Guest Columnist

Seacliff Beach is unique because it has a fishing pier that extends out to a 100 year old concrete ship.

A tiny six-page pamphlet about Aptos Village reads: Not so long ago there were hundreds of Aptos Indians still living and working in this area. Ralph Mattison, banker, tells of seeing them camped on the beach and remembers his father giving them cheese and milk...

Happy New Year! January is the eighth annual Positive Parenting Awareness Month in Santa Cruz County. Although parenting is a non-stop job that deserves recognition every day of the year, this month is an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be a...

As I begin each new year as your County Supervisor, I like to report back in this column on some of the things we’ve accomplished because of your partnership and communication of priorities. Here is a very small overview of what we accomplished in 2017: Community Meetings: In 2017, we’ve held 71 open office hours in Aptos, Corralitos, La Selva Beach and Watsonville and held or attended nearly 50 community and neighborhood meetings in Seacliff, La Selva Beach, Aptos, Watsonville, Capitola and Corralitos. In addition, I’ve written over 50 columns in local papers and neighborhood newsletters and sent a number of e-newsletters to communicate with our district about county happenings.

This January, Santa Cruz County is celebrating Positive Parenting Awareness Month for the seventh year in a row, and several other counties in California are joining in — Inyo, Napa, Mendocino, Sonoma and possibly more!

In 2019, the average sales price for single-family homes was $1,117,353 and the median sales price was $1,000,000. This compares to 2018, where the average was $1,195,194 and the median was $1,008,000, so an ever-so-slight downtick in price in 2019. But, the volume was...

Before Rancho Del Mar and Safeway came to Aptos, that property was used for growing sugar beets and cauliflower. State Park Drive was lined on both sides with huge cypress trees. Highway 1 was a four-lane highway with no overpass or on-and-off ramps. Aptos was a small town but was getting ready for a growth spurt and the Cabrillo College Aptos campus was just being planned.

A couple of months ago we wrote about some of the major changes taking place with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act last December. However, this month we wanted to focus on two aspects in particular and how you may be able to utilize some of the changes for your benefit.

The Board of Supervisors recently completed our budget hearings and as part of the hearings we received reports from departments about their goals for the coming year based on Board priorities.

When I was a young child, the only TV shows my parents let us watch were Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, or anything else on PBS. Occasionally, we watched The Brady Bunch, until my mom declared the show off limits.