Environment

• Pursue “zero carbon” as a goal, without the crutch of carbon credits

• Move away from car-centered urban planning and improve our city’s zoning

• Tax carbon and the use of natural resources

• Address flooding and other climate-related concerns in the Beach Flats neighborhood 

Climate change is the defining issue of this century. We’re shown the stakes daily in a place with so much natural beauty, and proximity to the rising ocean. I’m proud to live in a community that’s so conscious about our environment, and I want to continue that sentiment through our city’s policy. We’ve already set some admirable goals: increasing bike infrastructure; moving away from single-occupancy internal combustion passenger vehicles; electrifying buildings; using wastewater; etc. But we can go further. We need to increase housing density and further promote public transit (maybe even light rail). We also need to distinguish between “carbon neutral” and “zero carbon.” Climate policy that I’ll pursue in the city, as well as encourage for our University will move towards the goal of zero carbon, without relying on carbon credits, which are questionable in their legitimacy. 

Animal welfare

• Fully fund services for the welfare of animals in our City

• Ban the sale of pinch collars other aversive training tools which abuse animals

As the partner of a veterinary assistant and certified dog trainer, as well as a dog-dad myself, the welfare of animals in our city is very important to me. We already have fantastic services in our town like the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter. We should make sure that people doing this kind of work have all the resources they need. We should also protect the well-being of our city’s pets by banning the sale of pinch collars and other aversive training tools. My girlfriend Lily has spent her career opposing the use of these instruments, but their harm has become widespread. I don’t think they belong in our city.

Mental health

• De-stigmatize mental health

• Fund mental health services

• Pursue a City that encourages community

We don’t talk about mental health as a political issue as much as we should. Everyone has been having a hard time these past few years; something we understand but still haven’t properly acknowledged. The most obvious solution is to make sure our mental health resources are fully funded and available to everyone in the City. But our mental health struggles haven’t come out of nowhere. It’s understandable to have feelings of anxiety, or despair in a world grappling with climate change and a pandemic, among other things. Of course, this is just another reason to address these crises. On top of this, half of Americans today report having three or fewer close friends. Thirty years ago, that was only true for around a quarter of the population. One way we can address this is by creating a City that’s more encouraging of community and less atomizing. This can be facilitated through transit other than cars, denser housing and mixed zoning among other policies.

Improving driving

• Put in modern traffic lights in Santa Cruz

• Improve bike, bus, and walking infrastructure

• Get rid of “stroads”

I hate traffic, and so do you. What many don’t know is that America is one of the only developed countries in the world where traffic is even a thing. That’s because we have poorly planned cities, which are reliant on cars. A great way to improve the driving experience is to take cars off the road by giving people alternate transit options. We can also get modern traffic lights in Santa Cruz—lights which are better programmed, give priority to transit vehicles, and have detection for cars, bikes, and pedestrians. How often do you drive up to an empty intersection, but still get stuck at a traffic light for way too long? In other parts of the world, the traffic light will see you coming, and turn green before you even have to slow down. We also need to get rid of “stroads,” defined as, “a road too wide and fast to be safe for pedestrians while also being too narrow and slow for efficient movement of cars.” Think about how much time you spend actually driving on Ocean St compared to waiting at a traffic light.

Reproductive Healthcare

• Provide more than one option for abortion care in Santa Cruz

• Encourage people from red states and areas to get care here

• Support reproductive healthcare workers serving an influx of patients

Abortion is healthcare, and healthcare is a human right. While I was encouraged to see people in Santa Cruz just as sad, disappointed, disgusted and angry as I was after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, let’s be clear that this is not just a national issue. While our city can’t overrule the Supreme Court, there’s plenty we can do to make Santa Cruz a haven for access to reproductive healthcare. As of now, there’s a few reproductive healthcare clinics and only one abortion provider in Santa Cruz. We should increase both those numbers. Additionally, we’re going to see more and more people coming here seeking care, which I absolutely support and encourage. This increase in demand will place even more stress on already overwhelmed workers who provide reproductive healthcare, and we need to make sure they’re equipped with the resources to meet that demand. Planned Parenthood workers across the country are organizing unions, which I wholeheartedly support. Besides that opening more healthcare providers in the County can reduce stress.

