Beach Flats Garden and Homeless Shelter on the city council agenda

[ Image: March for the Jardín ]


Dear Constituent,

I went for a paddle this morning. The sea was smooth but I could feel the energy of a strong south swell below and all around me. Then I went to meet California Assemblymember Mark Stone for a tour of the Beach Flats Community Garden Park land. The garden was a nice transition from the ocean. While it is only half an acre, the incredible care that these gardeners have put into it in the last 20 years has made it an oasis of calm that showcases the culture and agriculture of Mesoamerica in the middle of this very dense, very busy neighborhood. It was founded by an partnership between neighborhood leaders, the City and the Seaside Company (aka the Boardwalk.) Seaside has allowed it to exist on their property for 20 years without payment. But the latest lease is up, and Seaside has expressed an interest in using the property for other things. If the Garden is to continue it will have to be with the financial support of the City of Santa Cruz.

Assemblymember Stone and I talked about the proper role of local government with garden advocate Michelle Glowa while we followed Don Emilio between gorgeous plots of beans surrounded by nopal cactus, loquat trees and marigolds that be will passed out to the community as part of the celebrations of Dia de Los Muertos. It is government, local government in this case, that has the role of safeguarding the community good. And while it is wonderful to have locally owned businesses capable of altruism, the City of Santa Cruz is really the obvious institution to host this garden.

While we are talking, an older white women wanders in. She explains that she has lived here for 52 years and, without prompting, expresses her opinion about the garden: "This is what makes the neighborhood. It creates responsibility. It shows respect... You should see it in the springtime, all the flowers. It's beautiful. It would be terrible to lose it. Terrible..."

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 7PM, Mayor Don Lane, Councilmember Cynthia Chase, and I will be presenting a proposal to the City Council to direct staff to negotiate to buy the Beach Flats Garden Park. You are invited to join a march to the City Council from the Garden at 5:30PM. The garden is located on the 300 block of Raymond St. near the corner with 3rd St.

In the afternoon session, the Council will consider entering into a partnership with the County to keep two important homeless shelters open by making up for a shortfall caused by the unexpected loss of state funding. To keep the armory winter shelter open to 100 people and the Paul Lee transitional shelter open to 50 people, the Council will need to allocate 81 thousand dollars. The City's budget is well over 100 million. If the shelters close and its inhabitants try to sleep in the City of Santa Cruz, the City will spend millions of dollars on police and other emergency workers attempting to enforce the City's ban on camping- a law which is completely impossible to enforce given that the homeless have no designated place to sleep. Criminalizing sleep without providing a legal place for it has been recently labeled cruel and unusual punishment by the Department of Justice. Nonetheless, it is not at all sure that the Council will agree to the funding.

While I'll admit to letting my opinions shine through on these two issues, I still very much welcome yours, whether we agree or not. To read the full agenda report go to the City Council page of the city's website: cityofsantacruz.com. To weigh in on whether or not to allocate city resources to acquiring the garden and/or keeping the shelters open, send the ENTIRE COUNCIL an email at citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com. Best of all, come to a Council meeting at 809 Center Street and be part of the process.

I've had some of you ask me what happens after you weigh in on an item at City Council, so I am going to start relating about what gets decided with regard to issues in this group letter, at least for those of you willing to read this far down the page. At our last meeting on October 13th, the Council passed a prohibition on using Accessory Dwelling Units for vacation rentals as what is sure to be a long process in curtailing these rentals. The goal is to insure that they do not have a significant effect on our very strained rental market. We did not yet figure out a way to allow people to rent out their own house for a week or two while they go on vacaction, but the Council seemed to indicate a desire to figure that out and asked the staff to look into some exceptions to the rule for these purposes. We also 'grandfathered' in ADU units that were legally rented out until this summer.

I hope all of you are doing some playing in the beautiful warm ocean this Fall, in addition to being involved in what happens in your city.


Your advocate on the City Council,

Micah Posner