For the love of trees! 

Join Us To Save Some Trees

Saturday, March 4

11am, Lot 4

Cedar Street, Santa Cruz

By JOHN HALL

Photo contributed

Join our demonstration in support of incorporating some of the large Heritage trees into the

mixed-use project design for Lot 4. There will be music, speakers and an open mic!

Nine heritage trees, including majestic liquid ambers and beautiful magnolias, currently grow on the 1.55-acre Lot 4 parcel in Santa Cruz, the current location of the downtown Farmer’s Market. There are plans to build a new downtown library, garage and affordable housing project there. The current project plan includes cutting down all the heritage trees on the lot.

The heritage trees on Lot 4 are beloved by the Santa Cruz community for their stature, grace, history, and environmental benefits. They have provided generations of Santa Cruzans majesty and shade during the hottest times of year and glorious color with the passing seasons.

Here’s the backstory. Last December, Save Some Trees, a broad coalition organized through the SC Climate Action Network, in December appealed the permit to the Parks and Recreation Commission to cut down all the heritage trees on Lot 4. Basically, the architect, developer, and city failed to follow the city’s own heritage tree laws. The council’s resolution allows cutting down a heritage tree only under certain conditions. These conditions include when “a construction project design cannot be altered to accommodate

existing heritage trees." The city’s arborist reports that five of the heritage trees are “worthy of preservation." The project easily can accommodate one to three of the trees that lie along Cedar Street without significantly altering the project design or square footage. Indeed, having the two liquidambars frame an entrance courtyard would improve the project design, by making for a more active and interesting streetscape. One of the magnolias would take more

preservation efforts but would make a wonderful tree for the childcare center’s outdoor space.

The environmental benefit of keeping mature trees goes without saying.

On a close, 4-3 vote, the Parks and Recreation Commission rejected our appeal, and that decision has now been appealed to the City Council, which will tentatively consider the appeal at its March 14 meeting.The demonstration will celebrate the trees and ask the City Council to pass a motion to direct

the developer and architect to develop an alternative conceptual plan that would accommodate these 2 or 3 heritage trees. Please come! Also contact Santa Cruz City Council here.

What the heck?

By BRENT ADAMS - THE WARMING CENTER PROGRAM

Here's what we've been up to over the past month as the end of winter looms and the function of this nonprofit and the services it has provided begins a final sunset. The Warming Center Program had it's thunder stolen by a pop-up homeless shelter sponsored by the City of Santa Cruz that referred to itself as a "warming center." It offered no street outreach, and provided space for only 25 people. It seemed to be a half-hearted effort in answer to the huge storm surge and included a local nonprofit featuring one of our former employees. After years of striving to define what an emergency shelter could be, it was a kick in the gut to see such a token effort masquerading as adequate. Nothing seems to make sense anymore. We have a mission we're committed to, so we soldiered onward.

Warming Wednesdays

Due to a fall-off of volunteer turnout in the early months of this winter's activation phase, we lowered our activation threshold by 2 degrees and began to focus our efforts toward making sure everyone outside has access to blankets, jackets, clothing, and rain gear. For months, we've hosted Warming Wednesdays,12-3pm, at our facility, and have been visiting Pogonip/Sycamore Grove twice-weekly to provide gear. For the remainder of these late winter weeks, we'll be setting up in additional spaces to unload our remaining stock.  

100 tents

In addition to blankets, clothing, jackets, hygiene items, and rain gear at Warming Wednesday, we'll begin distributing tents that are being purchased with funds raised through Santa Cruz Gives and a few grant sources. We'll began tent distribution Feb. 15 with advice on where was best to erect these tents and what behaviors were encouraged.

What of the Man Who Was Attacked by Scotts Valley High Students?

You may recall the news item of a man whose head had been "stomped" by local students and had been hospitalized. He has been a client of Footbridge Services and someone we've known and have cared about for several years. We started an online fundraising effort to help him during his healing process. He was sheltering at Housing Matters the month after the attack, but then he was kicked off that campus for being irritable. We placed him in a motel, but he didn't like being there. Ever since, he has been sheltered at our facility and receives a daily allotment of whatever he requests. We can't understand why Housing Matters would kick him out because he's been very passive and helpful for the several months he's been here. Unfortunately, we're unsure where he'll move to once our facility becomes unavailable beginning April 1.

