News

Letters to the Editor, Dec. 11-17

By
• December 10, 2013

Paying tribute an extraordinary young woman

Beautiful Testimonial

Re: “Gianna’s Gift” (Cover, Dec. 4): The lead article in the Weekly was very moving. Geoff Dunn gave me, as a person who did not know Gianna Altano, a sense of what a special person she was and how she approached living with a disease that would cut her life short at a young age. As I read what Geoff wrote, I was also aware that he and his wife, Siri, have a daughter, Tess, who also has cystic fibrosis, and the article took on a further dimension for me. A beautiful testimonial to Gianna and her short life, lived fully.

Nick Royal

Santa Cruz

Emotion as Spin

Re: “In the Eye of the Storm” (Currents, Nov. 27): Why does Monica Martinez use the word “emotion” as spin for whenever someone finds fault with her enterprise? Frankly, I find [fault] with the HSC and the percentage of homeless that cause 42 percent of our petty (and not so petty) crimes and lowered quality of living. She has had to been dragged along repeatedly to enact improvements at HSC to ensure the safety of our community. I've seen many times, when she is confronted with the problems caused by HSC and some of its clients, she refuses to address the situation head-on, and runs to her board and other sponsors that have and did have positions on the city council.

Don Honda

Santa Cruz

 

Passin’ Through

Just passin’ through, I was taken on several walks through your town, which was billed as “progressive” and “environmentally attentive.” Sadly, I did not find the latter to be true, at least in two glaring examples. When I was a kid, in another town, the vast majority of folks did not blare their Christmas or other outdoor lights during that 1973-1974 holiday season, for there was an energy crisis. Here in Santa Cruz, I saw horrific wastes of electricity in two large edifices that have more than adequate security: the public library downtown, and Riverside Lighting. Both exhibit blatant disregard for the environment, and will probably scream “security concerns!” However, the entire planet needs to wake up, for it is imperiled by human selfishness and ignorance.

Robert Fredericks

Fresno

 

FROM THE WEB

Her Amazing Self

Re: “Gianna’s Gift”: Thank you for this beautifully written account of that day. I was there, and felt and experienced it just as you describe. G was an extraordinary young woman and deeply touched so many—simply by being her amazing self in each moment that she lived.

Linda

 

Thanks for Nothing

Re: “Outside the Box” (Currents, Dec. 4): Thank you, SCPD, for not enforcing this new ordinance unless there are complaints. I worked on the Mall for years, and was at times annoyed by bad “performers,” but the good ones—the great ones—really give life to and help create a unique culture in downtown Santa Cruz. This unique pop-up music scene, which has seen some fantastic local and touring artists over the years, is part of what brings tourists to our town, and associated revenue that enables Santa Cruz to flourish.

P. Damron

  • https://www.santacruz.com/news/2013/12/10/letters_to_the_editor_dec._11_17 Tom Noddy

    Regarding the recent follow-up article in SC Weekly about the enforcement of the new street performer laws: For over twenty years I worked with the Downtown Association and with street performers in Santa Cruz to remind them of the agreement of mutual respect that they had signed on to in 1980.  That agreement called on all parties to resolve disputes, not through the use of laws and police but to treat each other as neighbors. The few problems that weren’t pre-solved by showing the agreement to new downtown performers were addressed in an atmosphere of respect for each other’s interests.

    But, when the DTA worked with the city council and police chief to abrogate that voluntary agreement in order to “make things simpler” by passing street performer specific laws they lost me. I couldn’t understand the maze of restrictions written into their new laws and neither could the police or downtown hosts (or city council members when I would give them a pop quiz on the specific restrictions). It did anything but make things simpler. So they did what we knew they would do, they amended those new laws and then re-amended them and each time they included greater restrictions. Everyone knew that they would … they have. They are stricter but they are anything but simpler.

    Street performing is not one of Santa Cruz’s “downtown problems”. Let me say that again, street performing is not one of Santa Cruz’s “downtown problems”.
    In the interest of simplicity, the council and merchants agreed that there would be no need to meet with performers or concern themselves with their interests, there would be laws and there would be police and that would be that. They had the ear of an eager council and it passed, thereby abrogating a working agreement. Informally, they assured me and others that they would only use the laws against some performers and not others … you know (wink) it would be “complaint driven”.

    Among the problems that they quietly promised to enforce selectively was a provision in law that would keep all performers at the curbside instead of allowing performers to stand with their back against the buildings. This only *sounds* like something that the merchants would prefer and the matter came up a handful of times over the years but was rejected each time *by the merchants themselves* when we pointed out that this would mean that the best acts would attract crowds that would block their show windows and the lesser acts would play toward their open door. Our voluntary guidelines allowed that the performer and merchant in question could come to agreement about which side of the sidewalk they played on. That, it was being said, was too complicated and they wanted to make it simpler. So they passed laws.

    They were in a hurry to pass a full packet of “downtown ordinances” and this time they wouldn’t meet to have that discussion. They shut out the performers when they asked for meetings and they chose to skip that whole complicated “give each other respect” thing. It was intended to relieve the merchants of that burden and replace it with police enforcement of each merchant’s musical tastes. Is anyone surprised to hear that that isn’t simple?

  • https://www.santacruz.com/news/letters_to_the_editor_dec._11_17.html Tom Noddy

    Regarding the recent follow-up article in SC Weekly about the enforcement of the new street performer laws: For over twenty years I worked with the Downtown Association and with street performers in Santa Cruz to remind them of the agreement of mutual respect that they had signed on to in 1980.  That agreement called on all parties to resolve disputes, not through the use of laws and police but to treat each other as neighbors. The few problems that weren’t pre-solved by showing the agreement to new downtown performers were addressed in an atmosphere of respect for each other’s interests.

    But, when the DTA worked with the city council and police chief to abrogate that voluntary agreement in order to “make things simpler” by passing street performer specific laws they lost me. I couldn’t understand the maze of restrictions written into their new laws and neither could the police or downtown hosts (or city council members when I would give them a pop quiz on the specific restrictions). It did anything but make things simpler. So they did what we knew they would do, they amended those new laws and then re-amended them and each time they included greater restrictions. Everyone knew that they would … they have. They are stricter but they are anything but simpler.

    Street performing is not one of Santa Cruz’s “downtown problems”. Let me say that again, street performing is not one of Santa Cruz’s “downtown problems”.
    In the interest of simplicity, the council and merchants agreed that there would be no need to meet with performers or concern themselves with their interests, there would be laws and there would be police and that would be that. They had the ear of an eager council and it passed, thereby abrogating a working agreement. Informally, they assured me and others that they would only use the laws against some performers and not others … you know (wink) it would be “complaint driven”.

    Among the problems that they quietly promised to enforce selectively was a provision in law that would keep all performers at the curbside instead of allowing performers to stand with their back against the buildings. This only *sounds* like something that the merchants would prefer and the matter came up a handful of times over the years but was rejected each time *by the merchants themselves* when we pointed out that this would mean that the best acts would attract crowds that would block their show windows and the lesser acts would play toward their open door. Our voluntary guidelines allowed that the performer and merchant in question could come to agreement about which side of the sidewalk they played on. That, it was being said, was too complicated and they wanted to make it simpler. So they passed laws.

    They were in a hurry to pass a full packet of “downtown ordinances” and this time they wouldn’t meet to have that discussion. They shut out the performers when they asked for meetings and they chose to skip that whole complicated “give each other respect” thing. It was intended to relieve the merchants of that burden and replace it with police enforcement of each merchant’s musical tastes. Is anyone surprised to hear that that isn’t simple?