Santa Barbara City Hall might be getting some fresh faces after Nov. 2 when the mayor’s job and two hotly contested district seats go before voters in the 2021 Santa Barbara municipal election.
Mayor Cathy Murillo is battling five challengers to hold onto her seat: James Joyce III, a former legislative aide to then-state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara; “Boat Rat Matt” Matt Kilrain; businessman and former nine-year Councilman Randy Rowse; Santa Barbara Planning Commission chairwoman Deborah Schwartz; and magazine publisher Mike Whitehurst.
District 4 incumbent Kristen Sneddon is running against real estate investor and Planning Commissioner Barrett Reed, while District 6 incumbent Megan Harmon is facing long-time City Hall insider Nina Johnson and small business owners Jason Carlton and Zachary Pike.
In District 5, Councilman Eric Friedman is running for re-election unopposed.
Last month, Noozhawk asked Santa Barbara readers what city issues they would like candidates to address in their campaigns and what changes they hope to see with the new city council.
Nearly 150 residents shared their thoughts, and responses ranged far and wide on both sides of the political spectrum. Almost all of the people indicated that they are registered voters who plan to cast a ballot in the November election.
Nearly 77% of respondents selected the future of downtown as a priority issue, nearly 68% identified homelessness services as a pressing issue, and just over 46% selected housing as a main issue.
Most respondents want the city council to focus on local issues and get back to the basics with road repairs, cleaning up public areas and parks, making it easier for people to upgrade their homes, and making progress on workforce housing development and the future of State Street.
Voters in District 4 were concerned about wildfire danger; vehicles speeding in certain neighborhoods; needed road repairs; homeless encampments in nearby creeks; and housing opportunities on Upper State Street/La Cumbre Plaza.
District 5 voters want the council to address homeless encampments, aircraft noise, Earl Warren Showgrounds noise, and housing along transit corridors.
In District 6, voters focused on issues such as bike paths and connections needed for transit, tenant protections and enforcement for renters in the district, road repairs, organizing the State Street promenade to make it less “hodgepodge” and shabby-looking, and workforce housing.
Dissatisfaction with City Council
A vast majority of readers expressed dissatisfaction with the current city council, giving reasons such as “slipping standards across the board,” lack of transparency and leadership, and absence during the coronavirus pandemic.
Some readers said that they felt as if the city’s issues have gotten worse over time, such as the mismanagement of the downtown corridor or the number of vagrants on the streets. Others said that the current city council is very divisive, too partisan and often focuses on more national issues instead of city issues.
“The city lacks leadership and is blindly following party agendas,” said Patricia Aiken, a District 5 resident. “We need nonpartisans to address our city’s major issues.”
Darcy Sylvester, a District 5 resident and Santa Barbara native who has lived in the city for more than 70 years, told Noozhawk that she’s been watching the city council over the years and has noticed a shift in the way the council addresses issues.
“It seemed to me that we used to have a little more balance on the council in terms of more liberal thought or more conservative thought,” she said. “And there were some people, it seemed to me, who served a more moderating influence.
“Things change, I understand that, and I don’t think that they will ever be what they were when I was in my early 20s, but I would like to see it move a little more slowly and not make changes so rapidly like this council likes to do.
“I think having a mayor to serve as that moderate voice will help make changes that aren’t too fast or drastic, just temper any of the extremes a bit. But, perhaps I’m speaking more of what I wish to see and not what is actually possible.”
District 6 resident Christian Alonso had a different take, and said the city council needs to have those vigorous debates to “do what’s right for the working class of Santa Barbara.”
“There’s a harmful narrative going around the community that our city council should agree on everything,” he said. “Our council is diverse and has tough conversations about complex issues facing our community in light of several ongoing crises. They don’t always agree, but I don’t want them to.”
District 5 resident Loretta Redd said the new — and legally required — district-based election system set up a competition of resources for the city that puts city staff in a difficult position of prioritizing projects, and the decision making seems to be becoming more district-centered rather than thinking of Santa Barbara as a whole.
“There seems to be, for varying reasons, a fairly significant turnover at the top of departments, and I’m fearful that there is an absence of a sense of cooperation within the council and their staff inside the city,” she said.
“Only the mayor seems to have to consider the impacts on the entire city, and with the mayor, I think there’s this lack of leadership.”
Homelessness
Homelessness was at the forefront of voters’ minds, with some wanting more enforcement to remove vagrants from the city streets and others calling for more impactful resources.
Most readers identified the growing number of homeless individuals throughout the city, and some suggested creating more homeless shelters so that there are fewer encampments and more mental health resources to combat issues that arise from homelessness and mental illness.
“I think most Santa Barbarans have become aware that there are working families or workers who lose their housing or fall on hard times, and those are the people who are sending their kids to school, who are still part of society, who are employed or actively looking for employment,” District 2 resident Kristine O’Connell-McCoy told Noozhawk.
