The Weekly Dump 6.29.18

Man Shot in the Head Near Lighthouse on West Cliff Drive

Saturday afternoon, a Santa Cruz man was shot in the head near the bathrooms across from the lighthouse on West Cliff drive, during an apparent robbery involving drugs. The 50 year old victim was approached by five men who demanded his property. After a physical altercation where the victim was struck multiple times, he was shot by one of the men in the head by a grazing bullet.

Witnesses quickly reported the suspects vehicle, and SCPD located it in the Harvey West park area, where SCPD did a high risk stop with guns drawn in the Costco parking lot, where all five suspects were detained. The victim was treated at the scene by the Santa Cruz Fire Department and AMR, and transported to a local hospital and were not life threatening. California Highway Patrol, Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office, Scotts Valley Police Department, Santa Cruz County Gang Task Force, Santa Cruz Fire Department and AMR were all involved in the incident.

Nevada Car Thief Arrested in Capitola With Loaded Gun

Monday night while investigating a disturbance, Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Deputies got word that a stolen Mitsubishi out of Nevada was seen in the area of Rio Flats in Aptos. The same vehicle had been seen during a shoplifting that Deputies had investigated earlier that day. CHP Officers spotted the car driving near Seacliff and pursued it into Capitola Village, where the two occupants fled on foot after being trapped in a parking lot, eluding capture.

Two hours later, a Deputy was driving through Soquel Village when he stopped to talk to a 20 year old man who appeared distraught. The man was found to have a loaded .38 caliber revolver in his pants pocket, and admitted being the passenger in the stolen car. He also said he had stolen the Mitsubishi in Nevada. CHP and the Sheriff’s Office booked the man into the County Jail for vehicle theft and possession of a loaded, concealed and unregistered handgun.

Drug Lab Found in Aptos Vacation Rental Home

Last Friday afternoon, multiple Santa Cruz County law enforcement agencies responded to a large vacation rental home on the 100 block of Sea Terrace Way in Aptos, where they discovered a butane honey oil lab. Homeowners were checking in and noticed doors kicked in and a strong chemical smell coming from inside the home. A HAZMAT Team responded to the scene to clear the home of any hazardous materials. Santa Cruz Public Works shut down Sea Terrace Way from both west and east ends of the block.

Fame Whore Back in the News

A Georgia district attorney announced on Monday that Alix Tichelman, the former prostitute junkie who served three years in the Santa Cruz County Jail for the death of a millionaire Google executive, has been indicted by a grand jury on murder charges for the heroin overdose death of her former boyfriend. Tichelman was released from jail in Santa Cruz last year, after pleading guilty to the involuntary manslaughter of Hayes, and serving three years in jail. She was immediately deported by ICE agents to Canada, where she lives now. After her story blew up in the national news media, she was given nicknames like the “Call Girl Killer” and “Harbor Hooker” of Santa Cruz. Some people never learn!

Probation is the Gift That Keeps Giving

While patrolling in Aptos on Wednesday, a Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Deputy spotted a man known to have several open probation cases loitering behind a local business. A search of the man found drug paraphernalia and suspected stolen property in his possession. He was placed on a probation hold and transported to County Jail.

And Here’s Another Gift!

During a routine patrol this Wednesday night near the county complex on Emeline (the place where junkies get their free needles courtesy of the county!), Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Deputies found a man who was on probation and in possession of several medications that did not belong to him. He was arrested and booked into jail for several drug related charges. He’s probably out already, stealing more prescriptions from people in the community.

Watsonville Bum Camp Busted

Five people were arrested after Watsonville Police responded to community reports of illegal camping on the 700 block of Ohlone Parkway. Police followed several trails through heavy brush to find the encampment, where they recovered guns, drugs and a dog. A 43 year old man who was arrested is a felon and had two guns, ammunition and drugs in his possession. He was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail. As for the dog, officers turned her over to Animal Control.

Probably Triaged as a Nuisance Call

Wednesday night around 6:30PM, a report came in about a fight between male and female inside a vehicle in the Trader Joes parking lot. Witnesses reported hearing the male say “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard” and that the woman was bleeding from the face. Well, I guess it’s pretty hard to deny you hit her. The male took off in the car before SCPD arrived and nobody was arrested.

