Local News

Last March, film director Melissa Elizondo was about to board a plane from Mexico bound for the Watsonville Film Festival (WFF) when she got a call from Executive Director Consuelo Alba. The festival had been canceled due to the pandemic, and international travel was...

WATSONVILLE—In the span of less than a week, Dignity Health-Dominican Hospital was able to set up a mass Covid-19 vaccination clinic on the outskirts of Watsonville to inoculate 1,000 people in the agriculture industry. Dignity Health’s parent corporation, CommonSpirit, said it would have 2,000 extra...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—On Tuesday Second Harvest Food Bank Santa Cruz County (SCFB) announced that its annual Holiday Food & Fund Drive (HFFD) raised the equivalent of 5.5 million meals—more than 1 million beyond its original goal. Prior to the pandemic HFFD co-chairs Megan Martinelli and...

CENTRAL COAST—Recent heavy rains, ushered into the Central Coast from the Gulf of Alaska, have helped alleviate low water levels in an otherwise dry winter. Ryan Walbrun, meteorologist with the National Weather Service of Monterey, said that since October Watsonville has taken in 9.7 inches...

The Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (METRO) will receive an additional $13.5 million of emergency funding through the federal Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act. Approved by Congress in December of last year along with the $1.4 trillion spending bill, the CRRSA Act...

WATSONVILLE—Staff of Life grocery store has for a half-century been a backbone of healthy eating and living in Santa Cruz County, selling organic food and natural products long before those concepts hit the mainstream. Founders Richard Josephson and Gary Bascou launched the business as a...

Author Barbara King was holding an event at Kelly’s Books for her novel “The California Immigrant” when inspiration for her next project, “The Apple King,” struck. A woman approached her and recommended that King read a book called “Blossoms Into Gold,” which follows the history...

Before Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board President Georgia Acosta called for a vote to oust Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez, she sent a non-district authorized Zoom link to her fellow board members for the closed-session meeting.

With most people staying close to home during the pandemic, looking for things to do and ways to stay safe, local nurseries have seen an uptick in customers. Stay-at-home orders have prompted many to find new hobbies—and gardening has been a popular choice. Sierra Azul...

In what is expected to be another contentious chapter in a saga that has rocked the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, the Board of Trustees will meet Sunday at 3pm with a three-item agenda that includes reinstating ousted Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez.