Good morning! It’s Friday, Aug. 21, and the Santa Cruz County forecast is a familiar one – morning clouds gradually clearing, sunnier as the day goes on, with temperatures in the mid-80s in the mountains, mid-70s closer to the beach.

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A candidate for Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s governing board has numerous convictions on his record, including felony assault and child endangerment, but, Hillary Ojeda reports, those crimes don’t disqualify him from running in this November’s election. Curt Street Wilcox also faces questions about residency.

Max Chun digs into the latest numbers from the Santa Cruz County housing market. Sales hit an unexpected wall in early July — then just as quickly snapped back, with one agent reporting a sudden surge of showings on listings that had been sitting for months.

Max also has an update on the Timber fire burning south of us in Big Sur – it has now scorched more than 6,000 acres, but containment was up to 29% as of last night.

The Friday headlines also include our cheat sheet to going out and eating well this weekend – including recommendations from Lily Belli. Away we go.

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Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Pajaro Valley school board candidate has felony assault, child endangerment convictions – but can still run

A Pajaro Valley Unified school board candidate with convictions including felony assault and child endangerment can still run for office because those crimes don’t disqualify him under California law, while questions have also been raised about Curt Street Wilcox’s claimed Watsonville residence. Hillary Ojeda has the story.

Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz County housing market stalls, then rebounds as AI wealth boom looms

The Santa Cruz County housing market looked similar in July to what it has for most of the summer, despite sales temporarily dipping as prospective buyers leave for vacation and school gets back into session. Max Chun reports.

Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz
Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr. / CalMatters
Credit: Via Pixabay

Whatever Friday and the coming weekend bring, be sure you don’t miss any of Lookout’s local coverage. Download the Lookout Santa Cruz app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for breaking news notifications, games and more on that trusty smartphone, and sign up for free here for breaking news alerts via email and for all of our other newsletters (including the specially curated Sunday Reads over the weekend). Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Threads are where you can connect with Lookout on social media.

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May our Friday be a smooth one, and here’s to a safe, relaxing weekend beyond. Thank you for reading, today and all week long.

Will McCahill

A veteran jack-of-all-trades journalist who is Lookout’s copy editor, writes and compiles Morning Lookout newsletter and produces Lookout’s other editorial newsletters and helps run Lookout’s social...