March 28

Note: This column was originally written for BrattonOnLine, April 12, 2017. It is reprinted here to show that the more things change, the more they stay the same in five years. Pre-Covid conditions.

University Growth, Mountain Bikes, & Rent Control, Oh My!

Question: How Do You Spell Growth?

When will the city begin exercising its negotiating powers in confronting university student growth? Eighteen thousand students and growing (now 19,500!), and no new bed space. Singles, doubles, triples and quads with a five-day meal plan now range in price from $1,468 (quad) (now 1,791) to $1,967 (now 2,367). This means, if four students live in a “Quad,” the cheapest available dorm, they would collectively pay a total between $5,872-7,868. (But in 2022 these four students would collectively pay between $7,164-$9,468). They used to be able to score a five-bedroom house with a yard near the ocean for less than that, but there aren’t any left because guess who is driving up the rents in Santa Cruz? Of course, the real estate folks are lovin’ it since the norm that’s resulted is to place ever larger numbers of students into single family homes and charge them per head. It ends up being a bargain for students after 1-2 years of high dorm prices. The result is that families are on the edge of extinction in many neighborhoods.

Eco-Hotspots and Mountain Bikes

I went walking this week up Chinquapin Road, past the campus fire station and the UCSC Crown-Merrill apartments, the asphalt soon gives way to an upper campus dirt trail. I was invited for a hike by my old friend, emeritus physics professor, Peter Scott. His two-foot long flowing white beard makes him appear like Moses, and he walks briskly in leading me toward his Promised Land—the “ecological hot spot” that is upper campus. At eighty-plus years old I wondered how he so easily outpaced me on this hike. I follow him to a trailhead that he says is “new” to his eyes. 

“Where does it go?” I ask. 

“Not sure, but let’s just go and see where it takes us,” he says with a joyful grin. 

Peter’s taking me out to look for signs of erosion, tire tracks that have formed new gullies and will lead to future seasonal streams. The tire markings are abundant in this area of campus. There are now herds of mountain bikers among the deer, fox, and mountain lion populations. Many of the spandex-clad riders perhaps do not realize they are traversing an area that the Smithsonian Institute has made a place for on their ecological hot spot map. It is also an area that’s said to have been one of Henry Cowell’s favorite places to ride his horse back in the late 1800’s.

Later, I’m still trailing Peter as we emerge from our forest walk. He wanders toward McLaughlin Drive and I follow. We turn right and walk up Science Hill. Peter marvels at how many students are waiting at both bus stops between Baskin Engineering and the Science Library. There are literally hundreds. It is 5:15pm after all, and a great human tide is about to descend off campus. But as we walk, there are both white campus shuttles and Metro buses passing up the hundreds who are waiting. 

Parking on the Hill

I parked my Nissan Leaf in the only campus parking garage (a past transportation struggle itself that I shall take up in a future column). The light blue Leaf sits snuggly in the electric vehicle area. But, what’s this? We arrive to a $50 ticket adorning my windshield. But, I had a parking pass displayed? The infraction seems to be that I did not “plug in” to their dollar-an-hour outlet, and that does not include the five bucks I already paid to park. Who knew plugging in was mandatory? As we made our way down the east side of campus there were two lines of cars gridlocked at the intersection of Coolidge and Hagar, a place where the cows gather to look out across grass and asphalt onto the subsidized faculty housing. No one was moving, except the cows. I wondered in that moment what might ensue when we get to the Long-Range Development Plan’s (LRDP) max of 19,500 students, which leads me to the letter Supervisor Ryan Coonerty submitted to the SC Board of Supes last week. Supervisor Coonerty, seeking to catch up to a fast-moving UCSC train (wreck?) wrote to his colleagues this week subtly observing that the university has become a community behemoth. He points out in the letter that UCSC has now begun the planning process for preparing the next LRDP. It will set limits on future campus growth, and identify the facilities and policies to support this growth. He sought to be measured, and arguably pulled some of his punches. He writes: UCSC provides many benefits to our community, particularly in the cultural and economic areas. On the other hand, UCSC also has impacts in terms of housing, traffic, and water demand. The County has a legitimate and significant interest in the University’s plans and policies for the UCSC campus.

