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...

City at the crossroads Watsonville is at a crossroads. The Watsonville Planning Commission needs to get its priorities straight. Instead of promoting cannabis dispensaries and the shortsighted thinking of narrowing Main St. down to two lanes, it should be focusing on much more serious issues...

Not long ago, our community came together around a powerful shared belief: that everyone deserves access to healthcare.  That belief fueled the effort to save Watsonville Community Hospital and bring it under local control—a major victory.  But like many hospitals across the country, we continue to...

Editor’s note: This letter was written to the Watsonville City Council. We are Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice (PVESJ), a local grassroots coalition that has been organizing students, teachers, and community members at PVUSD for almost two years.  In last November’s election, our group...

Compiled by Steve Bankhead 25 years ago on Jan. 9, 1996 The city Planning Commission voted 5-2 for approval of the Overlook Shopping Center north of Ramsay Park. It will bring a Target store, Staples, and a major supermarket. Shirley Pyle, owner of the Crestview Shopping...

As California continues to grapple with the present effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are also beginning to consider the longer-term health impacts, including the significant percentage of Californians that delayed or avoided medical care due to concerns over Covid-19. The result is that,...

The selection of the “Dirt Road To Davenport” over a badly needed county light rail system demonstrates that climate change means little to the supervisors, councilmembers and bureaucrats of Santa Cruz County. Monies are found for a dirt road for bicyclists and tourists. Meanwhile the...