It has been said that all politics are local, meaning that, ultimately, people are most concerned about issues that closely affect them and their communities. Judging from voter turnout in Santa Barbara, there doesn’t appear to be much that residents are concerned about.
Only 35 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the city’s last election, in November 2015.
That lack of political participation was not atypical for Santa Barbara, where voter turnout typically ranges between 38 percent and 42 percent, and may explain how and why politics have gone loco in Santa Barbara.
When only about 16,500 of the city’s 58,000 eligible voters actually vote, those who are most concerned about getting their particular interests supported by the City Council can more easily elect candidates who will do just that.
Making local politics even more loco was the move from at-large elections to district elections that was forced upon the city by a lawsuit contending that the city’s Hispanic residents were chronically under-represented on the council.
Districting for ethnicity is just another form of gerrymandering and no less manipulative. In practice, district elections can allow fewer than 1,000 voters to elect narrow-interest, parochial council members. District elections burden the city with a layer of balkanization that does little to promote community cohesion.
Nor did districting allay voter apathy. More likely, it contributed to it.
On Nov. 7, Santa Barbara voters will choose a new mayor, at-large, as well as three council members by district. And, voters will decide on a measure to increase the city’s sales tax rate by 1 percent, to 8.75 percent. The sales tax measure is possibly the most important reason for city residents to vote in this election.
The city is promoting the proposed sales tax increase as necessary for infrastructure repairs and maintenance — something noticeably neglected over recent decades in spite of voters passing two other sales tax increases in the recent past that politicians promised would be used to fix the roads.
The latest sales tax proposal does not guarantee how the funds will be used or when — if ever — the tax increase would be rescinded.
If the city was primarily intent on funding infrastructure work, it would propose something more specific and limited like a bond measure. Better yet, it would manage taxpayer money more prudently so it would not have to keep asking for more.
But, infrastructure needs are not the sole intention of the proposed sales tax increase. The additional tax money would go into the general fund to be spent how ever the city council chooses, and, according to the city’s own priority list, it’s not infrastructure but police, fire and emergency services that top the list.
That’s not surprising given that nearly 40 percent of the city’s $150 million payroll cost is incurred in two departments — police and fire.
The average cost of police officers, including regular pay, overtime and benefits, totals more than $165,000 annually. The city’s firefighters are just as costly. You can read my July 2 column or go to transparentcalifornia.com for all the gory details.
The City of Santa Barbara spends about half of its $318 million annual operating budget on payroll for its more than 2,100 employees — a staffing level among the highest in California among comparable municipalities.
The median annual pay for a full-time city employee is $86,208, and with benefits, median total compensation is $117,552. Meanwhile, the median income of Santa Barbara city households is, depending on the data source, $65,916 to $73,900.
Keep in mind that household income includes the incomes of all the people living in a household while the city employee median pay is per individual.
The median annual pay of a city employee is $12,308 to $20,292 greater than the median income of an entire Santa Barbara household — a household that will have to pay 1 percent more in sales tax, if voters approve the increase in November.
That tax increase would help sustain the city’s payroll profligacy, which includes the looming $250 million — and counting — public employee pension liability. Such irresponsible largess for public employees has already bankrupted several California cities.
No city official, elected or hired, wants to be left holding the pension bag, and so they look to increase taxes and cut services. Loco politics.
A reader recently asked me if Santa Barbara residents actually believed that the work of their public servants was worth so much more than their own. My response was I didn’t know but I suspected that most residents just aren’t aware of how badly they are being taken advantage of by voracious public employee unions and complicit politicians.
In any election, voters should be very, very wary of any candidate who is heavily endorsed and financially supported by the city’s public employee unions.
This election, we can all vote for mayor and that could give us at least one good person on the city council who puts the interests of the community ahead of special interests. That person would be a proven leader with wisdom, objective reasoning and a steady resolve to follow through on a clear vision for Santa Barbara.
That person would be someone not beholden to the unions, or someone who is the next clone coming off the political party assembly line. It would be someone well-versed in financial management, fiscally responsible and resolute enough to confront the forces of greed both in City Hall as well as those in the private sector who would exploit and diminish this exceptional city.
Unfortunately, none of the five mayoral candidates perfectly fits the bill, and all of them appear to believe that more people can be packed into Santa Barbara without destroying the place. Workforce housing or affordable housing, whatever they call it, are loco politics. They are futile crusades that will only enrich the few while destroying the city for everyone, forever.
Nevertheless, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Of the five candidates in the mayoral race, who comes closest to perfect? Right now, I’d say that is Angel Martinez.
— Randy Alcorn is a Santa Barbara political observer. Contact him at randyaalcorn@gmail.com, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.