Books often make the best gifts. Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach offers some tips for new and classic reads, including a few that either take place in Santa Cruz or are written by local authors. All would make swell stocking-stuffers, she writes. Maybe even throw in a battery-operated book light for those stormy evenings when the power leaves us reading by candlelight.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Santa Cruz elections turned out well for pragmatic progressives
Mike Rotkin explains why he felt better coming out of Santa Cruz’s November 2022 elections than he did going into them. Most of the candidates he supported won, with the exception of Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson in the District 3 county supervisor race. But, he writes, he feels good about Justin Cummings as a leader and about his “evolving politics.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The election is over: Let’s put differences behind us and work together
Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson narrowly lost the race for District 3 Santa Cruz County Supervisor and is still reeling from the negativity and personal attacks that characterized the November contest. But, she insists, it’s time to put the hurt behind and do the work she cares about most: making our community better. Here, she outlines some of what’s needed from our public servants as she prepares for another year on the Santa Cruz City Council.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Healthy soil, healthy people, carbon storage … the reasons to ditch pesticides are endless
Pesticide application needs to stop in the Pajaro Valley. It’s not only harming people, it is also damaging our soil and preventing natural carbon emissions from occurring, argues Watsonville resident and former farmworker and teacher Woody Rehanek. Carbon storage in healthy organic soils, he writes, is a plausible, workable method of addressing climate change and could help Watsonville achieve zero emissions in the next decade.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
A million dollars or a million otters? Should I take a big pay cut to help the planet?
Marisa Messina had a plumb job in Seattle’s tech industry after she graduated from Stanford University. Now, six years and a Stanford MBA later, she realizes her passion is environmentalism. She thinks she can use her skills to make a difference. But she’s shocked at the low salaries offered. She wonders what it means for our world when serving the planet is not financially sustainable.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Let’s be real: Local government can’t fix everything, but Santa Cruz’s ‘laser focus’ on housing will benefit us all
Donna Meyers has spent four years on the Santa Cruz City Council and takes issue with a recent Lookout piece by Cyndi Dawson, chair of the city’s planning commission. Dawson misses the point of local government, Meyers writes. She also fails to take a long view or see that this council has raised close to $50 million to support affordable housing. Meyers thinks this council’s “laser focus” on affordable housing will be its legacy. Councilmembers are not “progressive,” “conservative,” Democrats or Republicans, she argues. Such labels are, she insists, counterproductive to the communal work of governing.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
You can help protect our ocean — here’s how
Thirty years ago, Dan Haifley helped change the California coast from the driver’s seat of his 1972 Ford Pinto. As the only staff member of Save Our Shores, he drove up and down the coast urging communities to prevent oil companies from offshore drilling. Those presentations helped create a bulwark against drilling among coastal towns and were the first steps in the establishment of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. But there is still much to do — and he has ideas on how you can get started volunteering and making a difference.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Progressivism and real policy solutions: Santa Cruz has neither and here’s why
Cyndi Dawson wanted to stay out of the “mud pit that is Santa Cruz electoral politics,” but recent Lookout op-eds about local progressives have, she writes, pushed her to offer context and facts. Here, she explains the history of the progressive movement and why Santa Cruz is not really “the leftmost city” it purports to be. Outside money, particularly from real estate interests, has an outsized influence on politics here, she says. She blames our elected officials for not doing enough to solve our most pressing issues of housing and equity.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Our farmworkers are being sexually assaulted and poisoned on the job. Why aren’t we helping them?
Thousands of female farmworkers are regularly being assaulted, groped and raped in Santa Cruz County fields, without consequence, argues Ann Aurelia López, executive director of the Center for Farmworker Families. The women regularly call López for help, but fear job loss, deportation and shame if they make formal complaints, she says. Farmworker families also are regularly exposed to toxic pesticides that poison them and cause cancer and birth defects in their children. López is frustrated that their dire plight rarely makes headlines in Santa Cruz County. She wants that to change.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Hey Santa Cruz, let’s take a break from writing political measures and jump into each others’ bathtubs
Recent ballot measures have pitted neighbor against Santa Cruz neighbor with totally unnecessary political vitriol and expense, former mayor and outgoing county supervisor Ryan Coonerty writes. It’s no fun to take a metaphorical bath with people you disagree with, but it’s an absolutely necessary, perspective-broadening step that leads to greater understanding on all sides.