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Watsonville
July 4, 2025

A plea for cyclists

A plea for cyclists This message is asking drivers to please consider the safety of cyclists in our communities. Think about how you feel if you hit a bike rider and maimed them for life or they died. It’s not a fair contest. Cyclists always...

Watsonville organization establishes produce distribution

WATSONVILLE—Every year Farm Discovery at Live Earth aims to reach thousands of young people to teach them about farming, nutrition and health, environmental literacy and more. The organization is headquartered at Watsonville’s Live Earth Farm, which plants crops in the fall that are eventually...

Firework sales should be brought to the public

The Pajaronian
By Dennis Osmer, former Watsonville Mayor Hardly anybody likes to work with somebody looking over their shoulder. And of those, nobody likes getting advice from somebody outside the circle. But for City Council and the City Manager, that’s the job they sought and got. According...

Racism is a ‘WE’ issue

Jimmy Dutra
By Jimmy Dutra, former Watsonville City Councilman In 1992, some of us witnessed the ugly truth of racism for the first time. We heard the outcry over the beating of Rodney King. I was a teenage student at Watsonville High School, who believed in an...

Navigating Watsonville’s skeptics

Navigator schools
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...

Supervisor Friend hosting tele-town hall to discuss farmworker protections

Zach Friend
Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend tonight will host a tele-town hall from 6-7pm with guest Tom AmRhein to talk about the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. AmRhein, the former president of the Farm Bureau and the current chair of...

New charter school is hurting our community

Navigator Schools, which runs Watsonville Prep on the grounds of E.A. Hall Middle School—and will soon expand to Ann Soldo Elementary School—should find its own space as soon as possible. In the meantime, the organization should immediately pay back the hundreds of thousands of...

Preserving our library

I read my first novel at the age of 10. The novel was the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I checked the book out from a satellite library that was across the street from where I lived. That book is relevant today in the...

Supervisors delay decision on animal rules

santa cruz county animal rules
SANTA CRUZ—The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday tabled a motion to make changes to the county’s animal welfare rules after organizations that run animal-based events expressed concern about the rules’ effects. The new rules would, among other things, have prohibited using live...

Nonprofits, community groups celebrate farmworkers as lawmakers call for more support

watsonville farmworkers covid-19
WATSONVILLE—After working a long shift picking strawberries and greens, dozens of farmworkers and their families received the royal treatment thanks to a new program from El Pájaro Community Development Corporation. Called the Farmworker’s Family Dinner, the initiative treated 38 families—roughly 230 people—to meals from El...
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What Makes Watsonville Community Hospital—and America—Great

Thirty-three years ago, while my family was preparing for a birthday party, I decided to arrive early. My mother was shopping for a cake...