Lookout opinion writer Marisa Messina’s résumé is impressive: She has three Stanford degrees and has worked for Fortune 500 companies. But her most intense work is learning to take care of her own body and brain and figure out “the good life.” Here, she invites you into her work-in-progress wellness journey, which includes farm fields and the acupuncture table.
Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Losing the Seacliff pier felt like a gut punch
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: I just read your article regarding the demolition of the pier at Seacliff State Beach. It felt like a total gut punch. I grew up in the 1960s camping at Seacliff with my grandparents. It […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Katy Marsh, ‘badass’ founder of Copper Moon Apothecary, magician, community catalyst, we love you
Katy Marsh Thompson, 53, founder of Copper Moon Apothecary, beloved community volunteer, animal lover and farmers market advocate, learned in August that she had stage 4 ovarian cancer. She is now under hospice care at home. Her partner, Garth Taylor, had a vision to celebrate and honor her with the written word. Nicole Zahm, a friend and colleague, brings that to life here. Katy, your impacts are big and we are grateful for them, she writes. This is a love note to you.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
California state law needs to change — let’s stop allowing building in areas we know are dangerous
Most disaster victims deserve our sympathy, says Lookout political columnist Mike Rotkin. But some storm disasters are predictable and avoidable. The state needs to take action to change laws that allow anyone to rebuild housing in areas that are so clearly unsuitable and dangerous for habitation, Rotkin writes. “Low-lying neighborhoods like Felton Grove, subdivisions built on unstable slopes like Love Creek and multimillion-dollar homes built too close to the bay regularly put their residents at risk and even lead to unnecessary deaths.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Thank you, Rio del Mar firefighters
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: Thank you doesn’t begin to express my appreciation to Central Fire’s Rio Del Mar station firefighters who came to our rescue after a 170-foot eucalyptus tree crashed through our home in the middle of the […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Fairgrounds’ rental rates should not increase
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: At the Feb. 7 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds board of directors, an agenda item proposed significant increases in rental rates for venues at the site. This item was tabled pending more information […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Why do we devote only one month to Black history? DeSantis, pop your head out of the Florida sand
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach feels cheated. February is more than half over and she doesn’t feel she — or the rest of the public — has learned much new about Black history. “Perhaps we should flip the tables and devote 11 months of the year learning about how Black Americans were treated and what many achieved despite the odds which were and still are stacked against them,” she writes. She also has some choice words for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose State of the Union rebuttal appalled her. “Huckabee Sanders seems terrified children will learn the actual facts of our past, whether it be about race or the LGBTQ+ movement,” she says.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Santa Cruz must end unlawful harassment of people living in vehicles
Activist Reggie Meisler — along with 11 local organizations and 38 activists — says the City of Santa Cruz is issuing unlawful parking tickets and illegitimate abandoned-vehicle notices that unfairly target people living in vehicles along Delaware Avenue and surrounding streets near Natural Bridges State Beach. The city, he charges, does not have proper permission from the California Coastal Commission to limit parking in these areas. “These parking signs,” he concludes, “should be unenforceable.” He wants the city to stop this practice, which puts an unfair burden on those who are most needy.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Why don’t engineers tackle basic Highway 1 traffic issues?
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: It seems to me all the past and present efforts to alleviate the nightmarish traffic during the commute on Highway 1 are counterproductive. The engineering designs and ideas just don’t make sense to me, an […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I’m just a pizza guy, but I got to go to the State of the Union: Here’s what happened
Chuck Hammers, owner of Pizza My Heart, got an inside view of our government last week, when he sat near Jill Biden, Bono and the parents of Tyre Nichols during the State of the Union address Tuesday. Hammers’ Capitola Village restaurant sustained close to $500,000 in damages during the January storms, and he and other restaurants had visits from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Jimmy Panetta and even President Joe Biden. Here, he gives us a peek into the “room where it happens” and his personal “Where’s Bernie” moment.