The Carmel City Council is facing some big issues in the next couple of years, the biggest of which is finding room in its plans for nearly 350 housing units by 2031 in just one square mile, as required by the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation process. Four residents are stepping up to the challenge in the November election for two seats.
Councilmember Carrie Theis is not seeking re-election, and Mayor Dave Potter is unopposed.
Jeff Baron was first elected in 2018, and over the last four years has been a strong voice in favor of finding housing solutions in Carmel and across the Monterey Peninsula with other elected officials. He believes the city will need to rezone areas and consider housing on city-owned properties to meet the RHNA requirement. He understands it may be a tough sell. “The community needs to accept the goal and come together to find a solution,” Baron says.
Challenging Baron are three residents who have been active in the community and are first-time candidates: Alissandra Dramov, Parker Logan and Ashley Stoddard.
Dramov – a former television news reporter and author of three history books about Carmel, with a fourth on the way – decided to run after getting involved in a grassroots effort to stop Verizon from building a wireless antenna near the Golden Bough Playhouse and a residential neighborhood. The council denied the permit and the city is now in a legal fight with Verizon; residents are focused on creating a stronger wireless ordinance. “This whole experience of rallying our neighbors, defending our community and defending our aesthetics” is what convinced her to run.
Logan is a fourth-generation Carmelite who purchased Sade’s Cocktails four years ago, and in 2020 found the business shut down for seven months due to Covid-19. He started attending virtual council meetings to lobby for outdoor dining parklets and didn’t like what he heard in general. “I felt there was a big lack of common sense and leadership,” Logan says. He believes the council acquiesces too much to staff. Carmel, he says, “is becoming more modern, it’s losing the whimsical character of our community.” He wants to keep that character intact.
Artist Ashley Stoddard is a co-owner of her family’s art gallery, Bennett Sculpture Carmel. She is coming off four years on the Carmel Chamber of Commerce board of directors, the last year of which she served as chairperson. Part of what inspired her to run are her three children, ages 16, 18 and 22. “I tell them all the time that if you want things to change, first of all you have to show up to vote. Second of all, get involved,” she says.
Here's more detail on each candidate.
Jeff Baron
Why he’s running for reelection: “I think there’s still a lot of work to be done,” he says. “I’d like Carmel to be more sustainable…the housing situation is not nearly sustainable, the traffic situation is not sustainable,” he says. He ticks off housing, traffic, climate planning, tourism impact as all currently at unsustainable levels. He says Car Week “took a big step up” in tourists this year, negatively impacting the city which had to pull in other local police departments to deal with bad actors in the evenings. “It seems like it’s getting worse, and that’s a concern.”
Besides sustainability, Baron says he’s also running on community and how he believes it may be disappearing as the number of empty second homes increases, among other impacts. Other issues under the umbrella of community and sustainability include things like bicycle and pedestrian safety, wildfire protection and city finances.
Outdoor dining: He believes the parklets served a purpose during the pandemic but needed to be ended. He may support a permanent plan in the future. “When I knock on doors I give people the opportunity to tell me whatever they want. I think there is some demand for outdoor dining, but I don’t think there is an overwhelming demand for outdoor dining. On this subject, I don’t have feelings one way or another, I’d be OK with it, but there is a process to follow,” he says.
Alisandra Dramov
Her background: “I have a long and deep connection to Carmel,” she says. She’s lived in Carmel 30 years full time and 20 part time. She started in television news locally as an intern with KSBW, and worked at KION. She became an on-camera reporter and worked in the Midwest.
Why she decided to run: Besides her activism around the Verizon cell antennae she says she feels strongly about the beautification of downtown. She believes the city could improve and clean the sidewalks, improve the streets, public landscaping and care of city-owned properties. “The overall appearance of our downtown could be better, the community deserves better,” she says. Dramov would also like to see the city honor its tradition as a bohemian arts colony.
Housing: “Clearly it’s a challenge that communities are facing across the state,” Dramov says. She says Carmel is built out, and there isn’t enough water. To meet RHNA requirements, she suggests the city explore options such as building on city-owned properties, more units downtown, mixed-use buildings and repurposing underutilized office space as housing. Carmel Plaza has “always felt like it’s too big and underutilized,” she says. “I’d like to see the whole top floor converted to housing.”
She is concerned about “preserving Carmel’s character,” and knows higher density housing will change things. She says the city needs to “do it in the right way” so the community supports it.
Outdoor dining: She wants the city to prepare a comprehensive downtown plan that covers all aspects, including parking and zoning. She says she would be open to finding a way to incorporate outdoor dining downtown, possibly closing certain side streets to traffic specific hours of the day.
