No, it’s not a surfing documentary—unless you want to make some strained metaphor about riding the waves of life.
But the gripping domestic drama Waves is an often-fascinating piece of filmmaking that encompasses euphoria, tragedy and every conceivable emotion in between in depicting a solid American family unit sliding in and out of crisis. The movie is written and directed by Trey Edward Shults, who establishes himself as a filmmaker worth watching with a particular voice and viewpoint.
While some incidents in this story of a middle-class black family in South Florida seem like they could have been torn from screaming headlines, Shults humanizes everything with his skilled and careful attention to the personal relationships that guide our lives—between parents and children, siblings, and couples both new and long-established. The story is often intense, but Shults’ characters are so involving, and his filmmaking so astute and focused, that he keeps us reeled in.
Shults plunges us into the middle of everything with a long, careening opening montage of daily life for high school senior Tyler (an excellent Kelvin Harrison Jr.)—reckless driving with his girlfriend, Alexis (Alexa Demie); wrestling practice at the school gym, with his coach’s ferocious motivational speeches; spatting with his kid sister, Emily (Taylor Russell). Their dad, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), runs his own contracting business, for which his warm, loving wife, Catharine (Renee Elise Goldsberry) does the books.
Ronald is a forceful presence in the family. He doesn’t let his kids get away with any drama, makes sure they get to church (where the sermon is on love and forgiveness), and behave with respect. His standards are demanding, but he has a close relationship with his only son, whether they’re arm-wrestling at the diner after church or working out in their home gym, where he dispenses advice and philosophy. “We can’t afford the luxury of average,” he tells Tyler. “We have to work twice as hard.”
Although the plot hinges on major events, the movie draws its power from the accumulation of small details. Much of the story is told from Tyler’s viewpoint (which means that there’s a lot of reeling camerawork, neon colors and loud, throbbing rock music). He faces issues with Alexis, gets some bad news that might jeopardize his wrestling, and starts sneaking his dad’s painkillers.
As the movie cruises along, there are plenty of moments when it all might explode. But Shults keeps us guessing about when and how that explosion will come, while, in the meantime, we become more involved with the characters and how their stories might play out. And because we don’t know exactly where it’s going, we feel what finally pushes the family to the breaking point even more keenly.
The cast inhabits their characters beautifully; we never feel like we’re watching actors at work. With the dynamics between them constantly evolving, one false note could throw the whole thing off-balance, but everything here rings true. Russell is especially impressive as kid sister Emily. Mostly in the background at first, until a tender, pivotal scene with Tyler, she emerges with quiet poise and unexpected strength as the movie’s focus shifts to her.
Like a composer for opera or musical theater, Shults creates a recurring theme for each character in terms of mood—serious and a bit edgy for Ronald, frenzied and hormonal for Tyler, wistful serenity for Emily. Sometimes their inner soundtracks clash, but sometimes tentative harmonies emerge.
Some moments in Waves are difficult to watch, but that’s the trade-off for a movie that delivers this much emotional intensity. It wouldn’t affect us so deeply if we didn’t care so much about these characters.
WAVES
*** (out of four)
With Taylor Russell, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Sterling K. Brown. Written and directed by Trey Edward Shults. An A24 release. Rated R. 135 minutes.
As longtime owners of Pelican Ranch Winery, Phil Crews and his wife Peggy certainly know their onions when it comes to making wine. And as a chemistry professor at UCSC, Phil also knows a thing or two about blending components.
For his bright 2018 Rosé of Zinfandel, grapes are harvested from Prosperity Grape Field in Fiddletown, Amador County. With its warm Mediterranean climate and an elevation of nearly 1,700 feet, Fiddletown is producing some splendid fruit from its vineyards.
“This is classic, dry, pink-style Rosé with fresh strawberry and rose petal nose,” Phil says.
I always think of Rosé as a happy wine. And as it gains popularity, more and more lovers of the grape are buying Rosé. It’s an easy-drinking wine with a party-time appeal. Pelican Ranch’s 2018 vintage—its latest release—comes with a convenient screw cap. Clocking in at $20, it can be found at markets and liquor stores all over town.
Sandwiched between Sante Adairius Rustic Ales and Drink La Vie (probiotic juices) in Capitola, Pelican Ranch is in a happening spot. You can try wine, beer and juice all in one day!
Many of you will remember the delicious cuisine prepared by Kirsten Ponza as executive chef at Chaminade in Santa Cruz. Ponza is now a personal chef and baker, preparing everything from meals in your home to baking whatever you need for a party, wedding or celebration. You can contact her at pe***************@gm***.com or 331-5491.
Wine Makes a Wonderful Gift
It’s that time of year when you’re wondering what to buy Uncle Fred and Cousin Joe for Christmas. Wine makes such a great gift. Shop for local wines and you will be supporting winemakers and vintners all over the Santa Cruz Mountains. An ideal gift would be a Passport or two for wine tasting, available at the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association and many local wineries. scmwa.com.
Once an employee of the Point Market at Pleasure Point, Sasha Nemonchok partnered with the owners this year to develop his vision for a sister store on East Cliff at 14th Street, right above the beach and the eponymous Black Point.
