“I always considered myself an activist,” said neighbor Brett Garrett, who scaled the tree Tuesday morning. “And I like trees in general, but I didn’t consider myself to be a tree activist until the last week.”

The madrone, thought to have been planted about 10 years ago, looms over a patio at the neighboring Walnut Commons, a cohousing building. It had been slated for removal Tuesday by one of the office building’s tenants — the nonprofit Ecology Action — to make way for an electric bike storage shed.

According to Heather Henricks with Ecology Action, the placement of the shed was in the works for the past year, and the tree’s welfare was considered, but its existence was seen by the nonprofit’s leadership as a possible nuisance to the neighbors.

“We gave considerable thought to the site and whether to remove the tree,” Henricks told the Sentinel. “Until the past week, we were under the impression from Walnut Commons residents that they would welcome the tree’s removal due to complaints about its droppings on their patios and the possibility of thieves using it to climb over the divider between our properties.”

But about a week ago, while on the patio, some Walnut Commons residents overheard the office building’s property manager talking about the tree’s removal. The news spread quickly to other residents, including Garrett, who has lived in the building since it was built nearly 10 years ago, on the block kitty-corner from Santa Cruz City Hall.

“The word spread like wildfire through the building and everyone felt really alarmed about possibly losing this tree,” said Garrett. “It’s right next to our patio and it feels like part of our environment even though it is on their property.”

The neighbors put together a petition opposing the madrone’s removal and nearly every resident of the building signed it —  23 signatures. Garrett said he and his neighbors thought the tree’s removal was being facilitated by Cruzio Internet, another of the building’s tenants, and were surprised to discover that it was Ecology Action. After creating the petition, the residents reached out to the nonprofit.

“In the face of today’s mounting climate crisis, we need passionate environmentalists more than ever,” said Henricks. “We were deeply touched to learn that our neighbors felt a strong connection to the strawberry madrone tree and were moved to request we adjust the plan.”

As of Monday afternoon, the removal was still slated to go ahead.  Garrett, who said his activism is usually centered around environmental issues such as clean energy and transportation, decided that he had to take extreme action. Around 7 a.m. Tuesday, he climbed the tree — inspired in part by Julia Butterfly Hill, who in the late 1990s lived for more than two years in an old-growth redwood tree in Humboldt County to prevent it from being cut down.

“I don’t know how many weeks she spent up in that tree,” said Garrett. “I was prepared to spend a few hours.”

Garrett said that climbing the tree was an empowering experience and as he perched there Tuesday morning he felt peaceful. After about two hours, Ecology Action Chief Operating Officer Chuck Tremper gave him some good news.

“He drove into the parking lot and noticed me in the tree and came over and said that you might want to know the tree is not coming down,” said Garrett. “I was very relieved.”

Garrett mentioned that being an activist doesn’t always mean that one’s actions result in an intended outcome and that he was excited that the neighbors’ efforts saved the tree.

“The usual experience as an activist is that you work on things and bang on walls and nothing ever changes,” said Garrett. “This felt really gratifying to work on this for just a few days with a good cohort of other people and actually save the tree. It shows me that activism is really worthwhile and you can really make a difference.”

After Garrett safely descended the madrone and returned home Tuesday, Tremper sent a message to Walnut Commons residents.

“All of us at Ecology Action have been touched by how many people in our neighborhood have come to love and value the tree — and be moved to protect it. And we want to protect it,” wrote Tremper. “After some late-night brainstorming and penciling, we have found a way to do just that. Although we’ll need to further reduce our parking and make some other adjustments that will add to our team’s workload, we are proposing to move our bike storage building further away from the south lot line so the tree can remain.”

Although the main event of the birthday celebration — fireworks over the bay — wouldn’t light up the sky until 9 p.m., roller coaster enthusiasts and first-time riders from all around were just as excited Saturday morning to be in line and gathered around the centenarian structure despite the slight drizzle, especially since the first few hundred riders on the Giant Dipper were gifted a commemorative 100th-anniversary pin.

