With funds now available for Moran Lake County Park’s first renovation since 1981, the parks department has items from new bathrooms to water quality and monarch habitat on its list — and is hoping residents will weigh in online and in person, too.
Grace Stetson
Grace comes to Lookout from just over the hill, originally from Sunnyvale but with a variety of journalism experience from across the country.After doing her undergrad at Seattle University, Grace earned a master’s in journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School, where she focused on housing and gentrification issues via roles with The Chicago Reader, Illinois Public Media, and WNYC.In 2018, she moved to Brooklyn, where she joined the team at Dateline NBC as a full-time program coordinator. In this position, she balanced reporting work for the show’s online Cold Case Spotlights vertical with assistant production on special episodes, and connected with the Story Development team in preparing daily briefs on news-of-the-day.Since returning to the South Bay Area in Sept. 2020, Grace has freelanced for local publications such as San Jose Spotlight, Metro Silicon Valley, and The Six Fifty. Having lived in many places across the U.S. and worked for small, mid-tier, and larger markets, Grace is excited to delve back into community journalism with Lookout Santa Cruz.“This team and endeavor is such an exciting opportunity, and an exciting vision for what the future of local news can look like,” she says. “I can’t wait to have the chance to serve this community with high-quality, in-depth journalism.”
Posted inHousing & Development
Boulder Creek home ravaged by deadly fire now on the market — and being sold as is
The three-bedroom, one-bathroom property on Highway 9 billed as a “contractor special” is listed at $178,000 — and will come with a wealth of uncertainties in the wake of a blaze that killed its previous occupant.
Posted inCOVID Today
Gail Newel breaks down the problems with a mask mandate, beginning with enforcement
While many concerned citizens in Santa Cruz County have been voicing their feeling that the mask mandate being enforced around most of the Bay Area should also be back in effect here, public health officer Gail Newel offered reasons why it isn’t happening.
Posted inLatest News
Unscheduled power outages leave Corralitos customers frustrated, concerned with PG&E
The second outage in nearly two weeks was particularly worrisome with fire season in full effect in Santa Cruz County. “If there had been a fire, none of us would have known until the smoke was on us,” one Eureka Canyon resident said.
Posted inBusiness & Technology
‘We can’t delay much longer’: Board of Supervisors call out flaws in rebuilding system for CZU fire victims
Among the core issues delaying the re-permitting process for Santa Cruz Mountain residents is the examination of geological issues that pre-existed last August’s fires. Says Fifth District Supervisor Bruce McPherson: “If we apply the code to the pre-fire conditions, we run the risk of making it that much harder, if not impossible, for some folks to rebuild their homes.”
Posted inHousing & Development
YIMBYism & Santa Cruz: Those behind affordability movement will show what they mean by ‘missing middle’
What is a YIMBY? What do these “missing middle” edifices look like? How might new versions of them fit into the local housing situation? And what are the legal challenges facing their development? Lookout takes a look in advance of Wednesday downtown tour.
Posted inCoast Life
Nearly 5,000 lose power: What we know about PG&E’s Santa Cruz, San Lorenzo Valley outages
The first outage began at approximately 8:31 p.m. Wednesday when Ben Lomond area residents lost power that wasn’t restored until midday Thursday because of a fallen tree into electrical equipment, according to PG&E. That outage at its peak affected 2,194 customers.
Posted inBusiness & Technology
Greater Purpose, indeed: Eastside brewery focuses on Santa Cruzans’ safety via vaccine proof, pop-up clinic
As of July 27, Greater Purpose Brewing Company decided to require proof of vaccination to enter the building and to be allowed to sit inside. This weekend it will take matters a step further when it hosts a pop-up vaccine clinic that offers a free pint to anyone who gets jabbed.
Posted inBusiness & Technology
‘Just people trying to survive’: Operating a fitness business in Santa Cruz has only gotten trickier
Small gyms are the name of the game in chain-averse Santa Cruz, but local owners say that even with their close-knit communities, there’s no strong-arming the area’s high cost of living — and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic added to the degree of difficulty.
Posted inPandemic Life
‘They deserve to stay safe and alive’: Fentanyl risk, even in marijuana, has county leaders concerned
Based on the county coroner’s data from May 2021, fatal overdoses from fentanyl nearly quadrupled from five in 2019 to 19 in 2020. According to the findings, fentanyl has been found in a variety of other illicit drugs, from methamphetamine and heroin to cocaine and Xanax — even in cannabis.