A standard-issue Santa Cruz park ranger uniform comes with a forest green shirt and slacks, hiking boots, a wide-brimmed hat and a tool belt containing a Leatherman multi-tool, a flashlight, a notepad, a two-way radio and a can of pepper spray. Nowhere in any pocket, holster or clip is a device designed to assist a ranger in a gunfight. So when Rangers Brian Watson and Gar Eidam stumbled onto an illegal campsite in the Pogonip last month and found $850 worth of heroin and a loaded .357 magnum handgun, they radioed in for help from the Santa Cruz Police Parks Unit. With slideshow.
Articles by elgeorge
Arana Gulch Path Back to Drawing Board
Those that listened closely Thursday evening around 6:45pm might have heard a dull thud that echoed around the county. That was the sound of several dozen jaws hitting the ground inside the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Chambers when the California Coastal Commission voted unanimously against the city’s Arana Gulch Master Plan and its controversial paved bicycle path, a decade and a half in the planning.
Santa Cruz Looks to Impose Stricter Codes for Local Pot Clubs
Tuesday evening, the Santa Cruz City Council voted to limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city to two, effectively putting a moratorium on any new pot clubs.
UC-Santa Cruz Students Mull Future Prospects
Matthew Moore didn’t carry a sign at last week’s student protest at UCSC. With a walking stick in one hand and his dog’s leash in the other, he stood in a grassy field near the university entrance at High and Bay streets and watched while hundreds of his fellow students demanded the university lower its fees and restaff its departments.
Arana Gulch Defenders Speak Up
Suppose someone came to your home, demanded you give up your dining room for an important project, and said your family would still be able to live in the home but would have to accept the intrusion and the loss and just, well, get on with your life? Suppose when you asked why, the answer was to fight global warming?
The Rad Girls Punk Santa Cruz
Ramona Cash is a cute, punky looking brunette you’d expect to see modeling skirts and bikinis in a skateboard fashion catalog. Over coffee in downtown Santa Cruz, she parts a section of her professionally highlighted hair to reveal an inch-wide heart-shaped bald spot from where her friends precisely ripped the hair from her scalp.
Students Protest Fee Hikes at UCSC
Fed up with rising fee costs and slashed department budgets, UCSC students staged a massive protest on campus Thursday as students across the nation demonstrated against what many see as higher education becoming unaffordable. With slide show.
Fight Over Arana Gulch Bike Path Comes to a Head
On a sunlit winter’s day following a long and rainy week, Jean Brocklebank and Michael Lewis trudge through the soggy soil and tall grasses of Arana Gulch in Santa Cruz, talking about their group’s upcoming case before the California Coastal Commission on March 11. Suddenly Brocklebank stops and lays down the situation as she, and doubtless other members of the Friends of Arana Gulch, sees it. “This not a case of environmentalists versus environmentalists,” she says. With slide show.
Tsunami Hits Santa Cruz
The 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile early Saturday prompted tsunami warnings along the entire Pacific coast of the United States. In Santa Cruz, beaches were closed as a precaution. That didn’t stop hundreds of onlookers from crowding the Municipal Wharf and West Cliff Drive in an attempt to see the oncoming waves, which began to hit shore around 1:45pm.
Santa Cruz Council Finally Sees Homeless Census
On a rainy January morning more than 13 months ago, teams of local government workers and volunteers tromped through the soggy corners of the county and counted homeless people as part of the 2009 Santa Cruz County Homeless Census and Survey.
On a similarly rainy afternoon just last week, the fruits of that effort were finally presented to the Santa Cruz City Council. The reason for the delay? “Time and availability.”
