Ami Chen Mills (Mayor of Santa Cruz, California, candidate 2026)
Ami Chen Mills is running for election to the Mayor of Santa Cruz in California. Mills is on the ballot in the primary on June 2, 2026.[source]
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Biography
Ami Chen Mills has not yet completed Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey. If you are Ami Chen Mills, click here to fill out the survey.
Elections
Nonpartisan primary
Nonpartisan primary election for Mayor of Santa Cruz
Ryan Coonerty (Nonpartisan), Gillian Greensite (Nonpartisan), Chris Krohn (Nonpartisan), Ami Chen Mills (Nonpartisan), and Joy Schendledecker (Nonpartisan) are running in the primary for Mayor of Santa Cruz on June 2, 2026.
Candidate | ||
| Ryan Coonerty (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Gillian Greensite (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Chris Krohn (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Ami Chen Mills (Nonpartisan) | ||
| Joy Schendledecker (Nonpartisan) | ||
| ||||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Endorsements
Mills received the following endorsements. To send us additional endorsements, click here.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
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Campaign website
Mills' campaign website stated the following:
Community Resiliency and Preparation: NO TO MASS SURVEILLANCE
I am founder of the Get the Flock Out campaign. Together, we successfully lobbied the Santa Cruz City Council to cancel its Flock automatic license plate reader (ALPR) contract. I am also an investigative journalist and deeply concerned citizen and resident of the United States. We need a city council that has eyes on the federal government and corporate oligarchs who seek to institute authoritarianism in our nation. We must protect all our Constitutional rights at this crucial moment, for all residents and immigrants in our city.
We can work locally to prevent the worst of authoritarian and Tech-AI oligarch tentacles from encroaching on our community. I helped beat back mass surveillance here in the city and will continue to work to protect our community from spying tech and no-cash systems as Mayor of Santa Cruz.
We Must Build Community
As Mayor, I will use my platform to encourage building community in every neighborhood in Santa Cruz. We must start now to prepare for any emergency that comes our way, including natural disasters, like our own CZU fires, and threatening, unlawful federal incursions.
This means micro-grids, independent power stations, alternative and disaster-proof communications tools and more. Building community is a joy, and essential to our well being and capacity to help and protect one another through anything that comes our way. I was a climate activist for many years, and understand the hardships to come (some are already here!)
Rather than become afraid, we can work together to create climate resilience, to mitigate global heating as much as possible, and protect our friends and neighbors from authoritarianism, Constitutional violations and the cruelty of the current federal administration. Let’s focus locally, where we can get things done!
Dialogue, Transparency and Mutual Respect
As Mayor, I will meet with the public ahead of council meetings to review the council agenda. I will educate the general public on an ongoing basis about the issues we face and seek your input. Transparency, community dialogue and mutual respect are very important to me. As someone who has frequently lobbied the city council and now DCC, I am frustrated with the lack of two-way communication between those who hold power and constituents.
We need to level this playing field and bring new voices to the table. A political machine has been built in this town by the real estate industry and landlords. I have watched it happen for the last eight years. It is time to break up this machine.
“All voices heard” is one of my campaign slogans, and this means listening to folks from every position and ideology. I am known in this community as someone who can disagree with you, but still value you, and work with you.
Housing and Ecology
My priorities will be affordable housing first, housing stabilization, tenant protections and considering the livability of all our neighborhoods as we grapple with state mandates to build, and a very real housing crisis.
When the tenants at the St. George Hotel were wondering where to turn to be able to stay in rent-stabilized apartments, I reached out to a local and influential housing policy advocate to urge action. He then worked with council members to keep tenants in their units.
We need more Section 8 housing and more affordable housing units in Santa Cruz. We also need more housing for young people (and older people!) to be able to buy into. I support re-zoning for increased multi-family housing, and condos—if we can get them—in our neighborhoods. At the same time, we must protect heritage trees, biodiversity and crucial ecosystems. I have successfully worked for Land Back efforts in the city, and support the Rights of Nature movement, locally.
Homelessness
We need to listen more to those who are unhoused and create solutions that work with people rather than for people, who may not want those solutions. I have worked extensively with unhoused folks–at many levels, including incarcerated folks and youth in group homes–and with service providers.
For nearly two years, I led a volunteer class at MHCAN on Cayuga for mental health clients, the unhoused and precariously housed. All this work has given me the skills to really listen.
We need to listen and model programs on others that have worked for other cities.
One city brought homeless down dramatically by knowing every unhoused person by name, and understanding each person’s needs. With our current numbers of unhoused, we can do this.
When we seek to address particular needs, we begin to understand the need, for example, for community and emotional support many people find in encampments.
Let’s make space for tiny home communities like the one recently completed in Watsonville and allow for residents to have a voice in how these communities are run.
We also need to use progressive taxation measures to generate funds currently threatened by federal cuts.
— Ami Chen Mills' campaign website (April 2, 2026)
See also
2026 Elections
External links
Footnotes
