Guest Columnist

By Zach Friend, Santa Cruz County Supervisor If you’ve been driving on Soquel near the Aptos Village recently you’ve noticed the work on the intersection of Aptos Creek Road and the surrounding area. This work includes important pedestrian improvements as well as intersection and drainage...

As you may well have heard, at the end of 2017 Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While corporations might be celebrating the cut of the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, many might be wondering how the new tax law affects them personally.

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

Gena Rea Timmons is shown on the right. Aptos History Museum archives

While the county works to reduce emissions and keep climate change from getting worse, the Climate Action Strategy presents a set of strategies to address the county’s vulnerabilities to climate change that will occur. The strategies include a broad range

The industrialization of Aptos as a lumber town and competition from new hotels in Santa Cruz, Capitola and Monterey, caused Spreckels to close his Aptos Hotel. In 1896, Spreckels tore down the Aptos Hotel and used the materials to build the factory and town of Spreckels near Salinas. He moved several whole buildings from Aptos to Spreckels.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? How about “when I want to buy a home, who do I see first, the realtor or the loan officer? These are deep philosophical questions that require an astute examination of perception versus reality. The perception for years has been to walk into a real estate office and start the process of buying a home. The reality is doing it this way is like walking onto a car lot and walking right up to a salesman and asking if he would sell you a car.

Every winter, the people who live and work in the flats of Rio Dell Mar experience flooding in the streets and in their yards. Every winter, news reporters descend on the area to cover the events. This year, one reporter asked me about the...

Spring is in the air and inventory is picking up. Since Jan. 1, 203 homes have come on the market across the county and 41 homes have been listed in Aptos. The highest new listing is 383 Beach Drive at $5,200,000. The lowest new listing is 1260 Trout Gulch Road at $599,000. The market snapshot as of March 9 shows 39 Active Listings in Aptos (34 SFR, 3 TH, 2 Condo).

I recently listened to Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming. I was fascinated by her life and the depth of skills and experience she had before becoming the First Lady.