The new Bear Creek public pool in Boulder Creek is now open to the public, but on a limited basis.If someone from the general public wishes to swim on a “pay-per-swim” basis – $8 per adult and $5 per child under 18 – he or she can only swim 1-4 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m.-3  p.m. Sundays for recreational swimming, and 6-7 p.m. Thursdays, and 9-10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays for lap swimming only.The Boulder Creek Parks and Recreation Department, which operates the pool, is selling monthly single and family pool memberships and annual tennis/pool and tennis-only memberships.The pool members get half-price discounts on recreational swimming and have special members-only times and days: 1- 4 p.m., Mondays and Wednesday, and 4-6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.Members also can use the pool for lap swimming at no extra fee, 6-7 p.m. Thursdays and 9-10 a.m. Saturdays.The pool, which held a grand opening event on July 7, is the former Bear Creek Country Club, at 15685 Forest Hill Drive.  

The new budget year for the Scotts Valley Unified School District began July 1, with the district continuing to dip into reserves to make ends meet.

The iconic Felton restaurant, Don Quixote’s International Music Hall, has been sold to local businessman Bradd Barkan for $2.2 million.

A For Sale sign appeared this week on the boarded-up front of the former Boulder Creek Brewery, an empty shell after being destroyed by fire in April 2015.Russell Gross, of Russell E. Gross Real Estate, said the sale price is $295,000.He said that while the building is just a shell, the property has an upgraded septic system, and has approved building permits to rebuild the restaurant.He said that any personal property, equipment, inventory, trademarks or licenses, including the liquor license, are not part of the sale offer.Steve Wyman, owner of the site, also owns Surfrider Cafe in Santa Cruz, and the Boulder Creek Brewery Outpost, a tavern, on the other side of Highway 9, one block north of the former brew pub.The brewery and restaurant had been a popular Boulder Creek venue, including life entertainment, and at one point had employed 45 to 50 workers.

The company that owns the Felton site where the Trout Farm Inn burned to the ground said this week it will seek building permits to rebuild the restaurant this year.

It is the job of working journalists to ask questions – especially from public officials – and what we call “follow-up” questions, and more questions.

Thousands of residents of Santa Cruz Mountain communities, plus equally as many visitors, ate pancakes, watched parades, played in the sun, and watched fireworks on Independence Day.

There was no dramatic explosion, no spectacular wrecking ball. The old gym at the Scotts Valley Middle School came down in slow, scraping, gnawing chunks, grabbed and pulled apart by three different-sized excavators with steel jaws.