7 Things You Need To Know This Week in Santa Cruz

MONDAY

At 6:30 p.m. Santa Cruz will hold the first meeting of the Youth City Council at city hall council chambers, which will focus on public safety issues.

Mayor Hillary Bryant was inspired by seeing Watsonville's youth city council when it visited the TED talks last year and fostered the program to continue here. To find out more, check youthcitycouncil.org.

At 7:30 p.m. Bookshop Santa Cruz will have a talk and signing by mindfulness teacher and author Bob Stahl. He will be signing copies of his new book, Calming the Rush of Panic: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Guide to Freeing Yourself from Panic Attacks & Living a Vital Life.

Each chapter in the book contains informational background on the topic, guided meditations, and up to 10 practices that let you put the information and skills you will learn into action

TUESDAY

At 7 p.m. the City Council will hold an evening study session on homelessness, which will include reports to answer all the council people's questions including how Santa Cruz stacks up nationally and statewide with its homeless population, a local homelessness census and discussion, no doubt, from Councilman Micah Posner, who spent a night at the Homeless Services Shelter. 

The meeting is at Council Chambers in City Hall, 308 Church St.

Indie rockers Built to Spill play the Rio Theatre at 8 p.m. Like Modest Mouse or Death Cab for Cuties, who they influenced, Bult to Spill has managed to stay under the big commercial radar yet able to have a solid career of touring and releasing challenging guitar-laden discs. They have a Neil Young feel in this video.  If you are looking for a new band to love, you can't go wrong with this one. Tickets are $22.

More music for jazz lovers: The traveling edition of the Monterey Jazz Festival plays two shows at Kuumbwa Jazz Center at 7 and 9 p.m. featuring singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, saxophonist Chris Potter, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, pianist Benny Green, bassist/musical director Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash. Tickets are $30 in advance; $33 at the door. 

WEDNESDAY

Want to start a blog or website? It helps to learn WordPress. At 8 a.m.at the Abbey Coffee House, Brian Childers of Foxxr will show you how to get the most out WordPress and how to create engaging and feature-rich websites. He will cover how to get a web host, set up a domain, and configure WordPress to your newly hosted site.  Admission is $10.

THURSDAY

Ruth Alegria, chef, tour guide, and foodie extraordinaire from Mexico City, will be giving cooking classes on three separate occasions during her upcoming stay in Santa Cruz. Thursday's is 5:30-8:30 p.m. at a private home and costs $150. Another class will be held May 8 at New Leaf Community Market for $25.

Known for her marvelous mercado-a-mesa culinary tours of Mexico City markets, Ruth will recreate that experience here at these Santa Cruz events. With our stellar local produce and readily available Mexican ingredients, these promise to be flavorful, fun, and festive evenings.

 Hands-on class and tequila tasting in a lovely private home includes full dinner. Limited to 12 people. The class is a fundraiser for Gault School's  after-school program El Sistema, providing high quality music instruction and ensemble performance to kindergartners and first graders without cost to the students.

For more info, click here.