The historic coaster has thrilled more than 68 million riders since it opened May 17, 1924 when the Sentinel described it as “A wonderful kick from start to finish,” and with “aeroplane curves.” The roller coaster is the fourth oldest in the country and one of the oldest in the world, and in 1987 both the Giant Dipper and the Boardwalk’s carousel were made historic landmarks by the National Park Service. The Giant Dipper has also been featured in numerous television commercials, shows and movies such as “Us,” “Bumblebee,” “Dangerous Minds,” and the 1980s cult classic “The Lost Boys.”

Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Renee Golder, who was honoring the ride on behalf of the Santa Cruz City Council with a mayoral proclamation, was also the honorary “guest of the day.” She was absolutely stoked to be ringing in the 100th year of the red and white roller coaster Saturday and she still remembers riding it for the first time as a kid.

“I had to put stuff in my shoes to get on because I was too short,” said Golder. “It was back in the 80s when we lived in Bonny Doon. My sister and I would take the bus down to Mission and Bay and walk down here. Our parents wouldn’t pick us up until after dark. We would wander around the Boardwalk all day with our season passes.”

Golder also mentioned that her first job was at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. She and longtime Boardwalk Spokesperson Kris Reyes spoke in a short ceremony Saturday morning before the ride officially opened.

“A hundred years ago when this ride opened, there was a big gala in the Cocoanut Grove and people started lining up at 7 a.m.,” said Reyes to the many hundreds gathered in front of the ride. “The line was 200 feet long of people waiting to ride this ride at 7 a.m. and I think we have that crowd beat today. We are so thankful to have you here as part of the Boardwalk family to ride this historic wonderful wooden roller coaster — the Giant Dipper.”

After reading the mayoral proclamation to the crowd, Golder fulfilled her “guest of the day” duties by hitting the button that officially opens the Boardwalk for the day. She was also given the honor of bringing an entourage of friends and family up the exit of the Giant Dipper for the first ride of the morning and the Sentinel was invited to join them.

While waiting to board the iconic coaster, Golder’s childhood friends Andra Kavuma and Shannon McGuire-Wynn recalled their first times riding the Giant Dipper.

“I was probably with my dad,” said Kavuma. “I still like it. I brought my daughter here a couple of months ago and it still gives you that really good rush.”

After taking a double ride, the Sentinel spoke with American Coaster Enthusiasts of Northern California member Darren Besoyan, who grew up riding the Giant Dipper, which has been designated by the organization, also known as ACE, as an “ACE Roller Coaster Landmark.”

“I first rode the Giant Dipper when I was 8 years old and I have been waiting for this day for 50 years,” said Besoyan. “Roller coasters are just so much fun and this one in particular is so architecturally stunning. I like the speed. I like the drops and I am just happiest when I am on a roller coaster.”

Besoyan said that he has ridden about 700 roller coasters across the country and the Giant Dipper is still his favorite.

“The tunnel is amazing and hardly any coasters out there have tunnels and they certainly don’t have any tunnels like this,” said Besoyan. “Then you go up the lift hill and you’re next to the ocean, and at night, they have the tracer lights. And you won’t find another roller coaster that has a simulated roller coaster earthquake while you’re waiting in line. It hits the building and the whole thing shakes. There are so many things that are unique to the Giant Dipper that other coasters don’t seem to have.”

He mentioned that the coaster train is still stopped manually by an operator and when they hit the brakes a little too late, the riders get an extra go at no charge.

“When you get that free ride and they send you into the tunnel, everyone just starts cheering,” he said. “It’s a phenomenal attraction and we love the Giant Dipper.”

While waiting in line with friends, Santa Cruz resident Lexie Corfiatis said she can’t quite remember the first time she rode the Giant Dipper, but it was when she was a little kid.

