Morning Lookout: STS9’s home double dip, BLM mural vandalism, equity in transit

Wakey wakey, Santa Cruz County. It’s Tuesday, Aug. 1, and the forecast is for morning clouds giving way to sun for most of us, with temperatures ranging from the upper 60s to the mid-80s.

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Wallace Baine is up first as we embark on a new month, chatting with members of Sound Tribe Sector 9, a five-piece band that’s found a home in Santa Cruz County and which plays a pair of gigs this week at UCSC’s Quarry Amphitheater. “You can have the greatest-looking lights and the best venue and all those things,” percussionist Jeffree Lerner says of STS9’s 2022 Quarry shows, “but it was the people of Santa Cruz and their energy and the vibe that really put it over the top.”

News broke Monday afternoon that police are treating the latest damage to the downtown Santa Cruz Black Lives Matter mural as vandalism, with Max Chun reporting that surveillance footage shows a person throwing paint across several letters. The incident came just over a month after the mural was repainted following 2021 vandalism that led to the conviction of two local men.

And in Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section, Rick Longinotti of the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation writes about where he sees Santa Cruz County lacking in safe, effective and equitable transit.

The Tuesday headlines also include a fire at a Felton cafe and what climate change means for waves along our coastline — onward.

After playing all over the country, STS9 comes back to new home venue in the Quarry

(Via Butter Creations)

On Friday and Saturday, Sound Tribe Sector 9 — aka STS9 — will bring its expansive, hypnotic, galactically adventurous sound to the Quarry Amphitheater on the campus of UC Santa Cruz. The two-date appearance marks a follow-up to its first gigs at the Quarry almost exactly a year ago. Wallace Baine has more with the band that calls Santa Cruz County home.

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Why do other communities have better transportation options than Santa Cruz?

(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

An equitable transportation system is a matter of political will; other communities have better transit and safer streets, writes Rick Longinotti of the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation. In a Community Voices opinion piece, he outlines how the likes of Boulder and San Francisco have succeeded and invites Santa Cruz County residents to the Transportation Justice Conference on Aug. 26 in Aptos. Read more here.

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Plenty to digest as August rolls in. And you know there’s more coming from Lookout, not least the latest serving of Lily Belli on Food, hitting inboxes later Tuesday. You can get that and all of our newsletters, plus breaking news alerts via email and text, by signing up right here. Another excellent way to keep up with it all is via social media — follow Lookout on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads.

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New month, new challenges, new opportunities — courage, friends!

Will McCahill
Lookout Santa Cruz