Quick Take
About three years after he wrapped up his second term as District 3 county supervisor, longtime Santa Cruz politico Ryan Coonerty returns to electoral politics with a run for Santa Cruz mayor in 2026. He previously held the mayor position in 2008 and 2011, when it was a ministerial, rotating term among city councilmembers.
Ryan Coonerty is running for Santa Cruz mayor in 2026, following two terms as county supervisor and a three-year hiatus from electoral politics.
“The complexity of the time that we’re in nationally and locally requires someone who has the skills, relationships and the understanding of this community,” he told Lookout. “I have that to my core. I was born and raised here, I’ve been in private business here, government, nonprofits and engaged in all aspects of this community.”
Coonerty is the first to declare his candidacy for Santa Cruz mayor; the filing period opened Monday and runs through March 6.
Before serving two terms as District 3 county supervisor, elected in 2014 and reelected in 2018, Coonerty, 51, was on the Santa Cruz City Council for nearly a decade, including stints as mayor in 2008 and 2011.
His family has been involved in local politics for years. His father, Neal, also served as a supervisor and city councilmember between the early 1990s and mid-2010s. In fact, Ryan succeeded Neal in 2014 as District 3 supervisor.
This time around, Coonerty will be running in Santa Cruz’s second election following the city’s switch to a directly elected mayor system and district-based elections in November 2022. Current Mayor Fred Keeley will not seek reelection, but has thrown his support behind Coonerty, along with some current and past councilmembers including Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, Renee Golder and Martine Watkins.
Coonerty said he’s been busy since he (temporarily) left politics at the end of his supervisorial term, despite plans to be less busy. He teaches law and government classes at UC Santa Cruz and the Panetta Institute for Public Policy at Cal State Monterey Bay, is the executive director of Leadership Santa Cruz County, co-hosts a political podcast called “An Honorable Profession,” and is an advisor to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who recently announced his bid for governor.
Coonerty said he decided to reenter local politics because he has “a lot to offer” with his knowledge and experience in government. Even so, he mulled over the idea for four or five months, and the biggest factor ended up being his family, and specifically, his children — a daughter who’s in her first year at Santa Cruz High School and a son in fifth grade. He said his children were “somewhat reluctantly” open to the idea.
“[My daughter] has four years left in the house, so I want to spend as much time with her as I possibly can,” he said.
Coonerty also said being the mayor of Santa Cruz was the best job he ever had. If elected, he said his platform would prioritize using data to inform both policy and city action and drive a “middle-class agenda.”
“In my experience, we spend a lot of resources on the very lowest-income populations, and then the highest-income folks are very well represented,” which leaves the people in between neglected by the city, he said. He would work to ensure public facilities and open spaces are safe, clean and well-maintained, while creating more jobs for people so that they can afford life in Santa Cruz.
Coonerty said the City of Santa Cruz needs a data dashboard to monitor how it’s performing on everything from the size of the unhoused population to crime rate to how many youth are enrolled in parks and recreation programs. “That way we can be really clear on where we are meeting our goals, where we’re not, and what we’re going to do to address them,” he said.
Coonerty said he has mixed feelings about the major developments under construction throughout the city. He said some appear out of place compared to the neighborhood, others activate an otherwise neglected part of the city, such as the RiverRow apartments on Front Street. The more affordable units, the better, he said.
“A ton of affordable housing projects going up means that those are families that can stay in our community,” he said. “So I’m willing to live with a design I don’t love because I know what it means to those families.”
Coonerty mentioned the development planned for the block of downtown where The Catalyst is, and recalled great times at the music venue throughout the years.
“We need to figure out how to maintain these cultural places that are critical to the quality of life in the community,” he said. “It’s going to be a long process to figure out what can and can’t happen there, but I do think it’s important that we not lose what makes Santa Cruz Santa Cruz.”
Coonerty also acknowledged that there are numerous vacant storefronts that need filling in downtown Santa Cruz. While working with the city’s economic development department to bring in pop-ups and local businesses, he thinks the city needs to be more proactive in selling itself and its story.
“The Santa Cruz brand is that we’re cool, innovative and the place everyone’s kids want to be from,” he said. “We have a vibrant tech culture and education system, but we have failed to tell ourselves and the outside world that story. When you do that, I think you’re going to attract investment, companies, and everything else.”
The city and county are currently in the process of trying to replace nonprofit Housing Matters’ homeless day services, which are poised to close at the end of March. Coonerty called these services “critical from a basic public health and humanitarian point of view,” but believes other cities in the county should pull more of their weight in providing replacement services, as he sees it as a countrywide issue.
“The city of Santa Cruz has borne the siting and cost of all the homeless services for most of the region for too long,” he said. “It is something that needs to be shared across every jurisdiction in our area. I want to have the conversation about providing day services, but also want to make sure it’s not all sited in the city of Santa Cruz and that the costs aren’t all borne by the city’s taxpayers.”
As anxiety around immigration enforcement remains high, the Santa Cruz City Council recently voted to exit its Flock Safety contract and stop using the company’s automated license plate readers. Coonerty said the council made the right decision, given the company’s violations of state law and multiple data breaches, but said he still believes the technology is useful.
“When you have a crime, whether it’s kids being abducted or a shooting, you want to have the ability to quickly find that vehicle,” he said. “So I do hope that there is an alternative that is in line with this community’s values.”
Above all, Coonerty said, if elected, he will look forward to having more freedom as a city leader, rather than a county supervisor, where he felt more like “an arm of the state.” He said he’s already out and about, talking with hundreds of people to garner support for his campaign.
“I’m trying to approach this on a grassroots level, and really have it come from the community as what we can do together,” he said. “That’ll be the basis of the campaign, and if that works out, the basis of the mayorship.”
The primary election is on June 2. If there are two or fewer candidates in the race, the primary vote count will dictate the winner. If there are more than two candidates, the general election on Nov. 3 will serve as a runoff between the top two vote-getters.
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