Local News

The mountain town of Ben Lomond has many cool attributes: a beautiful art center, community hall, biker bar, good restaurants and open spaces. Now, the town can add one more feather to its cap: a dedicated space for veterans to call home. Jaye’s Timberlane on...

Thirteen-year-old Chase Petersen loves sports. Put him on a basketball court, a soccer pitch, baseball diamond or a football field, and the San Lorenzo Valley Middle School student shines brightly.  The straight-A student is going to take that energy and determination to Florida next month...

SANTA CRUZ—Santa Cruz County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel on Friday issued a health order requiring all people to wear a face-covering when indoors in public spaces and when visiting or hosting people from outside of their households, regardless of vaccination status.  The order goes...

Anthony Hong is quite the tree-lover, although he isn’t exactly a card-carrying environmental activist. But when he could feel the thud of trunks slamming into the ground from his home in Bonny Doon, as part of a PG&E tree-removal project, he started looking for...

Following a litany of resident testimony from wildfire victims on Tuesday, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors became convinced a cleanup contractor that made a quarter-billion dollars in the wake of wildfire destruction left another disaster behind. They voted unanimously to reach out to...

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a plan to redistribute some 3,400 residents—the majority in the northern reaches of the county—as part of the county’s decennial redistricting process. Under the plan, 491 people in Watsonville’s Apple Hill District will shift from...

The gasps and cries of “oh my God” and “sick” were so loud, as it became clear Judge Syda Cogliati was about to approve the placement of sexually violent predator Michael Cheek in Bonny Doon, the Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge had to...

Santa Cruz County is replete with points of interest and historical locations. From the Mystery Spot to Wilder Ranch to Felton Covered Bridge, the area is rich in cultural experiences that blend the past with the present, like the Brookdale Lodge. Built in 1890, with...

These days, everything is “smart.” Smartphones. Smartwatches. How about a smart laundromat? Behold The Mat in Boulder Creek, formerly the Village Wash. Run by third-generation laundromat owner Brandon Parker and his fiancé Erin Hexem, it’s the first smart laundromat in Boulder Creek, and one of...

A California energy regulator has become so vexed with troubled power provider PG&E following months of planned and unplanned outages it’s started to crackdown. In a Nov. 1 letter to Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Chair Bruce McPherson, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) President...