Behind Santa Cruz’s new national monument is a first-of-its-kind funding model that’s aiming to raise $2 million
After nearly a decade of development, Saturday marked the first time that public hikers, bikers and trekkers could freely access the 9 miles of trails that wind through Cotoni-Coast Dairies, the northern Santa Cruz County slice of the California Coastal National Monument.
As part of a national monument, the roughly 5,800 acres that make up Cotoni-Coast Dairies are overseen and maintained by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The BLM moved into Santa Cruz County in 2014 after accepting the land from the nonprofit Trust for Public Land. By BLM standards, 11 years is a relatively short time to be a neighbor: The agency oversees about 245 million acres in the U.S., or about 1 in every 10 acres within our national borders. Throughout the West, people have lived alongside this federal agency for the better part of the past century.
Yet, Cotoni-Coast Dairies isn’t just a shiny new dimension to a region whose identity largely hinges on the long list of things to do outside. Out of the more than 130 national monuments throughout the U.S., Santa Cruz County’s section of the California Coastal National Monument also represents a prototype for the nearly 80-year-old BLM, as well as environmental organizations on the front line of the struggle to properly fund conservation.
On Friday, the Foundation for America’s Public Lands, a relatively new and congressionally designated nonprofit, launched an initiative to raise $1 million to fund the ongoing care and preservation of Cotoni-Coast Dairies. Val Cole, board chair of the foundation, told Lookout the goal is to actively fundraise until the endowment reaches $2 million, and then turn it into a more passive fund that accepts donations.
For context, the BLM’s land preservation and maintenance budget for all of its 245 million acres in 2025 is $1.4 billion — less than $6 per acre. With an eventual goal of $2 million for Cotoni Coast-Dairies alone, the Foundation for America’s Public Lands would create a long-term stewardship endowment that is nearly 60 times greater than what the typical piece of BLM land might expect in a given year. The money could go to a number of initiatives, from hiring an additional field officer or putting in an additional toilet, to financing trail care and beating back invasive species.
This fund models itself off the National Park Foundation but is wholly new for the BLM, which covers three times as much acreage as the National Park Service.
Cole, a Santa Cruz local and former senior manager at Apple who joined the public lands foundation last year, said Cotoni-Coast is technically the third section of BLM property to receive a specific endowment from the foundation. However, in the case of the other two — roughly 5,000 acres of redwood land along the Lost Coast Trail in Northern California, and new sections of the Blue Valley Ranch in Colorado — the money was negotiated as part of the BLM’s land acquisition. Cotoni-Coast Dairies’ endowment fund is the first to pursue a broad fundraising campaign that will seek private dollars primarily throughout Santa Cruz County and the greater Bay Area.
“We wanted to try this first where we thought we could be successful, and I said if there is any community interested in protecting the land we save, it’s the community I live in,” Cole told Lookout. “You want to start somewhere where you have good odds. If we were starting in rural Utah, I might feel like we were swimming upstream. But this is a good community, and this is a prototype that we’d like to take across the country.”
Founded in 2022, the Foundation for America’s Public Lands is the official charitable arm of the BLM. Cole said the money for Cotoni-Coast doesn’t go into the BLM’s general fund, but is held by the nonprofit, which will disburse it in coordination with the monument’s land managers.
“Money for stewardship is a scarce commodity for the BLM’s network,” Cole said. “The foundation is working through picking and choosing where we can immediately make a difference.”
OF NOTE
Santa Cruz’s plan to expand its downtown gets the Coastal Commission OK: The long-sought zoning changes that aim to attract taller, denser development in the neighborhood south of Laurel Street received an A-OK from the California Coastal Commission, a powerful state agency that oversees major land-use changes along the state’s coastal area. The zoning changes, which clear the way for the Santa Cruz Warriors to build a new basketball/live events arena and for developers to pursue dense, tall housing projects, go into effect on Saturday.
Speaking of tall buildings in downtown Santa Cruz…: Clocktower Center, the most debated housing development countywide for more than a year, earned a final approval from the Santa Cruz City Council last week. An executive from Workbench, the local developer that initially proposed a 16-story version of Clocktower Center, referred to it as their flagship project. The development will include 178 housing units in an eight-story structure situated behind the city’s town clock. The project is still in its financing stage, but Workbench expects to break ground in 2026.
