Above, I have provided pictures of two candidates who will face off at the polls in November. Both Ryan Coonerty (top) and Ami Chen-Mills (next) are running for Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz.
A column by Stephen Kessler, published in the June 19, 2026, edition of The Santa Cruz Sentinel, has stimulated this blog posting. While I am writing out my thoughts shortly after the day that Kessler's column appeared in the paper, I decided that these comments would probably be more timely, and relevant, if I put them into actual public view closer to the date that the runoff campaign will actually get started. Traditionally, local political campaigns really get going around Labor Day, so my observations, here, written in June, are anticipating that upcoming, next-Monday kickoff to our Fall political campaign season.
Kessler's column, which was titled, "Santa Cruz machine gets gears gummed up," is reproduced, in full, immediately below. After reading Kessler's column, you can read my own comments, if you have any inclination to do that.
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PUBLISHED: June 19, 2026 at 11:54 AM PDT
In March, before the campaign for mayor of Santa Cruz had even begun, and the City Council and various other local officials had already unanimously endorsed the veteran politician Ryan Coonerty, I wrote that it was as if a Soviet politburo or Vatican council of bishops had pre-emptively anointed the next mayor — to succeed retiring Mayor Fred Keeley, who with similar backing and many of the same campaign donors (certain Realtors and developers) had won his election four years ago in a landslide. Both were candidates of the political establishment, also known as the machine, which has dominated local governance for a couple of generations.
A late-emerging opposition, consisting of four more-leftish candidates, seemed to me at the time evidence of progressive disorganization, an inability to coalesce around one strong candidate to go head-to-head against the favored native son Coonerty. I said there was “no contest” between the machine and the upstarts. But I was wrong. It turns out that four heads were better than one, and by giving the electorate a choice of several alternatives they enabled their constituents to spread themselves around thickly enough to deprive Coonerty of an outright majority in the primary and force a runoff in November.
The lucky second-place finisher — nearly 30 points behind Coonerty, but still — is Ami Chen Mills, a relative newcomer to electoral politics (four years ago she ran for supervisor and lost) who now, if she can consolidate the collective support of the opposition, actually has a chance to pull off an upset. It remains to be seen whether she has the organization, campaign skills, clarity, realism and fundraising to compete with the seasoned and well-funded powers of the machine. But at least there will be a contest for votes in the fall, which is a sign of a healthier political culture than uncontested one-party rule.
We know that Coonerty is highly qualified to serve, with eight years of experience on the City Council, eight on the Board of Supervisors, and other gigs as a consultant, an operative, an entrepreneur, an author and an educator. He served twice as mayor when that was a rotating slot on the council, and he knows the ropes of city and county government. The establishment likes him as a known quantity and the incarnation of continuity.
Chen Mills is more of a wild card. Her previous public engagement has been mainly as a journalist, an advocate for the homeless and the chief organizer of the Get the Flock Out campaign against the license-plate-reading surveillance cameras liked by law enforcement for fighting crime but disliked by those who don’t want local cops to share with outside agencies (such as ICE) identifying information about drivers. She has succeeded, for now, in ridding the city of such cameras — so chalk one up for her as an activist.
One key question for Chen Mills is how her experience as an activist citizen and protest organizer has prepared her to lead a civic organization of more than 900 full-time employees (run by a city manager) and an annual budget of nearly half a billion dollars. Another is how she expects to advance her agenda with just one vote on a City Council whose other six members favored her opponent and do not necessarily share her priorities.
For Coonerty, the elephant in the room is the real estate industry and his alleged alliance with and reliance on developers and Realtors for financial support. My guess is that the people who voted against him in the primary want to slow down the pace of rampant growth transforming the town in the name of housing, both “affordable” and unaffordable. How he may handle any possible conflicts of interest when the interests that backed him have business before the council is an open question.
The fall campaign is just getting started and there is time for both candidates to spell out their plans and make their pitches. I’m keeping an open mind — and open eyes and ears — before deciding who I’ll vote for. I am less interested in ideology than credibility, integrity, intelligence, management skills, demeanor, character and competence. I want to feel confident that whoever is setting the city’s agenda knows what they’re doing.
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My comments and observations, stimulated by the Kessler column, are these:
(1) I think that Kessler is basically on target in his comments, and that the bottom-line issue in November will be [and should be]: Do you, as an individual voter, and do we, collectively, think that things are basically going "OK" in the City of Santa Cruz, or do we think that things aren't going OK and that significant changes need to be made?
(2) In considering that fundamental question, here are a few specific things that voters might want to think about (this is by no means a complete list):
- What about the proposed City Charter Amendments, which were summarily pulled from the November ballot when Coonerty and Chen-Mills both qualified for the November runoff? Chen-Mills has criticized these proposals, which would reduce the current requirement that the City Council meet two times a month, requiring only one meeting per month, and would allow the Council to increase its own compensation, without the current Charter-mandated limits and procedures. My Letter to The Editor in the Santa Cruz Sentinel outlines my own thoughts. What the candidates think about these proposed Charter Amendments should be a major issue in the Mayoral campaign this Fall, at least in my opinion.
- What about the so-called "overlay" proposal that would remove any public hearings for "affordable" high-rise developments in local residential neighborhoods in large parts of the Eastside, and in some (though only a few) Westside neighborhoods, too? NO public hearings at all: is that OK? What do the candidates think about that?
- What about the lack of adequate parking requirements for new high-density residential developments, making nearby residential areas into parking "war zones"?
- What about shutting down certain City offices during the typical working day hours, making it hard for ordinary members of the community to deal with the City?
- What about high administrative salaries throughout the City bureaucracy, coupled with a continuing reliance on extremely high-paid consultants on top of that?
- How about the ability of ordinary community members to participate in the City's business and to have an impact on the decisions that affect them?
- Is the City properly planning for potential droughts and water shortages? (Personally, I'm not convinced it is, and I'd like the upcoming campaign to address this question as a major issue).
To my mind, the election campaign period should illuminate what the candidates think about the issues I have just listed, and undoubtedly many other issues, too. The questions posed to the candidates for the Mayor's job should help illuminate the fundamental issue: Are things going OK in our City right now, or are significant changes needed? If the latter, what are you, if elected, going to do about it?
I think that City voters who don't think that things are going OK have a particularly difficult choice as they pick a new Mayor, and I join with Kessler in hoping that the upcoming campaign will illuminate what the two candidates offer to those who do think that significant changes are in order.
Image Credits:
(1) - https://www.ryancoonerty.org
(2) - https://www.facebook.com/amichenmills/
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