The Amgen Tour will be stopping in Santa Cruz today, and the city is expecting thousands of people to show up to greet some of the best cyclists in the world. The crowd may be even bigger than anticipated because students at UCSC have the day off—sort of. Today is scheduled to be a “Day of Protest,” arranged by the students opposed to the University of California’s proposed tuition hike. Though it is officially a walk-out, in the past, Days of Protest got ugly. The question today is whether some of that ugliness will spill over into the bike lanes being used by the Amgen racers.
“I don’t expect any problems at this point,” said Mayor Mike Rotkin, though he admitted that he was nervous. He is especially nervous that protesters might decide to block Empire Grade Road near the campus’s west entrance.
The students, for their part, are more relaxed about the outcome. They believe that today’s protest will be much tamer than previous ones, largely because of the increased police presence in the city for Amgen, but also because various federal agencies, including ICE, are here cooperating with the SCPD to combat gang violence. If the students gather near the gate, they’ll most likely be there as fans.
But that does not allay Rotkin’s fears. “Any one person can do something crazy,” he said, “and that makes me nervous.”
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