News

It has been almost three decades since local organizers launched the Queer Youth Leadership Awards, an event created to highlight young people whose work has benefitted the LGBTQ community, as well as the people and organizations that help them. This happened in the early days...

WATSONVILLE—Pajaro Valley Unified School District teachers are questioning a contract proposal by district officials that hinges a 1 percent salary increase on raising attendance rates to 97 percent. Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers President Nelly Vaquera-Boggs called that requirement unrealistic. “They are asking us to control...

Fiestas Patrias will sponsor its annual community festival, Mexican Independence Day, on Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

WATSONVILLE—A newly formed community group with the vision of reducing the use of pesticides in the Pajaro Valley is taking on international berry giant Driscoll’s. The Campaign for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture (CORA) recently sent a letter to Driscoll’s CEO Miles Reiter calling for the...

WATSONVILLE—The City of Watsonville will use a little more than half a million dollars of federal funding to bolster the community’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. The City will dish $200,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank Santa Cruz County to support its county-wide efforts during...

WATSONVILLE—Juan Carlos Pozo Block has spent the past two decades teaching in Watsonville, working with students from various backgrounds and levels of education. This year, that experience culminated in a new book in which the author, who goes by the pen name JC Pozo, shares...

SANTA CRUZ—A man and a woman were arrested Thursday on suspicion of carrying out a series of armed robberies around Santa Cruz. Manuel Alejandro Montoya, 21, and 28-year-old Leilani Marie Allen, both of Santa Cruz, were taken into custody on a host of charges, said...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Watsonville firefighters had a “very busy Fourth of July” as they responded to a total of 24 calls in the 24-hour period surrounding the holiday, including medical calls and fires to vegetation, dumpsters and structures. Units were also out patrolling for illegal...

The Watsonville City Council Tuesday unanimously approved a plan to provide body-worn cameras for its police officers, who are expected to start using the devices sometime in the summer.

The Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust provided diabetes prevention education and blood glucose screenings to residents attending the Watsonville Certified Farmer's Market downtown on May 25.