John Laird is California State Senator, 17th District.

It's Open Studios weekend #2 of 3, North Santa Cruz County, & John's husband will be showing his art (watercolor landscapes) at Studio 281, with Senator Laird guarding bicycles & greeting - with open studios, John loves going into homes & studios, like a voyeuristic Architectural Digest; Tax Expenditures & Tax Breaks: closing loopholes is NOT raising taxes; at Town Hall last Saturday Senator Laird went through all of the ballot measures in a non-partisan way, discussing what each one would do, who put it on the ballot, who's for & who's against, & the total amount spent on each side; started with Prop. 43, which would require local taxes, including special taxes (which are for a specific purpose, & include citizen's initiatives, which a court rule required 50% + 1 vote) to have a 2/3 vote to pass; Props. 40, 41 & 42, the "Billionaire's Tax" & competing propositions; Prop 38, a bond measure that would fund immunology research, which was put on the ballot by an interested party that would be the primary beneficiary, which is backed by both Dems & Republicans, but that the LWV is against because it lacks transparency.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

The Assembly was on recess from July 2nd to August 3rd, and on August 4 Assemblymember Pellerin broke her ankle, was in a cast, & now in a boot; there are 10 days before the state Constitutionally mandated deadline for bills to pass the legislature, so the pressure is on; they are "in floor session as of Monday", but will be in "committees as needed"; what does this mean? Discuss Assemblymember Pellerin's "Gut & Amend" bill, where, when the legislature realized there was no minimum age for marriage in California (one of 3 states), they took all the language out of a bill that had passed the Assembly, and re-wrote it in the Senate so that Calfornia would have a minimum marriage age of 18 - once this passes the Senate, it will come back to the Assembly, where it would be assigned to a committee before coming back to the floor; discussion of 3 of Assemblymember Pellerin's bills that have been signed by the Governor, 3 that are on the Governor's desk; & 3 that continue to move (including one that would hold people under influence behind the wheel in a self-driving car liable even if the car is doing the driving; at the end of the legislative session on Aug. 31st, if the Governor has not vetoed a bill that passed the legislature, it becomes law..."when the clock strikes midnight, all bills stop."...except they done..."urgency bills" can be worked on by the legislature after midnight on Aug. 31; there are 213 bills on the Assembly floor, & 412 on the Senate floor; how do they maintain order? "The Assembly has an electronic voting system, green for yay, red for nay. The Senate votes by roll call, although they someimes do a 'substitute anonymous' vote." They got the Morgani Hill battery storage facility paused by submitting letters to the P.U.C. In Santa Cruz for the weekend, celebrating the O'Neill Sea Odyssey's 30th Anniversary tomorrow.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Earlier this year, California was 1 of 10 states without a minimum age to marry - with the signing of AB1267, it's now 18...no exceptions!! Assemblymember Pellerin sponsored this bill, which involved a "Gut-and-Amend" of a bill that she wrote that had been passed by the Assembly, but was languishing in committee in the State Senate...she changed all of the words & the name on the bill, thus "gutting-and-amending", it it passed the Senate, then came back to the Assembly where it also passed. The Governor hosted a signing ceremony with survivors & the author(s) of the bill in the Governor's office, singing it on the back of a large bear outside his office; shout out to the Girl Scouts of Northern California had come to Sacramento with Taylor Swift-style bracelets to raise awareness of the bill. At the signing ceremony, taking a line from Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London", was Governor Newsome's hair perfect? A: "I've never seen it not perfect!" (and she said she "crushed it" with her hair! Deep dive into the Assemblymember's staff, with offices in Santa Cruz, San Jose & Sacramento - as a committee chair, Gail gets additional staff, with staff tailored to the geography of each district, so Gail may get more than some given that her district includes both San Jose & Santa Cruz. As a former county clerk, discussion of Alaska senate race with a 2nd "Dan Sullivan" recruited to be on the ballot: "People get recruited all the time." "There's always confusion", recounting a Bay Area race with 2 people on the ballot with similar names. In Santa Cruz to get out the vote. Discussion of walk in vote centers, and "naked voting", where you fill in your ballot at home, then walk it in in person, so that the elections officials do not have to open the envelope or match signatures, saving time...more streamlined.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & ""Miles-the-Mentee" (Miles Hewitt), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

For this interview we reached out to 5 former mayors of Santa Cruz. All 5 of them (!!!) responded with suggested topics & questions. They were remarkably similar, and we distilled these down to a set of questions that both candidates will be given, with the same amount of time to answer them.

First Q: Housing and development: How do you feel about the scale and pace of development happening across Santa Cruz, particularly on the Eastside (such as Soquel & Seabright)? What specific actions would you take to preserve neighborhood character while meeting the City's housing obligations, and how would your approach differ from that of your opponent?

Second Q: Homelessness: It's clear we will need more locations for facilities that can help us address homelessness in our area. Whether it's shelters or treatment centers or camping zones or jails, these facilities will need physical locations and money. How would you address homelessness and encampments, balancing compassion & accountability, particularly given the distinct roles, responsibilities, and resources of the City and County?

