A Lookout View: For Santa Cruz City Council, Kalantari-Johnson, Trigueiro, O’Hara and Brunner

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.

Lying in wait under all the issues discussed on the campaign trail, in forums and door to door in the city of Santa Cruz is this one: What will Santa Cruz be like in five years?

At the top of the list sits affordability; making a living here has become increasingly difficult for more of the population. Intractable homelessness tugs at us, too, although there is perhaps a deserving sense of accomplishment for minor recent gains. Mental health challenges continue to strain resources and undergird so many other problems. And foremost in this spring 2024 campaign, we are all wondering what our fair city will look like and feel like as we ramp up building to meet state requirements. 

The Hotel Palomar, at almost 90 feet tall, once stood unchallenged in height, but now new buildings – and proposed taller buildings – add their heft and likely height to a city never known for its skyline. 

Measure M, of course, neatly captures a fair number of these questions. The “height limitation” ordinance put on the ballot by citizen signature aims to deal directly with height itself and wades into the affordability debate, but it portends much more. As with city Measure O in 2022, it’s about what’s written into the initiative, but a lot more. And much of that can be summed in one word: distrust. Distrust by some of our elected city council representatives and of some of the staff city planners – their hands on all those blueprints – that could determine the feel of the next Santa Cruz.

This is one prism – one of trust and distrust, of representation and of the value of the election process itself – hovers over the races of candidates for four city council seats. Each of these seats is for the first time districted; the two other districted positions saw election in 2022, along with the new elected mayor’s position. In at least three of this year’s four districts, the candidates’ positions are largely drawn by which side of the trust debate they come down on. Three of the challengers give at least tacit support to Measure M, while their three opponents oppose it. 

We have voiced our view here, with our no on M position. 

Simply stated, we favor making our representative democracy work as best it can, with council-led open review of engagement and transparency as soon as the new council is seated in January. We don’t favor more “direct democracy” – two words that sound tantalizingly attractive – which we believe may only complicate our communities’ abilities to take decisive action to solve problems.

Given California’s housing shortage, the state is now our big brother in that trade, and we understand the value of cooperation there. Within the county, additionally, each of the problems we can tick off sees no boundary at the Santa Cruz city limits. Consequently, we look for proven ability to communicate, build consensus and partnership across city/county and fellow city lines in these candidates. We also look for experience, expertise, new ideas, fresh voices and lived experience.

Last, as we offer these recommendations, we remind ourselves of the flip side of many of these issues: the wonderful place we are privileged to inhabit. Elections aren’t just exercises in knocking down problems. They are opportunities to actually build on our quality of life. 

For some, that will mean keeping the peace and quiet, but for others, the allure of reclaiming the San Lorenzo River, and sipping wine or coffee overlooking its shores, is something they want to see in their future. For some, it’s a low-rise, approachable city, and for others the contained pandemonium of a new Warriors arena is attractive. 

Lookout believes maximizing our shared public spaces should be near the top of all candidate to-do lists. How we do so will be part of the work of this new slew of electeds. We look forward to the debate.

District 1: Gabriela Trigueiro

Gabriela Triguero knows first-hand the hardscrabble struggles of a renter finding a way to make Santa Cruz her home. The city, she told us, has often been “unfriendly.” While pregnant, she experienced homelessness and now, as a single mom, she spends 60% of her income on rent. Her lived experience is valuable, as is the refreshing honesty and openness of her manner. She is a fighter who knows what it feels like to feel unsafe. That’s a needed voice in city politics.  

We think she will be a champion for struggling families and will help shift the face of homelessness. Those in need are not all adults or struggling with mental illness; many are children and some, she told us, are in her son’s school class. 

We like her forthrightness. Her campaign lacked vibrancy at the start and she has much to learn about the city budget, but we were impressed with her views on education, the shortage of staff in the police department and the scourge of fentanyl deaths our region faces. She has the backing of the Democratic Party, but she impressed us as an independent thinker, someone who would vote her conscience and speak her mind. She is against Measure M. 

She has served as a commissioner for the city’s Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. Currently, she serves as executive director at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County.

Dave Tannaci, too, is a first-time candidate and brings the organizing experience of the 2022 strike against the city to the campaign. Seeing himself as an advocate for working families, he has focused on how to increase the number of affordable housing units being built. With all the many nuances around that issue, Tannaci continues to parse the alternatives; his reluctance to take a stand one way or the other on Measure M calls into question just what kind of advocate voters would get in electing him. We also struggled to understand his policy ideas. 

We believe that over time Tannaci may add a good voice in public service, but at this point, Triguero is the better candidate. She would bring a new voice and lived experience to a council that needs it.

District 2: Sonja Brunner

Hector Marin’s enthusiasm for public life is infectious. He’s brought energy to the District 2 race, one in which incumbent Sonja Brunner has only partially and puzzlingly engaged. 

Marin’s advocacy is clear. Speaking to the concerns of the city’s Latino population – 10% at the most recent census – and how the city’s 2022 districting split their votes, Marin is the only candidate in the race to raise the city’s Beach Flats neighborhood up in forums, and we commend him for that.

