Local News

Tarmo Hannula contributed to this story. Over the decades, California lawmakers, district attorneys, county agricultural commissioners and others tasked with protecting residents have neglected to do so for farmworkers and their families, who are disproportionately affected by dangerous agricultural chemicals. This amounts to years of civil...

With torrent rains pummeling the region in the early morning, volunteers slipped in the drenching vegetation and shoveled heavy clumps of mud at Ramsay Park as they planted 20 oak trees and smaller plants along Watsonville Slough for World Wetlands Day.

WATSONVILLE—In a mostly empty Jan. 19 meeting conducted over Zoom, the Watsonville City Council voted unanimously to join a collective of local government agencies to streamline the process of rebuilding and reenforcing the Pajaro River levee. The union, called the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency...

Roughly 100 nurses who work at Watsonville Community Hospital gathered at the intersection of Airport Boulevard and Nielsen Street Tuesday to call attention to a recent scheduling change they say affects the way they do their job. The nurses were speaking out against a decision...

WATSONVILLE—A man was killed after he was shot late Sunday night during a struggle with another man on Sunny Hills Drive at Herman Court. Watsonville Police Sgt. Charles Bailey said police got reports of gunfire following a fight between at least two men in a...

WATSONVILLE—The County of Santa Cruz announced Saturday that it has distributed thousands of N-95 masks—and plans to hand out thousands more—to farms across the Pajaro Valley to help protect farmworkers from hazardous smoke currently polluting the air. Several fires across the Central Coast and greater...

Four decades ago, Watsonville’s cannery industry was bustling, packing up the vast amount of agricultural products grown in the Pajaro Valley and preserving them for shipment around the world. The lifeblood of this industry was provided by its thousands of workers—most of them women, and...

WATSONVILLE—A pair of positive Covid-19 tests has shut down the Excel In Place program at the Environmental Science Workshop in Watsonville through its Dec. 18 end date. Watsonville Parks and Community Services Director Nick Calubaquib said two employees at that location on Second Street recently...

Editor's note: This story was updated from an earlier version. SANTA CRUZ—The woman who was killed in a solo-vehicle crash in the Seabright area Monday has been identified as Allison Endert, who has been involved in local government for decades.  Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty...

WATSONVILLE—The County of Santa Cruz Department of Public Works has announced that Green Valley Road in Watsonville, from Celia Drive to Paulsen Road, will be subject to daily closure between 8:30am and 4:30pm, starting Wednesday and running through April 14, weather permitting. The road will...