After 20 years on the Carpinteria City Council, District 5 Councilman Al Clark has decided to step down from the dais.
Two Carpinteria residents are running to fill his very big shoes: Planning Commissioner Alexandra “Xy” VanAntwerp — who Clark has endorsed — and parole agent supervisor Randy Carrasco.
There are undoubtedly hard decisions ahead for the next council.
The city is facing a structural deficit and a growing Sheriff’s Office budget, heavy opposition to a city-prompted project to build an inn on public land, finding places to put 901 new housing units, and growing pavement problems.
VanAntwerp believes she is the person to help guide Carpinteria and District 5 through those issues. (Carrasco declined to speak to Noozhawk for this article.)
“The next City Council really needs to … (be) willing to go above and beyond,” she said. It needs “somebody who has eyes wide open, who’s been dealing with these issues for a while, who works with city staff, who understands the budget process.”
A fourth-generation Carpinterian whose great-grandparents were apricot farmers and grandparents were citrus and avocado farmers, the city is her “home base,” she said.
After graduating from Carpinteria High School, she collected a handful of degrees: an executive master’s degree in business administration from California Lutheran University; a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from California State University-Bakersfield; and a certificate of international studies, far east business and economic relations, from National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan.
She built her own software consulting company in Seattle, Washington, that tested internal Microsoft programs, which generated more than $35 million in revenue.
After 22 years away, she returned to Carpinteria to raise her three youngest children. (Her oldest two were already in college at that point.) She pivoted to consulting, advising startups and other businesses up and down Southern California, and spent some time on the board of the Carpinteria Valley Association.
She was appointed to the Planning Commission in January 2025, spurred, in her own words, to address land-use issues.
“It’s in my blood,” she said. “What we do with our land, that’s who we are, and we’re seeing that more and more in Carpinteria.”
In her commission application, she wrote that she wanted to improve Carpinteria by addressing housing challenges, enhancing public participation, improving public spaces and focusing on sea level rise and climate change.
Now 18 months in, her thoughts largely haven’t changed.
She said she’s concerned about how the city’s infrastructure will handle the state mandate to issue building permits for 901 housing units within city limits by 2030.
She noted that the city “doesn’t have a lot of available land” left to build on and suggested relaunching the city’s Affordable Housing Committee, which looks at philanthropic ventures and nonprofit housing.
She also wants to balance the budget and fix the city’s structural deficit by reprioritizing city projects. (She declined to comment on which specific projects, citing her role as an active commissioner.)
The budget should be “easier to digest” for the public, she believes, applauding City Manager Michael Ramirez for the work he’s done to engage the community in the city’s budget issues.
She also wants to make it easier for businesses to open their doors, pointing to the city’s new online permitting system as an example of a move in the right direction.
Before being appointed to the Planning Commission, she was a public supporter of Measure T, a 2022 community-petitioned ballot measure that looked to rezone the land that the controversial Surfliner Inn would be built on and stop the project. The measure narrowly failed.
She did not provide her current thoughts on the inn proposal to Noozhawk, but a week after her candidate interview, she publicly announced that the developer had “threatened” to sue her and the city if she voted on the project and rescued herself.
She has been outspoken against federal immigration actions. She was there in July 2025 when federal agents and protesters clashed on Casitas Pass Road after an immigration raid on a nearby cannabis farm.
She marched again in July of this year, when the community gathered to remember that day.
“These are my neighbors,” she said.
Beyond Clark, she has a stacked slate of endorsements behind her.
To name a few: Congressman Salud Carbajal; two sitting members of the Carpinteria City Council, Mayor Natalia Alarcon and Vice Mayor Mónica Solórzano; Planning Commissioner Jane Benefield; retired Santa Barbara County Supervisor Gail Marshall; and four former Carpinteria mayors — Brad Stein, Donna Jordan, Fred Shadow and Michael Ledbetter.
She also snagged endorsements from both the Green Party of Santa Barbara County and the Carpinteria Valley Association.
There are three other candidates on the Carpinteria council ballot this year: incumbent Julia Mayer for District 3 and incumbent Solórzano and Aja Forner for District 1.
Mayer is running unopposed. Read more about her campaign here.
The other two seats on the five-person council — occupied by Mayor Alarcon (District 2) and Councilman Wade Nomura (District 4) — will be up for re-election in 2028.
