Santa Cruz Sentinel: Guest Commentary | No on Measure M: The facts about ‘direct democracy’ claim in Yes on M op ed
By Don Lane
It’s true, the Measure M campaign cruised along for a few months without any obstacles, while few voters were ready to really consider details of the measure. Now, however, Measure M’s proponents are crashing into the facts at every turn. Susan Monheit’s Feb. 12 Sentinel Guest Commentary (“Measure M is about direct democracy in Santa Cruz”) demonstrates this. Let’s look at some of the facts she’s crashed into.
Monheit says Measure M is about democracy. It’s ironic that, given her own signature-gathering campaign, she seems to have forgotten that the community already has the very democratic right to gather signatures to overturn any ordinance the City Council approves about height or anything else. We also already have the right to recall city councilmembers if they turn against the will of the community – a right that was exercised just a few years ago. Measure M isn’t needed to hold councilmembers accountable.
A related fact: true democracy is about more than just voting — it’s about a wide range of ways that voters can engage with our government. It’s not about a small group writing an amateur ballot measure in private and then running it up the flagpole for thumbs up or down.
Monheit crashes into another fact when she says, “Measure M gives you the ability to restore some portion of affordable units that are supposed to get built in this town but don’t.” The only problem is that virtually all of the serious research and data in the world of housing finance shows that laws with the same provisions as Measure M actually reduce the amount of affordable housing built.
This data and research comes from academics, affordable housing builders and housing finance professionals. The Measure M advocates who have many big ideas about housing have never delivered a housing project and don’t have any actual data to demonstrate that their wishful thinking is realistic. The two people Monheit cited in her op-ed have expertise in quantifying the affordable housing problems of our community, but not in the areas of financing and building housing.
It’s one thing to have a debate about housing policies, but Monheit’s rewriting of history is where her Measure M cruise truly crashes into reality. Monheit writes, “On Oct. 24, 2023, with a simple majority vote, the City Council unilaterally rezoned the entire downtown to increase building height limits without revealing to the public what they were doing.” Here’s the big problem with that wild statement: Monheit was at that City Council meeting along with several other members of the public, despite her claim that the council kept its decision-making away from the public.
Monheit knew about the downtown plan proposal that was before the council. How? Because, not only had all the materials about the proposal been published online, they had also been reviewed in a public meeting of the Planning Commission weeks before that.
And then there’s Monheit’s reference to a “simple majority,” when in fact it was a 6-0 vote. So, when she writes, “It happened covertly, without transparency, input or discussion,” voters should know that Monheit knows not only there was transparency, she was actually there to give input to the public process.
Monheit’s Measure M clown car really goes into the ditch with her closing comment, “The No on Measure M campaign would like to silence public opinion.” The truth is, I and the many nonprofit housing organizations that oppose Measure M don’t want to silence anything. We want to lift up the voices of people who have been crying out for more housing and for effective policies that will get us more housing.
We need to stop creating impediments to housing in Santa Cruz. Let’s vote No on M.
Don Lane volunteers on the governing boards of Housing Santa Cruz County and Housing Matters and teaches part-time at UC Santa Cruz. His two daughters moved away from Santa Cruz after high school.