Quote:
The downtown Santa Cruz Palace Arts was shuttered in January.
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

LOCAL BUSINESS

An unexpected holiday gift: Palace Arts will now remain open in Capitola under new local ownership
BY LOOKOUT SANTA CRUZ
Source:  Lookout Santa Cruz 

Quick Take

The family that took over local restaurants the Crow’s Nest, Gilda’s on the Wharf and Santa Cruz Diner are the new owners of the 41st Avenue Palace store. Longtime owners the Trowbridge family were planning to shutter their final brick-and-mortar business after the holidays.

Published 24 Minutes Ago 
Palace Art & Office Supply owners reversed course on a plan to close their 41st Avenue location, instead selling that portion of their business to another area family that also owns longtime local restaurants the Crow’s Nest, Gilda’s on the Wharf and Santa Cruz Diner.
In January, the downtown Santa Cruz location closed its doors, adding to the pandemic business woes for many longtime brick-and-mortar institutions.
A statement by owner Roy Trowbridge announced that Charles Maier, his wife, Al-lee Gottlieb, and their four children “will carry on the Trowbridge family legacy as the new owners of the beloved retail store.”
In the statement, Maier said: “We’re excited to carry on this legacy and help preserve what the community has always loved about Palace. Everyone can expect to be able to get the same great products and the same service from the same friendly staff.
Maier bought Santa Cruz Diner in 2018. After the Stagnaro family closed Gilda’s in the early months of the pandemic, Maier took it over earlier this year.
Trowbridge said in his statement that Maier has proved to be a good caretaker of businesses started by others: He is “also the owner of other longtime Santa Cruz institutions, all of which have remained successful by sticking close to the original vision for each business.”
Palace Business Solutions, the Trowbridge family’s commercial division, remains under original ownership.
“When we made the decision earlier this year to end our retail journey, we didn’t imagine this turn of events,” said Trowbridge, whose father originally purchased Palace in 1949. “We are honored that the Palace retail store will live on with another local family.”

Quote:
Owner Joe Ferrara aims to always focus on the “interaction over the transaction” when connecting with customers: “Everyone walks out that door happier than they walk in.”
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

LOCAL BUSINESS

Connection through comics: Atlantis Fantasyworld celebrates 45 years in Santa Cruz, cultivating community

BY GRACE STETSON
Source:  Lookout Santa Cruz 

Quick Take

The stalwart comic book shop has seen a lot over the years, from the rise of comics’ popularity with “Star Wars” to the 1989 earthquake to the rejuvenation of downtown business. At its 45th anniversary, owner and founder Joe Ferrara take a moment to back on all that has made the store so vital, and what is on the horizon.

Published 23 Hours Ago 

Joe Ferrara moved to Santa Cruz on Aug. 15, 1976, with musical aspirations and a few extra moving boxes to hold his 6,000 comic books.
Now, nearly half a century later, Ferrara is still playing music — but his primary joy comes from sharing his love of comics with the community through Atlantis Fantasyworld.
On Nov. 26, the shop celebrated its 45th anniversary. And over that nearly half-century have come different store locations throughout downtown, changes in comics’ popularity, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
This Saturday and Sunday, Ferrara will take that history and focus on the positives with a storewide anniversary sale.

Owner Joe Ferrara acknowledged that his job is to “motivate the team to give their best effort every day,” which helped the store thrive during the pandemic.
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Inventory manager Nate Brand said that the popularity of the store has led to more of its continued attachment to the area: “There are generations’ worth of locals, native Santa Cruzans, who come here now with their kids, grandkids … I’ve never been to a shop like this, with this type of community.”
It’s been a long road, Ferrara says, to get to this point — but it couldn’t have happened without the first “Star Wars” movie, released in May 1977.
“All of the sudden I had to open on time … that was the start of what is currently driving popular culture. You see the superheroes, all of this, and it all started with ‘Star Wars’ — it became mainstream,” he said. “The medium is being used for so much more.”

