California’s State Assembly District 28 splits between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties and includes most of the city of Santa Cruz. It’s a new district configuration, hammered out to take effect in 2022, and is 50% Democratic and 19% Republican. Lookout asked the candidates running in this race — Liz Lawler, a Republican from Monte Sereno, and Gail Pellerin, a Democrat from Santa Cruz — to submit answers to two questions. Liz Lawler’s answers are below.
Opinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Vote for Justin. He listens and has compassion
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: What is absent from our Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors is an African American renter with a PhD. Justin Cummings is one of the most astute, articulate and compassionate councilmembers in our city’s history. […]
Conversations with Jody: Bestseller Ng talks new novel, hope in dark times, humanities crisis
Bestselling novelist Celeste Ng is blessed with prodigious gifts. She writes gorgeous, lush sentences that make us look at ourselves and our world differently. Her first two novels have sold more than 2 million copies and her second novel, “Little Fires Everywhere,” became a popular TV series starring Reese Witherspoon. She comes to Santa Cruz on Oct. 18 for a Bookshop Santa Cruz event at UCSC’s Cowell Ranch Hay Barn to talk about her new novel, “Our Missing Hearts.” Witherspoon just tapped the book as her October pick. Community Voices editor Jody K. Biehl talks to Ng about the book, writing, the role of the humanities and artists, the rise of Donald Trump, motherhood and more.
Letter to the editor: Vote yes on N; too many people are forced to leave Santa Cruz over housing
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: As a homeowner and landlord in Santa Cruz for the past 12 years, I have seen rental prices skyrocket such that many of my friends who must rent simply can no longer afford. This has […]
Letter to the editor: Reed Geisreiter and Toby Goddard deserve your vote for reelection to Port Commission
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: I have closely observed the Santa Cruz Port Commission over the past several years and strongly endorse Reed Geisreiter and Toby Goddard for re-election. They each have the experience needed and proven track records of […]
Stop watering your cactus! Why succulents matter and how to stop killing them
Martin Quigley, director of UC Santa Cruz’s Arboretum & Botanic Garden, is back with more tips on climate-friendly planting. This time, he tackles succulents, everyone’s favorite office and garden plant, and outlines why they are excellent choices for our Mediterranean climate. And he takes us backstage at the Arb to show us how he “makes” plant babies. You can do it, too.
Letter to the editor: We are women who own businesses downtown and we support Shebreh for supervisor
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: One of our favorite things about owning businesses in downtown Santa Cruz is that the majority of local stores are owned by women and mothers. In fact, all three of us have raised our families […]
A year after my father’s death, I’m still getting to know him; turns out his time with Pranksters wasn’t so merry
Dean Quarnstrom died in 2021 and his son Evan has spent the year since traveling the world, mourning and reading his dad’s journals, which chronicle his days hovering on the fringes of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters in 1960s Santa Cruz. Dean describes the Pranksters as “pretentious,” “untrustworthy” and a “bunch of a–holes.” As he reads his father’s writing, Evan relives the counterculture generation — including his dad’s stories about Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and Hells Angels — and gets to know a side of his father he never knew.
Stop watering your cactus! Why succulents matter and how to stop killing them
Martin Quigley, director of UC Santa Cruz’s Arboretum & Botanic Garden, is back with more tips on climate-friendly planting. This time, he tackles succulents, everyone’s favorite office and garden plant, and outlines why they are excellent choices for our Mediterranean climate. And he takes us backstage at the Arb to show us how he “makes” plant babies. You can do it, too.
Letter to the editor: We need to stop poisoning our farmworker families in Watsonville
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: Thank you for your Oct. 3 article on pesticides. I was present at the CORA event with T. S. MacQuiddy Elementary School and Driscoll’s. It made me so sad to see the children with leukemia, […]