It’s a reinterpretation of the bodegas of Philadelphia with a strong Santa Cruz spin—a friendly mix of corner store, cafe and deli, top shelf and bottom, staples and luxuries. Black Point Market stocks necessities, from sunblock and candy to beer, wine and kombucha. House Chef Hunter pours espresso and slings hot and cold sandwiches, soups, fresh-baked cookies and pastries, and other prepared entrées and sides.
What’s the vibe you’re going for?
SASHA NEMONCHOK: I wanted a bodega-like feel. It’s your corner market. It’s your one-stop shop. Whether you’re a local or just passing through for a day or a week, we just wanted to make sure we had what you would need. So the basics like your butter and milk and eggs, baking supplies, things that you might need in a pinch, like, ‘Oh my god, I need corn starch,’ or something like that. A little bit of beach stuff.
We’re making a point of appealing to everyone, so that just means we typically have an affordable option and then an upper-scale option. Fancy honey, cheap honey. Fancy hot dogs, cheap hot dogs. Everyone deserves to be here, is kind of our mentality.
What’s happening at the deli?
Gourmet-to-go sounds a little pretentious, but maybe convenient comfort food is one way to put it. We’re focused on nostalgic sandwiches, sandwiches that bring back memories, so like chicken salad and tuna salad, those are key. We make an authentic Cuban. There’s a hoagie, and that’s an east-coast-style sub packed full of ham, capicola, salami. Meatball subs should be coming pretty soon here. Our meatloaf is insane… all fresh, made from scratch. It’s all chef-driven, straightforward, simple food, nostalgic food.
Black Point Market, 2-1400 East Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz. 713-5842, Instagram: @blackpoint.market, facebook.com/blackpointmarket.
When impeachment fever first started to build earlier this year, some people around here wondered where their Central Coast Congressman Jimmy Panetta stood, and why he wasn’t a more vocal supporter. That’s sort of the question that this week’s cover story originally came out of when I first discussed it with Steve Kettmann months ago. Over the course of reporting this story, Kettmann did get Panetta to talk at length about his feelings on the subject, but he did a lot more, too, broadening the scope of the story to explain how big California’s role has been in the impeachment story so far, and how this state has in many ways come to represent the primary opposition to Donald Trump’s administration.
What I think is key, though, in making this a deeper, important story for GT is that he went beyond even that, encouraging the political insiders with whom he spoke to think about the role California will play in national politics after this impeachment drama comes to an end—whatever that looks like.
In Santa Cruz Gives news, we are at press time just a few thousand dollars away from reaching our total from the entire campaign last year—and we still have about a month to go. We can get even closer to our ambitious goal for this year with an extra push this Giving Tuesday week. It’s not just about the dollar total; we also want to bring in more donors than ever before to make this a true community-wide effort. If you’ve been thinking about helping out one of our local nonprofits, make this the week you go to santacruzgives.org and do it!
I am glad Sheila Carrillo and a “large study group of white folks” are reading White Fragility.” It’s important for “white folks” to understand their privileged status and focus on systemic racism rather than finger pointing at “racists.”
We all make assumptions, as did Ms. Carrillo. Martine is biracial. Her dad was the first African-American elected as County Superintendent of Schools in California and currently serves as president of the California Association of African-American Superintendents and Administrations. Martine is part of a family where race and social justice are discussed regularly. Based on assumptions, “white folks” have attempted to define her racial identity. In high school, her white English teacher returned her paper on James Baldwin with a red circle around her phrase: “as an African-American,” adding “as a WHAT?” Assumptions cause perhaps unintentional, nevertheless hurtful micro-aggressions.
Race is complex, and “white folks” generally don’t know much about descendants of enslaved Africans. Martine’s grandparents, though light skinned, were proudly African American. Her great-grandmother had dark skin. “White folks” seldom understand how their whiteness and privilege have created internalized racism. Martine isn’t white, or fragile. She is comfortable talking about race and has integrity. In her professional life and as mayor, she takes seriously the responsibility to work to make things more equitable. I wonder how fragile Ms. Carrillo might be under the vitriolic, abusive attacks Martine withstands in the city council meetings.
Ms. Carrillo noted “we all operate with some level of bias and prejudice, and as long as we can’t acknowledge it within ourselves, the resulting unconscious discriminations will not be addressed.” While it’s laudable that the “large study group of white folks” are beginning to work through their fragility, biases and assumptions, it isn’t okay to publicly judge and criticize anyone without being certain of the facts.
Anne Watkins
Aptos
Practical Matters
There is so much deception circulating, that “locals(?)” are still inadvertently enabling freight trains over passenger service! Years ago, while traveling throughout Switzerland and countries that put our transportation to shame, I envisioned passenger train systems simultaneously providing express and local functions.
Unfortunately, constraints—including only allowing single-tracking over the 32-mile Santa Cruz County corridor—makes proper commuter rail impossible. Why wait until at least 2035 for something everyone would regret? (As a practical engineer, I know what is bunk and what will work.) Incorporating new existing Metro electric buses instead can provide ASOG, safe and efficient mass-transportation, cost-effectively (bicyclists and those on foot can also be accommodated 24/7).
