Photo by SARAH RINGLER

After a rally, supporters of the Rail and Trail enter the Santa Cruz County Court House in Santa Cruz on Apr. 3 to leave messages to the County Supervisors letting them know the community wants rail and a trail.

The Community Comes Out for Rail and Trail and RTC Finalized Plan for Ultimate Trail

BY FAINA SEGAL

Our collective advocacy is making a difference. Two weeks ago, on Apr. 3, the community rallied together at the Board of Supervisors office to fight for the Rail Trail. And it worked. The Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) scheduled a special meeting on Apr. 18 where they would decide whether to press on with building the Mid-county trail from 17th Avenue to State Park Drive.

This all started when Bruce McPherson and Manu Koenig voted at the March 26 Board of Supervisors meeting against moving Segments 10 & 11 forward. Supervisors Justin Cummings and Felipe Hernandez voted in favor of the project, and Supervisor Friend had to recuse himself because his residence is near the tracks. The tied vote meant that the staff's detailed and well-thought-out proposal to move forward with the project was not approved, leaving the project in limbo. 

The failure to move ahead at that meeting surprised both the public and the county staff, especially since Segments 10 and 11 had already been awarded a record-breaking $68M state Active Transportation construction grant. McPherson and Koenig's bizarre votes against a project that will benefit the whole community cast that funding into jeopardy.

In the six days after the supervisor vote, we put the word out and organized a hugely successful rally for the trail. 85 people came to the county building. There were inspiring speeches from RTC Commissioner Mike Rotkin and from our Board Chair Matt Ferrell. We all walked up to the Supervisors' offices and posted and submitted messages calling on our elected officials to support the project.

Spreading half-truths and misinformation is a commonly used propaganda tactic employed by people who want to block projects. We can see a perfect example of this behavior in Manu Koenig's rhetoric following the Board of Supervisors vote. His misinformation about project funding is just one example. Read our full analysis of the project facts here...

Public pressure is making a difference. At the Apr. 18 meeting, the RTC voted to choose the Ultimate Trail and pushed the Board of Supervisors to move forward with the Rail and Trail projects 10 and 11 from 17th Avenue to State Park Drive.

This important approved motion was delivered on requests by RTC and County staff, as well as Santa Cruz County voters. 

The RTC approved these actions:

• Selects the Ultimate Trail design alongside the tracks as the project to be built.
• Allows staff to work together on cost savings measures, including working with Roaring Camp Railroads to help move the tracks to one side where needed.
• Directs staff to continue applying for more grants.
• Asks staff to identify a plan to move forward in getting the $67.8M Active Transportation grant disbursed to the RTC, should the Board of Supervisors continue to fail in moving forward with the project. 

In addition to these actions, RTC staff identified possible backup funding in the worst case scenario that the project is unable to secure additional grants. With the RTC providing a path forward for funding, the Ultimate Trail selected as the official project, and Roasting Camp offering to pitch in and help, there is no excuse not to approve the trail at the April 30 Supervisors' meeting. We can't afford any further delay. It’s not likely the county will be able to get more than one deadline extension from the California Transportation Commission on this critical grant.

We are optimistic that the Board of Supervisors will overcome the split decision and take the necessary action for Rail Trail Segments 10 and 11 to be built on schedule. But we know we can't stop our work. We will be showing up to the next Supervisors' Meeting on April 30 to continue to advocate for these projects.

It's hard to understand why our elected officials would oppose an active transportation project that will benefit so many. Especially when the project has already won such generous funding from the state. Our goal is to make sure the RTC commissioners know without a doubt that the public is watching and that we want them to build this project. 

We won't stop. We will keep showing up for a more connected community that is safer and healthier for everyone in Santa Cruz County. We need you to continue calling, writing Letters to the Editor and showing up at meetings to ensure Segments 10 and 11 get built as soon as possible. 

The opponents of the Rail and Trail projects are also not giving up. But with your help we can win this. Please give generously today so we can put the rail and trail project back on track.

Click HERE to support Santa Cruz County Friends of the Rail and Trail.

Reel Work Labor Film Festival

BY SARAH RINGLER

Reel Work Labor Film Festival presents this year's season of films about real people facing real odds and sometimes winning. Films will be shown in person and online from Apr. 25 to May 18. They are free but donations are accepted. Here are some of the films. For the full program, go here: http://reelwork.org/schedule.htm

Wrestling Jerusalem

(Dylan Kussman, 2016, 90 min, USA)

Writer-actor Aaron Davidman conjures a host of different characters while seeking answers to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He takes a multidimensional journey into the heart of the Middle East, and the intersection of politics, identity and spiritual yearning. He embodies and gives voice to 17 different characters on all sides of the existential divide – deftly moving between male and female, Jewish and Muslim, Israeli and Arab – modeling what it takes truly to bear witness through the eyes of the other, challenging long-held beliefs with sharp and unblinking observation.

