Photo by TARMO HANNULA

A field worker arranges an irrigation system near Moss Landing.

Farmworkers are the Most Essential Workers

By DR. ANN LOPEZ, DIRECTOR CENTER FOR FARMWORKER FAMILIES

A Black Lives Matter mural was created in downtown Santa Cruz as a confirmation that the city supports and values African Americans and the ethnic diversity of all groups that live in the county. However, in July 2021, two men took turns defacing the mural by repeatedly driving over it and leaving burnout marks across the yellow ”Black Lives Matter” lettering stretching a block in front of Santa Cruz City Hall.

The two men pleaded no contest to a felony vandalism charge along with a misdemeanor reckless driving charge. The men are being held accountable with a two-year probation period. If they don’t complete their sentence, they could serve time in jail. They will be required to pay a fine, and each must serve 144 hours of community service hours. Finally, they must receive racial sensitivity counseling and undergo cognitive behavior therapy while participating in restorative justice interventions.

I have been working with farmworkers as the Director of the Center for Farmworker Families for many years. Last month I received a call from a hysterical woman farmworker claiming that she had been sexually assaulted while working in the field. A couple of weeks before her call, during a heat wave, I received a call from a farmworker claiming that farmworkers were working in the field in heat ranging from 101 degrees to 108 degrees. They begged their supervisor to be let go for the day, and the supervisor refused the request. Consequently, farmworkers began fainting in the field. One woman fainted and hit her head. She had to be taken to a local hospital in an ambulance. I frequently get calls from other farmworkers in the field claiming that pesticides are being sprayed near their work site, and they feel dizzy, nauseous, and faint and are vomiting in the field.

These are not isolated incidents. I get calls every week! The Southern Poverty Law Center and UC Davis studies confirm that 60 to 80 percent of farmworker women are sexually harassed, groped or outright raped in the field. Environmentally, farmworkers are the most exposed population to toxic pesticides. Scientific studies verify the devastating impact that pesticides have on farmworkers, especially on their children. I regularly meet the children of farmworkers with cancer, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, learning disabilities and birth defects. Yet, because farmworkers live in grinding poverty, they are least able to provide these children with the special services and care that they need.

Three pesticides are regularly used in Santa Cruz County: 1,3-dichloropropene (Telone), a carcinogen; chloropicrin, a toxic air contaminant, and glyphosate (Round-Up), another carcinogen. Telone, a soil fumigant that sterilizes the soil is manufactured by Dow/Corteva. It is drift-prone and can drift up to 7 miles from the application site. In 2018, it was the third most heavily used pesticide in the state with 12.5 million pounds used on strawberries and almonds, among other crops. It is a state recognized Proposition 65 carcinogen that causes birth defects with chronic short and long-term health effects, including cancer. It persists in the environment and is so harmful that it has been banned in 34 other countries. The Department of Pesticide Regulation recently proposed a draft resolution that will allow growers to use even higher levels of Telone.  

Lawsuits pointing to glyphosate as the source of plaintiffs’ non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases, abound. Farmworkers are regularly exposed to these pesticides, often in combination with other chemicals. A UCLA study found that people exposed to combinations of pesticides simultaneously suffer damage beyond what any single carcinogenic pesticide can cause.

A full 60% of all Latinx residents in Santa Cruz County live in the 95076 zip code which includes Watsonville. However 98.5% of the 171.4 pounds of pesticides associated with childhood leukemia and 95.2%, or 2220.1 pounds of pesticides associated with childhood brain cancer were applied in 2019 in this zip code alone. 

To date, I have not heard of any arrests of farm supervisors on rape charges in the field, or for violating the law by forcing farmworkers to stay in the field and work in blistering heat. Nor has there been any accountability for excessive numbers of children of farmworkers whose lives have been upended by exposure to pesticides with resulting cancers and other anomalies. Would environmental racism on this massive scale be tolerated in North County? Los Gatos? Saratoga? Where are the court appearances, sentences, penalties? 

Farmworkers are the most essential of all workers. Without their labor, the entire industrial farming system that feeds us would collapse. This is no way to treat the very people responsible for our food survival! It’s time we ask the question: Why don’t farmworkers’ lives matter?

To get involved, contact Adam Scow, organizer for Campaign for Organic, Regenerative Agriculture.