The original downtown location of Atlantis Fantasyworld.
(Courtesy Joe Ferrara)

Over those first 16 years, Ferrara and the shop grew in popularity while also dealing with site changes, including a move into a downtown tent for three years after the 1989 earthquake. In 1992, Atlantis was able to move to its current location on Locust Street, and hasn’t looked back.
“We got people to find us, with a line down the street, to buy the new Superman,” Ferrara said, with “The Death of Superman” released in December 1992, which went on to sell over 6 million copies and becoming the bestselling comic book issue in 1992. “That was quite fortuitous.”
In the current location over the past 29 years, Ferrara has built up quite the following, both in terms of a regular customer base and devoted employees. Comic diehards come on Wednesdays for New Comic Book Day, and community members mark their calendars for Atlantis’s three annual seasonal sales, plus Free Comic Book Day and Star Wars Day.
Trisha Wolfe, who started as a weekend employee while studying at UC Santa Cruz, said Atlantis was the first job she ever got paid for. Now, 15 years later, she can’t imagine being part of any other team.
“I had a policy of not working anywhere that didn’t seem like I would enjoy the time … it just seemed like a really fun place to be,” she said. “I got to know the community, and Joe has been such an amazing person to learn from — he’s been through so much.”

Joe Ferrara at his original shop in downtown Santa Cruz.
(Courtesy Joe Ferrara)

As Ferrara noted with his management and business style: “It’s not about the transaction, but the interaction.”
For Wolfe, seeing the store’s customers — or visitors, as Ferrara calls them — grow up over the years has instilled an understanding of small business management, and has made it all the more exciting to continue to learn and grow with the shop.
“Because you see the same people all the time, it really does make you connected,” she said. “Part of what we do here is really get to know the people — I just love talking to people and answering questions and showing them something they didn’t know they were going to love. We’re getting to know the people through the comics … I’ve just sort of built a family here.”

Owner Joe Ferrara with Nate Brand (in back), Trisha Wolfe (left) and Ares Saldana.
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Brand met Ferrara on the first day he moved to Santa Cruz in 2004, and knew from his first step in the store that it was a special place. Five years later, he joined Ferrara officially and has been with the store for 12 years.
“He called me ‘the mortgage payer,’ since I was coming in here every Wednesday [for New Comic Day] … it would make sense he would want me to work here,” he laughed. “A lot of people who walk through the doors here, you’re going to see them over and over again.”
As the world of comics continues to evolve — including more LGBTQ+ representation and more children-centered comics — so too do opportunities to connect with shoppers. That increase in representation, Wolfe noted, has brought more people through the doors: “There really is something for everybody.”

Joe Ferrara at the tent setup after the 1989 earthquake.
(Courtesy Joe Ferrara)

Ferrara acknowledges that his current customer base is more in line with Wolfe’s and Brand’s contemporaries rather than his own. Yet that doesn’t stop him from looking forward to what is to come in collaboration with the staff.
“We could not function without these two — our whole approach is, ‘Everyone walks out that door happier than they walk in,’” Ferrara said.
During a recent conversation, Ferrara stopped multiple times to chat with shoppers, ranging from 5 to mid-50s. Regardless of what people came in for, Ferrara, Wolfe and Brand were ready to chat, whether they were repeat visitors or just off the street.

Quote:

What I like to do, is get people to talk about what their passion is — sometimes it’s comics, sometimes it’s movies, sometimes it has nothing to do with that. The biggest thing is understanding that it’s my job to motivate my team to give their best effort every day.

“What I like to do, is get people to talk about what their passion is — sometimes it’s comics, sometimes it’s movies, sometimes it has nothing to do with that,” Ferrara said. “The biggest thing is understanding that it’s my job to motivate my team to give their best effort every day.”
That motivation didn’t waver during the pandemic, either — Ferrara was able to keep his staff on board, and the team reorganized to do pickup orders for customers, needing only nine or 10 sales a day to get through the uncertainty.
“The community has supported us through the pandemic, and we are grateful — we are trying to give back as much as we can,” he said.
Now, looking toward the 45th-anniversary celebration and the next steps, Ferrara is grateful as ever for his team, and the continued updates in the comics world that bring in the next generations of comic lovers. He’s particularly pleased that clients who fell in love with the store’s offerings in their youth are now able to bring in their children or grandchildren to enrich the community,
Ultimately for Ferrara, it’s all about the feeling of connection with the customers, and keeping that up for as long as the 72-year-old feels healthy enough to do so.

