Santa Cruz’s own national monument could open up next year
When I moved to Santa Cruz after a couple years in Monterey County, I most looked forward to knowing and living in a place where redwood forests, sloping mountain hikes and a coastline of world-class surf breaks all intersect.
Increasing the distance between my home and Big Sur marked a painful tradeoff. Where else could I enjoy sweeping, coastal vistas against rugged, undeveloped wildness? I quickly realized Santa Cruz County’s North Coast could scratch that emerald-cliffs-meets-infinite-cerulean itch, but I’d have to enjoy it largely from the car as the area was desperately short on hiking trails.
However, that is now set to change next year. After nearly a decade of push and pull among federal, state and local agencies, residents, agricultural interests and environmental experts, the public could soon be allowed to access the inaugural 9 miles of coastal trails inside the Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument in the summer of 2025.
Just south of Davenport, the 6,000-acre nature preserve was designated as part of the California Coastal National Monument in 2017, as one of President Barack Obama’s final executive actions. The federal government hoped to open the monument in 2021, and then 2022, but the project stalled beneath the weight of appeals and a dispute over a parking lot.
Last month, the Bureau of Land Management said it would push forward with a plan to open the monument with a single parking lot, entrance and trailhead toward the north. The agency is also considering a second entrance and parking lot toward the south to mitigate the traffic and use concerns from neighbors, a more complicated lift due to conflicts with agricultural land. However, BLM’s support of moving forward with only the northern entrance signals that public access, as soon as possible, is the priority.
Although the opening of the county’s only national monument plays a central role, it is only a piece of a larger vision to turn Santa Cruz County’s North Coast into a recreation destination. For more on Cotoni-Coast Dairies and the other work underway around Davenport, read the story I published earlier Monday.
OF NOTE
Measure Z, Santa Cruz’s soda tax, passes: After three weeks of counting ballots, Lookout last Tuesday determined that Measure Z, the city of Santa Cruz’s soda tax, had passed. It marks the first successful soda tax ballot measure in the U.S. since 2018, and has sparked some early inspiration in other jurisdictions across the country. However, the city likely faces a lawsuit from the American Beverage Association, the industry lobbying arm of Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper and others.
POINTS FOR PARTICIPATION
Scotts Valley pushes forward with a Town Center vision: The Scotts Valley City Council on Wednesday will vote to affirm the community’s chosen vision for the new Town Center development. Over the past year, Scotts Valley residents have weighed in on what they want to see from a project officials say will give Scotts Valley its first, true downtown. The vision selected by residents includes at least 300 housing units of mixed affordability, a commercial center with street parking fronting retail with parking lots placed behind stores, community gathering spaces, wide sidewalks and bike paths. The Scotts Valley City Council meets on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Watsonville Planning Commission to vote on tiny village appeal: A proposal for a 34-unit homeless housing project referred to as a “tiny village” stirred some controversy in Watsonville earlier this year as residents and city councilmembers learned that new state laws meant they could do little to stop the development. That doesn’t mean some residents aren’t trying, however. On Tuesday, the Watsonville Planning Commission will vote on an appeal to the project filed by a neighbor. City staff has recommended the commission deny the appeal.
Bike ramps or pickleball? In Santa Cruz’s Depot Park, city officials are proposing to replace aging bike ramps with four new pickleball courts, a sign of the times if I’ve ever heard of one. The proposal, likely welcomed by cheers from the growing pickleball community, has caused some groans from people who want the bike ramps to not only stay, but get some overdue public works love. The city’s parks and recreation department will introduce the proposal at a meeting on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., inside the London Nelson Community Center.
Workbench’s Clocktower Center reintroduces itself: In two weeks, the 16-turned-eight-story tower proposed behind downtown Santa Cruz’s town clock will go in front of the public for a virtual community feedback meeting with residents, city planning staff and local developer Workbench. The meeting is scheduled for Dec. 16 at 6 p.m. You can learn more about the meeting, and the project, here.
ONE GREAT READ
Mexican drug cartels lure chemistry students to make fentanyl, by Natalie Kitroeff and Paulina Villegas for The New York Times
In order to produce fentanyl you need the drug’s foundational chemical compounds, known as precursors. Right now, the only key to those chemical compounds is through raw materials imported from China. That creates an expensive and complicated trade hurdle, but one that Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel is attempting to overcome by synthesizing those precursors with the help of college chemistry majors.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the cartel, a decades-old enemy of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, has been dangling sizable payouts to chemistry students who can help unlock a path toward homegrown fentanyl. As the Times reports, if the Sinaloa cartel successfully synthesizes the drug’s precursors, it could have an exponential impact on the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.