“I love the style and history of it, and the nostalgia,” said Corfiatis. “It really whips you around and gives you a good rocking. It’s a classic.”

After taking a ride on the Giant Dipper, at the ride’s exit, Cheryl Jones of Orange County met up with her friend Rebecca Evans who was visiting Santa Cruz from Los Angeles County.

“Yesterday, we both rode it for the official birthday and we remembered how rough it is,” said Jones. “And today, I am riding it one more time. It was awesome and everything I remembered from when I was a kid.”

The Boardwalk will continue to commemorate the 100-year-old coaster with “Dipper Days,” which will allow patrons to ride the iconic coaster for just $1 every Wednesday from May 29 to Aug. 7. On Aug. 17, or National Rollercoaster Day, the first 100 Giant Dipper riders will receive a Boardwalk souvenir cup.

For information, visit boardwalk.com.

SANTA CRUZ — The Boardwalk’s historic wooden roller coaster the Giant Dipper will celebrate its 100th year in operation this May and the milestone will be marked with some special events and celebrations that include a fireworks celebration.

“The Giant Dipper is one of the most iconic and recognized landmarks in all of Santa Cruz,” said Kris Reyes, Boardwalk spokesperson. “This classic wooden roller coaster has thrilled over 66 million riders during the past 100 years and we are excited to celebrate the Boardwalk’s crown jewel with an amazing fireworks show in May and other fun events throughout the year.”

The renowned roller coaster has been thrilling riders in its original location since May 17, 1924. The structure is the fourth oldest coaster in the country and one of the oldest in the world, and in 1987 both the Giant Dipper and the Boardwalk’s carousel were made historic landmarks by the National Park Service.

The Giant Dipper is not only locally famous as the historic ride has been seen in numerous television commercials, shows and movies such as “Us,” “Bumblebee,” “Dangerous Minds,” “Sudden Impact,” and of course the 1980s cult classic “The Lost Boys.”

To celebrate the historic structure’s centennial, the Boardwalk has received the go-ahead to put on a once-in-a-lifetime, 100th Anniversary Fireworks Celebration at 9 p.m., May 18. In addition to the display, the first 200 riders on the Giant Dipper that day will receive a commemorative 100th anniversary pin.

The Boardwalk will all commemorate the occasion with “Dipper Days,” which will allow patrons to ride the iconic coaster for just $1 every Wednesday from May 29 to Aug. 7. On Aug. 17, or National Rollercoaster Day, the first 100 Giant Dipper riders will receive a Boardwalk souvenir cup.

For local artists, young and old, A fan art contest centered around the Giant Dipper will take place from May 17 to Aug. 16. The contest welcomes artworks from all mediums such as paintings, drawings, photos or Dipper-inspired sculptures. Prizes include swag, Boardwalk cards and ride wristbands.

For information, visit beachboardwalk.com.

Joby Aviation, with its recently established headquarters in the Harvey West area of Santa Cruz and offices and facilities also in Marina and San Carlos, is currently developing electric air taxis for commercial passenger service, which it hopes to launch in 2025, and recently moved closer to that goal after completing another phase in the process to becoming certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“It’s going to have ridesharing networks, which is one of the things we are excited about in Santa Cruz, particularly with Highway 17,” said Santa Cruz Economic Development and Housing Director Bonnie Lipscomb at the meeting. “Joby also fits in with our community values of providing sustainable solutions to today’s challenges of congestion and climate change.”

According to the agenda report associated with the motion to approve the $500,000 loan to Joby, the funding would be provided to Joby on a reimbursement basis based on an annual survey of its job generation and employee retention. The agreement is meant to incentivize the hiring of 250 new, full-time employees in the city in total, which includes positions for technicians, engineers, machinists and managers, among others.

“That’s really the crux of what this agreement is about, is the creation of local jobs in our community,” said Lipscomb. “This incentivizes up to 250 jobs.”

