Santa Cruz City Schools digs deep into teacher housing development question

SANTA CRUZ >> Santa Cruz City Schools has been researching how other school districts create teacher and staff housing for the past year and a half. In roughly the same period, nine teachers have quit the district while another five turned down job offers in this past two hiring periods – all citing Santa Cruz housing costs as their primary concern, said Superintendent Kris Munro.

Santa Cruz County to expand clinics

SANTA CRUZ >> Santa Cruz County is poised to expand its safety-net clinics to serve thousands of county residents enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s health care program for low-income children, adults and people with disabilities. “We finally found funding,” Michael Beaton, director of administrative services for the county’s Health Services Agency, who’s been with the county five years and worked on a solution to increase capacity.

Santa Cruz County endures mudslides, wrecks

Northbound Highway 17 traffic was brought to a standstill between Pasatiempo and Scotts Valley when this pickup truck, which skidded off the freeway and slid down the embankment Tuesday night, was being removed from the slope on Wednesday afternoon. SANTA CRUZ >> Santa Cruz Mountains received more than 7 inches of rain Tuesday night.

Santa Cruz County jobs picture better than a year ago

SANTA CRUZ >> Santa Cruz County saw farm jobs shrink by 2,700 and hospitality jobs drop 600 in November, typical for the season, but compared to a year ago, the employment picture is much improved, according to state figures posted Friday. • The county’s unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, down from 7.2 percent a year ago and the lowest for November since 2007, when it was 5.4 percent.