Quick Take
Environmental activist Rick Longinotti celebrates the work of Santa Cruz environmentalists and political activists Celia and Peter Scott, who are set to be honored May 3 with other activists as part of the Reel Work Film Festival. Without their efforts, Longinotti writes, Santa Cruz would not have local treasures like Wilder Ranch State Park, the Pogonip or Arana Gulch. He also points to current debates about Highway 1 widening and insists we need to follow the Scotts’ lead and think about alternatives.
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When I enjoy a bike ride at Wilder Ranch State Park, or take a serene solo walk through the redwoods in the Pogonip or meet a friend for a walk at Arana Gulch, I sometimes feel grateful for the people who protected these spaces from development. I think of Peter and Celia Scott.
This visionary couple had a knack for organizing that resulted in the Santa Cruz we know today, a community of exquisite natural beauty accessible to all and without a large freeway running through its middle. We’ll be celebrating them and their legacy – as well as that of fellow “freeway fighters” Debbie Bulger, Bill Malone, Paul Elerick and Bruce Van Allen – at 7 p.m. on May 3 at the Resource Center for Nonviolence as part of the Reel Work Film Festival. Donations benefit a current environmental fight – the campaign for alternatives to widening Highway 1 for auxiliary lanes in Aptos. This fight reminds me of the pioneering work Celia and Peter, now 88 and 90, respectively, started five decades ago.
Picture what Santa Cruz would have looked like if the plans of the 1960s had come to fruition: homes and schools across the Pogonip, and a freeway – with a loop to the Boardwalk – through Santa Cruz connecting Highway 17 with the North Coast. In 1972, a Toronto investment firm proposed a development for 33,000 people for Wilder Ranch. In 1970, Pacific Gas & Electric announced a plan to build a nuclear power plant 2 miles north of Davenport.
Citizen groups organized opposition to these plans, taking on names like “Operation Wilder,” “the Coastal Coalition,” “Save the Coast” and the “Rural Bonny Doon Association.” They were outspoken and effective.
In 1969, the Sentinel reported, “About 1,500 rabidly partisan citizens jammed the Civic Auditorium this morning to make themselves heard on the Great Freeway Issue.”
Peter and Celia were at the heart of the citizen action that made Wilder Ranch into a state park in 1974, pushed PG&E to abandon its plan for a nuclear power plant, and generated signatures for the 1972 ballot initiative that established the California Coastal Commission.
They did this alongside their “real” jobs. Peter was a physics professor at the then-new UC Santa Cruz campus. His childhood enjoyment of the outdoors led him to the leadership of the local Sierra Club. Celia Von der Muhll was a planner, an environmental attorney and a young mother who had attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and become fascinated with London’s greenbelt. She believed cities needed green space and that people should be able to walk out and be immersed in nature. She believed Santa Cruz could be that sort of place.
In 1979, Peter and Celia and others worked to pass the Greenbelt ballot initiative, which saved Pogonip, Arana Gulch and Moore Creek from development. That ballot initiative incorporated a requirement that new development include 15% affordable housing.
Along with county Measure J, passed in 1978, these were among the first ordinances in the nation to require affordable housing in new development.
Celia was elected to the Santa Cruz City Council in 1994 with the most votes of any candidate. At her swearing-in ceremony, Peter and other musicians led the crowd in singing Celia’s campaign song, “Dancing on the Brink of the World,” which the Scotts wrote and which celebrated the San Lorenzo River. They used another song, “To the Gray Whale Ranch,” in a 10-year campaign that stopped development at Gray Whale Ranch and resulted in its annexation to Wilder Ranch State Park, now 7,000 acres.
In a Sentinel op-ed in 1998, Peter addressed the plan to make Highway 1 eight lanes from Santa Cruz to Freedom Boulevard. Basing his argument on studies by the Environmental Protection Agency, he wrote, “Due to pent-up demand, the excess capacity created by adding new lanes will soon be used up.” However, the Regional Transportation Commission forged ahead, placing a highway tax measure on the ballot in 2004.
The effort against the measure included Sierra Club chair Paul Elerick, Debbie Bulger, Bill Malone and Bruce Van Allen. The measure needed a two-thirds vote to pass, but garnered only 43%. The failure to win public support for a highway tax made the dream of an eight-lane highway moot.
Debate about Highway 1 expansion continues today, as Caltrans builds auxiliary lanes (exit-only lanes) in between the choke points at each interchange.
Auxiliary lanes are not the answer to traffic congestion. In fact, a Caltrans 2015 environmental impact report stated the auxiliary lanes and ramp metering from Santa Cruz to Freedom Boulevard “would result in a very slight improvement in traffic congestion.” The Sierra Club and Campaign for Sustainable Transportation are currently suing Caltrans because the Highway 1 project’s environmental impact report failed to analyze alternatives to auxiliary lanes proposed for State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard. The proposed project would strip 1,100 trees that line the highway and squander a large chunk of local transportation dollars.
Our community needs a vision for alternatives to being stuck in traffic. Like Celia and Peter Scott, we need to imagine a better future.
Every generation has an opportunity to correct course when we are heading down a damaging path. I’m looking forward to celebrating past leaders like the Scotts. I’m also realizing, this is our turn.
Rick Longinotti is chair of the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation, which seeks to reduce our community’s dependency on auto travel by making it safe and convenient to get around without a private automobile. Rick is a marriage and family therapist and former electrical contractor. He has lived in Santa Cruz for 33 years.