“I think the city should focus on helping those people because those are the people who want to be part of society.”
She said there is another segment of the homeless population that doesn’t want help, and one of the common city council refrains that they say is that it takes multiple contacts for those people to accept help.
“There’s a different type of person who just wants to camp on East Beach and drink all day,” she said. “They’re substance-abusing but don’t want substance abuse treatment.
“I think the city council should not focus as much on people who are resisting treatment. Of course, they should offer that treatment, but they need to enforce citations and not just let it go because then it kind of blossoms into more and more of a problem.”
O’Connell-McCoy said she hopes the council will direct more funding toward the working poor, and enact harder enforcement on people who refuse treatment. She said the council’s recent sit and lie ordinance should have been done years ago.
Some readers called for “more action and less talk” from the city council when addressing homelessness.
“The homeless issue is reframed and redefined at every step without goal-oriented solutions,” District 5 resident Carla Navarro Woods said. “It is a moving target with no end in sight.”
Redd said there are many different types of homeless individuals who are houseless for various reasons, and said that the council has put the issue under a blanket.
“What I’ve seen is everyone referring to people as ‘homeless’ kind of gets them off the hook,” she said. “It’s sort of this rainbow concern.
“There’s some who are clearly in need of mental health assistance, there are people who are clearly in need of drug and alcohol assistance, there are some who are temporarily homeless or homeless because of domestic violence issues.
“When you put ‘homeless services’ on top of that, then you’re taking away from the people who provide the solutions. It seems to be like a convenient term that isn’t really providing a service, and just building more units or adding more beds isn’t going to resolve the kind of underlying issue.”
Other readers pointed out the public safety issues of homeless encampments, noting the increasing number of fires that spark in encampments along Highway 101. Some felt that the homeless population is taking away from Santa Barbara’s beauty.
“The homeless situation has taken over our city,” one District 5 resident said. “I am embarrassed to bring out-of-town guests here.”
Housing
Housing is this complex issue of balancing population size, building density, affordability and parking while trying to maintain the character of neighborhoods. The City of Santa Barbara is not alone in trying to navigate the problem, and voters yearn to see the city find a solution.
“One of the things that is really problematic in Santa Barbara is housing,” District 6 resident Alex Pujo said. “There’s a consensus that we need to provide more housing, but then again there is the fear of changing anything, so nothing gets done.”
Pujo told Noozhawk that he would like to see more decisiveness from the city council in terms of housing, and said it seems as if city staff is in control and making the decisions.
Many readers called for more affordable housing for the workforce and middle class.
“Our rents have more than doubled in 10 years, but our incomes have not changed,” one District 6 resident said. “Get the employers and the landlords together and get something figured out. None of us should have to pay more than half our income for a roof over our heads.”
Sylvester said she questions what housing is considered affordable and what is considered medium income.
“Medium income housing isn’t affordable, medium-income people can’t afford to live in ‘medium-income’ housing in Santa Barbara,” she said. “I have three daughters and when they were teenagers, I saw what was happening to the price of housing. I know that I wanted them to live here, but I knew that my own daughters wouldn’t be able to afford to live here.
“It will never be affordable.”
Sylvester said if the city builds apartments or homes for families, the people who the buildings would be meant for wouldn’t have the income to live there.
“I believe there will always be a need for more housing, I don’t know if it can happen in Santa Barbara,” she said. “I don’t think we have the answers, I certainly don’t have the answers. But that’s why we need to hire people who have access to other communities to see what has worked.”
District 5 resident Joe Guzzardi said he feels there is a disconnect between what Santa Barbara residents need and what the city council is doing with housing.
“The premise that I completely disagree with is that we have a housing shortage, nothing can be further from the truth,” he told Noozhawk. “We live in a finite community, finite for water, finite for power.
“(The city council) is constantly telling us to conserve water and turn down our thermostats, and then in the same breath they’re telling us that there is this housing shortage and we need more houses.”
Guzzardi said that building more housing will negatively affect the quality of life in the city, as downtown is becoming more crowded and there is a “serious lack of mass transit.”
“The premises that we have a housing shortage and all these people need a place to live,” he said. “Well I’m middle class. I would love to live in San Roque or Hope Ranch or Montecito, but I can’t afford it so I don’t.
“The council now thinks that anybody and everybody, if you work at McDonald’s, if you’re a janitor, if you’re a gas station attendant, that you should be able to live in Santa Barbara, and that doesn’t make sense.”
Some readers said that congestion of housing will not provide affordable rentals, but will only increase the number of people who want to live in Santa Barbara for short periods of time, and some asked to promote housing development along transportation corridors.
City Council candidates have a little over six weeks to address these issues in their campaigns before Election Day on Nov. 2.
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
