Hello there, readers. It’s Thursday, March 12, and we’re turning the heat up a bit around Santa Cruz County, with temperatures headed into the upper 70s to mid-80s under mostly sunny skies.
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Patricia “Pat” Rebele died Dec. 15 at the age of 96, Jessica M. Pasko reports, leaving behind a legacy of community, arts and education support. She and late husband Rowland Rebele donated millions to local causes. “Her generosity of spirit sort of sparkled through the way she showed up as a person,” one local arts administrator said of Pat Rebele.
The area around Coral Street in Santa Cruz’s Harvey West neighborhood is closer to becoming a centralized homelessness services campus, Hillary Ojeda reports, after the Santa Cruz City Council moved to approve rezoning there. It’s one step in a decade-long effort to establish a navigation center to provide temporary housing, emergency shelter and services such as job training and health support for the unhoused community.
Watsonville will start enforcing a citywide ban on parking oversized vehicles on public streets Friday, Tania Ortiz reports. The city council changed the city’s existing ordinance in early February in response to complaints from residents and business owners about trailers, recreational vehicles and semi-trucks parked on city streets for long periods.
UC Santa Cruz faculty members want the school to hit pause on a plan to raise parking fees, saying they weren’t consulted before the changes were announced. As Hillary Ojeda reports, the move would increase fees by 7 to 10% annually starting this summer.
In Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section, Santa Cruz resident Amanda Timoney writes about her frustrations with the local justice system after seeing the man who attacked her near her home last year repeatedly released despite a pattern of violent crimes. “The public has a right to expect that violent offenders, regardless of their housing status, will not be cycled back onto the streets without meaningful safeguards,” she writes. “When judges release someone with a long record of assaults, they are making a decision that affects each and every community member in a negative way.”
A new engine for the Santa Cruz Fire Department and the latest in the legal proceedings against a local seafood entrepreneur are also among the Thursday headlines – let’s look them all over.
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Longtime philanthropist Pat Rebele dies at 96, leaving a legacy of community and arts advocacy
With her late husband, Rowland Rebele, who died in late 2023, Pat Rebele donated tens of millions of dollars to local charities, nonprofits, arts groups and scholarship funds in Santa Cruz County and beyond. Here’s more from Jessica M. Pasko.
Santa Cruz City Council takes first step to rezone Coral Street for expanded temporary housing, homeless services
The Santa Cruz City Council voted to rezone the Coral Street area to allow expanded homeless services and temporary housing, taking the first step toward creating a Coral Street Overlay District envisioned in a 2023 plan for a centralized services campus. A final vote is set for March 24. Hillary Ojeda has the details.
DAILY DIGEST
I, for one, am looking forward to the weekend, and if you’re in the same boat, you’ll want to sign up for Lookout’s cheat sheet to eating well and going out in Santa Cruz County, hitting inboxes later Thursday. Weekender is just one of the many free newsletters you can sign up for here, along with breaking news alerts. Outfit your smartphone with the Lookout Santa Cruz app, available for download in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, for all of our award-winning local coverage, with breaking news notifications, games and more, and get Lookout in your social media feeds by following us on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and/or Threads.
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Best of luck with your Thursday, and thank you for reading.
Will McCahill