One city, four elections: Santa Cruz City Council Districts 1, 2, 3 and 5 candidates take forum stage

Lookout held its third forum of the 2024 election season Thursday evening — the final one before the March 5 primary. Santa Cruz City Council candidates for four of the six districts — those being Districts 1, 2, 3 and 5 — took the stage to discuss the biggest citywide issues on voters’ minds. Lookout Community Voices Editor Jody K. Biehl and Christopher Neely, Lookout’s politics and policy correspondent, moderated the debates.

The candidates shared their thoughts and positions on major Santa Cruz city issues like homelessness, the future of West Cliff, housing and Measure M, the citizen-led ballot initiative about building height.

District 1

District 1 is situated in northeast Santa Cruz, encompassing the DeLaveaga area and bounded by Water Street to the south and River Street to the west. Its candidates, water department engineering technician David Tannaci and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County executive director Gabriela Trigueiro, both represent fresh faces to the district seat.

Tannaci and Trigueiro have years of experience as essential workers, and each said they feel strongly about supporting working families and underrepresented city residents. Tannaci said that recruitment and retention for city departments is extremely important, as is including all kinds of people in finding solutions, because the city cannot make solutions for everyone if it doesn’t hear from everyone.

Trigueiro said her experience in equity and nonprofit work as well as youth development has led her to a commitment to amplifying the voices of vulnerable communities, adding that the resiliency of essential workers should be acknowledged and protected.

Both Tannaci and Trigueiro noted that Santa Cruz County is the most expensive rental market in the country as of 2023. The availability of any housing, much less affordable housing, is low. The City of Santa Cruz Measure M — the ballot initiative aimed at limiting height and increasing the proportion of subsidized units in large development projects from 20% to 25% — is the latest measure to center on affordable housing development.

Tannaci at first declined to say how he would vote on Measure M, calling it a “personal matter.” Later, he said that he had not yet decided how to vote. However, he said that if elected, he would work to meet the local housing needs no matter how the measure’s vote ends up. 

Trigueiro, on the other hand, said she intends to vote “no” on Measure M, adding that more housing is vitally needed locally.

“We’re going to need about five times the housing built from the previous eight years,” she said. “It is going to be a bit of whiplash at times to get to that place, but I don’t think that Measure M is written in a way that truly supports the community.”

When it comes to the Downtown Plan Expansion, the city’s vision for building 1,600 new housing units south of Laurel Street, Trigueiro said she would be open to negotiations with developers on increasing the height and density of the buildings in order to ensure the housing actually gets built: “If it takes going further up in height, then it takes going further up.”

Tannaci also said it’s more important to commit to developers that want to build in the community, rather than those that simply want to make profits, “because they’re actually committed to the process of generating new housing and affordable housing units.”

Both candidates spoke to the lack of child care in the area. Trigueiro mentioned that her son has been on a waitlist for after-school care at a local elementary school for two years, and that she would like to expand access to mentoring programs and include the same types of programs at new affordable housing developments.

Tannaci said that finding a consistent source of child care funding is of the utmost importance, and it’s something the city council has the ability to do. 

As for policies they would like to introduce should they be elected, Trigueiro said canceling rental application fees, proposing a universal bilingual rental application, and pooling the city’s parent-teacher association money to spread funds more equally across city schools are her biggest goals. 

Tannaci reiterated the need to improve recruitment and retention of city staff, expanding homeless services and expanding multimodal transportation, including cycling and walking paths.

District 2

District 2 is the southeast section of Santa Cruz, including the Seabright neighborhood and bounded by Water Street to the north and Front Street to the west. Incumbent Sonja Brunner declined Lookout’s invitation to participate in the forum, but challenger Hector Marin made an appearance.

Marin had previously run for city council in 2022, but in District 4. Now living in District 2, he said he was unjustly evicted and his rent was raised by $500 without reason. Given his housing experience, he said he is a big proponent of tenant protections and building more housing, including the possibility of teacher housing developments.

Marin said he intends to vote “yes” on Measure M, mostly on the grounds that there are too many high-rate housing units in planning and construction and too few affordable units.

“We do need housing at all levels, but we also need to ensure that we have housing for the low- and very low-income brackets,” he said, adding that building more higher-priced units tends to push out people of color.

When asked if he would be open to negotiating increasing building heights or lowering the affordability threshold to encourage more housing construction, Marin said his main concern is hearing what the people in his district want. To do that, he envisions a citizens assembly where each neighborhood could discuss and agree on how much and what kind of housing each area needs.

He said he is pleased that the city’s homeless population decreased in 2023’s point-in-time count, but that it was an effort of the entire community. He equated the city council’s homelessness response to a child lying about eating their vegetables, but actually just hiding them.

“We gotta have more creative, innovative solutions to homelessness, and not just criminalize folks,” he said, adding that he’d like to see more transparency when it comes to how the city uses taxpayer dollars and “reallocating it once we know specifically where that funding is going.”

Marin said he’s a strong supporter of both rail and trail, as it could connect North County and South County to form a much more united county. He also spoke to the importance of involving young people in electoral politics.

As for specific policies he would like to pursue, Marin said that citizens assemblies, making sure undocumented people can vote, and a more transparent homelessness emergency plan budget are his biggest concerns.

District 3

District 3 is an oddly shaped district on the Westside that splits the Circles neighborhood and continues along Bay Street and part of Meder Street. It is bounded by Moore Creek to the west and Center Street to the east. Incumbent Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson seeks a second term, and challenger Joy Schendledecker looks to break into an elected seat.

