Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Martine Watkins is biracial, but Justin Cummings is the first Black mayor of Santa Cruz
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor:
A Lookout View: Vote Gail Pellerin for Assembly District 28
Lookout Endorsement: Gail Pellerin is a homegrown and well-loved politician who will best represent Santa Cruz County interests in Sacramento. She is a connector, a listener and someone with the skills and longtime political relationships we need to move forward on pressing issues like mental health, homelessness and affordable housing.
Soquel Creek Water District: Three incumbents intent on Pure Water Soquel project vs. two newcomers calling for change
Soquel Creek Water District’s election has five candidates battling for three seats and comes at a pivotal time, just as the ambitious, $145 million Pure Water Soquel project takes shape. The project puts 8 miles of pipes from Santa Cruz to Capitola and has disrupted traffic throughout the area for months. The incumbents want to see the project to its end in 2023; the newcomers insist water costs and district salaries are too high. Lookout asked the five candidates for statements. Read the four responses we got here.
A Lookout View: Vote yes on Measures K and L
Lookout Endorsement: Our schools need our help. They need to fix roofs and heating, to modernize classrooms, update sports facilities and install better security systems. Santa Cruz County’s patchwork system of public education doesn’t allow the state of California to pay for these “extras.” That’s why we have to pass bonds to support our schools. Lookout endorses a yes vote on Measures K and L.
We are voting for Justin Cummings; Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson’s policies are detrimental to the unhoused
Santa Cruz Cares is against the choices the Santa Cruz City Council has made on dealing with our community’s unhoused. This includes the clearing of the Benchlands encampment and the oversized vehicle ordinance — both of which, its members write, they believe harm the unhoused unfairly and don’t offer viable, lasting or empathetic solutions to their plight. They feel Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson’s record of voting for these policies make her a poor candidate for Santa Cruz County 3rd District Supervisor. They have endorsed Justin Cummings.
I was the first biracial mayor of Santa Cruz; why has Santa Cruz ignored my race?
Martine Watkins, vice mayor of Santa Cruz, is perplexed. She is biracial — her father is Black, her mother white — and she was the first biracial woman to serve as the mayor of Santa Cruz. She thinks it’s a misrepresentation of local history to call Justin Cummings — who is currently a candidate for District 3 county supervisor — the first Black mayor of Santa Cruz.
We all deserve a decent place to live — vote yes on N
Housing in Santa Cruz is a rat race, homeowner Michael Levy argues, and we are passing the hurt on to our children and community by buying and selling at absurdly inflated prices. “I am guessing that most of us, given the choice, would opt for a housing system that is not inherently a scary place of winners and losers,” he writes. He supports Measure N, the empty home tax, as a way of getting funds to make housing more equal.
