Greetings from your friendly pro-democracy, pro-community, anti-pessimism Newsletter. As always—local news from YOUR community below. Along with other good news, and a recipe! (I do not get tired of saying this.)
Also this week, as we often do, we bring you a true story about something good that worked. In this case, it's a first-person story—first-person plural, as in: “we.”
The “we” that you will read about here, if you’re curious enough to click, includes myself, my wife and business partner Traci Hukill, and our colleague Mike Kahn. This “we” also includes the oldest land trust in California, the current mayor of Santa Cruz, tens of thousands of Santa Cruz County residents, and one of America’s greatest environmental heroes: former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. (I am leaving a lot of folks out for lack of space.)
What did we do that deserves memorializing here? We convinced Pres. Barack Obama to protect a beautiful piece of land on Santa Cruz County’s North Coast in perpetuity, and make it available for visitors to love.
The Cotoni Coast Dairies National Monument, named to honor the people who lived there for 7,000 years (pronounced cha-toni) and to recognize the ranchers who worked there for more than 100 years, will forever be protected, and it will soon be open to the public. I got to visit the place a couple weeks ago, and you'll find a short story about how this all happened, along with a virtual tour, by scrolling and clicking your device. ;-)
