Tamsin McMahon

Homelessness nonprofit Housing Matters announced Friday that it will reduce capacity at the Rebele Family Shelter on Coral Street and its off-site recuperative care center at the former Salt Air Lodge on Leibrandt Avenue, as both are “operating with significant budgetary deficits.” CEO Phil Kramer said the move is likely to take place over the next month or so, but none of the current occupants will be forced out early.

The Santa Cruz County Parks department is proposing a pay-for-parking pilot program at high-traffic area parks.

Rose K. Murphy argues that Tom Steyer’s environmental and economic rhetoric clashes with the investment record of the hedge fund he built at Farallon Capital Management. From water rights fights in Colorado to private prisons and overseas fossil fuel projects, the Watsonville resident writes that Steyer has never fully answered for the profits tied to environmental damage and corporate exploitation.

State Sen. John Laird warns that Watsonville Community Hospital is once again facing a financial crisis, with fewer than 10 days of cash on hand. Recently passed emergency legislation will provide short-term relief to help the hospital stay afloat through July, he writes, but it is not a permanent solution. Laird argues that federal funding cuts have reversed years of financial progress and left community hospitals like Watsonville especially vulnerable. The hospital continues to seek a long-term partner to survive.

Forty years after “The Lost Boys” transformed Santa Cruz into the fictional vampire haven of Santa Carla, the cult classic still pulses through the town’s identity. Part 1 of a three-part series explores the film’s enduring lure, outsider mythology and the strange cultural magic of 1980s Santa Cruz.

Find the results for all local races in Santa Cruz County's 2026 primary election here. Lookout will continuously update this page as new results come in.

Longtime Santa Cruz politico and UC Santa Cruz politics lecturer Ryan Coonerty has taken a comfortable early lead in the crowded, five-person Santa Cruz mayoral race. After the first vote update at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, Coonerty had 54% of ballots counted, or 3,019 of 5,947 votes.

The first results from Election Night show Santa Cruz City Council incumbents Scott Newsome (District 4) and Renee Golder (District 6) grabbing early leads over their respective challengers, Hector Marin and Gabriella Noack.

In his provocative new book, “Founding Daughter,” novelist and longtime Santa Cruz journalist Wallace Baine imagines a different Founders story for America — one shaped by a brilliant Black teenage girl in Revolution-era Philadelphia. The book came out in April and is, Baine writes, his way of coming to terms with the soaring prose Jefferson penned about equality and the bitter reality that he owned slaves. Here, Baine discusses who gets remembered, who gets erased and whether America’s 250-year-old ideals can survive their flawed origins.

A half-century after Richard Hoover co-founded Santa Cruz Guitar Company, the internationally acclaimed guitar maker is celebrating its roots with a museum exhibit, concerts and a one-of-a-kind guitar crafted from Santa Cruz redwood and sycamore.