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Joy Schendledecker said she sometimes questions why she threw her hat into the ring for Santa Cruz mayor once again: “I wake up in the morning and lay in bed and think, ‘Why am I doing this again?’” she said with a laugh. 

But Schendledecker says it’s the issues that keep bringing her back. She, like Hector Marin, has become a recognizable name in local politics following campaigns in three consecutive election cycles. In 2022, she ran for mayor, ultimately losing to Fred Keeley. In 2024, she ran for the District 3 seat on the Santa Cruz City Council, losing to incumbent Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson.

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“Having other people running for city council when I disagree with their policy choices,” she said, “I think it’s important to me for the community to have choices and public conversations about the issues, and for me to be able to raise things that people may or may not be thinking about. And there shouldn’t be any coronations.”

Schendledecker said this time around, she isn’t looking to reinvent herself, but she’s doing her best to set boundaries and prevent burnout. When she looks back at the past four years, she said she doesn’t think Keeley “has done the worst job” as Santa Cruz’s mayor, although she said there are things she would do differently. She said as much during a Democratic Central Committee endorsement forum at the end of March, and told Lookout that opponent Ryan Coonerty had insinuated she would seek to do the exact opposite of Keeley.

Joy Schendledecker (left) and current Santa Cruz mayor Fred Keeley debate city issues in a 2022 Lookout candidate forum. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Schendledecker said she was happy with Keeley’s opposition to Flock Safety cameras, but that she was not pleased with his and the council’s handling of the contentious Gaza cease-fire debate in early 2024. The Santa Cruz City Council rejected a proposed resolution calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas after 10 hours of public comment and demonstrations outside city hall. The council ended up adopting an alternate resolution that called for peace but did not include any references to a cease-fire.

Schendledecker said it felt that the public discourse was mostly “a sham,” and that the council had put together a watered-down resolution beforehand. She also took issue with Keeley calling police into the chambers when emotions ran high.

“You might not like that behavior or feel challenged by it, but under the circumstances, no one was gonna hurt anybody and calling the police just escalates it,” she said. She said she believes the way the council handled the evening pushed people away from political discourse instead of welcoming them.

Should she be elected, Schendledecker said she wants to improve transparency, especially around sensitive issues. Rather than only holding public meetings, where it can be difficult for the public to get face-to-face time with city staff and officials, she would aim to establish “precinct assemblies” within the six city council districts to allow community members to connect on the issues and organize with each other more effectively.

“I think a lot of people in my circles think that things are still very consultant-driven,” she said. “It often feels more top-down than bottom-up.”

Schendledecker reiterated that she is against Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers. She said many of the crimes solved with the technology are property crimes rather than violent crimes, leading her to believe that the risk of losing civil rights is too great for the benefit that the cameras may provide. The fact that the cameras are owned by private companies only exacerbates that concern, she said.

“This is not an entity that is owned and managed by the city, county or state with citizen oversight boards,” she said. “We know that these companies take the money and invest it in hedge funds, the weapons industry and in more surveillance primarily used in racist, classist ways that we as a community do not stand for.”

On crime and public safety, Schendledecker also wants to increase the city’s contribution to the county’s mobile crisis emergency response team, a 24-hour non-police response team for mental health crises.

Schendledecker noted how many basic supplies are locked up at supermarkets and pharmacies across the county. She said that shows people are stealing necessities out of desperation, and argues that the skyrocketing cost of living is the main driver of crime locally. She said she wants to see wealthier residents pay more local taxes to address the issue.

“We have people who are very, very, very wealthy in our city and county and they put so much money into defeating rent control and progressive taxation,” she said. “They could do something about it and make it less bad. I think when people feel safe and taken care of, we have less crime.”

Schendledecker also said she wants to cut what she says is managerial and administrative bloat in city departments, and instead focus on filling roles and vacancies in the “boots on the ground” positions.

Schendledecker said she does think the city needs to continue building housing, but says constructing many market-rate units will not lower rents across the city. She advocates for a community land trust for housing, which typically owns land and facilitates long-term leases to homeowners, nonprofits and other organizations with the hope of preserving affordability over long periods of time.

Regarding the closure of Housing Matters’ homeless day services, Schendledecker said it was a mistake to have relied on Housing Matters to run the program without backup plans. She also thinks that future services will need to be spread out across a number of locations.

“People have to get their heads together and pick places they can live with for transitional housing, supportive housing, mail rooms,” she said. 

Regardless of whether she wins, Schendledecker said she isn’t sure if she’ll run for office again. But then again, she said: The issues keep bringing her back.

“As a candidate, you’re sometimes like, ‘I don’t have a chance of winning,’ and then you say, ‘Except maybe,’” she said.

