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Scotts Valley
September 13, 2025

Guest Column | Our Forgotten Generation

Many years ago, I took a group of high school students who belonged to the Interact Club, a Rotary sponsored volunteer group of 14-18-year-olds, to a local community care center to distribute the Christmas gifts each student had purchased with their own money and...

Letters to the Editor | Published Sept. 5, 2025

letters to the editor
Ranch manager should never work with animals again Regarding the Los Gatos ranch manager charged with animal cruelty (in Aug. 15 Press Banner), I say, if convicted, she should never be allowed to work with animals again. She had multiple opportunities to do the right...

Fireworks are fundraiser, not city expense

Fireworks are fundraiser, not city expense

The Mountain Gardener | The Fascinating World of Plant Communication

My friend, Evan, often shares with me interesting studies about plants. Did you know that older trees share intelligence with young trees? Scientists have recorded how birch trees use electrical signals to communicate. How do they do this? All living organisms have an electrical system....

Guest Viewpoint | Diving Into My New Role as 5th District Supervisor

Monica Martinez
It has been an exciting first month as your County Supervisor for the Fifth District. After being officially sworn in on Dec. 23 by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, I took office on Jan. 6 and was symbolically sworn in during a community celebration on Jan....

Having his cake, eating it too?

EDITOR,

Letters to the Editor | Published Oct. 18, 2024 — Part I

letters to the editor
Help affordable housing crisis by voting yes on Prop 5 California has been grappling with an affordable housing crisis for years. Although the state has passed many laws to reduce barriers to create more housing, for people in need of an affordable place to live,...

The Mountain Gardener | Rx for Sad Houseplants

It’s been a tough couple weeks for my houseplants. Power outages from recent storms made me move my African violet, which was just starting to bloom over to a window for more light. Others are staged on tabletops. I know my houseplants clean the...

Plain Talk About Food | Oh, Them Apples

“Adam did not want the apple for the apple’s sake; he wanted it because it was forbidden.” —Mark Twain Home for me in the 1940s was uncle and aunt’s eight-bedroom boarding house in Aberdeen, Wash. My mind is filled with only happy memories, memories that...

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News Briefs

News Briefs | Published Sept. 12, 2025

Fun run, emergency preparedness fair set for Saturday On Saturday, Sept. 13, the City of Santa Cruz will be hosting Race the Wave, a 3K...