Quote:

It’s been very exciting to be part of something that makes people feel better and makes children motivated to read.

“It’s been very exciting to be part of something that makes people feel better and makes children motivated to read,” he said. “There are some possibilities of ensuring the business would continue, even if I’m not the one driving the engine … the plan is to hopefully sustain this. We want to keep the status quo as long as we can.”
Ferrara holds true to that customer connection as a means for bringing Atlantis into the next light-year: “It’s all about the people who walk in the door and the people behind the counter.”

(12-02-2021, 02:02 PM)King Bob Wrote: I never buy comics (no doubt I'm supposed to say graphic novels) either. 

(12-02-2021, 02:05 PM)Greg Wrote: Whew. I thought this might be a "Closing after 45 years" sort of story.

Quote:Santa Cruz restaurant India Joze to close shortly after new year
[img=729x0]https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/STC-L-JOZE-1222-01_91470050.jpg?w=581[/img]
India Joze’ Jozseph Schultz in the kitchen in 2006. (Shmuel Thaler/Santa Cruz Sentinel file) India Joze’ Jozseph Schultz in the kitchen in 2006. (Shmuel Thaler/Santa Cruz Sentinel file)
By [color=var(--primary)]RYAN STUART | rstuart@santacruzsentinel.com | Santa Cruz Sentinel
December 26, 2021 at 5:00 p.m.
SANTA CRUZ – A half century of Asian and Middle Eastern inspired cuisine comes to an end in Santa Cruz.
India Joze, at 418 Front St., is set to shutter its doors permanently shortly into the new year. The restaurant’s owner, Jozseph Schultz, has two more events planned for the restaurant before its final day.
First, the restaurant plans to serve black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day, which Schultz says is for good luck in the new year. Secondly, India Joze will have a closing party Jan. 8 to mark the end of its service.
The end of India Joze has been in sight for a few years now, Schultz noted. Now, the moment has finally come as 50 years of the restaurant will end in rubble.
“It’s really hard to stay open when the building is not standing,” Schultz said.
The restaurant’s current location is set to be bulldozed. Then it will be replaced with storefronts and condos overlooking the San Lorenzo River.
The current site for India Joze is the site for the proposed Riverfront project, a seven-story mixed use building. The project currently offers 175 condos, 15 of which are deed-restricted at 50% of the area median income and another five deed-restricted at 30% of the area median income.
During the last five decades India Joze has had five different locations, but Schultz said this one will be the restaurant’s last. Instead, Schultz has his own version of a retirement plan.
“I’ll be teaching classes at home and be doing small scale catering events, but I have no plans to open another restaurant,” he said. “Fifty years is enough. I have been in business for five-zero years, since 1972.”
While he steps away from the restaurant business at 70 years of age, Schultz said he’ll miss everything about it. He called restaurants an “essential community resource.” To him, they are a place for all people to come together and socialize over good food, and what he liked about his establishment was the casual and friendly nature of those gatherings.
Now, Schultz prepares to strip his eatery down to the walls. He never was someone that believed in taking useful equipment to the dump. Instead, he wants to provide equipment for people looking to start their own restaurant and use the rest of his equipment to help feed the homeless.
“There’s always people thinking they are going to make it big in the restaurant business. If I can help some of them, I will,” Schultz said. “Some of it I’ll probably use for Food Not Bombs and some of it we’ll see. I try to make the best, highest use of all my stuff.”
[img=205x0]https://i2.wp.com/www.santacruzsentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/STC-L-JOZE-1222-02_91470060.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1[/img][/color]