Music with Mark Levy, singer, songwriter.

Co-sponsors: Resource Center for Nonviolence, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz for Bernie.

Watch trailer for Wrestling Jerusalem.

Thursday, Apr. 25, 7pm at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St, Santa Cruz

Event is also online:  Register at bit.ly/RW24Apr26

Being 80

(Bob Gliner, 2024, 56 min, Santa Cruz County, USA) 

This local documentary showcases a diverse range of vibrant, unique and memorable 80 year olds still finding meaning in their lives through long lived career choices contradicting the stereotype that their minds and bodies are obsolete in a world where only younger generations can make the world work. Speaker: Bob Gliner, filmmaker.

Saturday, Apr. 27, 4 pm at Mid-County Senior Center, 829 Bay Ave,, Capitola

Saturday, May 11, 2pm at Felton Branch Library, 6121 Gushee St., Felton

Stripped For Parts: Journalism on the Brink

(Rick Goldsmith, 2023, 99 minutes, USA)

Investigative reporter Julie Reynolds, Denver Post editorialist Chuck Plunkett, and a handful of others, backed by the NewsGuild union, go toe-to-toe with the faceless Alden Global Capital in a battle to save and rebuild local journalism across America. Who will control the future of America's news ecosystem: Wall Street billionaires concerned only with profit, or those who see journalism as an essential public service and the lifeblood of our democracy?

Speakers: Rick Goldsmith, filmmaker and Julie Reynolds, journalist.

Watch the trailer for Stripped For Parts.

Saturday, Apr. 27, 7pm at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz

This event is also available online. Register at bit.ly/RW24Apr27

Into The Weeds

(Jennifer Baichwal, 2022, 97 min, USA) 

A powerful story of a former Bay Area school district groundskeeper who was exposed on the job to the cancer-causing herbicide glyphosate. After he got cancer, a group of lawyers join together and successfully sued Monsanto.

Panelists: Mark Weller, Yanely Martinez, Kathleen Kilpatrick, and Woody Rehanek, pesticide safety activists with Californians for Pesticide Reform and Safe Ag, Safe Schools.

Watch the trailer for Into The Weeds.

Sunday, Apr. 28, at 7pm on Workers Memorial Day at Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz.

International Shorts A series of six labor-related short films from around the world. 

Tuesday, Apr. 30, 7 pm at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Also available online: Register at bit.ly/RW24Apr30

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

International Workers Day

DIY Labor Day Parade on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz

Understanding Gaza Series

Birth of a Conflict, Episode 1 - May 2, 7pm

Birth of a Conflict, Episode 2 - May 9, 7pm

Birth of a Conflict, Episode 2 - May 16, 7pm

(Avi Merkado Ettedgui & Yaron Niski, 2022, 55 min, Israel)

This 3-part documentary, part of the Understanding Gaza Series that was informed by newly declassified British diplomatic files, sheds new and surprising light on the British Mandate, the 30 years of British rule in Palestine from 1917 to 1948.

Episode 1: A Conflict Requires a Territory. The British Empire’s arrival in the Middle-East complicated the region by pitting ethnic groups against each other through well-practiced divide-and-conquer colonial management techniques.

Discussion led by UCSC professor Bruce Thompson.

Sponsored by the Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival.

May 2, 9 and 16 • 7 PM, Capitola Branch Library, 2005 Wharf Road, Capitola

Freeway Fighters - Divided Highways: The Interstates and the Transformation of American Life

(Lawrence Hott & Tom Lewis, 1997, 87 min, USA)

America’s desire for freedom and the open road resulted in the construction of thousands of highways during the Eisenhower administration. Through interviews, archival footage and photography, America’s interstate highway system is revealed to have shaped every aspect of American life and affected the nation’s history for better and for worse. Watch the trailer for Divided Highways.

Friday, May 3, 7pm at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz

Labor Song Circle

Aileen Vance brings her “Rise Up! Community Song Circle” to the festival with “We Do the Work!,” a program of labor songs to celebrate International Workers Day. Aileen, along with special guests Julie Olsen Edwards and Bonnie Lockhart will be performing and leading the songs of working people past and present. Together we are mighty; all organizing goes better when we sing together!

Song Leaders: Aileen Vance, Julie Olsen Edwards and Bonnie Lockhart.

Saturday, May 4, 2024 • 1:30pm, Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church, 2402 Cabrillo College Dr., Soquel

Events from May 5 to 18 will be featured next Friday.

