By Letters to the Editor | Santa Cruz Sentinel October 2, 2022 at 7:30 a.m.
The Sentinel’s Measure O article (9/30) correctly points out that public opposition to the mixed- use project downtown on Lot 4 has been vigorous; voters rightly expect the library to be renovated at Civic Center, reflecting their Measure S vote in 2016 – that critical detail is in the Measure S language. A complete renovation plan is in place...
— Bob Morgan, Santa Cruz
By Letters to the Editor | Santa Cruz Sentinel September 29, 2022 at 5:00 a.m.
As this saga unfolds, various questions have popped up. In Tuesday’s Sentinel, it was a letter writer asking about the costs involved in demolition or repurposing of the present downtown library. Mine is — with the proposed increase in square footage, are the present librarians and staffing levels expected to stay the same or will the next detail brought to us be the fact that staffing has to be increased?...
— Sandra Cohen, Santa Cruz
By Santa Cruz Sentinel | September 29, 2022 at 5:00 a.m.
If you have any doubt that Measure O would stop the hotel and its associated gentrification, follow the money. Barry Swenson Builders, (a likely candidate for hotel/ garage construction) put in $10,000 against Measure O. Developer Owen Lawler, who brokered the hotel deal, contributed $2,500. And counting.
There is a certain poetic justice in the way that Measure O would stop both projects. In hindsight, the publicly acrimonious garage deal was mirrored by a privately quiet hotel deal, supported by two years worth of closed session City Council meetings...
--Micah Posner lives just across the river from downtown. He was on the City Council from 2012 to 2016.