Tanya Krause and Jenny Haruyama
Tanya Krause arrived as the Superintendent of the Scotts Valley Unified School District in early July 2016.
Jenny Haruyama arrived as City Manager of the City of Scotts Valley in mid-July 2016.
Both women arrived at the peak of their careers, at the top of their game, having held second-in-command positions in larger organizations: Krause with the Campbell Union High School District and Haruyama with the City of Livermore.
They met at the city’s 50th Birthday Barbecue celebration in August, beginning a relationship of shared interests and shared challenges that is likely to create new and unique synergies in the years ahead.
Krause lives in Santa Cruz and worked in Santa Cruz schools as a teacher and administrator, so she had a neighbor’s familiarity with her district.
Haruyama returned to the home she still owned, where she and her family lived during the 11 years she worked for the Town of Los Gatos; her children returned to Scotts Valley schools.
Haruyama’s late father, Michael Harwood, was a retired Milpitas fire chief who served on the Scotts Valley Planning Commission. Her mother Marion Harwood lives in Scotts Valley, where her aunt, Carol Lee, is married to former Scotts Valley mayor Jun Lee.
Both women faced stressful challenges in their first few months, and they emerged with enhanced reputations as skillful administrators.
Krause arrived in the midst of fallout from a controversy over distribution of a violent and threatening letter by a high school freshman. Public concern was growing over what appeared to inaction over a new middle school, and all five positions on the school board were up for grabs in the November election.
The student did not return to school, site work began for the middle school, a statewide bond approval included money for a new middle school gym and two of three incumbent trustees were re-elected.
The City Council election campaign proved to be one of the most contentious in years, and Haruyama was able to stay above the turmoil.
Jack Dilles and Dene Bustichi
What began in August 2016 as a contest of five people vying for three Scotts Valley City Council seats ended up in late October as a two-man battle between 12-year incumbent Dene Bustichi and challenger Jack Dilles.
Dilles, a county Board of Education member, was an energetic campaigner, going door-to-door throughout the city and spending more than $23,000 of his own money.
Bustichi, a local contractor, bought, cooked, and served all the meat at the city’s 50th Birthday Barbecue, installed a door at the Senior Center, and chaired Valley Churches United.
The campaign of Bustichi and the other incumbents got a boost from something relatively new to local politics: a politcal action committee, which raised more than $14,000, mostly from developers.
When Dilles criticized the incumbents’ cozy relationship with developers in campaign flyers, the PAC diverted some of its money to a flyer criticizing Dilles for spending more than twice what other candidates were spending.
Revelations that Bustichi’s contractor license had been revoked in 2015 for failure to pay a subcontractor apparently sunk his re-election bid.
When the dust had cleared, Dilles came in a strong third, and Bustichi was last among all five.
Bruce McPherson
If it seemed as if Bruce McPherson was everywhere in the Fifth District in 2016, he was.
Elected by a landslide in the June primary to a second term as Santa Cruz County Supervisor, the former secretary of state, state senator and newspaper editor had a banner year.
To name just a few, McPherson led efforts to:
Win voter approval for Measure D, the Transportion Bond;
Establish a 20-muncipality community power agency;
Install a new roof on historic Felton Covered Bridge;
Stall PG&E plans to cut hundreds of trees along Graham Hill Road;
Adopt regulations for cannabis cultivation;
Secure property for a new Felton Library;
Improve pedestrian safety at San Lorenzo Valley High and Boulder Creek Elementary schools.
Lynn Robinson
Lynn Robinson culminated an eight-year stint on the Santa Cruz City Council with a term as mayor in which she presided over the 100th anniversary of the Santa Cruz Wharf.
The professional garden designer and UC Santa Cruz alum had been a neighborhood advocate and chair of the METRO board of directors before her political career.
In February 2016, she combined those leadership and grassroots advocacy skills as the new executive director of Valley Churches United, serving needy families in Bonny Doon, the San Lorenzo Valley and Scotts Valley.
The agency was founded by the late Annette Marcum in the wake of the deadly Love Creek flooding. Marcum died in 2014, leaving a potential leadership vacuum.
Robinson is filling those shoes, leading the non-profit to new levels of service.
Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine, his boss Sir Topham Hatt, and his friend Percy visit Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton twice every year, bringing smiles to the faces of tens of thousands of young visitors at what has become the biggest tourist attraction in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
On his first opening weekend in 2016, June 29, Thomas was a hero.
A young woman who had been swimming with friends at the Garden of Eden swimming hole on the San Lorenzo River about two miles south of Roaring Camp slipped on rocks and was seriously injured in a fall.
The narrow gauge Big Trees and Pacific Railway offers the most direct route to the swim site. Thomas carried rescue workers there and delivered the victim back to Felton, where she was airlifted to a Bay Area hospital. You’re a Ver
