Meet the Team
Our Founders
Jeanette Bent
Co-Founder | Executive Producer, Stellaria Creative Company
Jeanette Bent is a writer, performer, and creative producer whose storytelling career spans continents. A former managing editor and anchor with KION News Channel and Good Times Santa Cruz, Jeanette has spent her life turning art and journalism into immersive experience.
As founder of Stellaria Creative Company, she designs live, narrative-driven productions that merge theater, media, and mythmaking. An award-winning aerialist and dancer, Jeanette’s work has appeared on stages across France, Mexico, Los Angeles, and New York.
At The 831, Jeanette leads editorial operations and multimedia storytelling, ensuring the publication stays rooted in creativity, curiosity, and community. She holds a degree from California State University, Long Beach, speaks French, and has published three books and six musical theater scripts.
She lives in Santa Cruz with her two sons, who are her biggest fans.
Lee Solomon
Co-Founder | Senior Editor, Science & Climate
For more than two decades, Lee Solomon has been one of the Central Coast’s most trusted meteorological voices. As Chief Meteorologist for KSBW and KION, he’s covered California’s evolving climate with both scientific depth and local empathy.
A graduate of Hofstra University with advanced study in Atmospheric Physics and Dynamics at Stony Brook University, Lee brings precision and perspective to The 831’s environmental coverage. He translates complex data into stories that help the community adapt and endure.
Lee believes weather is never just weather. It’s the story of how we live with the land.
Neil Pearlberg
Co-Founder | Contributor, Sports & Community
Neil Pearlberg has spent over 15 years chronicling the coast’s spirit through surf, skate, and sport. Host of Off the Lip Radio Show and contributor to Santa Cruz Waves, Adventure Sports Journal, and National Geographic, Neil has written more than 200 stories capturing the humanity behind athleticism.
His storytelling is equal parts humor and heart, always rooted in the ocean, always community-first. Neil is also the founder of Santa Cruz Stand Up Paddle Board Company, where he taught H2OYOGA, H2OPilates, and SUP Fitness Bootcamps across the Bay Area.
At The 831, Neil carries that same ethos forward, bringing the rhythm of local life to every dispatch, interview, and feature he touches.
Alisa Sieber
Co-Founder | Writer | Arts & Culture Editor
Alisa Sieber is a former Marine Corps pilot turned writer, narrative architect, and founder of Chez Serendip, a regenerative cultural sanctuary in the redwoods of Scotts Valley. She brings over a decade of experience in systems leadership, creative direction, and trauma-informed storytelling to The 831.
Her work lives at the intersection of service and story, where art becomes journalism and journalism becomes activism. She’s the author of How the Fuck Did I Get Here? and How the Fuck Did We Get Here?, twin Substack series exploring the collapse of systems through personal reckoning and cultural critique.
At The 831, Alisa leads Arts & Culture coverage, weaving essays, reviews, and cultural reporting that remind readers why creation itself is resistance. Her work has been featured in The Meteor, People Magazine, The Today Show, HuffPost, and National Geographic.
When she’s not writing, she’s building spaces for others to tell their stories: from the cockpit to the redwoods to the printed page.
Our Collective
Beyond the founders, The 831 is powered by a growing network of bilingual reporters, artists, and community correspondents who believe local journalism should feel like a conversation, not a broadcast.
Together, we’re documenting this place in real time: its creativity, contradictions, and courage. One story at a time.
Our Mission
When KION went dark in September after fifty years of local news coverage, something essential was lost. Not just a news source, but accountability, proximity, and a shared memory of our community.
The 831 was born from that silence. Founded by the very people left behind, we’re a guerrilla-style news collective doing the kind of journalism that refuses to be polite. Grassroots storytelling that chooses danger over decorum: messy, human, unpolished, alive.
We cover Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito counties because this is home. Because local news matters. Because stories shape culture, and culture shapes the future.
We’re not algorithms. We’re people.
And we’re here to stay.