About Town

The other day I saw someone had dressed up the surfer statue on the westside of Santa Cruz as a firefighter. I imagine it's some form of acknowledgement of the hard work firefighters are doing in battling our wild land blazes. • Maybe desperation has hit...

Officials in Monterey County have canceled the Monterey County Fair this year due to the coronavirus outbreak. The event was special this year in that it was designed to celebrate the 250th year of Monterey under the theme “Fiesta.” • The mayor of Salinas, Joe Gunter,...

Being in the newsroom at the Pajaronian has been extraordinary these past few weeks with the outbreak of the global pandemic: COVID-19. We are hearing of big changes across the social spectrum, from schools cancelling classes to late night talk shows no longer having...

Tents and a line of chairs have been set up outside Loaves and Fishes awaiting the normal Mon-Fri lunch for needy people on Second Street in Watsonville. • Of the 200 people tested for coronavirus at Natividad Medical Center, a 172-bed acute-care teaching hospital in Salinas,...

Today is Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day, also called Saint Valentine’s Day, is typically a day when lovers express their affection with greetings and gifts. The holiday has origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia. The festival was largely created to celebrate the coming of spring. At the...

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A crew from Vacant Property Security installs one of several traffic blocks in the parking lot of the former Kmart on Freedom Boulevard. On Oct. 12, the Watsonville City Council started the process of declaring the abandoned property a public nuisance due to illegal...

Yesterday I walked past a man reading a book on the sidewalk in downtown Watsonville. Curious, I stopped and asked him what he was reading. Annoyed, he looked up and yelled a bunch of things at me in a foreign language and then showed...

Above: American flags line a large swath of Freedom Boulevard Monday for Memorial Day. A crew headed up by VFW Post 1716 of Watsonville took on the task of flying hundreds of coffin flags between the Veterans of Foreign Wars Building on Freedom Boulevard...

Congress passed a historic economic rescue package early Friday morning as the number of COVID-19 cases hit 100,000 in the U.S. While the Senate approved the money earlier this week, the House battled over specifics until passing it. President Trump then signed it later...