WATSONVILLE—A third candidate jumped into the race for the 4th District seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors set to be vacated by current supervisor Greg Caput in November.
Ed Acosta, a member of the County Office of Education’s Board of Trustees and the Watsonville Planning Commission, joined Felipe Hernandez and Jimmy Dutra in vying for the key political seat that oversees much of South Santa Cruz County.
Acosta was a late entrant, filing his papers on Monday and meeting the Wednesday deadline when all candidates had to turn in signatures to officially get their name on the ballot.
Acosta is not far removed from his upset victory over longtime COE trustee Dana Sales in the November 2020 election. Acosta won in a landslide—scoring 75% of the vote—over Sales, who served as a school board member with Pajaro Valley Unified School District and the COE for a total of 35 years.
If elected to the Board of Supervisors, Acosta would have to vacate his seat on the COE Board of Trustees. His term on the latter runs through 2024.
He will battle with Hernandez and Dutra come June for the right to lead the agriculture-rich communities in South County. The top two vote-getters would move to the November election.
Hernandez is a current Cabrillo College Governing Board Trustee who served as Watsonville’s mayor in 2016. He also ran for supervisor in 2018 but finished third in the primary behind Caput and Dutra.
Dutra serves as the 6th District representative on the Watsonville City Council. It will be the third time that Dutra, who is fresh off his stint as Watsonville’s mayor in 2021, has run for the seat.
He finished as a distant runner-up in 2018—trailing Caput by 1,000 votes—and placed third in the June 2014 primary behind Caput and former Watsonville Police Chief Terry Medina.
He was elected to the city council in the November 2020 election.
