Election Week drags on
Day 6 of Santa Cruz County’s Election Week should offer certainty in some races as County Clerk Tricia Webber expects to add at least 15,000 ballots to the countywide count Monday afternoon.
This would bring the countywide voter turnout to nearly 122,000, or roughly 72%, considerably lower than Webber’s early prediction of a turnout in the mid-80s. Webber told Lookout on Monday morning she was unsure how many ballots were left to sort through. State law mandates the clerk accept any vote-by-mail ballots through 8 p.m. on Tuesday, as long as they were placed in the mail by Nov. 5 at 8 p.m.
In the race for District 5 Santa Cruz County supervisor, where voter turnout has reached 65.2% thus far, Monica Martinez holds a wide 13.3-point lead over her opponent, Christopher Bradford. In Capitola, which has had a similar turnout, Gerry Jensen and Melinda Orbach also hold comfortable leads for the two open city council seats, as do incumbent Donna Lind and newcomers Steve Clark and Krista Jett in the race for three seats on Scotts Valley City Council.
But there are closer races where Monday’s ballot drop could reverse fates, and I’m watching three in particular. Since the March primary election, few have attempted to predict the outcome in the race for District 2 Santa Cruz County supervisor; only that it would be close. As of Friday’s returns, with a roughly 64% turnout so far, Kim De Serpa leads Capitola Mayor Kristen Brown by just 538 votes out of more than 23,700 cast.
The city of Santa Cruz’s Measure Z, the proposed 2-cents-per-fluid-ounce distribution tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, was similarly difficult to predict, and the race remains tight. With 24,187 ballots counted so far, about 65% turnout, support has outweighed opposition by only 589 votes.
Lastly, incumbent Jimmy Dutra, whose reelection campaign for District 6 Watsonville City Council seemed threatened in September after he was found liable in a child sexual-abuse lawsuit, leads former city councilmember Trina Coffman-Gomez by 149 votes. Turnout in that race hasn’t yet surpassed 50%, so we will be watching how Monday’s ballot drop moves the needle for that seat.
OF NOTE
After Trump’s comeback, local Republicans are ready to come out of hiding: Leading up to Election Day and after, I spent time with Republicans and Trump supporters in Santa Cruz County to gauge their hopes for the next four years and get a better sense of how it has been to live as a conservative in Santa Cruz County, California, a particularly blue enclave within a particularly blue state.
What I found was a group feeling empowered by Tuesday’s results to emerge from the local political margins. Paired with that fresh optimism, I also heard some embrace Trump’s attacks on undocumented immigrants, transgender people and vaccines, as well as talk of the so-called “deep state.”
“I lived through eight years of Obama, I lived through Biden, you’re going to live through Trump,” Mike Lelieur said as an offer of advice to his neighbors who voted against the former president. “He might surprise you. With Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his team, he might just surprise the heck out of you.”
Bomb threat slows Santa Cruz County’s ballot count: My colleague Max Chun reports that the Santa Cruz County Elections Department had to evacuate “for the better part of the day on Saturday” after receiving a bomb threat. According to County Clerk Tricia Webber, Santa Cruz is just one of many California counties that received similar threats during the tallying process.
POINTS FOR PARTICIPATION
Coastal Commission hears appeal on Santa Cruz’s street sweeping program: When the California Coastal Commission meets on Thursday, agency staff will recommend the commission turn down an appeal from local homelessness advocates against a pilot street sweeping program proposed by the City of Santa Cruz. The program, which comes with a tow-away threat for people who don’t move their cars on sweeping days, drew instant criticism from advocates who claimed the program targets unhoused people living in their cars.
Capitola City Council to finalize zoning code changes: On Thursday, the Capitola City Council will take a final vote on a series of land use amendments, including updating the city’s density bonus program to align with state law, and allowing office uses in commercial zones. The city will also vote on whether to allow retail cannabis shops in certain commercial zones along 41st Avenue.
City councils in Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz, and the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, return next week.
ONE GREAT READ
“The Lanyard,” a poem by Billy Collins
Amidst the aggravated news cycle of the past week, I offer you a warm hug.
“If you want to write about a topic that’s rather large,” former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins told a San Francisco crowd in 2008, “you choose, kind of, an image as a point of entry rather than taking on the topic in a frontal way.”
Collins then goes on to read his poem “The Lanyard,” which somehow dances atop a deep well of meaning with humor and gratitude. Light, yet weighty, comical but dramatic. As Dame Prue Leith might tell an amateur baker on her show, this poem is “a little triumph.”