The report points out that the loan is taken from the economic development trust fund and does not impact the city’s general fund, and that the loan funds “will be used for testing, manufacturing and safety equipment, including communications, safety, and other advanced specialized manufacturing equipment for the facility, such as CNC machines, lasers, and grinders.”

According to the report, the terms of the employment incentive loan include that it will be disbursed over no more than five years and with installment payments based on the annual employment survey. For each full-time employee that Joby hires, the city would loan the company $2,000. However, Joby cannot claim more than 100 new employees in a year, which means that the maximum loan amount awarded for a year is capped at $200,000.

During the public comment period, Joby Aviation’s Head of State and Local Policy George Kivork called into the meeting to speak to the process of the loan agreement and the company’s commitment to the city.

“We have spent the last year making sure that the agreement and the private partnership that we enter here together would be for the public interest,” said Kivork. “We put a very long range timeline of us not going anywhere for the next 10 years to commit ourselves to Santa Cruz.”

The City Council approved the motion in a vote of 6-1 with Councilmember Sandy Brown voting no.

To read the loan agreement, visit cityofsantacruz.com.

“Ferris wheels are as much a part of a classic seaside amusement park experience as wooden roller coasters, carousels and cotton candy,” said Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Director of External Affairs Kris Reyes. “We are thrilled to add Dream Wheel to our lineup of amazing rides and I know our guests will love the stunning views.”

The Dream Wheel is one of two rides that the Santa Cruz Seaside Co. announced it will be adding to the Boardwalk next year. The other, called Surge, puts riders in gondolas on a wheel’s spokes, then spins and tilts them.

Both Surge and Dream Wheel are manufactured by the Kansas-based company Chance Rides.

The classic-car-themed Rock & Roll ride will be demolished to make space for the Dream Wheel. The new wheel, about 65 feet tall, will feature 15 gondolas that can hold about four adults or six children each. According to Reyes, the Dream Wheel is “a modern take on a quintessential seaside amusement park Ferris wheel.”

The Boardwalk’s last full-size Ferris wheel, which was about 67 feet high, opened to the public in 1959. It aged out and was dismantled in 2017.

Although an exact opening date for either ride has not been announced, Reyes said the Boardwalk hopes to open Dream Wheel around spring break and Surge around Memorial Day.

“The people that we are actually looking at are servants to the royal family,” said Fehren-Schmitz. “The Inca had a very complex system of forced relocation that they also used to control the places that they occupied and to maintain their political relationships.”

The recently published study, titled “Insights into the genetic histories and lifeways of Machu Picchu’s occupants,” was conducted over a 12-year span, and included researchers from Yale, Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Tulane University, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in addition to UCSC and was made possible through an agreement between Yale, the State of Peru, and the University of Cusco to return artifacts and human remains from the Hiram Bingham Expedition collection back to Peru.

Fehren-Schmitz, whose expertise lies in archeology and genetics, and is also the associate director of the UCSC Genomics Institute, has been working on the Machu Picchu study from the beginning. More than a decade ago, while finishing up his doctorate in his home nation of Germany, he attended a conference in Lima, Peru, where he met Yale Anthropology Professor Richard Burger, who inspired the idea of the study and is also a co-author.

“At that time, Yale was involved in negotiations with the State of Peru to return all the artifacts and human remains from the Hiram Bingham excavations in Peru,” said Fehren-Schmitz. “He offered me to come over as a postdoc to help with the human remains of the repatriation to Peru.

Burger then suggested that Fehren-Schmitz attempt to analyze the DNA of the recovered human remains, which were taken from Machu Picchu in the early 20th century. In the early 2010s, Fehren-Schmitz finished up his studies at Yale and began working as a professor at UCSC in 2013.

“Before that, I’d never even thought about the possibility of having access to the human remains buried at that site,” said Fehren Schmitz. “That started the whole project. It took about 12 years to finish it for many reasons.”