SB 1011 (Jones) Defeated

BY SARAH RINGLER

On Apr. 16, the California State Senate Public Safety Committee voted down SB 1011, the punitive bill that would have prohibited sitting, lying, sleeping, or storing personal property within 500 feet of any public or private school, open space, or major transit stop, making large areas of cities and towns off-limits to the unhoused and others.

According to Eve Garrow of the Equal Rights for Every Neighbor Coalition, the bill was stalled on a 1-3 vote with Senator Kelly Seyarto (R) voting in favor of the measure, Senators Wahab (D-Silicon Valley), Skinner (D-Berkley), and Wiener (D-San Francisco) opposing the measure, and Senator Bradford (D-Gardena) abstaining from the measure. Garrow said, "This is the same committee that stopped Jones’ similar SB 31 last year with one Aye vote, one Noe vote, and three members abstaining. So we made progress by flipping abstaining members to NOE votes—even though this bill (unlike last year’s SB 31) had bipartisan support."

A big campaign of phone calls and social media sponsored by Equal Rights for Every Neighbor Coalition is credited with the success. Even though the bill was granted reconsideration, the group thinks its unlikely it will be brought up again.

Here are some quotes from the committee members during the hearing:

Senator Wahab, Chairperson: “Just because individuals that are unhoused make people uncomfortable does not mean that it should be criminalized. And this bill does that.”

Senator Skinner: “It’s kind of like trying to make a problem invisible versus addressing the core of the problem.”

Todos Vamos...... 

BY SARAH RINGLER

Watsonville Community Members for Public Restrooms is asking Watsonville and the Parks Department to provide and maintain bathrooms that are open 24 hours a day. To meet that criteria, public restrooms need to be designed so that they are always open and easy to clean.

Better bathroom designs are out there. Note that the roof partially covers the restroom. See photo at left.

PHOTO BY TARMO HANNULA

If you agree that more public restrooms are needed, call the City Council and Parks Commission in your town. In Watsonville, call the Watsonville City Council at 768-3040, Watsonville City Manager at 768-3010 and the Watsonville City Parks and Recreation Commission at 768-3240.  weallgowatsonville@gmail.com

PHOTO BY TARMO HANNULA

Third generation Japanese American artist Na Omi Judy Shintani held a Lantern Art Workshop that was open to the public last Saturday at the Watsonville Public Library as part of their Watsonville Reads program.

Toro Nagashi

BY WOODY REHANEK

Japanese paper lanterns 

float on the river.

They light the water

as a matter of honor.

The poems we write 

reach far in the night with boats

& floats & wings & kites.

Words craft worlds,

sculpt spectrums in sky,

shape sense or nonsense 

in free verse or rhymes.

Poems are cameos, vignettes,

fragments, sketches at best...

mosaics of memory & broken glass

salvaged from knowing that nothing lasts.

We write for uplift

in sink-or-swim fashion,

hoping our words have meaning

& linguistic passion

In ancient times the Japanese

 knew we came from water.

The floating paper lanterns meant

their ancestors were returning.

A poem is a paper lantern.

Sooner or later words wear off,

become lost, return to water source.

Imagine a world without words, liquified!

We write to bring light to liquidity, 

space to time, distance to intimacy,

islands to continents, words to the wordless,

rhymes woven in & out of time.

As poems like lanterns float away 

the need for words begins to fade.

Poets without words,

caballeros sin caballos,

fragile paper lanterns alone,

afloat in an almost empty sea & sky, 

wordlessly incandescent

in April. now. forever.

************

Photo by TARMO HANNULA 

According to allaboutbirds.org, European starlings were first brought to North American in the 1800s by lovers of William Shakepspeare. They are easy to find in our area and often don't look like much from afar. However, close up they display a rainbow of colors.

Santa Cruz County Covid-19 Report

By SARAH RINGLER

The California Department of Public Health and Santa Cruz County Health Department regularly release data on the current status of Covid-19 in the county as well as information on influenza, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and Mpox. Since cases of Covid are still appearing, and there are still vulnerable people, I will continue reporting the graphs below.

At-home Covid-19 test kits are currently available at the Watsonville Public Library, Main St.

The three graphs below were updated on Apr. 17.

The first graph is the Effective Reproductive Number. When the line rises above one, it shows that the spread of the virus is increasing. Below one means the spread is decreasing. 

The second graph below shows data that the Health Department collects for Covid from wastewater at the City Influent, for the city of Santa Cruz, and from the Lode Street pump stations for the county.



The third graph below shows hospitalizations.



The vaccination data for the county has stayed fairly constant increasing very little over time. Go HERE for new information on vaccination records, treatments, vaccines, tests, safety in the workplace and more.

Photo TARMO HANNULA

Fashion Street - This iconic sculpture that suffered from age and the elements on the campus of UC Santa Cruz now sits in a yard on Webb Road in the Pajaro Valley. It was replaced by a new one.