We need a government with genuine common sense leaders who truly understand that they were entrusted to work for the people, not for-profit corporations or only for themselves.
Bob Fifield
Aptos
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
Now in its fourth year, the Santa Cruz Recycled Art Program (SCRAP) is an artist residency for local artists of various disciplines. It lets the six artists get creative and access to an array of materials gleaned from the waste stream at the city’s Resource Recovery Facility to convey stories of cultural behavior and environmental messages. This year’s opening reception is Friday, Dec. 8, from 5-9pm at the R. Blitzer Gallery in the Wrigley building, located at 2801 Mission St., Santa Cruz.
GOOD WORK
The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Hall somehow convinced the one and only Santa Claus to visit its new location at 1960 Freedom Blvd. this Sunday, Dec. 6 from 8am-noon. Santa’s elves will be there to serve a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage, fruit, and beverages. There will be live performances. Breakfast With Santa is $6 for children and seniors and $7 for adults. Kids under 2 eat free. Holiday games, photos with Santa and build-a-gift activity are all free of charge. There will be raffle tickets and gifts to buy.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.”
This is perhaps the most lit holiday event of the year. Local mariners decorate their boats with lights and holiday decorations and parade them across the harbor for your oohing and aahing pleasure. The event will happen rain or shine, so grab a hot chocolate and a blanket and get there early for a good seat. The parade can be viewed from either side of the harbor, so feel free to stroll along the channel, too. Parking is extremely limited, so biking or carpooling is encouraged.
INFO: 5:30pm. Saturday, Dec. 7. Santa Cruz Harbor, 135 5th Ave., Santa Cruz. santacruzharbor.org. Free.
Art Seen
S.C.R.A.P Opening Reception
Sometimes, the best art materials aren’t sold in stores. In the annual Santa Cruz Recycled Art Project (SCRAP), local artists collect materials from the dump to repurpose into art. This year’s project includes six residents who have embraced the interactive and humorous altar to “Sapiens” through video, photography, assemblage art, a tiny house, giant Pick Up-Sticks, jewelry and an alchemist’s library of tar paper books. Artwork ranges from the poignant—exploring themes of housing and homelessness in our cultural worship of consumption—to the more ethereal and fun, like a “dump dollar store.” Exhibit runs through Saturday, Dec. 28.
INFO: First Friday reception 6-9pm, Friday Dec. 6. Artist talks 2pm, Sunday, Dec. 8. R. Blitzer Gallery, 2801 Mission St., Santa Cruz. Free.
Saturday 12/7
Tannery Winter Art Market
The Tannery is one of the most creative hubs in the county, and their Winter Arts Market is a prime example. The annual event features 20 Tannery studios and dozens of artists, including ceramicists, jewelers, sculptors, and embroiderers, each selling one-of-a-kind gifts for the holidays. There’s something for everyone at this one-stop shop, so why not invest in local arts while getting your holiday shopping done early?
INFO: 10am-5pm. The Tannery Arts Center, 1010 River St., Santa Cruz. tanneryartscenter.org. Free.
Friday 12/6 and Sunday 12/7
‘Fiestas Mexicanas’
December In Mexico is an annual show presented by Senderos that brings the beauty of Mexico to dance this holiday season. There will be different dances from various regions in Mexico and authentic homemade Mexican food. The show benefits Senderos, a volunteer-based nonprofit in Santa Cruz providing free dance and music classes, tutoring and scholarships for Latino youth.
INFO: 7pm. Harbor High Theater, 300 LaFonda Ave., Santa Cruz. 854-7750, sccenderos.org. $10.
Friday 12/6
‘Unapologetically Black Art Show’ Grand Opening
The Resource Center for Nonviolence’s latest exhibit focuses on the theme, “What is black art?” The show questions if black art is supposed to represent black people and issues. Or, is it simply any art produced by artists of African or black heritage? Featured artists include Justice Renaissance, Karren Moorer, TheArthur, Elijah Pfotenhauer, Devi Pride, Kendra Dosenbach, Valeria Miranda, Dwight Tashann Chism, Robert Endacott-Keller, and Javance Henderson. There will also be a panel discussion with the featured artists about what is means to be a black artist in today’s world.
INFO: 6pm. Resource Center for Nonviolence, 612 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. 423-1626, rcnv.org. Free.
Forget the prognostications. It’s anyone’s guess at this point how Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment will play out, or how it may shape next year’s circus-atmosphere national elections, but one important dynamic has already emerged unmistakably: Trump’s impeachment currently unfolding in Washington is a largely Californian-driven undertaking, which is why it has succeeded so far where other moves to hold “Teflon Don” accountable have fallen short.
In one recent poll, 70% of those surveyed across the country found it “wrong” that the president hijacked U.S. aid to our key ally Ukraine to serve his personal interests. In the same poll, a majority (51%) favored impeachment and removal from office. Polls will bounce around, and the right-wing media machine will spin, but it’s unlikely any of that can stop Trump from being impeached in the House and landing in a Senate impeachment trial, at the very least. As the headline on a recent column by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank put it, “Republicans Have a New Enemy: Truth Itself.”
