Cathy Murillo leads all Santa Barbara City Council candidates in fundraising for the Nov. 3 election, the first since the city switched to a district election format.
Murillo, who was elected to the council four years ago, has raised $33,000 in her campaign for re-election. By contrast, her District 3 opponent, Sharon Byrne, may have name recognition, but only a fraction of the money as Murillo, who is heavily backed by organized labor.
Byrne has raised $1,100 in her bid for the seat.
Byrne, executive director of the Milpas Community Association, is most commonly identified for her work on the Lower Eastside, but is trying to win a seat on the Westside, where she lives in the West Downtown neighborhood.
Ironically, she’s trying to unseat Murillo, the first Latina elected to the City Council, in a year when the city was forced by litigation to adopt district elections to increase the number of Latinos on the council.
The other prime-time contest this election season is the Eastside District 1, where five candidates are vying for a seat.
The candidates are Cruzito Herrera Cruz, Jason Dominguez, Jacqueline Inda, Andria Martinez Cohen and Michael Merenda.
Martinez Cohen, who is already backed by the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party, has raised the most money in the district, $10,310, but $4,000 of that came from a self-loan.
Murillo gave Martinez Cohen $250.
Inda, who is best known for publicly protesting a Byrne-backed business assessment fee on Milpas Street, raised $6,000. She was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that forced the city to adopt district elections. Inda’s largest donation was $2,500 from Linda Wood.
The other candidates in the District 1 race have not reported any fundraising. Cruz has run for office several times, and once won 2,100 votes, certainly enough to claim a seat on the council under the new format. But getting that many votes again — in just his district — will be a formidable challenge for any candidate.
The final contest on the ballot is the Mesa District 2, where incumbent Randy Rowse is running against three opponents, Robert Burke, Luis Esparza and K. Missy McSweeney-Zeitsoff.
Rowse has raised just under $9,000, with his largest donations coming from Richard Gunner and Ronald Latimer, for $1,000 each. The owner of Paradise Café, Rowse is a popular and sociable, longtime Santa Barbara resident with wide connections in the business community. Considered a middle-of-the-road moderate, he is the heavy favorite to win re-election.
None of the other candidates is raising any money, although McSweeney-Zeitsoff once served on the Malibu City Council.
Historically, more so than any other factor, the council candidates who have raised the most money have been victorious, in almost all cases. Whether a move to district elections will change that is unknown, but never has a candidate been elected to office who did not raise money.
With the move to district elections, only voters on the Eastside, Westside and Mesa will be able to vote in the November elections.
Santa Barbara council elections are vote-by-mail. Although a handful of polling locations will be open on Nov. 3, ballots will be mailed Oct. 5, and must be postmarked by Nov. 3.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