Fehren-Schmitz found that the DNA extracted from the teeth of the 34 approximately 500-year-old cadavers was in bad shape, and the technology didn’t yet exist a decade ago to analyze it. Over time, he and other researchers developed the technology and methods necessary to make sense of the damaged genetic material.

“It took quite a lot of R&D work here, developing our methods, and enhancing our success rates to isolate and to sequence the genomes of the individuals that we just published,” said Fehren Schmitz. “Twelve years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible to do what we’ve done now.”

According to Fehren-Schmitz, the current understanding among scholars is that Machu Picchu served as a seasonal mountain getaway for Incan emperors beginning with the emperor Pachacuti and was in use from about 1420 to 1530.

Although, none of the individuals buried in the caves around Machu Picchu were of the Incan royal line, who were entombed at the Incan capital of Cusco, but were skilled craftspeople and high-ranking officials from peoples conquered by the Incas.

According to Fehren-Schmitz, the Incans would sometimes force these conquered peoples to relocate away from their homelands to places such as Machu Picchu where they would work as servants, or yanacona, but that didn’t mean they were forced to do hard labor. The yanacona served as religious advisers and specialized workers.

“It was definitely not a city in the traditional sense,” said Fehren-Schmitz. “There was a continuous population living at the site and these are the individuals that our study focuses on. They probably didn’t occupy many of these fascinating buildings there, but served the site and kept it alive while the royal family was there and while they were not there.”

Because of previous studies about grave goods, and the understanding that yanacona came from a wide area around the Andes Mountains, Fehren-Schmitz expected lots of genetic diversity in the 34 individuals whose DNA was analyzed, but he was surprised to discover that the population had a high level of genetic diversity from the mountain retreat’s founding to its end, which didn’t seem to match up with the chronology of Incan conquest.

“We actually find people with ancestry from faraway places right at the beginning of the site,” said Fehren Schmitz. “We cannot say that means that the Incan empire expanded much earlier than we thought, or that it simply means that the Incans had interactions with the people in these regions, where people were taken for political leverage, before the Incas occupied these territories.”

After more than a decade of work on the study, and with the cooperation from a broad range of academic colleagues, Fehren Schmitz said he is pleased that the results are published and available to the world at-large.

“You can’t do a study like this with just one individual,” Fehren Schmitz. “You need all the expertise to create the most complete picture that you can. Studies like this should always be an interdisciplinary effort and this one was a good example of that.”

With the methods to collect, analyze and contextualize the genetic information of long-dead humans now honed, Fehren-Schmitz said he is eager to expand the analysis to other regions, which he hopes will provide insight into the genetic effects of European colonization on the indigenous peoples of South America, especially around the Andes.

“This is where my heart is,” said Fehren-Schmitz. “The Andes are gigantic and there’s so much to do still, and now with all these methods and frameworks we’ve developed in this 12-year project, we can move much faster.”

To read the study, visit science.org.

The UCSC-based team of four, called SlugLoop, is one of 10 Solutions Challenge finalists out of the top 100 teams from around the globe, and the only team from the U.S. that made the final round.

The mobile app tracks the university’s loop shuttle buses in real-time, hence the name, SlugLoop. The application was developed by current UCSC students Annie Liu and Alex Liu, and recent graduates Nicholas Szwed and Bill Zhang, and is currently deployed and used by students at the university.

“The inspiration for this project actually came from a Reddit post where some students were complaining about the irregular schedules of the loop buses,” said Zhang, product manager for SlugLoop. “I found myself agreeing with their frustrations and one of the comments caught my attention that said that the school already had a loop bus tracker but it had been discontinued.”

Zhang began to reach out to professors about the discontinued bus tracking app and last February took his knowledge of the defunct system into the university’s student-run hackathon known as CruzHacks, which, like the Solutions Challenge, focuses on developing technology that contributes to the social good.