India Joze’ Jozseph Schultz provides the food as Food Not Bombs serves the hungry a 2021 Thanksgiving dinner in downtown Santa Cruz on November 25. (Shmuel Thaler/Santa Cruz Sentinel file) India Joze’ Jozseph Schultz provides the food as Food Not Bombs serves the hungry a 2021 Thanksgiving dinner in downtown Santa Cruz on November 25. (Shmuel Thaler/Santa Cruz Sentinel file)

Schultz has been helping Food Not Bombs provide meals to Santa Cruz’s homeless population for decades. He typically cooks meals for the organization twice a week. However, the closure of his restaurant may make that more difficult.
Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry is prepared to not have Schultz available to help cook for at least a month after the restaurant’s closure. During that time, most of Food Not Bomb’s operations will either run out of the Little Red Church or through the parking lot on Laurel and Front streets, McHenry noted.
But as resources dwindle, the need continues to rise. McHenry has noticed a boom in people that need help from his organization over recent months. Shipping containers full of food that used to last Food Not Bombs all week have begun to run dry after just two days.
McHenry first noticed the increase in demand in October. By the start of November, the change had astonished him.
On Nov. 4, the nonprofit had run out of food even though it prepared a similar amount to what it did one week prior. That came as a shock to McHenry because food needs tend to be lighter at the beginning of the month when people receive their paychecks and food stamps, he said.
In total, McHenry estimates the amount of homeless people he has served since the start of the pandemic has increased by roughly one-third. He expects it to get worse with the new year right around the corner.
“I’ve been doing this for 42 years and I’ve never seen such a huge increase so dramatically,” McHenry said.
Food Not Bombs needs to increase its orders and store more food to meet increased demand, McHenry noted. That will be more difficult without one of its primary storage facilities at India Joze.
To offset that, Food Not Bombs plans to invest in an additional storage container, something it would have likely needed to do anyway as demand has begun to exceed its current capacity. Additionally, it will need to train more cooks to meet the growing food demand.
Despite the challenges, McHenry is confident Schultz will be back to help feed the homeless once the restaurant is sorted out. Schultz also plans to help Food Not Bombs once the dust settles, but he is unsure what form that will take.
“We can depend on (Schultz) to help us,” McHenry said. “There is no doubt that as long as he can breathe, that’s what he will be doing with us.”

Quote:
A view of the Murray Street Bridge last week. 
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz )

CIVIC LIFE

Coming soon: 30-month construction project on Murray Street Bridge 
BY MATTHEW RENDA, JACOB PIERCE
Source:  Lookout Santa Cruz 

Quick Take

Local motorists will soon face a disruptive rehabilitation project on the Murray Street Bridge. The overhaul includes seismic upgrades and widening and, officials say, is a safety issue. But construction on the bridge that spans the harbor and connects Twin Lakes and beyond to downtown Santa Cruz is sure to be a headache. 

Published 5 Hours Ago 




Every summer in Santa Cruz, traffic on busy beach streets slows to a sluggish pace, with cars percolating through neighborhoods like molasses through a kitchen strainer.
This coming summer, traffic near the Santa Cruz Harbor might grind to a halt altogether. That’s when the city of Santa Cruz is scheduled to break ground on a 30-month project to upgrade the Murray Street Bridge that spans the harbor.
To Laurie Negro, who owns Betty Burgers at the nearby intersection of Murray and Seabright Avenue, all of this begs a pressing question.
“This has been 20 years in the making. Why on earth would you start it in the summer?” she asked.
Discussions around the Murray Street Bridge overhaul, which will include seismic improvements and widening, first began in the late 1990s.
During the planned 30-month construction, the bridge will sometimes close down completely, sometimes close to one-way-only traffic, and sometimes be open both ways. No one knows yet how often the bridge will be open, but Santa Cruz Senior Civil Engineer Joshua Spangrud said the intention is to keep the bridge open for at least one-way traffic as often as possible.
Negro said she hopes the city is proactive about doing outreach about which lanes will close and when. Negro, who says that the city has never reached out to her about the project, has employees and customers living on both sides of the bridge.
At this point, with some details unknown, the impacts of the project are difficult to grasp. But it’s already become a discussion point for management at Aldo’s Harborside Restaurant.
“The short answer is we talk about it all the time, and it’s like, ‘Dun, dun, dun, duuun!’” said Aldo’s manager Amy Di Chiro, imitating the dramatic tones of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. “But we don’t know. Is the bridge going to be one lane? How is it going to affect us?”
Port Commissioner Steve Reed admits that the hurry-up-and-wait nature of the project has caused its share of headaches for the Santa Cruz Port District in recent years. And going forward, there will be logistics to muddle through. The harbor will lose several slips during the construction, for instance, forcing staff to play the boating version of musical chairs — doubling up some slips with two vessels at a time and towing boats to nearby end-ties.

