News

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved this fiscal year’s budget, a behemoth $932 million spending plan that represents an 8% reduction in spending from the previous year. That decrease came as the county recovers from the CZU Lightning...

WATSONVILLE — In a tumultuous meeting packed with nearly 100 people, the newly transformed Santa Cruz County Fair Board appointed Don Dietrich as interim Fair CEO, a move that added another chapter to a story that began on Oct. 4 when the Board fired...

Manuel Adrian Perez, 22, remains in Santa Cruz County Jail on attempted murder charges after Judge Rodney Stafford kept his bail at $375,000.

The Santa Cruz County Public Health Division is monitoring confirmed reports of Covid-19 cases involving variants found in Santa Cruz County, spokesman Jason Hoppin said in a press release Monday. Two cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, known generally as the U.K. variant, have been identified...

The most recent PIT count shows that the numbers of Santa Cruz County residents experiencing homelessness dropped 20% from those of last year to the lowest number in the count’s history. Volunteers on Jan. 30 counted 1,473 homeless people in the annual Point in Time...

As the city of Watsonville and the greater Pajaro Valley slowly reopen after a year of closures due to the pandemic, a series of events have been scheduled to celebrate the Fourth of July. While the city’s annual Spirit of Watsonville Parade has once again...

SANTA CRUZ—With the repopulation of a few towns in the CZU August Lighting Complex evacuation zone, the Santa Cruz County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is now shifting attention to the needs of people who have been displaced from their homes. As of Thursday, the fire...

SANTA CRUZ—Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies on Monday arrested a Santa Cruz man on several felony sex crimes, sheriff’s spokeswoman Ashley Keehn said. Lucas Klatt, 39, was charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a child, annoying or molesting a child and burglary. Klatt is known...

WATSONVILLE—A 21-year-old man died Sunday night after he was shot near Coward and Carlton roads, a rural area in the outskirts of Watsonville. The victim has been identified as Abel Ruiz. According to Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Robbins, a passerby saw a man who...

SANTA CRUZ—A graduate teaching assistant who worked at UC Santa Cruz until she was fired on Friday says that a protest for higher wages has grown since it started in December to include several more UC schools. Brenda Arjona, who is in her third-year seeking...