Local News

Festival celebrates Filipino American History Month The Tobera Project will hold its second annual Filipino American History Month festival Saturday at the Watsonville City Plaza from noon to 5pm.  The free event will celebrate and honor Filipino history in the Pajaro Valley since the 1920s. The...

Lynn Drummond (from left), Jaedyn Kett and Leisa Kett wear fancy hats to the 15th annual Down to Earth Women Luncheon Thursday at Driscoll’s Rancho Corralitos. The two-hour event, under pleasant sunny skies, is for women who are involved in, or support local agriculture...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Santa Cruz County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel told county leaders Tuesday that she plans to open the parks and beaches that were closed April 8 as part of several sweeping measures meant to slow the spread of coronavirus. Newel also said that...

UPDATE (6:15pm, 12/19) The girl has been found safe, Watsonville police say. WATSONVILLE—Watsonville police officers are searching for a missing 7-year-old girl visiting from out of state.  Sophia Serrato was last seen this afternoon inside a Watsonville apartment on the 400 block of Rogge Street. Police...

WATSONVILLE—The man who died Feb. 22 after being shot nine days earlier on the Pajaro River levee has been identified as Daniel Godinez, 46, a homeless man from Watsonville, Santa Cruz Sheriff’s spokeswoman Ashley Keehn said Wednesday. Godinez was shot at least twice on Feb....

Shots were fired but no one was injured in some form of dispute Wednesday afternoon in downtown Santa Cruz.

WATSONVILLE—The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday approved an agreement that increases every teacher’s yearly salary by $4,000, retroactive to July 1, 2021. Teachers were not the only ones that benefited from the agreement, which was passed tentatively on Feb. 16. Nurses,...

SANTA CRUZ—A Watsonville man was arrested Monday on suspicion of homicide in a 16-year-old case regarding the death of his stepdaughter, Dilcia Mejia, in Florida.  Raul Mata, 46, has been charged with first-degree murder, the Miami-Dade Police Department said. The Homicide Bureau, Cold Case Unit,...