The Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce held a State of the City event on Friday — without Mayor Cathy Murillo’s participation.
The three other mayoral candidates participated, but Murillo declined to attend because the sponsors included oil and gas companies. Instead, the City of Santa Barbara plans to hold its own State of the City event in July, which will have more of an “open-house feel.” The city will provide child care, Spanish-language translation and refreshments.
Murillo’s absence might not have been an issue, but the chamber invited her three mayoral candidate opponents to speak at the pre-recorded virtual event. Two of them, Randy Rowse and Deborah Schwartz, made a point of criticizing the mayor for not working with the chamber.
“This would normally be a time for the mayor to address the community at a gala event that brings the businesses of greater Santa Barbara together,” Rowse said. “The unity between City Hall and business was, in times past, a partnership, which indeed it should be. I am sad that the mayor has taken the unfortunate position of disregarding that relationship.
“Without local businesses, there is no city of Santa Barbara — plain and simple.
“It is my hope that next year I will be invited to this grand chamber event as the mayor, and your guest.”
Schwartz piled on.
“This year, the current mayor chose to exclude City Hall from the State of the City, historically co-hosted by the city and chamber,” Schwartz said. “I am deeply grateful that our Chamber of Commerce continued the tradition on its own and held this very important event.”
Kristen Miller, president and CEO of the chamber, said it’s not fair to tell members of the Chamber of Commerce that they can’t be at an event.
“To not allow them to be represented at a business-chamber event, we can’t do that,” Miller said.
She said it sets a bad precedent to allow the mayor to decide what companies can sponsor the event.
“Cancel culture, I am not doing that,” Miller said.
Miller tried to offer Murillo several compromises so that she could participate. In a letter to the mayor, Miller offered to make sure that no business logos shared the screen with the City of Santa Barbara logo, and to change the way the email marketing went out to distance the speaker photos from the sponsor logos.
The three companies to which Murillo took exception were the Southern California Gas Co., ExxonMobil, Chevron and Plains All American Pipeline. The city also received a letter from the Sierra Club, signed by 17 organizations, requesting that the City of Santa Barbara not participate in an event sponsored by those energy companies. The event included more than two dozen other sponsors, including Cottage Health, the Braille Institute and UCSB.
“It would go against our integrity to single out some of our members, to mute their voices, to cover up their logos, to tell them they can’t participate, at the demand of an outside organization,” Miller said. “If we were to ban three of our members in order to preserve the relationship with the city, what metric will we use in the future to deny the next three members that someone doesn’t like?”
The bulk of Friday’s event served as an overview of the state of the city with Miller, Jason Harris, Santa Barbara economic development manager, Ron Werft, CEO of Cottage Health, Kathy Janega-Dykes, president and CEO of Visit Santa Barbara, Hilda Maldonado, superintendent of the Santa Barbara Unified School District, Kirsten McLaughlin, chamber president, and Francois DeJohn, partner of Hayes Commercial Group, among the speakers talking about various sectors of the community.
“Santa Barbara is a unique community, a cherished coastal destination with a vibrant business community,” Miller said. “Steeped in rich history, businesses look to the future for innovation, entrepreneurship and our growing tech hub.”
She also talked about the opening of the chamber’s Visitors Center.
DeJohn noted that the first quarter of 2021 was slow, but the market has since picked up. He said heading into the summer that “there is cause for optimism and improving prospects for economic recovery ahead.”
He said commercial sales were stronger than expected in 2020, down only 6% from 2019. But sales activity, he said, is down 19% in 2021. Leasing activity is down 13% in 2021. Sale inventory, he said, has increased 27% in 2021, with 67 properties on the market. Available space for lease has increased 65% during the pandemic, he said. That’s mostly because of the availability of the Macy’s, Nordstrom and Sears buildings.
He said, however, that sales and leasing activity has recently picked up, and the rest of 2021 looks good.
“As restrictions are lifted, most Santa Barbarans will return to a semblance of normal life, and we will continue to see an influx of tourists and new residents from larger cities in the U.S.,” DeJohn said.
He said there are 27 retail properties available for sale in Santa Barbara, which is a record high. He noted the trend of retail space being converted into commercial office space, such as the upper floors in Paseo Nuevo and the Nordstrom building.
“The biggest issue on everyone’s mind is what the future of office will look like,” DeJohn said. “This remains to be seen. There clearly will be a segment of the workforce that will continue to work from home on a permanent or part-time basis.”
He also said the collaboration and personal interaction that the office provides are “greatly missed.”
Janega-Dykes said that one of the positives of the pandemic is that the organization is closer to local residents more than ever before.
“We saw the local community get more engaged following our social media channels to really keep up to date with news of openings, updated guides and newly relevant topics,” Janega-Dykes said.
The organization also promoted responsible travel when it was permitted during the pandemic “and illuminated the phenomenal job our business community did rising to the challenge to implement health and safety protocols,” Janega-Dykes said.
Janega-Dykes also explained the organization’s multilayered plan for rejuvenating tourism.
“When we were able to invite our visitors to return initially, we focused on residents in our nearby drive market, who are most likely to visit quickly and often,” Janega-Dykes said. “Our marketing has been paying off and Santa Barbara has been in high demand. The surprising pace of that ongoing recovery shows that Santa Barbara remains a very appealing leisure destination.”
The event was pre-recorded on June 11 and broadcast Friday morning.
— 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.