Parking

• Provide free parking passes for downtown workers

• Create safe parking for those living in vehicles

• Weaken parking minimums for developments

How we treat parking shows our priorities as a City. Building more of it shows a prioritization of cars. Ticketing people sleeping in parked cars overnight shows a criminalization of our fellow community members. As it is now, people working downtown have to pay the city a couple dollars per hour that they’re working, or risk a ticket. That’s basically a 10% tax on the earnings of someone making around $15 per hour. We can solve this issue by creating parking passes for those who work downtown. We can also explore an “in lieu parking fee” which developers can pay instead of being forced to meet parking requirements. This fee would go to fund public transit and other ways to get around without a car, a better use of money than building more parking. We also need to provide safe parking for those living in vehicles. The OVO (Oversized Vehicle Ordinance) failed to do that, and instead criminalized homelessness. We need to provide services, without criminalizing.

Public Safety

• Reinvest SCPD’s too-high budget into efforts which actually protect people

• Make the common-sense changes which actually reduce crime (reduce empty lots, fund education, create economic opportunity)

• Move towards a world beyond the prison-industrial complex

Santa Cruz Police Department currently receives 28% of the City’s general fund – the most highly funded department. That’s too much. If we really want to reduce crime, we have to understand it as a sociological issue, and address its root causes. These causes include poverty, mental health issues, a lack of education and community, the prevalence of empty lots, dark areas in streets, and a multitude of other factors. The factors that most strongly correlate with a decrease in crime are access to healthcare, social services and employment. What we’ve seen is that there’s zero evidence that higher police budgets lead to less crime. On top of that, police perpetuate state violence and racial discrimination. We’re all aware of the events which led to the Black Lives Matter movement which peaked in the summer of 2020.

Noise

• Promote low-noise asphalt and tires

• Improve infrastructure for walking and biking

• Take noise seriously, as a pollution and public health issue

High noise levels can cause hearing loss, heart disease, stress, faster cognitive decline, cardiovascular problems, and obesity, and causes people to be less social, patient and generous. On top of that, loud streets are really annoying. My apartment reaches about 60 db(A) with a window open, above the recommended safe level. Let’s be clear: cities aren’t loud, and the world isn’t loud. Cars are loud. We as a city can take steps to reduce that noise. Giving people the option to bike or walk rather than driving is a great step. We can also use low-noise asphalt when building roads, which reduces traffic noise by 3-5 db(A). We need to consider noise pollution as much as we consider any other type of pollution or threat to public health. Over past decades, we invested to remove asbestos from our housing in order to create a safe environment for everyone. We can do the same with noise.

Holding UC Santa Cruz accountable

Use the city’s influence to push the university to:

• Build more housing on campus

• Provide temporary housing, safe parking, and harm reduction to all unhoused students

• Fully decarbonize the campus

UC Santa Cruz has nearly 20,000 undergraduate students, one third of the City’s population. Consequently, students deserve more respect and representation in our City; while the university administration wields a huge influence over city policy making. Some – not all – of Santa Cruz’s housing crisis can be attributed to the University’s failure to build adequate housing. Students who can’t live on campus are instead forced into the Santa Cruz housing market, raising the prices for everyone. When students and workers can’t find housing on or near campus, many are forced to live in cars, or commute long distances. Besides poor health and an increase in traffic–many of the cars that regularly backup on Highway 1 are going between UCSC and the South County. These long commutes lead to lots of CO2 emissions. The University also contributes a large amount of the city’s carbon footprint. All of this goes under-addressed in the University’s climate policy.