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The post Joy Schendledecker, embarking on second mayoral campaign, wants voters to have robust choices at the ballot appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Immigration attorney Alisa Thomas and criminal defense attorney Bryan Hackett are competing for an open seat on the Santa Cruz County Superior Court in the June 2 election.

All Santa Cruz County registered voters will be asked to check a box on the nonpartisan ballot to decide whether Hackett or Thomas will serve the six-year term, which starts in January 2027. Judicial elections are rare because most superior court judge vacancies are filled by the governor. The most recent election for a judge in Santa Cruz County was in 2020, when Nancy de la Peña won in a runoff.

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While both candidates in this race believe judges should be transparent and impartial, they differ in their views on diversion – or alternatives to incarceration – and they differ significantly in experience. 

For the past 25 years, Thomas has worked primarily in the San Francisco Immigration Court focused on assisting her clients, many of them farmworkers, as they seek work permits and residency. 

“You pull people out of this sort of amorphous limbo, and you get them a green card,” she told Lookout. “I’m running because I want to do the same type of work and use my skills and efforts to help not only the immigrant community, but the community as a whole.” 

Hackett has worked in the Santa Cruz court for 15 years, defending clients and interacting with the local criminal justice system from the county district attorney’s office and local judges to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.

“I make a better neutral arbiter than I do zealous advocate,” Hackett told Lookout. “I think I’m very good at what I do. I love my job, but I think there’s an evolution of the service that I can provide to my community in bringing that philosophy to the bench.” 

In Santa Cruz County, 12 judges sit on the bench. Thomas and Hackett want to succeed Santa Cruz Superior Court Judge Stephen Siegel, who’s retiring after first being appointed by former governor Jerry Brown in 2012. The candidate who wins Siegel’s seat will face reelection in 2032. 

Five other Santa Cruz County judges also have expiring terms this year, but because they’re running unopposed, they won’t appear on the ballot. 

Superior Court judges earn about $244,727 and are employees of the Judicial Branch of California. They follow a code of ethics while overseeing the resolution of conflicts in criminal and civil cases, which can involve jury trials. 

The Santa Cruz County courthouse. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Lookout sat down with both of the candidates to learn more about their backgrounds, their judicial philosophies, their views on eviction cases and alternatives to incarceration, and ethical challenges judges face. 

Who is Alisa Thomas?

Thomas lives in Aptos, litigates in San Francisco and works from her downtown Santa Cruz office, framed by tall wooden walls and windows separating the multiple rooms of her firm. Her two Cuban Havanese dogs, Athena and Che, look over the headquarters from their perches on leather couches. 

She moved to Santa Cruz for love. Thomas married UC Santa Cruz professor Alan Richards and had two children. She declined to tell Lookout her age, to have her portrait taken or to grant more than 30 minutes for the interview. She also declined to participate in a candidate forum with her opponent, nor to do an interview with the Lookout editorial endorsement team.

Thomas’ work as an immigration attorney sometimes involves asylum cases – which lately have been upended by the federal government. Over the past year, the Trump administration significantly reduced the number of judges at the San Francisco Immigration Court, which is expected to shutter entirely by the end of the year. In November, the federal government paused millions of asylum cases. 

“It’s huge in the immigration world. It’s huge news,” Thomas said, adding that she’ll likely have to go to the Los Angeles immigration court once the San Francisco court closes. 

Thomas said the changes have severely affected immigrants’ cases, and their attorneys. She said between San Jose and Santa Cruz there used to be six immigration attorneys who did litigation; now it’s just her and one other attorney. 

“It’s very frustrating when you see people who have valid asylum cases that really will get killed if they return to the country, ” she said. “Terminating the application for no good reason at all. It takes a toll.” 

Thomas told Lookout her judicial philosophy necessitates thoroughly understanding the case: “And the main thing is to be impartial and to be fair and to hold people accountable.” 

If elected, she could potentially oversee eviction cases. While Santa Cruz is on the lower end for eviction rates in the state (8 filings per 1,000 renters), the county has struggled to address its local housing crisis. Santa Cruz County has been rated the least affordable rental market nationally for three consecutive years. Thomas told Lookout that following the law is top priority. 

“There are always two parties involved, and the landlords have to follow the law,” she said. “They can’t evict people early or illegally or because they’re a whistleblower. As long as the law is what it is now, I would follow the law.” 

As for alternatives to incarceration, called diversion, Thomas said that’s an area she feels her views differ from Hackett’s. 

“That’s where Brian and I diverge,” she said. “He’s very strong on spending money on diversion, and I think the programs that we have in place are great. I think they do a lot of good. But that would not be one of the things that I would want to make larger.” 

Thomas said she’s glad that the courts have diversion in place, but that she thinks people should also be held accountable and shouldn’t get “20 chances.”

Thomas received endorsements from retired 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Syda Cogliati and Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Erika Ziegenhorn. 