Coonerty makes three points in his letter, his second being a rather gentle and gracious and important “ask” of the university. He writes: University growth in the next LRDP should be no greater than 19,500 students as allowed under the current LRDP and, if additional student growth is approved, it will be minimal and all the students, faculty, and staff resulting from this growth should be housed on campus… Translation: Could they please house their students on campus if they just happen to go over the 19,500 mark, which they are damn near right now. (Update: all of this ended in yet another law suit filed by the city of Santa Cruz over the issue of housing scarcity.

Gown Now Hiding Town?

If there are already 18,763 students (Now 19,500 on March 28, 2022) on campus, and an estimated 650 coming next year…help me do the math. That’s a whopping 19,413! One might say that UCSC has reached the limit, no? Does this mean no more students housed in town after next year (okay, 87 more) as agreed to in the LRDP? Unfortunately, new bed space on campus has been talked about, but I am not aware of any being built. What this figure means for the town of Santa Cruz is huge (Trump voiceover here)! In terms of housing, homeless services, water, Metro Bus service, police calls-for-service, and the competition for jobs we are fast approaching a social, economic, and political day of reckoning. Does the “Gown” now envelop the “Town,” and “the Hill” begin where Highway 17 meets Ocean Street? Or will the city council, and Santa Cruz county board of supervisors representing the people of Santa Cruz, start to push back on our UC guest…just a little bit?! (Update: they pushed back with the hiring of a so-called “Liaison” position to work with parties—administrators, elected officials, and the public–in Sacramento and Santa Cruz. That position was recently axed from both the city and county budgets and a law suit replaced it.

Rent Control, Mountain View-style 

The vice-mayor of Mountain View, Lenny Siegel made his way down the coast last Saturday to promote his city’s recently passed rent control initiative. He said it tries to bring some sanity to the housing market by rolling back rents to their October 2015 rates. Siegel, speaking before a crowd of some thirty housing, rent control and wage activists (there was also one city planner present), said he was elected in 2014 and immediately called for a rent control ordinance. But when the city council majority refused to place one on the ballot, activists huddled around him and did it the old-fashioned way. They organized a petition signature campaign and achieved a majority vote in November of 2016, while also electing two more supportive councilmembers. Of course, the California Apartment Association immediately sued, but lost the first-round in court last week according to Siegel. The peninsula vice-mayor contended that there may be a second judicial round over the issue of a rent rollback to 2015, as the new ordinance mandates, but he was holding his breath and clearly relishing their first legal win in the case. Although it was a significant victory for the renters of Mountain View, Siegel sees “rent control as a tool to diminish displacement, not as a long-term solution.” And it doesn’t affect new construction, “only units built before 1995,” he assured the audience. He also said, in order to avoid a rash of arbitrary evictions, any rent control initiative must include a just-cause eviction clause as well. Siegel said that 60% of households in his town were renters, as compared to 56% in Santa Cruz.

Siegel’s Vision

Since it was a session on rent control and transportation, Siegel talked about working with Google and how they have expanded the options for getting to work and school for many Mountain View residents. These include increased Caltrain service, bicycle amenities, greater skateboard access to transit (no joke!), lots more buses, and what he hopes the future might look like, Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). He said he’s been pushing Google, or “working with them” on building the “North Bayshore” project, some 10,000 units that will have a .50 required parking space for each bedroom, meaning it will be very transit-oriented. (Siegel supports a .75 parking space per unit because that would be more family-oriented he said.) He’s also working on getting 15%-20% of all of these units HUD—Housing and Urban Development—affordable. He says there exists “entitled” development, and development with the help of “legislative acts.” If the city council passes legislation to assist the developer then the city can demand more from that developer, he said, “and get the city attorney to make that really clear to the council.” Siegel also touted some current legislation, Assembly Bill 1505, that would restore local authority in cities ability to demand a certain percentage of new rental units be built as “affordable.” Heads in the room nodded approvingly over this new affordable housing-friendly bill.

Answer to above question: The UC Regents. Why? Because they are directing more students to Santa Cruz without providing the resources to adequately house and educate them, and that spells G-R-O-W-T-H.