Downtown Brawling

Around 8:45PM on Saturday night, a report came in about a brawl on the 100 block of Soquel near Front. Witnesses reported seeing a male with a purple mohawk fighting with 2 other guys.

Joy Rides in Capitola

A California Highway Patrol officer working the graveyard shift made a traffic stop in Live Oak and found a 12 year old in the driver seat taking her friends for a late night joyride in her parents car. The girl’s parents called 911 early Tuesday morning after realizing their daughter and their car were both gone. According to CHP, about two weeks ago officers stopped the same Capitola girl driving erratically with her friends in the car. This time, juvenile court will be handling it.

The Battle Over Rent Control Rages On

Let me state unequivocally that I think rent control is a stupid idea. And I’m not the only who thinks this. Pretty much every economist thinks this. You know, the people that are experts on stuff like supply and demand, and how it effects the local economy. But somehow, a small group of local people managed to get enough signatures in a town full of far left leaning liberal lemmings. So this will be an interesting vote. Will the “silent majority” of moderates, home owners, property managers shut this down? Do we even have that silent majority or is that a myth?

This week’s city council meeting got pretty contentious at times over this issue, with strong support from both sides speaking for and against the idea. The supporters for rent control seemed to mostly be made up of UCSC students and the people opposed were mostly older, professional property owner types. So it did often appear at times to be a debate between adults and children.

There’s a local group of community members who oppose rent control called Santa Cruz Together, and they just held a meeting at the SCPD community room to formulate plans to defeat this initiative now that it’s on the ballot and will be decided by local voters in November. I asked a friend who attended to send me some notes on the meeting. Here are their notes:

“The meeting was very well attended with over 100 people there. At least one current city council member was there, as well as a number of candidates possibly running for election. Everyone seemed to be in agreement that we have a rental housing crisis but this is a pathetically poorly written initiative. This is a case where the solution is worse than the problem. Much like Prop 47, there will be many unintended negative consequences if this passes. Since they announced the campaign which was quickly followed up with the “emergency ordinances” by the city council, dozens of long term tenants have been given their notices of termination of tenancy, landlords have listed their properties for sale and applications for ADUs have been pulled/put on hold until after the election. We have a shortage of rental units and if this passes we will lose even more. There are special protections for seniors over 62 and the disabled so guess what? Landlords will be less likely to rent to seniors, the disabled and families because they are more likely to stay in their units. The transient student population will probably become the most attractive tenants.

Under the “Just Cause Eviction” rules, if someone has been in your unit for 5 years or more, a deed restriction gets added to the deed in their name. If you wish to move into your own property you will have to pay them relocation fees equal to up to 6 months of rent (at market rate -even if you are charging below market rates!) If the unit ever comes up for rent again, you have to find your former tenant and give them first right of refusal to move back in – at the rate they were paying when they moved out! Tenants who are obnoxious, create nuisances and engage in illegal activity will be almost impossible to get rid of. You can rent to a family of 3 and then they can choose to move in a bunch of other people, as many as 1 person for every 50 square feet. So if the house next door to you is a rental, you may find yourself living next door to 15 people in one house. There goes the neighborhood!

It gets even better. There will of course need to be a “Rent Control Board” to oversee all rentals and approve any termination of tenancies. So who hires them? The first year each CC member gets to appoint 1 person to make a 7 year board. The 2nd year it will be dropped to a board of 5. Who pays their salaries?? The landlords of course!! Somewhere between $400-$1000 year per rental unit. At least one “informed person” projects that the City will be paying the salaries of the rent control board for the first 2 years! We will just take that money from the Parks & Rec budget. No biggie!”

Check these guys out and support them with a donation if you can!

DeCinzotized – Classic Steven DeCinzo

Deja Vu. She’s back!

Los Lobos at the Boardwalk!

This Friday night. More than three decades have passed since Grammy winners Los Lobos released their debut album. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music. In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is easily the best show of the season, the most popular show of the season, and it’s a real treat for the local community to have a band of this caliber and stature play for free at the Boardwalk. Big shout out and thanks to Kris Reyes for bringing them back for another year, the 3rd straight year now. Free shows at 6:30 and 8:30PM.

The Weekly Seen

Well, it is called a “Jump” bike right?

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26 Comments

  1. Your use of the phrase “a town full of far left leaning liberal Lemmings” summed Santa Cruz up perfectly. You should have just simplified it and called it a “socialist town” given the National election results of last week that shows that the Democrat Party is becoming the Socialist Party.

