Massive Fire Continues to Burn in Santa Cruz Mountains
Fires from the “CZU Lightning Complex” fire continue to burn in the Santa Cruz mountains this week. The fires began on August 16th after the Santa Cruz area was hit with numerous lightning strikes and bad weather. As of Thursday morning, the fire has burned nearly 82,000 acres, 735 structures have been destroyed in Santa Cruz County and the fire is 24% contained, according to a recent CalFire update. At least one person has been killed by the fire. The body of a male was recovered in the area of Last Chance. More than 1300 firefighter personnel have been involved in fighting the fire. Bonny Doon, which has been evacuated, was hit especially hard by this fire, as well as areas along Empire Grade. The towns of Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond, Felton, and Scotts Valley were also evacuated. Scotts Valley residents got permission to return on Thursday afternoon.
Looters Arrested in Evacuated Fire Zone
Last Saturday, Santa Cruz Sheriff’s deputies arrested five people for suspicion of looting in the Fall Creek Drive area, a spot where evacuation orders are in place for the CZU Lightning Complex fire. They had received reports of looting and stopped two cars in the area. Both vehicles were full of stolen items. One driver stopped, but the other took off and ended up in a ditch. Deputies arrested one male and four females and charged them with looting, grand theft, conspiracy to commit a crime and burglary. Their bail was bumped up to $100K each.
Wallet Thief Arrested
Reports came out last week that a Cal Fire ground commander’s wallet was taken and his bank account drained while he was directing fire fighting crews. Credit cards were used at a gas station in Capitola and Thursday the Sheriff’s office announced they had made an arrest of the thief.
The Silence of the Lambs and the Local News Media
This Wednesday, Santa Cruz Police arrested a 37 year old male and charged him with kidnapping, stalking, false imprisonment, battery, and drug possession. Last check he’s still sitting in county jail on a $75K bond (which was increased obviously to keep him in jail). He’s got a local rap sheet that goes back to 2014. Would Hannibal Lechter even make the local news here anymore? Do we even have local news here anymore?
Maybe God Will Protect Us
Last Saturday night around 8:30PM, Santa Cruz Police responded to the 100 block of Trinity Street where they arrested a 33 year old male and a 21 year old male and charged them both with battery, flashing a weapon, making criminal threats, and trying to dissuade a witness. You’d think that might be enough to warrant a stay in jail for a little while anyways. You think these guys are still in jail. Not in our jail.
Stunning Apathy Towards Public Safety
Monday morning around 3AM, SCPD responded to the 2300 block of Mission Street where they detained a 36 year old male for being a felon in possession of a stun gun. Did hey arrest him? Of course not. They gave him a ticket. I hope they at least took the stun gun away from him but hell, this is Santa Cruz so I’m not making any bets here. His local rap sheet goes back to 2014 so they probably knew him on a first name basis.
Santa Cruz City Council Candidates
Given the fact that we’re still in the middle of a raging pandemic which has significantly changed our way of life, Santa Cruz is on fire and doing a slow burn, schools are closed, businesses are closed (and sometimes closing for good), does anyone really care about the local city council race? My apathy level is off the charts here. I’m just not feeling it right now. The Zoom meetings are pretty awful, and the council itself has basically abdicated most of their decision making power right now to the city manager and Master of Disaster Martin Bernal.
But the race goes on. I’ll keep it simple and brief. I’m not a huge fan of any of the people running. For me, it mostly boils down to “who is least likely to fuck things up worse here?”. All of the women running (with one obvious non-notable exception in Bad Mom) seem like nice people with good honest intentions. There’s a lot I don’t agree with. There’s a lot I don’t like. There’s nothing I really like. It is what it is. 2020. Say no more. It’s been one of those years. So the women I support here I’ve come to the conclusion will be the least likely to make matters worse. Which I suppose is a good thing.
