Preview of Central Coast June 5th election
Campaign and election season is here on the Central Coast.
March 9th marks the deadline for candidates to file for the June 5th Election. There are several positions opening in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.
Most of the Santa Cruz County office positions will remain the same since they do not have people running against them, but here are some that have multiple contenders.
Santa Cruz County District 3 Supervisor is currently held by Ryan Coontery. He will be running against Steven Pleich.
Santa Cruz County District 4 Supervisor position held by Greg Caput will have 5 candidates. Caput will run against Jimmy Dutra, Felipe Hernandez, Nancy Bilicich and Leticia Mendoza.
There is also a Judicial seat opening up since current Superior Court Judge Jeff Almquist will not be returning. It’s something Santa Cruz County Clerk Gail Perllerin says doesn’t happen often, “it’s very rare for us to have an open judicial seat, I think in my career here over 25 years it’s happened
just a few times. So this is a unique experience for Santa Cruz County.”
The candidates running for that are Zachariah Schwarzbach and Syda Cogliati.
As for Monterey County there are twelve open seats, only five of those have multiple candidates running.
Current Monterey County Sheriff Steve Bernal will be running for re-election. Sheriff Bernal has already raised more than $80,000 in his kick off campaign. He will run against Jose Mendoza and Scott Davis.
Current County Controller Darren Huber will be running against Michael Miller and Rupa Shah.
Monterey County Clerk Stephen Vagnini will run against Larry Tack.
There are also two Supervisor positions opening up in District 2 and 3. For District 2, Supervisor John Phillips will be running against Regina Gage. District 3 Supervisor candidates are Alexander Chavez, Chris Lopez and Edgar Garduno.
As a reminder voter registration closes on May 21st. You can register online or same day registration will be available at certain polling booths. The election will be held on June 5th.
Santa Cruz County is looking for volunteers at the polling booths, to get more information on volunteering, candidates and positions click here.
For more information on Monterey County Election click here.
