January’s fire at Moss Landing has fueled debate over whether battery energy storage systems belong in local communities. While safety concerns are real, national battery safety expert Matthew Paiss argues that modern BESS fires are rare in proportion to the numbers installed.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
First they came for the homeless …
Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs, takes issue with a previous Lookout op-ed on homelessness, saying it misunderstands many facets of the issue and was dehumanizing toward unhoused members of the Santa Cruz County community.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Santa Cruz County should try to save the Hirahara house
Longtime Santa Cruz resident Jill Yamashita laments the board of supervisors’ Aug. 5 choice not to preserve the Redman-Hirahara House outside Watsonville on the National Register of Historic Places. The house, she writes, was the first home owned by Japanese Americans in Santa Cruz County and has a storied history before and after World War II, when the owners were sent to internment camps.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: We already have Metro – do we need a train?
In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident asks why so many are focused on bringing passenger rail to the area when Metro bus service works countywide.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Soquel Avenue bike lane improvements are good – we need even more
Avid biker Dan Arias takes issue with a recent Lookout op-ed criticizing balusters on Soquel Avenue as dangerous for cyclists. On the contrary, he says, officials should be praised for finding ways to separate bikers from traffic. He makes a plea for more such efforts, particularly on Soquel Avenue.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
It’s time to bust the four top myths about farmworker health and pesticides
Ann López, executive director of the Center for Farmworker Families, takes on four pervasive “deceptions” about pesticides in our community. California does not have the most rigorous regulations in the world; far from it, she writes – and in Santa Cruz County, where only 23% of crop report value is from organic farms, we can and must do better.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
What PIT count says about county homelessness numbers: We are making progress amid uncertainty
Robert Ratner, director of Housing for Health for Santa Cruz County’s human services department, and Larry Imwalle, director of Homelessness Response & Community Programs for the City of Santa Cruz, interpret the point-in-time count numbers, which were released last week.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Talk of train leaves out those of us who don’t drive
In a letter to the editor, a Palo Alto resident takes issue with a recent story about passenger rail.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Why not use rails to move people from Seabright to 7th Avenue?
In a letter to the editor, a Corralitos resident suggests using a rail vehicle to move pedestrians across the rail bridge over the Santa Cruz Harbor while the parallel Murray Street Bridge is closed.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Boycott 3CE’s silent support of lithium battery energy storage in our neighborhoods
Local activist Becky Steinbruner says the public needs to boycott Central Coast Community Energy because its leadership refuses to be transparent or answer public questions about the company’s embrace of hazardous lithium battery energy storage facilities.