Who is Bryan Hackett?

Hackett, who lives in Boulder Creek, defends clients in Santa Cruz County Superior Court and works from his single-room office with a lobby, located across the street from the downtown courthouse. A poster made famous from “The X-Files” television series hangs on his wall and reads, “I want to believe” with an image of a UFO. 

He was drawn to Santa Cruz’s beaches and redwoods from the East Coast shortly after high school and went back and forth during his college and law school years. Hackett, 54, married his wife, Kacie, a registered nurse, with whom he has three young boys. 

Bryan Hackett is a candidate for the open judge seat on the Santa Cruz County Superior Court. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Having a background in criminal defense and also raising a young family, Hackett said he understands the criminal defense side of cases as well as the public safety side. He said he is both an advocate for his clients and is “pro public safety.” 

“I think I bring the skill to the bench of being able to see both sides and respect both sides of the argument,” he said. “I think that will give me an advantage in being able to make fair and just impartial rulings by the law.”

He said he often thinks of a case involving a 15-year-old client accused of attempted murder who was automatically charged as an adult. His client was in a car with three other people and was accused of being the shooter. Hackett spent time building a relationship with his client, who initially didn’t speak to him. 

Over time, he learned his client had a significant learning disability and hadn’t received any specialized education services. 

“We ultimately determined that he was not the shooter and had been sort of manipulated by other people in the car,” he said. “Bottom line is, all that got brought to light, and thankfully, the district attorney with whom I was working agreed to transfer him back to juvenile court.”

Hackett went to his client’s graduation from juvenile hall. The client was able to get probation; he moved out of the county, got a job, a college degree and an apartment. Hackett said that case has stuck with him for more than a decade. 

Hackett describes himself as a “big fan” of alternatives to incarceration when applied appropriately. For example, if someone has a mental health diagnosis that led them directly to a crime they’ve been accused of committing, and that person is open to treatment that can fix the behavior, they can be diverted from serving time in jail or prison. 

“And as an attorney, and even more so as a judge, I think we have the power and the obligation to make sure that as a community, we’re banding together and making sure that if there are services and treatment that can help these people right the ship and not repeat their behavior and learn from it, then everybody wins,” he said. 

Hackett’s endorsements include Siegel, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Mandy Tovar, Santa Cruz County Supervisors Justin Cummings and Felipe Hernandez, and the Santa Cruz County Democratic Party. 

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The post Defense and immigration attorneys vying for Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge seat appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

➤ Para leer el artículo en español, haga clic aquí.

Running for political office had never been in the cards for Elias Gonzales. He was content supporting the community through his various roles in the nonprofit sector and, more importantly, spending time with his family. 

 “I’ve been in all these spaces, and it’s never been like, ‘Oh, I want to be in there,’” Gonzales said. “I was happy being a dad and that’s the title I only really cared about.” 

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Gonzales, 48, said he was approached by several community members with the idea of running for the District 4 seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, which represents most of the Pajaro Valley, Watsonville and Interlaken. 

After hearing their concerns and desire for change, Gonzales was convinced. “It’s not about us versus them, especially now, it can’t be that. It has to be us coming together,” he said. 

Gonzales is one of three candidates vying to represent South County on the board of supervisors. The others are incumbent Felipe Hernandez and longtime community leader and former journalist Tony Nuñez. The primary election is June 2. 

Since there are more than two candidates for the South County supervisor seat, the Nov. 3 general election will serve as a runoff between the top two vote-getters, unless one candidate wins a majority of the primary vote. 

Gonzales currently serves as the associate director of movement building for Hollister-based nonprofit Youth Alliance, which provides support services for students and their families, and sits on Santa Cruz County’s juvenile justice delinquency prevention commission. He’s previously worked at Watsonville-based Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County and MILPA (Motivating Individual Leadership for Public Advancement).  

District 4 Santa Cruz County supervisor hopeful Elias Gonzales during a Lookout candidate forum in Watsonville. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Anxiety around immigration enforcement remains high in South County. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have visited Watsonville at least 23 times since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term; nine of those visits occurred within the first two months of 2026. 

Gonzales told Lookout that one of his priorities is to build a trusting relationship with community members so that he becomes a person they can come to for support. 

“We could do everything we want up here as a county, but if we don’t have a relationship with our community and there is no trust there, it doesn’t matter what we do up here,” he said. 

Last month, the board of supervisors approved an ordinance barring federal immigration officials from using county property for enforcement purposes, but Gonzales says the new law is not enough. 

“That didn’t stop people from being scared. That didn’t change most stuff for the common person,” he said. “That will still have [ICE] come in, that will still have their job, they’ll park in the street. Who cares? They don’t need a parking lot to park in.” 

