LosGatosObserver.com

When an Alabama superior court judge issued an order that Amanda Hodge’s two adopted children be returned immediately to her custody out of concern for their safety following a February, 2008 state-ordained forensic interview, the family court of Monterey County, where Hodge’s children were living with their adoptive father, declined to cooperate. Instead, the custody battle seemed only to swing further out of Hodge’s favor. She lost custody entirely, was granted supervised telephone calls only and has now not see her children in two years.

The governor’s proposal to close 220 of the state’s 279 state parks as a cost-cutting measure could shoot California’s economy in the foot. Results of two university studies have concluded that California’s state parks generate more money than they cost to operate, and local park advocates assure that tourism in Santa Cruz County will suffer if the parks go off-limits. (With slide show)

There was surely a time when the last thing an aspiring forester ever thought he or she would be concerned with was protecting fish. Now, it seems, tiptoeing around salmon and steelhead is as natural a part of life for loggers in northern California as poison oak, and the laws that guard the state’s threatened salmonids might be about to get tougher.

In late May, a small grassroots organization called Transition Santa Cruz convened for an evening meeting at the police station on Center Street. The subject of the hour was how the community could bolster Santa Cruz’s public transportation system and steer residents away from sprawl and dependency on cars for every outing and errand. Led in part by Micah Posner, director of the cycling advocacy group People Power, the discussion quickly veered into a debate over whether or not high-density housing would facilitate a public rail system or do the opposite and lead to more cars on the streets.

The results from the Coastal Watershed Council’s Snapshot Day are in, and it’s not a pretty picture.