Opinion

By John Flaherty, vice-chair of Navigator Schools’ Board of Directors Sharon Waller, the co-founder of Navigator public, nonprofit charter schools, grew up in Watsonville. Her grandmother worked at Ford’s Department store. She took Sharon to lunch next door at the Woolworths.  Sharon Waller is a third-generation...

As we embark on Watsonville’s 150th birthday, I would like to take a moment to reflect on what the City Council, staff and community partners have accomplished over the last two years and look forward to the year ahead.

Santa Cruz County residents are no stranger to powerful and dangerous natural disasters, including winter storms with lasting impacts on our community.   The Santa Cruz County Department of Community Development & Infrastructure (CDI) knows that even as we continue to pick ourselves up after last...

Median home sales in 95076 in February were $768,000, down 12.7% from last year, according to Redfin.com. Meanwhile, amongst some dire predictions of housing value decline or a housing “bubble” burst, homeowners in Watsonville’s “Adult Villages” are seeing quite the opposite. Home values in...

Letters to the Editor, Feb. 17, 2018

The recent struggle between the leaders of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District made a big impression on me. Those who follow the district know by now that PVUSD Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez was abruptly fired by the Board of Trustees in a split 4-3...

Enforce the laws We have endured another onslaught of pyrotechnics in Watsonville. While I appreciate efforts to discourage their use, such as bilingual ads in the newspaper and electronic message boards placed around the city, I wonder: why enact ordinances and laws if they apparently...

SRO reversal is disappointing We are upset, but not surprised, to hear that the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees has voted to bring School Resource Officers (SROs) back to campus  A pilot program using education money, funding that was meant to go...

Nancy was never forceful or assuming. That was a huge part of her — Nancy was a gentle, easy going woman with a graceful understanding of how people work and what it took to bring ideas forward and into action in a respectful manner.

Thankfully common sense prevailed and Measure D was defeated. However, those who support environmentally sound electric passenger rail service on the historic Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line must not rest on their laurels.  A concerted effort must be put forth to the Santa Cruz Regional...