“These facts are going to stand the test of time,” Eric Swalwell, the East Bay Congressman who sits on both the House Intelligence and House Judiciary Committee, recently told GT. “It’s just a matter of, at this moment, will they stand the test of courage for Republicans? No president has had more damning facts raised about his conduct than Donald Trump. I’m confident. I know who we are as a country. I know we will come out of this dark time that he’s set upon us, and I know that our children and grandchildren will look back on the people who tried to hold him accountable and bring light to our democracy. It’s just a question of: Which part of the effort do you want to be associated with?”
California has played a big role in the impeachment proceedings, and California will also be called upon to lead the way in the post-impeachment era, whatever that ends up looking like.
“Nothing defines this presidency better than Mr. Trump’s war with California,” Clay Risen—deputy editor of the New York Times op-ed page and author of the upcoming book The Crowded Hour, about Theodore Roosevelt—told GT. “California is arguably the most progressive state in America, and it’s also arguably the most powerful, so it was inevitable that the state would clash with such an extremely conservative White House. Even setting aside the unique conflict around impeachment, as well as Mr. Trump’s singular need to personalize his political fights and demonize his political enemies, we’d still be witnessing an epic clash between such a diverse, environmentally forward state and any president with such an extreme deregulatory agenda and racist immigration policy.”
Panetta on Pelosi
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, another Northern Californian, has consistently been underestimated, but she has proven a worthy foil to Trump. She enraged many by resisting an impeachment inquiry, but moved on her own schedule with impeccable timing, according to some fellow Democrats.
“Her political acumen is like no other,” Central Coast Congressman Jimmy Panetta told GT by phone. “I really don’t think there could be another Democrat who could handle the extreme left in our party and also smack down Donald Trump as she’s been doing. She knows Donald Trump, and that’s why she can get under his skin by just being herself. She’s so politically in tune with people. She understands that Donald Trump has a fear of being exposed that he’s in over his head as president of the United States.”
The knife edge of the impeachment effort has been California Congressman Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, whose unflappability in the glare of the impeachment hearings has stood out all the more when juxtaposed with the sulky fury and bizarre pushing of debunked conspiracy theories by bizarro-world opposite, Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, whose Central California district includes Fresno. Nunes went from widespread ridicule—“Devin Nunes Accuses Witnesses of Misleading American People With Facts” was the satirical headline of an Andy Borowitz New Yorker piece—to accusations, just as the hearings were wrapping up, that he’s actually implicated in the Ukraine shakedown scandal himself. As Charlie Pierce wrote at Esquire.com, “Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani’s Volga Bagmen who now sits under federal indictment, has indicated that he can put Rep. Devin Nunes, the famous White House lawn ornament, in the middle of the effort to concoct the Ukrainian Fantasy about the ratfucking of the 2016 election.”
Nunes, along with Kevin McCarthy the leaders of a shrinking-before-our-eyes, all-in-on-Trumpism California Republican delegation, both led the party strategy of turning the hearings into a sideshow—the weirder and crazier, apparently, the better. (I kept waiting for Nunes to return from one of his frequent restroom breaks and start juggling flaming torches as he played the kazoo.) The strategy may have had short-term benefits, at least when it came to easily led media types eager to demonstrate that they themselves could be manipulated, but dangerous in that it left an opening for Schiff, by contrast, to come across as serious and trustworthy, willing to let the facts speak for themselves.
“I’m very pleased that the investigation into the Ukrainian phone call is under the authority of chairman Schiff,” says Panetta, himself a former prosecutor. “I’ve had a lot of conversations about this with him. He looks at cases like a prosecutor. He makes sure we put all the evidence out there upon which the American people, and Congress, can make a decision.”
Not only is Jimmy Panetta the son of former Defense Secretary and California Congressman Leon Panetta, he’s also married to Carrie McIntyre Panetta, a Monterey County Superior Court Judge.
“It’s easy to be a good prosecutor when you have the evidence,” says Jimmy Panetta. “That combined with Schiff’s amazing knowledge of the law and a very cool demeanor is a very good combination. It reminds me of my wife, who is a judge; she understands the law and she understands people. Schiff did a great job running that hearing, pushing back on the Republican theatrics, and making sure the evidence is getting out there from the witnesses, not from the Republican members. Let’s help the American people rely on what the witnesses said, not the screaming and yelling of the Republicans on the committee.”
Beyond Impeachment
Californians like to cut through the fog to form a clear view of the future. This state has led the way often enough that it’s a responsibility and a duty of Californians to continue to look for ways forward, some of which will succeed, and some will fail. But we can confront the future not with fear or anger, but with optimism and hope and belief in the power of bringing diverse people together to forge a stronger whole.
We in California have played an outsized role in counterbalancing Trumpism, and we will also play an outsized role in helping lead the way toward a new post-Trump world. Let’s be very clear: This will be hard, very hard. Trumpism played off of–and magnified–weaknesses of human character, the ease with which some are seduced by power, and the the terrifying ease with which hate and recrimination can take over any conversation. The healing and rebuilding need to start even before Trump and the presidency are, somehow, disentangled.
