Greetings, all. It’s Tuesday, Aug. 6 – looking like the warmest day of the week around Santa Cruz County, with 100 possible in some mountain locales and 80 even at our beaches.
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Though UC Santa Cruz has been telegraphing budget challenges since February, the school’s top financial officer made it plain in a Monday interview with Lookout’s Hillary Ojeda that layoffs are on the table after a $100 million deficit in fiscal 2024.
Monday also saw the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office investigating as “suspicious” the death of a 25-year-old Watsonville woman after her body was found Sunday in Corralitos. As Max Chun reports, that followed an incident in which the father of Lizbeth Arceo Sedano’s daughter was shot and injured by Watsonville police after threatening to hurt the 3-year-old.
And development in downtown Santa Cruz is again the topic in Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section, with housing activist John Hall proposing some changes to the city’s plans for the area south of Laurel Street, including putting a new Warriors arena in a different part of town.
To the headlines …
UC Santa Cruz facing budget cuts; layoffs likely
The chief financial officer at UC Santa Cruz says the university has tough decisions to make as it addresses a $100 million shortfall. In an interview with Lookout, Ed Reiskin said the budget office will likely have to implement layoffs. Here’s what he told Hillary Ojeda.
Will Santa Cruz be ‘San Jose-by-the-Sea,’ as gridlocked as Saint-Tropez, or something better?
Housing activist and emeritus UC Santa Cruz sociologist John Hall sees Santa Cruz’s choices about growth – particularly the placement of a new Warriors arena – as pivotal to the future. “Is our city to become a ‘San Jose-by-the-Sea’ with high-rise skyscrapers looming over Monterey Bay?” he asks in a Community Voices opinion piece, or a “gridlocked Saint-Tropez?” He thinks there is another way and looks to Santa Barbara as a model for building heights and human-scale architecture. Read Hall’s op-ed here.
DAILY DIGEST
Among what we’re watching this Tuesday here at Lookout is a judge’s decision on whether to order the release of Adrian Gonzalez, convicted in 2021 of the kidnapping, rape and murder of Santa Cruz 8-year-old Madyson Middleton; that hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. You can keep up with the day’s events by signing up here for breaking news alerts via email and text, plus all of our other newsletters (coming later Tuesday is another edition of Lily Belli on Food). You can also stay current on Santa Cruz County news via social media, where you’ll find Lookout on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads.
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Be good, and I’ll see you next time.
Will McCahill