Monterey Bay This Week: Santa Cruz mayoral race, farmworker health event, new regional soccer fields, preparing for a wet winter and more

PK Hattis joined the KAZU News team as a reporter/producer/host in 2026. A home-grown local journalist through and through, PK was born and raised in Santa Cruz County and has been reporting on Central Coast communities since 2020. Before coming aboard at KAZU, he worked for more than four years at the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper where he covered the county Board of Supervisors, healthcare and transportation beats, among others. He also hosted KSQD's flagship public affairs show "Talk of the Bay" for more than two years.

Ellie is an award winning reporter and producer. Their work has appeared in Mother Jones, KQED, KALW and Street Spirit among other places. They are an alum of UCSC and UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

email: epm@kazu.org
signal: ElliePrickett-Morgan.96

Aspen Stuart-Cunningham joins KAZU as a reporting intern covering this year’s El Niño season and other local science and environmental news. She is a current Master’s student in the UCSC Science Communication Program.

aspen@kazu.org

Amy Mayer is an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of experience in public radio. Before KAZU, she worked as an editor for the California Newsroom and at St. Louis Public Radio. For eight years, she covered agriculture as the Harvest Public Media reporter based at Iowa Public Radio. She's also worked at stations in Massachusetts and Alaska and has written for many newspapers, magazines and online news outlets.