As longtime leaders retire, crowded Scotts Valley City Council race focuses on housing, Town Center project

Since 2015, Scotts Valley has added 12 affordable units to its housing stock, while the city’s median home sale price reached about $1.3 million this month. 

Over the next seven years, Scotts Valley will need to build 803 new affordable housing units, as part of a broader state mandate to increase its housing supply by 1,220 units — a nearly 900% increase over the 140 it was mandated to build between 2015 and 2023. It’s a major shift for a city that has guarded its small-town charm and where the population has barely shifted in 20 years (11,518 in the 2000 census, 11,580 in 2010 and 12,224 in 2020). 

How Scotts Valley will embrace and manage future development are key issues in a crowded race for three city council seats on the Nov. 5 ballot. That includes plans for the Town Center, a decades-old vision for a dense residential/commercial downtown in a city without one. 

Mayor Randy Johnson is stepping down, after 28 years on the city council, as is two-term incumbent Councilmember Jack Dilles.

A new generation has answered the call: Six newcomers to city politics are running to lead their mountain city through at least the next four years. So new, in fact, that plans for the Town Center, as well as Johnson’s city council tenure, predate two of the candidates: 24-year-olds Dustin Lopez, a UC Santa Cruz student and former Scotts Valley city intern, and Mercedes Molloy, already a nonprofit director and founder of a personal safety mobile app. 

They are joined by candidates Krista Jett, 37, a mother, and nurse practitioner at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford; Corky Roberson, 53, a food-service delivery professional with a long history of volunteerism in community; John Lewis, 45, an information technology professional and relative newcomer to Scotts Valley; and Steve Clark, 60, who retired in 2016 as the deputy chief of the Santa Cruz Police Department. 

Also in the race is the lone incumbent, Donna Lind, 74, a retired Scotts Valley police officer who is seeking her fifth and, she says, final term leading a city for which she has worked for more than a half-century. 

Donna Lind

Many of the Scotts Valley City Council candidates are inspired by what they view as a city in need of a fresh perspective amid tectonic shifts in the city’s look and feel. Lind, on the other hand, launched her reelection believing the city needed continuity. 

The four-term incumbent said her plans for 2024 didn’t initially involve a fifth city council run, but after Johnson and Dilles announced their retirements, she felt the city still needed a leader with her breadth of knowledge about its history.  She first moved to Scotts Valley when she was 15, and whether through the police department or city council, has worked for the city for 56 consecutive years. She began at the police department only two years after the city incorporated in 1966, and eventually became Scotts Valley’s first female police officer. She retired as a sergeant. 

“It’s helpful to know the history of how this city works,” Lind said. 

“I’m very worried about the impact of the 1,220 new homes. I hear from people that it’s going to change our character. We have to follow the state’s mandates, but I’m hoping and feel like it’s important to do so in a way that preserves who we are. Scotts Valley has always had a small-town feel.” 

She has watched the Town Center conversation since its genesis, but has also watched, from the city council dais, the project stall. However, Lind said the latest effort to turn the vacant lot between Laughing Monk Brewing and the performing arts theater into a legitimate downtown is as close as the city has ever been. 

“In all my years, this is the first time I’ve really felt that it was going to happen,” Lind said. 

Part of that is the City of Santa Cruz has owned the vacant lot for more than 40 years, complicating plans for its development. But Scotts Valley is nearing the final stage of purchasing the land, and earlier this year published three updated visions for how the property might get used. 

A future of growth has Lind concerned about the availability of water and the impact on traffic, schools and the city’s road infrastructure, maintenance on which has been regularly deferred due to continued budget issues. Lind said the city’s staffing levels are still depleted from pandemic layoffs, as well. 

“People worry about the growth and how it’s going to affect those special things that are our favorite things,” Lind said. “I tell them it’s a challenge, but I tell them we’re going to do what we can.” 

Steve Clark 

Clark shares a public safety background with Lind: He retired in 2016 as a deputy chief in the Santa Cruz Police Department. Toward the end of his 31 years with the force, Clark appeared in the news regularly as a department spokesman and attracted some controversy within city hall. In his second act, he transitioned from public-sector policing work to private-sector safety and detective work, as a consultant and private investigator.   

