Nov. 13-19 is national Transgender Awareness Week, and in a Community Voices opinion piece, Adam Spickler, a Cabrillo College trustee and one of only four openly transgender people to hold elected office in all of California, shares their coming-out story. Adam wishes when they were growing up in the 1980s and 1990s that they had transgender role models.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I don’t want to lose my south of Laurel home and hotel to a new Warriors stadium — here’s my solution
Joe Quigg owns the Pacific Blue Inn south of Laurel Street in downtown Santa Cruz and was horrified to see a model of his hotel and attached condo demolished in a city plan to build a new Warriors arena. He shares his thoughts on his neighborhood, his frustration with the city for not contacting him about the plan, and offers his idea for building housing and an arena.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
A contractor’s voice: I am worried about the quality and sustainability of new downtown buildings
Lee Brokaw has worked in construction for 42 years, 36 as a licensed contractor, and is highly critical of the building happening in downtown Santa Cruz. “For me, it makes no sense to build anything that won’t last 100 years,” he writes. He thinks contractors are building too quickly and worries they are not using high-quality materials.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Opinion: Nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now
College officials may might being perceived as taking sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict, but it is wrong to confuse condemning antisemitism with ignoring the plight of the Palestinians, writes Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Time to get flattened!
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach is a breast cancer survivor and reminds us why getting mammograms matters, even though she keeps putting hers off.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
UCSC needs to improve its loop bus system for students — it’s too expensive and unreliable
Sebastián Valdez, a third-year psychology major, loves UC Santa Cruz, but is frustrated by the high student fees for transportation ($171 per quarter) and the poor bus service students receive. He describes long waits, regular breakdowns and dissatisfied drivers. The 16 campus buses, he learned, are more than 30 years old and are breaking down at a consistently alarming rate. He thinks they are unsafe for drivers, inconvenient and unreliable for students and need replacing. The university’s Transportation and Parking Services, he argues, knows about the issues, has money and is not doing enough to fix the problems.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Why news organizations should rethink social media comments
Santa Cruz digital marketer Cade Wright is tired of all the angry and often toxic comments to articles posted on social media. He has a radical idea — get rid of them. Here, he explains his reasoning about why impulsive reactions can distort information and undermine journalistic integrity. He is sure there is a better way.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Homelessness 102: Santa Cruz County needs to spend more on emergency response
In the second of two pieces on homelessness, housing activist and former Santa Cruz mayor Don Lane breaks down the differences in the way the City of Santa Cruz thinks about housing people and how the county does. “The city puts much more emphasis on interim shelter,” he writes, “… and spends several million dollars per year here. I believe the county ought to match the city’s commitment.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Homelessness won’t simply go away; here are three possible approaches for Santa Cruz
Homelessness is California’s biggest crisis and a problem Santa Cruz County cannot seem to get a handle on, as hard as it tries. Don Lane, former Santa Cruz mayor turned housing advocate, offers three options and explains the benefits and drawbacks of each. If you are looking to understand this tangled issue quickly, this is your chance. Next week, he’ll focus on solutions and explain how Santa Cruz — city and county — are tackling the issue.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I lived through the last Gaza war; we need to stop the ruthless killing of innocents and stand up for peace
Dana G. Peleg, an Israeli peace activist who lives in Santa Cruz, can’t stop checking her phone. She is worried about her family in Israel, the lives of the Gazans threatened by Israeli bombs and the continued violence that will cause more generational trauma. Peleg served in the Israel Defense Forces, and the Hamas terrorist attacks stunned her and sent her into “the all-too-familiar emergency state of mind all Israelis know and hate.” Here, she lambasts the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and searches for a peaceful end to the conflict.