Local News

The Pajaro Valley Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture has announced its annual awardees, including the man and woman of the year. Nita Gizdich was on her ranch Tuesday morning, and as usual she was working.  Although sweeping the driveway leading to her iconic pie shop was...

The Circus has come to town, this time at Ramsay Park on Main Street in Watsonville.  Circus Royal Spectacular—out of Las Vegas—rolled into town Tuesday, and crews quickly began driving giant tent stakes into the softball diamond  to set up their mammoth bigtop tent. Circus spokesperson...

Thousands of people across Santa Cruz County—and millions more throughout the U.S.—took a pause late Monday morning to look to the skies for a phenomenon that will not happen again for two decades. Californians saw only 30% of the sun being blotted out by the...

The California Highway Patrol closed north and southbound lanes of Highway 1 in Soquel Saturday at 7pm to make way for Granite Construction crews to demolish the 1948 Capitola Avenue bridge above the highway. The closure and carefully crafted detour between Bay/Porter and Park Avenue...

On Saturday morning, 48-year-old Gerardo Gutierrez was one of about a dozen men sitting in the day room at Salvation Army’s Watsonville location, quietly watching an old Vicente Fernández film playing silently on a television mounted to the ceiling. The men—most of them homeless—had stayed...

Water surges through the asphalt along the 300-block of Ford Street Monday afternoon where a man reportedly ran into a fire hydrant with his Chevy Silverado pickup. Watsonville Police said the man struck the hydrant just after 5pm, triggering a water main break beneath...

The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees will revisit a decision from last September not to renew a contract with an organization that helps teachers deliver ethnic studies curriculum, which now used in the district’s three comprehensive high schools. That discussion will occur...

In a little more than a year, Ramsay Park in Watsonville will boast a new dog park, a new multi-use synthetic sports field, a new state-of-the-art nature center and new lights for its pathways, parking lots and athletic fields. Plans also include an all-inclusive playground,...

Tarmo Hannula and Todd Guild contributed to this story Jerry Castro has lived in the same house on Cayetano Street in Pajaro all his life. His parents owned it before him, he then bought it off of them. His children and their children were also...

The Watsonville City Council on Tuesday voted to close the crosswind runway at the airport, a move city officials say will open up more of the city for development of housing and commercial space. Airport Director Rayvon Williams told the council that closing the shorter...