About Town

Oct. 25, 2019 Tarmo Hannula: Twelve wildland fires are burning around the state, forcing widespread evacuations, destroying scores of homes and buildings, closing freeways and roads and sending herds of firefighter strike teams to out-of-county responses. In Sonoma County, 21,900 acres have burned in the...

Nov. 27, 2019 Tarmo Hannula: Watsonville fire engineer Larry Chin hung up his helmet and boots early this morning for the final time after serving this community for 29 years. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Larry many times with my job, at house...

TARMO HANNULA: We are now in the final hours of 2019. If you’ve ever had the tremendous delight of seeing the Broadway musical “Rent," you'll remember how the characters deal with the idea of what a year is in their song, “Seasons of Love”:  “Five...

Hundreds attended Wednesday’s memorial for Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, who was gunned down while on duty June 6 in Ben Lomond. A miles-long motorcade that started at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and threaded through the county began the day. Hundreds...

Framing construction is underway on The Hideout restaurant that sustained massive damage in a fire in May 2019. Workers from Costa Bella Builders are continuing work on the exterior walls of the eatery, which is nestled beneath a canopy of redwoods at 9051 Soquel...

TARMO HANNULA I got off of the METRO 69A bus Thursday morning at the corner of Green Valley Road at Main Street to check out an incident where five Watsonville Police cars and a fire engine were present at the edge of the Crossroads Center....

On Tuesday I went up in a small plane with a friend out of Watsonville Municipal Airport to gather photos of the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire that raged through the Santa Cruz Mountains and was fully constrained last Wednesday. It was nothing shy...

I swung through Aptos today and got some photos of Alina Mitchell, 5, lending Santa a hand in opening letters to Santa. Due to the pandemic, a special mailbox was built just for Santa's mail, thanks to the folks at the Aptos Chamber of...

I recently visited Farley's Christmas Wonderland at 108 Seaview Ave. in Santa Cruz to witness, by far, the most amazing residential Christmas display. For years it has been a major draw for the public with more than 30 fully decorated Christmas trees, miniature snowy...

An upbeat ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance headquarters at the corner of East Lake and Brewington avenues unfolded under sunny skies Thursday in Watsonville. The new facility is an expansion of PVPSA, a local nonprofit that aims...