“People need to understand that yes, our democracy is based on our values, but it’s left up to people to implement those values,” says Panetta. “It’s left up to moral people, people who have the morality to push these values forward. As we go forward, as we act and work with each other, in Congress but also in our society, we have to realize that … this is a democracy that’s about relationships and about trust, and we have to work on that.”
Swalwell believes Panetta will be a big part of that. “My respect for Jimmy is rooted in his service to the community as a trusted prosecutor, to the country as a solider, and now to the Congress as an advocate for bipartisan collaboration,” says Swalwell. “I’ve known him as he’s worked in all three roles, and think very highly of him.”
Like the resistance thus far, the post-Trump recovery will have to start at a grassroots, interpersonal level, Panetta says. “Yes, it can be difficult with technology where people can sit at their desks and send out a social-media post and not see that reaction from another person that yes, you’re being offensive,” he says. “It takes actually getting out and looking people eye to eye and talking to them. I think there needs to be a little more humility in how we conduct ourselves, not just in Congress, but in our society. There has to be a continuing curiosity about people … Ideally you want people to get out from their computers, get out from their Twitter and Facebook accounts, and make sure they actually get in front of people: Have the fortitude to look someone in the eye and actually say something, whether it be positive or negative.”
The challenge is always to keep people interested and engaged between elections, not just every four years. Looking ahead to 2020, Swalwell sees a political earthquake.
“There is going to be a reckoning at the ballot box regardless of what happens on impeachment, and I think it will cascade after that,” Swalwell said. “As a Californian, I know personally what Prop. 187 did to the Republican Party in California. They have not climbed out of that hole, for the way they treated immigrants, particularly of Hispanic descent, and look at the delegation they now have in Congress. In the upcoming national elections, those that sought to be Donald Trump’s public defenders are not going to be along much longer in public life.”
It was telling during the recent televised impeachment hearings how often Republican defenders resorted to yelling, interrupting and various other antics. A political science professor at Berkeley taught me years ago that you could learn a lot about a presidential debate by turning off the sound. Who looks calm and collected? Who makes good eye contact? Who comes off as sweaty and nervous? Who seems intent on distraction? Who has worked himself up into such a state of actual or fake anger that he barely listens to a word anyone says to him?
A great fight lies ahead to mobilize and bring about the electoral defeat of Trumpism, whether the orange one himself is actually a candidate next year, or Nikki Haley or someone of her ilk runs as a Trumpist candidate, but it’s a fight we now know we can win–the first step toward undoing the damage of these years, and looking for new ways to bring people together.
We also need to point the way forward—as California has been doing, but especially needs to do now, above all by tackling its own problems, which are epic, and making the most of its best qualities, like diversity and a flair for innovation. As I wrote in a June 2018 New York Times piece: “In the Trump era, the state is reinventing itself as the moral and cultural center of a new America.”
It now falls to us to challenge ourselves to do better in that role of leadership, both in terms of solving our own problems so we can serve as role models and in being vocal and active, without falling back on easy answers or old pieties. We no longer have the luxury of the smugness this state has developed a reputation for, and I say this as a fifth-generation Californian, the descendent of 49ers and Spanish colonialists.
We don’t have to meet anger with anger, or insult with insult. We just have stick up for California values – from innovation to respect for diversity to commitment to fighting climate change, even with bold steps like mandating all new homes be solar-equipped. As I wrote in the Times, “California doesn’t just oppose Mr. Trump; it offers a better alternative to the America he promises.”
Five months after an effort to recall two Santa Cruz city councilmen went public, the City Council has voted to certify the results and officially send the matter to the ballot after recall organizers met the threshold for petition signatures.
The latest step will raise four new questions for Santa Cruz city voters to answer on their March 3 ballots. First, voters will have the opportunity to recall either or both Drew Glover and Chris Krohn. Voters will also get to weigh in on who they would like to replace the councilmembers in the event that either does get recalled. Candidates interested in replacing Glover or Krohn will be able to run for either race, but not for both of them. The filing deadline for new candidates is Thursday, Dec. 19.
The recall has been controversial. Last month, Lee Brokaw, a supporter of Glover and Krohn, filed a complaint against the recall campaign with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office.
Recall organizers began officially collecting signatures for the effort this past June. Glover, who was elected last year, and Krohn, who was elected in 2016, have both faced scrutiny for issues including their support of a homeless encampment and their conduct at the city. The two hold down the most liberal wing of Santa Cruz’s all-Democrat City Council. A big part of the recall campaign going forward will be that City Council meetings have been “just chaos” lately, organizer Dan Coughlin says.
But in his complaint, Brokaw, a general contractor, cites various alleged instances where recall signature gatherers either misrepresented themselves or lied in order to get voters to sign—including allegations that GT has reported (“Out Lying,” 10/16). “I’d never done anything like this before,” he says. “I’m a builder, not a lawyer.” Brokaw has not heard back from the secretary of state.
