Voters in Gilroy, Morgan Hill and the southern edge of San Jose are staring down a high-stakes local race with very real consequences for their everyday lives. In the June primary, incumbent Sylvia Arenas is fighting to keep her Santa Clara County District 1 supervisor seat against Morgan Hill school board trustee Rebecca Munson, just as the county prepares to decide which clinics, child-welfare programs and housing services survive deep budget cuts.
Munson, elected to the Morgan Hill Unified School District board in 2024, is pitching herself as the fiscal watchdog in the race, campaigning on accountability, housing and public-safety reforms. According to the Munson campaign site, she spent 14 years in the classroom and 18 years in banking, and she is calling for audits and agency reviews to wring more efficiency out of county operations. The county's official list of qualified candidates confirms Munson will face Arenas on the June ballot, per Santa Clara County Elections.
Arenas, first elected to the District 1 seat in 2022, is running on her record, pointing to neighborhood investments and the re-establishment of the County Office of Economic Development as evidence she can deliver for South County, according to KQED. She has argued that preventive behavioral health services for youth must be protected and said any budget cuts should be made with a scalpel. Arenas highlights child-protection reforms and keeping local clinics accessible as pillars of her work on the board.
Budget crunch threatens South County services
County officials are sounding the alarm about a severe fiscal crunch, sketching out hundreds of position cuts and possible clinic consolidations to close a funding gap in the hundreds of millions of dollars. As reported by San José Spotlight, Santa Clara County is staring at roughly a $470 million shortfall even after voters approved a sales-tax increase. The board has already signed off on $183 million in mid-year reductions to the county hospital system, according to NBC Bay Area.
Candidates push to shield kids and clinics
Both Arenas and Munson say child-welfare reform and preventive youth services should stay at the top of the priority list even as supervisors wrestle with deep deficits. Munson argues that a rigorous audit of county agencies could shake loose enough money to protect core services. Arenas counters that blunt, across-the-board cuts could gut the safety net. That split between hunting for efficiencies first and shielding programs first has become the defining policy divide in the campaign.
What voters need to know
District 1 covers South San Jose, Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Martin, a region that mixes suburban neighborhoods with agricultural land, according to the County Registrar's office. The primary election is set for June 2, per the county's qualified-candidates list, and the county's budget calendar shows supervisors are scheduled to adopt a final budget for the coming fiscal year by June 30. With budget workshops and votes packed into the weeks just after the primary, whoever emerges from this race will be under immediate pressure to either back or push back on cuts that directly touch South County residents.
For South County, the District 1 contest is not just another local race; it is effectively a vote on which safety-net services make it through the fiscal squeeze. The winner will help decide whether county leaders reach for trimming scissors or a shield when they look at programs many families rely on.
