Incumbent Jimmy Dutra, right, remained ahead of challenger Trina Coffman-Gomez for District 6 Watsonville City Council in updated results Tuesday. (Contributed)

WATSONVILLE >> Incumbent Jimmy Dutra led Trina Coffman-Gomez for the District 6 Watsonville City Council seat as of 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 12. Watsonville’s Measures V and W also leaned toward approval.

Santa Cruz County election results are expected to be updated this month, with final results expected in early December.

Measure V would allow non-U.S. citizens and residents younger than 18 to serve on Watsonville’s boards and commissions. 

Measure W asks whether several parts of Watsonville’s city charter should be revised. The changes would include:

• Giving the mayor a 25% pay raise.
• Allowing the council to pay planning commissioners.
• Giving council members employment benefits.
• Requiring less experience for the city manager position.

What does the city council do?

Watsonville has seven geographical districts, each with its own elected representative on the city council. The council creates city laws, sets the city’s budget and oversees the city’s police, fire, parks and community services. The council also has the power to set policies to address homelessness and decide where and how much housing is built.

The District 6 council seat is the sole Watsonville City Council race in this election. District 6 includes neighborhoods around H.A. Hyde Elementary School, Brewington Avenue and Meadows Manor Mobile Home Park. 

Jimmy Dutra’s stances on issues

Dutra, 49, has served on the Watsonville City Council since 2020. In a civil court in September, Dutra was found liable for $1.1 million in damages stemming from the sexual assault of a 12-year-old boy in 2005.

When asked what he’ll do about the recent 60% rise in homelessness in Watsonville, Dutra said he would focus on mental health and addiction resources.

“People like saying housing is the issue. To me, housing is not the issue. It’s definitely a component but it’s not the issue. The issue that we see and that we’re dealing with out on the streets is the addiction and the mental health issues that these people are experiencing,” Dutra said. “We have to make sure that we get those resources for mental health and addiction to these people.”  

When asked what he’ll do to increase funding and fix crumbling roads in the Watsonville area, Dutra said, “We have been putting in a lot of investment into our roads — yes. We need to do more. But they’ve been neglected for so many years.”

South County roads in unincorporated areas are neglected, Dutra said. “But we do have a plan in Watsonville, and I’ve been working on it and hopefully I’m re-elected so I can continue working on it. As a council, the current council, we would like to have designated amounts of road to be reconstructed or resurfaced in our own personal districts.”

When asked what he will do to bring more activities and entertainment to Watsonville, Dutra mentioned renovations under construction at Ramsay Park. 

“Investing our money to keep our families and our kids healthy is something that’s really important to me.”

Dutra added, “We want to have an economic development focus and bring somebody on board who will be going and doing outreach and trying to bring in the businesses that we want,” Dutra said. “When it comes to private businesses, these businesses have to want to come into the community. And yes, we do try to bring them in and offer incentives for them to be here, but at the end of the day, it’s their decision,” Dutra said.

Esmeralda Martinez, 30, votes in Watsonville on Monday, Nov. 4. (Fidel M. Soto — Santa Cruz Local)

Trina Coffman-Gomez’s stances on issues

Coffman-Gomez served on the Watsonville City Council from 2012 to 2020. She is a real estate broker, mortgage broker and owner of Integrity Lending and Allegiance Realty.

When asked what she’ll do about the recent 60% rise in homelessness in Watsonville, Coffman-Gomez said she would advocate for more funding to address it. She said that a project to build 34 micro homes on leased property at Westview Presbyterian Church in Watsonville “will not be rectifying the issue that we have with many of the people that are experiencing homelessness in this community.” The project is funded by Monterey County and the state.

When asked what she’ll do to increase funding and fix crumbling roads in the Watsonville area, Coffman-Gomez said: “What we need to be able to do is to leverage some of the money that we’ve got — that we’ve taxed ourselves in using — to prioritize where the areas are in most need and to make sure that the community is invested in the conversations of where they see that the funding needs to be prioritized. I do have a meeting set up with the [Watsonville] public works director as well, so we can find out a little bit more about that and having an open channel of communication for those priorities that we need to set — as well as a safety component for the stop signs that we need,” Coffman-Gomez said.

When asked what she will do to bring more activities and entertainment to Watsonville, Coffman-Gomez said it has been “a little bit difficult” to draw businesses that provide activities and family entertainment. “If we don’t have the ability to pay for the services — with the limited resources and income that we have here — it makes it very, very difficult for business development, for larger firms to come in,” Coffman-Gomez said.

“We have very, very limited resources for our business development in this community. So we do need to think outside of the box,” Coffman-Gomez said. “We do need to open up our schools to allow those to be our open access area for the parks. I know that that’s in the works for some areas. It doesn’t really address indoor recreation use.”

City Council Districts 1 and 2

Eduardo Montesino and Vanessa Quiroz-Carter ran unopposed for their Watsonville City Council seats.

Quiroz-Carter will again represent District 2, which includes areas near Watsonville High School and part of Downtown Watsonville. She currently serves as Watsonville’s mayor. Quiroz-Carter repeatedly declined requests for an interview with Santa Cruz Local before Tuesday’s election.

Montesino will again represent District 1, which includes areas near Ramsay Park and areas west of Watsonville City Plaza. 

Montesino, 48, is a transit supervisor for Santa Cruz Metro. 

When asked what he would do about the 60% rise in homelessness in Watsonville, Montesino said, “We’re working with the county to try to bring in more resources to the homeless population. For years, the state and the counties were saying ‘it’s housing, it’s housing.’ We finally, just recently in the last few years, have realized that it’s not just about a housing issue — it’s about wraparound services. Because a lot of people are dealing with substance abuse or mental health and putting them just in a house will not work.”

When asked what he’ll do to increase funding and fix crumbling roads in the Watsonville area, Montesino said, “That’s my main goal, to get more resources in the community. And working with [Santa Cruz County] Supervisor [Felipe] Hernandez to make that happen,” Montesino said. “We were able to get some funding but we need more. We have just had a rush of road repairs we need to fix. And we’re prioritizing which ones are the priority and what order. Like we’re building a bridge, a pedestrian bridge over Highway 1 to [Pajaro Valley] High.”

Montesino said he’s trying to get funding for “the last piece of Freedom Boulevard in city limits from Green Valley [Road] to the [Watsonville Municipal] Airport, because that’s still pothole heaven right there. We fixed most of, within city limits, of Freedom Boulevard all the way from Main Street all the way to Green Valley [Road], but we still need the last leg,” Montesino said. “We’re putting a lot of resources and we’re getting funding through the county to patch things up because they’re multimillion-dollar projects. So it takes partnerships from the county, the state, sometimes even the federal level.” 

When asked what he will do to bring more activities and entertainment to Watsonville, Montesino said, “All our youth programs are full and we need more, whether it’s soccer, ballet, dance lessons, all of it. They’re all overwhelmed. The businesses that we’re trying to attract is business for the youth.”

He added, “We’re trying to be more attractable. A lot of it is the permitting process and how that interfaces with people trying to invest in our community. One of the things that I try to change in the development world is making it easier for people to invest,” Montesino said.

Read about Montesino in Santa Cruz Local’s Election Guide.

Samantha Lim contributed to this story.

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