A farewell
Well folks, this is my final transmission of the In The Public Interest newsletter. My time at Lookout has finished, exactly three years — to the day — after I started. Working to build this news outlet into a meaningful source of stories and information for, and about, Santa Cruz County has been nothing short of a joy — a unique kind of joy that follows commitment to mission and practice.
After three years of working in this newsroom alongside my now nationally esteemed colleagues, I believe Lookout offers a bit of hope amid the nation’s bleak local news landscape. Small, yes — a newsroom in Santa Cruz County isn’t going to cure a nationwide ailment decades in the making — but hope nonetheless. My colleagues are at city halls, on campus, and at protests, deep inside government budgets, police records and campaign finance reports, to assure Santa Cruz County residents have the most important information. This community is lucky to have a professional outfit like Lookout — I mean, our reporting won the Pulitzer Prize — but Lookout is especially lucky to have such an engaged audience of people who crave the empowerment of good information.
Information drives empowerment, empowerment drives action, and action drives change. As journalists, we take responsibility for the first part. The rest is up to the people. That’s why good journalism is essential to good democracy. Without it, people power lacks its critical leverage.
As a journalist, appropriately I think, I much prefer other people’s stories to writing about my own. But given the circumstances, I suppose it’s right to share some about my plans.
Next week, I will begin as a national reporter for The Real Deal magazine, an outfit that aggressively covers the real estate and development industry with a sort of glossy spunk that I appreciate. I’ll be writing about the characters, the policies, the decisions and the flow of money that shapes our built environment. Most immediately, I will be based in San Francisco, where the artificial intelligence gold rush is quickly transforming the housing and commercial markets. The idea for now is to eventually make it back east to Manhattan, where my partner and I will be closer to our rapidly growing families.
Thank you to everyone who has engaged with this newsletter over the past few years. Hearing from readers is one of the best parts of this job, so I especially appreciate everyone who has reached out, whether in applause or appalled. My email will be active for a few more days, so please reach out if you’d like.
As ever,
Christopher Neely
OF NOTE
UC Santa Cruz expects to be in the hole, again: Despite some dramatic belt-tightening over the past year to the tune of around $70 million in cuts, UC Santa Cruz is still projected to face an $80 million budget deficit this fiscal year. As Hillary Ojeda reports, the financial woes are raising concerns among staff about where the university might cut next.
Scotts Valley City Council appoints interim lawmaker: Gregory Wimp, who owns several Togo’s sandwich shops in the area, is Scotts Valley’s newest city councilmember, filling in the vacancy left by Allan Timms’ abrupt resignation last month. Wimp will serve through 2026, when Timms’ term expires. The council chose Wimp over former city council candidate John Lewis, and Michael Zeller, the director of programming for the Transportation Agency of Monterey County.
The railbanking debate continues: Funding shortages and cost overrides have imperiled the county’s passenger rail ambitions in recent months. Now the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission revived the debate around whether it should temporarily remove some of the train tracks to continue building the Coastal Rail Trail project, a multi-modal trail that aims to connect the southern and northern points of the county. Max Chun has that story.
POINTS FOR PARTICIPATION
Out of public view, county supervisors have been interviewing candidates for the county’s next top bureaucrat, and expect to make a hire Tuesday: This one is strange to me. After CEO Carlos Palacios announced his retirement in the summer, there hasn’t been much public discussion about the process to replace him. Palacios is the single most powerful non-elected person in county government. However, Supervisor Manu Koenig tells me that county lawmakers are conducting final interviews Tuesday and will announce a hire imminently, possibly by the end of the week. This is the most critical hire county supervisors are tasked with making as representatives of the public. They are set to meet Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. at Hotel Paradox. The only thing on the agenda: a closed session regarding the public appointment process for a county executive officer.
County lawmakers look to advance demolition ordinance for abandoned oversized vehicles: When it was first proposed earlier this summer, the plan to allow tow companies to immediately demolish vehicles determined to be abandoned or illegally parked for more than 72 hours drew fierce opposition from homeless advocates. The issue is back before county lawmakers this week, who will vote Tuesday on whether to approve the new law.
Supervisor Justin Cummings to launch his reelection campaign this weekend: The former Santa Cruz mayor and first-term county supervisor is calling his Saturday afternoon gathering at the London Nelson Community Center “an opportunity … to come together, reflect on what we’ve achieved, and get energized for the road ahead.” Cummings has not yet seen a challenger to his reelection campaign.
The board of supervisors will weigh whether to support Three Princes’ Surf Site as a state historic landmark: The point, at the San Lorenzo River mouth, is where three Hawaiian princes introduced the sport of surfing to the mainland U.S. in 1885. Supervisors will vote on Tuesday whether to send a letter of support for the site to the California Historic Landmarks Commission.
Following misconduct drama, Capitola City Council revisits its own code-of-conduct policy: Two weeks ago, the city council voted to toss a misconduct complaint against Councilmember Melinda Orbach, a saga that only further stirred the town’s turbulent political waters. Between the complaint’s filing and the decision to toss it, the city’s lawmakers asked for a revision to its complaint process that would provide more transparency. On Thursday, the city council will vote to determine how the city handles complaints, what it takes for a complaint to get on a city council agenda, and the timeline on their dismissal.
ONE GREAT READ
From the outer boroughs to outer space | By Nathan Heller, for The New Yorker (2019)
As my final recommended read, I offer a personal favorite. This piece is close to my heart, not because of the content but because of the form, which is its own content. The profile paints an intimate picture of James Gray as he finishes his most ambitious film at the time, “Ad Astra.” I had never heard of James Gray, but Heller’s prose pulled me in immediately and held me to the end. It reads more like literature than journalism, and this piece marked the first time I felt compelled to find a way to reach the author, and both congratulate him and attempt to pick his brain on how he pulled it off.
This was part of my email to the author, Nathan Heller. Forgive my mid-20s sloppiness:
“The feelings I got from that scene were of intimacy, comfort, and ease, which surprised me considering there was a reporter in the room. Some of the quotes and details were so specific it felt like you had to have been stenographing the whole event, yet everything felt so flowy and comfortable and genuine that it felt like you just had to be recording everything on a hidden recorder.
Yet, both of those situations seemed highly unlikely to me as a reporter. Stenographing in the corner would, I imagine, ruin the flow of the evening, and recording everything would mean you have to go back and listen through 4 hours of a dinner party.
So, asking as a fellow reporter and writer, what is your strategy/technique/process for something like that? You have my word to not share your secrets, but as a writer who aspires to produce something akin to that James Gray piece one day, I have to know, rather, have to at least try to understand, how a professional pulls that off.”
Nathan not only responded, but laid out his entire process for me in great detail and warm encouragement. I keep my word to not share his process, but ultimately his message was that there are no shortcuts in the production of great work. It was a defining moment for me in my writing career. By taking such care in his response to a random 26-year-old news reporter from Austin, Nathan not only taught me about professional stewardship, but made me believe that what I wanted to achieve was possible. He has been a mentor ever since.
Thanks again, everyone. See you soon.