People I’ll probably vote for:
- Martine Watkins
- Sonja Brunner
- Shebra Kalantari-Johnson
I’m not big on any of them. Doesn’t mean I don’t like them. Doesn’t mean they won’t end up doing an effective job. I’m just not sold and right now I need some selling. I do feel all 3 of these women are smart, pragmatic, and will get along fine with Cummings, Meyers, and Golder. And right now we need a strong, unified voice here. A moderate voice. It’s not to say these women aren’t progressive. They are. They are moderate progressives. That’s about the best we can actually hope for here. These three women are the “safe bets” to not fuck things up worse. That works for me.
People I won’t vote for:
- Everyone else
All of the other “serious” candidates just lean way too far to the left for me. Sandy Brown is a loon and none of the others have any background or experience doing the job here. And the last thing we need right now are novices with a pre-conceived agenda. That’s what everyone else is. Sandy Brown and the Novices aren’t prompting me to raise my lighter in the air here. Hell I can’t even pick a 4th because I just can’t choke down voting for anyone but the three I mentioned above.
Weekly Shoutouts and Thanks!
First of course, all the firefighters out on the front lines of the fire, you’re all amazing heroes. And the same goes for the “unofficial” volunteers out fighting the fires on their own in Bonny Doon, Boulder Creek, and all the other communities being effected by fires in the Santa Cruz mountains. You guys are rockstars in your communities and you should be celebrated with parades as local heroes. To all the public safety personnel working tirelessly on the fire, to all the volunteers working in the shelters, and all the community members offering donations and places for evacuees to stay, thank you for being amazing neighbors and making Santa Cruz strong.
Get Your Swagger On!
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10 Responses
CZU Shout Outs to 2nd Line Responders: PG&E, SLVWD, whoever is feeding and housing the “troops,” Santa Cruz City Schools for including displaced fire victims in their citywide meal programs, all the kids and their “Thank You” signs…it’s a long list.
re Council Candidates, I agree with you. 3 I’d settle for, the rest would make things worse.
Lastly- “Master of Disaster Martin Bernal”… Ha ha ha…
Such a good edition. Thank you.
That’s a wonderful photograph of the fire people you posted. Thank you.
I decided to leave the misery here and went to Lake Tahoe for the week. Only a week ago did they go for the face diapers and all businesses seem open, although with outside dining and what are they gonna do in the winter? Got me. Hotels seem unaffected without travel restrictions, hey it’s still Lake Tahoe and had no bad smoke although yes you could see haze. For the middle of summer really no crowds, plenty of vacancies, no waiting to eat, etc. The casinos however were really dead,dead. I’ve never walked into casinos and like .. silence, 2/3 of the tables closed, and are clearly playing to the VIP crowd, with those table limits, except they forgot few of those people exist. I did not see the Las Vegas style Covid protections except maybe the slots were fewer and bigger, further apart, 95% empty/silent,and yeah most people were wearing masks although not everyone and the casino didn’t seem to mind. No sports book, no bars, no entertainment, no clubbing, no a lot of things.
It’s easy to forget the whole top 1/3 or more of the state’s counties are NOT on the watch lists and vacations are still possible.
Any word on the SCPD defunding the park rangers? I know they proposed it to council to balance their budget after park rangers gave back 10% of their pay.
Just wondering
The budget gets taken up again in Sept.
Good question “Just Wondering”, especially since increased ranger presence was one of the selling points of one of our past tax hikes. Anyone recall which one that was? H? It would be nice to hold the City accountable to at least one of their promises on public safety. Though it will take an army of rangers to clean up the mess they have let happen.
I just wanted to shout out to the first Responders and to my husband who works for Santa Cruz Parks and Rec. The parks and rec get so much harassment as if they are doing something other than doing their jobs, which seems to be cleaning after the homeless a lot of the time. I find my husband comming home feeling unappreciated. I tell him that he is one of the essential workers by being a tour guide, a leader, a city beautifier, and in light of the recent tragedy an aid to fire fighters and police doing whatever asked and being on call. So my message is be kind to our city parks workers they do alot of dirty work while aiding any persons needing help especially residents. My Husband is Jonathan Dominge and I am proud of my hard working husband.
I am so buying a bad mom shirt…haha that person is an idiot.
Thanks to the firefighters for two reasons: 1. Fighting fires. 2. No masks in the photo.