The ups and downs of a year we’d mostly prefer to forget.
JANUARY
The year begins badly, with a Jan. 1 murder-suicide at the 7-Eleven at Ocean Street and Broadway. The deaths of victim Nichole “Nikki” Schrock of Seaside and Illya Cavlan of San Jose mean that before dawn of the first day of 2010, Santa Cruz is already a quarter of the way to the number of homicides the city logged in 2009.
In spite of the new ban on smoking on Pacific Avenue and Main Beach, the American Lung Association gives Santa Cruz a “D” in its annual Tobacco Report Card—the same crummy grade that prompted councilmembers to pass the ban in the first place. Says a steamed Mayor Mike Rotkin of the ALA, “I don’t ever want to talk to these people again.”
Details emerge about CaliforniaFIRST, a new Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program designed to get more solar panels on California rooftops by allowing homeowners to finance them through their property taxes. Santa Cruz Weekly reports that the proposed 9 percent interest rate doesn’t look so hot, though, especially in light of Berkeley’s experience: 80 percent of participants in the pilot program dropped out because the 7.75 interest rate was too high.
The Vets Hall on Front Street is closed indefinitely and a full architectural assessment ordered after county inspectors, alerted by “fist-size chunks of concrete” lying aobut, find that the rebar in the 1932 building has rusted to the point it couldn’t be trusted in an earthquake.
On Jan. 23 Santa Cruz records its second and third homicides with the deaths of Alejandro Nava-Gonzales and Oscar Ventura in a Lower Ocean neighborhood apartment.
Cemex closes its Davenport cement factory.
Santa Cruz County names its first poet laureate, Gary Young.
Unemployment figures for Santa Cruz County reach nearly 15 percent, higher than the statewide rate of 13.2 percent and the national rate of 10.6 percent.
After eight years in court, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana is finally able to exhale when the federal government stands down from its defense of a 2002 raid on WAMM property. The change comes from an Obama administration directive urging feds not to bother pursuing medical marijuana cases in states where it’s legal.
FEBRUARY
A wayward pink flamingo, likely escaped from some zoo, shows up in Elkhorn Slough. Dubbed “Pinky,” a name so lame we flinch to type it, the critter seems on friendly terms with local pelicans and egrets.
Santa Cruz is ranked as the 14th happiest place in the U.S., according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
A scientific review committee for the Department of Pesticide Regulation releases its report on methyl iodide, a new strawberry fumigant proposed by the pesticide industry as a replacement for phased-out methyl bromide. The panel calls it a “highly toxic chemical,” the use of which would have “a significant adverse impact on the public health.”
Santa Cruz County ranks among the healthiest places in California to live, coming in at No. 8, according to a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation survey.
Free parking in downtown Santa Cruz all but comes to an end when the parking garage at Cedar and Church and the lot at Cedar and Cathcart start charging 50 cents per hour to park. The move is supposed to raise $355,000 a year for the cash-strapped city.
MARCH
Lowell Darling, brother of Darling House owner and Democratic Party operative Darrell Darling, files to run for governor against Jerry Brown, just as he did in 1978. That campaign was pure madcap political theater, with giant “acupuncture treatments” to cure California’s drought, but this one is a tad more serious; Darling says he’s really campaigning against California’s two-thirds majority requirement to pass a budget, blamed by many for the state’s problems.
Santa Cruz City Council votes to limit the number of pot clubs in town to two and the amount of space used to cultivate medical marijuana for sale in them to 3,000 square feet. Ever concerned about the less fortunate, councilmembers also cite the need for wheelchair access in the cultivation areas.
The Coastal Commission puts the kibosh on the Arana Gulch bike path, capping 15 years of fighting over the fate of the 68-acre greenbelt. In nixing it, the commissioners override their own staff recommendations and a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service endorsement.
The national health care reform bill passes on March 21.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture announces that it will abandon attempts to eradicate the light brown apple moth and instead just try to control its spread—meaning, among other things, no more aerial spraying.
APRIL
The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission votes unanimously to purchase the 32-mile Union Pacific rail line for $14.2 million
Faced with a $500,000 budget deficit and the threat that that figure could balloon to $5 million within three years, the Santa Cruz Public Library system considers slashing positions and shutting down up to six of its 10 branches.
UCSC suspends the Community Studies program.
