Local News

SISKIYOU COUNTY—The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office is asking for help identifying the suspect(s) in an April homicide of a former Santa Cruz County resident.  On April 8 a Siskiyou County Sheriff’s deputy responded to a report of a possible dead body near Yreka Walker Road...

Editor’s note: Evie Kinkead is a junior at Aptos High School. For years, monarch butterflies in California have been endangered.  This is influenced by harmful pesticides infiltrating milkweed, a critical plant in the butterfly's life cycle. This, in concert with rapid urbanization, has led to the...

WATSONVILLE—It took roughly a decade for Watsonville to fully recover from the Great Recession, and officials fear the Covid-19 pandemic’s mass closures could send the city into a similar financial quagmire. As restaurants and shops have closed, and auto sales—Watsonville’s top sales tax generator—have slumped,...

Caroline’s Non Profit Thrift Store opened in 2010 with a single goal: raise funds to help the nonprofit organizations that work with children with special needs and their families. Founder Christine Licker says her inspiration was her daughter Caroline, who died at 16 after receiving...

Work has begun on the College Lake Integrated Resources Management Project on Holohan Road in Watsonville.  The Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency (PV Water) Board of Directors approved contracts to construct the project on Feb. 1.  Heavy equipment has been on the scene clearing away a...

WATSONVILLE—A man has filed a civil lawsuit in Santa Cruz County Superior Court, claiming that 4th District Supervisorial candidate Jimmy Dutra molested him when he was 12. A case management conference is scheduled for Feb. 3. The Pajaronian typically does not name victims in stories involving...

WATSONVILLE—Watsonville High School’s new principal is Maria Clara Fernandez, who graduated from that school in 2001, Pajaro Valley Unified School District announced Tuesday. Fernandez worked with Pajaro Valley students from 2000-11 in the After School program, in Migrant Education and as an elementary teacher. She...

Photos from the 2019 Spirit of Watsonville parade.

Thousands of people filled the streets in downtown Watsonville Monday afternoon, waving Mexican flags, carrying signs and chanting, all in observance of a Day Without Immigrants, one of numerous protests nationwide against the hardline immigration policies enacted by the new presidential administration. Staying home from...

WATSONVILLE—Watsonville Police on Tuesday arrested a Watsonville man for a fatal shooting near Ramsay Park from last year. Julio Sanchez, 22, has been charged with murder. He was already in custody in Santa Cruz County Jail for vehicle theft and other charges. He is being...