Urgent push slows to uncertain crawl for Santa Cruz’s affordable housing ballot measure
The ambition to publicly compose a ballot measure to raise critical affordable housing dollars has been as fickle among city of Santa Cruz leaders as a California spring.
What at the outset was framed as an urgent, transparent and public process has sputtered out over the last year. The group leading the effort has not met since February. Outside of some who initially showed an interest, the broader public has been largely kept out of the conversation since the city held three open meetings more than a year ago.
Now, as the mid-summer heat settles over the city, the long-iced pursuit of the housing measure is beginning to thaw. Leaders close to the discussions say they are set to pick up in July. The broader community will be brought back into the fold sometime this fall, they say, and voters could be voting on an affordable housing financing measure sometime in 2025.
Or, possibly, 2026.
Those leading the conversation around the measure still don’t know for sure when voters will see the question on a ballot. What kind of tax the measure will attempt to impose remains a mystery, as does how, exactly, the city will use the money. More than a year since the community conversation around the housing measure began in earnest, the most important questions still have no concrete answers.
After such a public and urgent beginning, how did we get here?
OF NOTE
The uneven local impact of two Supreme Court decisions: The Supreme Court’s majority said local governments can criminalize people who sleep and camp on public property. In the city of Santa Cruz, the county’s unofficial epicenter for the unhoused community, officials said they didn’t expect the ruling to ripple into how the city approaches its houseless population — at least not yet. However, unhoused residents have expressed significant concerns about the ruling.
The court’s majority also invalidated the Sackler family and their company, Purdue Pharma’s, $6 billion settlement for its role in the opioid crisis. The court said that, contrary to the settlement agreement, individual members of the Sackler family could not be shielded from future lawsuits related to their marketing of the highly addictive OxyContin. The $6 billion meant to be dispersed to opioid victims and government agencies has now been replaced with a fat question mark.
The ruling does not impact the $26 million in opioid settlement funding Santa Cruz County expects to receive over the next 18 years, as none of that money comes from the Purdue settlement. However, the county, with other jurisdictions, does have active litigation against Purdue Pharma, which names individual members of the Sackler family. That litigation now takes on a different shape as the sides try to hammer out a new deal.
LOOKING AHEAD
So long, Puerta de la Cruz?: It has been years since the city of Santa Cruz had any formal communication with officials from one of its sister cities, Puerta de la Cruz, Venezuela. The U.S. government has also issued an active warning against citizens traveling to Venezuela. Santa Cruz’s Sister Cities Committee will meet tonight at 7 p.m. to decide whether to retire its official relationship with the coastal Venezuelan city.
Joby wants an Academy in Watsonville: When the Watsonville City Council meets on Tuesday, it will vote on an airport lease with a new Joby Aviation subsidiary, Joby Aviation College Inc. According to its website, the subsidiary is essentially an aviation academy aimed at training people interested in eventually flying one of Joby’s flying taxis, or, electric vertical take-off and landing (EVTOL) vehicles. The city has been involved in litigation over its airport in recent months, after the city council voted to begin the process of shutting down one of its two runways.
Capitola looks at plastic enforcement: In an otherwise slow week on the civics scene (as one expects during July’s summer recess), the city of Capitola’s Commission on the Environment will meet on Wednesday to discuss ways to tighten enforcement of its bans on single-use plastics such as straws and bags.
Future Scotts Valley council members could pay for their own health insurance: It seems most governments are feeling the budget squeeze this year as federal pandemic funds dry up and the state government navigates another multi-billion-dollar deficit. In Scotts Valley, the city council will gather for an emergency meeting on Wednesday to talk about, among other things, pulling back on healthcare benefits for city council members elected after Nov. 1, a move that would save the city an estimated $200,000 per year.
WEEKLY NEWS DIET
Local: After nearly a decade of static, and dozens of requests for Lookout’s food writer Lily Belli to figure out what’s going on at the old Wienerschnitzel lot on Soquel Avenue, Lily reports that the lot could soon turn into a long-envisioned beer garden.
Golden State: A few weeks ago in this section, I wrote about how the Los Angeles Unified School District voted to ban cell phones on its campuses. The Los Angeles Times now reports that, after an initial and vehement objection from students, some are wondering whether they might actually need some relief from their cell phones. Reporter Jaweed Kaleem has that story on some rather impressive moments of self-reflection from local teens.
National: In its first round of voting, France appeared headed toward a National Assembly led by Marine Le Pen’s far-right party. But the second round flipped that fate on its head and gave a plurality to the country’s far-left. As Roger Cohen reports for the New York Times, France evaded a far-right government but ended up in a far more complicated situation.
ONE GREAT READ
President Joe Biden’s letter to Congressional Democrats
It seems President Joe Biden was reserving all of his vigor not for the debate stage but for his vehement rejections of calls to step aside. In a letter published early Monday, Biden told Congressional Democrats that he is staying in the race because he believes he holds the best shot at defeating Donald Trump.
If only George Orwell were alive to judge the rhetorical gymnastics and logistical leaps on display in this letter. Biden hitches his reasoning onto the results of the recent primary election, in which Democratic voters overwhelmingly supported a second term and no other candidates launched a substantial campaign to unseat him. Perhaps Biden forgot that the American people, and any potential Democratic challengers, made those decisions without understanding the full reality of the president’s mental and physical fitness. Throughout his presidency, Biden has rarely addressed the American people without a teleprompter. It’s not a stretch to say this has been by design.
What do you think of the letter? Do you believe Biden can not only defeat Trump, but lead the United States of America through the next four years? As always, I’d love to hear from you.