Clark, who’s lived in the city since 2008, said “a number of elected officials” approached him about running for the Scotts Valley City Council, but he declined to name them because he doesn’t “want to front them out.” He agreed to run because he sees “a number of issues coming through Scotts Valley in the coming years.” Paramount among them: housing and the Town Center project. 

If the city’s future includes a multiplication of new housing units, particularly affordable housing, he said he doesn’t want Scotts Valley to look like San Jose, where he used to live. 

“San Jose just put up all these four-to-five-story buildings that all look prefab,” Clark said. “How about some dignity and respect for the people who live in that housing? It’s going to require some careful, thoughtful planning.” 

That planning, Clark said, would include forming relationships with developers, “making sure they understand the personality of our community.” Implementing strict design standards will also be useful, he said. He wants to see “tiered housing” construction, aimed at allowing the local rental and housing markets to be accessible for people at all points in their life, from first-time renters and buyers, to families and empty-nesters who want to downsize. 

As for the Town Center project, Clark called it the “little engine that could but never did.” He believes any vision of a downtown has to include parking and should aim to minimize impact on the surrounding neighborhood. 

“I’m motivated to get the Town Center moving forward, but I doubt we would complete it [in the span of a single term],” Clark said. “That project has significant ability to change the overall feel and aesthetic of Scotts Valley. We need to make sure it’s done well.” 

Clark also listed public safety — particularly disaster preparedness — and attracting new business to the city as his core issues. 

Krista Jett 

Jett, a nurse practitioner, sees her foray into politics as a natural next step. Her brother, Aaron Brieno, serves as chief of staff to state Sen. Melissa Hurtado in Kings County, and her father, Art Brieno, served as mayor in the Central Valley town where she grew up: Hanford. 

The Town Center project was the first local issue Jett raised when speaking with Lookout. She, like Clark, believes it needs to include adequate parking, as well as a walkable and dense residential and commercial landscape. 

“I’m a huge advocate for incremental development as opposed to a few large developments,” Jett said. “That way, no one part of the community feels overburdened with traffic and construction.” 

However, Jett said her campaign’s central motivation is to bring the perspective of someone with a young family to the city council, something she doesn’t see. 

“I want to see young families, more young, midcareer professionals represented,” Jett said. “I want to be one of many voices helping to steer our city. Our city council has not represented young families and I would like to be involved in our future.” 

On the campaign trail, Jett said she hears voters disappointed with the cost of housing, quality of the parks and the lack of bicycle infrastructure. She wants to help address those concerns first by “sitting and listening to every viewpoint. I understand a lot of compromise will be involved. My goal is to keep everyone engaged.” 

If she is not elected, Jett said she hopes to get appointed to a city board or commission to help shape local policy in some way. 

John Lewis 

Lewis, an information-technology professional and father of one, said when he moved to Scotts Valley five years ago, everyone, including his real estate agent, told him that the big chunk of vacant land along Mount Hermon Road would soon turn into a modern downtown. Then he learned the same song had been sung for 30 years. 

“I feel Scotts Valley residents deserve more, and the more I found out about the Town Center, the more disappointed I became about how it’s been managed,” Lewis said. “People here have been told a lot of things for a long time without a lot to show for it.”

Lewis sees part of the issue as the city waiting until all of the pieces fall into place so it can develop the property all at once. He proposed a more incremental approach that would allow the city to hire a developer for the parts of the property it can break ground on now. The visual of ground moving at the Town Center footprint, he said, would breathe optimism back into the minds of residents. 

Lewis, who is endorsed by pro-housing development organization Santa Cruz YIMBY (yes in my backyard), also sees Scotts Valley Drive as a fertile corridor for new thinking. He supports shrinking the road to one lane in both directions, and wants to see the city encourage redevelopment along the thoroughfare. Part of that is reexamining the city’s rules around mixed-use development, which require a 50-50 square-footage split between commercial and residential space in a project. Some see this requirement as making development infeasible.

“Our city priorities are crazy, we’ve made interesting decisions, or no decisions at all about the direction we want to take Scotts Valley in,” Lewis said. “I think a lot of people are trying to turn Scotts Valley into a museum where nothing is going to change. Maybe it’s because I’m new here, but I think we deserve more.” 

