Helping to feed the community
It felt so good to read the article about the San Jose nonprofit organization called Martha’s Kitchen that is now offering free food distribution to the Pajaro Valley, as reported on, in the Pajaro Valley magazine. They will be handing out essential cooking items as well as hot meals on Fridays between 5-6pm at 112 East Beach St. Helping needy people and feeding hungry souls is so very important. So I say, pile high the mashed potatoes and hot country gravy and spread the love.
Mike Bobeda, Watsonville
Downtown rising
My wife and I took a ride to Watsonville yesterday with the goal of visiting the new Craft Bake Shop bakery and coffee shop on 2nd Street across from the Civic Center. I came away quite impressed with the friendliness of the staff and the homemade pastries were delicious, especially those with almond paste in them. My Dutch/Portuguese heritage approved of this and I wish proprietors Lacey and Greg the best of luck.
I see the downtown rising thanks to development. The new Hilton Suite and Conference Center and residential buildings will hopefully bring an infusion of new business and enhance the area. Out on W. Beach Street, the new Pajaro Dunes Center which includes the Hampton Inn and an already very busy Starbucks, is an oasis that offers visitors great views of Watsonville’s agricultural bounty. It will also include a room for local businesses to hold meetings among strawberry fields. What could be better than that.
The St. Paul & Pacific Railroad has brought new vitality to the industrial section of Watsonville with their lone, green GP-15 locomotive “City of Watsonville” being the little engine that could.
Out on East Lake Ave, the Staff of Life grocery store will bring healthy alternatives and choices in regard to the food we eat.
It is great to see changes and business entities that will bring revenue, employment and enhancements to Watsonville’s image. The time has come.
Gary Plomp, Watsonville
Don’t be deceived
The most glaring problem with the proposed Rail-Trail is that it is only one track forever limited to a linear configuration. It will always cater to tourists and slow-moving freight train organizations resulting in even more of us being able to jog faster than the “Progress” of traffic. While that may be acceptable within the industrial area of Watsonville, attempts to make it more than that by playing dangerous games to turn it into a viable commuter train to improve traffic flow beyond Watsonville will risk lives and further impede traffic.
Rather than being deceived into making the expensive Rail-Trail a forever money-pit on our taxes that will only benefit special interests over the best interests for residents of Santa Cruz County, let’s not waste money in these times where just the basics is a challenge for many. Implementing the least costly Trail-Only will not only provide a safe means of travel now for families of bicyclists and those on foot, it guarantees a solid foundation for building a variety of viable means to safely achieve even better effective commuting after we get past the concerns of the present. As a retired engineer with decades of exposure in the real-world, I know Bus-Trail will be just one example that will alleviate traffic. It will allow safe two-way travel to avoid the head-on passenger train concerns of the very limited proposed Rail-Trail and provide better means to get safer, faster, and far less expensively across our county.
Bob Fifield, Aptos
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