Community Resilience Needed

By RICK LONGINOTTI

Just before the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, some leaders in the global south criticized the United States and other rich countries for their high consumption of the world’s finite resources, including food, water and energy. President George H.W. Bush responded, “The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.”

On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council affirmed the Bush doctrine with regard to water consumption. The council set a goal for water supply reliability during worst-case conditions, defined as a 5-year drought, thusly: have “an adequate supply to meet all customer demand.” This goal is a departure from the previous policy that called for a 15% curtailment of water use in a worst-case drought scenario. The new policy envisions no curtailment of irrigation for residential or commercial customers. Irrigation makes up a quarter of the city’s peak season water use.

If the goal to meet "all customer demand" were actually met, Santa Cruz would be a water oasis during a 5-year drought afflicting California. Our golf courses would have the only green fairways in the state. 

The zero curtailment policy costs a lot to achieve. And in spite of the progressive water rate structure, people who use a modest amount of water will share the cost burden. During the debate over the desalination proposal for Santa Cruz and Soquel Creek Water District, an analyst found that if the top 50% of Soquel Creek water users reduced their water use to the mean, the district’s overdraft problems would be solved. Although the Santa Cruz problem is different, the question remains, shouldn’t those who don’t want to cut back on irrigation or long showers shoulder the cost of implementing the goal of zero curtailment?

The zero curtailment policy creates more impetus to adopt energy intensive projects. We're nearing the limit of the amount of water we can extract from our environment. The most sustainable projects, yet to be implemented, involve harvesting water when it is plentiful, and saving it for when it’s not, by injecting it into the aquifers; this is called Aquifer Storage and Recovery. Beyond that we’ll trade a lot of electricity for water, in the form of reverse osmosis to purify wastewater, or desalinate sea water. Reverse osmosis operations can’t be easily turned off and on. These plants would operate continuously, throughout wet seasons when a hundred cubic feet of water per second flows down the San Lorenzo River to the ocean.  

The zero curtailment policy threatens to erode the exemplary conservation ethic of Santa Cruz residents. A little-known fact is that our conservation ethic, combined with water-efficient fixtures, have provided water security far better than the desalination plant proposed in 2003. The desal plant was supposed to provide .45 billion gallons during a drought year. Conservation has reduced our normal water demand by 1.8 billion gallons since the desal plant was conceived. That's four desal plants. Water not consumed is saved in Loch Lomond Reservoir. It seems self evident that our conservation ethic has been shaped by past curtailments in response to drought. The new policy would end curtailments.

The zero curtailment policy results from concern about the local economy. The water department hired a consultant to do some computer modeling of the economic impacts of curtailment. The consultant estimated that a Stage 3 curtailment would result in a loss of 1,149 – 2,431 jobs - such a high job loss expected from a mere 15% cutback in water for businesses at Stage 3! Is that believable? Well, we could find out. We have spent millions on studies of desalination and recycled water, but we don’t know if or why a business would lay off workers during a modest cutback in water. 

It’s time to study Community Resilience. The water department’s concepts for engineering our way to water security are marvels of ingenuity, but expensive and energy intensive. But what if we built in community resilience to our preparation for worst-case events? What if businesses had a plan for how to cope with a 15% curtailment with a minimum of hurt to the bottom line? What if we drew on the community spirit that supported businesses after the 1989 earthquake? For example, we might find that residential customers would be willing to cut back more than expected in order to preserve jobs.

The zero curtailment policy reflects a belief that we can escape nature’s limits through technology and energy. The alternative is to develop our social capital, our community connectedness. Within the next two years the council will decide on water supply project(s). We will have an opportunity then to advocate for the more sustainable options.

Photo by KEITH MCHENRY

Early in the Covid pandemic, people waiting for food at the Town Clock in Santa Cruz practiced social distancing .

1,000 Days of Compassion

BY KEITH MCHENRY

The streets went silent that misty March 14, 2020 morning. I passed only two other vehicles on my way to prepare the meal at the Veteran’s Hall. News that the indoor food programs had been ordered shuttered meant our unhoused friends would have to go without food if we didn’t step up and fill the void. Eight of us Food Not Bombs volunteers gathered at LuLu Carpenters that cold Saturday to discuss our plans. I think all of us were in a state of shock at the mystery that lay ahead. 

