‘Millions’ expected to pour into campaigns over Santa Cruz’s sugary drink tax
Last Thursday, as the “yes” side formally launched its campaign for Measure Z, a proposed city of Santa Cruz tax on sugar-sweetened drinks, Mayor Fred Keeley warned supporters that the coming fight won’t be typical of a local ballot question.
“If someone thinks this is going to be your normal type of campaign where we send out some mail, get some endorsements, make some arguments, well, that’s not what this is,” Keeley later told Lookout. “The soda industry has so much political power in Sacramento. It’s important to know going into it that this is David vs. Goliath, and we need to buy some rocks.”
The day before the Measure Z support camp kicked off its effort, Sacramento political strategist Steven Maviglio, of Forza Communications, launched “Campaign for an Affordable Santa Cruz,” opposing Measure Z. The hiring of Maviglio, whom Keeley called a “big-swinging deal” in Sacramento, is the opening salvo to what he expects to be an expensive battle.
“We do expect the opposition to pour millions of dollars into this election,” Santa Cruz City Councilmember Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson told Lookout. “What happens with this will have wider implications. I don’t expect us to be able to raise millions of dollars. This will very much be a grassroots effort.”
OF NOTE
Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County endorses Kristen Brown, Monica Martinez in supervisor races: The endorsements came following a forum held Saturday. The DWC also announced its support of Trina Coffman-Gomez over incumbent Jimmy Dutra in the race for Watsonville City Council’s District 6 seat; incumbent Margaux Morgan and Melinda Orbach for Capitola City Council; and John Lewis, Dustin Lopez and Krista Jett for Scotts Valley City Council. The club also supported Santa Cruz’s Measure Z, Measure Y (Capitola’s sales tax increase to 9.25%), Measure Q (county parcel tax to fund environmental/wildfire protection), Measure V (Watsonville charter amendments) and Measure X (Scotts Valley business tax levy).
Aptos dropped as possible placement for rapist Michael Cheek: After an outcry from neighbors, the California Department of State Hospitals has dropped its proposal to release Michael Cheek into an Aptos rental home from the Fresno County hospital he’s been in for 26 years. Cheek, deemed a sexually violent predator, has been in custody since 1981. He kidnapped one of his victims off Seacliff State Beach in 1980. Cheek has been cleared for a supervised release since 2019, but the state has failed to find him a placement.
GETTING INVOLVED
New homelessness law and rent control at Santa Cruz City Council: On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council will decide whether to criminalize outside government agencies that transport homeless people to Santa Cruz without prior coordination with the city. It will also decide whether to restrict rent hikes at government-assisted housing developments, a move that comes after months of uproar from low-income tenants at the St. George Residences in downtown Santa Cruz.
Another labor action, microkitchens and homelessness update at the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors: Also on Tuesday, the county’s board of supervisors will likely be greeted by a sea of purple shirts from members of the county’s largest labor union, SEIU 521, as they press for a new contract. In August, union members told the supervisors they were “strike-ready” if the sides couldn’t reach an agreement. The current contract expires on Sept. 18.
The supervisors will also vote on a two-year pilot program allowing microenterprise home kitchens, allowing residents in permitted private homes to store, handle, prepare and even serve food to customers. The proposal has been in the works for more than a year. Supervisors will also receive a six-month update on the county’s progress in addressing homelessness.
Coastal Commission votes on Cruz Hotel: When the Santa Cruz City Council approved plans for a new 70-foot tall, 232-room Cruz Hotel at the corner of Laurel of Front streets, an appeal by opponents to the California Coastal Commission seemed all but guaranteed. That appeal, led by former Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Joy Schendledecker, will be taken up Thursday when the Coastal Commission meets in Monterey.
ONE GREAT READ
Succumbing to Spectacle by Jed Perl for The New York Review of Books
After visiting a recent exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in which the artist took over the rotunda for an all-consuming, LED-laden exhibition, critic Jed Perl began thinking about James Turrell’s disorienting light displays and Jeff Koons’ reimagined blowup toys, and wondered whether the contemporary art world was leaning too heavily on size and spectacle for its impact.
Yet, as Perl finds, we’ve long held an appetite for “spectacle,” that is, for experiences so large and overwhelming that “discernment and discrimination, at least initially, are beside the point.” He uses Michaelangelo’s work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and Picasso’s “Guernica” as ready examples in which size and scale are the foremost impression.
This article caught my eye as I’ve been thinking about our society’s prioritization of spectacle, i.e., our weighing of things based on visual appearance alone. Of course, the trite example is social media and the power we give to influencers, but I’ve also begun wondering about spectacle’s role in our cult-of-personality politics, our news media, and even our innermost wants and desires. My sense is that spectacle proves quite powerful in our laziest, mindless moments, while discernment and examination are features of us at our best.