A Lookout View: Kristen Brown for District 2 county supervisor

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.

The race for the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors offers a bubble of hope for those of us concerned about democracy. 

We have four excellent, diverse candidates, all of whom are running on platforms of change. It’s heartening to see at a time when trust in politics is so low and the personal cost of running often discourages good candidates from seeking office.

Our county has tough decisions ahead, as we emerge from two years of historic storms and the devastating CZU wildfire – the effects of which too many still suffer, amid the unending and unnecessarily tangled bureaucracy of the rebuild. We also face a host of ongoing, intractable issues, including lack of affordable housing, homelessness, a crisis in mental health, dilapidated roads and infrastructure and an overcrowded jail. Many also feel distrust of “the system” of staff and planners and of the glacial, opaque way local government seems to function. 

In talking to 22 candidates and measure representatives, we’ve unearthed dozens of questions about our system – about what works and what doesn’t – and about how we can do better as crises continue to hit. What lessons have we taken from the CZU fire, the storms, the rebuild, and what will we do better next time?

We trust this slate of candidates will poke at these issues, and we’ve picked the two we think have the best chances of initiating positive change. We are thrilled that no matter what happens in these races Santa Cruz will have a woman on the board of supervisors, which for the past 12 years has been all-male.

District 2

In the District 2 race, we believe that both Kristen Brown and Kim De Serpa would serve well on the county board. However, like our voters, we are forced to make a choice. We endorsed both in the five-person primary and debated for more than a week as we tried to decide. In this race, we favor Kristen Brown. We believe her experience with different levels of government, her discipline and ability to command facts and a room and her deep connections to the other supervisors and local politicians make her the slightly better choice. 

We think she will be more likely to forge majorities and the consensus and muster the drive to tackle deep issues in the county budget and governance. Her experience on the Capitola City Council and as mayor directly applies to the decision-making and cooperation with others needed on the county board. Kristen has worked to branch from her home base in Capitola through service clubs and commissions and to hear the needs of people in other parts of her district. She has experienced the hurly-burly of county and city government, served on numerous committees and task forces and has the connections needed to push for change. 

Everyone we asked said Kristen is always the most prepared person in a room. We found that true at all our forums. She does her homework and has a remarkable ability to call up facts and figures and to convince others of her thinking with data. We believe she would be a quick study in the areas she needs to learn, including the social services and health care fields. 

Kim De Serpa is also an outstanding candidate, whose knowledge, lived experience on the job and in the community and wealth of human wisdom and compassion should impress us all. We laud Kim and note her dedicated and tough-minded service on the Pajaro Valley Unified School District board, which has needed and seen great change. Everyone we spoke to had kind words about Kim, about how she helped their family, their community, their loved one. She is a people person, who works quietly to great effect.

Kim admits her greatest weakness openly – she is not a “politician.” She doesn’t dominate a room or come with lists of talking points. We were impressed by her innovative ideas and push not only to look at policy, but at how policies get delivered, particularly when it comes to social services, which make up 65% of the county budget. She is scrappy and tenacious and spoke movingly about the need to get along with staff to elicit change. We like her independence from orthodoxy and her deep knowledge of social and health services, but are just unsure how comparatively effective she might be in office. 

Both candidates impressed us immensely, but pushed to choose, we endorse Kristen Brown.