News

WATSONVILLE—Local realtors and brokers are urging the community to be aware of an online rental scam that is taking advantage of desperate renters. The scam strips information from sale listings on various websites, repackages them as hyper-affordable rental listings and posts them on sites such...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Hundreds gathered Wednesday for Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller’s memorial at Cabrillo College under brilliant sunny skies. Gutzwiller, a former Cabrillo student and Aptos resident, was gunned down while on duty June 6 in Ben Lomond. The event began at 7:45am with...

After a year of ups and downs, things are looking good for wineries in the Pajaro Valley. That is according to two long-standing wineries, both nestled in the Pleasant Valley area between Watsonville and Aptos. Alfaro Family Vineyard-Winery was first established in 1997 by Richard...

WATSONVILLE—The 18th Annual Fairgrounds Foundation Crab Feed will return March 5, and once again it will be a drive-thru event.  The annual feed is one of the foundation’s biggest fundraisers of the year. All profits of the event will go directly back to the fairgrounds...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Powerful winds pounded the Central Coast and other parts of California Sunday, tearing down utility lines, dropping trees and limbs across roads and buildings and injuring several people.  With some gusts recorded over 80 mph, the freak windstorm also triggered several wildland fires,...

Cooler temperatures continue to run the show, both along the coast and inland. Brayden Murdock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service of Monterey, said it will be, “quite a bit windier in the next few days and drier as well.” He added that...

As the usual weekday rush-hour traffic began to build up on Highway 1 in Mid-County Wednesday afternoon, it appeared that commuters were facing yet another interminable slog on their way to their destinations. But one thing was different. The first pedestrians and bicyclists began to use...

WATSONVILLE—Plans by a local grower to transform a small plot of land owned by Watsonville Municipal Airport into an organic farm have come to an abrupt end. Adrian Mondragon, who owns Urban Organics, says he was evicted from the property in September after he and...

WATSONVILLE—The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday approved a contract for the design phase of a project that will eventually refurbish Watsonville High School’s aging sports facility. The $240,000 contract with Campbell-based Sugimura Finney Architects—and the estimated $2 million for the...

More Watsonville voters have elected to extend the city’s urban growth boundaries for the next 18 years rather than head back to the drawing board and determine a new growth plan, according to initial election results released Tuesday night. As of 8:16pm, 1,788 votes had...