Feature Archives

On March 27th, a birthday party was held to celebrate 15 years of Free Radio Santa Cruz. The party took place at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in downtown Santa Cruz. The night featured local musicians and brought together past and present station programmers, as well as other community members. In addition to the local musicians, Tom Lodge, a pirate radio legend and pioneer from England, spoke of the great days of Radio Caroline, which allowed for the British Invasion. Free Radio Santa Cruz can be picked up at 101.1 FM in most of Santa Cruz, and online at freakradio.org.

Santa Cruz Water Department and Soquel Creek Water District have embarked on a plan for a desalination plant, a highly energy intensive way to increase the water supply. The greenhouse gases that such a plant would produce have inspired opposition. A forum on Thursday, March 18th at Live Oak Elementary School features Bill Kocher from the Santa Cruz Water Department and Debbie Cook, former mayor of Huntington Beach, and author of "Desalination, Energy Down the Drain."

On Tuesday, March 9th, the Santa Cruz City Council voted 6-0 to support a recommendation from the city staff which bans the opening of an additional medical marijuana dispensary in Santa Cruz. This was the first reading of the vote and there will be a second vote in two weeks to finalize the ruling. Under the new ordinance, the two existing medical marijuana dispensaries will be permitted to operate a cultivation facility up to 3,000 square feet, which must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

On March 1st, hundreds of MUNI workers from TWU Local 250-A, riders, and community organizations rallied and marched in downtown San Francisco to oppose the MTA's proposed budget cuts and threatened layoffs. The march began at Powell and Market and went to the MTA offices, and then to City Hall for a forum led by union organizer Eric Williams, who called for unity between MUNI workers and riders.

The Fresno City Council has passed, with a 6-1 vote, an ordinance that will remove homeless people from median islands while allowing established community groups to continue using the space for their fundraisers. Bill Simon, the chairperson of the Greater Fresno American Civil Liberties Union, called the measure discriminatory.

January 22nd marked the 37th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The January 23rd "Walk for Life" was smaller than in past years. By its own estimate, the group against reproductive choice was 20,000 to 30,000. However, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated the size at "several thousand", not the "tens of thousands" that the pro-lifers claim. More than 200 pro-choice activists, while a smaller group, had a significant presence. Queer and feminist activists blocked the "Walk for Life" march for a brief period by extending a 25-foot banner reading "Religious Bigots Unwelcome in San Francisco" across the Embarcadero at the moment the march began.

The Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a collective providing cannabis under California’s 1996 Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215), along with the city and county of Santa Cruz, have reached a settlement in their unprecedented lawsuit against the federal government. WAMM's case was prompted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration's raid of their medicinal garden in Davenport on September 5, 2002, in which armed agents terrorized residents and patients, and seized more than 160 cannabis plants.