“The goal of a health care system should be to keep people well, not to make stockholders rich.” (Tweeted April 8, 2017)

Fifty-five people attended a face-off this past Sunday afternoon between “Our Downtown, Our Future’s” Lira Filippini and John Hall, vs. the Library-Garage project represented by Cynthia Matthews and Martin Gomez. Guess who prevailed?!

March 21

“FOLLOW THE MONEY” 

Third District Supervisor Race
There is no, repeat no, incumbent running in the Third District supervisor race in 2022. For 20 years now, there was a Coonerty occupying the 3rd district seat, but since the younger one decided he would rather be the Santa Cruz city manager instead of facing a potentially perilous reelection path, think Manu Koenig’s drubbing of 12-year incumbent John Leopold over in the 1st District. Young Coonerty chose not to run before receiving news that the Santa Cruz city manager job would not go to him, but rather to a seasoned professional, then-Watsonville city manager, Matt Huffaker. This seat does not open up very often. Gary Patton had it for 20 years, which was followed by Mardi Wormhoudt’s 12-year stint. In late February, the field looked like it would be filled with at least six candidates, but it appears now to have narrowed to just three: Ami Chen Mills, Justin Cummings, and Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson. (Full disclosure, I have endorsed Ami Chen Mills.)

Keep an Eye on the flow of Political Money
I’ve written it before, but Deep Throat of Watergate fame, once said famously to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, “follow the money.” It holds true for Santa Cruz politics too as the race for the previous, and present supervisor seats are becoming quite costly. The race between Manu Koenig and John Leopold topped $300,000 combined, with Leopold coming out on top in spending, and Koenig winning the seat. A lot of money flowed in from outside the district for Koenig, but it was Leopold’s decision to spend almost $100k on a Bay Area consultant that might seem most perplexing to grassroots politicking. Manu Koenig filed a 460 form dated through “12/31/2021” and it appears to be his last filing for the 2020 1st District Supervisor campaign. In it he reported, “Total Expenditures Made,” were $152,299.59. Twelve-year incumbent, John Leopold, likely spent more in the 2020 supervisor campaign than any previous candidate for that office. “Total Expenditures Made” by the Leopold campaign, according to his California Form 460 received on Feb.1, 2021, were a whopping $188,337.68.

2022 Spending in Third District Race
Candidate Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson (SKJ) is raising cash fast and furiously. From July of 2021 to Dec. 31, 2021 she raised $39,340 in “Monetary Contributions.” More than 25% of the donors appear to live outside of Santa Cruz. In fact, donors from Folsom are in for $1500, Berkeley kicked down $1000, and Daly City put in $1000. Other contributors from S.F., Sacramento, Hollister, Roseville, Rancho Cordova, Santa Rosa, and Glendale all put in $500 each. Curiously, from the Beach-Boardwalk it’s 175 miles to El Dorado Hills, but there’s Santa Cruz supervisor campaign money flowing from here. The biggest SKJ non-Santa Cruz contribution: $3,000 from El Dorado Hills. I guess there really is dorado verde in El Dorado Hills. Her 460 political contributions statement came in on the last day of January of this year. One can only imagine the campaign-take that’s happened over the past three months, if the first months were so lucrative. SKJ has already raised far more than what was spent in the entire 2018 3rd District Supervisor race (around $30k was raised.) As I understand it, the limit of a single donor to the supervisor campaign is $520. I wonder if those campaign contributors know they are leaving 20 bucks on the table? During this same period, candidate Justin Cummings raised only $14,183.32 according to his 460 statement. Now contrast the SKJ money trail to that of Ami Chen Mills and 5th District supervisor candidates Jimmy Dutra and Felipe Hernandez. Neither Chen Mills, Dutra, nor Hernandez began raising money until this year, so they currently had no donations to report. According to the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) web site, the next 460 campaign funding forms are due by April 28th and cover the period of 01/01/22 to 04/23/22 of campaign donations and then will be followed quickly by a May 26th “pre-election” report.

