Ahoy, Lookout friends. It is Thursday, May 14, and it’s quite a nice day that’s dawned around Santa Cruz County, with copious sunshine and temps headed to around 70 at the bay, into the lower 80s in the mountains.
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Tania Ortiz leads us off, reporting on a short-lived pilot program to test a parking meter along Aviation Way near Watsonville Municipal Airport. The city was aiming to tackle issues with long-term parking, but took the meter out after just a few days following hefty pushback from residents and business owners in The Hangar complex.
Max Chun has the latest from Santa Cruz County’s housing market, where inventory is up as the busy season kicks into gear. Max was also in court Wednesday as sentencing for Santa Cruz City Council candidate Hector Marin was pushed to June in a case involving driving on a suspended license in the wake of a 2024 DUI arrest.
The battery energy storage facility proposed for outside Watsonville is the topic in Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section, with Eduardo Hurtado writing that community concerns about the project should be a red flag to the state to look more closely at the plan and what might happen in an emergency.
The Thursday headlines also include Big Basin Redwoods State Park getting some love in a statewide survey – check it all out below.
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Watsonville installed a meter along Aviation Way hoping to solve parking problems. Four days later, the city removed it
Four days after installing a parking meter along Aviation Way as part of a 30-day pilot program to mitigate long-term parking problems, Watsonville city officials removed the meter following negative feedback from businesses and residents. Tania Ortiz has the story.
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Housing inventory takes jump as Santa Cruz County’s busy season commences
Most of the Santa Cruz County housing market showed few surprises in April, but the number of available homes took a leap, rising to more than 400 properties on the market for the first time since October 2025. Max Chun crunches the latest numbers.
DAILY DIGEST
A varied slate for your morning perusal, with more on the way from Lookout. Weekender, your cheat sheet to going out and eating well around Santa Cruz County this weekend, will be blasting out to inboxes a bit later on, one of the many free newsletters and breaking news alerts you can sign up for here. Breaking news notifications are just one of the many benefits of the Lookout Santa Cruz app, available for download from both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and you can keep up with all of our local coverage by following Lookout on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and/or Threads.
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Thank you for reading, and enjoy the pleasant Thursday ahead.
Will McCahill