SANTA CRUZ — There is little doubt that Justin Cummings’ first year in elected office, spent in training to be the city’s next mayor, was mired in discord.
Or, as Cummings described 2019 in an interview Friday, “It was challenging.”
Santa Cruz’s first black male — and millennial — mayor, sworn in to the year-long role Tuesday night, said he hopes to change the tenor of city business, however. To date, Cummings’ actions have augered his middle-of-the-road approach, as he co-authored several City Council initiatives with various council members and frequently has served as the council swing vote on the city’s politically divisive issues.
Cummings, 36, said Santa Cruz’s political entrenchment and infighting, a dynamic labeled dysfunctional by at least two city-hired consultants, mirrors a trend seen on the national level. Between hearing findings of a workplace misconduct investigation against two council members and certifying a recall election against the same two men — Councilmen Drew Glover and Chris Krohn — the council hired the local Conflict Resolution Center to work with individual members to improve interpersonal relations.
“Emotions are high. But I think we have to really think about those people in the middle who really want us to just get some things done,” Cummings said. “And they really want to see us, our behavior change, they want to see us start to work together and that’s who I’m really going to focus on working with this year.”
Cummings, a Beach Flats neighborhood resident, earned lengthy applause Tuesday after saying he believed diverse collaboration is the key to the city’s success. He replaces outgoing mayor Martine Watkins, and will serve his term side-by-wide with newly appointed Vice Mayor Donna Meyers.
“In a town where less than 1.6% of the population is African American, you elected the two first African American men and the first open-lesbian woman to the City Council in 2018,” Cummings said during introductory remarks Tuesday to a council chamber nearly full to capacity. “This truly reflects our commitment as a community to electing officials not based on their race, age or gender, but based on the content of their character. As I follow in the footsteps of our first multi-racial African American woman mayor, as the first African American man and millennial mayor, I will continue to support the creation and implementation of policies that promote diversity, equity, inclusion and civility in our community.”
During his speech, Cummings listed major challenges facing city leaders in the coming year as threefold. In continuing to address homelessness-related issues, Cummings said he hopes to balance compassionate solutions with public safety. In facing the affordable housing crisis, Santa Cruz will need to work to keep tenants in their homes, allow landlords to receive a fair return on their investments and offering housing developers incentives to build affordable units, he said. As a biologist, Cummings said he also wants to keep the city on the cutting edge being environmentally sustainable into the future. Asked about the issue that initially sparked his political run for the November 2018 council race — rent control and just-cause eviction protections — Cummings said the state’s pending law did not go far enough in protecting renters, but felt the time may not be right to again raise the issue locally, but expects a council housing task force to include the idea in its discussions.
Cummings is a Chicago native who moved to Santa Cruz in 2015 to head the grant-funded Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program — his second time calling Santa Cruz home after attending UC Santa Cruz nearly a decade earlier. In his year appointed by the council as city mayor, Cummings said he plans to step down from his director role at UCSC and instead will take on part-time work on a special project with the UC Natural Reserve System, which supports university-level teaching, research and public service at protected natural areas throughout the state.
Meyers, 54, a Westside neighborhood resident who owns and runs her Conservation Collaborative business, said she and Cummings — both scientists by training — were going to “make a great team” in the coming year. She urged the community to sit down over drinks or food with those they disagree with, in order to listen and talk issues through.
“We know there’s no assurity in the things that you do because science is always a mystery, but if you don’t try to at least diagnose and get things done, it’s never going to change,” Meyers said during her introductory speech.
