Community

While 2,400 students at Scotts Valley Schools, like many of their counterparts across the county, stared at dense fog with and without special UV-shielding glasses on Monday, Aug. 21, about 100 Boulder Creek Neighbors, fans of the popular Facebook page, gathered at Crest Farm near the of the tallest mountain  in the San Lorenzo Valley, Ben Lomond, overlooking Boulder Creek. There, above the morning fog, they relaxed in the morning sun, and with cameras, telescopes, pin-hole cameras, and special sunglasses, observed a solar-lunar phenomenon that captured the imagination of much of the U.S.

Announcing: Bay Photo of Scotts Valley is sponsoring the 2017 Back-to-School Photo Contest in the Press Banner.

The new Bear Creek public pool in Boulder Creek is now open to the public, but on a limited basis.If someone from the general public wishes to swim on a “pay-per-swim” basis – $8 per adult and $5 per child under 18 – he or she can only swim 1-4 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m.-3  p.m. Sundays for recreational swimming, and 6-7 p.m. Thursdays, and 9-10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays for lap swimming only.The Boulder Creek Parks and Recreation Department, which operates the pool, is selling monthly single and family pool memberships and annual tennis/pool and tennis-only memberships.The pool members get half-price discounts on recreational swimming and have special members-only times and days: 1- 4 p.m., Mondays and Wednesday, and 4-6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.Members also can use the pool for lap swimming at no extra fee, 6-7 p.m. Thursdays and 9-10 a.m. Saturdays.The pool, which held a grand opening event on July 7, is the former Bear Creek Country Club, at 15685 Forest Hill Drive.  

Thousands of residents of Santa Cruz Mountain communities, plus equally as many visitors, ate pancakes, watched parades, played in the sun, and watched fireworks on Independence Day.

A team of 30 students from all grade levels in Scotts Valley school are spending portions of their summer break working on a bright new mural at Siltanen Park.

Though probably not a surprise to loyal customers, the owners of Mountain Feed and Farm Supply in Ben Lomond were taken aback when they learned they had been named regional small business of the year.The Small Business of 2017 honor was given earlier this month to about 80 private business owners out of roughly 3 million small businesses in the state.The all-purpose feed-and-farm supply store on Highway 9 was honored this month as the 29th Assembly District’s winner.“I wasn’t expecting it at all,” said Jorah Roussopoolous, who owns the store with wife Andi. “It’s sort of the American dream.”The elaborate feed store was nominated by occasional customer Mark Stone, Assemblyman for the 29th District.“Owners Jorah and Andi Roussopoolous provide our region with invaluable resources for sustainable independent living and homesteading,” Stone said.  “They are an important part of our local economy.”The business owners traveled to the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Sacramento to receive the honor, and were given a tour of the State Capitol by Stone. “It was a warm welcome,” said Roussopoolous. “It made me proud to be a Californian.”Customers travel to Mountain Feed and Farm Supply from as far away as Carmel Valley and San Francisco.The store, composed of a warren of connected smaller buildings, serves as a hub for classes, nursery items, small-scale food production, housewares and sustainable methods of farming.“It feels like home,” said Ben Lomond resident Cheryl Martin, who has been shopping at the store for 10 years. “I can come here for just about anything.”It wasn’t always that way.When the Roussopoolous couple purchased the property in 2004 it was not much to speak of: just the former empty site of then-vacant Ben Lomond Feed.It would be nice to say that Roussopoolous, in their mid-20s at the time, had a dream of building their future. Not so fast.“We were forced to figure out how we would pay the mortgage,” remembered Roussopoolous, who began by opening a small feed store. “It was just youthful enthusiasm.”It wasn’t long before the outgoing couple’s counter became a magnet for residents, who conversed about small-town news on a first-name basis.“It’s not just a store; it’s a community hub,” said Roussopoolous, who lives in Bonny Doon with Andi and children Ember and Reese.Little by little, a vision began to take shape. Nursery pots appeared, the small gift shop (where the couple had lived in the beginning) was transformed, and fences and gates sprouted.These days, the busy store employs 30 workers during peak months — full-time employees who are provided healthcare insurance at no charge.Lisa Berg, a customer since the store opened, treks over from Los Gatos to do her shopping and take her 14-year-old cat, Earl, to the on-site vet.“It’s worth the drive,” she said. “I love the eclectic feel and everything is so high quality.”Roussopoolous said it’s his employees who should receive the award.“I have amazing people, past and present,” he said. “They deserve 100 percent of the credit.”

