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Eduardo Montesino, candidate for Watsonville City Council District 1

Eduardo Montesino is the unopposed incumbent District 1 Watsonville City Council member in the Nov. 5 election. Voters elected Montesino for District 1 in 2020.

A photo of Eduardo Montesino.

Eduardo Montesino. (Contributed)

Meet Eduardo Montesino

Age: 48.

Occupation: Transit supervisor for Santa Cruz Metro and District 4 Watsonville City Council member. 

Experience: Eduardo Montesino was a District 4 Watsonville City Council member from 2010 to 2014, then was elected to the council to represent District 1 in 2020. Montesino said that working for a government mass transit agency has helped his familiarity with government and how to bring resources to Watsonville.

Read about Eduardo Montesino’s positions on local issues

Montesino on addressing homelessness

What are you going to do about the 60% rise in homelessness in Watsonville in the past 12 months?

“It’s a work in progress with building. We built three projects now on Freedom Boulevard that are low income and some of those units are for homeless [people],” Montesino said. He also mentioned a 60-unit below-market-rate project planned near the Downtown Watsonville Santa Cruz Metro station and plans to apply for state Homekey funds.

“Both [Santa Cruz and Monterey] counties worked on a project where because of the [Pajaro River] levee project, that we’re able to get some funding for tiny homes,” Montesino said. “Even though it’s an interim, it’s going to get wraparound services for people to hopefully get them to a better place and we can get them in the right direction.”

“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,” Montesino said.

Several Watsonville residents said the poor condition of roads in Watsonville and surrounding areas is a top concern. How will you increase funding for road improvements? What will you do to push county supervisors and the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission to fix crumbling roads in the Watsonville area?

Montesino is a Watsonville representative on the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commision. “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.” 

We’ve heard from young people and parents that they want more activities in Watsonville. What will you do to bring more activities and entertainment to Watsonville? What kinds of businesses would you recruit in your next two years?

“All our youth programs are full and we need more, whether it’s soccer, ballet, dance lessons, all of it. They’re all overwhelmed,” Montesino said. “The businesses that we’re trying to attract is business for the youth.”

“We used to have a pump thing for young kids. I actually just visited a bowling alley in Gilroy with [Santa Cruz County] Supervisor [Felipe] Hernandez and we were trying to make some outreach, see what the potential is for our city. So, I’ll work on that one. 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.

“Retail stores no longer exist and it’s just very few mom and pops and Target. That’s about it. We’re not going to get big stores to come in and do this because that’s not the model anymore. So we have to find different ways, different experiences for people,” he said.

Several Watsonville residents told us affordable housing is their top concern. Where in your district would you support denser housing? What policies do you plan to propose in your next two years to address the city’s rising cost of rent.

“Just about every project is crucial. In my district, it’s the one that’s being built on. In the back of Target, there’s homes being built,” Montesino said. “But we’re looking at everywhere. People don’t like density. People like homes, but they view homes as having big yards and that’s not it anymore.”

“In my district, density is where it’s at. And if you talk to people, it’s like ‘Oh, well that’s not what I was looking for.’ Well that’s what it is in our community,” Montesino said. Montesino said the challenge in his view is people want more parking than the projects can provide because “everybody wants to have one or two cars and that’s not the future.”

How will you attract more high-paying jobs to Watsonville?

“There are [high] paying jobs but people don’t actually know. A lot of government jobs are very good-paying, good jobs. We have engineering [jobs] at the water treatment plant that we cannot fill, and those are very good paying jobs,” Montesino said. 

The County of Santa Cruz has many “jobs that they can’t fill. People don’t know about it. They are good paying jobs with benefits. Which is amazing, you know? One of my mantras is, ‘We’ve got to get government working for people.’ And that’s what I think we’ve got to do with some outreach, we got to let people know that we’re hiring, that these positions are open,” Montesino said.

Several residents have said more city outreach is needed in Spanish and indigenous languages, and that online outreach done online is inaccessible. What will you do to improve and expand multilingual communication and in-person engagement with residents?

“I’ve been trying to talk to the school district about their capabilities because they’re actually doing a great job,” Montesino said. “I’m trying to rip a page from them.” 

“We think just putting on Facebook or web pages, people are going to see it. But most people are not connected to the city that way. Our main mode of communication is the water bill where we send a newsletter and we send out information, but that doesn’t get disseminated to everyone,” Montesino said. “I’ve tried to work with the school district but we’re thinking about doing something else to be able to capture cellphones and email so we can blast out more information that way in both languages.”

Eduardo Montesino on his record and running for reelection

Montesino on his accomplishments

What were your major accomplishments during your last city council term? 

“I started in 2010 trying to advance Ramsay Park. It’s taken me this long to finally come back. We’re getting a new nature center, artificial turf. We’re resurfacing both our fields, we’re putting lights,” Montesino said. “I’m very proud of creating the Youth [Action] Council and now incorporating them into the commissions. It provides more guidance and gives people under 18 a voice.”

He added, “Another accomplishment was helping to put Measure W on the Nov. 5 ballot to make changes to the Watsonville city charter,” Montesino said. “We needed to clean up, we needed to make changes to be able to be a better city and get more people involved.”

Montesino said he also had a role in bringing yard waste bins to Watsonville in 2012. “There were no green receptacles in the city. We were the only city without green receptacles. So it’s just been a joy to be able to represent the city and bring some of the resources. We still need to fight for more.”

In Santa Cruz Local’s 2020 election questionnaire, you said you wanted to install artificial turf at Ramsay Park and open outdoor school facilities for after-hours public recreation. Have you made progress towards those goals?

“Yes and yes. We actually just opened Radcliff [Elementary School] for all the kids during the day so they can go play in the schools. And we’re making agreements with the school district and all these schools to build partnerships for both of us to be able to open up all those wonderful facilities that they already have. We don’t even have to invest. They’re already there. We just needed to open them up,” Montesino said. “We’re in the process of helping Watsonville High School do an artificial turf for soccer.” Ramsay Park upgrades are under construction, he added.

What local issues affect you that make you want to run for this office?  

“Just all around resources to the community,” Montesino said. “We were the last community to get out of the economic turmoil back in the day. So it took us a long time to get out of that, that space. We had to do a lot of things in council to make that achievable. It was community involvement.”

He added that Ramsay Park remained important to him “because my kids grew up there. They played soccer. They played in the playground.”

Eduardo Montesino’s policy positions

Issue Eduardo Montesino
Do you support Measure V, remove a requirement that Watsonville commissioners are registered voters? Yes. “We want more people to participate.”
Would you support a law that allows rent control in Watsonville? “I really have to research, but that looks like it has a lot of potential.”
Do you support electric rail in Watsonville? “Yes, in some kind of form.”
Do you support Measure Q, Santa Cruz County Water and Wildfire Protection Initiative? Yes.

Santa Cruz Local guides to Watsonville area elections

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