Labor History Calendar - April 19-25, 2024

a.k.a Know Our History Lest We Forget

April 19, 1943: Warsaw Ghetto uprising. 

April 20, 1914: Miners’ wives and children massacred at Ludlow by company guards and Colorado National Guards. 

April 21, 1834: 30,000 marched for freedom for the Tolpuddle Martyrs in England.

April 21, 1892: Black longshoreman workers strike in St. Louis.

April. 21, 2008: Teachers’ strike closes thousands of school in England.

April 21, 2023: Oil workers strike across Iran.

April 22, 1526: First American slave revolt at San Miguel de Gualdape at a short-lived Spanish colony founded by Lucas Vásquez de Ayylón. It was near present-day Carolinas or Georgia. 

April 22, 2010: Thousands demand governor veto vicious anti-immigration bill in Arizona but Jan Brewer signs it instead.

April 23, 1860: Charles H. Kerr, publisher, editor, writer born.

April 23, 1980: Death of Ida Mae Stoll, first woman coal miner.

April 24, 1913: 80 IWWs arrested in Denver free speech fight.

April 24, 1916: Irish Easter Rebellion.

April 24, 2013: 1,129 killed in Bangladesh factory collapse.

April 25, 1923: IWW Marine Transport Workers begin West Coast strike.

April 25, 1969: Ralph Abernathy and 100 others arrested for picketing Charleston, South Carolina hospital to support unionization.

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

"One of the happiest days of my life is when I made five or six hundred pesos from a crop of watermelons I raise all on my own."

Emiliano Zapata

Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Soufflé á la Disney

By SARAH RINGLER 

Many years ago my dad, Don Ringler, who was a history buff until he died in 2008, came across a copy of a 1936 cookbook from the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey called, “Famous Recipes by Famous People.” He got it from the wife of Harry Hayword who had once been the golf writer for San Francisco Chronicle. Many of the contributors to the cookbook were journalists, authors, musicians and people in the early movie business. 

The Del Monte was open in June 1880 by early banker and railroad corporatist, Charles Crocker, as a deluxe hotel for the elite. The golf course, opened in 1897 was one of the first west of the Mississippi River. The Duke of Kent, Marlene Dietrich, Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway and even a few US presidents stayed there. Despite destruction from a few fires and the 1906 earthquake, it was continually rebuilt and remained a deluxe hotel until it was sold to the US Navy in 1947 for $2.5 million. It is now the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.

The cookbook is divided into two parts. The first part is a mishmash of “recipes” contributed by famous people. The remainder contains recipes from the hotel. Here are a few examples of the recipes from the famous people. The recipe from Walt Disney was altered a little to make it more usable. I’m not sure I would have associated a soufflé recipe with Disney and like the accompanying text in the book said, “What? –  No Mickey Mouse?” 

The title of he recipe in the cookbook is,“Silly Symphony Soufflé – Walt Disney, who made everybody afraid of the big, bad wolf.” If you've never tried to make a soufflé before, this is a good recipe to try. You will need a soufflé dish. The mixture needs the straight sides to climb up so it can rise and inflate. If you use vegetables, steam first and dry on paper towels or cloth.

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup hot milk

1/3 teaspoon each salt and pepper

½ small onion, finely chopped 

1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

1 cup finely chopped cold meat, ham, chicken or steamed vegetable like broccoli or zucchini.

2 eggs separated

pinch of cream of tartar

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Grease a small 1 quart soufflé dish. Chop the meat, onions and parsley. Take the eggs and separate the yolks from the whites. 

Make a cream sauce. Heat the milk in a small saucepan. Melt the butter in another small saucepan over low heat. Stir the flour into the melted butter. Cook for a few minutes and then slowly pour in the hot milk stirring the entire time. The mixture should thicken. Now, add the chopped parsley, onions and salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes. Next, add the chopped meat. Cook a bit longer and finally beat in the 2 yolks. Let the mixture cool. 

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff. Gently fold into the yolk-cream sauce mixture attempting to not lose the volume of the beaten egg white. Carefully, with a large spoon, scoop the final mixture into the greased soufflé pan. Bake about 30 minutes. It is done when the top is golden brown and looks dry. Be careful to avoid jarring the stove or the soufflé will fall. Serves 3. 

Send your story, poetry or art here: Please submit a story, poem or photo of your art that you think would be of interest to the people of Santa Cruz County. Try and keep the word count to around 400. Also, there should be suggested actions if this is a political issue. Submit to coluyaki@gmail.com

Send comments to coluyaki@gmail.com

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Subscribe, contact or find back issues at the website https://serf-city-times.constantcontactsites.com

Thanks, Sarah Ringler

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. 

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