Parks and recreation update
By Rebecca J. Garcia, Watsonville Mayor
All my grandchildren learned to swim through the Watsonville summer aquatics program. They went underwater, they floated, they played and they swam. So much fun. However, there will be no summer aquatics program this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic....
County agriculture copes with heat, fires
The worst wildfires in California’s history have burned more than 3 million acres, about 3 percent of the state’s total acreage, and included Santa Cruz County vineyards, orchards and tree farms. The fires scorched fields, destroyed barns, melted irrigation lines and disrupted power, water...
Abel Mejia, Dec. 16: Public relations 101
The Human Resources Assistant Superintendent of Pajaro Valley Unified School District should take some remedial courses in public relations if she is going to succeed at her job. She is only partly to blame for the mess that is our district’s negotiation process and the job that the district does to provide for our children’s needs.
Serving the nation
Serving the nation
The United States Postal Service is committed to delivering your mail and packages throughout the current pandemic. We are proud of our role in providing an essential service to every community. The one constant throughout this crisis has been our commitment to...
PVUSD names new superintendent
Pajaro Valley Unified School District on Friday named its new superintendent.
The district’s Board of Trustees appointed Heather Contreras in closed session during its March 13 board meeting.
“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Heather Contreras as our new Superintendent,” Board President Georgia Acosta stated in...
Opinion: Crime and Punishment
After being incarcerated on death row for 35 years, and after surviving a multiple hours-long botched lethal injection attempt 16 months earlier, on Jan. 25 Kenneth Smith became the first person in the world to be executed with nitrogen gas.
Alabama state officials described his...
Eco Farm keynote addresses food sovereignty for Indigenous communities
In 2014 Elizabeth Hoover, associate professor in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, set out on a road trip across the U.S.
Hoover covered 20,000 miles over four months, visiting 29 different Indigenous communities and asking everyone she met one question: How do...
John Skinner, Nov. 21: How Trump is making America great again
When Donald Trump began his run for the office of president with the slogan “Make America Great Again,” my thought was, “When was America not great? What is wrong with the country?”
Letter: Upgrade levee with concrete linings
It is to my dismay upon reading that yet another breach in the Pajaro River Levee has occurred. This has happened numerous times through the years resulting in floods that have inundated the area. The repairs amounted to nothing more than a band-aid.
Following the...
K9 officer helps find loaded handgun; man arrested
A man was arrested late last month on multiple felony charges after he ditched a loaded gun and ran from Capitola Police.
The incident began...

