A medical social worker who had just been trained in the COVID-19 safety protocols at Good Samaritans Hospital detailed what she had learned the day before. We moved our meal to the Town Clock from the Post Office so our line of guests would not be standing near the dozen or so people camping along the Water Street sidewalk. 

We were honored to fill in for the weekday meals at St. Francis and London Nelson senior lunch since they had been closed down for a two-week lockdown to flatten the curve. When they reopened we would return to our weekend schedule.

Two weeks turned to a month, then two months, then two years and on December 10, 2022, our all-volunteer group will have shared hot meals, drinking water and survival gear every afternoon for 1,000 days. 

The City of Santa Cruz responded to the crisis by erecting Triage Cages for the homeless in downtown parking lots while locking down everyone else. The Santa Cruz Homeless Union and Food Not Bombs responded by setting up a Covid -19 Relief Center at the Town Clock and placed 180 people in hotels for several nights. The police evicted us for the first of eight times claiming our hotel voucher distribution was an illegal gathering. 

Second Harvest stepped up and started their weekly deliveries of pallet loads of dry goods. They delivered at least 20 pallets of rice, beans and other provisions during the first week of the crisis. We filled the empty offices at India Joze at 418 Front St., a shipping container, and a warehouse at Barrios Unidos. We provided groceries to the Live Oak School District and helped them acquire their own account with Second Harvest.

Our kitchen moved from the Veterans Memorial Hall to India Joze to the Little Red Church and is now up in Scotts Valley. The stress of loading and unloading our van several times just to set up became too much so we bought a second shipping container and placed it at our meal next to the abandoned Taco Bell at Laurel Street and when an out-of-town developer threatened to seize it we moved it across Front Street to lot 27. When another out-of-town property speculator announced the destruction of India Joze and the other business on Front St. we bought a third shipping container and cleared out our supplies at the 418.

While our all-volunteer staff was scrambling to meet the needs of the ever growing number of the just evicted people we also provided food and logistical support for several Black Lives Matter marches, organized protests against the war in Ukraine and fed the strikers at the University.

The sky turned an eerie red as those fleeing the CZU Lightning Complex fire joined us at our Laurel and Front Streets meal. I remember several people coming to us desperate for a change of clothes. 

When the city forced us onto the Benchlands our equipment was flooded in two feet of water so we returned to the higher ground of Garage 10 only to be forced to Laurel and Front Streets. After we won a federal law suit stopping the eviction of those camped in San Lorenzo Park and those on the higher ground moved to the Benchlands our volunteers began our weekly delivery of a pallet or more of food to that community of hundreds every week.

Our group had to think creatively. We first met on Zoom, then in person, to figure out solutions to each logistical issue and set that week’s schedule of volunteer tasks. A food recovery team picked up at farmers markets, Trader Joes, Companion and Beckmann's bakeries, and a host of other food sources. Another group shared the meal, clothing and drinking water while often having to calm people suffering from emotional crisis. We provided the only reliable hand washing station for hundreds. Others prepared the hot meals and spent hours washing pots and hotel trays. Community members graced our program with their own hot meals and survival gear donations. 

We repaired vehicular homes to keep them from the city tow trucks. We reunited family members seeking their unhoused children. We comforted the stunned newly homeless and helped them with a pup tent, a warm meal and a listing of mostly closed services. 

Our volunteers provided the annual Thanksgiving and Christmas community meals during the two years of restrictions. We also hosted a free concert during every holiday. We also lost many friends during these 1,000 days. Rick, our Bread Man, and Tree, the hibiscus tea lady, died early in the crisis. The death toll from the elements, murders and addiction has been horrific. We held our annual longest night of the year memorial to honor those who did not make it on the cruel streets of Santa Cruz and plan to do so again at the Town Clock Dec. 21. 

We will be celebrating our 1,000th day with live music. The 1,000 Dancing Doves is performing at the Clock Tower at noon on Saturday, Dec. 10 and Folk Punk musician David Rovics will be playing a benefit concert at the Resource Center for Nonviolence on Friday, Dec. 9 at 6:30pm. See poster below.

We have 1,000 days of filling the void left by the governments while those vultures were too busy aiding investment firms in their construction of luxury condominium projects to provide necessities to their residents. 

We are practiced at responding to the impact of a failing economy. There is every indication that a Great Depression scale collapse could sweep the world in 2023 and we know city, county, state and federal officials are not about to help our community in this time of crisis. The politicians have wars to fund, metal and glass monstrosities to build, and off-shore bank accounts to fill, so it will be up to all of us cooperating together to take care of the needs of our people. 

