Local News

Three Pajaro Valley Unified School District students on Wednesday became the first in Santa Cruz County to earn the California State Seal of Civic Engagement. The award, approved by the California State Legislature in 2020, goes to young people whose community involvement and knowledge of...

Two women pick up their free ice cream from Older Adults Services Supervisor Katie Nuñez at the Watsonville Senior Center during the first-ever Drive-Thru Ice Cream Social on Saturday. Roughly 90 older adults cruised through E. 5th Street center to claim their free treat. 

WATSONVILLE—Minutes after Santa Cruz County received state approval to reopen barbershops and hair salons on May 30, barber Rigo Navarro said he received the first of what would be a flood of calls from his loyal customers asking when he would be open for...

WATSONVILLE—Veterans of Foreign Wars Freedom Post 1716, which was facing closure this month after the organization could not elect leadership, was given a last-minute reprieve Wednesday at a make-or-break meeting. The VFW, which was launched in 1929 to serve the local population of World War...

The 35th annual Coastal Cleanup Day is Saturday, and organizers are asking the community for help in cleaning four inland sites around Watsonville.

The Pajaro Valley Historical Association (PVHA) is set to open a new exhibit showcasing the wedding dresses of local women from 1890 to 1990 at PVHA’s Bockius-Orr house.  PVHA board member Virginia Avila and office administrator Jodi Frensley spent more than 100 hours together curating...

A fast moving brush fire charged up a steep hillside on South Green Valley Rd. Near Melwood Way Friday just past noon. Watsonville Div. Chief Corey Schaefer said the blaze torched about 75 feet of a 6 foot wood fence and came within about...

Editor's note: this story has been corrected from an earlier version. The district is not considering reducing class sizes. ••• In the coming year, Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s seven-member Board of Trustees—five of them newly elected—must cut $5 million from the budget, with more reductions...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville Community Redistricting Advisory Committee is closing in on its final recommendations to the Watsonville City Council for how the city’s district lines should be redrawn. Every decade following the release of census data, jurisdictions must adjust their district lines to account for possible...