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...

Holidays can be a mixed bag full of love, laughter, joy, stress, anxiety, and full-blown tantrums. And I’m just talking about the adults. Expectations about gifts, traditions and spending time together can make the holidays challenging and overwhelming for many families, even when relationships are harmonious. When relationships between immediate, extended, separated, or blended family members are strained, it requires extra effort to communicate effectively so that children remember the holidays as a special time with family and loved ones. This monthly column provides tips for anyone who is helping raise children, based on the world-renowned Triple P – Positive Parenting Program, available to families in Santa Cruz County. If you have a question or idea for a future column, please email me at triplep@first5scc.org.

2017 was a boring year for the financial markets. It seemed like every day last year the S&P 500 and NASDAQ creeped higher and higher. In fact, 2017 was one of the calmest year for the markets in decades. 2018 has started off a different story. After blasting off in January with the S&P 500 rising almost 6 percent, February and March have been met with large swings up and down, ending down 0.8 percent on a total return basis at the end of March. With this recent volatility, now is a good time to understand what is going on and how you might be affected.

Sept. 15 marked 10 years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The Financial Crisis of 2008 wiped out about 8.8 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and caused about $19 trillion in household wealth to evaporate. While the recession officially started in December 2007, we wanted to review a timeline of some key events and also look forward to the future.

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!

Most people probably have a sense of what their credit score is and if their score is considered a “poor” score all the way to “exceptional.” Banks and credit cards will show you your credit score often updated on a monthly basis.

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.

A wonderful new event has surfaced in our Aptos community thanks to Friends of the Library and Denise Ward, a local resident who also loves to read and to bring community together.

Across Santa Cruz County, inventory and sales volume is down from a year ago.

Join us for the 2019 Business Showcase on Wednesday, Feb. 20 from 4-7 p.m. at the Seascape Golf Club in Aptos.