Peter Gelblum sits in the darkened, empty Park Hall in Ben Lomond and reflects on his former hectic life, when he was named One of the Best Lawyers in America – a life that saw him on the worldwide stage as part of the legal team that won a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment against O.J. Simpson.But he found that it was a profession with little creativity.“I hadn’t gone to a lot of plays,” remembers Gelblum of his 30 years working as a partner at Mitchell Siberberg & Knupp in Los Angeles. “I didn’t think about it at all.”But he found that it was a profession with little creativity.“I hadn’t gone to a lot of plays,” remembers Gelblum of his 30 years working as a partner at Mitchell Siberberg & Knupp in Los Angeles. “I didn’t think about it at all.”He certainly thought about drama when he walked past Park Hall shortly after renting a house in Ben Lomond in 2008.“I poked my head in one day and then got really involved,” he says. “Now it’s a very big part of my life.”In addition to serving as vice president of the theater board, Gelblum is currently directing Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, a comedy playing on weekends through May 28.Life has come full circle for Gelblum, who earned a performing arts degree at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1974. He soon moved to New York City to ply his trade as an actor, working as a waiter between auditions.After a brief stop in San Francisco to work as stage manager for Hold Me!,Gelblum followed the play as an understudy when it moved to Los Angeles in 1977. He continued to pursue acting.Viewers can see him on YouTube as Ralph Donner, a psychopathic killer, on a 1978 Kojak episode entitled “Halls of Terror.”“I thought I’d made the big time,” he says, adding that his agent fired him after his big break. “I never worked again.”For “fun” he entered Southwestern School of Law and earned a degree summa cum laude in 1982. He soon began representing high-profile clients in civil courts of law.Goldblum fought for the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, against Napster’s ability to stiff artists, and represented the family of Fred Goldman, whose son, Ron, was brutally murdered along with Nicole Simpson in 1994 in the civil suit against O.J.Although Simpson was found not guilty of murder charges after a 1995 criminal trial, the Goldman’s filed civil charges in Santa Monica Superior Court in 1997.“It wasn’t about money,” says Gelblum, referring to the Goldman’s inability to pay for the massive legal tab. “There was no doubt in our minds that he (Simpson) had done it.”Gelblum oversaw the photographic expert witnesses and all of the punitive witnesses and evidence. Of the $33.5 million award, Simpson has paid the Goldman’s about $500,000, according to Gelblum.Gelblum’s work tying the photograph of the now-famous Bruno Magli shoes to Simpson is legendary, especially considering that the former football star said he would never wear those “ugly ass” shoes during his 10-day deposition.Twenty-two witnesses disputed Simpson’s version of the events.“He (Simpson) was very charismatic and completely unethical to truthfulness,” remembers Gelblum.Currently, Gelblum, who lives in Boulder Creek with wife Michel, is essentially retired, except for an appeals case in which he represents the heirs of Walt Disney in a matter that involves “several-hundred million dollars.”The couple discovered Big Basin while exploring an old-school style paper map while visiting friends in Corralitos. “We’d never heard of San Lorenzo Valley,” he says of their initial visit. “It was magical; everyone was so nice.”Gelblum was key in resurrecting the mountain theater company after it lost the rights to publish the stage version of Miracle on 34th Street, reducing the non-profit’s budget by about $12,000 annually.Gelblum and his attorney brother Seth came to the rescue and worked and at deal with the story’s owner, 20th Century Fox to get the rights back. He played Kris Kringle in the play from 2010 – 2012.Gelblum is currently working with a group of volunteers reviewing 30 plays that have been submitted for next year’s season. That number will be reduced to four productions.One thing is constant for Gelblum, and that’s believing in O.J. Simpson’s guilt as he comes up for a parole hearing this summer for a 2008 burglary conviction.“I don’t have any sympathy for him,” he says. “He got away with murder.”The Play: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Friday through Sunday, May 29, Friday and Saturday 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., Park Hall, 9400 Mill St., Ben Lomond

The two kindergarten classes piled into big yellow buses at Brook Knoll Elementary School on Friday, May 12, and headed north to another world.

Felton resident Dr. Ann Lopez dedicates her life to the struggling dilemma of farmworkers on both sides of the border. To celebrate this work she will receive the Democratic Ideals Award this weekend.