An ordinance is a good first step, but more needs to be done, he said. Gonzales thinks the county should create a legal defense fund for its undocumented community. Most of these residents are working in the fields, he said, and are some of the hardest-working people, and yet there isn’t enough support for them. 

Additionally, the county should do more to support organizations such as the Watsonville Law Center and Community Action Board, which provide legal services to the community, Gonzales said.

Over the past year and a half, South County residents have been pushing back on county officials over the development of an ordinance that would regulate battery storage facilities, specifically a project being proposed by Massachusetts-based developer New Leaf Energy just outside Watsonville. 

Gonzales is a proponent of renewable energy and said he understands the reasoning behind the state’s mandate to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2045. However, when it comes to the proposed battery storage facility on 90 Minto Rd., he asks: Why Watsonville? 

He’s taken a hard stance against the project, especially after the January 2025 fire in Moss Landing and learning the way that such fires are handled is simply to let the batteries burn. “That’s not an option for me. That’s not an option for our communities,” Gonzales said. 

Gonzales worries the county or even the City of Watsonville — which would need to respond to a fire due to proximity — are not fully prepared if a fire were to break out. He’s also concerned that the county fairgrounds, which is a designated evacuation site, are just on the other side of College Lake from the proposed storage facility and would not be safe if a major incident occurs. 

“We have to do more,” he said. “Hearing the concerns from the community, we are hearing the concerns. Let’s include those concerns here, and see what we can do collectively to find that win-win scenario.” 

An issue Gonzales knows intimately is the lack of affordability in Santa Cruz County. Following budget cuts at MILPA, Gonzales lost his job and had to move in with family. 

“Most of us are a few paychecks away from being homeless. I’m no different,” he said. “I lost my house, I lost my job, and I think that’s just the reality.”

Elias Gonzales, a Watsonville native and community advocate. Credit: Elias Gonzales

Gonzales told Lookout that if nothing is done to address the rising cost of living, people will have no choice but to move out of the area. 

“We do live in one of the most expensive areas in the United States,” Gonzales said. “How can we work together? How do we look at rent ordinances? How do we look at just having those conversations?”

He suggests putting more emphasis on vocational and apprenticeship programs, and encouraging the younger generation to explore different career paths. That aligns with another issue he’s passionate about: investing in youth. 

“We have young people hanging out at Target, and that’s what they do for fun,” he said. There needs to be more programs and activities for the younger generation to engage in,” Gonzales said. He thinks investing in the younger generation could also lead to a reduction in crime and increased public safety. 

“That’s what the platform is: securing our future,” he said. “We’re going to make decisions today to impact the future of our next seven generations, through affordability, to do that for the community and through safety.”

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The post ‘It’s not about us versus them’: Supervisor candidate Elias Gonzales wants to build long-lasting relationships to create change in South County appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Former farmworker, teacher and local activist Woody Rehanek is stunned when he looks out at the Pajaro Valley and considers the miles of plastic blanketing lush local farmland. He dubs our age “the Plasticene,” for the millions of pounds of farm plastics in use. Recycling, he writes, lags far behind the scale of the problem. Here, he traces how modern agriculture fuels a growing tide of local pollution and then points to a different future, one rooted in soil health, organic practices, and change underway at a few forward-looking companies.

The post Drowning in plastic: How modern farming is reshaping the Pajaro Valley appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

Esta traducción fue generada utilizando inteligencia artificial y ha sido revisada por un hablante nativo de español; si bien nos esforzamos por lograr precisión, pueden ocurrir algunos errores de traducción. Para leer el artículo en inglés, haga clic aquí.

Postularse para un cargo político nunca había estado en los planes de Elias Gonzales. Se sentía satisfecho apoyando a la comunidad a través de sus distintos roles en el sector sin fines de lucro y, más importante aún, pasando tiempo con su familia.

“He estado en todos estos espacios, y nunca fue como, “Oh, quiero estar ahí,” dijo Gonzales. “Era feliz siendo papá y ese es el único título que realmente me importaba.”

Gonzales, de 48 años, dijo que varios miembros de la comunidad se le acercaron con la idea de que se postulara para el puesto del Distrito 4 en la Junta de Supervisores del Condado de Santa Cruz, que representa la mayor parte del Valle de Pájaro, Watsonville e Interlaken.

Después de escuchar sus preocupaciones y su deseo de cambio, Gonzales quedó convencido. “No se trata de nosotros contra ellos, especialmente ahora, no puede ser así. Tiene que ser que nos unamos,” Gonzales dijo.

Gonzales es uno de los tres candidatos que compiten por representar al sur del condado en la junta de supervisores. Los otros son el titular Felipe Hernández y el líder comunitario y ex periodista Tony Núñez. La elección primaria es el 2 de junio.

Dado que hay más de dos candidatos para el puesto de supervisor del sur del condado, la elección general del 3 de noviembre servirá como una segunda vuelta entre los dos candidatos con más votos, a menos que uno obtenga la mayoría en la primaria.

