Santa Cruz County Government Articles

California cities are struggling to hire police in a tight labor market after the COVID pandemic. Some are raising by double digits and offering eye-catching bonuses.

It’s a confusing time in the COVID pandemic. A new booster is on the way, but cases are rising and you might want more protection now.

Silicon Valley billionaires want to create a new city in Solano County. How have planned cities fared in California? From Lakewood to Irvine to Disney’s new Cotino, there have been many.

More workers are filing claims with the state alleging employers are retaliating against them for engaging in legally protected activities, such as seeking overtime pay or reporting wage theft or discrimination.

As four aging hydroelectric dams are demolished, tribes and communities along the Klamath River wait anxiously to see what the future holds. “Once a river is dammed, is it damned forever?” experts ask.

Psychedelics are having a moment. A nationwide push to bring magic mushrooms and other psychedelics into the mainstream is gaining traction, and some Californians want in.

Under a system that has long prioritized local control for school districts. state officials now are fighting some recent board decisions regarding LGBTQ students.

The mysterious buyers of $1 billion worth of Solano County land have been revealed as a consortium of Silicon Valley billionaires who want to build a new city from scratch.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s big new experiment to push people with mental illness off the streets and into treatment starts this fall. Counties responsible for the rollout say it may end up being more modest than advertised.

This year, a series of extreme events in California and around the country have wreaked havoc, driven by climate change. How prepared are we for things to get worse?

Some independent California community hospitals have struggled with rising costs since the COVID-19 pandemic. Three declared bankruptcy this year, prompting the state to distribute interest-free loans.

American Medical Response has poured more than $3 million into a November 2024 initiative to raise requirements for levying taxes and fees. The company says it’s looking out for patients, but local officials say it’s about the money.

State boards are backing a bill to continue carve-outs from California’s open meetings law. An unusual coalition of good government, press, taxpayer and industry groups is fighting back.

Neighbors to one of California’s biggest hazardous waste recyclers say they’re unfairly exposed to pollution, but can California afford to lose one of the few facilities that still takes toxic waste?

Since the Gold Rush era, land reclamation projects have helped to build California, but they are also damaging the state’s environment for people, plants and animals by eliminating essential wetlands.

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and the United Farm Workers union say a recent death in a tomatillo field was due to heat, but a coroner’s report doesn’t back that up.

Climate change has warmed Pacific Ocean waters, causing storms to rapidly intensify, leading to the first tropical storm watch in Southern California ever as Hurricane Hilary prepares to make landfall.

California has used reclamation districts to turn millions of acres of unusable swamps into fertile agricultural land, starting in the earliest days of the Gold Rush. Here’s how it happened.

More California police departments are deploying body cameras. A new court ruling restricts how prosecutors can use footage of witness accounts at trial.

Three fossil fuel plants will stand by to provide emergency power for three more years despite California's mandate to switch to clean energy by 2045.