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Stephanie Harlan to Continue Crusade for Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay Coastal Communities
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Stephanie Harlan to Continue Crusade for Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay Coastal Communities
By Elizabeth Giuffre
Stephanie Harlan lives on 42nd Avenue, in a blue and white house. In election season, there are always campaign signs on the lawn. The house has a friendly entry and fresh garden roses on the round antique dining room table. This isn’t the only place Stephanie has lived since graduating college and moving to Capitola in the ‘70s. She rented a bungalow in Capitola Village at the time she was appointed mayor in the early ‘90s " Capitola’s first woman mayor.
Many say it’s lucky for the community that the outgoing, self-described “working girl” isn’t retiring anytime soon from local politics. The only change in her unremitting community involvement is that her term on Capitola’s City Council is ended by Capitola’s recently adopted term limits. In 1992, voters approved term limits while at the same time electing Stephanie to her fifth term in office. She was the election’s top vote getter.
Except for a two-year self-imposed hiatus in the late’90s, Stephanie has been on Capitola’s council since 1984, when she campaigned and unseated then councilmember Ron Graves. At the time, the Council was considered conservative, but since has swung with the election. Despite leaving public office, Stephanie plans to remain active in politics.
In fact, she is currently poised to be elected Chair of the Democratic Woman’s Club of Santa Cruz County.
Nurse by Day…
Stephanie has lived almost two separate lives, one as a Telemetry Department Registered Nurse for more than a decade at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital. The other has been, in various years, chairperson, representative and member of more than 15 environmental, transportation, criminal justice groups, and advisory committees.
She fought a federal proposal to allow offshore oil drilling along the Central Coast and tirelessly worked for the designation of the Monterey Bay as a National Marine Sanctuary, for which she was selected Volunteer of the Year in 2004.
She has been a critic of the decision to give private hotel developers $3 million of Capitola’s redevelopment funds, and served as the city’s representative on the County’s Sanitation Board. There she helped tackle the problems that came with winter storms and old sewer pipes in Village neighborhoods.
During her 20 years on the Council, Stephanie has also seen a lot of Capitola landmarks constructed, including Capitola’s interim library, the New Brighton Middle School Gymnasium, the Jade Street Community Center, the footpath across Soquel Creek, and the beginnings of the Sanctuary Scenic Trail in Santa Cruz County.
The Early Years
Having been born and raised in the Bay Area, and after a stint working at Yosemite, Stephanie moved to Capitola in 1972 and took a job as a Music and English teacher at E.A. Hall Junior High School in Watsonville. She changed careers, she said, after Proposition 13 passed in 1978 and she was laid off. She needed a more stable career, so she enrolled in the Cabrillo College Nursing Program, graduating in 1983.
She has an Elementary and Secondary Teaching Credential from California State Hayward as well as a BA in Music from the University of California Berkeley. She plays the piano and guitar and is learning the harp. One of her favorite things is her Yamaha piano. Her strong voice changes to a whisper when she talks about the Yamaha, and how nice it is to have a piano that is not a hand-me-down.
The music teacher turned nurse had not considered a career in politics at first.
“When I first moved here I was working for other candidates on elections and never had an interest in running myself at all,” Stephanie recalled. “Somebody said, ‘You’re going to run for office,' and I looked at them and I said, ‘You’re crazy!”
“But I found myself in 1984, wanting to run for the City Council. I did not expect to win at all, but I did. And now it’s 20 years later,” she said.
As three-time Capitola mayor, the Alameda nat-ive has been a rare woman’s voice in a mostly male-dominated Capitola Cou-ncil. She said she’s tried to be a practical solution-finder on issues from rent control to abandoned shopping carts.
One cannot find a big fast food sign in Capitola, not to mention any junky signs in Capitola at all, and that is also part of Stephanie’s advocacy, along with funding for non-profit community groups, extra-wide parking spaces at most 41st Avenue parking lots and civic pride in everything Capitola.
Stephanie often uses the word “we.”
“It’s always a team effort,” she said. “I always like to stress that it’s not just one council member who has done something or makes something happen, because you have to have three votes to make anything happen.”
Her Secret: Stamina
Most people think Stephanie has more stamina than the average person. After a recent surgery in both knees, she could barely walk, but has been swimming to keep strong and mobile. At one point in her career, while working full-time as a nurse, she was helping review state bills, flying to Los Angeles and back each Friday, as well as serving on the Council.
“Because I’m not married and I don’t have a family, I have a block of time for hobbies and other community activities,” Stephanie said.
Her hand has touched practically every one of the city of Capitola’s day-to-day issues.
“We made extremely important contributions to citizens in Capitola by preserving affordable housing with our financial assistance to residents of Brookville Terrace, Loma Vista and the Wharf Road Mobile Home Parks,” she added.
“I’m especially proud to have been part of the City Council that developed 41st Avenue and the other commercial developments that provide a stable tax base, allowing the city to provide excellent services to the residents, businesses and visitors,” said Stephanie, who, among other things worked with Capitola Mall developers to make the entire project aesthetically pleasing, with one tree for every parking place.
How does Stephanie plan to stay involved in Capitola politics?
“I’m interested in serving on the Planning Commission, perhaps,” said Stephanie, who also mentioned a desire to volunteer at the Capitola Museum because she admires the job Carolyn Swift is doing there.
Maybe the biggest question: Will Stephanie return again to Capitola’s Council? In 2009 she could run again, and she said she might.
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