His political solutions to the problems the city faces is a simple one: public involvement. If everyone were as engaged as Marin, maybe the kind of participatory democracy he advocates for might be possible. By itself, though, we think it’s too thin a platform to run on, with too little detail. That said, Marin, in this election as compared to his 2022 candidacy, has shown he is better studying city plans and budgets. We continue to look to his political evolution and believe he brings an important voice to discussions.

Brunner’s tenure has been mixed. She has served since 2022 and served as both vice mayor (2021) and mayor (2022). She has largely voted with the council’s majority and has proved herself a dedicated, reliable and caring public servant. On homelessness and affordability, she has supported the city’s Housing Element plan, the closure of the Benchlands (2022) and the oversized vehicle ordinance. She opposes Measure M. Her day job at the Downtown Association gives her important perspective on the struggles of those who own businesses, work and want to visit downtown.

Brunner’s advocacy for the January council cease-fire resolution ended up igniting a powder keg of emotion and polarity, without benefit to any of those involved on either side of the question. A more nuanced approach would, we believe, have served the city better.

Most strikingly, however, is Brunner’s aversion to the press. This is an unsettling trait in a public servant at a time when many fear the erosion of democracy. She has refused, unlike all the other candidates, to engage in our candidate forums and our opinion pages, leaving too many voters unable to question her or hear her explain herself. As we have noted, we find this attitude puzzling and disturbing. We would hope to see it changed should she win reelection.

District 3: Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson

Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson has earned reelection. She has put in many long hours, studying the issues and showing up amid many community debates, from the endless ones over the oversized vehicle ordinance to the emerging ones about the future of West Cliff Drive, and many in between. She can take some credit for the city having moved about 200 people into permanent housing.

We appreciate the ways in which she has been steadfast in her support of additional housing, including her opposition to Measure M, and homelessness solutions, even as both of those can at times seem painfully incremental and poorly implemented. It is her staunch advocacy that has often put her in the crosshairs of her opponents. And she, like others who continue to serve, has sometimes shown the wear of being a politician in contentious Santa Cruz. 

With professional experience spanning social services, public health, education and grant writing, she’s a valuable connector to the funding, and relationships, vital to the practical funding of any initiatives. 

Her opponent, Joy Schendledecker, has grown as a candidate, since her first electoral foray two years ago, when she stood (bravely) against Fred Keeley. Her politics are driven by her passion and her caring, and those are most seen in her advocacy for the unhoused. She’s right, we believe, about the way in which the city dealt with the Benchlands encampment. 

A proponent of Measure M, Schendledecker’s solution to the current level of distrust in city politics is more direct democracy. That’s clear with M and also in her call for “citizens’ assemblies,” made up of 100 to 300 people in each voting precinct, to act as mini-legislatures within districts. While superficially attractive, we think the logistics are daunting and unproven, and likely to double down on democratic dysfunction.

District 5: Susie O’Hara

District 5 sees a race between two capable candidates, both opposing Measure M  – and ones with wholly differing résumés. Either could make a good new city councilmember.

Joe Thompson is a political phenomenon. At age 20 and headed toward graduation from UC Santa Cruz this spring, the Texas native’s LinkedIn sums up the breadth of their early career: “I’m currently a Substance Use Disorder Services Commissioner, a BAYMEC board member, an alternate delegate to the Santa Cruz County Democratic Party, and I was the lead union organizer at Starbucks in Santa Cruz when we were the first in the state to file a union petition.” 

As a young person seeing the area’s affordability woes, Joe is an important community voice. They are YIMBY-like, and given their youth and connection to the campus – which they are plying for votes within District 5 – they would bring representation to an important part of the community. Voters would be getting an advocate with a furious, if short-lived, political record.

While some charge, they are “only” a student and transient, Joe impressed us with their commitment to the region and desire to stay. We hope to see more of them in the coming years. 

Susie O’Hara brings a civil engineer’s experience to the campaign, having worked for the City of Santa Cruz for 17 years, and served on about a dozen advisory groups. Her views on housing and homelessness response are in line with the council’s current majority. She calls for maintaining the city’s character while maximizing building. And she aims to deliver social services to the homeless population as the city seeks more permanent solutions.

Her views are reasonable.

We like her experience in addressing the sense of public safety downtown, an issue she addressed, working with the district attorney’s office a decade ago. We think the public needs voices newly put to that issue, and she would be an excellent resource. 

We worry about her past – the way she left the city’s employ in 2021. It’s led some people in and around city government to question how collegially she’d be able to govern. As an employee in the city manager’s office, she brought a workplace grievance against the city (her union supported her), and a settlement in the tort claim was reached. Her departure was public and raw. Would such history complicate the current council’s work, with a new city manager in charge? That’s hard to gauge, but one more data point for voters to consider.

On balance, we believe that voters would be well-served by either candidate. Here, we give a slight nod to O’Hara, based on longer and greater lived experience with the city’s issues.