Lessons on Building Trust in Santa Cruz County

By Kara Meyberg Guzman

In October 2025, we hosted a panel in collaboration with community grantee Santa Cruz Local about building trust with local institutions. We’re honored to have their Co-founder and CEO, Kara Meyberg Guzman, authored a guest blog post that explores the connections between local journalism, civic leadership, and building trust.

Header photo: Susan True, Dr. Blanca Balthazar-Sabbah, Christy Chin, and Kara Meyberg Guzman.

In 2019, I co-founded Santa Cruz Local, a local news outlet, because I saw a need for fair, accurate, relevant news on our county’s biggest issues. Too many people I knew avoided local news because they felt overwhelmed and disappointed by it.

I wanted to serve Santa Cruz County in a different way than traditional media had – by prioritizing trust.

For any journalist, trust is the ultimate currency. If our readers don’t believe us, we’ve lost.

Trust in news has become increasingly fraught as newspapers vanish, the industry fragments, misinformation mushrooms, and lines blur between opinion and news. Americans’ trust in national and local news has declined across political lines and age groups.

For communities of color, trust in news is especially problematic. Rightfully so, as traditional media has never centered these communities. In the Pajaro Valley, generations of Latinos have been ignored, and sometimes harmed, by traditional news. Too often, outlets from elsewhere only drop in to report about crime or focus on a neighborhood’s problems. For residents, the news feels repetitive, out-of-touch, and insulting.

This loss of confidence is not only in the news. Americans’ confidence in major institutions like government, organized religion, and higher education nears an all-time low, according to a Gallup report in July.

Where to start: Being useful

If the public has lost trust in institutions, how can we solve our county’s contentious issues?

Part of the solution is an inclusive model for local news that informs and empowers, not inflames and divides. Santa Cruz Local’s free, straightforward news aims to engage residents who are new to civic life and build informed, civil dialogue.

Unlike most other outlets, we’re not just focused on well-educated, well-resourced, older readers. Our nonprofit newsroom aims to earn trust from Latino immigrants in the Pajaro Valley and Gen Z students at Cabrillo College – communities often on the fringe of civic life.

Our team has conducted thousands of interviews with residents about what news and information they need.

I’ve learned to start by listening, then respond. Both steps are crucial. The practice comes from a constant distillation of what people need and a rigorous method to try new things based on that. Show people what you’ve built based on their input.

To earn residents’ confidence – and build toward an informed and engaged society – we must help solve basic needs for the greatest number. People aren’t ready to engage with solutions to complex problems if they lack food and safety. That’s why Santa Cruz Local builds guides on how to access low-cost health care, affordable housing, and other basic needs.

Investigative news that holds power to account is crucial, but it can’t be the only thing we do. How do our stories impact residents’ daily lives? What can people do with our news and information? How does it make readers feel — depressed and angry or informed and empowered?

Meeting promises

I’ve also learned from other leaders working toward similar goals.

Last month, I spoke on a panel with Susan True, CEO of the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, and Dr. Blanca Baltazar-Sabbah, Vice President of Student Services at Cabrillo College, moderated by Santa Cruz Local board member Christy Chin. We discussed how our organizations earn trust from residents.

Susan True said that trust is fundamentally about doing what we say we are going to do, and that can take many forms. She shared that since 2021, the foundation, Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and Cruzio Internet have collaborated to bring low-cost, high-speed internet to thousands of families.

The community was concerned that nearly 1 in 5 students did not have internet access at the start of the pandemic, according to a county schools survey. The collaboration built trust by launching an effort that resulted in 95% of Santa Cruz County households with broadband internet access. It’s an example of an innovative crisis response forged by trusted relationships.

Now, with tens of thousands of locals at risk of losing safety net services, Susan shared the need to keep sight of innovation and long-term solutions while balancing immediate needs.

Balancing urgency and importance

Similarly, Dr. Blanca Balthazar-Sabbah shared how basic needs come before educational attainment. For example, a 2023 survey of about 250 students showed that 52% experienced food insecurity in the past month. Cabrillo College provides food, housing connections, health and wellness care, child care grants and other building blocks for student success.

She shared how she and other administrators think about success — not only by traditional metrics like graduation rates, but also by students’ sense of belonging on campus.

What inspires me about these two leaders is their clear vision for how their institutions’ services tie to their loftier purposes: a thriving community and higher education. They balance long-term progress and immediate urgency in their strategies to serve the community.

In my line of work, if we’re not useful to the greatest number of people, we’re just talking to the powerful few. And to achieve progress on Santa Cruz County’s most pressing issues, the leadership and energy must come from the communities most impacted.

How to get involved

At our panel, Susan True, Dr. Blanca Balthazar-Sabbah, and I shared ways to engage with each of our organizations.

Santa Cruz Local

• Stay informed on local issues with Santa Cruz Local’s free Sunday email newsletter.

• Share our local news Instagram account @thesantacruzlocal with young people in your life.

• Join Noticias Watsonville, our Spanish-language WhatsApp community, for Pajaro Valley news and information.

• Make a tax-deductible gift to support Santa Cruz Local’s news and information.

Cabrillo College

• Sign up to be a mentor for a Cabrillo College student. Contact Michelle Foguet-Mendoza at migoguet@cabrillo.edu.

• Make a tax-deductible gift to the Cabrillo College Foundation.

Community Foundation Santa Cruz County

• Give to the Greatest Needs Fund to support neighbors who will struggle with reductions in health care and food assistance.

• Set up a donor-advised fund to receive a tax deduction and make grants to public charities.

Kara Meyberg Guzman is a longtime journalist and the CEO/Co-founder of Santa Cruz Local, a nonprofit local news organization. She serves on Rise Together, a coalition hosted by the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, comprised of local leaders of color working toward racial equity. Santa Cruz Local is a grant recipient of the Community Foundation and a sponsorship recipient of Cruzio Internet.