Local News

PAJARO VALLEY—The Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency Board of Directors on April 21 approved a rate increase that board member and local farmer Javier Zamora said will be a “very difficult pill to swallow.” PVWMA customers—consisting of residents living in the rural regions of South...

Weekly events calendar for Sept. 21-27.

Santa Cruz Police are looking for man thought to be responsible for setting two fires and vandalizing a building at the Tannery Arts Complex in August.

WATSONVILLE—A virtual event created to highlight writers of color was canceled on Nov. 11 after a group of anonymous attackers logged on to their Zoom meeting, and then shouted racial and homophobic slurs and broadcast pornographic images. Such an attack is known as a Zoombombing,...

Hundreds of people came to the Veterans Memorial Building Wednesday, where they could get a California ID card, visit a dentist, talk about their legal troubles, get a haircut and grab a hot meal, among dozens of other services.

Todd Guild FOOD: Freedom Bakery I had a sweet tooth one morning, so I thought I’d check out Freedom Bakery.  Tucked incongruously into a strip of industrially-zoned businesses, the place is not easy to find. But it’s worth checking out, if only to see what this unique...

WATSONVILLE—With distance learning likely to last through the rest of 2020—and possibly extend through June—the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday tentatively approved the district’s Learning Continuity Plan, a 16-page document that seeks to standardize education for the district’s 19,685...

SANTA CRUZ—Dozens of homeless people were roused by police officers in their tents early Friday morning at Phoenix Camp, the unsanctioned encampment behind the Gateway Plaza at River Street and Highway 1 in Santa Cruz. The message was clear: the residents were trespassing on city-owned...

WATSONVILLE—Scheduled clean-ups of the Pajaro River Levee have been postponed indefinitely after homeless advocates raised concerns about displacing people living there, according to Watsonville City Manager Matt Huffaker. Huffaker said a regularly scheduled clean-up of the levee was set for Tuesday and Wednesday. That was...

When Aptos High School Principal Alison Hanks-Sloan sent a letter on March 16 to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District community announcing she would not be returning for the 2025-26 school year—and that her last day will be June 30—district officials told The Pajaronian...