Local News

WATSONVILLE—A large crowd of nonprofit, city and county officials gathered Wednesday to break ground on a development on Freedom Boulevard that will house 53 low-income families. “I’m pleased we’re able to offer affordable housing here to fulfill Watsonville’s downtown specific plan, to provide a range...

In the first months of the pandemic, Dientes Community Dental Care was forced to close its clinics throughout  Santa Cruz County. The nonprofit organization, which aims to give people access to high-quality, affordable oral healthcare, had initially not been considered essential. For more than two...

Tarmo Hannula It’s the last day of January 2020. • I noticed a paint crew has started a major paint job on the historic home on the corner of East Beach and Lincoln streets. That’s the towering white place with tall majestic columns, almost identical to the...

Police arrested a Watsonville man Monday afternoon on suspicion of attempted homicide.

APTOS—Cabrillo College President Matt Wetstein in a March 31 email thanked voters who supported Measure R, which would have funded construction and infrastructure projects at the college’s Aptos and Watsonville campuses.  The $274 million bond measure would have placed about $20 per $100,000 on the...

More than 1,000 people attended the first-ever Summer Soul Festival at Pinto Lake County Park on Sunday.

WATSONVILLE—Staff of Life grocery store has for a half-century been a backbone of healthy eating and living in Santa Cruz County, selling organic food and natural products long before those concepts hit the mainstream. Founders Richard Josephson and Gary Bascou launched the business as a...

At midnight, it became official: California is open. Of course, the coronavirus pandemic isn’t over, and life isn’t back to the way it was before most of us had heard of the mysterious, deadly illness we now call Covid-19. But the lifting of nearly all of...

WATSONVILLE—Labor, fair wages, equality at the workplace and health care for workers came into sharp focus Monday—Labor Day—for the annual Labor Day Picnic at Romo Park in downtown Watsonville. The event is put on by the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, which consists of...

Watsonville Police are looking for the person who reportedly shot a dog on the Pajaro River levee near the Main Street Bridge Dec. 27. Officers responded to a call of shots fired shortly before 12:30am and found a dog suffering from a gunshot injury, Watsonville...