News

WATSONVILLE—A year after it was canceled because of the pandemic, the Watsonville Strawberry Festival drew more than 5,000 people to downtown Sunday to eat, shop, dance and celebrate the Pajaro Valley’s top crop and the continued slow return to normalcy. Watsonville Parks and Community Services...

November 1, 2019 Tarmo Hannula: Dozens of volunteers showed up at Watsonville's City Plaza Friday to set up for Diá de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, celebrations in. Olga Fuentes said nine altars were being constructed as the centerpiece for the free activities...

CORRALITOS—A man and a woman of Watsonville were seriously injured on Dec. 17 in a head-on crash between two pickups on Freedom Boulevard. California Highway Patrol officer Alyssa Gutierrez said Levi Barnard, 39, of Watsonville, was driving a white 2018 GMC Sierra Denali pickup west...

After a significant portion of the Bonny Doon community mobilized to try to keep a man who raped a 21-year-old woman in the 1980s from moving to town, Santa Cruz County is now seeking changes to California law, so it can have additional tools...

Editor's note: this story has been corrected from an earlier version. The district is not considering reducing class sizes. ••• In the coming year, Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s seven-member Board of Trustees—five of them newly elected—must cut $5 million from the budget, with more reductions...

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...

WATSONVILLE—For the first time ever, the city of Watsonville has its very own poet laureate. Longtime resident Robert Gómez will for the next two years be working to advance the literary arts throughout the Pajaro Valley.  A poet laureate is appointed by a government or...

MOSS LANDING—As commercial crab fishermen prepare for the season to begin on Nov. 1, they are also grappling with a strict set of new regulations that start the same day, which some say could severely curtail their livelihood. The new rules, created by the California...

From images of civil unrest in the past to the present day-to-day life in Santa Cruz County, Pajaro Valley Arts has brought the work of five photographers together in its latest exhibit.