The initial team consisted of Zhang, Alex Liu and Annie Liu, and Szwed came onboard during the CruzHacks event where they created the first rough iteration of the SlugLoop project, which they further developed into a working app and submitted to the Google Solutions Challenge.

“Initially, I think we found the project to fit very well with the sustainable development goals of the United Nations,” said Szwed. “It impacted people in a meaningful way and there was this need that wasn’t met, where students wanted to track the loop better, and so we thought it would be a perfect fit for the challenge.”

SlugLoop consists of three main parts: the user-facing mobile application, a server and a database where the gathered information is stored.

“The buses send data to our receivers and every five seconds, our receivers will send the bus location to our server,” said Zhang. “Our front end is pretty simple and everything is combined by the database.”

Creating an accurate bus tracker app wasn’t easy for the team as they were able to use some of the hardware already in place on the buses and buildings from the previous loop tracking system, but they had to fix it first.

“Two of the receivers on the roofs were broken,” said Zhang. “And we had to gain access to the roofs but the school doesn’t really give students access to the roofs because of safety issues, so we had to reach out to building coordinators to get permission to get on the roofs, and that took a while.”

The team’s patience and hard work paid off as it is the only team from the states to become a top 10 finalist in this year’s Solutions Challenge. Zhang looked into this fact further and discovered that the SlugLoop team was the only U.S.-based team in the past three years to make the cut.

“For me, that was really shocking,” said Zhang. “I was looking at projects from this year and previous years, and most of them have a global reach. For example, making it easier to do COVID testing where our project is only for UCSC. It’s just shocking that our local project beat these global reach projects.”

The final round of the Google Solutions Challenge will be livestreamed on YouTube at 1 p.m. Aug. 3. At the Solutions Challenge Demo Day event, each of the 10 finalists will present their applications and how Google products and platforms were used to create them to a panel of Google judges. The top three grand prize winners will be announced during the livestream.

The members of the SlugLoop team have presented application projects in a similar way in their college classes, but never to a worldwide audience and a panel of judges, so they’re confident, but a little nervous.

“Looking at the competition, it’s going to be pretty tough,” said Zhang. “I was surprised we made it to the top 100 and then the top 10 and if we make it to the top three, I’ll be amazed.”

“I’m kind of in a dream right now,” added Szwed. “If we were to win the whole thing, I’d be ecstatic, but I am so proud of the team and the work we’ve done to get to this point.”

For information about the Demo Day event, visit gdsc.community.dev.

“Me and my dad got in an argument one day in the kitchen,” said Firefish Grill owner Mark Gilbert. “He said, ‘Why don’t you just buy me out then?’ and I said, ‘OK fine.’ That’s how I ended up buying the restaurant.”

In 1989, ownership of what was then called Malio’s restaurant, after the original owner Malio Stagnaro, passed from restaurateur father, Jim Gilbert, to his son and current owner Mark Gilbert. The eatery then changed names to Gilbert’s Seafood Grill, and about two decades later to Firefish Grill.

In April 2022, in the Firefish Grill kitchen, a flat top grill was accidentally switched on while the kitchen was being cleaned after the restaurant had closed. The establishment had a robust fire suppression system in place, which should cut the gas and electricity, and extinguishes any fire as soon as it’s detected, but the system malfunctioned.

“I’ve been in the restaurant business for 42 years and things like this happen, usually in the middle of the night, and then in the morning you clean it up and maybe you’re an hour late to open,” said Gilbert. “But with the system being down, the fire went up and around the hoods and there was a big hole in the ceiling.”

The day was tragic not only because of the fire damage. Gilbert, who also owns and operates the Dolphin restaurant farther down the wharf, found out that same day that one of the restaurant’s longtime servers and his good friend, Rosalba “Rosy” Gonzalez was killed in a car crash. She had worked at the Dolphin for more than two decades.

“It just knocked me over,” said Gilbert. “It really puts this whole fire thing in perspective. It was heartbreaking.”

