Theoretically, this has been is a week off for me…City Hall has been closed and there aren’t any official meetings scheduled. But in this job, there are only slow times not “off” times. One day last week I met with a community activist to hear her concerns about the armored vehicle and the grant that the city council accepted in December. Then later that same day I met with leaders of the city firefighters union. The union representatives mentioned to me that some of their members (paramedics) train with the police in the event that a medical intervention is needed during a shooting or other violent incident. In other words, paramedics are training to go un-armed into a situation where gunfire is present. Not surprisingly, they believe that an armored rescue vehicle could make a real difference for their safety. I also had two meetings last week with folks interested in our “compassionate community” initiative. First, I met with folks from the Santa Cruz Health Improvement Partnership is the association of many of the leading medical care providers in our community. Hospitals, medical groups, nonprofit clinics, government agencies and more. In other words, an association of hundreds of local people providing compassionate service: seeing the physical distress of others and acting to alleviate that distress- without judgment as to the “worthiness” of the person receiving their care. Then I met with the Associate Director of UCSC’s Institute for Humanities Research. She is putting together a series of public dialogues between scholars and community members on an interesting array of topics crossing multiple academic disciplines. I’m working with her to see if we can develop a dialogue event on the topic of compassion and empathy. I also had a chance to catch up with County Supervisor Zach Friend and he even bought me lunch (since I had to drive all the way to Aptos to see him!) We talked county transportation issues and, tapping into his experience with the Santa Cruz Police Department, about the politics of public safety and armored vehicles. On New Year’s Day, Mary and I had a chance to take a sunny walk in perhaps the most lovely place in the City of Santa Cruz: the Pogonip. Even during a purely recreational walk, I couldn’t help but pause for several minutes at the long-vacated (and City-owned) Pogonip Clubhouse and muse about the possibilities for bringing it back into community use. We also scoped out the section of the Pogonip that is slated to be used by the Homeless Garden Project in the years ahead. This week I also joined with hundreds of local residents at a celebration of the life of musician and peace & justice activist David Winters. David passed away suddenly and unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. I knew David for more than 25 years, first as a Saturn Café customer, then later as my next door neighbor, as a collaborator in organizing singer-songwriter performances at the Blue Moon Café and as a great musician who generously donated his talents and time to all kinds of great causes. I was privileged to have David perform at my campaign kickoff a few years ago. We’ll miss David in our neighborhood and in our community and our love and good wishes go out to Merritt, Bailey, Zoe and the rest of David’s family. And, to wrap up the week, I had coffee with my new colleague Cynthia Chase and attended a farewell party for Pastor Steve DeFields-Gambrel, a compassionate and hardworking church leader destined to continue his good work in Indiana. Tomorrow the real work of 2015 begins… (photos: Pogonip. David Winters.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 05:23:38 +0000
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