Democratic Central Committee endorses Cummings, Hernandez for supervisor, but fails to reach consensus on SC city races

The Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee (DCC) endorsed Justin Cummings and Felipe Hernandez for District 3 and 4 county supervisor, respectively, and Bryan Hackett for Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge on Tuesday night at a candidate forum in Capitola. 

However, the group did not agree on the three races in the city of Santa Cruz — for mayor, City Council District 4 and City Council District 6 — meaning it will not endorse any of the candidates in those races ahead of the June 2 primary.

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DCC voting member Andrew Goldenkranz told Lookout that failing to reach a consensus on the Santa Cruz city races is not surprising, especially regarding the mayoral race, which has five candidates running.

A candidate must receive at least 60% approval from voting members in contested races and 55% approval in uncontested races to win the group’s endorsement.

Cummings is running uncontested for reelection to the District 3 county supervisor seat. Felipe Hernandez is running for reelection in District 4, but faces two opponents – longtime community leader and former journalist Tony Nuñez and community advocate Elias Gonzales. Hernandez, however, is the only candidate eligible for the endorsement in his race, because candidates must be registered as Democrats by the filing deadline. Nuñez did not state a party preference, while Gonzales registered as a Democrat after the deadline. Hackett’s opponent for judge, Alisa Thomas, did not seek an endorsement.

APRIL 15: Hear from District 4 county supervisor candidates in an election forum moderated by Lookout

The Santa Cruz mayoral race is crowded. Those vying to replace Fred Keeley, who is not seeking reelection, include Get The Flock Out co-leader and former supervisorial candidate Ami Chen Mills, activist and former mayoral and city council candidate Joy Schendledecker, former city councilmember and mayor Chris Krohn, environmental advocate Gillian Greensite, and longtime politico Ryan Coonerty. 

Santa Cruz City Council District 4 sees incumbent Scott Newsome facing off with community activist Hector Marin, who also ran against Newsome in 2022. District 6 has graduating UC Santa Cruz senior Gabriella Noack seeking to replace incumbent Renee Golder.

Santa Cruz mayor

Each forum began with a few “lightning round” questions that only required yes or no answers from the candidates. In the mayoral forum, there was little disagreement among the candidates. All of them said they support ranked-choice voting and publicly funded elections, and would sign the “no fossil fuel money pledge” and the “patients over profits pledge” that were available following the forum. Only Coonerty said that he did not accept the campaign spending limits and would also support automated license plate readers.

The candidates began by discussing homelessness, affordable housing, and how they would work with the county to address those issues. Greensite said she believes that the dearth of housing is an “artificial scarcity,” but said that she would make sure affordable housing is prioritized. She said she would work with the county to make sure affordable housing is spread out throughout the county, and that local workers are first in line.

Chen Mills said that she’d be interested in exploring a registry to track unhoused people in the county and determining what they need most, and work with the county to secure federal funding for homelessness. She also said she would prioritize protecting tenants from eviction and ensuring they know their rights. Krohn similarly said that increasing tenant legal services is a good idea. He also said that UC Santa Cruz is “not pulling their weight” when it comes to building housing, and that too many of the new units in Santa Cruz are not affordable.

Coonerty said he takes issue with the conditions on Coral Street, calling it “functionally an open air drug market,” and “an untenable situation.” He said the city needs to be able to offer shelter, treatment, or transportation to a place where they have a support system. He added that the city should work with the county to implement CARE Courts, the state’s system of courts with the authority to put people suffering from some diagnosed mental health conditions into state-sponsored treatment, and conservatorship, if necessary.

Schendledecker said the Housing for Health partnership between the city and county should continue, and that the two jurisdictions need to work together on housing needs. 

When asked how they would alter the current course of work being done by the current leadership, most said they would seek to improve transparency and community engagement. Schendledecker said that although she doesn’t “think Fred has done a horrible job,” she would look to allow more public comment, try to establish neighborhood precinct assemblies and cut back on managerial positions. Coonerty agreed with the latter point, and said he’d like to engage the community in different ways, such as through youth councils and town halls.

Greensite said that having no council discussion at meetings until a motion is made takes away from debate among elected officials, and makes public comment “superfluous” since the motions are often already fleshed out with city staff. She also said she’d encourage councilmembers to meet with their constituents on a regular basis and attempt to move away from “overbuilding.”

Chen Mills said she’d meet with members of the public in council chambers on Mondays before each city council meeting to talk about the agenda, and would also push to pay councilmembers more for their work.

Santa Cruz City Council 

All four city council candidates took the stage at once to discuss various city issues. During the lightning round, there was no disagreement among the candidates, who all gave similar answers. Each question was the same as those asked to mayoral candidates, but this time, the candidates were asked if they supported rail in the city of Santa Cruz, to which all said yes, eliciting a short applause from the audience. 

Otherwise, all candidates said they support publicly funded elections, and would sign the “no fossil fuel money pledge” and the “patients over profits pledge,” but do not support the use of automated license plate readers in the city.

When asked which underdiscussed policy measure they would introduce, Noack said she’d look to introduce a tiered approach to homelessness, including green open spaces with basic amenities dedicated for unhoused residents to camp in as a first tier, a second tier that might include tiny homes, and a third tier of more permanent housing. Marin stayed on the topic of housing and said he’d focus on rent stabilization policies and advocate taxing businesses making over $1 million in revenue to help pay for affordable housing.

Golder also spoke about housing, but specifically workforce housing to allow people to work and live in Santa Cruz. She also mentioned coastal resilience and job creation as important topics. She said the city should look into converting older buildings into condos and help with down payments to prevent families from renting forever. Newsome, meanwhile, said that he would focus on infrastructure, including protected bike lanes, repaved roads, and coastal infrastructure.

Newsome said having an open dialogue with groups at UC Santa Cruz is imperative to building affordable housing and other policies that help students. 

Golder, who was a transfer student from Cabrillo College, said that while it’s unlikely the city can build its way out of unaffordability, it can help students access internships and plan for future careers. 

Noack addressed educational inequity in Santa Cruz County. She said that while in the Everett Program at UCSC, she and other colleagues created a tech program to teach tech literacy and tech skills for incarcerated people. The group is now working with nonprofit Barrios Unidos to provide tech literacy education to previously incarcerated people, migrant families and other politically marginalized groups. Marin said he’d invite UCSC students to be part of local policymaking, both to inform policies that benefit them and to give them experience for their futures.

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FOR THE RECORD: This article has been corrected to reflect that Gillian Greensite seeks to prioritize local workers for affordable housing.

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