Editorial: Would residents of Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley or Aptos allow pesticides to be sprayed next to their kids’ schools? It’s time for Santa Cruz County to recognize the health dangers of South County pesticide spraying.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Measure N offers empty promises and invasive oversight: It’s not Santa Cruz’s answer to affordable housing
Measure N, the empty homes tax, is a cruel empty promise, argues Lynn Renshaw, a founder of Santa Cruz Together. She writes that Measure N is not the answer we seek for affordable housing in our community. It creates what she calls “an unelected and intrusive bureaucracy” that requires residents to report how often they live in their homes or face criminal penalties and fines. It distracts from more practical solutions to our real housing challenges. It’s unworkable and wrong, she says, insisting, “we should be able to come and go freely from our property without city government monitoring or control.” Santa Cruz, she believes, deserves better.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Vote yes on N if you care about our community: It’s our ticket to affordable housing in Santa Cruz
Measure N will help fund affordable housing by taxing those who don’t use their homes more than eight months a year, argues Cyndi Dawson, chair of the City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission and campaign manager for Measure N. At a minimum, she writes, the city estimates taxing empty homes will generate $2.5-$4 million to support housing for the community and help keep our teachers, child care, health care and service workers from moving away. Santa Cruz has a history of supporting tax measures and Dawson thinks residents need to step up and support this measure.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Don’t rob our local economy — vote yes on Q for farmers, businesses and employees
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: A recently released downtown-specific plan located the potential of nearly 4,000 new housing units in Watsonville’s city core. This requires clever, creative and costly redevelopment of underutilized building sites. It’s much easier and cheaper to […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Questioning Fred Keeley’s commitment to ethics and Keeley’s response
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: Mayoral candidate Fred Keeley cannot be trusted to run our city. He is someone who in the past has contributed to the normalization of political corruption. This path began in April 1995, while he was […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Shebreh brings work ethic to focus on homelessness, youth and mental health
Lookout asked the two candidates running for 3rd District Santa Cruz County Supervisor to write up to 800 words to help voters differentiate between them. We asked them two specific questions, with strict word counts. Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson’s answers are here.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Justin is a renter, an independent thinker and cares about people, equity and the environment
Lookout asked the two candidates running for 3rd District Santa Cruz County Supervisor to write up to 800 words to help voters differentiate between them. We asked them two specific questions, with strict word counts. Justin Cummings’ answers are here.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Vote no on O. It kills affordable housing now and in the future
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: Measure O proponents claim to support affordable housing, but facts say otherwise. First, O will kill 124 permanently affordable homes already approved for construction with the new library in downtown Santa Cruz. Second, according to […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Keeley is out of step on Measure N stance
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: It is always baffling when self-proclaimed Democrats oppose wealth taxes. Fred Keeley, who has been a loud and proud Democrat for years, recently told Lookout that he plans to vote no on Measure N, a […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Joy Schendledecker for mayor: Santa Cruz needs truly progressive ideas and a mayor who will fight for justice in housing, jobs and the environment
Joy Schendledecker is a community organizer, member of the Santa Cruz chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, co-founder of Santa Cruz Cares and Sanitation for the People, as well as an artist and a mother of two teens. Her leadership skills, she says, are “generally not recognized in our culture” and include grassroots organizing and neighborhood consensus-building and care work for family and community. She believes Santa Cruz needs new ideas and to elect someone who is rooted in the community she represents: the underpaid and overworked, tenants, workers and unions, families, elders, people with disabilities, our LGBTQIA+ community, students and young people.
