Renee Winter started teaching poetry in the Santa Cruz Main Jail seven years ago, after retiring from her law practice. Now, once a week, she sits in a locked room with about 15 incarcerated men. She often marvels at how her “big-knuckled, burly male students can grip such tiny tools and write. But they do.” Not once in all her years, she says, has she had to press the panic button. Instead, she has found inspiration and shed her “one-dimensional” view of incarceration.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I went to Washington to talk about the looming crisis of water; here’s what I told Congress
We might be on the cusp of a breakthrough to help maintain water services for all, writes Rosemary Menard, director of the City of Santa Cruz’s water department, which provides water to all residents of the city of Santa Cruz. Or we might be unable to keep water affordable for everyone in our community and reinvest in our water delivery system. Menard went to Washington on May 31 to explain her plea for federal funding for Santa Cruz County and other California communities. Here, she explains what she said and why.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
AI is our friend, even in Santa Cruz County. Why are we so afraid of it?
Local tech guru and Santa Cruz Works co-founder Doug Erickson ponders the fear surrounding artificial intelligence and the push to regulate it. It’s not a demon monster, he says, but something we all already use in Santa Cruz County. And he applauds our leaders for being open to it. He suggests we approach it with cautious optimism. “AI has the potential to carry us into an epoch of remarkable transformation — one where human effort is minimized, decisions are optimized and public services reach heights of quality previously unimagined,” he writes.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Adventures of a beginner glassblower: At age 60, I’m putting hot irons in the fire — literally
Bridget Tapia is finding her post-retirement mojo with a new hobby right out of the Middle Ages: glassblowing. It’s dangerous, fiery and full of unexpected weirdness. “It’s as if someone turned up the heat on my retirement plans and threw me headfirst into a furnace,” she writes.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
What Santa Cruz can teach about the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision
In its decision on affirmative action, Lookout politics columnist Mike Rotkin writes, the Supreme Court left open the possibility of other ways to achieve racial diversity in student admissions, and we need to take that as a serious opportunity. We can learn from how the City of Santa Cruz approached affirmative action when progressives took power in the 1980s.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I helped on Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 campaign: RFK Junior is not getting my vote
It’s been 55 years since Bobby Kennedy’s exuberant presidential primary win in California, followed shortly by his tragic murder. Now, his son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer who has taken a hard stance against vaccines, has announced his own candidacy for the 2024 election. Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach worked on RFK’s 1968 campaign and went to San Francisco to greet him when he came to California. She says it’s “tempting” to imagine another Kennedy in the White House. But not this one. “Unfortunately when it comes to vaccines, Kennedy is not on the side of science.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
It’s never OK to make your kids cry every day — a family therapist responds to Junior Guards story
Santa Cruz family therapist Mara Alverson was saddened to see Lookout’s recent story headlined “Junior Guards joy: Why making my daughter cry every day was one of the best decisions of my life.” She doesn’t doubt Junior Guards is a great fit for many kids, but she questions “the wisdom of forcing kids to be part of a program that created tears every day for a week.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
As a 400-year-oak falls, remembering fallen Santa Cruz police officer Elizabeth Butler
Elizabeth Butler was the first female Santa Cruz police officer killed in the line of duty. On the 10-year anniversary of her tragic death, a massive 400-year-old oak tree fell at her family home.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The day the Santa Cruz homeless crisis knocked on my front door
In April, a homeless woman knocked on Sheila Carrillo’s door on the Westside of Santa Cruz. She was stunned, but then realized something else: She knew the woman. She gave her food and a shower and helped her get to a treatment center. But Carrillo wonders what will become of her and so many others who recently lost their homes when the city cleared out the Sycamore Grove encampment.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Junior Guards joy: Why making my daughter cry every day was one of the best decisions of my life
“The best day of 2023 came and went unnoticed by most of the city 13 days ago,” says Santa Cruz dad Dan Ackerstein. That’s because on June 12, the Junior Guards program to teach kids ages 6-17 water rescue skills began in the city of Santa Cruz. Similar programs exist in other parts of the county and propel kids to state, national and international competitions. Ackerstein calls Junior Guards “the most ridiculous, difficult, important and remarkable things about Santa Cruz. It’s basically a rite of passage for many families, including, now, mine.”