Update: The Palo Alto City Council voted unanimously in favor of the resolution to protect Juristac. Thank you to everyone who sent emails or attended the City Council meeting.

On Monday, December 2, the Palo Alto City Council will consider a resolution in support of protecting Juristac and opposing the Sargent Ranch mining operation. Please use the form below to ask the City Council to approve the resolution to protect Juristac.

What’s Happening

An open-pit sand and gravel mine has been proposed on the sacred Indigenous landscape and critical wildlife linkage known as Juristac, located just south of Gilroy at the southern end of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Sargent Ranch Quarry would destroy over 400 acres of habitat, literally scooping out the hillsides to create 3 open quarry pits hundreds of feet deep. About 86,000 gallons of groundwater would be pumped each day for mining operations, and the mine would generate hundreds of truck trips per day.

Juristac is the most sacred site of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, who held ceremonies there for thousands of years. For Mutsun people, Juristac is the home of a powerful spiritual being known as Kuksui. Juristac translates to “place of the Big Head,” and Big Head dances associated with Kuksui and other healing and renewal ceremonies took place in the area for centuries, often attended by neighboring tribal groups.

Juristac is also uniquely important for wildlife and biodiversity. These hillsides and streams are home to multiple at-risk species, including California red-legged frog, California tiger salamander, Burrowing Owl, and steelhead trout. Juristac is also a critically important wildlife corridor. The biological review conducted on the proposed quarry stated that this site may be one of the most important areas for wildlife movement on the entire Central Coast. Mountain lions, American badgers, bobcats, coyotes, and other animals rely on the movement pathways through Juristac – pathways that the Sargent Ranch Quarry would block or seriously impact.

Why This Resolution Matters

It is the responsibility of the Santa Clara County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors to decide whether to approve the mining operation. Currently, the County Planning Department is reviewing the 10,000+ public comments that were submitted to the County objecting to the mining proposal. Once County staff has reviewed and responded to all of those comments, the final environmental review document will be released so that the vote can take place.

Green Foothills, together with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and the Protect Juristac coalition, has been urging the cities in Santa Clara County to approve resolutions calling on the County to deny the quarry permit. By passing these resolutions, cities show that there is widespread support throughout the county for the permanent protection of Juristac as open space. Thus far, the cities of Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Mountain View, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale, and well as the City of Santa Cruz and the County of Santa Cruz, have all passed resolutions. Now, the City Council of Palo Alto is considering whether to approve a similar resolution.

This is Palo Alto’s opportunity to stand in solidarity with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and their efforts to protect their most sacred landscape, as well as to show support for the protection of this critical wildlife linkage.

What You Can Do

Please use the form below to email the Palo Alto City Council and ask them to approve the resolution to protect Juristac!