Gonzales se desempeña como director asociado de desarrollo de movimientos en la organización sin fines de lucro Youth Alliance, con sede en Hollister, que brinda servicios de apoyo a estudiantes y sus familias, y también forma parte de la comisión del condado para la prevención de la delincuencia juvenil. Anteriormente trabajó en Community Action Board del Condado de Santa Cruz, con sede en Watsonville, y en MILPA (Motivating Individual Leadership for Public Advancement).

La ansiedad en torno a la aplicación de las leyes de inmigración sigue siendo alta en el sur del condado. Agentes del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de Estados Unidos (ICE) han visitado Watsonville al menos 23 veces desde el inicio del segundo mandato del presidente Donald Trump; nueve de esas visitas ocurrieron en los primeros dos meses de 2026.

Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Gonzales dijo a Lookout que una de sus prioridades es construir una relación de confianza con los miembros de la comunidad para convertirse en alguien a quien puedan acudir en busca de apoyo.

“Podemos hacer todo lo que queramos aquí como condado, pero si no tenemos una relación con nuestra comunidad y no hay confianza, no importa lo que hagamos,” dijo Gonzales.

El mes pasado, la junta de supervisores aprobó una ordenanza que prohíbe a funcionarios federales de inmigración usar propiedades del condado para fines de aplicación de la ley, pero Gonzales dice que la nueva ley no es suficiente.

“Eso no evitó que la gente tuviera miedo. No cambió la mayoría de las cosas para la persona común,” dijo Gonzales. “Eso no impedirá que [ICE] venga, seguirán haciendo su trabajo, se estacionarán en la calle. ¿Y qué? No necesitan un estacionamiento para estacionarse.”

Una ordenanza es un buen primer paso, pero se necesita hacer más, afirmó. Gonzales cree que el condado debería crear un fondo de defensa legal para la comunidad indocumentada. La mayoría de estas personas trabajan en el campo, dijo, y son de las más trabajadoras, pero aun así no hay suficiente apoyo para ellas.

Además, el condado debería hacer más para apoyar a organizaciones como Watsonville Law Center y Community Action Board, que brindan servicios legales a la comunidad, dijo Gonzales.

Durante el último año y medio, los residentes del sur del condado han presionado a los funcionarios del condado por el desarrollo de una ordenanza que regularía las instalaciones de almacenamiento de baterías, específicamente un proyecto propuesto por la empresa con sede en Massachusetts New Leaf Energy, justo a las afueras de Watsonville.

Gonzales es partidario de la energía renovable y entiende la razón detrás del mandato estatal de alcanzar el 100% de energía renovable para 2045. Sin embargo, en cuanto a la instalación propuesta en 90 Minto Rd., se pregunta: ¿por qué Watsonville?

Ha adoptado una postura firme en contra del proyecto, especialmente después del incendio de enero de 2025 en Moss Landing y al conocer que la forma de manejar estos incendios es simplemente dejar que las baterías se quemen. “Esa no es una opción para mí. No es una opción para nuestras comunidades,” dijo Gonzales.

Gonzales teme que el condado o incluso la ciudad de Watsonville —que tendría que responder a un incendio debido a la cercanía— no estén completamente preparados si ocurriera uno. También le preocupa que el recinto ferial del condado, que es un sitio designado de evacuación, esté justo al otro lado del lago College y no sería seguro en caso de un incidente grave.

Credit: Elias Gonzales

“Tenemos que hacer más,” Gonzales dijo. “Al escuchar las preocupaciones de la comunidad, las estamos escuchando. Incluyamos esas preocupaciones aquí y veamos qué podemos hacer colectivamente para encontrar una solución en la que todos ganen.”

Un tema que Gonzales conoce de cerca es la falta de asequibilidad en el condado. Tras recortes presupuestarios en MILPA Collective, Gonzales perdió su trabajo y tuvo que mudarse con su familia.

“La mayoría de nosotros estamos a unos cuantos cheques de pago de quedarnos sin hogar. Yo no soy diferente. Perdí mi casa, perdí mi trabajo, y creo que esa es la realidad,” dijo Gonzales.

Gonzales dijo a Lookout que si no se hace nada para abordar el aumento del costo de vida, la gente no tendrá otra opción que mudarse fuera de la zona.

“Vivimos en una de las áreas más caras de Estados Unidos,” dijo Gonzales. “¿Cómo podemos trabajar juntos? ¿Cómo analizamos las ordenanzas de alquiler? ¿Cómo simplemente tenemos esas conversaciones?”

Sugiere poner mayor énfasis en programas vocacionales y de aprendizaje, y alentar a la generación más joven a explorar diferentes trayectorias profesionales. Eso se alinea con otro tema que le apasiona: invertir en la juventud.

