Roads, rail trail, managed retreat emerge as flashpoints as District 2 hopefuls Brown, De Serpa spar at forum

Both of the candidates for county supervisor of Santa Cruz County’s District 2 — a diverse district that stretches from the Capitola coast to Pajaro Dunes and includes Aptos, Freedom and Corralitos — are no strangers to public office. There are over 20 years of experience in public service between Kristen Brown and Kim De Serpa.

Brown is the current Capitola mayor who is in the final months of her eight-year tenure on the Capitola City Council, chair of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) and vice president of government relations with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. In the past, she has worked as a congressional aide for Reps. Sam Farr and Jimmy Panetta, she said at a Lookout candidate forum at Cabrillo College’s Horticulture Building on Monday evening.

“I’m a fourth-generation Santa Cruz County resident from a family with a deep commitment to public service. My grandparents, my great grandparents, my parents and now my husband and I care very much about leaving things better than we found them,” she said. “I want to be part of solving some of our community’s toughest challenges and improving the quality of life for everyone in the district.”

De Serpa has spent her career in the health care sphere, working in Dominican Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit as well as child welfare services and hospice care. She has also served on the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) board of trustees for the past 14 years.

“In health care, everything is urgent. Nothing can wait,” she said. “And I’ll bring that same sense of urgency to the board of supervisors.”

Like the District 5 forum, Brown and De Serpa began by discussing a potential county workers strike. Negotiations between the county and its union — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521 — have proved fruitless in striking a deal thus far in what union members have called particularly intense negotiations. Brown said that she has been endorsed by SEIU 521, and she recently spoke at a board of supervisors meeting in support of the workers. Her husband is also a member of SEIU 521.

“There are some serious budget concerns, but my message would be that we cannot balance our budget on the back of these hardworking employees,” she said. “They are the ones who are doing the work that the county is known for, and if we’re not giving them livable wages and good benefits, they’re not going to be able to stay here.”

Brown added that she would see her responsibility as “encouraging my fellow supervisors and the administration to find smart ways to balance our budget that does not involve cutting any kind of employee wages or benefits.”

De Serpa said that she has dealt with similar situations with PVUSD’s teachers union, which she called the “fiercest teachers union in the whole country.” She said that, as she has during her time as a trustee, she would direct county administration regarding how to approach negotiations, but would not get involved further. She also said that sometimes unions ask for too much.

“I want all of our unbelievably hardworking county staff to be retained, to have a wage that lets us retain and recruit excellence and keep them in our workforce,” she said. “But we should not be getting involved with negotiations.”

On the topic of money, naturally, the county budget came up. That budget that funds everything from workers’ salaries and road repairs to housing and homeless services has very little breathing room this upcoming year. De Serpa said that because of this, the county will need to start “tightening the belt around the budget,” and thinks nothing is off-limits. She added, though, that road repairs need to be at the top of the priority list, along with affordable housing and public safety.

“People are frankly very, very angry that [the roads] have been neglected in District 2 in the unincorporated area,” she said. “I think all public-sector budgets are going to need to be reduced in some way. I think that’s just an unfortunate reality.”

Brown said that first and foremost, her biggest priority would be understanding where the money is going and where it comes from. For funding priorities, she pointed to roads, a fully funded planning department, and the county Office of Response, Recovery & Resilience as of the utmost importance. She also said she is confident in her abilities to advocate for funding at the state and federal levels, as she has experience doing so.

“Those kinds of opportunities don’t come along often, but they do come along, and you need someone who can be a really strong advocate and build a coalition,” Brown said. “Coalition building is really how you get these dollars in the door.”

The discussion immediately thereafter turned to roads. A recent civil grand jury report said that 63% of county roads are in poor to failed condition while facing an inadequate budget. 

De Serpa, who lives on Trout Gulch Road north of Aptos Village, said that she had public works staffers drive the road with her to show them how badly it needed work. She reiterated that people are upset: “Our county cannot even make the basic infrastructure work for average people.” She would use money from the 2016 Measure D sales tax for transportation projects, the Measure K half-cent sales tax for the unincorporated areas, and “whatever money we can get back from [the Federal Emergency Management Agency].”

Brown said that the county uses color-coding to show the conditions that each road is in. Green means good, yellow means falling into disrepair, and red is for those that are in the worst shape. She said balancing the latter two categories is the best way to stay ahead of catastrophic road failures.

“If we only put money towards the red roads, then we’re going to use all our money on one or two roads,” Brown said. “In the meantime, the yellow roads are going to fall into further disrepair and become red roads, and all of our time will be spent in reacting instead of being proactive. We need to ensure that we are doing some maintenance to prevent roads from falling into complete disrepair, while also addressing the ones that are emergency routes preventing people from getting to their homes.”

On the issue of Mountain Charlie Road — a rural road near the northern border of Santa Cruz County that washed out in March, leaving the residents along the road isolated and without a permanent fix — Brown said it is an example where a “red road” needs to be fixed immediately.

