Local News

Editor’s note:  This is the second entry of a weekly four-part series about the Pajaro Valley’s Japanese community. The series will culminate on Aug. 14, coinciding with this year’s celebration of the Obon Festival, a cultural and religious Japanese event honoring one’s ancestors. Read...

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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...

WATSONVILLE—In the days leading up to the first countywide economic shutdown, Lona Martinez thought the possibility of a mass closure was a rumor sparked by those looking to scare the public. “I thought it was a bunch of hype,” she said. “And then it happened...it...

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...

Every August for the past five years, Watsonville organization Pajaro Valley Pride (PVP) has held an event to show support for and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community in South Santa Cruz County. But due to Covid-19, the annual march and celebration were canceled, sending organizers back...

WATSONVILLE—Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s students will engage in distance learning for the entire first semester of the 2020-21 school year, the Board of Trustees unanimously decided on Wednesday. The distance learning model is intended to slow the spread of Covid-19.  The district decided to keep...

After the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit Watsonville in October of 1989, a group of people from St. Patrick’s Church established an emergency feeding program, aiming to support those affected by the disaster. Now, 30 years later, Pajaro Valley Loaves and Fishes (PVLF) is once again...

SANTA CRUZ—A man was shot and killed as he sat in a car on the westside of Santa Cruz Tuesday afternoon. He has been identified as Juan Antonio Ruiz, 28, according to the Santa Cruz County Coroner’s Office.  The initial call to emergency dispatchers reported a...

BOULDER CREEK—The California Highway Patrol arrested a Boulder Creek man Tuesday following a lengthy investigation into a fatal vehicle crash two weeks ago in the same Santa Cruz Mountains town. Cody McGhee, 31, was arrested in San Jose on suspicion of the hit-and-run death of...