A Conversation with Ryan Coonerty

​Next Monday's Builder Night is a good one. Ryan Coonerty is joining us.

​He co-founded NextSpace, the coworking space that's been home to Santa Cruz tech for years. He's a UCSC lecturer, an author, and right now the frontrunner for Santa Cruz mayor.

​He's given this county a lot. Two-time mayor of Santa Cruz, former county supervisor, and now executive director of Leadership Santa Cruz County, training the next round of local leaders. Few people know how this town actually works better than he does.

​We're in the middle of a huge change, and the real question for Santa Cruz is how we take what's good in it while protecting people from the rest. The money and knowledge that keep getting pulled out of town. A job market nobody can read, layoffs included. The environmental cost. I'll talk all of that through with Ryan, then open it to the room.

​There's a piece of this I care about most. A city produces a huge amount of public information, council agendas, permits, local rules, and almost none of it is usable. That's civic knowledge, and it should belong to the people who live here. That's the kind of thing the people in this room can actually do something about.

​Monday, June 22, 5 to 7 PM. Pleasure Pizza Downtown. Come ask Ryan something real.