Guest Columnist

What does it take to be a hero? Every day, people make our town a better place to live.

You walk into your local mortgage office (keep it local!) with that smirk on your face that only you and your wife recognize. Right off the bat you announce you have the down payment money and right off the bat you get asked, “you also have the closing cost, I presume…?” Closing cost? What!? You mean everyone in this process doesn’t work for free? Let me tell you, not only do they not work for free, some work for more than others! There are two sections of cost when referring to the closing cost of a home loan. One is recurring closing cost; the second is non-recurring closing cost. The first includes items like your pre-paid property taxes, hazard insurance and that first payment that you don’t send, you know, the one that everyone thinks is free, it’s not.

Last month we wrote about a couple of year-end money moves to make. Now that we’ve rung in the New Year, below are a couple of areas to look to fine-tune your financial life for 2018.

Nicole Young is the mother of two children, ages 14 and 18, who also manages Santa Cruz County's Triple P - Positive Parenting Program, the world's leading positive parenting program. Scientifically proven, Triple P is made available locally by First 5 Santa Cruz County, the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency (Mental Health Services Act) and the Santa Cruz County Human Services Department. To find a Triple P parenting class or practitioner, visit triplep.first5scc.org, www.facebook.com/triplepscc or contact First 5 Santa Cruz County at 465-2217 or [email protected].

Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend holds his son Elliott while speaking at the Aptos Chamber of Commerce's monthly breakfast meeting on Jan. 11. Friend touched on topics such as transportation, traffic and housing, mentioning that residents have to earn $70,000 a year to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Cruz County. He encouraged residents to get involved and "choose the type of community you want," rather than pass on responsibility to future generations. "You may feel like, individually, you cannot make a significant difference on the way the community's trajectory will go," Friend said. "But I also know that if each one of us even did something small, the sum of all of those things will be more change than any of us would ever have been able to envision." Friend was also recently appointed chair of the Board of Supervisors. Photo by Jeanie Johnson

The 4th of July is America’s birthday and many communities have parades to celebrate that fact. The freedom to determine our own future was at the center of the founding of our country.

According to reports from the Huffington Post, the number one New Year's Resolution is to lose weight. That's not surprising as they also report that about one in every three adults in this country is obese.

The title is supposedly an acronym for where the name “golf” came from. I don’t like to be politically incorrect but, this is what is called an “old wives’ tale.” Women have been very involved in golf on the Monterey Bay. Marion Hollins, a championship golfer, developed the Cypress Point Club and Pasatiempo Golf Club.

As we are writing this month’s article, the Dow Jones Industrial Average just crossed over 22,000 for the first time in history (Aug. 2, 2017). Year to date the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up approximately 11.4 percent while the S & P 500 is up approximately 10.61 percent (as of Aug. 1, Source: Morningstar).

Aptos Village once had a Town Hall on the corner of Valencia Street and Trout Gulch Road, but it had been torn down.