Local News

WATSONVILLE—In spring 2018 Watsonville nonprofit Regeneración: Pajaro Valley Climate Action held a special event to announce results of a landmark community survey.  The event brought together a number of agencies and residents, and its success prompted the organization to kickstart an annual forum, aiming to...

SACRAMENTO—The California Department of Education (CDE) on Monday released a set of guidelines for schools statewide to use as they seek to reopen in the fall, nearly three months after they closed to slow the spread of Covid-19. While the state agency leaves actual policymaking...

WATSONVILLE—Residents who reported a strong odor in parts of Watsonville recently helped county officials create an “odor map” and track down the source of the smell, Santa Cruz County spokesman Jason Hoppin said. According to Hoppin, the odor that some likened to sewage and others...

The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday rejected a pair of staff recommendations to cut roughly 100 teacher and school employee positions, a move district officials said will cause greater financial peril in the future. Opponents of the cuts disagreed, saying...

WATSONVILLE—For years the Employment Development Department (EDD) has had an employee stationed in downtown Watsonville to help South County residents receive unemployment services.  That will change on Monday.  The EDD is removing its lone employee from the Workforce Development Board’s (WDB) 18 W. Beach St. location...

The monthly First Friday Art Tour is gaining traction in Santa Cruz, especially over the summer when blended with the Cooper Street Festival.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced that the state is “setting our eyes on fully reopening by June 15—with commonsense measures like masking.” Newsom made the announcement via Twitter, and reiterated the state’s plan to eventually forgo the current four-tiered, color-coded reopening system during...

Slowly and painstakingly, more than 30 students in Elise Jacobs fifth-grade class at Bradley Elementary School trimmed bits of plastic of varying textures and colors, and then glued into place on the mosaic artwork on their desk. Little by little, their menagerie of orcas,...

WATSONVILLE—Although the city of Watsonville has made modest gains in its state-mandated housing goals, it will need to nearly triple the number of units it has built over the past five years before 2023. That sobering reality presented to the City Council at its virtual...

A man was arrested Tuesday morning on suspicion of killing his girlfriend, Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann of Capitola. Theobald "Theo" Lengyel, 54, was found near Davenport in the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's jurisdiction after an arrest warrant was issued. He was taken into custody by...