Do you know who Clarence Earl Gideon was? Heather Rogers, Santa Cruz County’s first public defender, reminds us why we should all celebrate an unhoused drifter who 60 years ago changed the American legal system by standing up for his right to a fair trial. She walks us through her first seven months on the job, supplies some statistics on our prison system and pushes us to take a hard look at mass incarceration: “I urge you to question whether prosecution and incarceration are the answer for conduct related to mental illness … where treatment is more likely to get better results,” she writes.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Storm injustice: Pajaro residents deserve more than to be ‘penciled out’
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is horrified by the mud, water and sludge oozing into her husband’s longtime Pajaro tractor business. But she is furious at the human impact of the floods. “People with low incomes and lesser means, who have so much stacked against them, continue to lose out in our society,” she writes. “Someone took a good look at the price of creating a levee that was much less likely to fail and weighed that against actual human lives and decided money was more important than the lives of those living right across the county line.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
They say getting older isn’t for the weak, so I’m gonna need to get tough
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach has a succinct message: “Aging sucks.” Here, she humorously guides us through her sadness at the changes she’s noticed now that she’s a septuagenarian and offers a few bits of inspiration for those who, like her, struggle to hear in loud restaurants and order food on a computer, not via a human.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
UCSC students need more housing: Student Housing West is a win for campus and community
Students need housing. That is why UC Santa Cruz must move forward and build Student Housing West, write administrators Akirah Bradley-Armstrong and Ed Reiskin. “UCSC is built into a stunning natural landscape, and building anywhere on our iconic campus is a tightrope walk,” they say. But Student Housing West — with 3,000 units, including 140 at the foot of campus — offers the best chance to house students soon and to help relieve the community housing burden.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
UCSC’s East Meadow: Green for the last time?
UC Santa Cruz’s sloping East Meadow — the pristine, grass-covered gateway to campus — is a local treasure and should not be developed, when there are many better alternatives for sorely needed housing, argues Christopher Connery, a longtime community activist and a professor in both the literature and history of consciousness departments. Regents of the University of California are set to meet starting Wednesday to discuss UCSC’s long-stalled plan to build family housing and a child care center on the East Meadow. Connery believes this is a short-sighted “folly beyond comprehension” that risks destroying the campus’ beauty and the integrity of the founders’ vision.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Don’t be afraid to travel post-pandemic: The world is less dangerous than you think
Santa Cruz native Evan Quarnstrom is on a post-pandemic year-and-a-half solo trip around the world and reminds us all of the benefits of travel and experiencing new cultures. Fear, he tells us, too often keeps us from life-changing experiences. Here, he details his experiences in Sri Lanka, Mexico and Brazil, all countries deemed “dangerous” by his family, friends and even (at times) the U.S. government. “When you make the transition from unknown to known, fears often vanish,” he writes.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Terrified about climate change? Me, too. Let’s have a ‘community conversation’ March 16
The Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County will host “A Community Conversation on Climate Change” on March 16. Peggy Flynn, a longtime community activist and the co-president of the DWC, says fear and frustration led her to plan the event. She is tired of hearing all the doomsday predictions about the planet and wants concrete ideas about what she — and you — can do to help mitigate the effects. The event, she says, will offer action plans and ways to make a difference locally.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Fairgrounds’ future looks fraught — lies, deception and personal vendettas are poisoning beloved institution
Longtime journalist Jon Chown says he has never seen as much overt lying, deception and personal attacks as went on at the Feb. 28 meeting of the Santa Cruz County Fair board of directors. He argues that the whole house needs sweeping or the fair risks disappearing.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Make your voice heard as feds consider Chumash Heritage Marine Sanctuary, key piece of coastal protection
Environmental activist Dan Haifley argues that Monterey Bay residents should care about and support the potential designation of tribally nominated Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, covering waters off San Luis Obispo and northern Santa Barbara counties. If approved by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Association, the new sanctuary will provide the missing link in a chain of protection from Mendocino to Santa Barbara.
