County’s new Public Defender office begins operations
SANTA CRUZ—Santa Cruz County’s new Public Defender office began operations on July 1, and the department’s roughly 60 employees celebrated the occasion with a barbecue in the backyard of its May Avenue headquarters.
The new office includes an increased number of attorneys, in addition to...
Rene Mendez off to running start as Watsonville City Manager
WATSONVILLE—New Watsonville City Manager Rene Mendez stepped into the leadership role on July 1.
Just three days later he was driving Watsonville City Councilman Jimmy Dutra through the Spirit of Watsonville Fourth of July Parade in a Chevrolet Corvette, and, in the time before and...
PV High athletics van stolen
WATSONVILLE—Pajaro Valley High School Athletic Director Joe Manfre made a sad discovery last week when he found that an important school van had been stolen.
The missing van is used to transport athletes to sporting events throughout the year, most recently to a football summer...
Granite Construction celebrates 100 years
WATSONVILLE—It has been one century since Granite Construction was founded, and since then it has become a construction juggernaut, with subsidiaries throughout the U.S. and projects that include dams, interstate highways, airport runways and skyscrapers.
The company celebrated its centennial birthday on June 23 at...
Photos: New self-cleaning restrooms open at Plaza
New public self-cleaning restrooms—featuring two stalls—opened last week in the Watsonville City Plaza. The overall cost of the project was $450,000.
METRO offers employment incentives to address staffing ‘crisis’
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (METRO) has introduced a number of new incentives aimed at attracting qualified bus operators to address an “unprecedented crisis in staffing levels” in public transportation.
Thanks to a recent contract extension between METRO and the three unions...
Watsonville’s downtown plan includes ‘road diet,’ around 4,000 new homes
WATSONVILLE—The addition of around 4,000 new housing units over the course of 25 years. Two-way traffic on Lake and Beach streets. A completely reimagined industrial district on Walker Street. A network of pedestrian “paseos” that provides safe walking paths. The reduction of one lane...
PHOTO: Lincoln Street fire displaces 11
Watsonville firefighters tear into a wall at the rear of a home on the 600 block of Lincoln Street Tuesday where a fire broke out.
Division Chief Corey Schaefer said the fire erupted just past noon inside the wood walls of an older single-story...
Photos: Local Independence Day parades return
The Spirit of Watsonville Fourth of July Parade and the Aptos Parade, also known as the World's Shortest Parade, returned this year.
Students learn the power of the vote at Civics Summit
On Friday, about 150 high school juniors from across Santa Cruz County cast their first ballots on three issues that, if passed, would dramatically...