The Last Woman From Secret Garden Women's Shelter

We had hosted a women's shelter for a year and a half before making the difficult decision to close it. In contrast to other shelters, we had committed to not turning a single resident onto the street. We've been successful to this point, yet there is still a last resident remaining. We're delivering her to the Modesto area, where she has a friend and the housing opportunities are more plentiful than Santa Cruz. 

Liquidating Materials, Vehicles, Tiny House etc. and Finding a Home For These Cats

We're challenged with finding a home for these two beautiful adolescent cats that have become our family. They'll be spayed, with all necessary shots. Additionally, we're selling/donating items belonging to the storage and warming center programs, including 300 floor pads, and 20 large shelving units, a table saw and other construction tools, catering materials, etc. as well as a box truck and likely a Sprinter van. And what to do with a 10x10' wooden tiny house? You'll be hearing more about these items and how to access them soon.

The Quality of Mercy - A Documentary

I've been busy archiving more than 30,000 photos and videos as well as what is on these older 8TB of external hard drives in order to produce a documentary artifact about what this past 10 years was about. I won't begin any new life chapter until this is complete.

What We Did

Transitional Encampment Research/Planning (Sanctuary Camp)

Warming Center Program

Santa Cruz Coalition on Homelessness

Connecting the Dots - Homeless Survey

West Coast Homeless Tours (4 tours total)

Out of Sight, Out of Mind Documentary Project

Day & Night Storage (transportable)

Emergency Homeless Hotline 246-1234

Emergency Blanket Delivery

Footbridge Homeless Services (storage, laundry, showers, materials, device charging)

Achievable Goals (case management)

Agreement Camps (3 successful locations)

Encampment Trash Removal Program

Encampment Emergency Exodus Projects (storing and delivering materials)

Secret Garden Women's Shelter

Warming Wednesday

The Quality of Mercy Documentary Project (in production)

What's Next?

It's been an honor to serve the community of Santa Cruz in these ways over the past 10 years. Once the final items have been removed from 150 Felker St. and the last edit has been made on the documentary project, I'll be planning a cross-country bike trip, as well as a bike tour of Mexico. I'll be striving to learn to sail my boat and will begin to imagine a new life for myself that will likely include community service. Here's to good health!

Monetary donations until March 31: warmingcenterprogram.com

Mailed correspondence: PO Box 462, Santa Cruz, CA 95061

Office 588-9892 Hotline 246-1234

California Harm Reduction Initiative Yielded High Levels of Life-saving Interventions in Its Three Year Existence But Needs Further Support

By DENISE ELERICK

Harm Reduction Coalition of Santa Cruz County are proud members of CASEP, the California Syringe Exchange Programs Coalition. In the budget Act of 2019, in order to address rising overdose deaths and rising infectious diseases throughout California, for the first time in California history, the legislature dedicated $12.6 million dollars over three years to support expansion of Syringe Services Programs through the California Harm Reduction Initiative . 

Both HRCSCC, and our friends and partners at the county syringe services program, are recipients of Californian Harm Reduction Initiative funding that includes technical assistance provided by National Harm Reduction Coalition. We are at a moment of budget advocacy to sustain CHRI funding. Without exaggerating, programs will close, overdoses will increase and the epidemics of HIV, Hepatitis C and sexually transmitted infections will continue, if the legislature does not continue to fund life saving harm reduction programs. 

"SSPs are ideal settings to integrate buprenorphine treatment for people who have an opioid use disorder (OUD) and are interested in treatment. Buprenorphine is a medication that allows people with an OUD to reduce their opioid use without having to visit a specialty clinic on a daily basis, and reduces the risk of opioid-involved overdose deaths. In 2021, 85% of CHRI-supported SSPs offered buprenorphine to their participants, either through in-person consultations or telemedicine, compared to only 31% of non-CHRI SSPs." HRCSCC is one of the syringe services programs who offers low barrier buprenorphine (suboxone) to our participants. The link to the report on the positive impacts of CHRI is here.

We are aware of the frailty associated with nonprofits and community based organizations. We are still standing and we are still growing! Our participants are grateful for us and for you, our supporters. We feel the appreciation every day. As we build a permanent, sustainable program for years to come we appreciate donations from supporters near and far. Please consider us in your 2023 giving. Send us an email if you have any questions. Click here to donate. We have a goal to increase our sustainer donors over the next 10 months to 50 monthly donors. 

Bernie Speaking in San Jose

By JEFFREY SMEDBERG - SANTA CRUZ FOR BERNIE TEAM

Sat Mar 4, 7pm - California Theatre, 345 South 1st St, San Jose.

