Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Seaside mural celebrates community, Santa Cruz increases e-bike incentives

A gold curtain hangs over a painting on a blue wall of a building. To the right, a man in a suit speaks into a microphone at a lectern. Balloons are off to the side.
Jillian Smith
/
KAZU
Seaside Mayor Ian Oglesby speaks as a new mural in at Lupita's Bakery is unveiled.

In today's newscast:

New mural celebrates Seaside community

A new mural at Lupita’s Bakery in Seaside is honoring the founding family’s roots while celebrating the community they’ve built over the past nine years. Tommy Morales and his brother own the bakery now.

“This mural is a tribute to everybody in the Hispanic culture, to everyone here in Seaside," Morales said, "and to my late mother, who inspired us to be here.”

Friend and artist Jorge Torres says creating the mural here felt like giving back to his hometown.

I always told myself that if I were to make it somewhere, I wanna make it here," he said.

The mural, created in partnership with the Arts Council for Monterey and the City of Seaside, is now on display at Lupita’s Bakery on Broadway Avenue.

Santa Cruz wants more people to bike to work.

Now, the city is offering bigger incentives for e-bikes.

Entering its 6th year, the city’s Go Bike E-Bike incentive program is increasing by 25% — to $500 as a base rebate or $1,000 for income-eligible riders.

Transportation planner Claire  Gallogly says the popular program is funded through parking fees.

"And  the cost of an e-bike is still a limiting factor," she said. "And especially now, where the price of so many things in life has gone up, a piece of feedback that we got was increasing the rebates would make it easier for more people to use the program."

She says the e-bike sales also help local businesses.

"Something that we feel really proud of in this program also is that all of our rebates are only eligible at local bike shops," Gallogly said. "So every dollar that we've invested in this program has generated over four dollars in local sales."

Plus, she adds, riders have a reliable place to turn if they have any questions or problems with their new e-bikes.

Jillian Smith graduated from California State University Monterey Bay with a degree in Humanities and Communication, focusing on Journalism and New Media. Her love for storytelling took root in school creative writing clubs, where she first discovered how powerful words can be in bringing people together.
Amy Mayer is an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of experience in public radio. Before KAZU, she worked as an editor for the California Newsroom and at St. Louis Public Radio. For eight years, she covered agriculture as the Harvest Public Media reporter based at Iowa Public Radio. She's also worked at stations in Massachusetts and Alaska and has written for many newspapers, magazines and online news outlets.