Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors

 

Second District Supervisor Ellen Pirie

Supervisor Ellen Pirie was elected to the Board of Supervisors in November, 2000, and was re-elected in 2004 and 2008. An attorney, Supervisor Pirie was the Directing Attorney of Senior Citizens Legal Services prior to serving on the Board. The Second Supervisorial District includes the communities of Aptos, La Selva Beach, Corralitos, Freedom, and portions of the cities of Capitola and Watsonville. The district stretches from the mountains to the sea and includes agricultural land, State Parks, commercial areas, urban and rural housing, and many miles of beaches.

Important issues for the Second District are:

Supervisor Pirie represents the Board of Supervisors on the following regional agencies and boards:

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Supervisor Pirie can be reached as follows:

You can also meet with Ellen in person most weeks on Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. at the Aptos Sheriff's Substation at the Rancho Del Mar Shopping Center, Aptos (near the Safeway supermarket). Please call Ellen's office at 454-2200 before you come to confirm that a meeting will be held on the Wednesday when you want to attend. You can also call Ellen to arrange an appointment.

Staff to Supervisor Pirie includes:

- Stephanie Camacho, County Supervisor's Analyst
- Robin Musitelli, County Supervisor's Analyst

Community Involvement

If you are interested in getting involved in our community, you might want to consider serving on a County advisory body. The Second District currently has the following vacancies:    Second District vacancies

In addition, vacancies for at-large positions include the following:    At-Large vacancies

Useful Links:


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More Biographical Information on Ellen

The daughter of two librarians, Ellen was born in Boston but grew up in the steel towns of Ohio and Michigan until the age of 16 when the family moved to her mother's home of Portland, Oregon. After completing high school in Portland, Ellen attended Whitman College, a liberal arts school that her mother and aunt also attended. After graduating, Ellen spent a year traveling, and then enrolled in University of Oregon Law School, graduating in 1976.

Before she was elected Supervisor, Ellen devoted her legal career exclusively to defending the rights of senior citizens, youth and the disabled, first in Walla Walla, Washington, then in Portland, Oregon, and, since 1984, in Santa Cruz County. She specialized in representing people in their battles with bureaucracies such as Medicare and Social Security. Ellen and her husband Terry worked together for 17 years at Senior Citizens Legal Services, a nonprofit agency that protects the rights of the elderly whenever their safety, housing or income is threatened. In 1999, Ellen and Terry were jointly awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Santa Cruz Trial Lawyers Association for their lifetime of work in the public interest. In 2000, Ellen and Terry were honored by local mobile home park residents for their advocacy on behalf of preserving affordable housing.

Ellen and Terry have made the Second District their home since 1984 and have raised their four children in the Aptos-La Selva Beach area. Their children, Alex, Robert, Laura and Julia, have all attended Aptos public schools--Valencia, Rio Del Mar, Aptos Junior High, and Aptos High. Julia and Laura graduated from UC Santa Cruz, Robert (Bo) attends UC Santa Barbara, and Alex is a student at California State University Monterey Bay.

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