SANTA CRUZ >> The Aug. 23 fatal shooting of 24-year-old Joseph “Joey” Shuemaker on the San Lorenzo River levees was not the only reason Janet Fardette decided to temporarily call it quits.

The long-time Santa Cruzan has led the charge since 2009 of community-based volunteer cleanup group the “Leveelies,” which has adopted the public river pathways from Soquel Bridge to Laurel Street Bridge. Hours after Shuemaker’s death, Fardette sent out an email to fellow volunteers, interested community members and a large swath of city officials such as the Santa Cruz City Council, Police, Public Works and Parks and Recreation departments.

“It is with a sad, sad heart that I am announcing that the LEVEELIES will be curtailing their volunteer work on the RIVERWALK,” Fardette wrote, in part. “We do not feel safe on the levee and are hoping that, in the future, the RIVERWALK is once again a safe place to volunteer and continue our work. This decision is not easily made. ”

Santa Cruz police continue to investigate the possibility that other people, beyond murder suspects Nino Ruiz, 27, and his girlfriend, Jenessa Kic, 31, were involved in Shuemaker’s death, said department spokeswoman Joyce Blaschke.

The Santa Cruz City Manager’s Office is responding to community concerns and the shooting by partially shutting down public access along the levees to all but city Parks and Recreation Department-approved volunteers or permitted events. City Manager Martín Bernal said downtown ranger bike patrols will increase in the area, after six new hires came on board Wednesday.

Once signs notifying the public of the levee closure are posted, visitors will be restricted to the paved pathways and told to stay off the sloped levee sides. Bernal said there is no set end date for the park space closure, and that signs are due to be posted in coming days.

The park closure, which has been used as a tool in past years, gives police and rangers the ability to ask those who are loitering to move along, particularly from Laurel Street bridge to the Highway 1 bridge — leverage they did not have before, Bernal said.

In the weeks before Shuemaker’s death, Fardette raised continued concerns about negative interactions with people on the levee and apparent drug deals in her twice-weekly emailed photo journals documenting the group’s cleanup efforts and problems, along with statistics for each day’s work. Fardette said in a recent interview that things has been getting “worse and worse, and now it’s just coming to a crash.”

The downtown resident said she had not returned to the riverwalk since Aug. 22 and hopes to see the future creation of a “levee czar” position, someone who can organize the different regulatory, government and nonprofit entities involved with the levee spaces. Fardette said she has experienced a positive city reaction to the levee safety concerns and hopes to relaunch the cleanup at 9 a.m. on Saturdays and Mondays in October, if circumstances improve.

“This is not about the homeless. I have great empathy and sympathy for the homeless. This is about the criminal element that has moved into the levee,” Fardette said. “I don’t want to be responsible for anybody getting killed.”

Not all are in favor of the levee closure. Santa Cruz City Councilman Micah Posner said he understood the decision’s impetus, but questioned the effectiveness of a decision that would target law-abiding citizens, rather than lawbreakers. Posner said he prefers more city involvement in positive river-related community events, as it has been done in recent years.

“It’s so contradictory to close off the river in order to get more positive attention for the river,” Posner said. “It doesn’t really make the common sense test. It’s like putting barbed wire on your front lawn because you don’t want dogs to pee on it.”

In response to Fardette’s farewell email, downtown resident of four years Konnie Warburton voiced her own levee-related concerns.

“The Leveelies were the foot soldiers! They were the constant and reliable witness to the RiverWalk, both the blight and the good works to clean it up. And, now they have ceased their work,” Warburton wrote to Fardette’s mailing list. “We must say, ENOUGH! We need enforcement! and if issuing citations that are just thrown away don’t do the job, we need teeth to move these vagrants on.”

Santa Cruz documentarian and homeless shelter advocate Brent Adams visited Aug. 27 the area of the levee where Shuemaker was shot, filming interviews with three homeless men identifying themselves as Mark, Robie and Joe. The men shared their views on the victim and murder suspects, whom they all knew. Shuemaker, they said, could be a zealous steward of the levees, going after people he felt was causing trouble, but also picking up trash in the area.