Quick Take
District 4 Santa Cruz County supervisor candidate Elias Gonzales spoke with Lookout about his campaign and how he’ll approach issues including affordability, immigration and battery storage.
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Running for political office had never been in the cards for Elias Gonzales. He was content supporting the community through his various roles in the nonprofit sector and, more importantly, spending time with his family.
“I’ve been in all these spaces, and it’s never been like, ‘Oh, I want to be in there,’” Gonzales said. “I was happy being a dad and that’s the title I only really cared about.”
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Gonzales, 48, said he was approached by several community members with the idea of running for the District 4 seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, which represents most of the Pajaro Valley, Watsonville and Interlaken.
After hearing their concerns and desire for change, Gonzales was convinced. “It’s not about us versus them, especially now, it can’t be that. It has to be us coming together,” he said.
Gonzales is one of three candidates vying to represent South County on the board of supervisors. The others are incumbent Felipe Hernandez and longtime community leader and former journalist Tony Nuñez. The primary election is June 2.
Since there are more than two candidates for the South County supervisor seat, the Nov. 3 general election will serve as a runoff between the top two vote-getters, unless one candidate wins a majority of the primary vote.
Gonzales currently serves as the associate director of movement building for Hollister-based nonprofit Youth Alliance, which provides support services for students and their families, and sits on Santa Cruz County’s juvenile justice delinquency prevention commission. He’s previously worked at Watsonville-based Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County and MILPA (Motivating Individual Leadership for Public Advancement).
Anxiety around immigration enforcement remains high in South County. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have visited Watsonville at least 23 times since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term; nine of those visits occurred within the first two months of 2026.
Gonzales told Lookout that one of his priorities is to build a trusting relationship with community members so that he becomes a person they can come to for support.
“We could do everything we want up here as a county, but if we don’t have a relationship with our community and there is no trust there, it doesn’t matter what we do up here,” he said.
Last month, the board of supervisors approved an ordinance barring federal immigration officials from using county property for enforcement purposes, but Gonzales says the new law is not enough.
“That didn’t stop people from being scared. That didn’t change most stuff for the common person,” he said. “That will still have [ICE] come in, that will still have their job, they’ll park in the street. Who cares? They don’t need a parking lot to park in.”
An ordinance is a good first step, but more needs to be done, he said. Gonzales thinks the county should create a legal defense fund for its undocumented community. Most of these residents are working in the fields, he said, and are some of the hardest-working people, and yet there isn’t enough support for them.
Additionally, the county should do more to support organizations such as the Watsonville Law Center and Community Action Board, which provide legal services to the community, Gonzales said.
Over the past year and a half, South County residents have been pushing back on county officials over the development of an ordinance that would regulate battery storage facilities, specifically a project being proposed by Massachusetts-based developer New Leaf Energy just outside Watsonville.
Gonzales is a proponent of renewable energy and said he understands the reasoning behind the state’s mandate to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2045. However, when it comes to the proposed battery storage facility on 90 Minto Rd., he asks: Why Watsonville?
He’s taken a hard stance against the project, especially after the January 2025 fire in Moss Landing and learning the way that such fires are handled is simply to let the batteries burn. “That’s not an option for me. That’s not an option for our communities,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales worries the county or even the City of Watsonville — which would need to respond to a fire due to proximity — are not fully prepared if a fire were to break out. He’s also concerned that the county fairgrounds, which is a designated evacuation site, are just on the other side of College Lake from the proposed storage facility and would not be safe if a major incident occurs.
“We have to do more,” he said. “Hearing the concerns from the community, we are hearing the concerns. Let’s include those concerns here, and see what we can do collectively to find that win-win scenario.”
An issue Gonzales knows intimately is the lack of affordability in Santa Cruz County. Following budget cuts at MILPA, Gonzales lost his job and had to move in with family.
“Most of us are a few paychecks away from being homeless. I’m no different,” he said. “I lost my house, I lost my job, and I think that’s just the reality.”
Gonzales told Lookout that if nothing is done to address the rising cost of living, people will have no choice but to move out of the area.
“We do live in one of the most expensive areas in the United States,” Gonzales said. “How can we work together? How do we look at rent ordinances? How do we look at just having those conversations?”
He suggests putting more emphasis on vocational and apprenticeship programs, and encouraging the younger generation to explore different career paths. That aligns with another issue he’s passionate about: investing in youth.
“We have young people hanging out at Target, and that’s what they do for fun,” he said. There needs to be more programs and activities for the younger generation to engage in,” Gonzales said. He thinks investing in the younger generation could also lead to a reduction in crime and increased public safety.
“That’s what the platform is: securing our future,” he said. “We’re going to make decisions today to impact the future of our next seven generations, through affordability, to do that for the community and through safety.”
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