Carpinteria voters living in District 1 will choose between two City Council candidates this fall to represent them in the four-year seat: incumbent Mónica Solórzano, and Therapy Dogs of America program and volunteer manager Aja Forner.
Solórzano, who works in UC Santa Barbara’s Office of Research, has served District 1 on the council for the past four years. She ran uncontested in the 2022 election.
This year marks Forner’s first foray into the council race.
The pair broke down their campaigns and thoughts on Carpinteria’s major issues in separate interviews with Noozhawk.
Both have lived in Carpinteria for nearly 20 years and are raising their children in the area. They have both served the community extensively through public-facing work with boards and nonprofit organizations.
Solórzano was a multi-term president of Aliso Elementary School’s Parent-Teacher Association and served on the Aliso School Site Council.
She is also on the board of the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District, the Carpinteria Arts Center and the Mariachi Estrellas youth music program.
Forner taught at Cate School when she first came to Carpinteria, then hopped over to Girls Inc. of Carpinteria. She’s now at Therapy Dogs of America with her dog, Scout.
She is on the Carpinteria Middle School Parent Board and a member of the Rotary Club of Carpinteria Noon. She was also the previous Parent-Teacher Association president at Canalino Elementary School and is the co-founder of Moms Demand Action-Carpinteria Chapter.
The two largely agree on what they believe are Carpinteria’s major issues.
They want thoughtfully placed workforce and affordable housing; sustainable city growth; to protect open space and other natural areas; responsible fiscal choices; and to fix Carpinteria’s pavement.
However, Forner believes the current council hasn’t done enough to protect the city from budget issues.
She added that she believes they haven’t done their “homework” or worked efficiently with city staff or the city manager. (Solórzano separately told Noozhawk she does read through the staff reports.)
Forner criticized the current council’s decision to pass a budget deficit over these past few years, calling it “not responsible budgeting.” She said she “strongly” believes the city should spend less money on consultants and bring in committees to do the work instead to save money.
She doesn’t believe the sales tax measure on the November ballot, Measure I, would solve the city’s financial crisis — a point of agreement with the current council and city staff, who have said it would be only a drop in the bucket.
Forner believes the city has to be creative and look at different funding sources, such as streamlining the city’s permitting process to bring in new businesses.
Solórzano agreed that “injecting life” back in the city is great, pointing to Linden Square as an example. She said she also wants to build up the longtime businesses that already exist.
As part of the current council, Solórzano has supported finding additional revenue sources to help the city budget. She voted in favor of putting Measure I on the ballot as one way to do that.
She also was in favor of two property-owner assessments that would have funded the cost of city landscaping maintenance and the berm. She called the proposal a “fairly minimal increase” for an assessment that hadn’t been raised since the 1990s. (Both assessments failed.)
Forner said she wants the city to raise money to “secure the safety of the bluffs,” including the Tee-Time property. A 191-unit housing development has been proposed for that parcel.
“Once you pave over dirt, you can never get it back,” she said.
Like in her first campaign, Solórzano cited strong community engagement as a top priority. She said she feels she still has more to give to the community.
Notably during her time on council, she faced both heavy praise and backlash for her decision to abstain from the council’s Pledge of Allegiance amid an uptick in immigration enforcement.
She said at the time that her intention wasn’t to disrespect the flag, but instead to “stand even for a moment in solidarity with the people being marginalized, silenced or harmed all under the auspices of our flag.”
She continued sitting for more than a year and received death threats — some mailed to her home — for doing so.
She told Noozhawk that she has resumed standing — but still not stating the pledge — not because her position has changed, but because she believed her message had gotten lost.
“I care about my country so much that when I see patriotism and the flag as a symbol of that being weaponized against some of the most vulnerable segments of our community, that doesn’t feel right for me to just go with business as usual,” she said.
Solórzano has been endorsed by Congressman Salud Carbajal and the Carpinteria Valley Association.
A long list of other supporters joined them: the Planned Parenthood Central Coast Action Fund, the Carpinteria Association of United School Employees, the Democratic Women of Santa Barbara County, the Santa Barbara Women’s Political Committee, the Sierra Club, state Senate President pro Tempore Monique Limón, the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party and Assemblyman Gregg Hart.
Forner’s endorsements include First District County Supervisor Roy Lee (a former councilman), as well as former Carpinteria mayors Brad Stein and Gregg Carty.
Two other seats are on the Carpinteria council ballot this year: incumbent Julia Mayer for District 3, who is running unopposed, and Alexandra “Xy” VanAntwerp and Randy Carrasco competing for District 5.
Read more about the VanAntwerp and Carrasco race here.
The other remaining seats on the five-person council — occupied by Mayor Natalia Alarcon (District 2) and Councilman Wade Nomura (District 4) — will be up for re-election in 2028.
