Featured

Every year, California’s legislators send a flurry of bills to the governor in hopes he or she will sign them. And that’s before the byzantine legislative process that leaves most proposed laws on Assembly and Senate cutting floors. In 2023, the lawmakers sent off 1,046...

Caroline’s Non Profit Thrift Store opened in 2010 with a single goal: raise funds to help the nonprofit organizations that work with children with special needs and their families. Founder Christine Licker says her inspiration was her daughter Caroline, who died at 16 after receiving...

The Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District has received a $2 million grant that will be used to redevelop the Watsonville Transit Center into an affordable, transit-oriented housing development. The funding will cover the architecture and engineering phase of the project, a process that will begin...

For decades, voters on election day went to their respective polling places—roughly 160 in Santa Cruz County—where they would be handed a ballot for the candidates and races specific to their districts. It was a time-honored tradition, and—for one day—a community gathering spot, with many...

A proposed law that would have retroactively invalidated voter-approved tax measures throughout the state was removed from the November ballot by the California Supreme Court Thursday, a move that came as a relief to jurisdictions that had already budgeted the revenue. The Taxpayer Protection and...

A Christmas tree is dressed up with a Victorian-era dress at the Pajaro Valley Historical Association. A wealth of early day garb is part of the PVHA's exhibit where visitors are welcome to stop by and get a taste of earlier times in the...

Group from Veracruz will teach baile folklorico

The Pajaro Valley Health Care District Board of Directors on Dec. 21 approved a three-year contract with its nurses, two weeks after the nurses’ union ratified it. The approval came after six months of bargaining. Nurses say the contract helps improve patient safety by increasing...

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors unanimously appointed Justin Cummmings as this year’s board chair, and Felipe Hernandez as vice chair. While the chair role is largely ceremonial, the supervisor in that position leads the meetings and often serves as the spokesperson for the...

The Fourth of July has long been a time of celebration in Santa Cruz County, a height-of-summer fete that draws hordes of people to local beaches to indulge in picnics, swim in the ocean, soak up the sun and, for some, trash the place. But...