“That’s a situation where you’re going to have to reallocate funds,” she said. “You’re looking at a road that is literally about to fail and people will not be able to get to their homes. We knew that it was shifting and nothing was done.”

De Serpa recalls working with Theresa Ann Bond, a Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District trustee and former District 5 supervisor hopeful, to contact FEMA through the U.S. Department of Education to get money for the Mountain Charlie residents to help with transportation, as well as funding for the flood-prone Paulsen Road in Watsonville, which is the type of collaboration she would seek to continue. She also pushed back on Brown’s suggestion to push off repairs for some “red roads,” because many of those pose a major public safety issue.

The two disagreed further on the divisive Coastal Rail Trail project, which seeks to build a bicycle and pedestrian trail next to the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line with the hopes of introducing a passenger rail service along the rail line. The project has been a flashpoint in local politics over the past few years.

De Serpa said she is skeptical about the affordability and cost of the project, and worries about some of the ripple effects it could have on locals, including some mobile home residents who might need to relocate or move their homes to make room for the project and some 23 bridges that could require replacement to accommodate a train. She added that she is concerned that the trail will take far too long to build at the current rate of the project.

“I’d like to be able to use it now, and I think everybody should be able to use it now. At this rate, I’ll be in my 70s before it ever gets developed,” she said, adding that she would still vote for rail if it makes sense.

Brown said there is a lot of misinformation and fear around the project that is dividing the community, and that the trail is in progress with 18 miles either funded, under construction, completed, or in the environmental impact report phase. She also said that most mobile home encroachments entail only a fence, shed or other accessory structure. 

Brown admitted that the project is a “huge undertaking that requires a long-term commitment and a lot of funding” and said that it’s likely the county will need to reach out to voters within several years to ask if they would support a tax to fund operations and maintenance of the rail.

“Sometimes we have to grit our teeth and say, ‘Let’s do this,’ because it matters for the future,” she said.

De Serpa pointed to a $34 million grant the county received for transportation projects via state Senate Bill 125, and said the money should have been used for roads instead of transit projects. Brown cited a December 2023 RTC report that stated the money was not taken from roads, and was specifically earmarked for transit. Further, she said that the county could not have legally spent the money on roads because it was specifically given for transit operations.

The candidates also had somewhat differing opinions on “managed retreat,” a process to relocate community infrastructure away from coastlines and other environmentally sensitive areas. De Serpa said that while she understands what managed retreat tries to achieve, many of the homes in the Seacliff area implicated in managed-retreat scenarios are vacation rentals — and the county’s general fund relies on the county’s transient occupancy tax.

“I think it’s very important to maintain those coastal properties as long as possible,” she said. “I understand that with climate change, at some point, that will not be possible. But I think for now, we should help coastal homeowners protect their properties.”

Brown, meanwhile, sees it as a more “case by case” issue. She said that coastal armoring can often lead to the loss of beaches, and raises an equity issue: “Are we only allowing those who can afford to protect their homes to have their homes protected?” She also discussed “hazard mitigation plans” that look at neighborhood-specific solutions to coastal threats. That means some neighborhoods might be more suitable for coastal armoring, and others for managed retreat.

“It’s about smart development, protecting public infrastructure, and looking at these options and opportunities in a way that ensures equity and the ability to maintain our natural resources,” she said.

In that same vein, the candidates discussed the $4.8 million fine the California Coastal Commission levied against a Rio Del Mar homeowners association for privatizing a coastal walkway that the state considered public. Brown would strongly advocate for the path to be reopened to the public, and takes issue with “the fact that it’s being closed by a small number of wealthy property owners.”

De Serpa said she is fairly indifferent toward the issue, and thinks the money spent on legal fees could be much better utilized elsewhere, like roads. She added that her daughter, who uses a wheelchair, did not get any more coastal access from the road being public, pushing back on Brown’s argument that the closing of the road raises Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility issues.

In the District 5 forum, both candidates vowed to shake up the status quo if and when they get to the supervisors dais. Brown said she has already done so in Capitola, and hopes to stay inventive should she win the District 2 seat, but “there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when things are going right.”

“I am interested in finding innovative solutions and ensuring that we’re continuing to make decisions that improve the quality of life for our residents,” she said. “Sometimes that means shaking up the status quo and doing things differently.”

De Serpa acknowledged that both she and Brown are “seasoned” in elected office, but said she is not “beholden to the Santa Cruz Machine.”

“I have critical thinking skills, complex problem-solving skills, and I love helping people,” she said. “That’s what you’re going to get – somebody who knows how to get things done and who does it with compassion and equity.”

Brown, who has been endorsed by a number of local officials and party committees, pushed back one final time on the “Santa Cruz Machine” comment, saying that one needs good relationships with community organizations and officials to get things done, which is something she can bring to the table. That was something De Serpa didn’t push back on: “I agree with that completely.”

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