Lookout’s primary election forums brought together candidates for six seats across the county and city of Santa Cruz. Five themes rose to the top as the candidates answered questions about their platforms.
Measure M 2024
Lookout’s news and Community Voices opinion coverage of 2024 Measure M, a ballot initiative on building heights and affordable housing requirements in the city of Santa Cruz.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Measure M is a big mistake: It would set back the city on affordable housing
Pete Kennedy, chair of the volunteer City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission, says Measure M would be detrimental to the city’s recent excellent record on housing. He also bats away arguments that the March 5 ballot initiative is about democracy: “Our commission conducted 18 public meetings just last year,” he writes, “and that’s not even touching all the stakeholder groups, project presentations, calls to staff, emails and other work that goes into planning.” He says he “won’t stand” for arguments that claim the process isn’t democratic.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Lookout election forums: Hear and watch the candidates here
How are you making your decisions on the candidates and measures appearing on the March 5 ballot in Santa Cruz County? Lookout’s deep and broad Election 2024 coverage is here to help you. In addition, our election forums are bringing candidates and advocates face to face and side by side in conversations, to fully flesh […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Clashing on the issues: District 1 county supervisor candidates, Measure M debaters take the stage
In Lookout’s second candidate forum of the 2024 election season, candidates vying to represent District 1 on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors and both Measure M advocates and opponents took to the stage to discuss and debate everything from transit and budgets to housing and inclusionary rates. The primary election is set for March 5.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
In the Public Interest: Lookout forums continue, Measure M for Maybe, what mountain voters want
In his weekly newsletter covering Santa Cruz County politics and policy, Christopher Neely previews a pair of Lookout election forums this week, digs into what Measure M might and might not mean, talks to voters in the Santa Cruz Mountains about what they’re looking for in their new District 5 county supervisor and more.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Measure M — Santa Cruz’s height limit and affordability measure — is the Measure of Much Debate, Many Questions and Murky Answers
We won’t know the true impact of Measure M unless it goes active. Here’s what we do know on its key questions: height, affordability and the possible dilemma of the 7-foot fence. On March 5, voters in the city of Santa Cruz will have to decide how to cast their ballots.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Measure M: We need to trust voters to decide about building heights
Retired urban planner Frank Barron makes the case for Santa Cruz’s ballot Measure M. “The voters should be allowed to have a say when developers want to build high-rises taller than the already generous height limits under current zoning,” he writes. He refutes arguments against M by progressive economist Richard McGahey, who studies cities and equality and is a senior fellow at the New School’s Schwartz Center.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Measure M will make housing affordability in Santa Cruz worse
Economist Richard McGahey, who has held federal, state and local leadership roles and is regarded as a national expert on urban and regional economic development, is against March ballot Measure M. The part-time Santa Cruz resident says Measure M will mean less affordable housing for Santa Cruz and less housing justice for the community. Research, he says, proves his point. It shows that voters who show up for votes outside of regular election cycles are “whiter — and wealthier — than their communities as a whole. And they tend to oppose housing development, perhaps in part to protect their existing house values.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Propaganda or propaganda? Yet another response to Santa Cruz’s dangerous and senseless ballot Measure M
“If you run around crying ‘fire’ through the neighborhood after the fire department has already put out the fire, you are probably unnecessarily scaring people. One might even call that a ‘scare tactic,’” Don Lane writes in his latest piece decrying the upcoming Santa Cruz ballot initiative Measure M and refuting its chief proponent, Frank Barron, a retired environmental planner.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Don’t fall for propaganda: Measure M gives the public a direct voice in the future form of Santa Cruz
Frank Barron, a retired urban planner and a critical voice in the Measure M ballot initiative, again refutes attacks. Specifically, he pushes back against former Santa Cruz mayor Don Lane’s recent Lookout opinion piece outlining why Measure M is a bad idea. Barron insists that Lane has the facts wrong. Already, this is heating up to be a big election topic.