Our compassion will be required to navigate the difficulties ahead. Food Not Bombs is hosting a community meeting on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, at the Resource Center for Nonviolence to discuss the logistics of survival as the economy crashes and we face cuts in electricity, food shortages, the possible transition into a cashless digital security state and increase in homelessness and poverty. 

If we all work together and think outside the box we can flourish. We invite you to join us. 

Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs - PO Box 422, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 USA santacruz.foodnotbombs.net - 1-800-884-1136

The photo above is from Jon Silver's latest trip to the National Museum of African History and Culture at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. 

Photo by TARMO HANNULA 

A crow takes a perch on a carved totem pole on Fir St. in Alert Bay, BC.

Santa Cruz County Covid-19 Report 

By SARAH RINGLER

The Santa Cruz County Health Department regularly releases data on the current status of Covid-19 in the county. Covid-19 vaccines are available for everyone 6 months and older. Updated Covid-19 boosters are available for everyone 5 and older. Make an appointment with a doctor or the local pharmacy. Go HERE for details. 

There were no new deaths in the county this week. Click to view a graph of hospitalizations HERE.

Because of the availability of home testing I don't report on changes in the active cases in the county. The Health Department is now collecting data for Covid and mpox from wastewater at the City Influent for the city of Santa Cruz, and from the Lode Street pump stations for the county. See webpage HERE. The first chart below shows the latest county data.



Here are details on the county's vaccination data. Vaccination data has not changed much and doesn't include the boosters.

This webpage also has a link where you can get a digital copy and scannable QR code of your vaccination record. Keep track of your four-digit code because that is your access to the site.

The county's Effective Reproductive Number is still above one. See the second chart below. Numbers above one show the spread of the virus is increasing. Below one means the spread is decreasing. The chart, released from the California Department of Public Health below shows several predictions from different agencies. For information, click here.

The government is no longer issuing free Antigen Rapid Tests; Congress has not provided funding.To get information on COVID-19 testing locations around the county visit this site. You can make an appointment for a Rapid Antigen Test here.

Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Fashion Street - This man hauls his belongings along Lincoln Street in Watsonville . 

Labor History Calendar - Dec. 2-8 , 2022

a.k.a Know Your History Lest We Forget

Dec. 2, 1859: John Brown hanged.

Dec. 2, 1990: Two-day general strike shuts down Israel.

Dec. 3, 1866: Textile strikers win 10-hour day in Fall River, Massachusetts. 

Dec. 3, 1910: IWW union Brotherhood of Timber Workers organized. 

Dec. 3, 1946: General strike in Oakland. 

Dec. 3, 1997: Jobless requisition food from luxury hotel in Montreal.

Dec. 4, 1969: Chicago police kill Black Panther Fred Hampton.

Dec. 5, 1955: Anti-segregationist bus boycott begins in Montgomery.

Dec. 5, 2008 Republic Windows workers seize factory to prevent shut-down. 

Dec. 5, 2013: Thousands of fast-food workers strike across the United States. 

Dec. 6, 1907: 361 coal miners killed at Monougal, West Virginia.

Dec. 7, 1918:100,000 textile workers strike in Lancashire, UK.

Dec. 8, 1962: 114-day newspaper strike begins in New York.

Labor History Calendar has been published yearly by the Hungarian Literature Fund since 1985.

"Black people need some peace. White people need some peace. And we are going to have to fight. We're going to have to struggle. We're going to have to struggle relentlessly to bring about some peace, because the people that we're asking for peace, they are a bunch of megalomaniac warmongers, and they don't even understand what peace means."

Fred Hampton

Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Mediterranean Flavors in a British Casserole

By SARAH RINGLER

Here’s a warm and wintry dish to fit the season. It’s a traditional English dish called uncomfortably, Toad-in-hole, or in shorthand, but no less odd, Sausage Toad. It’s basically sausage, or other kinds of meat, cooked in a Yorkshire pudding batter and served with onion gravy and vegetables.

