Newsom’s education spending plan includes the opioid antagonist naloxone for all middle and high schools while largely avoiding cuts to school budgets.
Government
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Reversal of fortune: Newsom outlines plan to deal with budget deficit
After years of record California budget surpluses, Gov. Gavin Newsom has a plan to deal with a deficit he projects at $22.5 billion. He says he can keep his big promises despite the “modest shortfall.”
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Capitola Wharf taking a beating, Esplanade taking on water
The worst of possibilities, a massive swell peaking just as the tide was at its highest, may have been avoided in Capitola. But the wharf and Village were still under siege from an angry Pacific Ocean as city workers made efforts to minimize the damage.
Posted inLatest News
Trump’s tax returns are out. Here’s how he was able to pay so little — so often
After waiting seven years, the public gets its first view of former President Donald Trump’s returns, which document his aggressive efforts to avoid paying taxes.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
‘The world is missing something without him’: Santa Cruz memorializes its unhoused fatalities
COVID wiped out the annual community celebration of homeless lives lost for two straight years. Wednesday marked its return and a packed Vets Hall illustrated the number of others affected by those losses — 137 people who had been unhoused at some point in 2022, 91 of whom lost their lives while deemed officially homeless.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
$24 billion projected budget deficit could test California’s resolve to grow safety net amid recession
Advocates warn now is not the time to cut programs that help the poor. The Golden State has reserves to weather a tough year, but a recession could deepen the deficit.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
As Benchlands broke up, overdoses spiked: How much does displacement create dangerous isolation?
As the national fentanyl crisis continues to reverberate in Santa Cruz County at record rates, killing 42 people in 2021 and 39 officially so far in 2022, another record was set in September: 82 overdoses, spread out more around the county than usual. Public health officials noted the correlation and Lookout sought opinion from others about how the sweeping of a homeless encampment like the Benchlands in a county that lacks adequate addiction and mental health services can lead to “poor outcomes.”
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Supervisors look past labor opposition, pick Rotkin over South County rep for transit board seat
Mike Rotkin, a UC Santa Cruz politics lecturer and longtime labor advocate, survived a campaign to paint him as anti-labor and unseat him from the influential Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit board. Labor’s choice, former Watsonville mayor Daniel Dodge, said status quo politics “once again showed its ugly head.”
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz County’s sheriff will soon be subject to independent oversight
Figuring out a proper oversight model for sheriffs — themselves elected officials — has challenged counties across the country. A state bill passed in 2020 finally offers California counties some tools, and Santa Cruz is readying to take advantage.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
More street medicine teams tackle the homeless health care crisis
Homeless people often have sporadic or no access to health care, resulting in costly, chronic conditions. A new statewide effort encourages Medi-Cal insurers to partner with street teams to improve care.