There was a time when it rained in February. We called it Crosby Weather after the man behind the pro-am golf tournament that’s underway in Pebble Beach. Singer and actor Bing Crosby brought the event to the area in 1946. Because it is held in February, the pro-am was often plagued by rain and even canceled in 1996 because of stormy weather.
Things have changed. The Crosby Clambake is now the AT&T Pro-Am and Crosby Weather is now sunscreen and sunglasses. Brian Garcia with the National Weather Service said in the last five years, there has only been significant weather once during the event. In 2017, the area received six inches of rain, almost twice the average, during the week of the pro-am.
While Garcia has said many times that it is difficult to tie a specific weather event to climate change, there is no doubt that California is in an extended drought. It affects everything, including a celebrity golf tournament.
The Colorado Fire in Big Sur is 100 percent contained. Cal Fire spokesperson Cecile Juliette told KAZU that firefighters fully contained it Wednesday at 7 a.m. The fire broke out two weeks ago when a burn pile spread into wildland. One structure, a yurt, was destroyed, and nearly 700 acres of land near Palo Colorado Canyon was burned.
The debate over the fraught future of Santa Cruz County’s rail lines reached a boiling point this week. The most recent controversy is centered on Roaring Camp Railroads, the iconic tourist train in Felton. The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission is discussing a move called “adverse abandonment.” Melani Clark, the CEO of Roaring Camp, told KAZU News that she’s worried it could hurt her business.
Despite a widely publicized claim by Roaring Camp, the RTC’s meeting on Thursday morning did not include a final decision on the matter. Instead, the nearly six hour meeting was a platform for seemingly endless public comment, featuring familiar debates over the rail corridor — whether it should support a commuter train alongside a trail, or just a trail on its own. How adverse abandonment pertains to the future of the rail corridor — and how it will impact Roaring Camp Railroads — is still a lingering question, despite a long, long day of discussion.
#ICYMI…Jerimiah Oetting’s reporting on the Amah Mutsun’s fight to remove El Camino Real mission bells from California was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered Wednesday evening. The movement presses on, despite the City of Gilroy’s recent installation of a bell in its downtown historic paseo. You can hear the national piece here.
And for more information on the history of mission bells, check out the virtual exhibit created by California State Parks.
Workers at two Starbucks in Santa Cruz are on track to unionize. It could make them the third and fourth locations in the U.S. to do so. Workers at the two stores, located at Ocean and Water streets and at Mission and Dufour streets, jointly filed petitions to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB requires more than 30% of workers at each location be on board. Joe Thompson, the lead organizer, said the next step is for the NLRB to hold elections at the two stores, which they anticipate will happen before the end of March. If more than half the votes are in favor, the unions are officially recognized.
“Starbucks wouldn’t need (nearly) 60 unions filing all over the county if it was the best workplace,” Thompson said. “Obviously there are some deeper issues at the bottom of it.”
Thompson is speaking with 16 other locations in California that are interested in unionizing, and is actively working across the state to encourage Starbucks employees to organize. As of Monday, NPR reports that 54 locations in 19 states are pursuing unionization.
The State of the Pandemic
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Until then,
The KAZU Team