UC Santa Cruz’s new housing development is moving at the pace of molasses: My colleague Hillary Ojeda reports that the 2,900-bed Heller Driver development on UC Santa Cruz’s campus has hit significant delays. The university had initially estimated people could start moving in by 2028; however, the much-needed on-campus housing development now isn’t expected to begin until 2027, with a completion date projected for 2029-30.
Santa Cruz officials fail to foresee economic impact of the Murray Street Bridge closure: As Lily Belli reports, the mood inside Santa Cruz City Hall was tense last Tuesday as business owners from the Seabright neighborhood and around the harbor laid into city officials for failing to see how the long-term closure of the Murray Street Bridge would hurt shops and restaurants. Seabright Social announced it was closing, while another nearby business, Betty Burgers, announced the shuttering of its downtown Santa Cruz location. The city council directed staff to explore deploying aid for the businesses, including forgivable bridge loans, employing a circulator shuttle to bring customers to the area, and allowing bridge construction on Saturdays to shorten the project’s timeline. City staff will come back to the city council on Sept. 9 with options. The county’s Regional Transportation Commission is also exploring allowing pedestrians and cyclists to access a nearby rail bridge during construction.
Dr. Larry deGhetaldi, local health care executive and advocate, dies: Longtime Santa Cruz Sutter Health executive and health care advocate Larry deGhetaldi passed away recently, according to a social media post by UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive. DeGhetaldi served as president of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Santa Cruz Division of Sutter Health for more than 20 years. He was one of the country’s top experts in promoting Medicare geographic payment accuracy and helped pass federal legislation that brought better Medicare payments to California doctors who were underpaid. – Hillary Ojeda
POINTS FOR PARTICIPATION
County lawmakers face decisions on oversized vehicles, short-term rental policies, and more: The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will vote this week on whether to amend its abandoned and oversized vehicle ordinance to allow tow-truck companies to immediately disassemble the cars they tow. Supervisors are also expected to take a final vote to change the rules on short-term rentals — two of the major amendments include a new cap of 270 on non-hosted rentals, and a legal requirement that Airbnb, Vrbo and other short-term rental platforms list only properties that are legally permitted to host a short-term rental.
The county’s lawmakers will also hear how the county fared in its first attempt at a midrange strategic plan, implemented for 2018-24. The county is also preparing to develop a new vision for 2026-32.
The meeting begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Santa Cruz’s long-awaited downtown library project to break ground on Wednesday: After receiving a pair of deadline extensions over the summer, the City of Santa Cruz is scheduled to break ground on its library/affordable housing project on Wednesday at noon. The project will include 124 housing units, a modern public library and commercial space. Interestingly, the groundbreaking ceremony will be held across the street from the project site, at 710 Cedar St.
ONE GREAT READ
Boy crisis of 2025, meet the ‘boy problem’ of the 1900s | By Robert Putnam and Richard Reeves
The “What’s going on with men and boys?” thread has been rising over the past few years. Loneliness and despair are up, employment and relationships are down, a seesaw trend that has concerned social scientists and legislators alike.
This may feel like a new crisis, said to be brought on by the disruptions of rapid technological progress, immigration and the growing wealth disparity. Yet, there is nothing new under the sun, according to sociologists Robert Putnam — of “Bowling Alone” fame — and Richard Reeves, who published a lengthy piece in The New York Times that connected today’s trends to a similar wave of anxiety around men and boys’ social and mental health in the early 1900s.
Disruptions in technology, immigration and economic inequality received blame 100 years ago, as well. Yet, as Putnam and Reeves lay out, the crisis then was met with an overwhelming civic and legislative response that led to the creation of organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, the YMCA, Big Brothers and 4-H. The sociologists call for a similar, though modernized effort to rebuild the social infrastructure for boys. However, Putnam and Reeves emphasize the most important influence on boys in the early 1900s was mentorship they received from role models, primarily men, in their communities.
“A century ago, men stepped up to build spaces for boys and were cheered on for doing so. The need today is just as urgent. We have boys seeking guidance. We have men seeking purpose. We have civic institutions desperate for male volunteers. We need to match the outpouring of civic energy, institutional innovation and readiness to experiment with risky new ideas that marked the ‘boy problem’ reformers a century ago.
In short, today’s boy crisis demands a new call to men — and for men to answer that call.”