District 2 Santa Cruz County supervisor: Kim De Serpa defeats Kristen Brown

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 5:52 p.m. — Social worker and Pajaro Valley Unified School District board member Kim De Serpa has defeated Capitola Mayor Kristen Brown for the District 2 seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, Lookout has determined.

After the final tally of votes released by the county elections department Tuesday afternoon, De Serpa’s lead over Brown finished at 722 votes (12,823 to 12,101, or 51% to 48%).

“I’m just so pleased that the community has elected me for this office,” said De Serpa who began her run for the District 2 seat more than 15 months ago. Of the job before on the Board of Supervisors, she said, “I’m under no pretense that this is going to be easy. But I am a fierce advocate for people, and will do my best to make sure that District 2 gets its fair share always.”

Brown released a statement Tuesday: “Running for Supervisor has been one of the most challenging and motivating experiences of my life, and an absolute honor. While the results weren’t what we hoped for, I will of course respect the outcome of the election. It was a close race, as evidenced by the less than 3% gap between myself and my opponent. I’ve already reached out to congratulate her and wish her the best as she takes on this important role.”

In a statement released to the community acknowledging her victory, De Serpa said “With my 15 years on the school board and Kristen Brown’s 8 years on the Capitola City Council, this race featured two candidates well-prepared for governance. I want to honor and commend Kristen for her dedication and desire to serve District 2.”

County Clerk Tricia Webber’s office said Tuesday’s update was the last and the results are now official. All totaled countywide,136,505 votes have been counted.

“I am incredibly proud of the clean, honest, and fact-based campaign we ran,” Brown continued in the concession message emailed to Lookout. “I want to thank my supporters, volunteers, and everyone who believed in our vision for a stronger community. Though we came up short in this race, I remain committed to serving and advocating for our community as I have for the past 13 years.”

Brown and De Serpa finished first and second, respectively, in the March primary for the District 2 seat, which featured five candidates. Despite finishing the primary with a lower vote total, De Serpa outperformed Brown in fundraising for the race as of the most recent round of campaign finance reports in late October.

Brown, 36, worked as an aide in the office of U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (among her co-workers in Farr’s office was De Serpa’s mother, Nancy). She then ran for Capitola City Council in 2016, becoming the youngest woman to serve on the council in its history. Though Brown grew up in Tracy, just southwest of Stockton, her family roots are deep in Capitola, where both her parents grew up and her grandparents ran a coffee shop on the Esplanade.

De Serpa, 57, has worked for years as a social worker, bringing her skills and experience to bear with Child Protective Services, Hospice of Santa Cruz County and the neonatal intensive care unit at Dominican Hospital. She grew up in the Salinas Valley in a single-parent household after her father was killed in a car accident while she was a toddler.

District 2 covers a broad section of Santa Cruz County from Capitola Village and Aptos to parts of Watsonville and down the coast to the Monterey County line at Pajaro Dunes. It also contains Freedom and Corralitos to the Santa Clara County line in the Santa Cruz Mountains. 

The condition of the district’s roads emerged as a central issue of the campaign. De Serpa, who lives on Trout Gulch Road in Aptos, has made roads one of her top priorities, expressing her dismay at their condition and said that she would use Measure D and Measure X tax revenues to fix the roads. Brown talked about balancing priorities between the roads currently most in disrepair and those on the verge of being in disrepair. 

De Serpa and Brown were on opposite sides of the controversial Coastal Rail Trail project, with De Serpa skeptical about the proposed passenger rail service and Brown having advocated strongly for the project.

The two also differed when it came to what to do about a long-running legal dispute between the county the California Coastal Commission and a Rio Del Mar homeowners association over whether a coastal walkway is public or private property. Brown has said she would strongly advocate for the path to be reopened to the public, while De Serpa has said she thinks the money spent on legal fees could be better used elsewhere.

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