) at 2PM
10/6 vs. Fresno Pacific (home) at 4PM

Women’s Soccer
10/2 vs. La Sierra (home) at 4PM
10/4 vs. Whittier (home) at 12PM

Women’s Volleyball
10/3 vs. Menlo (home) at 7PM

Any athletic teams, clubs or programs that wish to have sports scores and information listed in future issues of City on a Hill Press, please send schedules, results and contact information to sports@cityonahillpress.com