After taking some time to grieve and assess the damage to the Firefish kitchen, Gilbert decided that he wanted to radically remodel the space — combining Woodies Cafe with Firefish — something he had stewed over for years. After the city sent the plans back without approval, Gilbert decided to put that grand plan back on the burner and keep the restaurant mostly the same. With about $2 million in fire damage, a reluctant insurance company, and revenue loss around about $1 million a year, he wanted to get back to business.

“I ended up just keeping it the way that it was, structurally,” said Gilbert. “We did get a few more burners and a little more refrigeration space.”

He also took the opportunity to modify the restaurant’s palette, which didn’t always suit his taste. The interior was designed in the late 1980s by Gilbert’s dad, and had a darker vibe that reflected the zeitgeist of the time, but Gilbert felt was outdated. He changed the scheme to something cooler with blue and white walls and walnut tabletops.

“It was so dark and so 80s with all this mahogany,” said Gilbert. “It was like a bad, matching leisure suit.”

Gilbert is glad to soon be back in business after more than a year hiatus, and with a brighter feel. The walls will also be adorned with the photography of world-famous local surf and skate photographer Dave “Nelly” Nelson. The pictures will feature QR codes that lead to the stories behind the images.

A silver lining to the ordeal is that Gilbert, who is a cook alongside being a restaurateur, has had lots of time to dial in a new clam chowder recipe with his head chef Jesus Becceril.

“We’re adding a few items that we’ve been working on,” said Gilbert. “We have a chowder that is outrageously good. It’s made with shrimp stock, fresh scallops and prawns, halibut and bacon. The potatoes are deep fried, and we have a mirepoix that we saute in butter and simmer it all down and then finish it with cream and a little sherry. We’ve been refining it while we’ve been down and it’s fabulous.”

Although Gilbert had hoped to reopen Firefish at the start of June, snags in the supply chain have pushed the date back a few weeks, but he plans to open June 20, or not too long after. He has retained some of his old staff, but not all of them, and they’ll all be working long shifts until he can hire more.

“We’re going to get walloped as soon as we open the door,” said Gilbert. “Everybody’s asking me when we’re going to open and I’m glad that we finally will be.”

The ridgetop overlooks Big Basin to the west and Boulder Creek to the east, and is populated with second-growth redwoods and hardwoods, mostly untouched by the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires. The Sterrenzee Ridgetop is located on the northern edge of the 153-acre property known as the Gateway to Big Basin, which the land trust acquired last year, and follows on the heels of its purchase in January of the 15-acre Saddle Mountain Vista property, which lies just south of the gateway.

Sterrenzee Ridgetop was purchased for $500,000 from Kurt and Mary Mortensen, and Saddle Mountain Vista was purchased for $376,500 from Andrea Potter. The purchases were made with financial support from Resources Legacy Fund and the Sempervirens Fund donors.

“This series of land acquisitions will expand protection of the old-growth forests at the heart of Big Basin and support efforts to reestablish the park as a vibrant destination where people can experience ancient redwoods,” said Executive Director of Sempervirens Fund Sara Barth. “As we face down the threats of climate change, acquiring and conserving these lands is more critical than ever.”

These properties will work into the next phase of California State Park’s Reimagining Big Basin visioning process, which was created after the devastating 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire destroyed nearly every structure in the park, and is planned to begin this summer. Because of its location, the Saddle Mountain property is being envisioned as a potential headquarters for new visitor services and staff buildings.

The Sterrenzee Ridgetop and Saddle Mountain Vista properties are adjacent to a series of properties that Sempervirens Fund has already acquired and made a part of Big Basin Redwoods State Park previously, and are also intended to expand the park’s footprint even further, according to California State Parks Superintendent Chris Spohrer.

“We believe permanently preserving forests adjacent to Big Basin is essential to the park’s future,” said Spohrer. “Sempervirens Fund’s newly protected properties at Saddle Mountain extend the park’s protection of redwood forests and the Boulder Creek watershed. As we work on Reimagining Big Basin, these properties align with our and the public’s expectations for the park’s future.”