“Tenemos jóvenes pasando el rato en Target, y eso es lo que hacen para divertirse,” él dijo. “Necesitamos más programas y actividades para que la generación joven participe.” Gonzales cree que invertir en la juventud también podría conducir a una reducción del crimen y a una mayor seguridad pública.

“De eso se trata la plataforma: asegurar nuestro futuro,” dijo Gonzales. “Vamos a tomar decisiones hoy para impactar el futuro de nuestras próximas siete generaciones, a través de la asequibilidad, para hacerlo por la comunidad y a través de la seguridad.”

The post ‘No se trate de nosotros contra ellos’: Candidato para supervisor del condado por el Distrito 4, Elias Gonzales, quiere construir relaciones duraderas con la comunidad para generar cambios en el sur del condado appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for its newsletters.

In 2022, faced with mounting criticism from California parents and students who couldn’t get into the state’s three premier public universities, legislators and University of California officials struck a deal. 

UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego would admit a combined 900 more in-state students a year, and the state would up their budgets to cover the loss of revenue from non-resident students, who pay three times what in-state students pay. 

That deal has since cost taxpayers $276 million and allowed around 3,000 more students to enroll at the three universities. 

While the costs were expected, the number is far higher than the annual $31 million figure Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators routinely cite for funding the in-state student expansion, a CalMatters analysis shows. Now, with one year to go in the five year plan, some are wondering whether the program’s high costs should continue as-is, particularly as California faces several years of multi-billion-dollar deficits. 

Questioning the non-resident swap

At least one lawmaker and the Legislative Analyst’s Office are questioning the ongoing wisdom of the non-resident funding swap. 

“We are now living with those decisions, and we need to decide whether those are decisions we want to stand by still, or perhaps there is another approach,” said Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat from Chula Vista, at a March meeting of the budget subcommittee on education, which he chairs.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office supported enrolling more California students in 2022, but its analysts now are proposing that the state no longer add new resident students in lieu of out-of-state students. The analyst’s office says it’s an unnecessary expense for multiple reasons and going forward can be made cheaper, especially given “the state’s projected budget deficits.”

Instead, it proposes that the Legislature direct the UC to enroll more resident students without limiting the enrollment of non-resident students. That would cost the state $25 million annually, rather than the $61 million predicted for the fiscal year starting in July. 

One reason for the office’s skepticism about keeping the current formula is that the three campuses were able to add thousands more undergraduates from California since the funding program began, aside from those who replaced non-residents.   

On the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. Credit: Raquel Natalicchio / CalMatters

UC data shows 6,000 more Californians were enrolled at the three campuses, on top of the students added through the funding program, since the swap began. That growth was fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding increases to the UC between 2022 and 2024 that lawmakers and the governor also approved in addition to the non-resident funding swap.

The analyst’s office also indicated that the three popular UC campuses have space to continue adding students. “Over the past five years, all three campuses have initiated and/or completed housing projects adding several thousand beds” and still have available classroom and lab space, a February report from the office said.

Time will tell if the Legislature will agree with the analyst’s office. Lawmakers and the governor face an annual late June deadline to finalize the state budget.  

The governor’s office so far supports maintaining the non-resident swap program and doesn’t intend to alter the plan in its forthcoming May revision to the governor’s budget proposal, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, which in effect serves as the governor’s fiscal policy team.

In a statement, UC spokesperson Omar Rodriguez underscored that the Legislature’s push to drive down out-of-state enrollment has to come with costs.

“Replacing a non-resident student with a resident student is not an even exchange absent sufficient state buyout,” Rodriguez wrote to CalMatters in an April email. With the higher tuition they are charged, every out-of-state student pays for the equivalent of 2.7 California students, he wrote. The three UCs added about 300 more in-state students through the swap program than they were funded for, Rodriguez added.

CalMatters requested interviews with UC officials, but key personnel were not available, Rodriguez said. 

UC officials were ambivalent about the non-resident funding swap five years ago. While they welcomed the money, they worried that future lawmakers would back away from the promise to pay the UC for not enrolling out-of-state students. 

Emphasis on Californians

Why do any of this? Lawmakers in 2022 wanted to curb the percentage of out-of-state undergraduates at the UC and the three campuses specifically. At the time, more than 20% of the three school’s undergraduate students came from out of state. The funding swap was intended to bring the percentage down to 18% by the fifth year, which is next year. The non-resident enrollment rate currently is around 19% at the three campuses.

But the decision by lawmakers to require the campuses to limit the number of out-of-state students came at a considerable cost. Had the Legislature instructed those same campuses to enroll more Californians and not cut out-of-state enrollment, the combined price tag since 2022 wouldn’t be $276 million, but closer to $105 million, according to CalMatters’ calculations that were validated by officials at the governor’s Department of Finance as well as the UC. 