According to Alan Davidson’s “The Oxford Companion to Food,” pudding batters were very popular in the early 18th century. One-dish meals are convenient to serve. Cheap cuts of meat, poultry of all kinds including pigeon, and organ meat were used, but never gratefully, toads. It’s unclear where the name came from, but sources that I researched generally attributed the name to the British propensity, like the Chinese, to give food odd names like Bubble and Squeak for mashed potatoes and cabbage, Spotted Dick, a pudding made with flour, sugar, eggs and raisins, and Angels on Horseback, hot hors d’oeuvres made with an oyster wrapped in bacon. 

This particular recipe is upscaled by author, restaurant owner, and chef, Yotal Ottolenghi. He is very imaginative and has won many awards for his books, restaurants and delis. He often adds a Mediterranean twist to his recipes, probably due to his birth in Jerusalem. Rosemary, in this dish, is native to the Mediterranean and also is commonly found around here in gardens and parks. 

Sourdough bread adds to the flavor. The entire dish, including the gravy, is all baked in a very hot oven.  I cut the recipe in half and made it in an 8-inch square pan.

Toad-in-Hole

Gravy:

2 tablespoons high heat oil like sunflower oil

2 teaspoons unsalted butter

1 onion, 6 ounces, thinly sliced

2 rosemary sprigs

5 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 cup chicken stock

¼ cup pale ale beer

Salt and pepper

Batter:

2 large eggs 

½ cup milk

1/3 cup pale ale beer

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

7/8 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Meatballs:

3 ½ ounces sourdough bread without crusts cut into small cubes – roughly 2 cups

1/3 cup milk

¾ pounds ground pork

2 ounces pancetta, finely chopped

½ onion, grated

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons cooking oil

2 small rosemary sprigs

Heat the oven to 475 degrees. Make the gravy first by putting the oil, butter, onions, rosemary and balsamic vinegar in a medium sized cast iron frying pan. Bake for about 20 minutes, stirring a few times until onions are browed and soft. Whisk flour, stock and beer in a bowl until smooth. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and pepper. Mix well and stir into the frying pan. Return to the oven and bake about 20-25 minutes until gravy is thick and rich, stirring a few times while baking. While baking gravy, you can start the batter. When gravy is done, remove rosemary sprig, and keep warm. 

Next make the batter by putting eggs, milk, beer and mustard in a medium bowl and whisk or beat until mixture is foamy, about 1 minute. In another bowl, whisk the flour and salt. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in one fourth of the egg mixture whisking until flour is all mixed in. Then add another quarter and do the same thing. Do two more times until all the egg mixture is mixed in the flour and whisk until there are no lumps but not longer. Do not overmix. Set aside for at least 30 minutes. 

To make the meatballs, soak the bread in the milk and let sit for about 10 minutes. Grate the onions, zest the lemon rind, and chop up the parsley and garlic. Use your hands to mush up the bread until you have a smooth paste. Mix bread mush, ground pork pancetta, onions, zest, parsley and garlic with ½ teaspoon of salt and ground pepper. Use your hands to knead and mix the ingredients.  I use the Asian method of gathering up the mixture and forcefully throwing it in the bowl a few times.  Form into 6-8 balls. 

Spread 1 tablespoon of cooking oil into the bottom of a 9-inch by 13-inch baking pan. Add the meatballs and bake for about 10 minutes. Put the meatballs on two layers of paper towel to absorb some of the liquid and pour any remaining liquid into the gravy. Wipe the bottom of the pan clean. 

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the same baking pan and return to the oven for 10 minutes until the pan is very hot and beginning to smoke. Quickly pour in the batter and place the meatballs and rosemary sprigs in to the batter. Return to the oven and bake for 15 minutes without opening the oven until completely done. Lower the heat to 400 degrees and bake for 30 minutes more until batter has puffed up and is golden. Serve with gravy. 

Welcome to Serf City Times Our county has problems and many people feel left out. Housing affordability, racism and low wages are the most obvious factors. However, many groups and individuals in Santa Cruz County work tirelessly to make our county a better place for everyone. These people work on the environment, housing, economic justice, health, criminal justice, disability rights, immigrant rights, racial justice, transportation, workers’ rights, education reform, gender issues, equity issues, electoral politics and more. Often, one group doesn’t know what another is doing. The Serf City Times is dedicated to serving as a clearinghouse for those issues by letting you know what is going on, what actions you can take and how you can support these groups.This is a self-funded enterprise and all work is volunteer. 

Copyright © 2022 Sarah Ringler - All rights reserved