Starlight Elementary School students will have access to a state-of-the-art garden and kitchen center next fall after the Pajaro Valley Unified district won a national grant to fund its innovation. We talked with Starlight Principal Jackie Medina on how it happened and what it will do.
Watsonville
Posted inCity Life
BOLO Best Bets: Erotic performance, a ukulele bash and fantasy fare
Your place to go for things to do in Santa Cruz County.
Posted inFood & Drink
One Santa Cruz County farmer’s quest to grow sustainable, locally raised meat
Fresh, well-raised local meat is an oddity within Santa Cruz County’s agricultural cornucopia — just 1% of our local production. Pajaro Pastures’ Ryan Abelson is among those trying to change that amid long-standing slaughterhouse laws that favor big farmers over local, smaller ones.
Posted inFood & Drink
EATERS DIGEST: Big Basin’s new downtown tasting room, plus where to celebrate St. Paddy’s
Lower Pacific’s food and drink scene is about to get a major upgrade, and there will be no shortage of places to shake your shamrock around Santa Cruz County next week, including a salute to the Poet & the Patriot.
Posted inEducation
‘It feels like a personal attack’: UCSC, Cabrillo College officials condemn hate-related vandalism
Two weekend hate-related incidents have left UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College students, faculty and administrators feeling shocked, vulnerable and angry. At UCSC, suspects scrawled anti-Black, antisemitic and white supremacist graffiti on five areas at Crown and Merrill colleges, while at Cabrillo, someone set fire to the rainbow Pride flag at the Watsonville Center. School administrators have denounced the incidents and police are actively working to see if the cases are related.
Posted inCity Life
BOLO Best Bets: Uke it up, take the plunge and journey to the Jurassic
Your place to go for things to do in Santa Cruz County.
Posted inK-12 Education
Q&A: School superintendent Faris Sabbah says parents need to stop bullying teachers over mask mandates
Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah says Santa Cruz County parents are bullying teachers, upsetting staff and filing claims against school districts for enforcing mask mandates. Parents have bombarded schools with hundreds of “threatening messages” and angry emails and have had heated, in-person exchanges with teachers and office staff. How tough a response are the schools mounting? Sabbah describes it in detail.
Posted inCity Life
BOLO Best Bets: Big-name authors, ambitious music and art … and Boba Fett
Your place to go for things to do in Santa Cruz County.
Posted inCoast Life
Here’s what putting a number on homelessness looked like, from Santa Cruz to Watsonville & beyond
As Santa Cruz County attempted to put a number to its homeless population for the first time since 2019 early Monday morning with the biennial “point-in-time” count, Lookout’s team of journalists embarked on ride-alongs with some of those involved with the enumeration. The number of people visible to count was surprising to many involved.
Posted inCoast Life
Unhoused Santa Cruz: A ‘proper place’ for the homeless? Push to spread the burden stirs NIMBY backlash
Neighborhoods are receiving little advance information about newly streamlined projects, as the state of California and the county of Santa Cruz move to rapidly build new housing. As Project Homekey-funded projects pop up around the county, we see pushback in Soquel, and maybe more widely. Lookout takes a closer look at the community whiplash and the likely growing pains ahead.