The final price tag to reach the out-of-state enrollment goal will be about $460 million. After that, the program will cost about $153 million a year to sustain — or less, if policymakers side with the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

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In many ways, the Legislature’s actions were a return to form. The state’s interest in enrolling more California students in its prominent public universities is decades-old. Until the mid-2000s, UC campuses enrolled few students from outside of California. After the Great Recession prompted lawmakers to slash state spending, UC’s public funding cratered. To make up the difference, UC tripled its enrollment of undergraduates from out of state.    

But then the state, under the guidance of Newsom’s five-year higher education compact, promised to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars annually in 2022 so the UC could enroll more California students at all its campuses. That’s in addition to the $30 million annually to limit the out-of-state student body at Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD, the three most popular campuses.

“They’re making good on the reason that you have a state university, which is not supposed to be a purely revenue-making machine,” said Julie R. Posselt, a professor specializing in higher education issues at the University of Southern California, where she’s an associate dean. “It’s supposed to be an engine for your state’s population, economy and workforce.”

The UC is arguably one of the best deals for state taxpayers: a world-class education that for more than half of California undergraduate students is tuition-free because of financial aid.

Demand for the three UCs, by the numbers

More than 100,000 students apply to each of three most popular UC campuses annually, the majority Californians. Lately the freshman admissions rate at UCLA has been less than 10% — not quite as exclusive as Harvard’s 4% but well below the admissions rate to UCLA two decades ago, when more than a quarter were admitted.

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UCLA is top of mind for the thousands of low-income students in Southern California that Alison De Lucca’s collective serves. She’s executive editor of the Southern California College Attainment Network, which is made up of dozens of nonprofits working to help students apply for college and financial aid.

Additional slots at UCLA matter to the region’s high schoolers seeking to attend a highly selective institution. “Many of them, particularly post-pandemic, would like to stay a little closer to home,” she said.

She didn’t speculate on whether parents think more slots for Californians is worth the extra state spending, “but I will say that parents are quite emphatic about ensuring that their students also have the chance” to gain entry at a school such as UCLA. 

National studies of flagship public universities also indicate that as schools rely more on increased revenue from non-resident students, overall campus diversity can decline. That’s because out-of-state students “tend to be richer and are less likely” to be Black or Latino, one study co-written by Posselt found. 

Non-resident value

The UC student association representing all undergraduates opposed the out-of-state funding swap when it first became policy. The association didn’t want to see fewer non-residents, which it considered an attack on the diversity of the student body. Students argued that out-of-state students add to the cultural dynamism of a campus and also contribute to the regional economy.

“We’re living here, we’re voting here, we’re working here, we’re tenants in our campus cities. We’re still treated as second-tier students,” said Riya Master in 2021, when she was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley from Virginia.

Master is now in her fourth year of attending UC San Francisco’s highly ranked medical school. She gained residency as a Californian by working at a UCSF laboratory on drug discovery after graduating from UC Berkeley. As a result, she’s paying the in-state tuition rate. Her goal is to specialize in pediatrics, a field of medicine undergoing a massive shortage nationally.

California enrollment grew

The UC system added 19,000 slots for new California undergraduates across its nine undergraduate campuses since 2022 — equal to a mid-sized UC campus without having built one. That includes about 9,000 more at the three sought-after campuses.

The number of non-resident undergraduates at the UC fell by 3,500 students in that time. 

The growth in enrollment availability coincided with higher admissions rates for Californians, as the share of applicants gaining admission jumped from around 65% to 77% in that time.

But it’s a different story at the three most popular campuses: admission rates there haven’t increased, meaning it’s as difficult to get into UC Berkeley, UCLA or UC San Diego now as it was five years ago — and harder compared to nearly a decade ago.

Even with loads of new state spending, UC reports less money per student. Though state support has jumped by more than a billion dollars since 2000, inflation has eroded those gains while enrollment soared. As a result, UC academic spending for every student decreased from $46,000 at the start of the millennium to $28,000 today.

Public universities, such as the three UC campuses, have to manage a tough balancing act, said Posselt, the USC professor. They need to preserve their academic rigor, but “they absolutely have a mandate to not become exclusionary institutions, and they must do all of that while maintaining financial solvency.”

She said the UCs are “probably the best in the country in terms of a state system that is actively trying to maximize” student access.

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Former state controller Betty Yee dropped out of the California governor’s race on Monday, saying she couldn’t see a path to get donors and additional support from undecided voters with six weeks left before the primary. 

“It was becoming clear that the donors were not going to be there,” she said. “Even some of my former supporters just felt like they needed to move on as well.” 

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She did not immediately endorse another candidate, but said she would do so in the next few days. Six Democrats and two Republicans are leading in polling ahead of the June 2 election.