Senator Bernie Sanders and The Nation’s National Affairs Correspondent John Nichols will participate in a rousing discussion of Sanders’ new book, It’s OK To Be Angry About Capitalism.  Tickets $25-$85. Sponsored by Kepler's Literary Foundation.

Move Your Money- Sun Mar 5, 3-5pm - first in a series of drop-in meetings in-person and Zoom. Want to turn off the money spigot for the fossil fuel industry by moving your money away from Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo or Citibank? Want to encourage others to do as well? Get together with like minded people to receive information on how to go about it, share success stories and challenges! Meetings each Sunday at least until a big nationwide event on 3-21-23 to pressure the Big 4 banks to stop financing the climate crisis. Meetings in person at 2355 Brommer St in the club house of Homestead Park, or by Zoom (send your email to get the link rolandsaher@gmail.com).

Limited parking inside the park.

The photo above is from Jon Silver's 2022 trip to the National Museum of African History and Culture at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Contributed by WFF

Stories of Culture: Oaxaca in Santa Cruz is one of the world premieres being shown in the Watsonville Film Festival.

Watsonville Film Festival Celebrates Actors & Activists: Inspiring Stories about Beating the Odds 

By CONSUELO ALBA

The 11th Annual Watsonville Film Festival runs from March 3–12 with screenings at the Mello Center and the Watsonville Public Library. This year’s Festival presents an exciting line-up of films about ordinary people overcoming great obstacles to do the extraordinary. For

Pepe Serna will receive a hero’s welcome when he walks the red carpet at opening night of the Watsonville Film Festival where the celebrated actor will present his latest films, Abuelo and Life is Art. Serna will be joined by the film’s director, Luis Reyes, author of “Viva Hollywood” on Fri., March 3 at 7pm at the Mello Center.

Pepe Serna’s acting career spans more than fifty years, 100 films, and 300 TV shows. He played Al Pacino’s partner in Scarface, a lowrider in Steve Martin’s hit comedy, The Jerk, and was cast with Edward James Olmos in American Me. Serna received the prestigious Screen Actors Guild Heritage Achievement Award for his many iconic character roles at a time when Latino and Latina actors were rarely given the spotlight in Hollywood. 

Highlights of the festival include the following world premieres of local shorts:

The world premiere of Strawberry Picker, a short film documenting the life of Juan Fuentes, renowned Chicano artist who grew up in Watsonville. Fuentes created the main images of the beautiful mosaic murals in downtown. The Festival is proud to co-host the opening of his Retrospective “RESILIENCE: Works of Strength and Dignity” at the Porter Building on Sunday, March 5. 

Stories of Culture: Oaxaca in Santa Cruz County was filmed during the Covid pandemic. Elder members of the indigenous group Senderos share how their food, medicine and music are tools for healing their communities.

Living in Exile: Carlos Mejía Godoy by filmmaker Jon Silver. Forced into exile and now living in California, Carlos Mejía Godoy is a legendary musician and poet of Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.

Sansón & Me is an award-winning documentary about an unusual friendship that grows out of a young immigrant who gets caught up in the criminal justice system.

Los Tigres del Norte tells the story of the legendary Norteño band that came to San Jose with nothing in the 1960’s and rose to sell more than 60 million records, winning 6 Grammys and 12 Latin Grammys along the way. Co-presented by the Mexican Consulate of San José.

For the complete program, go to Watsonville Film Festival. Created to bring the community together and shine a light on our cultures and traditions, and despite after all we’ve been through over the past three years, we wanted to make this year’s Festival accessible to everyone on a "pay what you can" basis. This is possible thanks to our generous sponsors and supporters who truly understand our vision.

Photo by TARMO HANNULA 

A house finch finds a snack on some wild mustard along Watsonville Slough.

Santa Cruz County Covid-19 Report- Is It Over? 

By SARAH RINGLER

The Santa Cruz County Health Department regularly releases data on the current status of Covid-19 in the county. There were no new deaths in the county over the past week. The last death was mid December.

Active cases however are still appearing. The county's Effective Reproductive Number is now below 1.0. See the second chart below. Numbers above one show the spread of the virus is increasing. Below one means the spread is decreasing. To view the distribution of cases around the county, look here.

The Health Department is 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. The fourth chart below shows wastewater projections.

The third graph below shows hospitalizations. Click to see more information on hospitalizations HERE.