District 3 holds one of Santa Cruz’s defining features: West Cliff Drive. The iconic coastal road has been through a lot over the past year, with erosion threatening parts of the pedestrian path and even the roadway. The city is putting together a 50-year vision for West Cliff Drive that could include anything from maintaining the status quo to turning the area into a park. Schendledecker said that while the federally funded repairs of the past year have worked so far, it isn’t likely to be a sustainable solution. She spoke to the fact that there is infrastructure like sewer and gas lines under the road that will need to be moved.

“We need to be planning for that. It’s not a popular thing to say because it’s expensive, time-consuming and disruptive,” she said, adding that she supports turning the street into a temporary one-way road or otherwise limiting vehicle access to certain parts. “There are neighborhood impacts and we need to address those, and I think that’s something that we can start now.”

Kalantari-Johnson acknowledged that community polling data strongly suggests that Santa Cruzans prefer a one-way street, but neighborhood traffic impacts need to be taken seriously. She said that she has engaged with nearby residents to prepare for council action this spring.

“I’m listening to community members, looking at the science and learning from other coastal communities so that we can make the best decision to preserve this real worldwide gem that we have in our community,” she said.

The two disagreed on Measure M. Kalantari-Johnson said she intends to vote “no” because she believes that it will take longer to build housing the area desperately needs, while Schendledecker said she will be voting “yes” because she thinks developers halting progress on projects due to rising interest rates and land-banking — holding onto vacant parcels of developable land — is what is truly slowing down housing development.

Kalantari-Johnson responded by pointing out that San Francisco tried to increase its inclusionary rate of affordable housing to 25% as well, but eventually had to cut it back to 15% — adding that “no housing equals no housing,” and the state can force the city’s hand should it not plan to build enough housing units.

Schendledecker said she isn’t convinced that an inclusionary rate hike will kill housing projects, and instead that introducing something like a community land trust could get the city more control over the land, and thus the housing stock.

“It’s important that people are really emotional over this issue, but the sky is not going to fall whichever way this goes,” she said. “I happen to lean more on the [yes] side because I feel like participatory democracy is so important.”

With regard to homelessness, Schendledecker said the city deserves some credit for the safe-parking program, which allows residents living in cars to stay overnight in city-owned parking lots, and she believes that it works. However, she said the city does not work cooperatively enough with the county to build a robust homelessness response program, and at times undermines their work.

Kalantari-Johnson said that in less than two years the city has made significant strides in getting people housed, with 121 in long-term housing, 165 in tent-based sleeping spaces and 776 served in shelters and safe parking. She also pointed to the city’s work to start a homelessness response team in less the same time frame.

“There is so much more we need to do, but we are doing way more than any other city in our state, and certainly in our county,” she said.

Schendledecker expressed disappointment with the oversized vehicle ordinance stakeholder meetings, saying the city is not taking residents’ recommendations seriously. She also expressed doubt over how well the city is tracking data on what has happened to unhoused residents since the ban on large vehicles parking on city streets overnight took effect in December.

In terms of specific policies, Schendledecker said she wants to introduce a citywide workforce agreement to work through labor negotiations and reduce wage theft, and to increase tenant protections.

Kalantari-Johnson said her main objectives for a second term would be continuing work on homelessness response, addressing the immediate and distant future of West Cliff Drive, and investing more money in youth services.

District 5

District 5 holds part of the UC Santa Cruz campus, and is bounded by High Street to the south and the Highway 1/Highway 17 junction. Civil engineer Susie O’Hara participated in the forum, while community organizer Joe Thompson was unable to attend due to a family emergency.

The forum started out with a personal question for O’Hara. Fired from her job after 16 years working for the city, O’Hara filed a claim against the city, saying that her firing was retaliation for publicly testifying that two former city councilmembers had created a hostile, toxic work environment. Her firing was later rescinded. She told the forum that that experience, in part, motivated her city council run.

“If you are receiving injustice, you should speak out, and that is true for all elements of what we do on city council,” she said. “I became a lightning rod, which is a challenging experience for me, but I believe that makes me a stronger person to run because I have stepped up and said things were not right. I’m not afraid to do that in any situation.”

Droughts are a serious threat to the region, and they could get worse with climate change. When asked if she would consider desalination despite a failed project in 2014, O’Hara, a water engineer, said she would.

“I think we are in a different space, and the entire world has moved towards more sustainable solutions to our energy challenges,” she said. “I think we can build sustainable water supply sources that really fit the values of our community.”

As for Measure M, O’Hara said she plans to vote “no,” due to the potential hindrance of housing development. She also said she supports the downtown expansion plan in the south of Laurel Street area, as it has been neglected in the decades following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

“I do believe that there should be continued engagement on what makes the most sense for our community,” she said, adding that she would always be open to negotiations over building height. “But as an engineer that thinks about how buildings fit into community character, I think there’s a way for us to increase density and even think about higher floor heights without drastically changing the character of our downtown.”

Since District 5 holds a good amount of the UC Santa Cruz campus, O’Hara said she thinks UC students should have just as much say in the community’s path forward as those permanently living in the city.

“Students are often transitory, but a lot of them end up staying,” she said. “I don’t see UCSC students much differently than our own young teenagers growing up in this town, and I think we all should have an opportunity to fully engage on what makes Santa Cruz a great place to live.”

O’Hara said she gives the city a lot of credit for its homelessness response, particularly in finding ways to provide transitional housing. However, she added that she thinks the city needs a more organized, objective approach to dealing with people sleeping outside, because when encampments grow to be very large, issues like drug dealing become more common and “that’s when things get untenable.”

As for things she would like to do first if elected, O’Hara said she wants to put in significant effort in making the Tannery Arts Center on River Street a community hub and utilize the area’s arts culture to drive the local economy, improving efficiency of city services and, of course, expanding and continuing homelessness response.

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