Nick Meriwether, an oral historian at the South Caroline Library, is named to the position of Grateful Dead archivist at UCSC.
Santa Cruz County supes approve the concept of a ban on one-use shopping bags, which pollute waterways and harm marine life. An EIR begins to assess—wait for it—the environmental impacts of a ban.
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. Santa Cruz-based Ocean Conservancy Vice-President Dennis Takahashi Kelso, who helped oversee the Exxon Valdez cleanup in 1989, starts work in the Gulf.
Carl Reimer, 19, is shot by alleged gang members in Grandview Park on Santa Cruz’s Westside.
MAY
A May Day street party and demonstration on Pacific Avenue devolves into mayhem as vandals begin breaking windows and spray-painting graffiti on business and city property. The damage to 18 affected businesses, said to total some $100,000, is widely blamed on local anarchists affiliated with the SubRosa Café, though investigators never prove a link. One man, transient Jimi Haynes of Modesto, is arrested and later sentenced to two years in prison for felony vandalism.
On May 4, councilmembers respond to freaked-out citizens by authorizing City Manager Dick Wilson to fill eight vacant positions with the Santa Cruz Police Department at an estimated $1 million—despite a $4 million deficit.
United States rider David Zabriskie wins Stage 3 of the Amgen Tour of California, which finishes on Beach Street at the Boardwalk.
A Felton woman complains to Santa Cruz County Animal Services that her horse has been sexually assaulted in a pasture near Graham Hill and Mount Hermon roads. When she went to see her horse, she found it tied to a tree with a stranger standing beside it, pulling up his pants.
SCPD puts 82 offending Santa Cruz homes on a list of “loud and unruly” party houses. Landing on the list means that if the cops show up during another rager, you get a $1,000 ticket and bill for the time of every cop and employee who handled your stupid party house case.
JUNE
Residents of Davenport face huge utility fee increases—a 74 percent hike for sewer rates and a 10 percent rise in water fees—following the departure of Cemex, which subsidized the county-run utilities.
Compassion Over Killing posts video on YouTube showing chicks at Cal-Cruz Hatchery being mistreated after the District Attorney’s office refuses to take up the case. Santa Cruz County Animal Services, however, investigates the charges and in the process confiscates 88 chicks and ducklings, 40 of which have to be euthanized.
With two weeks till retirement, outgoing Santa Cruz City Manager Dick Wilson says current pension plans for public employees, especially cops and firefighters, are “completely unsustainable.” A Santa Cruz Weekly investigation shows that Santa Cruz pays about 40 percent more than surrounding cities on pensions for its finest and bravest.
Kombucha is pulled from shelves in local stores owing to high alcohol content in some bottles. (It is, after all, fermented.)
In the runup to the election for District 4 Supervisor, the candidacy of Watsonville councilmember Emilio Martinez suffers a blow when media report on a prank played years ago on a former co-workers in which he dropped 15 f-bombs and prompted a police investigation.
California hit by whooping cough epidemic.
The Santa Cruz County Grand Jury reports that if California legalizes pot, Santa Cruz County stands to benefit to the tune of $7 million in tax revenues.
JULY
Homeless activists and their supporters start holding a sleep-in outside the Santa Cruz County Courthouse to protest the city’s sleeping ban. In August, “Peace Camp 2010” relocates to City Hall, and in early October it disbands.
Santa Cruz City Council joins Santa Cruz County Supervisors, San Francisco Board of Supervisors and other officials in opposing PG&E’s installation of smart meters until a study can be completed on their safety and accuracy.
The new $15 million Marine Sanctuary Center across from the wharf breaks ground.
CNN and Money Magazine list Santa Cruz as one of the best places in the nation to find a rich and single partner, as almost half the population (45 percent) is single and average family income is over $90,000.
Santa Cruz City Council approves a $78 million city budget with a $2.2 million deficit.
A 41-year-old woman is killed in what police think may be a domestic violence incident, marking the city’s sixth homicide of the year.
AUGUST
The sea otter population declines for a second year in a row; the number of pups is down 11 percent.
The CaliforniaFIRST solar financing program, which was set to go in 14 California counties, stalls out when mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac object, saying they fear the assessment liens could win out over mortgages in the event of foreclosure.
Santa Cruz says thanks, but no thanks to next year’s Amgen stop. This year, the second time it’s hosted, the city made about $10,000 after recouping $200,000 in expenss.
