Hello there, Lookout friends. It’s Tuesday, Jan. 27, and the Santa Cruz County forecast calls for clouds to increase as the day goes on, with temperatures barely scraping into the 60s in our warmer locales and a slight chance of showers in the evening and overnight hours.
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The Trump administration’s plans to open public lands to oil drilling include an area encompassing Santa Cruz County, and while county officials tell Cassidy Beach it won’t happen here, environmental activists are watching developments closely. There’s a virtual public meeting set for Thursday for the Bureau of Land Management to give details and answer questions.
Max Chun and Kevin Painchaud were on hand Monday afternoon as hundreds lined Ocean Street in Santa Cruz in another protest against killings by federal immigration enforcement agents in Minnesota. “That could’ve been [my son],” one retired nurse said of her child, also a nurse like Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old gunned down Saturday. “It was always very bad from the beginning, but this hit home even harder.”
Tania Ortiz has word of a challenger to incumbent Felipe Hernandez for the District 4 seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors: Community advocate Elias Gonzales is throwing his hat into the ring to represent the district that includes much of his native Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley.
Ahead of Thursday’s point-in-time count of the local homeless population, activist Keith McHenry charges that the City of Santa Cruz is making the problem worse by sweeping the Coral Street encampment ahead of the count. In a Community Voices opinion piece, he writes that similar tactics last year resulted in a lower count, but “those of us struggling to meet the needs of our unhoused neighbors knew this was a lie.”
The day’s headlines also include the arrest of a man on charges of indecent exposure on the UC Santa Cruz campus. First, though, a message from Jamie Garfield, Lookout’s director of student and community engagement:
Lookout Santa Cruz is proud to introduce the next chapter of our Lookout in the Classroom program: Lookout for Teachers, giving local middle and high school educators free, unlimited access to Lookout Santa Cruz’s independent, fact-based local journalism. Beyond full access to our reporting, teachers receive a weekly stream of curated current events paired with classroom-ready resources — quizzes, lesson guides, discussion prompts and media literacy activities aligned to real curricula. Read more here.
We have tested this program for a few years, but now, thanks to our donors and Changemaker Members, we are now able to publicly provide free memberships for 450 middle school and high school teachers. Sign-ups are first come, first served, and they are going fast. So share this information with a secondary teacher in your life.
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Federal land in Santa Cruz County safe from drilling under new BLM proposal, but environmentalists remain wary of oil and gas development
With a federal plan updating oil and gas drilling rules on Central Coast public lands now open for public comment, attention in Santa Cruz County has turned to whether any local federal lands could be vulnerable to drilling. Details here from Cassidy Beach.
Indivisible follows up impromptu Sunday rally in Watsonville with anti-ICE protest in Santa Cruz
Hundreds of people gathered at the intersection of Ocean and Water streets in Santa Cruz on Monday afternoon to protest the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by immigration officers in Minnesota. The gathering came just one day after an emergency anti-ICE rally in Watsonville, which also brought hundreds of people together. Max Chun and Kevin Painchaud were on hand.
DAILY DIGEST
Among what’s still in the offing from Lookout this final Tuesday of January is a healthy serving of Santa Cruz County food & drink via Lily Belli on Food – just one of the many free newsletters and breaking news alerts you can sign up for here. The Lookout Santa Cruz app also offers breaking news notifications in addition to all of our coverage, games and more, and you can download that from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. We’re staked out on social media too, of course – follow Lookout on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
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Have a good Tuesday, and thank you for reading.
Will McCahill