Local News

WATSONVILLE—Watsonville police on Wednesday arrested a man suspected of firing several shots at an occupied vehicle parked on Rio del Pajaro Court on June 18. Jibril Dalmar Abdi was arrested at his residence on Blackbird Circle. He has been charged with attempted murder, burglary and...

WATSONVILLE—Pajaro Valley Unified School District high school and middle school students are encouraged to submit essays for the Mayor For The Day contest, which will give one student the chance to spend the day with Watsonville Mayor Jimmy Dutra. In 2019, Yocelyn Gonzalez, then a...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville City Council on Tuesday got a first look at a half-cent sales tax which, if approved by voters in the Nov. 8 election, would fund city parks, recreation programs such as after-school and anti-gang programs and fund road repair city streets, among...

The plan, approved by the council in January 2018 and in the works since then, looks to boost Watsonville’s ongoing fight to make its streets safer for pedestrians in a multitude of ways. Along with education and enforcement, the plan also hopes to improve the safety of the city’s streets by prioritizing the development of safe roadways in areas identified most “at-risk.”

A charter school organization that has been rejected twice by Santa Cruz County education officials in its efforts to establish a school in Watsonville will make a final attempt Wednesday when it appeals to the California Department of Education in Sacramento.

An armed man keeps watch over the U.S. Presidential helicopter at Watsonville Municipal Airport Wednesday during a practice run for the arrival of President Joe Biden set for Thursday. Two massive U.S. Marine V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor airplanes arrived in concert with two helicopters at...

WATSONVILLE—Last October, members of Watsonville’s Filipino community and other residents came together for a special “Community Call Out” at the Freedom Branch library. Participants brought with them old photographs, newspaper clippings and other artifacts. Families told their stories and revealed their histories.  Organizer Ray Recio said...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville City Council approved wholesale changes to the City’s rules on accessory dwelling units (ADU) in hopes that those modifications will produce additional and safer housing options. Spurred by more than a half-dozen state laws approved over the past three years, the changes limit...

WATSONVILLE—A husband and wife duo, who together spent more than six decades in education and several more years in public service and volunteerism, has been given this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award by the Pajaro Valley Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture. Lowell Hurst, who has served...

In 1853, the Methodist Church housed the first group of school children taught by Seneca Carroll in the village of Pajaro (later known as Watsonville).  The church was on the corner of Main and East Fourth (now East Lake).  Ten years later in 1863, the first...