Santa Cruz Sentinel: Guest Commentary | Local democracy in action created housing tax Measure C

By Don Lane and Gretchen Regenhard

Real estate agent John Flaniken’s Guest Commentary on Sept. 18 in the Sentinel paints a horrifying picture of what was actually community organizing and local democracy in action. Unfortunately, his cherry-picking of facts distorts reality, like any good horror fantasy.

Housing Santa Cruz County, the organization we helped create in 2020, was formed by a diverse team of community members sitting around a table at a conference room at a local nonprofit organization. Its primary objective was to create a community movement to get more local funding for affordable housing in our county. Private citizen Fred Keeley (well before he was elected mayor) was part of that team because he shared everyone’s concern about housing affordability.

Housing Santa Cruz County mobilized hundreds of local residents in this drive toward a new funding source for housing for struggling households in our community. Jumping to 2023: At Housing Santa Cruz County’s urging, Keeley and other members of the Santa Cruz City Council began exploring how the city of Santa Cruz might advance a law to create this new funding source.

The City Council explored this possibility and convened, in partnership with the Housing Santa Cruz County, community meetings to discuss the potential paths forward. The city also conducted polling to get an understanding of the community’s willingness to adopt a funding ballot measure.

It became clear that the best path forward was to use a very well-known process: the citizen initiative. So the City Council stood back and let Housing Santa Cruz County and dozens of volunteers take on the task.

Only a profit-driven real estate industry spokesperson could find using the democratic process to be ethically questionable.

The housing funding effort led to a successful signature-gathering campaign and we now have Measure C on the November ballot. Measure C will provide the funding Santa Cruz needs to continue to make progress on housing for lower income families and to prevent homelessness.

Speaking of ethics … consider this: In their fear over the loss of profits, the real estate industry concocted their own ballot measure using the same citizen initiative process. Their measure (sometimes called Measure B and sometimes called Measure BS), will rely on the same “loophole” as Measure C to facilitate its passage.

We believe this is what’s often referred to as “the pot calling the kettle black.” The key difference between the two measures is that Measure C’s pot has real housing solutions in it while Measure B’s kettle (like most kettles) is full of steamy hot air.

Santa Cruz voters have a stark choice. We can support real housing solutions with a yes vote on Measure C. Or we can support the ethically challenged real estate industry with their nationally funded, hot air advertising campaign.

We’re proud to stand with our neighbors in need of housing solutions as we support Measure C. Vote Yes on C.

Don Lane and Gretchen Regenhardt are both founding board members of Housing Santa Cruz County and have spent their entire careers working for housing for less advantaged local residents.