Guest Writers

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Guest writers are ordinary people, like you, who live in or around the city of Santa Cruz, California.  Santa Cruz News let’s you voice your opinion and obituaries for the community of Santa Cruz to read.

Entries by Guest Writers:

  • Netflix stock leaped 20 percent this morning in response to its fourth quarter ‘09 financial report released Wednesday.

    According to the report, the number of online movies viewers is up and last year’s goals were surpassed.

  • Town Council voted to ban panhandling in Los Gatos, saying that it is a “public safety hazard.” During the town meeting, councilmembers heard testimony from Jim Zanardi, owner of the Los Gatos Shopping Center, who claims that panhandlers interfere with his tenants.

  • VTA is completing plans that would allow the Vasona Corridor Light Rail to be extended 1.6 miles, finally bringing light rail to Los Gatos.

  • At its meeting on Monday, Los Gatos Town Council gave its final approval to an $18.4 million public library.

  • Yesterday Netflix & Warner Brothers Home Entertainment reached an agreement to allow online streaming videos while delaying the availability of rentals.

  • From a lecture at the JCC to Children’s Book Time at the library to Spang-A-Lang with Santana vocalist Tony Lindsay—Los Gatos offers plenty to do in the second week of the new decade.

  • With the new year, Los Gatos’s new commercial burglar alarm ordinance has gone into effect.

  • George Robert Kane, longtime publisher of the Los Gatos Times-Observer, passed away of natural causes on Nov. 28, 2009, at the age of 96, after a long, productive and interesting life. A man of many talents, several careers and countless interests, he had a strong influence on the region his newspapers served. His memory will be long treasured by his family and friends.

  • Purchase of the local luxury car dealership Silicon Valley Auto Group (SVAG) by the San Francisco-based Qvale Auto Group (QAG) was completed Wednesday, consummated at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Main Street showroom. Poised with scissors in hand were Kjell Qvale, the 90-year-old founder of the family-owned business, and Mayor Diane McNutt. Town Manager Greg Larson and several members of the Town Council stood beside them holding the ribbon, waiting for cameras to be ready.

  • A new, $18.4 million library for Los Gatos is well underway—still on schedule and still on budget. Now it is up to the public to review the plans for the project, which will occupy the meeting point of Fiesta Way and Villa Avenue. The public will be able to review the plans at Town Hall on Jan. 6.

  • By this time next year, HDi, Ltd. of Los Gatos will be marketing its new 2D/3D TV for the low, low price of $10,000-$15,000.

  • Developer Sandy Harris is offering a Bentley Continental Coupe to the first four people to buy a plot of land on a 66-acre stretch on Shady Lane.

  • It’s a little disconcerting to be walking down the street and run into a man in a Freddy Krueger mask wielding a long-handled axe.

  • It took some fifth-graders from the Van Meter Elementary School to recognize the problem at the intersection of Kennedy Road and Los Gatos Boulevard.

  • Monte Sereno has no business district, shares a police force with Los Gatos, and is mainly comprised of quiet, residential neighborhoods. Despite its safe streets and serene lifestyle, the community is now in political turmoil, with a group of residents trying to kick most of the members of their city council off the dais.

  • A celebration of the life of Alexis Joy Briski will be held Friday, May 29 at 4pm at Calvary Church in Los Gatos. Alexis, 11, lost her year-long battle with osteosarcoma, a childhood bone cancer, Saturday.

  • With a Los Gatos contingent of at least 50 fans rooting him on, Justin Schafer smashed three hits, including two doubles, Tuesday night as his UC Davis Aggies beat Santa Clara 9-1 at the Bronco’s Stephen Schott Stadium. Schafer, who played three years of varsity baseball at Los Gatos High School, is currently riding an eight-game hitting streak, with multiple hits in six of those games.

  • The downsizing continues at Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, publishers of the Los Gatos Weekly Times, as the company confirms it is laying off four people this week. Executive editor Dale Bryant chalked the move up to the economy, saying SVCN is cutting back for the same reason everyone in the industry is laying off people.

  • The wait is over. Rather than back into the CCS playoffs with a Wilcox win over Homestead, the Los Gatos High School girls’ softball team took matters into its own hands Thursday, beating Fremont 2-1 to claim second place in the tough De Anza division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League.

    And the win did not come easily.

  • With one game to go, the Los Gatos High School girls’ softball team still does not have a CCS berth locked up. The Lady Wildcats, currently in third place with a 7-4 league record, can secure their first CCS bid in many years with a win over second-place Fremont Thursday. But a loss, coupled with a Homestead win over first-place Wilcox, leaves Los Gatos on the outside looking in.

  • “All I ever wanted to be was a Wildcat,” said 1993 graduate Brad Sanfilippo Saturday night as he was inducted into the Los Gatos High School Athletic Hall of Fame. Both Sanfilippo and 1985 graduate Brock Bowman talked about how as young boys they were at Helm Field every Friday night playing tackle football in the end zone, waiting for the varsity football team to take the field so they could greet their gridiron heroes.

  • Who are those people down on the lower field of Los Gatos High School wearing helmets and swinging sticks with baskets on the end? Los Gatos High School started offering lacrosse this spring, and 101 athletes decided to give it a try, enough for both junior varsity and varsity teams in both boys and girls.

  • People in Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, and Saratoga need to make sure that they’re informed about this rapidly changing situation, take it very seriously, yet do so without needless alarm.

  • It has been a long time since anyone mentioned the Los Gatos High School girls’ softball team and the CCS playoffs in the same breath. But in just two short years, coach Al Pezino has taken the softball program from the depths of obscurity to CCS contender.

  • The Town of Los Gatos is organizing four community panels on Saturday May 2, to discuss the key focus areas of the General Plan Update.

  • To The Driver of Silver 4-Door BMW Who Hit Ashleigh Jackson on Highway 9 on April 19. I am sure you did not mean to drive too closely to the bike lane. I am sure you did not know your mirror was protruding into the bike lane, and that it would hit Ashleigh Jackson as she rode her bike in the bike lane. I am sure you did not mean to gravely injure her with your car when you struck her.

  • Albert F. Terra, a life ong Bay Area resident and long time Town of Los Gatos Employee died March 25, 2009 at the age of 72 after a long battle with prostrate cancer.

    Albert was born in San Jose but relocated to Milpitas in 1946. He graduated from the Milpitas Grammar School and James Lick High School. He worked for the Town of Los Gatos as a Public Works Maintenance Supervisor for 38 years.

  • The Los Gatos High varsity baseball team managed only one hit after the fourth inning Friday against Homestead High. With Jason Shepardson on the mound for the Wildcats, however, it didn’t matter.

  • Cancer took the life of Jon Pemberton, 73, who died at his home in the hills above Los Gatos on March 19. Jon was born on Jan. 17, 1936, in Albia, IA. His family moved to San Jose, CA when he was an infant.

  • Kinch and his competition sous chefs James Syhabout and John Paul Carmona took the event very seriously and practiced for weeks after service ended at Manresa in timed cooking trials. So when the day in Kitchen Stadium finally came (which happened to be last June) for me the battle was over before it started. While Kinch called the event “nerve wracking,” he and his crew absolutely slaughtered the flatfooted Flay. OK, I’ll say it: they flayed him.

  • As many of you have come to learn, the members of Los Gatos High School continue to grieve and mourn the loss of 3 students who have passed away recently. The most recent was a freshmen girl who passed away on Sunday.

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