Five takeaways from three nights of candidate forums
If this election season has felt a bit rushed, that’s because it has been, at least in California. In 2017, state lawmakers decided they wanted California to be more relevant in selecting presidential candidates, and voted to move its primary from June to Super Tuesday in March. March was the month for Californians in 2020, as it will be in 2024.
Local races and ballot measures have also been pushed up to March, which means the new year marked the beginning of crunch time for local news outlets like Lookout that are covering the elections.
One of the aspects that makes Lookout’s election coverage stand out over the past two cycles has been our in-person candidate forums. Since Jan. 22, we’ve held seven on-stage panels for six open city and county seats, and one local measure. The forums wrapped up last Thursday; we learned a lot.
We heard a lot of ideas, issue diagnoses and commitments, all while getting a better sense of the people asking us to vote them into power. In a story published today, I wrote about five key themes that rose to the top during these discussions, with a focus on the seven open seats: Santa Cruz County supervisor Districts 1, 2 and 5, and Santa Cruz City Council Districts 1, 2, 3 and 5.
And if you want to catch up on any of the forums you missed, you can watch the videos on our YouTube page.
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Of Note
Assemblymember ailments: Assemblymember Dawn Addis, whose District 30 crawls up the Central Coast from San Luis Obispo to Capitola and Live Oak, is on medical leave for a “couple of weeks” after she had a mass removed from her stomach last week. According to Addis, the mass was not cancerous, which was the initial concern after she underwent testing for severe stomach pain in December.
Santa Cruz Together announces its slate: Santa Cruz Together, the highly influential group in city of Santa Cruz politics, has announced its picks for the March city council election. They want Gabriela Trigueiro in District 1, Sonja Brunner in District 2, Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson for District 3 and Susie O’Hara in District 5. Since it formed to fight the rent control measure in 2018, Santa Cruz Together has had outsized influence in local elections.
Don Lane maintains his double endorsement: Endorsement season is coming to a close as the March primary draws near, with candidates boasting their lists of supporters. In the District 5 Santa Cruz City Council race between newcomers Joe Thompson and Susie O’Hara, one name shows up under both candidates: former mayor and Housing Santa Cruz County board chair Don Lane. Lane admitted it “is a little awkward” but defended his double endorsement. He said he committed to Thompson long before O’Hara entered the race, yet when O’Hara approached him for an endorsement, he couldn’t refuse. Lane said it’s a way of saying he supports both candidates. Others might say an endorsement of both is an endorsement of neither. However, Lane lives in District 4 and thus will not be required to make an ultimate endorsement at the ballot box.
Looking Ahead
Another appeal on High Street: Partnering with a local church near the UC Santa Cruz campus, developer New Way Homes has proposed a unique, 40-unit housing project, known as Peace Village, with nearly a quarter of the units reserved for low-income residents, as well as a separate co-living space that could offer more affordable rents. The project, approved first by the city’s zoning administrator in October, was appealed by neighbors to the planning commission in November, on account of traffic concerns and stormwater flow. The planning commission unanimously approved the project, but neighbors again appealed the decision. On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council is slated to vote on the appeal. If the city council greenlights the project, the neighbors would need the courts to intervene in order to stop it.
Elders get a county advocate against abuse: Using grant money from the state, the county district attorney’s office, with a vote by county supervisors on Tuesday, will hire a full-time employee to focus on serving elder crime victims for 2024. Depending on the performance of the position, the county could reapply for state money to fund the position for the next four years as well.
Delayed start to sea-level rise study: The county is preparing to embark on a sea-level rise vulnerability study that could set the trajectory for local policies on addressing coastal erosion and whether to continue armoring the coasts or adopt a managed-retreat policy. However, whether that analysis begins sooner or later will depend on a supervisors vote Tuesday. The county first has to hire a firm to begin the study, and only one firm threw its hat in the ring: Integral Consulting. On Jan. 30, Supervisors Manu Koenig and Bruce McPherson voted to restart the bidding process to attract more competition. Supervisors Justin Cummings and Felipe Hernandez voted to hire the lone firm and get the process started. Supervisor Zach Friend, who had been participating via phone during that meeting, left the call without notice, leaving the board in a 2-2 tie. The study and resulting policy recommendations for coastal management are a high-stakes affair for many in Friend’s district, which wraps in beachfront areas such as Aptos, Rio Del Mar, Seacliff, La Selva and Pajaro Dunes.
AT&T wants out: AT&T is asking the California Public Utilities Commission if it can quit its responsibility as the telephone carrier of last resort, a role it has held since 1996 that requires it to provide landline telephone service in many rural communities, including areas in Santa Cruz County. AT&T says its landline customer base fell 89% between 2000 and 2021, and that it wants to focus on broadband and mobile access. However, no company has stepped up to replace AT&T as the carrier of last resort, which could leave many people in rural communities without telecommunications service. People won’t lose their landlines, but new landline accounts could not be set up. On Tuesday, the county supervisors are scheduled to vote on whether to send a letter to the CPUC objecting to AT&T’s proposal.
Live Oak, Pleasure Point, and Capitola will soon get their share of bike share: BCycle, the purveyor of the bike-share program seen in places like the city of Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz campus, will expand to Capitola, Live Oak, Pleasure Point and Twin Lakes in March. Together, the four areas will receive 75 electric bicycles and 150 docking stations, according to a county announcement Monday.
Weekly News Diet
Local: Live Oak School District is looking at a future of budget cuts and, as my colleague Hillary Ojeda reports, likely layoffs. The financial situation is a “crisis,” according to one teacher. Many district employees concerned about their and the district’s fate showed up at a school board meeting last week.
Golden State: Crime rates across California are decreasing, yet, in Oakland, crime is surging. So much so that last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom decided the state needed to get involved, and sent 120 California Highway Patrol officers to the East Bay as part of a public safety crackdown. Darwin BondGraham of The Oaklandside has that story.
National: News from my home state, New Jersey: The city council in Newark, the state’s largest city, will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in school board elections. As it turns out, referendums passed in Berkeley and Oakland in 2016 and 2020, respectively, allowed 16-year-olds to cast ballots in school board elections, but the change hasn’t been implemented yet. I wonder how far we are from this kind of thing in Santa Cruz County?
One Great Read
The museum qualities of two San Francisco rent-controlled apartments by Michael Cabanatuan for the San Francisco Chronicle
Given the rich cultural history of both cities, I’d say San Francisco and Manhattan drum up the most curiosity in me when it comes to rent-controlled apartments: Who lives in them? How long have they been there? What do they look like? How much is rent? Rent control policies in places like these can be seen as a form of cultural maintenance; they ensure that the artists, the socialites, companies and the employees who help make a city worth living in are able to stay there as it grows in popularity and, thus, cost.
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Michael Cabanatuan was recently invited to tour the rent-controlled apartments of two late cultural figures who called the city home: author Herbert Gold and actor/stage manager/dresser Milt Commons. The apartments are akin to a time machine, taking all those who enter back to midcentury San Francisco apartment life, complete with archaic fittings, flourishes and furniture and, of course a looming question: Would people like Herbert Gold or Milt Commons be able to move to San Francisco today?