Former Mayor Mike Rotkin, a veteran of local political campaigns, says his guess is that Padilla’s office is not going to get involved, and he insists he doesn’t say that out of animus or any sense of partisanship. “They have other fish to fry, but we’ll see,” Rotkin says. “I don’t know many campaigns that everyone agrees it was so clean. Everyone always thinks the other side is scum.”
Rotkin has also never heard of anyone local filing an election complaint with the secretary of state. Complaints with the Fair and Political Practices Commission (FPPC) are more common. He says that an FPPC complaint has probably been filed for one race or another in just about every election since 1970—and often, no one hears a determination on the investigation. (According to the secretary of state’s website, there’s a broad swath of campaign law, and these particular sorts of allegations involving unscrupulous signature gatherers do go to the secretary of state, not the FPPC.)
As it happens, Rotkin says many have been asking him to run again for the council, in light of the recall. “I’m not interested, and I’m not running,” he says.
As far as GT has been able to confirm, the race has only one official candidate so far: school teacher Renee Golder, who served on the Public Safety Task Force in 2013. Golder plans on running for Glover’s seat. Of the two potential openings, that slot would cover a longer timeframe, with the term expiring in December 2022.
Former Los Gatos City Manager Greg Larson—a candidate in last year’s council race, whose name had been floated as a possible candidate this time around—says he will not run. Former Councilmember Micah Posner says he won’t, either.
Former Mayor Don Lane says he’s considering a run for the Krohn’s seat, which would last through the end of 2020. Lane, who retired from politics in 2016, says he would not be interested in serving a term longer than that. Other potential candidates did not respond to GT’s inquiries.
According to a Santa Cruz city agenda report, the election’s estimated cost will be between $79,382 and $158,764—or $2-4 per voter.
At the Tuesday, Nov. 26, City Council meeting, Glover argued unsuccessfully that the council should decline to rubber-stamp recall results. That would have forced the county elections clerk to certify the recall instead.
Glover called on any one of his colleagues, “not being targeted by the recall” to make that motion. That prompted a long pause from the rest of the council. Councilmember Sandy Brown felt that, although she’s had concerns about the recall process, she wasn’t sure that it would be right for the city to sidestep its responsibility to put the vote on the ballot. She said she wouldn’t make the motion. After another pause, Vice Mayor Cummings made a motion to accept the staff recommendation to place the item on the ballot. It passed 4-3 with, Glover, Krohn and Brown dissenting.
Coughlin says he doesn’t fault Glover for trying to get the council to vote differently. If Glover had been successful, Coughlin argues, the councilman could have used the vote to delegitimize the whole recall process. “I thought it was a good political move on his part,” says Coughlin.
Coughlin says he has actually met with Glover and gotten to know him—and that he harbors no ill-will toward him, as Glover’s doing what he said he would do on the campaign trail.
“He’s doing what he said he was gonna do, and so I actually don’t dislike him,” Coughlin says. “He’s representing the folks he said he was going to represent. It’s just that I totally have a different philosophical, political position than he does.”
Coughlin says conversations about starting the recall went back to early 2019, which was shortly after Glover took office. That was when the council was considering passing a controversial just-cause eviction ordinance similar to the rent control measure that had been soundly defeated at the ballot a mere two months earlier.
In the middle of the campaign, the city released an investigation into the conduct of Glover and Krohn—substantiating claims that each had violated the city’s Respectful Workplace Conduct policy. Santa Cruz city employees increasingly started signing onto petitions after that, Coughlin says.
Some supporters of Krohn and Glover paint the effort to remove two councilmembers as part of a larger trend of right-wing groups across the country using recalls as coordinated attacks on more liberal politicians. Environmental activist Rick Longinotti, for instance, emailed GT articles about Republicans leveraging the tool to try and get back power in Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, Texas, and California.
Coughlin says that the recall campaign hasn’t coordinated with any political group, including the Santa Cruz County Republican Party. The political makeup of those who signed their names, he adds, roughly matches that of Santa Cruz.
“I don’t know of anyone who identifies as right-wing that was heavily involved in the recall,” he says.
Helping students scale a rock face or backpack through the wilderness is just a typical day at the office for Mountains 2 Sea co-founders Jamey and Brian King. Through its year-round program, the Santa Cruz nonprofit takes youth ages 15-19 on about 30 outdoor adventures annually. That includes sailing trips, hikes and environmental stewardship activities, like cleaning up beaches, soil sampling and planting native species.
“We use outdoor activities as a catalyst to really help the kids challenge themselves and find some new self-confidence,” Brian explains. He says that while the outdoor excursions are fun, they’re about more than just adventure. “Our real goal is to help them find compassion for themselves, which leads to compassion for others, and then compassion for the environment.”
Mountains 2 Sea is participating this year in Santa Cruz Gives, the community fundraising drive sponsored by GT that helps support local nonprofits during the holiday season. Mountains 2 Sea is one of 19 education-based organizations participating this year. The group gets a small program fee—usually less than 10% of its total budget—from participating schools, and it relies heavily on fundraising for the rest.
The Kings, who both have backgrounds in classroom teaching, focus their program on helping youth who come from difficult, often-traumatic home lives. To help students open up, each weekly lesson begins with an emotional well-being check-in. Students share warm drinks, like tea or hot cocoa, while setting intentions for the day and sharing experiences.
