About Town

I’m seeing more and more places setting up makeshift outdoor eating spots to accommodate customers during the Covid-19 crisis where officials are not allowing indoor dining. Today a worker was busy putting up a tarp roof over a new outdoor seating area at Taqueria...

I took the METRO 69A bus from Santa Cruz into Watsonville Thursday and then again in reverse to get home at the end of the day. Riding the bus nowadays is a far different experience than it was prior to March 17. There are...

I passed through miles of Watsonville’s agricultural fields today under gray, overcast skies. The strawberry harvest seemed to be going full blast, with loaded up flatbed trucks packing the fruit off to warehouses. Scores of workers dotted the fields on either side of San...

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...

Work continues on the major rebuild of the Watsonville High cafeteria and multipurpose room. • I saw on the morning news that one of five people has Covid-19 in Florida. Officials in that state were among the first to rush into reopening, claiming the lockdown was...

Bright green bike lanes continue to be painted on streets around Watsonville as an effort to further ensure safety for bicyclists in and around motor traffic. • Governor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation today declaring July 2020 “California for All Small Business Month,” as the Governor’s...

Masks and social distancing: these are the chief issues of the day, according to scores of medical experts, as to how we get out of the huge coronavirus mess we’re in. And in some places people observe the safety guidelines of masking up around...

Officials in Monterey County have canceled the Monterey County Fair this year due to the coronavirus outbreak. The event was special this year in that it was designed to celebrate the 250th year of Monterey under the theme “Fiesta.” • The mayor of Salinas, Joe Gunter,...

A massive Saraha Desert dust cloud has worked its way from Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, turning blue skies into a brown haze. Though an annual event, this storm has taken on gargantuan proportions, meteorologists said. The clouds so far...

Fireworks stands are now popping up around Watsonville in preparation for Fourth of July celebrations. • Summer officially started Saturday with the summer solstice. I still marvel that the folks as long as 5,000 years ago knew about the solstice when they started the massive Stonehenge...