Where the Mayoral Candidates Stand on the Joby Agreement
Both candidates for mayor were asked the same question: what should the City do about its 2024 agreement with Joby Aviation? Here are their positions, and where Santa Cruz Works stands.
Last week SC Works published an article about the Santa Cruz Mayor's race and the City's partnership with Joby Aviation. It generated interest but also some confusion. One candidate expressed concern about how we characterized her stance. We apologize if there was confusion. To give residents a clear view of where the candidates agree and disagree, we asked them to respond to the same Yes or No questions. Here are their unedited responses preceded by our short summarization:
The agreement
In February 2024, the City Council voted 6 to 1 to lend Joby up to $500,000 from the Economic Development Trust Fund: $2,000 per new full-time job, capped at $200,000 a year, forgiven annually as jobs are verified. If Joby moves its headquarters out of Santa Cruz before 2038 or reduces local headcount over five years, it repays a prorated share.
Ami Chen Mills
Chen Mills opposed the loan when it was approved. In her March 2024 letter to the Sentinel, she questioned why the City would extend a jobs-based loan to a company then valued at roughly $4 billion, arguing the amount was negligible to Joby and would have gone further with small and medium-sized local businesses. In her statement to Santa Cruz Works, she reaffirms that view, acknowledges the jobs Joby has created here, and says the remaining loan balance is too small to keep a company in town that wants to leave. She has not proposed canceling the agreement. Her full statement says she'll write more on tech and business development at her Substack, Moment of Truth Dispatch.
Ryan Coonerty
Coonerty frames Santa Cruz as a longstanding entrepreneurial hub and cites his role cofounding NextSpace as evidence of his commitment to people building companies and careers here. As mayor, he says he would focus on practical barriers: faster and more predictable permitting, stronger connections between employers and UCSC and Cabrillo students, and housing that lets workers stay. He says he will welcome employers who create good jobs and expect a clear public return whenever city funds are involved. His statement does not take a position on the existing Joby agreement. His full statement is HERE.
Where Santa Cruz Works stands
We think the Council got the structure right: money released only as jobs are verified, a hard annual cap, and a clawback that runs to 2038. Whether $500,000 was the best use of the fund is a fair question, and Chen Mills's argument for directing incentives toward smaller local companies deserves a real answer from the City. What matters most to us is that the agreement, now that it exists, be honored on both sides. It has created valuable long term jobs and economic growth for our city and county. Nothing either candidate has said suggests otherwise.
We don't endorse candidates. We do think the people who work in this county's tech economy should hear from both of them directly, and now they have.
Related Articles
Elevating Santa Cruz: Joby Vision Takes Flight with City Council's Support — The full story of the Council's 6–1 vote and the terms of the $500,000 Employment Incentive Loan.
Santa Cruz Can't Punish Joby by Breaking Its Own Promise — Our corrected piece on how the agreement's clawback works, with an editor's note.
Joby Aviation Ribbon Cutting at New Santa Cruz HQ — How a Bonny Doon kid's commute became a headquarters in the old Plantronics building.