(for the remaining time, Ami was alerted that she could respond longer to the questions and, if she did, it would mean that we would not get to one or more of the other questions asked of the other candidate.)

Third Q: Across the City of Santa Cruz there are many businesses that have been sitting vacant for long periods of time creating blight. This is especially the case Downtown. Santa Cruz needs development, to attract businesses, & revitalize Downtown. What will you do to encourage commercial property owners to fill these vacant storefronts?

Last Q: What is one specific policy supported by your opponent that you disagree with, and what would you do differently??

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & ""Miles-the-Mentee" (Miles Hewitt), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

For this interview we reached out to 5 former mayors of Santa Cruz. All 5 of them (!!!) responded with suggested topics & questions. They were remarkably similar, and we distilled these down to a set of questions that both candidates will be given, with the same amount of time to answer them.

First Q: Housing and development: How do you feel about the scale and pace of development happening across Santa Cruz, particularly on the Eastside (such as Soquel & Seabright)? What specific actions would you take to preserve neighborhood character while meeting the City's housing obligations, and how would your approach differ from that of your opponent?

Second Q: Homelessness: It's clear we will need more locations for facilities that can help us address homelessness in our area. Whether it's shelters or treatment centers or camping zones or jails, these facilities will need physical locations and money. How would you address homelessness and encampments, balancing compassion & accountability, particularly given the distinct roles, responsibilities, and resources of the City and County?

Third Q: Across the City of Santa Cruz there are many businesses that have been sitting vacant for long periods of time creating blight. This is especially the case Downtown. Santa Cruz needs development, to attract businesses, & revitalize Downtown. What will you do to encourage commercial property owners to fill these vacant storefronts?

Fourth Q: How do you define integrity in public leadership, and how have you demonstrated it during this campaign?

Fifth Q: What is your vision for the role of mayor, and how would you bring people together to get the people's business done?

Last Q: What is one specific policy supported by your opponent that you disagree with, and what would you do differently??

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & ""Miles-the-Mentee" (Miles Hewitt), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Lacy J. is into saving wild horses, & will be performing a benefit for Jimmy Jackson & his wife, Ellen O'Hanlon (both have cancer) - they have been artists for over 40 years. Ellen as a healer, artist, & painter. Jimmy got a lot of people started, & wrote a song for International Rotary about polio with Lacy J. - he also came up with the motto for Rotary; Radio Ranch Project. "Listen to the Wind" mentions Santa Cruz: it's the beginning, not the end. There was elemental magic of the 60s in Santa Cruz, where Lacy J. felt the magical energy of the Earth, getting a natural high! After 8 (long) years in Nashville, Lacy J. wanted to come back to Santa Cruz, but "couldn't buy an outhouse on a postage stamp for $450k!!"

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange, & "Kaos" (Katrina Clugston), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2024 is Bushwhacker's 35th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Back in the day, Scott was in a band, "Secret Chimp", with Jim Lewin & Bill Layman, Lachlan Kane & Mark Corsolini...they split up, with Jim & Bill going one way, & the rest forming Rosebud (because Lachlan Kane went by "Citizen Kane")...the band allows Scott to get his non-Grateful Dead ya-ya's out; Rosebud has a new CD, "Record of the Year!"; deep dive into how songs / CDs are recognized by Spotify (ISRC code & metadata); "The Money Question" (e.g.: "Have you been able to make a living with your art, &, if so, how?") A: Yes! It's a combination of things...booking music for a venue in Half Moon Bay, working for a label in New York City, teaching, running sound, gigging; discussion of originals, vs. covers, but making a cover your own by playing it diferently.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!

Santa Cruz is the "only place that felt like home"...Lynn's grandfather built a 600 sq. ft. house on the East Side that Lynn would visit as a kid, having grown up off Camden Ave. in San Jose...she moved here in 1974 to help her grandparents as her grandmother was dealing with senility (what we now know as Alzheimer's) - she started gardening at around this time, launching a 49 year career in gardeining & landscaping; she started at Cabrillo Community College, majoring in photography (!)...she got a scholarship to the Art Institute in San Francisco, later coming to U.C. Santa Cruz to be a studio arts major (Porter College); she started the Santa Cruz Neighbors group to address the disconnect between people & services - it's non-partisan / non-political; in 2006 she ran for Santa Cruz City Council, winning 2 terms, & being mayor in 2014; her words of advice to the next mayor? "Be open to everybody!" When she was vice mayor in 2013 it was a difficult year, after Santa Cruz lost Butch & Elizabeth, 2 officers killed in the line of duty; after retiring as mayor, and a year off, Lynn started as Executive Director (ED) of Valley Churches United...this organization formed out of the storms of 1982 (El Niño!) when locals rallied to come together to take care of each other; Lynn was ED for a decade, overseeing a budget of ~$800k and 3 full-time employees - she had 2 floods, COVID-19, and the CZU fires on her watch; Lynn's super power is being calm in the face of disasters.

An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Spark Plug" (Dylan Estevez) airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California. 2026 is Bushwhacker's 37th year on the air! Thanks for listening!

To support KZSC (& these podcasts), please go to KZSC.FM and click on the "Donate to KZSC" button in the upper right-hand corner. Thanks!