Local News

SANTA CRUZ—Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies on Thursday arrested a Soquel man suspected of more than a dozen counts of sexual assault of a child. Luis Ortiz, 59, was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail. According to Sheriff’s spokeswoman Ashley...

Sereno Group, a commercial and residential realtor, was the first business to open its doors in the Aptos Village Project. On Jan. 25, the folks inside the business were adjusting to their new environs, said Coastal Regional Manager Gina Odom said.

Former Watsonville City Manager Carlos Palacios has been named the County Administrative Officer for Santa Cruz County.

The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office will not file charges against an Aromas man who reportedly made threats against someone at Cabrillo College.

WATSONVILLE—Meri Henriques Vahl vividly remembers her first major exposure to the world of art quilts.  Vahl was born in New York in 1945, and years later, during a visit to the Frick Museum in the Upper East Side of Manhattan with a friend, she viewed...

Robert “Bobby” Salazar, the unofficial mayor of Aptos who served as security guard and maintenance man for Aptos High School for more than four decades, and who was known for his ever-present smile and exhortations for everyone he met to “keep smiling,” died March 17 after a battle with cancer. He was 62.

SANTA CRUZ—Hundreds of people filled the streets of downtown Santa Cruz Monday to participate in the third-annual Martin Luther King march, an event co-sponsored by the NAACP and the Santa Cruz Police Department. “This is a business model of the Santa Cruz Police Department,” said...

SANTA CRUZ — More than 300 students, grades six through 12 from Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, converged at the Baskin Engineering building at UC Santa Cruz Saturday to compete in the annual Math, Engineering, Science Achievement preliminary competition.

Vets 4 Vets, a Santa Cruz County nonprofit supporting local veterans, received two grants that will assist in providing services to veterans in need.

APTOS—The man who allegedly shot to death a Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputy before engaging in a short but violent crime spree on June 6 was stopped by a resident who tackled him and held him down until law enforcement officials arrived, Sheriff Jim...