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| Bruce Bratton |
Bruce Bratton, who died yesterday, made an indelible impact on my hometown community of Santa Cruz, California. I am proud to have known Bruce, and to have worked with him. I am proud to have been his friend. I am grateful for Bruce's enormous contributions to the community.
I came to live in the City of Santa Cruz in 1971. Bruce had showed up here a few years earlier. By the time I arrived, Bruce had already played a major role in helping to stop the construction of a nuclear power plant in Davenport, California. Shortly after my arrival, Bruce and a few stalwart others formed "Operation Wilder," to derail the development of a massive expansion of the City of Santa Cruz onto the Santa Cruz County North Coast.
On what is now Wilder Ranch State Park, a Southern California development company was proposing to build 10,000 new homes. Had it been approved, that proposed development would have essentially doubled the population of the City, all by itself. Bruce and the other leaders of Operation Wilder, fighting this proposal, were sued by the developer for $181,000,000, apiece. That didn't stop Bruce (or Operation Wilder). That development proposal, which would have fundamentally altered the future of my local community, and which would have turned the Santa Cruz County North Coast into a massive example of Silicon Valley-like urban sprawl, paving over both wildlands and agricultural land, was defeated.
Bruce Bratton played a leading role.
At the very same time that the fight to stop the development on Wilder Ranch was taking place, I got involved in another fight to save our coast - the fight to "Save Lighthouse Field," the last remaining undeveloped open space right on the coastline in the City. We did save Lighthouse Field, just as Bruce and Operation Wilder saved our county's North Coast by defeating the Wilder Ranch and Beaches project.
Those two land use victories were the basis upon which a vital, local, community-based politics was founded. From the very beginning, Bruce was a leader in stimulating, goading, agitating, and organizing for that kind of community-based politics, right up until yesterday. Bruce Bratton's spirit and influence isn't going to disappear, either.
My thanks to Bruce Bratton for his incredible contributions to our community. Let our memory of Bruce be for a blessing for this community, which owes Bruce Bratton so much!
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I am grateful that Bruce Bratton helped to preserve Wilder Ranch and Lighthouse Field from development. Condolences to his family and friends.
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