Santa Cruz Democrat and former 27th District Assemblyman John Laird loses a runoff election for the Senate District 15 seat to Republican Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo. Blakeslee’s victory in the heavily gerrymandered district preserves the status quo.
A CHP officer stops Santa Cruz Councilmember Tony Madrigal on Highway 1 for reckless driving. Madrigal, it seems, was texting and typing while behind the wheel. Madrigal fails to show up for his court date and a bench warrant is issued; he gets community service, a fine and a drubbing in the court of public opinion.
SEPTEMBER
Jake Gandolfo of Felton advances to the fifth round of reality cooking show MasterChef, but with three episodes to go he’s voted off the kitchen island.
The city of Santa Cruz hires three security guards with First Alarm to patrol downtown at a cost of $5,000 a month. In October the deal is extended through the end of the year.
Jonathan Kolodinsky, proprietor of the Crème de Canna dispensary, gets his 15 seconds of national fame for his production of medical marijuana-laced ice cream in flavors like Bannanabis Foster.
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors puts a moratorium on smart meter installation in unincorporated parts of the county through the end of the year.
A 40-day protest against abortion begins outside of Planned Parenthood—and that’s the last we hear of it.
Omar Alejandro Lopez is shot while sitting in a car at 17th and Rodriguez streets.
The California Dental Association Foundation provides Watsonville with a $1.6 million grant to build and operate a fluoridation system, and for the first time the Watsonville City Council votes to accept it, prompting freakouts across the land.
Steven Vogt, UCSC professor of astronomy, leads a team that locates the first planet thought to be capable of sustaining life. Gliese 581g, in the constellation Libra, is in the “habitable zone” of its star.
OCTOBER
The mother of deceased UCSC student Benjamin Quaye, who fell down drunk and hit his head on his way home from a bar earlier in the year, sues the city for $2 million, claiming police are responsible for his death. The courts toss it out and Quaye sues the bar, Parish Publick House, and strip mall, Almar Center.
For-profit health care giant Community Health Systems stonewalls Watsonville Community Hospital nurses in negotiations. Nurses strike, saying they’re unable to properly care for patients under current conditions.
The Regional Transportation Commission meets a critical deadline to get $10.2 million in state funding for the 32-mile Union Pacific rail line. Sierra Northern Railway is set to run tourist trains on the line; pilot runs could begin as soon as May 2011.
With CaliforniaFIRST dead, Santa Cruz-based Ecology Action gets a contract to run a $33 million solar and alternative energy financing program with money from the feds.
Some 20,000 revelers descend on downtown Santa Cruz for Halloween, and not a single one is stabbed or shot.
NOVEMBER
On Nov. 1, the gay-loving, liberal left-coast San Francisco Giants beat George W. Bush’s Texas Rangers in the World Series, ending the Torture at last.
As of Nov. 2, it’s official: Santa Cruz has grown up, cut its hair and bought Dockers. Voters brushed off progressives and put moderate, biz-friendly city council candidates Hilary Bryant, Dave Terrazas and incumbent Lynn Robinson into office, signaling the advent of a new era in Santa Cruz politics.
University of California raises tuition another 8 percent, bringing the total increase since 2008 to 40 percent.
Santa Cruz City Council raises parking tickets another $3. The third hike in two years, it means a parking meter ticket is now $38.
On a trip to Dominican Hospital for an MRI, Santa Cruz County jail inmate Maurice Ainsworth overpowers a sheriff’s deputy, seizes her weapon and takes off toward a Prospect Heights neighborhood, where he is captured five hours later. He is later charged with attempted murder for having fired shots at a bystander who attempted to help the deputy.
DECEMBER
On Dec. 4 Debra Collins, 58, of Felton is discovered in the Fall Creek unit of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park after six nights in the woods. Neighbors find her; sheriffs did not launch a search, saying the area to be scoured was too large.
At the Dec. 14 swearing-in of new city council members, Santa Cruz bids farewell to socialist-feminist Mike Rotkin, who served a total of 26 years on the council. Farewell, fellow traveler.
Eight and a half years after being ejected from a council meeting for giving a Nazi salute, Robert Norse wins a victory over the city of Santa Cruz when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals orders a new trial, saying Norse was a victim of “viewpoint discrimination.” The case can now be heard in U.S. District court.
