Quick Take
While the idea of the female surfer statue has broad support, including from herself, Nikki Hotvedt takes issue with where it’s being proposed for – the Dirt Farm along East Cliff Drive in Pleasure Point – and a process she says has moved forward too quickly and without the level of community engagement needed.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.
What follows isn’t a hard-hitting exposé. It’s a love letter to The Pleasure Point neighborhood, a eulogy for a slice of “early” Santa Cruz and a plea for more time to engage with the local community over a proposed female surfer statue.
I’ve never canvassed in my life. But recently, I spent the better part of a week introducing myself to just about anyone who crossed my path at the “Dirt Farm,” a small, iconic patch of cliff on East Cliff Drive between 37th and 38th avenues. My pitch? Help preserve one of the last stretches of natural coastal land on the East Side. Because … this is it. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
The urgency comes from a proposal currently moving through the county and set for the board of supervisors to vote on May 5 to install a 16-to-18-foot bronze statue of a female surfer on this site. While the project aims to honor women in surfing – a goal this community and I widely support (I am all for a statue!) – the scale and location have struck a nerve. This isn’t because the neighborhood opposes art; it’s because we are being forced into a false choice: the monument or the cliff.
It also exposes something deeper: how – and who – decides what gets paved and what gets saved.
The “Just In Time” program, an arm of Santa Cruz County Parks, is designed to fast-track community-initiated, privately funded public art. That’s its mandate: to steward projects like this through the county process. But fast-tracking should not mean bypassing the community entirely.
In this case, that seems to be exactly what happened.
The petitioners for the statue are a small group of well-known surf legacies, people many in town know and respect. I believe they had good intentions in saying this project was for the community. But there was no dialogue. No meaningful outreach. No effort to engage the broader local community early, when it actually matters. The process moved forward quietly, and for many residents, it felt like decisions were already made.
Why the silence?
When the public was finally looped in, the process only raised more concerns. County guidelines suggest site signage should be posted at least 10 days before a hearing. We got four. And even within that compressed window, residents mobilized quickly, collecting more than 350 signatures in support of relocating the statue.
At the same time, “community support” was being cited based on a poll, first sent out in District 1 Supervisor Manu Koenig’s newsletter on February 9 – which left out the most important details. It asked whether people supported a statue, but omitted its 16-to-18-foot height and the extent of paving required over one of the last natural stretches of cliff.
In a February 24 follow-up (which still omitted the height), the office reported 668 responses, but stipulated that only 259 addresses could be verified – of those, roughly 75% were in support.
By then, the neighborhood had started to talk. Some residents (myself included) received a notice of public hearing in the mail. Many of my neighbors did not.
Apparently, notification was also limited to residents within a 500-foot radius of the site – far short of the actual community that uses and values this space. Neither “Just in Time” nor the county supervisors hosted a public meeting.
So the community organized one on March 12. About 70 of us residents gathered at Simpkins Swim Center, with petitioners in the room. The petitions shared their vision. Folks in the room spoke and shared their concerns, ideas, and suggestions.
Several speakers flagged road safety, as the statue is slated for a narrow section of East Cliff, opposite a row of public parking and anticipating a new bike lane. Others voiced apprehension about creating a gathering space in a residential neighborhood that might encourage after-hours gatherings. Many questioned the stability of the cliff itself, heavy rains and runoff were accelerating the inevitable erosion of the Dirt Farm already.
Others had feedback on the statue itself. While Koenig’s newsletters showed opaque sketches of the statue, images of a more formal proposal circulated online and a rendering was shown at the community meeting. The proposed female statue has a retro feel. In the artist’s renderings, she’s balletic, lean, and elongated. Her “wetsuit” is almost transparent, revealing hips, abs and navel.
Young women will see themselves in a female statue – but they’ll also see that her figure drives the design. She can be beautiful. It’s art. But could she also reflect a more modern sensibility? How we represent women matters as much as representing them.
At the end the room took a vote. The room overwhelmingly supported the idea of a female surfer statue – just not in this location (and no consensus on the design.)
The place distinction matters.
If you’ve spent time on the West Side, you know the male surfer statue above Steamer Lane, he’s been there since 1992. He’s not styled after any one individual, he’s a symbolic figure. He’s also 18-feet tall. From where he stands on West Cliff the view is expansive. The setting can absorb it.
The proposed East Side statue is meant to be a counterpart – same scale, same symbolism. But the setting couldn’t be more different. The Dirt Farm is narrow. Undeveloped. Intimate. One of the last natural stretches of cliff on the East Side. A 16-to-18-foot monument doesn’t just sit in a space like that – it defines it.
And that’s the point. This isn’t about whether Santa Cruz should have a female surfer statue. It should. It’s about whether this is the place.
West Cliff had the room. The Dirt Farm does not.
In Koenig’s March 30 newsletter, the statue’s 16-to-18-foot height was finally disclosed. There was no mention of the community meeting or vote. Instead, the poll was cited again – now at 797 responses, with just over 76% in support – but the number of verified addresses was no longer shared.
That omission matters. Informal testing suggested the poll could be taken multiple times. Requiring address verification would limit duplicate or invalid responses and offer a far clearer picture of actual community sentiment.
That’s not informed consent. That’s incomplete information.
If you’ve never been to Pleasure Point, it’s smack in the middle of Pleasure Point. Most locals are familiar with Jack’s House, fading green and teetering on the edge of the sea wall. On the south side of Jack O’Neill’s home, he intentionally left a patch of land in its natural state. That’s the Dirt Farm, the heart of the community.
It’s simple. It’s just a natural cliff. That’s it.
While the patch itself is quite small, if you stand in that spot you can trace the coastline all the way from Capitola to Monterey, fog permitting. No development crowds it, just a few benches, a trio of palms, and the open Pacific. If you’ve ever been to Pleasure Point, there’s a good chance you have this very snapshot in your phone. And if you’re a local resident, you worship it.
And while the Dirt Farm looks and acts like one continuous piece, the plot beneath the trees is technically owned by the county. This stretch of East Cliff Drive – from 33rd to 41st avenues – is a designated scenic road, where public vistas are intended to receive the highest level of protection.
This is not happening.
On April 3, the zoning board reviewed the petition and listened for a few hours as members of the community expressed their concerns – most people in the room were opposed to the location. The petition was approved, pending a 14-day window to appeal. On May 5, the board of supervisors will vote.
To the petitioners and the JIT board: We don’t have to be on opposing sides. We are all people who love the water. We all want to celebrate the heritage of Santa Cruz surfing and the diversity in the waves.
But heritage shouldn’t come at the cost of the environment it’s supposed to celebrate. Or the consent of the local community.
Nikki Hotvedt is a Santa Cruz native, Pleasure Point resident, and mediocre surfer. The lineup has changed since she surfed as a teenager — more women, more diversity.