Other issues she’s running on: She wants the city to explore undergrounding of power lines. She’s very interested in the revamping of the wireless ordinance currently underway. She also supports the current work on the city’s Design Traditions project that seeks to improve the approval process for project designs. She would like to see a return of a design review board and take that pressure off of the Planning Commission. She sees challenges before the city as keeping pension costs low and finding solutions to downtown parking issues.
Parker Logan
His background: His great-grandfather settled in Carmel and got involved in building homes. Logan moved away from Carmel as a young child with his parents who sought better work opportunities in the Central Valley. The family visited his grandparents in Carmel often. “I developed a love of this community,” he says. He moved to Carmel after high school and went to Monterey Peninsula College. Logan was in a web reality show called Spotlife in 1999, and has worked in various jobs, including construction and real estate. He bought Sade’s Cocktails four years ago.
Why he’s running: His great-grandfather is “probably rolling in his grave about what’s going on around here,” says Logan. He believes ideas like adding paid parking—which comes up from time to time in council discussions—will distract from the village’s character. “I’m seeing some of the newer developments that are getting approved that are tipping the modern scale.” He’s concerned that “there’s a big project called The Pit,” a large hole in the ground that has been sitting empty at Dolores Street and 5th Avenue for several years. Developer Patrice Pastor through his company Esperanza Carmel has brought two designs to the Carmel Planning Commission and been rejected. Logan believes the designs were complimentary to the village.
“What really got me involved in politics was the pandemic,” Logan says. He attended council meetings to lobby for outdoor dining. He didn’t like what he says was a lack of common sense by leaders. “Nobody has a backbone here,” he says. “I felt like I could be a stronger, louder voice for the people of Carmel..and I don’t just mean the residents, who I heavily respect, but also the visitors that make Carmel what it is.”
Logan also believes that things that used to make the town special like its street medians and holiday decorations have become “lackluster.” He says another problem is trucks that deliver after 10am, despite a rule against it. “It’s taking way from the charm of our city.”
Housing: He thinks the city should annex unincorporated neighborhoods outside of Carmel’s city limits. “We have to work with the city attorney and probably outside real estate expert attorneys to find out what kind of exemptions we can get. We don’t have the space, we don’t have the water. We just don’t have the land.” He doesn’t see it as reasonable to expect Carmel to provide affordable housing, one of the most expensive areas anywhere and questions whether developers would be able to get any value out of building it.
As to employees having to commute who might benefit from being able to live near work, Logan says: “People have been commuting to work since before automobiles were invented. Not everybody gets to live in the best place.”
Outdoor dining: He thinks the city could redesign walkways to accommodate diners in a way that doesn’t put a strain on the flow of pedestrian traffic. Bump outs into parking areas is one possibility.
Other priorities: He’d like to see the Carmel Police Station finally updated after years of delay. He’d also like to see the city find ways that the Scout House and Flanders Mansion could better serve the community.
Ashley Stoddard
Her background: Stoddard is the daughter of the late sculptor Bob Bennett and has been involved in creating art her entire life. She paints and designs jewelry, and creates pieces for nonprofits for fundraising.
Why she’s running: “I love being involved in the community,” Stoddard says. “Being part of the chamber has been a way to be involved in the community. The chamber and the city worked together on certain things and I’ve really been inspired by how much Carmel cares about different things. I felt like my next area to serve was as a councilperson. It just felt natural to me.” She calls being involved in community activities her “happy place.”
Issues: She doesn’t have any big issues she’s running on, but she’s a “worker and a doer, and I like to see progress of things being completed.” She’d love to see The Pit completed. "My biggest issue with The Pit at this point is the [Carmel Art Association] is one of our crown jewels.” The empty hole is causing possible structural damage to the association’s building next door. She believes Esperanza Carmel has been “very patient and willing to work with the community” and has listened to residents, and thinks the current design is thoughtful.
Parking is another issue she thinks about, as a resident and a shop owner. Employees parking downtown have taken up spaces for customers and visitors, so she’d like to see the city organize a solution for workforce parking. One possibility is something that’s been talked about, a parking garage at Sunset Center.
Housing: “I think we would be smart to get ahead of that [state housing requirements] and I think there could be a really creative way to do that. The town has to figure out where to put the required housing and where to get water. “I’m a big dreamer person,” she says. She wonders if second home property owners could be incentivized to provide workforce rental housing. “In a perfect world it would be amazing to have our wait staff, our teachers, our city workers to be able to live and work in town. Some of those people are artists for crying out loud,” with 77 galleries in the village.
Outdoor dining: The debates over parklets helped open up a conversation to a more permanent solution, she says. “There’s a Carmel way to do it,” she says. “We could come up with a beautiful plan that enhances the village.”