Then, basically, I decided if I was going to go any further in graduate studies I was going to have to learn the language that I was going to do research in. It was really focusing on Japan then. So, I looked around and I could go to the University of Nebraska and study Japanese, or I could come to the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies in Monterey, California and study Japanese. So I am going, Nebraska…? California….? (Laughs) So, California won and I moved out to Monterey in 1970 or 1971 and studied two semesters of Japanese at the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies. I realized I better get a job because we didn’t’ have any money.

So, I got a job at the Monterey Peninsula College. I actually created the job. They had a lot of Vietnam vets that were returning from service at the time and they wanted to go to college. Many of them had dropped out of high school when they went into the service, so their academic skills were not very strong. So, we put together a tutoring program to help them improve their skills; their math and their reading and that kind of thing. Basically, it was good for the school because the school got funded through ADA and the more kids they had going to Monterey PC the better off it was for them. It was good for the vets because we could get all kinds of special funding to help them put them through remedial math classes and that kind of stuff. We got so good we got an office; we started out with just me and a clerk from the registrar’s office and by the time I left Monterey Peninsula College we had teachers working for us, we had a psychologist on call, we were teaching classes at night on how to get your GI benefits, home loans. We had people that were so knowledgeable that the County Veterans Office would send their staff over to learn how to apply for a Cal Vet Loan and this, that and the other thing. So, we felt pretty good about that.

I am very pleased to say that the young woman who was the clerk from the registrar’s office for the Veterans Reentry Program is now the Registrar for Monterey Peninsula College! So, she started out in this tiny little office and now she’s a honcho. I feel pretty good about that.


CAREER:
So then, because all my work with the vets and Monterey Peninsula College I got to know a fellow who was the vets dude at Cabrillo College. He said, “They are going to be recruiting for the county veteran’s services officer here in Santa Cruz County, why don’t you come and apply for that?”

So he introduced me to people at the county and I came up and I applied for that. I came to work for Santa Cruz County as the Veterans Services Officer. I did that for about a year and then I went into the County Administrative Office in ‘75/’76 and was budget analyst for the CAO’s office for four or five years.

Then the guy who hired me, Ted Durkee, retired. They hired another fellow who lasted for about a year and a half and he did such a poor job that the board was just beside themselves. The chair of the board asked me to be the assistant CAO. I thought that was kind of strange that the chair of the board was giving me the job promotion to being assistant CAO, but that’s how bad the situation was with the guy who was the CAO. So, basically it became my job to put together the budget and present it to the board that spring. We assigned the CAO to keep track of what was happening at the state level with the state budget and then they worked out his departure and appointed me as the CAO.

So, then I became the County Administrative Office for Santa Cruz County in 1979 and did that until 1989. I left here one month before the earthquake; the ’89 earthquake, and went to Santa Clara County as the Assistant County Executive in Santa Clara County. I worked there until about 2000 at which time I retired. I have been enjoying living in Santa Cruz as a retired person ever since then.

RETIREMENT
Well, the first thing I did when I retired was I had met my current partner and we were living together at that point in time about…I don’t know, eight or ten years. Her son was just out of high school and – more than that, he was in college. I talked him into going to South America with me and we spent two months roaming around Peru, Argentina, and Chile and just had a great, wonderful, wonderful trip doing that. It was one of the best trips I have ever taken to take off and go with him.

He was 30 years younger than me and in the large cities the nightlife; the evening doesn’t start until about 11 o’clock at night and then it goes on until the wee hours. So, we’d go out to dinner and at about 11 o’clock and then I would go back. We were usually staying in a youth hostel where I was 20, 30 years older than anybody else in the place. (Laughter) So, I would go back and go to bed and they would go on and go out and go to the clubs. The next morning when I was getting up they were coming in, you know? Or, they would be in bed and I would get up and I would go out and roam around and explore. At around 1 o’clock I would go wake up Evan and he and I would go do whatever. We’d go to museums or whatever; go do this, that and the other thing, and then we’d start the cycle all over. So, we figured we had most of the major cities covered 24/7! Day and night coverage! It was fun. It was a wonderful trip. We would go to places and people would say to Evan, “Dude! You travel with your father? How can you do that? We’d be fighting by now!” But, we had a great relationship. It was perfect. Of course I am his stepfather so maybe that made it a little easier?

