Letter to the editor: We are lucky to have Monica Martinez as new supervisor

I wanted to respond to the “Monica Martinez should not be supervisor” letter sent in by Tony Crane of Aptos.

During the recent campaign for Santa Cruz County supervisor, there was misinformation being spread about Monica on social media about misuse of funds and coverups that simply wasn’t true. They were all either false or misunderstood or presented out of context. I feel like Tony’s letter is more of the same. There just hasn’t been any proof in any of these allegations of wrongdoing on her part. To the contrary, Monica’s nine years as executive director of Encompass (the largest nonprofit in Santa Cruz County) have been highly productive in supplying resources and funding for at-risk people and families during times of extreme difficulty. 

I got to know Monica through volunteering to work on her campaign. I knew absolutely nothing about either candidate running for District 5 supervisor before this year. I chose to volunteer for Monica because I liked the way she was running her campaign – focused on the needs of the community from a positive outlook. I find her to be a trustworthy leader whom people enjoy working with. That comes from her years of experience and dedication to a standard of excellence that she holds herself accountable to.

From a financial perspective, she is used to working with large budgets, state-funded grants, allocating funds and seeing to it that things get accomplished in a timely manner.  Monica is an excellent listener and communicator with the skills and experience of working with numerous organizations and officials to implement programs and secure the means to move them forward. The long list of endorsements she earned from civic organizations, businesses and colleagues (including Lookout), speaks volumes to the quality of the working relationships she builds with people.

Bottom line, there’s not been any reason to doubt Monica’s honesty. She has the vision, skills and connections to be an outstanding supervisor and we are lucky to have someone like her representing District 5.

Penny Ellis

Boulder Creek