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Scotts Valley
December 25, 2025

Community News: On Saturday, Sept. 16, the St. Andrew’s Summer Festival and Ananda Yoga Festival!

Wine and cheese in Ben Lomond Sept.16 at St. Andrew’sWine and cheese tasting, with music, will be featured in the Parish Hall of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Saturday, Sept. 16.The “St. Andrew’s Summer Festival,” from 2 to 5 p.m. to run from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the church, located at 101 Riverside Drive, Ben Lomond – the Little Redwood Church at the corner of Riverside and Glen Arbor.Music will be provided by noted Celtic musicians Margaret Davis and Kristoph Klover.  Admission, which includes wine, one wine glass and refreshments, is $30.  For $20, you can get non-alcoholic drinks and a glass, and a chance to listen to the music.A silent auction featuring new and collectible items will also be featured. New Name for local Democratic ClubThe Crosson North County Democratic Club has changed its name to the Democratic Club of North Santa Cruz County.The name change, according to a club statement, will make the club more searchable on the internet for members of the public seeking information about local Democratic organizations.The club will continue to honor the memory of John and Deloris Crosson, long-time San Lorenzo Valley residents and Democratic activists, by renaming its Democratic Ideals Award after them.On Thursday, Sept. 21, the club will sponsor an event to honor the Assemblymember Mark Stone at Bruno’s BBQ from 5 to 7 p.m. For more information or to RSVP, contact (831) 234-5885. Sliding scale is $30 to $50.The North County Democrats meet the first Tuesday of the month at Bruno’s BBQ. Dinner and social networking begins at 5:30 p.m. and the business meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. SLV featured in local documentaryLocal documentary film maker Bob Gliner has produced a documentary for public television about career technical education.“Job Centered Learning,” a one-hour documentary about Career Technical Education, includes a segment on the Aquaculture program at San Lorenzo Valley High School.Set your DVR systems:  It will be broadcast locally on Friday, Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. throughout the Monterey Bay area on Comcast channels 10 and 710, KQED + and on Sunday, Sept. 17 at 9 p.m. in the San Francisco Bay Area on KSCM Comcast 17 and 717. The documentary also will be archived on www.kqed.org.The documentary has been airing on public television stations throughout the U.S. since its release at the beginning of August.    For more information about the documentary or to watch a trailer, visit www.docmakeronline.com.The award-winning filmmaker’s other films include “Barefoot College,” “Growing Up Green,” “Democracy Left Behind,” and “Communities as Classrooms.” Yoga Festival Sat. at Ananda Scotts ValleyA free fall yoga festival will be held in Scotts Valley on Saturday, Sept. 16, from noon to 5 p.m.Ananda Yoga Scotts Valley will be offering free yoga and meditation classes every 30 minutes at the event with the trained Ananda teaching staff.Ananda Yoga, at 221-A Mt. Hermon Rd, Scotts Valley, incorporates asanas to build strength, balance and flexibility, pranayama techniques to access deep states of relaxation and affirmations to enhance mental and spiritual benefits of each pose.Visitors can enter the drawing for free yoga classes. Light refreshments will be served.CERT earthquake drill this weekendThe Santa Cruz County CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) teams in the Santa Cruz Mountains are having a unique practice drill on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 16 and 17.This event is the partnership of several disaster related agencies and teams that are working together to hold a weekend training event at the CAL FIRE training center on Empire Grade in Bonny Doon beginning at 9 a.m.CERT teams from Ben Lomond, Boulder Creek, Felton, Skyline/La Honda, Sacramento and the San Lorenzo Valley Amateur Radio Emergency Services group will be participating in the drills, which have been scripted to simulate the aftermath of an earthquake, according to CERT coordinator Kevin Foster.Volunteers will also participate as actors/victims in the drills.CERT members have gone through some pre trainings; The Red Cross has partnered with the teams and provided training on how a Red Cross Shelter is set up, the Santa Cruz County Emergency Operation Center simulated a disaster and Incident Command protocol was practiced; and Search and Rescue also provided a training session. Performing Arts Center prepares for Pumpkin PatchThe Scotts Valley Performing Arts Center plans a work weekend on Sept. 16 and 17 to begin preparations for a month-long pumpkin sale fundraiser that is to begin Sept. 29.The October Pumpkin Patch will also include a carving contest and some spooky entertainment.The volunteer work days will be at the theater site, 251 Kings Village Rd., from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.Community Service forms will be available for students.

Back to School Photo contest

Back-to-School winner! Bay Photo has selected Collin Donagher  of Scotts Valley as the winner of the 2017 Bay Photo Back to School Photo contest! Collin, a first grader at Ocean Grove Charter, will receive an 8x10 Dream Print mounted on a Bamboo panel. This photo was taken by his mom, Kim Pinard. 

Sun and Fog on Eclipse Day

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.

Back-to-School Photo Contest

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

Bear Creek pool is open

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.  

Pancakes, parades and fireworks

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.

Multiversity opens to locals

Scotts Valley residents don’t have to travel far to explore relationships, spirit and wellness.

Students paint mural in Siltanen Park

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.

Small Business of the Year

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.”

Hollywood lawyer to MCT director

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

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San Lorenzo Valley Water District

San Lorenzo Valley Water District extends deadline for committee applications

San Lorenzo Valley Water District (SLVWD) is inviting local residents to join its standing committees, with the deadline for applications now extended to Jan....