A Lookout View: Ryan Coonerty for Santa Cruz mayor

Editor’s note: A Lookout View is the opinion of our Community Voices opinion section, written by our editorial board, which consists of Community Voices Editor Jody K. Biehl and Lookout Founder Ken Doctor. Our goal is to connect the dots we see in the news and offer a bigger-picture view — all intended to see Santa Cruz County meet the challenges of the day and to shine a light on issues we believe must be on the public agenda. These views are distinct and independent from the work of our newsroom and its reporting. Read more here.

In a race defined by competing visions for the city of Santa Cruz’s future, Ryan Coonerty stands out as the candidate with the clearest combination of experience, pragmatism and ability to govern. For those reasons, he is the strongest choice for mayor.

The mayor’s race will help usher in the next Santa Cruz –  shaped by new housing mandates, changing expectations around public space and ongoing decisions about how our community grows while holding on to what makes us special.

Coonerty is the candidate best prepared to help guide that transition.

Coonerty has years of experience in local and regional public service focused on housing policy, economic development, and intergovernmental coordination. He was on the Santa Cruz City Council from 2004 to 2012, including two one-year terms as mayor. And he served as District 3 county supervisor from 2014 to 2020. That experience matters in a moment when Santa Cruz is being asked to move faster, build more housing and make complex decisions about land use and infrastructure. He has consistently worked in that environment, focused on implementation and outcomes rather than just debate. 

We expect him to take a hands-on approach to governing, including pushing back on city staff when necessary and redressing longstanding city processes that are outmoded, or too slow to meet the demands of these times. That’s an issue many in the community, including his competitors, see as a prime problem. Coonerty brings experience beyond local government through consulting and policy advisory work, giving him exposure to how other communities and staff handle similar housing and growth challenges. This will be an advantage in navigating the balance between state requirements and local priorities and the need to make local decisions more transparent. 

By his nature, he is a pragmatic solution-seeker, and connected nationally to the wing of the Democratic Party that seeks new vision and practical problem-solving in a time of national political cartoonery. He’s cut of common cloth with other mayors, regionally, in California and nationally, who have eschewed traditional labels, to seek positive ways forward. His “An Honorable Profession” podcast aptly sums up his views on political service and public policymaking.

Coonerty’s roots in Santa Cruz run deep; he is a fifth-generation resident, coming from a family long woven into the civic and cultural fabric of our community. We know he cares about preserving the city’s unique character. 

His challengers – a diverse field of four progressive candidates – have raised important critiques about the city’s direction and Coonerty’s record on privacy concerns, homelessness policies and political connections. Those debates are healthy and necessary. But while the challengers bring energy and fresh perspectives, none come close to matching Coonerty’s combination of institutional knowledge, regional relationships and demonstrated ability to move complex projects and policy initiatives forward across different sectors of local government.

Gillian Greensite has brought particular depth and substance to the debate over housing policy and growth. Refreshingly candid and detail-oriented, she repeatedly challenged fellow progressive candidates during our forum over what she viewed as overly broad claims and unrealistic assumptions about affordable housing production and state mandates. She deserves recognition for pushing the discussion toward greater specificity and accountability. 

Chris Krohn brings a 43-year record of progressive activism and public service in Santa Cruz, with longstanding involvement in social equity and tenant and housing advocacy. He is the only challenger in the field with prior elected experience. Yet in the six years since his recall from the Santa Cruz City Council, Krohn has struggled to translate his advocacy into broader political momentum or tangible policy accomplishments. His campaign continues to repeat too many of the same talking points of the past decade, and seems ill-suited for the issues we face now. His advocacy for increased arts spending, bike taxis and more pedestrian streets should be added to the local debate, though he has not shown any plans for realizing them. Local government increasingly demands negotiation and compromise. We feel Krohn’s governing style does not match the moment.

Joy Schendledecker has centered her campaign on community-driven planning and stronger neighborhood input in development decisions, particularly around housing and local governance. She is a consistent advocate for unhoused residents, bringing strong values and sustained engagement to these issues. However, her focus has remained largely within a narrower set of progressive advocacy priorities. We wish she had broadened her experience and advocacy since her previous run for mayor four years ago. While she is deeply committed to community concerns, she lacks expertise, connections and the policy knowledge needed for the role.

Ami Chen Mills brings a background in writing and civic engagement, with an emphasis on housing affordability and grassroots participation in decision-making. She has been an effective advocate in specific local campaigns, including the Get the Flock out effort, which helped influence the Santa Cruz City Council’s decision-making on automated license-plate reader technology and raised broader questions about surveillance and privacy. She also raises important questions about engagement and accountability in city decision-making, and has called for more community input. And she is an important voice on diversity issues.  

Santa Cruz benefits from each of these candidates’ engagement and scrutiny. Strong disagreement is part of how better policy gets shaped. But a mayor’s job is not only to challenge – it is to deliver. It requires working across neighborhoods, institutions, and political divides to produce real, measurable progress on long-standing problems. Meeting state requirements and addressing long-standing housing shortages requires more than critique. It requires the ability to navigate constraints, build coalitions and deliver outcomes in a politically and practically constrained environment.

Coonerty’s strength is that he understands how to work within those systems and has a record of moving complex efforts forward. He brings both familiarity with local challenges and the experience needed to act on them.

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His opponents portray him as too closely tied to existing political and institutional networks, including developers. We disagree, although our reporting will follow these questions closely. 

It’s important to remember that the Santa Cruz mayor’s job is not a full-time one, paying $41,048 annually before taxes. Coonerty has pledged to step away from his consulting work if elected mayor, while maintaining his role at Leadership Santa Cruz and as a UC Santa Cruz politics lecturer, where he teaches a small number of courses each year. He has also stated that he would not take on any consulting projects involving the City of Santa Cruz, and would avoid conflicts related to city work, though he told our board he might continue limited work at the county level where no direct overlap or conflict exists.

He has pledged to streamline the permitting process by getting faster approvals by the city, to push for more communication between councilmembers and constituents, to beautify the city, including putting an emphasis on public art, which we laud. He also says he will work to continue the city’s strong record of homelessness reduction, push for economic development downtown, create an accountability portal for city information and do a better job of telling Santa Cruz’s success stories. That’s an ambitious – though necessary – agenda.

We found that last pledge especially refreshing. He wants to use social media to tell stories of Santa Cruz companies getting it right, to up the vibe in the community. He believes in an old-school version of a small-town mayor, someone who holds meetings in local parks and whose job it is to elevate the city and make residents feel they matter. 

Coonerty told us being mayor of Santa Cruz, which he was twice during his years on the council when the position was rotating – was the “most fun job” he ever had. 

We hope he still feels that way in 2030. 

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