Initial tallies bring some surprises across Santa Cruz County’s elections

Election Day in California has turned into Election Week with the advent of ubiquitous vote-by-mail ballots and the tedious verify-and-tally process. However, there is much to glean from the returns counted thus far. 

As of Wednesday, 57.4% of the county’s 168,248 registered voters’ ballots had been counted. Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber said her “fingers are crossed” that the county ends up with a voter turnout in the mid-80s, as she predicted last week. Her office received 35,000 vote-by-mail ballots on Election Day, with about 1,000 more trickling in by midday Wednesday. The clerk can continue receiving vote-by-mail ballots through Nov. 12, as long as the ballots were received and postmarked by the post office by Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. 

The early tallies have carried their own dose of drama, though there is still room for fates to change. The soda tax proposed in Santa Cruz, Measure Z, holds narrow support, and the race for District 2 Santa Cruz County supervisor is neck-and-neck. An incumbent city councilmember and former mayor in Capitola appears headed for ouster, while Jimmy Dutra, the incumbent Watsonville city councilmember who was found liable in a child sexual abuse lawsuit in September, leads in his reelection bid.   

The future of the county supervisors 

Two of the most-watched races in Santa Cruz County were for open seats on the board of supervisors, with each campaign promising a fresh voice in place of retiring, three-term incumbent supervisors.   

District 5, encompassing the lion’s share of the Santa Cruz Mountains, from Scotts Valley up to Boulder Creek and down to the city of Santa Cruz’s northern edge, featured Monica Martinez, chief executive of nonprofit Encompass Community Services, against Christopher Bradford, a community organizer and information technology professional at Joby Aviation. Just two years ago, the board of supervisors was run by five white men. That has since been shaken up, but Martinez, a queer Latino woman, and Bradford, a Black man, each carried an opportunity for the board to further broaden its diversity.  

As of Wednesday, Martinez held a comfortable 56.3% to 43.4% lead over Bradford, or about 2,508 votes. So far, 23,015 ballots have been cast by District 5 voters, a 58.9% turnout. Notably, nearly 15% of District 5 ballots counted thus far did not cast a vote for supervisor. These are counted as “undervotes,” and 15% is an unusually high number. It speaks to something Tony Russomanno, communications director for the local Democratic Central Committee, reported seeing during his time at polling places this year. 

“I’ve been volunteering at polling places for the last 15 elections, and I’ve never seen so many people say they were voting for just one race,” the one race being the presidential election, Russomanno told Lookout this week. “This struck me as maybe indicating that we were getting a lot of people who don’t usually vote.” 

If this race were to reach an 80% turnout, the District 5 supervisor contest could expect another 7,032 votes, of which Bradford would need more than 68% to win. 

The race for the District 2 county supervisor seat, representing Mid-County from Capitola to Pajaro Dunes, remains a toss-up between Pajaro school district trustee Kim De Serpa and Capitola Mayor Kristen Brown. De Serpa — at 50.7% — maintains a narrow, 445-vote lead over Brown — 48.3%. So far, 22,038 ballots have been cast by District 2 voters, a 59.1% turnout. However, the race has a similarly high number of undervotes, about 14%. 

Andrew Goldenkranz, chair of the local Democratic Central Committee, said although Democrats endorsed Brown, the general feeling was that District 2 couldn’t lose with either candidate. The De Serpa-Brown runoff also guarantees that a woman will sit on the board of supervisors for the first time since Ellen Pirie’s retirement in 2012. 

If this race were to reach an 80% turnout, the District 2 supervisor race could expect another 6,744 votes, of which Brown would need 54.7% to win. 

City council contests begin taking shape

Three city council races were also competitive on Tuesday. In Watsonville, incumbent District 6 City Councilmember Jimmy Dutra held his lead over former councilmember Trina Coffman-Gomez, 54.1% to 45.4%. The lead by Dutra, who all but disappeared from the public eye after he was found liable in a sexual assault lawsuit in September, has surprised many. However, he leads by only 120 votes with more ballots to be counted. 

In Scotts Valley, the picture around three open city council seats is beginning to grow clearer. Donna Lind, the lone incumbent in a seven-person field, leads all candidates with 22.8% of the vote. Former Santa Cruz police officer Steve Clark sits in second with 18.9%, and nurse practitioner Krista Jett remains in third with 17.8%. The top three hold a comfortable margin over fourth place, Corky Roberson, who garnered 11.9% of the vote so far. 

Of the 5,634 Scotts Valley ballots tallied thus far, 4,566, or 81%, undervoted the city council race, meaning they either didn’t choose a candidate or chose fewer than three candidates. 

In the race for two open seats on the Capitola City Council, incumbent city councilmember and former mayor Margaux Morgan appears headed for defeat. Local business owner Gerry Jensen and nurse practitioner Melinda Orbach seem poised for inaugural terms on the city council dais. Jensen, a small business owner who launched an unsuccessful city council bid in 2022, had 34.7% of the popular vote in a field of four candidates, and Orbach, a newcomer, had 28.4%. Morgan has garnered only 19.8% of the vote. 