And Then There is “Yes, Greenway” $$$
First of all, the treasurer and vice-treasurer for the Yes Greenway initiative that has qualified for the June 7th ballot both live in San Francisco, speaking of out-of-towners…James Sutton and Jonathan Fisher, respectively. Sutton, of Sutton Law, was schooled at Pomona College (BA) and Stanford Law School (JD) and looks to be a rather high-profile San Francisco attorney skilled in election law. Looks like a firm he worked for was slapped with a hefty fine of $240k in 2006 for failing to report a last-minute $800k PG&E contribution. Former progressive SF Supervisor, Tom Ammiano said of Sutton back in 2004, “He’s an opportunistic lawyer who works against populist issues,” as reported by Savannah Blackwell in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. As of the end of 2021, Yes Greenway reported rather hefty “Monetary Contributions” of $138, 400.07, and that is before the real campaign was started. It appears that the Sutton Law Firm, during those two months, charged the “Yes, Greenway” campaign almost $7,000.

“Imagine living in the US today, where the #1 source of domestic terrorism is far-right groups (per FBI!), books about slavery are getting banned, parents are criminalized for trans kids, yet asserting the 1st amendment is about protecting bigots from feeling embarrassed in public.” (Mar. 18)

Below the Hwy. 1 bridge once sat a gritty, loud, and sometimes chaotic home for over 100 homeless people. It lasted through the pandemic years. It was known to many as “Hell’s Trail.” This past Monday morning this tent encampment was dispersed by Caltrans and the California Highway patrol. Where will campers go? Some said they would go camp in Pogonip or the San Lorenzo Park, while others simply did not know where to go next.

March 14 

TRAGEDY OF COUNCIL-ONLY BALLOT MEASURES

District Elections and Mayor vs. District Elections 

Who Asked for This?
The Santa Cruz City Council five-person majority disingenuously voted on February 22 to place an initiative on the June ballot that would completely change the way people in Santa Cruz vote. If the district election and at-large mayor scheme is approved by voters, each voter would trade-in their seven-city council electoral votes for just two. Residents would go from being able to elect the entire 7-member council to only being able to cast two votes, one for their own district representative and the other for an at-large mayor, if the initiative passes. The mayor position will still function as but one council vote with no real direct powers added but that of setting each meeting’s agenda, which does afford that position definite advantages in putting items before the council, or keeping them off any given agenda. This initiative calls for “ordering an election for a proposed city charter amendment providing for an at-large directly elected mayor and six council districts.” 

To Vote or Not to Vote, is that the Real Question?
This ballot measure is not necessarily well-intentioned either, not even close, for several reasons. Its’ major flaw is the lack of a public process. We are coming out of an unprecedented global pandemic and it has been a time when practically all city council meetings have been on Zoom. Access to council chambers, city staff, and city councilmembers themselves was quite limited, and for good reason, we did not want to see the Covid-19 virus spread. It became easier to have the discussions around this ballot issue behind closed doors and most notably, members of the public were of course left out. It wasn’t until quite recently that the city council finally offered the any community members a voice into this significant and historic matter that is, changing the Santa Cruz City Charter and the way we vote in elections. This is simply too big of a change to afford the limited perspectives of five city councilmembers in a closed room to have the shameless ability of placing a limited half-baked measure on the ballot.

How Did We Get Here?
But, really, back to the beginning. First of all, the initial purpose of this effort was to be in line with the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA), which was passed in 2001 and states: Existing law, the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (CVRA), prohibits the use of an at-large election in a political subdivision if it would impair the ability of a protected class, as defined, to elect candidates of its choice or otherwise influence the outcome of an election. The case in Santa Cruz seemed to be predicated upon supporting a protected class, LatinX voters, but the resulting districts appear to not at all create the kind of district which might elect a LatinX candidate. Secondly, the people of Santa Cruz, lawyers or no lawyers, have never decided to give up at-large elections. We first must vote on that issue before the issue of districts and an at-large mayor can be considered. Why isn’t that on the ballot as well? Another huge question is why the city council is not waiting at least until the Santa Monica voting rights lawsuit, Pico Neighborhood Ass. vs. the City of Santa Monica, is decided. The city of Santa Monica has spent an enormous amount of money, more than $8 million dollars and counting, to decide this issue. In July of 2020, a California appeals court ruled in Santa Monica’s favor and the Plaintiffs asked the state supreme court for a decision. The case has been playing out for the past two years. It is a case similar to ours and the state Supreme Court has yet to issue its ruling. The city of Santa Cruz would not have to spend a dime in waiting for this case to be resolved? This is a mystery.