“This honestly is one of the most impactful parts of our day,” says Jamey. “It can last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.”
Each nonprofit participating in Santa Cruz Gives has a “big idea” that its fundraising haul will support. Mountains 2 Sea is raising money to help fund six sailing adventures and three rock-climbing excursions.
Jamey says that sailing in particular creates the opportunity for the students to learn how to work as a team. “Every time we go out, the students prepare, rig and even drive the boat,” she says. “That requires high levels of communication and working together.”
During the climbing excursions, students receive safety lessons, earn belay certifications, and practice at the local climbing gym Pacific Edge before taking their skills to Castle Rock State Park. Jamey notes that for many students, trusting others can be difficult. Climbing lets them practice trusting their belayer, who controls the climbing rope, with their lives.
The nonprofit also helps students get to know the surrounding ecosystems in Santa Cruz County. “Land and access to parks should not be a privilege,” says Brian. “I really believe that students will be healthier and families will be happier if they just understand how to access the land.”
Having a chance to unplug and unwind during outings, all of which are device-free, also helps students focus on regular classroom studies, Brian says. “Nature has this way of bringing your anxiety down. It’s calming and it’s a slower pace than our technological-driven lives,” he says. “After getting them out for the day, they would come back to the classroom a little more ready to learn or able to process a little more of their lives.”
That sentiment is shared by the Bird School Project, another local nonprofit participating in this year’s Santa Cruz Gives. The group works with more than 3,000 middle school-aged students each year, teaching them about the values of birding and environmental awareness.
“Our general mission is to inspire and equip both students and teachers to love, study and steward their local environment,” says Kevin Condon, co-founder and executive director of the Bird School Project.
Rather than taking students on field trips, the Bird School Project focuses primarily on introducing students to their own campuses. To do this, instructors lead students through birding lessons in their schoolyards.
“The main goal is to show the students that you don’t have to go far to experience nature and start developing a connection,” says Condon, “We really aim to have it be a part of their science class and their schoolyards.”
During lessons, students learn how to use a field guide, identify local birds, record their findings and relax in their local environment.
“Being an adolescent person is a distracting time. There’s so much going on socially for these students,” he says. “Getting them outside and getting them in a space where they can be undistracted, even just for an hour, to me that feels like the most important part of what we do.”
Visit santacruzgives.org to donate to any of this year’s 37 participating nonprofits.
The Santa Cruz Sentinel’s website has a feature that has left some readers—Nuz included—scratching their heads.
Most pages on the Sentinel’s site display a column featuring the eight stories that are supposedly the “Most Popular” at that time. The list usually contains at least one headline that seems out of place, like “BREAKING NEWS: Man found dead at Santa Cruz Harbor.”
What’s so weird about that headline, you ask? Well, if you clicked on that link when it was among the site’s most popular stories a couple months back, it would have directed you to a four-paragraph article from 11 years ago about a man being found dead in a coastal parking lot. This begs the question: How does an 111-word staff report get to be the most read story on the Sentinel, as it supposedly was one day in September? Certainly not because of the depth of its reporting. And it wouldn’t make sense for the ranking to have come from any boost in search engine results or social media, either. It that were the case, the story would have stayed in the queue for longer or rotated back in again at some point. And it’s odd to think that so many readers would suddenly get interested in what’s essentially a police press release from 2009—and all of them at the same time.
This happens with very old Sentinel stories pretty much every day. Some of the “most popular” stories are seemingly random dispatches, often with salacious headlines about murders and other frightening events from long ago. It’s anyone’s guess why this carousel of crazy-old stories keeps moving, although Nuz is happy to bat around theories. Is the Sentinel—which is run by an uber-capitalist, profit-hoarding hedge fund—manipulating its back-end algorithms or cherry-picking old stories to get more clicks? In the interest of cutting costs, did the paper hire a 3-year-old to run its website?
Nuz acknowledges that this isn’t the most pressing matter facing the Sentinel these days. The bigger story, of course, is that the already thinly staffed paper saw four writers and editors leave this year, and hasn’t replaced any of them… and that the entire operation at this point is held together by a mixture of spit and twine and by the experience of its longest-tenured reporters Nicholas Ibarra and Jessica York… aaaannndd that the paper isn’t running editorials anymore. Pretty much the only positive cut they’ve made is axing their crazy, vitriol-driven comments section online, although we do kinda miss watching activist Steve Trujillo graciously try to shout down right-wing trolls like a birthday kid pounding away at an arcade Whack-a-Mole game.
WELL OK, THEN
Nuz is officially pretty sure it’s a good thing that Santa Cruz is not building a desal plant, an idea city leaders tabled in the face of environmental opposition six years ago.
But it’s worth noting that, in Santa Cruz County, many desal opponents did also oppose a Soquel Creek Water District project to pump highly treated recycled water into the aquifer in order to rest the area’s wells.
That project is happening, and it was recently awarded a $50 million grant. So local plans for indirect potable reuse are looking better than ever.