    Ben as you know, socialism has failed every time it’s been implemented and the rent control fiasco is simply a prelude to pure socialism which is the real big story. I predict that Santa Cruz is going to vote for socialist mayors and council members going forward and we probably already have some. Socialists want to have government-run everything and we know how well that works.

    • I think it’s a constant struggle to get people to move towards the middle (become more “moderate”). That’s true on both ends of the political spectrum. People on the “far left” and “far right” are a minority (that’s why they have the “far” part attached, it refers to what in statistics is known as the “normal distribution” and they are on the extreme sides of it). Yet locally, the “far left” minority seems to have sway over far too much public policy decision making. That’s the cycle we need to break locally. Until the “silent majority” of local moderates breaks this cycle (by electing more moderate people), it will continue to run unchecked through our local government.

    • Democratic Socialism has been very successful in the past; highways, education, social programs, youth centers, grants for arts, and research and development, etc. Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s was a time when corporations actually payed taxes as did the wealthy. It showed … Better narc budgets too!

      • alex in san jose AKA digital Detroit

        I’d not characterize Santa Cruz as a “liberal lemming” town unless you classify it as full of “hippies” who were affluent middle and upper-middle-class kids who adopted the beads and long hair and such to avoid the draft, and now they’re just classic old Boomers; “F*ck you, I’ve got mine”.

  2. Chris Jordan

    That photo of the jump bike rising to new heights is amusing! Confused the GPS on those I bet! 😀

    • Thanks Chris. Has anyone else noticed that those Jump bike stands you see all over town now rarely if ever have a bike in them? At least that’s been my experience. And I don’t think it’s because they’ve all been rented. I see them parked and locked around town, just rarely in those stands.

  3. Reality Check

    ” …a deed restriction gets added to the deed in their name.”
    Holy usurpation, Batman!

    • The city loves to make vague promises about more “affordable housing”, yet they make it impossible to want to own and rent property in this town. The city basically is killing any incentive to lease property locally. How will that increase rental stock here? It won’t. It will shrink it.

      • The deed restriction is so outlandish. Some kind of fairy tale situation where if you live in a house for 5 years, you become an owner of sorts. It’s the kind of provision that would be litigated for years, and I doubt the courts would upheld it. Whoever called the proposal a “land grab” was right on the money. I hope this measure goes down in flames. Greed is greed, no matter which side you’re on.

      • Sure will. I was advised me to get out of the market….. as Santa Cruz is rapidly becoming unfriendly place to invest. The rent freeze put the same handcuffs on landlords whether they were the “raise the rent regularly types” or mom and pop landlords who respectfully kept their rental rates 10% to 40%, or more, under market rates.

        That makes the same two similar properties, worth considerably different dollar amounts at point of sale as sale prices are based on rental multiples and the city has created a prejudice against landlords who have done exactly what everyone has asked for and kept their rents low. One unintended consequence is that unfortunately landlords have received the message that it’s us against them now, so when someone moves out….jack the rents to the max because the yearly allowable rental increase in this measure will not keep up with tax increases and other expenses …….so get it while you can as otherwise you increasingly will lose more and more income each year.

        Thanks for bringing this issue to light Ben and everyone out there…..let renters know the details of this flawed measure as it will be emotional low information voters who will do themselves the most harm by being inspired by the title “rent control” when the rest of the details are their poison…just as it is to property owners who will forced to withdraw properties from the rental market and sell them to Silicon Valley commuters or second home owners.

  4. Having been looking for a new place recently, I understand the frustration in finding affordable housing if you have a job and don’t qualify for assistance. Maybe it would be more constructive to build more multi-unit, multi-storied buildings (the horror!) and take some of the pressure off the market. Just spit-ballin’, here.

    • Thanks Jules. Makes perfect sense to most people. But this is Santa Cruz! We want “no growth” and still have an unlimited amount of tax revenue to squander on endless, redundant social service programs that should be handled by the county anyways. All you have to do is look at the pushback from people on the eastside of Santa Cruz, especially along Soquel avenue, that will strongly oppose any multi story development as part of the corridor project.

    • Judi Grunstra

      The city has plans to approve 500-1000 rental units in taller buildings on Pacific and southern end of Front.