The Case for Ranked Choice Voting
What ever happened to the wider discussion of ranked choice voting (RCV) as a way to remedy representation for underrepresented voters? Two states, Alaska and Maine use RCV for state, congressional, and presidential elections, and more than 20 cities now use it to decide municipal elections including municipalities politically similar to us – Berkeley, Santa Fe, NM, Cambridge, Mass, and Takoma Park, Md. – for example. In fact, in 2020 Boulder, Colorado another politically similar city to Santa Cruz, voted to make the mayor an elected position and to employ RCV. 

Transparency and the Public’s Right to Know
Process is everything. Whether it is the trail-only initiative now set to be on the June ballot, or the Empty Homes Tax and the Our Downtown, Our Future ballot petitions, which are both vying for the November ballot, the public has a right to know and have input, not only in the final vote, but in the language and ideas of the measure itself before it ever arrives to the ballot. The three initiatives just mentioned have all been out for months and have had dozens of public meetings to discuss and debate their contents; numerous newspaper and on-line opinion pieces were written, there is a clear record of vigorous public discussion. That’s not happened in the weak and misinformed case for district elections. What you have here is a city council barreling ahead of the community in its quest, not to assist a protected class’s ability to be represented, but to consolidate majority control, which they already command. This initiative is no more than a power grab that will quash minority dissent and steam roll the community in favor of the interests of not only the status quo, but of a creeping predatory brand of capitalism favoring corporate real estate interests and their developer cronies. This is not how a healthy democracy functions. The current City Charter, by the way, affirmatively requires at-large elections, so any change would have to be approved by the voters and that has not happened. ?

What’s the Big Deal?!?
The key words in the city council majority’s come hell or high water rushed decision, are “charter amendment.” This is a big deal and I write about it here because so little public scrutiny, discussion, or debate has taken place in the crafting of one of the most significant questions being asked of voters since the city’s charter came into being in 1948. The current charter states: The elective officers of this City shall be seven councilmembers who shall constitute the Council. They shall be elected from the City at large…for a term of four years and until their successors have been elected and qualified. The Council shall be the legislative body of this City, each of the members of which, including the Mayor, shall have the right to vote upon all questions before it. No member of the Council shall be eligible for re-election for two years (i.e. one general election cycle) after the expiration of the second consecutive full term for which such person was elected. I participated in a presentation before the SC Democratic Central Committee (SCCDCC) last week to speak against the lack of public participation around this city council-inspired charter amendment and I learned that outgoing county supervisor, Ryan Coonerty, essentially crafted the measure and handed it to this five-person council majority–Golder, Watkins, Meyers, Brunner, Kalantari-Johnson–before the February 22nd city council meeting. Yes, that was my first question too, dear Reader, why did Ryan get to write it? And my second question is likely similar to yours too: Is he going to run for mayor if voters approve what he wrote? Well, in his opening remarks to the DCC, he disavowed any intention of running for the new position of directly-elected mayor. Of course, my third question is why wasn’t changing the way Santa Cruzans vote for their local government representatives not debated more fully, but left in the hands of an outgoing Supe? There wasn’t even a second reading of this resolution as is the tradition of all city ordinances. Why the lack of transparency? Something smells pretty bad here, so I respectfully and strongly urge all voters to reject this council majority ballot initiative tomfoolery, and demand that this same city council place an up-or-down vote on at-large elections first, and then have a community-wide discussion on remedies that would get more people of color into elected office as the CVRA was written to do, particularly those that have the status of a protected class.

“It is insane that while MIT’s endowment grew by over $9 BILLION in 2021, nearly 1 in 4 grad students struggle to keep up with cost of living. I say to MIT: invest in your students. I stand in solidarity with @MITGradUnion in their efforts to form a union.” (March 14)

Pictured here are collectively, one hundred years of Santa Cruz history of political intrigue and skullduggery…local heavyweights Bruce Bratton and Fred Keeley talking it up at the recent “Ami Chen Mills for Supervisor” party.