SNOOZE, YA LOSE
The recent petition asking Santa Cruz city councilmembers to sleep outside before taking a vote on homelessness was almost funny. Almost…
This sarcasm masquerading as politics is beyond pointless—it’s unhelpful. It is the local equivalent of the satirical presidential campaign signs from three years ago that read, “Giant Meteor 2016.” Cuz, haha, we would all rather see the world end than compromise on any of our political beliefs, get it? Ugh.(With the benefit of hindsight, most rational voters would agree that the lapsed hypothetical of a Hillary Clinton presidency doesn’t really sound all that bad.) The point is that it’s easy for us all to troll and make cynical jokes about government all day. The danger in that is that, if we’re not careful, we’ll lose sight of solving our problems. And by the way, some of the really big problems shouldn’t even be all that difficult to actually make some progress on.
In any case, the local petition did get some attention, and Councilmember Drew Glover announced that he did, in fact, take the bait opportunity to spend a night on the streets. And then he took to social media—telling both Facebook followers and the Twitterverse about his experience. He tagged two reporters, three news organizations (including GT), the ACLU and Congressmember Alexandria Ocossio-Cortez.
“Nice that you did this, but then tag the press??” one follower responded. “Not being a humble servant, but a politician indeed!”
Another decade is drawing to a close and, to paraphrase a famous ’80s pop song, the future’s so dark, I gotta wear a headlamp.
An economy on a high wire, a political system teetering on collapse, a social-media hellscape and, most terrifying of all, a looming climate catastrophe that has triggered shock waves of anxiety and depression for almost anyone paying attention. At the end of that road is despair.
As if to provide a U-turn from that inevitability, more than 20 speakers will gather at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz on Dec. 7 in a TEDx presentation called The Art of Hope. The day-long event is designed not as a pep rally or a revival meeting, but as a sober and realistic assessment of how to meet the challenges of the moment.
TEDx is an independent and regionally based offshoot of TED, the well-known lecture format centered on “ideas worth spreading.” In this case, those ideas deal with community engagement and political activism in the face of climate change and other looming threats.
Among the speakers at the event will be novelist Jonathan Franzen, who captured the tone of the debate about hope and climate change in a recent New Yorker piece titled “What If We Stopped Pretending?” Also on board are bestselling writer Lara Love Hardin, County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty, UCSC evolutionary biologist Barry Sinervo, and activist Sara Nelson, the co-founder and executive director of the Santa Cruz-based Romero Institute.
Nelson, who has been organizing and mobilizing on social justice issues for 40 years with the Christic Institute, will focus her talk on ongoing activism to address climate change, specifically the outline of the proposed California Green New Deal, which her organization is helping to sketch.
“I’m very concerned about this issue of despair and hopelessness, inaction and apathy,” she says. “I’m seeing it in people I talk to. And as the climate impacts continue to escalate—and they will—people are going to get really rattled.”
The only way to escape that despair and the tragic consequences of apocalyptic climate change is, says Nelson, to engage in focused, energetic, determined activism. The goal of the California Green New Deal, she says, is to work on both ends of the spectrum, drafting legislation at the state level and doing community activism on the grassroots level.
“We have to get together and we have to do this,” Nelson says. “I have a deep faith in the American people being able to do things like this. What’s that old saying? Americans are like a sleeping giant. If they wake up, watch out, because they’ll get it done.”
Coonerty, a former Santa Cruz mayor, hosts a podcast called An Honorable Profession that talks to prominent political leaders on the local and state level. His talk at the event will aim to convince people that while national politics seem to be little more than a chaotic food fight, politics in cities, towns and counties across the country are experiencing something of a Renaissance.
“The strange thing is that while things are deteriorating at the federal level, it’s created an opportunity, and a necessity, for local governments to step into the void of leadership,” says Coonerty. “And many people are. That’s a good story that needs to be told.”
The news media, focused on conflict and controversy, is generally not telling the stories of people at lower levels of government working for positive change, says Coonerty. Dismissive attacks on Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for his role as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, he says, tend to overlook political reality.
“Most people in the country live in a place like South Bend,” he says. “Regardless of how the election turns out, I hope people recognize that those places are where the election and policies are going to be won or lost.”
Barry Sinervo, who has presented at TEDx before, has been intimately facing the questions of existential hope and despair on two fronts. As a biologist studying lizard populations around the world (he’s known at UCSC as “Doctor Lizardo”), he has seen mass extinction up close and harbors no illusions about its devastation. For the past four years, he’s also been battling an aggressive form of cancer that has brought him face to face with his own mortality. Despite his struggles on both fronts (or maybe because of them), he’s also been doing stand-up comedy on the side.
“I used to think tragedy and comedy were opposites,” Sinervo told me the day before he was to endure his 13th cancer surgery. “They aren’t opposites. That’s very clear to me now, having gone through the global catastrophe and my own. It’s out of tragedy that we gain hope. I really do have hope to see the carbon curve bending, flattening, and then go down, if I live to see it.”
‘The Art of Hope’ will be presented by TED-x Santa Cruz from 9am-5pm on Saturday, Dec. 7, at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets $75 general/$35 students with valid ID. tedxsc19.eventbrite.com.