Over 55% of the 4,243 ballots cast in Capitola undervoted the city council contest. 

Measuring the bonds and measures 

Measure Z, the high-profile soda tax proposal in the city of Santa Cruz that attracted a monied opposition and more than $1.7 million in spending, held 51.6% support as of Wednesday, leading by only 668 votes. 

The city of Santa Cruz reported a 58.1% turnout of its 37,018 registered voters after initial tallies. If turnout were to reach 80% in the city, the Measure Z contest could expect another 7,778 votes, of which proponents would need 45.7% to win. 

Measure Z attracted an expensive attack campaign, led by the American Beverage Association, which spent nearly $1.7 million in donations from Coke, Pepsi and Dr Pepper to defeat the tax. 

On Tuesday night, Santa Cruz City Councilmember Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, who helped lead the initiative for a 2-cents-per-fluid-ounce distribution tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, acknowledged that more ballots needed to be counted but said she was proud of the campaign. Kalantari-Johnson said the framing of the campaign as a battle between David and Goliath resonated with voters. 

Steve Maviglio, the well-known political consultant out of Sacramento leading the opposition camp, said the closeness of the race showed that “even in the most progressive communities in California, voters are standing up to a regressive tax that has never been shown to improve public health.”

If the tax passes, both sides expect a lengthy and expensive lawsuit to follow. 

The Yes on Q campaign declared victory Wednesday afternoon, having received 58.07% of the votes cast. If current voting trends hold, and the county sees an 80% voter turnout, “yes” would need only 29% of the remaining vote to win.

Measure Q, the Santa Cruz County Water and Wildfire Protection Initiative, asks voters to allow the county to collect a special parcel tax of $87 yearly until ended by voters, raising an estimated $7.3 million annually and fund a range of projects from protecting drinking water sources to preserving native wildlife. It also aims to “reduce catastrophic wildfire risks.”

The money raised would be distributed in a number of ways. A new county-administered grant program that the measure would create would distribute 40% of the funds, while 20% would go to incorporated cities for eligible projects, 20% would got to unincorporated parts of the county for eligible projects, and the final 20% would go to the Resource Conservation District and a land-stewardship partner for eligible projects on private lands that offer public access. Eligible projects range from groundwater recharge and trail restoration to forest management and controlling invasive species.

Measures X and Y, the Scotts Valley business tax and the Capitola sales tax, respectively, are well on their way to passing. X has received 71.89% of the vote, and Y has received 68.49% of the vote.

Fire district measures haven’t fared as well. Measures R and S, Central Fire District’s bond and Scotts Valley Fire District’s bond, respectively, have received only 56.31% and 61.24% of the vote. They need two-thirds, or 66.67%, voter approval to pass.

If California’s Proposition 5 is adopted, these measures would require only 55% voter approval, and both would be in a good position to pass. But Prop 5’s prospects of passing are dwindling, having received just 43.7% of the vote as of Wednesday evening. Prop 5 seeks to lower the voter approval threshold for local bonds for affordable housing, supportive housing and public infrastructure from 66.67% to 55%.

Fire protection district elections are a mixed bag at this point. The Aromas Tri-County Fire Protection District sees Michael Miller and Kevin Strottrup well on their way to securing victory for the two open seats, with 46.4% and 41.5% of the vote, respectively. Nazhat Parveen Sharma is far behind, with just 11.9% of the vote.

The Boulder Creek Fire Protection District race is still quite close. Currently, Robert Locatelli, Chris Currier and David Scruggs are poised to take the three open seats, with 29.73%, 24.81% and 23.29% of the vote, respectively. However, Vince Cortinas Sr. is not far from Scruggs, with 21.8% of the vote.

The crowded Felton Fire Protection District race, which sees seven candidates vying for three open seats, currently shows Mike Shults, Erica Schwanbeck and Doug Conrad in the lead with 18.43%, 17.24% and 15.8% of the vote, respectively. Judy Anderson is right on Conrad’s heels, though, with 14.79% of the vote.

In the Scotts Valley Fire Protection District race, Ron Whittle, Michael Weaver and Daron L. Pisciotta are all comfortably ahead in the race for three open seats. Whittle has received 30.02% of the vote, Weaver has received 22.85% of the vote, and Pisciotta has received 22.01% of the vote. The closest challenger is Philip Hover-Smoot, with just 14.92% of the vote.

School district measures were heading in various directions. Four school measures appeared to be on their way to success while three were falling just short. Bonny Doon School District, Lakeside Joint School District in Santa Clara County, Aromas-San Juan School District in San Benito County and Pajaro Valley Unified School District were on their way to victories, while Soquel Union Elementary School District, Live Oak School District and Scotts Valley Unified School District were not.

The Santa Cruz County Elections Department plans to release the next tally of votes Thursday at about 4 p.m.

Hillary Ojeda contributed to this report.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.