Taking The Fifth

This map has been slightly redrawn as boundaries changed as a result of 2010 Census.   

A Special SLVNews Series on the Race for Fifth District County Supervisor  

SLVNews was created to provide our community with an online platform to share useful local news that affects the San Lorenzo Valley and surrounding Santa Cruz Mountain communities. With the help of other active citizens, SLVNews has been posting and sharing information about school plays, club meetings, road closures and more to a growing audience who follow us on our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+  and at SLVNews.Net.  Currently our various posts are being read and shared by thousands of local residents every day.

Among the more popular items we’ve posted have been local birthdays, traffic alerts, and the notable achievements of our students, athletes and artists.  The only political news that has so far attracted a large following was the months long drama that played out over the City Council of Santa Cruz and the Library Joint Powers Board regarding cuts to library service in Felton and Boulder Creek.

I suspect that’s about to change.  

The announcement by Mark Stone that he was giving up his seat on the Board of Supervisors to run for State Assembly means that our district will have a new representative for the first time in 9 years.  

Formal filing for the June primary does not begin until February but we already have five declared candidates, and who knows how many others sitting on the fence.

With such a large field vying for our support and nearly eight months before voting begins, we the people have an opportunity and a responsibility to engage the candidates in a thoughtful and thorough conversation on what our collective hopes and desires for the future are and what each candidate proposes to do to advance those goals.

I will reach out to every candidate and invite them to join this community conversation by providing them all equal access to the entire SLVNews platform so they can an answer our concerns and share their positions and visions unedited and unfiltered.  

The goal of Taking The Fifth will be to foster a respectful dialogue, create as much transparency in the electoral process as possible and to ultimately identify the person who will be the most effective champion for the majority of those of us who live in the fifth district.