Quote:

It will absolutely be painful for everyone.

“We don’t have enough room to disrupt that much of the harbor at once. And yet we’re going to have to do that. They’re going to need room, and we’ll need to accommodate that,” Reed said.
Still, Reed predicts the impacts will be much more severe on the town as a whole. He’s sympathetic to the city staff, though, as he senses that state and federal regulators shoulder much of the blame for delays.
Right now, the city is getting ready to finally send the complicated project out to bid after it clears one last certification. For years, deadlines had shifted like a mirage in the desert, perpetually on the horizon — visible, yet abstract and out of reach.
“This project has always been 18 months into the future,” civil engineer Spangrud said.
One reason for the delays is concern about the worsened congestion construction will inevitably cause.
“It will absolutely be painful for everyone,” he said.

[b]Concerns remain about bike safety[/b]

Although the retrofit is happening in the name of safety, there have been concerns about the details.
Santa Cruz Transportation and Public Works Commission Chair Phil Boutelle believes the project fails to implement sufficient measures to make the bridge and the surrounding area safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.
“A project like this could have focused on slowing cars down, using engineering concepts and installing protected bike lanes,” said Boutelle, who works as a mechanical engineer.
The Murray Street Bridge has been the scene of some fatal collisions for bicyclists and pedestrians. In 2018, Benjamin Doniach, a longtime cyclist in Santa Cruz, was struck by a car and killed while riding westbound over the bridge, heading from Pleasure Point toward Seabright.
That same year, Santa Cruz was the second- and fourth-most dangerous cityin California for pedestrians and cyclists, respectively, when compared to 101 other jurisdictions of similar population size. In 2018, 52 cyclists and 48 pedestrians were either killed or injured on city roadways.

The path underneath the Murray Street Bridge. 
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

“People don’t ride bikes because they don’t feel safe,” Boutelle said, adding that safety is crucial to get people out of cars and instead walking and biking, one of Santa Cruz’s climate goals.
Spangrud said the city’s hands were tied on improving safety on the bridge, as the state-mandated project is primarily meant to ensure the bridge will not fall in the event of a major earthquake.
The city of Santa Cruz approved the project before enacting much of its Vision Zero initiatives that require the city to center public works projects with an aim to prevent pedestrian and bicycle injuries and fatalities.
Still, the bicycle lanes on the bridge will be widened as part of the project, and the sidewalks for pedestrians will be expanded to 8 feet.
“We are widening the decks, which should make it a much safer traveling experience overall,” Spangrud said.
The problem with unprotected bike lanes — e.g., ones that run alongside cars, with no barrier in between — is that, to many motorists, it just ends up feeling like extra room on a widened road.
“If it feels like a wider road, drivers will go faster,” Spangrud said.
Even though the car lanes on the overhauled bridge will get only about half a foot wider, Boutelle said he worries about unintended consequences that stem from widening the bridge for cars. He wishes the city had explored other options.
“Traffic calming wasn’t part of this project,” Boutelle said. “It wasn’t addressed and, in my view, any project that involves roads should at least address that question.”
Spangrud agreed that it could be a potential problem.
“It is a concern, but there is no way to really attenuate that,” he said.

