Local News

In her first Scotts Valley City Council meeting since announcing she was moving on to a job in Coronado, city manager Tina Friend on Aug. 4 brought good news about a couple of local projects. “First, if you’ve been coming into town on Mt. Hermon...

A new report from the Civil Grand Jury takes square aim at the affordable housing crisis in Santa Cruz County and demands local planners do more to tackle the problem. The document, published June 2, finds that while municipal officials have a good understanding of...

Just 26 miles away as the crow flies, enrollment has dropped 76% at the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto; but here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District has seen a much more modest decline. Nevertheless, trustees...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors took the first step in updating the county’s climate action strategy, a response to global warming and its effects on infrastructure and the people who live here. Updating the County’s Climate Action Plan—first adopted in 2013—is...

Learning about the dangers of surveillance technology can be empowering, the Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury writes in the introduction to the new report they published June 20. Its latest 20-page look at spy tech and data collection at the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s...

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a proposal that, if given final approval when it returns to the board in September, would help ease some requirements for victims of the CZU fire trying to rebuild their homes. Under current County...

In 2019, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge John Gallagher told Darin Matthews the warrant he’d issued to law enforcement didn’t give police the right to search his vehicle. But that’s what had happened on Feb. 19 that year, as the UCSC administrator was headed...

As Scotts Valley tried to convince the State Department of Housing and Community Development that it’s up to the task of planning for more than 1,220 homes for people across the income spectrum in less than a decade, the report card on its last...

Scotts Valley’s Santa Cruz Derby Groms female division team, the Gromshells, claimed their second consecutive Junior Roller Derby Association (JRDA) National Championship on July 13-14 in Palatine, Ill. This victory marks their third overall title with previous wins in 2018, 2023 and 2024. Head Coach Chris...

American Lung Association has released its annual State of Tobacco Control 2023 California Local Grades, and each of the five Santa Cruz County jurisdictions earned an overall grade of an A or B, ranking highly among the 482 incorporated cities and 58 counties in...