Kim De Serpa_Santa Cruz County Supervisor_interviewed 2026-02-27 on KZSC's 'Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club' KZSC

Kim has now been a supervisor for just over a year, having previously learned governance being on the Pajara Valley Unified School Board; a previous interview on Bushwhacker's in late 2024 / early 2025 got derailed when she attended "Supervisor Boot Camp" in Palm Springs - they had booked it for both Kim & her opponent, Kristin Brown, before the election; District 2 includes 30% of all the roads in the county, some 526 miles of roads - & roads are one of the top 3 issues she & her staff deal with, the other 2 being connectivity & PG&E, and the Planning Department; Prop. 1, when it passed, looked great - build out facilities for mental health & substance abuse, where the county is the primary supporter of health & mental health - instead, 30% of the behavioral health budget was removed...diverted...offsetting the gains from Prop. 1 - this is called "re-allignment", & is robbing Peter to pay Paul!; only 13.4% of property taxes stay in the county; the county is also being hit by online e-commerce, where the sales taxes go to the locales where the distribution centers are, which are in counties other than Santa Cruz, which is losing ~$10MM / year; with the federal budget cuts, 40,000 people in the county will lose their insurance, with the burden falling to the county; re: Watsonville hospital - medicare / mediCal reimbursements are not great, and the hospital needs a mix of payors to be viable; to survive, the hospital needs to cut $25MM out of their budget; a bill has been introduced in Sacramento to "Save Rural Hospitals', but its $300MM barely scratches the surface; Kim as 2 staff, a chief-of-staff, Maureen McCarty, who previously worked in Assemblymember Mark Stone's & Gail Pellerin's office (& who was interviewed on Bushwhacker's in December, 2024), & a super-analyst, Gigi Kelbert; Housing Element? There are 3 "builder's remedy" projects currently under construction...of the 4,634 units that are required to be built before 2031, 300 have been built!!!! other projects are in the pre-permitting stage; discussion about unpaid Federal Disaster funds, and that the county borrowed $80MM to cover the shortfall...$53MM has come in to pay down that debt; the county 2025-2026 budget is $1.35 B (yes, that's Billion!!) An interview on "The Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club" with "Dangerous Dan" Orange & "DJ Wrangle" (Chris Jong), airing Friday mornings on KZSC Santa Cruz, California.