[b]Past the point of no return[/b]

Santa Cruz has not had a public hearing on the Murray Street Bridge in recent memory.
The project has floated on and off of the Santa Cruz City Council’s consent agenda for years with one contract amendment after another — making six appearances since December 2012 — all of which passed unanimously without much fanfare. The most recent vote came this past December, to finalize the design and right-of-way services as part of a contract amendment.
The city of Santa Cruz most recently facilitated public dialogue on the Murray Street project in October 2019, at the Transportation and Public Works Commission’s Project Open House. The event also featured presentations on eight other initiatives and projects, including one at the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 9 — another project that has prompted concerns from sustainable transportation advocates.
After taking questions from Lookout about the engagement process, public works staff contacted recently retired Assistant Public Works Director Chris Schneiter about Murray Street. Schneiter assured staff, “The project has been through numerous public meetings over the years,” according to city spokesperson Elizabeth Smith.
At the end of the day, city council members told Lookout, safety is paramount. Any delays to the vital seismic upgrade could be dangerous.
“It’s really important that we’re investing in infrastructure, especially something like the Murray Street Bridge that so many people use so often,” said Councilmember Justin Cummings, who is currently running for Third District county supervisor. “We can’t let the bridge fall out of compliance with earthquake safety rules. We wouldn’t want to have that happen. If the bridge fails, then you have to build a new bridge.”
At the same time, he hopes the wider sidewalks do make the bridge feel safer and more comfortable for everyone — and that the city more thoroughly incorporates active transportation goals into future projects.
Councilmember Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson says she appreciates Boutelle’s concerns, and she’ll be double-checking with staff to see if any 11th-hour changes might be made in the name of improving bike safety over the bridge. Additionally, Kalantari-Johnson, who’s also running for county supervisor, says the community is due for a robust discussion about the projects and its impacts.
“We need to ensure that there’s enough notice and that people know. Some people do, but the majority of the community doesn’t know this situation is coming,” she said.
At this point, a restart on the bridge plan isn’t on the table.

Quote:

Everyone had better buy an electric bicycle.

The project is expected to cost at least $30 million, although that estimate is likely too conservative as inflation continues to bedevil infrastructure project managers the world over.
“The environment right now is such that there are a lot of projects going on and contractors have their pick,” Spangrud said.
The majority of the money is federal, passed through Caltrans, but the city of Santa Cruz is slated to spend a little north of $4 million on design standards in the coming year.
Reed, of the port commission, says that — while he hasn’t seen a ton of public outreach from the city in the past couple years — there’s only so much the city staff would be able to do. Construction is inevitable. People can raise all the concerns they want, but the 30 months of road work are going to be tough, no matter what.
During construction, cyclists might have an easier time getting around than motorists. The closest transportation thoroughfare is the Arana Gulch multi-use trail for cyclists and pedestrians.
Beyond that, the nearest is Soquel Avenue.
“Everyone had better buy an electric bicycle,” Reed said.

Quote:Second battery malfunction in less than 6 months reported at Moss Landing power plant

Updated: 7:11 PM PST Feb 14, 2022

Infinite Scroll Enabled

[/url]

Josh Copitch  

Digital Media Manager

Felix Cortez  [url=https://twitter.com/FelixKSBW] 

Reporter

[b]MOSS LANDING, Calif. —[/b]
In Moss Landing, firefighters responded to another battery meltdown at the Vistra Energy Storage Facility Sunday night, when they arrived roughly 10 battery racks were melted.
It's the second incident at the plant in the last five months alone.

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Firefighters say the two incidents should provide a learning opportunity to make any needed adjustments or improvements.
One concern is this plant is going to get bigger.
The energy storage facility is owned and operated by Vistra which opened the plant in December 2020. Just last month Vistra announced plans for an expansion project that will nearly double the storage capacity. 
Vistra released the following statement: 
"Late on Feb. 13, the early detection safety system activated at our Moss Landing site, and as is our protocol at all of our facilities, we have contacted off-site emergency response out of an abundance of caution. There are no injuries to personnel on the site. An investigation is underway to determine what caused the safety system to activate. The 100-megawatt Phase II system is currently offline. We will share more information after we get additional insights into this situation."

(02-16-2022, 07:55 AM)Drunk Monk Wrote:

Quote:Second battery malfunction in less than 6 months reported at Moss Landing power plant