A pleasant morning to you! It is Friday, June 26, and after a cloudy start and some patchy drizzle around Santa Cruz County, we should (your microclimate mileage may vary, of course) see sunshine and highs in the 70s.
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We’ve got a double bill this morning from Max Chun, starting off with this year’s reports from the Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury. The county’s housing crunch was a focus for the state-mandated, volunteer-led government watchdog, which also urged county behavioral health to improve its data systems, internal processes and collaboration across departments.
Max also previews the return of the Guerilla Drive-In, a collective of local movie lovers who host pop-up-style movie screenings in public spaces and urban areas throughout Santa Cruz. Friday night’s will be on the San Lorenzo riverbank beneath the Soquel Avenue bridge, by the Royal Taj restaurant, at dusk.
Veteran healthcare executive Tim Moran will be Watsonville Community Hospital’s interim CEO, Tania Ortiz reports, as the struggling institution searches for a permanent replacement for Stephen Gray. Moran will take over July 11.
The Friday headlines also include your cheat sheet to going out and eating well this weekend – onward.
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Grand jury: Santa Cruz County must move faster on housing, strengthen behavioral health system
The Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury issued five reports on Thursday, covering a wide range of topics. Most notably, it focused on challenges contributing to the housing crisis and flaws in the county’s approach to behavioral health, along with pedestrian safety, election integrity, and concerns with the free parking at the county office buildings. Max Chun has the details.
The Guerilla Drive-In returns, bringing free movies back to unlikely — and sometimes hidden — Santa Cruz locations
The Guerilla Drive-In, a pop-up movie theater screening films of all kinds throughout Santa Cruz, is ramping up once again, and will host its first public screening in more than a decade on Friday. The collective seeks to reclaim public spaces, transform the urban landscape and bring back a low-cost community-based activity following social isolation during the pandemic and amid the rising cost of living.
DAILY DIGEST
Is there more coming from Lookout? I’m glad you asked! Among our ongoing local coverage will be the final vote tallies from the June 2 primary election, expected around 2 p.m. Friday, and you can be the first to know via the free breaking news email alerts you can sign up for here (along with our other newsletters) or via breaking news notifications in the Lookout Santa Cruz app, available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. We’ve got Santa Cruz County covered via social media, too: Follow Lookout on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and/or Threads.
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Thank you for reading, today and all week. Have a great Friday, and here’s to a safe, relaxing weekend beyond.
Will McCahill