Friend of a Friend
Re: “Deep Web” (<a href="https://www.santacruz.com/articles/tim_goncharoffs_political_puppet_show.html): I’m just catching up with your stories on Tim Goncharoff, and it reminds me of the fact that he and I are Facebook friends.
As an entertainer, I have something close to 3000 “friends” on FB, and I don’t do much in the way of filtering them before agreeing to that status. I usually look up the list of our mutual friends out of curiosity, and then say “Accept.” But I did get several requests from Santa Cruz beauties whose pics were just too professional to be real. But when I looked them up, Jasmine and Solana had posted several specific references to local politics and events so they weren’t bots.
I did agree to friendship with one of them, but when the others came and they were of the same nature, I got suspicious again and wrote to my mutual friends to ask if any of them actually knew these women or if this was some kind of scam thing that I couldn’t figure out. Tim was the only one who answered with assurance that he did know them and they were fun.
I don’t really know Tim, and didn’t know then that he planned to run for office, but he was real enough so I scratched my head. I’m not really looking for new beautiful “fun” friends in Santa Cruz, so I deleted the one that I had agreed to and then denied that friend status to the others; something about it wasn’t right but I couldn’t work out the advantage to anyone.
I don’t really know Tim Goncharoff, and I wish him no ill will. I liked some of the positions he suggested that he would take if elected to the council, and I hope that he can ask his friends to step forward or otherwise explain why there is confusion in this matter.
Tom Noddy
Santa Cruz
Modern Politics
Re: “<a href="https://www.santacruz.com/articles/tim-goncharoff-cancels-campaign-kickoff.html”: The recent “scandal,” if it can be called that, involving city council candidate Tim Goncharoff and the alleged campaign endorsements by manufactured profiles on Facebook is most certainly a harsh introduction into modern politics for a first-time candidate. However, it also serves to illustrate two salient points about modern political campaigns. First, although no one over the age of 15 considers Facebook a serious news medium, candidates for city council are public persons who must respect the power of any electronic forum to affect their candidacies for good or ill. Second, it sadly reflects a need to reduce any potential public servant to the lowest common denominator. As a seemingly perennial candidate for elected office, I accept the fact that the voters expect better from those who aspire to public office. But that does not mean that they shouldn’t also expect better of themselves.
Steve Pleich
Santa Cruz
Council Is Off Track
OK, so let me get this straight: The SC City Council & the SCPD have chosen to send 2000+ bikes a year to an auction company in Arizona, and this for-profit company will keep 52% of the proceeds. All this instead of donating the bikes to local youth in need, via the long-time local nonprofit the Bike Church. Really? Apparently because the Bike Church is located next to SubRosa, an “Anarchist Collective Café”—and we all know about those Anarchists (or at least the police think they do; hint-hint, nudge-nudge).
Oh, then, the SC City Council pass such convoluted laws, regulations and ordinances that the Great Morgani, accordion player and costume creator extraordinaire, has to throw in his cape and play elsewhere? Wow! Isn’t this the town that enshrined a politically active and eccentric street musician? Long-time political activist (Wobblie), musical saw player and street musician Tom Scribner.
The present SC City Council needs to get back to a truly representative democracy, and represent the full, rich, creative and diverse community of Santa Cruz.
Grant Wilson
Santa Cruz