Yee was one of the earliest to enter the race, announcing her candidacy more than two years ago. She ran on her experience handling the state budget and her family’s middle-class, immigrant background. 

A progressive who supported continuing the state’s greenhouse gas reduction mandates, Yee also emphasized her ability to balance the budget and spoke often about the importance of growing the state’s economy and auditing state programs for fraud. In recent days, she had begun styling herself as “Boring Betty,” promising a drama-free state government experience. 

But pragmatism never translated into star power. Yee has stayed at or near the bottom of the polls, never garnering more than about 3% of likely voters, and lagged in fundraising.

Yee said she chose to run a grassroots campaign from the beginning rather than seek out large institutional support like other Democrats. But in the second half of last year, she brought in just $344,000 — compared with other candidates’ millions — and spent more than she raised. Donors, she said, held back out of concern about her low polling numbers, even those from Asian American communities that she said had backed her in the past.

That made her one of California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks’ unnamed targets of a public campaign to pressure lower-polling Democrats to drop out of the race. With many Democrats in the race potentially splitting the liberal vote, Democrats were concerned that two Republicans could win the top-two primary election in June.

‘People want a personality’

Yee, the former vice chair of the party, insisted she had grassroots support and wouldn’t be forced out of the race by a slate of wealthy, male candidates. She and the other candidates of color banded together to denounce their exclusion from a University of Southern California candidate debate last month after the university used a formula based on polling and fundraising to decide who to invite. The debate was ultimately canceled.

“This has been my life story, frankly, as a woman of color,” she told reporters in March. “I’ve been overlooked, I’ve been underestimated and pushed aside.”

Former California state controller Betty Yee during a gubernatorial forum hosted by the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Sacramento on April 14, 2026. Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

In a tearful news conference on Monday, Yee expressed frustration about Hicks’ public pressure effort, which involved releasing periodic polls to prompt candidates to “assess the viability of their campaigns” that Yee said became “self-fulfilling.” And she said voters didn’t appear interested in her “experience and competence,” instead flocking toward candidates who made splashier statements about fighting the Trump administration.

“People want a personality,” she said. “You have to either be the loudest, you have to have gimmicks, you gotta do what you gotta do to get attention. I got no gimmicks.”

The chances of Democrats getting locked out of the general election have gone down since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out over a week ago over sexual assault allegations and after President Donald Trump endorsed Steve Hilton on the Republican side. 

But Yee has little cash on hand to continue, and the race is entering its most expensive phase yet with multiple candidates launching television ads last week. 

Her exit leaves only one woman in the race, former Rep. Katie Porter. 

Like Swalwell, Yee dropped out after a March state deadline to file or withdraw for the race, so her name will remain on the ballot in June. 

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Public defenders in Santa Cruz County will join colleagues across California and the nation April 23 in a coordinated protest highlighting what they describe as chronic underfunding and unmanageable caseloads that threaten defendants’ constitutional right to counsel.

Chief Public Defender Heather Rogers is urging community members to wear black that day in solidarity with public defense services and the Sixth Amendment right to legal representation.

Rogers said recent workload studies at the state and national level confirm that public defenders lack the time needed to adequately represent clients.

“Behind every case is a person with intertwined legal and human needs that demand skill, expertise, and time,” Rogers said. “When caseloads become unmanageable, the right to counsel becomes a right in name only.”

The April 23 action comes as public defender offices report rising caseloads, driven in part by increased felony filings under measures such as Proposition 36, without corresponding increases in staffing.

In San Francisco, the issue has already drawn court attention. Public Defender Mano Raju was held in contempt and fined $26,000 after declining to take new cases one day a week due to workload concerns; that order is currently stayed pending appeal.

Rogers framed such actions as part of an ethical obligation rather than defiance.

“When public defenders raise workload concerns, we are not stepping back—we are sounding the alarm,” she said.

The right to counsel was established in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, which requires states to provide attorneys for those who cannot afford them. But Rogers and others argue the mandate remains underfunded in California, where counties bear primary responsibility for financing trial-level public defense.

A recent California Public Defense Workloads and Staffing Study, commissioned by the Legislature, found most public defense attorneys carry excessive caseloads and that staffing levels are insufficient to meet demand. The report also linked those conditions to delays, inadequate case investigation and communication gaps with clients.

Rogers said the findings underscore the need for a dedicated, ongoing state funding stream.

“Relying on counties to fund public defense is not sustainable,” she said. “This is a state obligation.”

Public defenders argue that without additional resources, courts risk delays, wrongful convictions and prolonged incarceration — outcomes they say undermine both fairness and public safety.

Community members are encouraged to participate in the April 23 demonstration by wearing black and sharing messages on social media using hashtags including #FundPublicDefense and #ProtectThe6th.

Public defenders plan April 23 protest over caseloads, funding gaps