Cactus Meant to Reduce Poop Covered in Excrement

Last year, following too many stories about feces covered public restrooms in the parks, Brent Adams started Downtown Santa Cruz Bathroom Task Force, which was essentially a facebook page. He then began the pain-staking process of photographing every toilet and urinal in every city park, and to document those over time. He took hundreds of photos and became a bit of an expert on where the trouble-spots really were. NEWS FLASH: The trouble-spots are not in the city park restrooms. They are in very targeted areas around town.

One high-traffic poop area has had instances of open-excrement drastically reduced thanks to the work of the Bathroom Task Force's advocacy and the cleaning of a nearby porta potty. This area is behind the buildings along Front St., where they abut the berm along the San Lorenzo River Levee. Because of the bright light shown on the issue of open-excrement and that the porta potty was helpful but not nearly enough of a solution, the City of Santa Cruz had opened the city's first-ever 24hr public bathroom, in the Soquel/Front St. parking structure. These have massively reduced instances of open-excrement in the downtown area.