Good morning! It’s Tuesday, Feb. 17, and yep, rain continues to be in the forecast for Santa Cruz County – right on through Thursday.
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Lillian Schrock-Clevenger gets us going this holiday-shortened workweek with news of a proposal before the county for a female surfer statue along East Cliff Drive in Pleasure Point, in the mold of the West Cliff Drive landmark.
In his weekly Carmageddon column, Max Chun previews the first in a series of closures of McGregor Drive between Capitola and Aptos as part of the construction of a bicycle/pedestrian overcrossing at Mar Vista Drive.
Jessica M. Pasko touched base with the new owners of Santa Cruz Rehearsal Studios, who say they’re aiming to keep the bastion of local music affordable.
A Santa Cruz County judge is siding with the Watsonville Pilots Association, Tania Ortiz reports, determining that the City of Watsonville violated a state aviation safety law and environmental review guidelines when the city council approved a 21-unit housing development near the city’s airport in 2021.
In Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section, Santa Cruzan Lida Berliner writes about the difficulty she’s had finding friends locally after age 50. She’s had better luck in Truckee, where she spends some of her time, so is starting a Santa Cruz County chapter of a social group she joined there.
The Tuesday headlines also include a Valentine’s Day senior mixer at Grey Bears – let’s go to ’em.
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Surfer statue ‘to honor the women of the water’ proposed for Pleasure Point
The Pleasure Point resident spearheading the project said the statue would connect Santa Cruz’s Eastside to the Westside, where a bronze male surfer has stood with his board for nearly 35 years. The approximately 17-foot-tall monument with a female figure wearing a wetsuit and holding a longboard is proposed for a bluff along East Cliff Drive. Here’s the story from Lillian Schrock-Clevenger.
Carmageddon: First of several closures of McGregor Drive in Mid-County taking place this week; upcoming Highway 17 workshops
Mid-County residents will encounter the first of a number of multiday closures of McGregor Drive between Park Avenue and State Park Drive on Wednesday and Thursday. The closures will be scattered across a period of about eight months. Meanwhile, Caltrans is hosting the first of two upcoming public workshops on a long-range corridor plan for Highway 17 on Thursday. Details here from Max Chun.
DAILY DIGEST
There’s plenty more cooking Tuesday from Lookout, including a walk on Santa Cruz County’s culinary side via Lily Belli on Food – one of the many free newsletters and breaking news alerts you can sign up for here. Download the Lookout Santa Cruz app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, and for you social mavens, give Lookout a follow on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and/or Threads.
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Be safe out there – have a great Tuesday, and thank you for reading.
Will McCahill