Housing is taking center stage in Santa Cruz County’s June primaries and November elections, writes housing activist and former Santa Cruz mayor Don Lane. He worries that community debates are often clouded by misinformation. Here, he argues that many new downtown Santa Cruz developments are in fact affordable and part of a long-overdue housing push. He points to decades of underbuilding as the root of today’s shortage and rising costs. As voters head to the polls, he urges a fact-based conversation about who gets to live in the community.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Spring is here, but respiratory viruses haven’t gone away
We saw higher-than-usual temperatures in March, but that doesn’t mean virus season is over in Santa Cruz County, writes Santa Cruz family medicine physician Patrick Cudahy. Viruses are still out there, he says, and while flu dominates in winter, COVID-19 strains tend to surge in warmer months. Since October, flu cases have caused 48 hospitalizations, compared to 22 for COVID-19 and 12 for RSV. Norovirus remains a concern, although local wastewater testing numbers remain low. Still, Cudahy warns, overlapping infections and shifting seasonal patterns can have serious consequences. He urges readers to wash hands, stay home when sick and get vaccinated.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: It’s distressing to see so many haters on Lookout’s Facebook posts
In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident laments what she sees as an excess of negativity in the social media comments section.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: What an asset our symphony is
In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident salutes the Santa Cruz Symphony for a brilliant recent performance.
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I’m a lifelong pacifist living in Santa Cruz; in 1980, I had an encounter with the Islamic Revolution
Local peace activist, former union leader and retired sociologist Paul Johnston took a journey into revolutionary Iran 46 years ago on a mission to de-escalate the Iran hostage crisis. The trip showcased how hope, power and politics collided at a pivotal moment in history. What began as a mission for peace exposed deeper truths about manipulation on both sides of the hostage crisis. Today, as the U.S. bombings continue, the consequences of those days still echo. Here, he offers a personal reckoning with war and memory and repeats the enduring call to seek peace.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
My great-grandparents were incarcerated during World War II: We can’t look away today
UC Santa Cruz student Skyla Tomine is terrified by the language she hears in the news, including the term “enemy alien.” It sounds chillingly familiar to Executive Order 9066, which forced her great-grandparents and other Japanese Americans into internment camps. The harm, she writes, is lasting. Many people she knows insist they would have stepped in to help her grandparents and others. It’s time, she writes, to prove it.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
No Kings, just voices: I’m going to sing my way through the march – join me?
What if resistance sounded less like shouting – and more like harmony? Santa Cruz family therapist Lisa Herendeen is planning to march Saturday at the “No Kings” protest in Santa Cruz, and to sing. She has been attending protest song practice sessions with a group of local singer-songwriter-activists who believe in the power of collective voices of song. Local musicians Heather Houston and Aileen Vance have organized the sessions. Singing might not topple power, Herendeen writes, but it just might shift the energy. And that, she believes, is where real change often begins.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: I support Jimmy Panetta
In a letter to the editor, a Salinas resident rejects criticism of Rep. Jimmy Panetta in a recent Lookout op-ed.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Jimmy Panetta is not a peace candidate – let’s find someone else
In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident concurs with a recent Lookout op-ed about Rep. Jimmy Panetta’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
When leadership fails: Here’s what my Cabrillo students learned at our latest board of trustees meeting
Cabrillo College professor Skye Gentile says recent meetings of the school’s board of trustees have offered students a real-time lesson in poor communication and bad leadership. The meetings, she writes, have allowed students to see examples of tokenism and microaggressions and to discuss the importance of timing, apologies and public accountability. Effective leadership depends less on intent and more on listening, reflection and awareness of impact. Her students, she writes, have been left wondering if the current board represents their interests and values.