Before they are made a part of Big Basin Redwoods State Park officially, Sempervirens Fund will manage the properties as conservation lands, with a focus on supporting wildfire recovery. Stewardship of the properties includes hazard tree removal, selective thinning and removal of non-native species, among other activities intended to bolster the forest’s healing process.

“Not only are forests in the Santa Cruz mountains still recovering from wildfire, but they’ve had to deal with drought, heat and flooding,” said Laura McLendon, Sempervirens Fund’s director of land conservation. “Active forest management is critical to restore these forests and help diminish the severity of any future wildfire, especially in the years following a major event like the CZU fire. It is vital for community safety as well as forest health.”

Sempervirens Fund was California’s first land trust, and protects and permanently preserves redwood forests, wildlife habitat, watersheds, and other important natural and scenic features of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

“The appellate court ruling means that cities across California can once again enact public health policies like sugary drink taxes without fear of financial ruin,” said Santa Cruz City Councilmember Martine Watkins, who was a plaintiff in the case. “We’re now one step closer to more California residents being able to reap the benefits of these types of policies.”

In early June 2018, a 1.5-cent-per-ounce sugary drink tax ballot initiative, championed by Watkins and others, had been approved by the Santa Cruz City Council to go to a vote by city residents that November, but the initiative was brought to an abrupt halt when then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Keep Groceries Affordable Act into law June 2018, months before the election.

The law prevents taxes on grocery items and included a penalty provision for any charter city that attempted to implement a sugary drink tax, or other grocery-related tax that would take away the city’s sales tax revenue, and was prompted by pressure on California lawmakers from the beverage industry, according to court documents.

“Naturally, we were disappointed,” said Watkins. “We had put a lot of time and energy into crafting something that we felt was really good and reflective of our values.”

Soon after the act’s passage, then-Santa Cruz City Manager Martin Bernal suggested the measure be taken off of the 2018 ballot in fear of the penalty and it was ultimately removed.

In 2020, a lawsuit was filed by Jarvis, Fay & Gibson LLP on behalf of Watkins and Fresno-based nonprofit Cultiva La Salud, which advocates for health equity in the San Joaquin Valley. ChangeLab Solutions and the American Heart Association also supported the legal action.

“We have clear evidence that sugary drink taxes are an effective strategy for protecting the health of children and families and countering the beverage industry’s unjust marketing and sales practices,” said Genoveva Islas, founder and executive director of Cultiva La Salud. “This ruling is a victory for all Californians and clears a path for community health advocates and local governments to confront health inequities driven by sugary drink consumption.”

The appellate court ruling did state that the penalty provision in the law was unconstitutional, but the ruling does not affect the prohibition of local sugary drink taxes. However, charter cities can now rethink putting sugary drink tax initiatives to a vote without fear of devastating financial penalties.

“I was thrilled,” said Sabrina Adler, vice president of law with Changelab Solutions. “This was a validation of what we thought all along. Both the way that the 2018 law was passed, and what it contained was suspect from a constitutional perspective, and the courts went straight to that.”

According to Adler, the ruling is more just a win for the plaintiffs and charter cities across California. It also shows that the efforts to pass legislation by powerful corporate lobbies such as those in the beverage industry can be challenged by citizens and advocacy groups using the judiciary.

“There’s a symbolic message too here, which is that you can’t just sidestep the law to protect your bottom line,” said Adler. “When you take that local authority away, that obviously has a detrimental effect, especially when it benefits corporations and not individuals.”

This opinion will become final 30 days after its March 29 posting, and the state will then have 10 days to request review from the California Supreme Court. If the state pursues that avenue, the Supreme Court would then have two months to decide whether to hear the case. If the state does not appeal or the Supreme Court denies review, the opinion is final.