Santa Barbara City Councilman Dale Francisco kicked off his re-election campaign Thursday outside the Santa Barbara Central Library by praising the City Council for stepping up to support public safety.
Francisco said he believes that with himself, Councilmen Frank Hotchkiss and Randy Rowse and Councilwoman Michael Self forming a conservative majority, the council is more representative of Santa Barbara than it has been in years.
“Public safety, municipal finance and infrastructure may not be glamorous, but that’s what the people who voted for us want us to take care of,” Francisco said.
The effort to draw a blue line across the city marking the potential rise in sea level with climate change embodies the stark contrast between the council’s past and how it operates today, he said.
“I’m running for City Council because I love this city and because we’ve just begun to solve some of the problems that have faced us for years,” Francisco said.
He stressed the importance of a continued police presence on State Street, Milpas Street and the Santa Barbara waterfront. He also said the council was finally making public safety a priority by increasing — instead of decreasing — the number of police staff for the first time in 10 years.
Resident Marie-Paule Hajdu said she sees Francisco as a rational and even-tempered candidate, and that she was impressed by his commitment to law enforcement.
“Public safety is very important if you want to be a tourist city,” she said. “It shows he’s friendly to business and he knows what it takes to make business flourish.”
Despite expressing on Tuesday that De la Guerra Plaza does need improvements, Francisco is looking to reel in the scale and cost of the expected $2.2 million project.
“Money has to be spent,” resident Paul Lamberton said. “It has to be prudent and has to be well thought-out, and that’s what Dale brings.”
During an event reception at the Whale Tail Deli, Francisco took on the city’s solution to helping the homeless community.
“For too long the council was way too weighted toward, if you just give people enough support the problem will go away,” he said.
Francisco said that with a diverse homeless population, including those who are mentally ill or living with substance addiction, the response is complex. The state of California, however — not small cities such as Santa Barbara — should bear the financial cost of housing the mentally ill, he said.
For resident Barbara Kohn, the decision to support Francisco was more about his personal than political qualities.
“He’s not doing it because he’s a career politician,” she said. “He loves Santa Barbara and wants to see our city progress.”
Francisco was the last incumbent, after Self and Rowse, respectively, to begin his campaign for November’s City Council election.
— Noozhawk intern Daniel Langhorne can be reached at news@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.