The vaccination data for the county is now divided the data into three categories with the percentages inoculated: Primary Series, 77.1%, Primary Series and Boosted, 68.6 from 61%, and Bivalent Boosters, up 32.9% from 32.3%.

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.

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 - A man hopes to find what he's looking for on Pacifc Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz.

Labor History Calendar - March 3-9, 2023

a.k.a Know Your History Lest We Forget

March 3, 1903: Colorado City free speech fight begins.

March 4, 1910: IWW wins Spokane free speech fight.

March 4, 1937: UAW sit-down victory in Flint, Michigan.

March 5, 1871: Birth of Rosa Luxemburg, Marxist economist.

March 5, 1917: IWW Everette workers’ trial for defending union hall begins. 

March 6, 1903: Japanese and Mexican beet farmers launch successful fight against pay cut in Oxnard, CA

March 6, 1984: Year-long British coal strike begins. 

March 7, 1860: 6,000 shoemakers and 20,000 other New England workers strike in Lynn, Massachusetts.

March 7, 1932: Detroit police fire at hunger march, killing 4.

March 7, 1942: IWW co-founder and labor organizer Lucy Parker dies.

March 8 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

March 8, 1908: Thousands in New York needle trades demand higher wages, shorter hours and end to child labor.

March 8, 1995: US stock market crashes. 

March 8, 2021: 700 strike St. Vincent Hospital, longest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts history. 

March 9, 1879: Italian IWW leader Carlo Tresca born in Sulmona, Italy.

March 9, 1986: 100,000 march for freedom of choice.

March 9, 2017: Egyptian court orders release of oil workers arrested for striking. 

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

"Those who do not move, do not

notice their chains."

Rosa Luxemburg

Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Prosciutto, Parmesan and Pasta

By SARAH RINGLER

Butter, Parmesan cheese and crispy prosciutto - a rich and salty combo – would probably go well on cardboard, but definitely goes well with fresh pasta. Serve with a salad and this is an easy dinner for two. This recipe is from a cookbook, “American Sfoglino,” written by Evan Funke, the chef and partner of the Felix Trattoria in Venice, CA. He is very enthusiastic about making pasta completely by hand, so much so that I tried it myself after giving up many years ago. I should know by now to leave these things to the experts; it was too dry and rubbery - again. 

Giorgio Franchetti, a food historian, reveals in his book, “Dining With the Ancient Romans,” that the Greeks and Romans ate pasta way before Marco Polo came back from Asia in the 1200s. “It’s pure nonsense,” he says. “The noodles that Marco Polo maybe brought back with him at the end of the 1200s from China were essentially made with rice and based on a different, oriental culinary tradition that has nothing to do with ours.”

Even though noodles and pasta developed separately, Italy and China share similar cooking styles. Preparing all the ingredients first, and then jumping into a fury of boiling and frying can be stressful and sometimes it’s hard to relax when it’s time to eat. A good glass of white wine helps.

Pasta Tagliatelle with prosciutto and butter  

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

2-3 ounces prosciutto, torn into bite size pieces

Kosher salt 

Black pepper

¾ pound fresh tagliatelle pasta, or ½ pound dried fettuccine

½ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano plus more for serving

Tear prosciutto into bite sized bits. Grate the cheese and have the fresh or dry pasta ready to cook. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. 

Heat a frying pan that is large enough to hold all the cooked pasta and the prosciutto, over medium high heat. Add the butter and melt until it becomes frothy and golden in about 1 minute. When it is frothy, add half of the prosciutto in one layer. Cook until crisp in about 2-4 minutes. Transfer cooked prosciutto on to a paper towel. Cook the remaining prosciutto but when done, remove the pan from the burner and leaving the rest of the prosciutto in the pan.

Season boiling water lightly with salt. When the salt dissolves, add the fresh tagliatelle and cook until “toothsome” and slightly undercooked for about 2-4 minutes or according to the package. Cook longer if you are using dried pasta. When done, do not drain the pasta.

Just before the pasta is ready, return the frying pan to the stove and heat the remaining cooked prosciutto over medium heat. Using a slotted pasta fork or tongs, transfer the pasta into the frying pan. Working quickly, add ½ cup of the cheese and ¼ cup of pasta water. Swirl the pan vigorously and stir the pasta with a wooden spoon to thicken and combine the liquid and pasta. Sauce should become silky in about a minute. Pour the pasta into a large serving bowl, add the remaining prosciutto, grate some black pepper and serve with more Parmigiano-Reggiano. 

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 © 2023 Sarah Ringler - All rights reserved