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!

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