Dustin Lopez 

Lopez enters the race as one of a new batch of young people hoping to effect change in the community. A junior at UC Santa Cruz working toward a degree in environmental studies and economics, Lopez leans heavily on his recent experience interning for the city of Scotts Valley through Cabrillo College’s Local Government Fellows Program. 

Lopez said working alongside city staff and council members offered him a crash course in the city’s less sexy issues, such as the budget and wastewater plant maintenance. The city has been operating a deficit, dipping into its reserves to maintain services. Lopez characterized it as a “budget crisis” and said he is intent on figuring out a solution that protects city staff, whom he said are invaluable assets. 

Lopez, who lives with his parents in low-income housing, said he’s grown up around Santa Cruz County but moved to Scotts Valley only 10 years ago. Housing is another one of his top issues, including making Scotts Valley a place that welcomes development. He sees the Town Center project as a key variable in the city reaching its affordable housing mandates. 

However, development has to be approached holistically, he said, and new construction needs to not only fit into, but also improve, bike and pedestrian infrastructure. 

Lopez views his youth as an asset, especially as the city prepares to undergo major changes. 

“I think a lot of young people feel disillusioned with government, with the economy, politics, wars, climate change, but those are such big issues and no one has the answers to those,” Lopez said. “I want to make my community as strong as possible to be resilient and adaptable to those larger issues. I want to be able to live in Scotts Valley for a long time, and I want to make sure it’s as strong as it can be.” 

Mercedes Molloy

When Molloy was born in March 2000, Randy Johnson was preparing a run for his second term on the Scotts Valley City Council. With Johnson stepping down, Molloy hopes to step up as part of a new generation of local leaders. 

Molloy, born and raised in Scotts Valley, is the director of the Women’s Advocacy Initiative and founder of the Safe Squad mobile app, which allows users to mark themselves as safe or alert their loved ones when they feel endangered. Molloy, a survivor of sexual assault, thought of the app while she was a student at the New School in New York City. It has had “millions” of users, resulted in features about Molloy in Teen Vogue and Forbes, and has opened up opportunities to work internationally with the U.S. State Department. 

“I’ve always had political ambitions and always thought I’d run for local office,” Molloy said. “I’ve had deep interest in our community and I hoped to see leaders who represented my identity: young, Mexican American. We’ve had the same stagnant leadership and have had the same people run over and over again. If not me, then who?” 

Molloy has taken a different approach with her platform. She said topics such as housing and the Town Center would receive attention from other candidates; so, she shaped her stump around issues she felt wouldn’t get any attention: trauma-informed policing, climate resilience, and diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Molloy wants to see the Scotts Valley Police Department employ a trauma response team that includes mental health professionals trained in deescalation, form a citizen task force to oversee the department and implement mandatory sexual-assault prevention training for all officers. 

On climate resilience, Molloy wants the city to draft a “robust sustainability and climate action plan,” work she believes can be subsidized through grants. “Considering the CZU fires,” she said, she wants to see collaboration with local fire departments in land maintenance to minimize the city’s vulnerability to wildfires where it can. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a lens through which she as a councilmember would make decisions, and she’d champion “anti-discrimination policies.” 

Corky Roberson

Born Colin, Corky has gone by his nickname for as long as he can remember. With Molloy, he is one of only two born-and-raised Scotts Valley residents in this year’s race. 

Roberson, a father, husband and food-service professional, has an unmistakable sense of urgency in his voice as he talks about his motivations for running. 

“I’ve thought about it for a long time, I’ve wanted to do this for many years,” Roberson said. “Now that two [longtime city councilmembers are stepping down] it’s my turn to help the city.” 

Roberson, whose grandfather, C.R. Roberson, was on the city’s inaugural city council in 1966, has worked with the Boys and Girls Club and the Lions Club, and lists a long résumé of volunteerism throughout his 53 years in Scotts Valley. He said improving the city’s parks, reinforcing its roads and completing the Town Center as his priorities. 

“We have a close knit community, a safe community,” Roberson said. “It’s a safe place to raise a family. I have helped my community so much over my life and this is the role I want to do now.”

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