Monterey City Councilman Alan Haffa is running for the District 5 Board of Supervisors seat.

Monterey City Councilman Alan Haffa has kicked off the 2024 election season in Monterey County, announcing his intention to run for the Board of Supervisors seat currently held by District 5 Supervisor Mary Adams.

Haffa, an English professor at Monterey Peninsula College who has served on Monterey City Council since 2012, tells the Weekly that he plans to challenge Adams, who has represented District 5 on the Board of Supervisors since 2016.

“There are a number of really important issues that I care about, and I believe that I have the skill set and experiences that enable me to be of service to District 5 in terms of making progress on some of those issues,” Haffa says.

Those issues include affordable housing, which Haffa described as “a social equity issue” that also impacts the region’s broader economy as far as attracting businesses and workers. 

“I’ve seen [residential] projects in the county that seem to prioritize large mansions and estates as opposed to projects that would support regular working people,” he says. “Because so many people are having to live so far from where they work, that creates issues on Carmel Valley Road, Highway 68, Highway 1. We have a work-housing imbalance, and it won’t be addressed until we build more housing that’s affordable across District 5 and the county.”

District 5 includes a large swath of the county's coast, from Monterey south through Big Sur to the San Luis Obispo County line. It includes the Highway 68 corridor into South Salinas, as well as Carmel Valley.

Haffa notes his other major platform issues include developing a “sustainable water supply”—citing long-running local water restrictions that have impeded new housing projects—and making the county’s infrastructure more environmentally sustainable to “respond to the impacts of climate change,” such as wildfires and floods.

Now in his third term on the Monterey City Council, Haffa says he’s most proud of his work on the body addressing affordable housing and homelessness. In addition to greenlighting affordable projects like Van Buren Senior Housing complex and the addition of affordable apartments at the Monterey Hotel, he cites his work advocating for new and expanded homeless facilities like the Casa de Noche Buena women’s shelter and the Safe Place youth shelter.

“When I got on the City Council in 2012, the attitude was homelessness was an issue the city couldn’t address other than policing it, [and] not something we should give additional resources to,” Haffa says. “It’s an inhumane condition that none of us should accept, and it affects all residents in Monterey. Over time, we’ve made funding different programs more of a priority.”

Haffa announced his run for the District 5 seat at a meeting of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, where he represents the teacher’s union as a delegate from MPC. Prior to the Monterey City Council, he served on the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District board from 2004 to 2007, including as the board’s president from 2006 to 2007. He moved to Monterey with his wife Arlene—a CSU Monterey Bay professor who is chair of the university’s biology and chemistry department—and their two now-adult children in 2003.

Haffa says he previously planned to run for the District 5 seat in 2016, but held off after meeting with Adams at the time and deciding to support her candidacy. “I think very highly of Mary and I appreciate her service,” he notes. “But I feel that on issues like water and housing, District 5 can use a different leader—and I do believe I’m that leader who has the experience to move forward on some of those issues.”

Adams has not yet announced whether she will seek re-election to a third term on the Board of Supervisors, and could not immediately be reached for comment. Besides Haffa, no other candidates have officially thrown their hat in the ring for the District 5 seat in next year’s election. The primary election is on March 5, 2024.