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Mark Stephens’ recent opinion piece argues that voters face a “political shell game” because four other candidates are running for Santa Cruz mayor along with the establishment-endorsed candidate, Ryan Coonerty.

But I wonder about Stephens’ concern. If the other candidates’ supposed “strategy” is, as he argues, “likely to strengthen Coonerty rather than weaken him,” it will be because voters see him as the strongest candidate.

Maybe the “larger issue” that Stephens mentions, about “transparency,” really concerns his own argument. He notes the critical issues facing Santa Cruz and rightly comments, “These issues deserve substantive debate, not tactical gamesmanship.” But he somehow fails to note that all five candidates have spoken substantively to the issues at voter forums. Did Stephens attend any of them?

There is a latent anxiety in his column that, assuming Coonerty wins a spot on the November ballot, he will have to campaign against a single other candidate. I cannot help but suspect a “tactical gamesmanship,” as he puts it, in his own column. It is a-not-completely-transparent effort to head off a fall election for mayor.

If Stephens did attend voter forums, he must recognize that all five candidates agree about the importance of key issues. Santa Cruz Local’s voter guide showcases that they disagree about how to address things like state housing mandates, managed homeless shelters, allowing small apartment buildings in single-family zoned neighborhoods and so on.

These issues indeed deserve full debate. We do not need condescension that lumps all candidates other than Coonerty into an undifferentiated blob.

I’m not concerned about a process that might “engineer a run-off.” To the contrary, if we really want a strong discussion of how Santa Cruz should move forward, voters should treat the June 2 election as a primary election, to decide which two candidates should face each other with a full-on debate in November, when there will be a larger voter turnout and thus a more inclusive decision. Democracy will have been served.

John Hall

Santa Cruz