So then, I was just kicking around enjoying retired life and a good friend of mine, Catherine Boxer, said, “I want you to come meet Cil Cirillo who is the executive director of the City Redevelopment Agency.”

So I met with her and she was trying to get the arts organizations organized around converting the Salz Tannery into an art center. Salz Tannery had just closed down and there was eight acres of land that was perfect for something and she wanted to see if they couldn’t put an arts center there.

So, I agreed to organize and get this committee together of various representatives of different arts organizations and then from there we ended up forming a board of directors for the Tannery Arts Center. I was on the board of directors to begin with and then we got to the point where they needed somebody to negotiate agreements to apply for grants to do al to of administrating stuff that of course her staff couldn’t do because it was a nonprofit situation. So, they could support them but they couldn’t do all these other things.

So, I resigned from the board and became the project director for the Tannery Arts Center. Now, I have been doing that since – I have been on contract with them since August of 2004. So, it’s become pretty much a full-time job even though they pay me half time, but in terms of the work I do I spend a lot of time doing that.

The project really has three parts to it. It’s 100 units of affordable housing and this is for people with low and very low incomes. So this housing will be – you will have to qualify based on your income level and incomes range from 30% to 50% of the area median income. So, these are really affordable. The rent is very low on the apartments and the income levels range from like $16,000 a year up to $40,000 a year for a family of four. So, you can see that it’s really affordable housing. It’s really for people who are in need of.

The reason they did this; the idea it came from was that artists are generally on the lower end of the lower income scale anyway, but not only do you have to be able to afford a place to live but you have to be able to afford a place to work. So, that kind of double cost is not easy to obtain, especially here in Santa Cruz. We had quality artists that were moving out of the area because they couldn’t afford to live and work here. So, we will have 100 units of affordable housing and they range from studio apartments to three bedroom apartments. So, we’ll have families living in the property.

We have saved five buildings that have some historic significance. The eight acres of the tannery was covered with all kinds of aluminum sheds and metal buildings. But there are some buildings there that were built in 1880 so they are extremely old; 145-year-old redwood buildings that are still standing.

So anyway, we have preserved those and we’re going to convert most of those into working studios. So, the housing will be live/work housing. You’ll have an apartment that is a little larger than a normal apartment so you’ve got an area for your studio if you are a painter or writer or something like that. Then, we’re trying to provide some affordable studio space for artists who don’t income qualify to live in the housing but who are looking for some affordable setup to do ceramics, or welding, or whatever their discipline might be. So, we’ll have about 30,000 sq ft of floor space that we’ll convert to working studios.

Then the third aspect of this is to build what we’re calling a Creative Learning Center which is going to be a place that would house local nonprofit arts organizations; offices for them, meeting spaces for them, a performance space, exhibition space, gallery, shops, rehearsal space, classrooms… We have a big need for classroom space.

You can take classes at Cabrillo College only up to a certain point and then you gotta go find someplace else to do it. So, we’re trying to offer an off campus place where people are interested in art, both professionally and just from the vocational point of view, to be able to teach and learn at the Tannery Arts Center.

Then Robert Kelly is going to build a permanent home for the Santa Cruz Ballet School at the Tannery. After the earthquake he had to move his ballet school to some warehouses in Soquel and it’s not the best setup. His problem is he needs a place he can rely on the rent because when he has to move – if the rent goes up and he has to move he has to find, you know, 7,000 or 8,000 sq ft of rehearsal space. That’s not easy to do in the housing market like we have here. So, he wants to build a permanent home for the ballet.

So, we should have a pretty dynamic and diverse campus over there that will be dedicated to the arts; 8.2 acres of land in Santa Cruz dedicated to the arts. We want to create basically a destination point for the cultural tourists. For tourists who want to go to galleries and this and that. Come to Santa Cruz and see how art is made. We want to be come as identifiable and noticeable in the art world as the Boardwalk is in the entertainment world.