Nurses at the Watsonville Community Hospital are preparing to walk off the job on Thursday for a 24-hour strike. They’ve been offered a bonus, but they say the problem is a shortage of staffing and the burden that this places on nurses, even with a pay hike. And, they say, the hospital has been unresponsive to their demands by failing to make alternative suggestions and only meeting with them six times over the past nine months. The strike is intended as a wakeup call to the hospital administrators at Community Healthy Systems, the country’s biggest publicly traded hospital network.
Articles by Danny Wool
City About to Get New Beach for Free
Plenty of people frequent Sunny Cove Beach, a three-acre strip of waterfront at the end of 17th Avenue in Live Oak. They come for the sand, the bluffs, and the view—a panoramic outlook over Monterey Bay. What many of those visitors don’t know is that they are only able to go there because of the owners’ generosity. The beach is actually private land, he extended property of a home on one end.
Zipcars Come to Santa Cruz
The national car-sharing program Zipcar has expanded from UC Santa Cruz campus to cover all of Santa Cruz. Now anyone in Santa Cruz who registers for the program can take out one of six Zipcars for anywhere from an hour to four days. The cost of renting the cars is $8 per hour or $66 per day. The cars, which include three Prius hybrids, are parked in four lots, or pods, throughout the city.
UCSC Names Its Streets
It’s easy to get lost on the UCSC campus. Roads meander along the contours of the hills, and often devolve into dirt paths, which may be great for hiking, but are hardly friendly to the underbelly of a car. “It’s more like finding your way around Yosemite than a campus,” says the school’s Director of Transportation Larry Pageler. For all the rest, it is like finding your way to Schrute Farm on The Office: “Turn left at the big tree, take 62 paces, and turn right. If you smell bear droppings you have gone too far.”
Man Shot Dead During Watsonville Robbery
The Fiesta Latino Market on East Beach Street at Beck is a popular spot in Watsonville, often frequented by students from Watsonville High School. On Tuesday night, an armed robber entered the store and demanded money. The owner, Yahya Ahmed, 32, gave him what he asked for, but before the robber left he shot Ahmed dead. Police are now investigating the crime, wondering if it is in any way connected with a shoplifting incident that took place at the 98Cent Discount Store on Freedom Boulevard on Monday.
Tony Madrigal in Hot Water
City Councilman Tony Madrigal could find himself in hot water. On Aug. 30, a Highway Patrol officer stopped Madrigal for driving erratically in his Prius. According to police, he was driving north on Highway 1 near Mar Monte and Freedom Boulevard when another driver called 911 to report him. He was not speeding or driving drunk, police say; instead he was texting and typing on his laptop while driving.
Local Steelhead Population Exceeds Expectations
In 1997, the steelhead population of the San Lorenzo River was listed as threatened. This year, scientists studying the fish have found more young smolts than they have ever seen before. Chris Berry, who manages water resources for the city, says that at one point they raised so many fish that it was impossible to count them all before they had to be released.
Vets Group: No Meals for the Needy This Year
This weekend the Huffington Post reported that the nation’s 400 biggest charities are taking a hit because of the recession, with giving down 11 percent last year. Among the groups suffering most are such familiar organizations as the United Way and the Salvation Army, while SantaCruz.com reported just last year that “Poverty is up; giving is down,” as the city attempted to organize food drives to help the needy celebrate Thanksgiving.
Local Salesman Sued by 3M
Pradeep Mohan believes that he is caught in “a wasteful, paper-intensive battle” with “a bullying corporate giant.” The Santa Cruz resident operates a small garage-based business selling stethoscopes over the Internet. His chief competitor is 3M, a $23 billion dollar corporate giant best known for its scotch tape. 3M also dominates the stethoscope market in the United States.
Coastal Commission Kills Arana Gulch Bike Path
The long-awaited decision has finally arrived. Arana Gulch will remain as it is. The 68-acre preserve will not be crisscrossed by a network of walking paths and bike trails, as transportation activists and city officials had hoped. In other words, there will be no bicycle path connecting the city of Santa Cruz with the community of Live Oak.