  5. Megan DeLeon

    Could you start covering stories in Scotts Valley. I look on the police website and nothing is ever posted. A house on Mt. Hermon was taped with Caution Tape and I could not find out about what happened. We live a mile from that house.
    Living near the police station, I hear sirens all day.
    Thanks,
    Megan

    • Hi Megan. I occasionally talk about Scotts Valley (usually when bad stuff happens but not exclusively). I try to at least broaden my horizons and bandwidth to include the full county of Santa Cruz, so you might see stuff about Aptos, Capitola, Soquel, Live Oak, Watsonville, and even Scotts Valley on occasion. But I live in the city and that’s probably what I talk about most. I always appreciate tips and juicy rumors so if you hear anything, pass it along and tell your friends in the San Lorenzo valley to do the same and hopefully I can cover more stuff on point for Scotts Valley. Thanks for reading and commenting!

  6. As one of those Eastsiders who don’t want the corridors lined with tall buildings, it is not strictly a NIMBY issue. I am fine with three story buildings with greenery in front, set-backs and design features and adequate parking. However, four to five story buildings, of studio/one bedroom apartments from as small as 370 sq ft with 1/2 parking space per unit will primarily appeal to students. Adding a minimal percent of “affordable units” allows density bonuses increasing buildings another story or two, depending on details. It is inappropriate to increase density along already congested corridors. What possible mitigation will compensate for thousands more cars? It is absurd to plan this eastside area for student housing instead of rezoning the far west side, building large apartments with direct transit to the university. Instead of slamming eastsiders as NIMBY, the useful approach would be to find out what the real issues are and address solutions. Name calling is easy. Providing actual solutions is complex. Why isn’t the westside being zoned for student housing?
    On another front, having purchased a small cottage with a formerly rented back cottage built in the 40’s, trying to legalize that second unit is a nightmare. It is safe, cute, and useful, but empty. Even the easing of ADU regulations will require ~$60,000 to bring it to inspection code. Such things as paving the alley – in the middle of the block, with the rest of properties in tall weeds.
    I absolutely agree with you on the just cause eviction problems in the ballot measure. Two evictions on my block, with property either being sold or extensively remodeled at much higher rent prices – $3600 for a funky small cottage, with extensive applicant screening. Even knowing the economic downsides of rent control, I could support a limited form, but the JCE is absolutely a deal-killer. The issue is how to explain that in a reasonable way to the university students and young people who are desperate for housing and don’t care about the bigger picture.

    • Was just getting ready to respond to Jules’ lament about being unable to find housing when I read the above post from Adell—which covers everything I would have written. Good question: Why isn’t the westside being zoned for student housing? Nice wide streets (Delaware) are able to handle the crush of more cars that inevitably accompanies multi-unit, multi-storied, stack & pack buildings. Please Jules, don’t tell me you’re a YIMBY.

      • Can I be a MIMBY (maybe in my back yard)? I’m not saying just slap up a bunch of cheap buildings without a care for the neighborhoods they’re built in. Students aren’t the only people in town looking for affordable rentals, however. How about some reasonably priced housing for people who aren’t students and don’t want to live three to a room just to be able to live near enough to town to have a reasonable commute time to their jobs?

  7. alex in san jose AKA digital Detroit

    This is getting better than the Arcata Eye police blotter (no longer being published, too bad, it was hilarious).

  8. Ivana Dump

    Thanks for an entertaining dump, once again. keep up the good work

  9. Alix Tichleman was using drugs the entire time she was in jail. Not only that, she is a murderous psychopath.

  10. Speaking of Summer Concerts on the Beach, do you know if it is possible to bring your bicycle and park it somewhere on the beach where it is not out of sight? I have pretty much accepted that a bicycle can never be left out of sight in a public place, especially an expensive one. I think I have left it on the beach well beyond where people were sitting, yet still within my line of vision. As I recall someone told me it was not allowed, but he was just a concert goer, and no one else seemed to care. It’s not terribly important, I know, but sometimes it feels like all enforcement efforts are expended on regular people, just trying to get along, as opposed to “nuisance crimes” which actually have victims who suffer. For some music groups, I’d get there by whatever means necessary, but for unfamiliar acts, being able to bike there would be a deciding factor. And I do like live music, and would regret missing a good performance. Any thoughts on this?

  11. Ride off!

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