Approximately 400 business people and 30 elected officials gathered Thursday afternoon to share the accomplishments and challenges of the cities of Santa Barbara, Goleta and Carpinteria in the past year during the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce’s annual State of the City event.
Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse shared that while this year began with the heavy storms in January, they revealed the city’s resilience and emphasized the community’s appreciation for first responders and public safety workers.
He added that the city’s water supply is now “well-positioned to meet water needs for at least the next three years, even if we find ourselves again in facing extreme drought conditions.”
Rowse also talked about the newly created Sustainability and Resilience Department and the city’s Together to Zero campaign to reach carbon neutrality by 2035 with net zero carbon emissions.
Some of the capital projects Santa Barbara has ongoing include the Central Library Plaza project, the De La Guerra Plaza renovation, the desal link project, a new police station and the Dwight Murphy Field renovation, as well as road maintenance throughout the city.
Meanwhile, Goleta Mayor Paula Perotte discussed Project Connect, the city’s $42 million capital improvement program to upgrade road conditions, enhance pedestrian safety and more.
Perotte said construction for the Hollister Avenue Old Town Interim Striping Project will begin in June, the Ekwill Street and Fowler Road Extension Project is set to begin construction this summer, and additional work on Hollister Avenue — including installation of roundabouts and bridge replacement — is scheduled to begin next spring.
Each of the cities’ mayors also discussed their challenges with housing and homelessness.
Perotte said Goleta is trying to address it with the recently approved 332-unit Heritage Ridge apartment development and the Buena Tierra project that is converting the former Super 8 motel into permanent supportive housing with 59 units and five additional units dedicated to supportive services.
Goleta also hired Chuck Flacks as its first homelessness services coordinator last December.
Carpinteria Mayor Al Clark said that one of the city’s challenges is a shortage of housing available for low- and middle-income people, which has been exacerbated by short-term rentals and houses used as second homes.
Clark said the City Council has passed an ordinance to put a cap on the number of short-term rentals, but the second-home issue is more challenging.
Clark did cite three strengths that make Carpinteria successful, though — the environment, the locally owned small businesses, and the community.
“The environment is a very important asset — financial and otherwise,” Clark said. “The environment is money in the bank, and we make investments to add new lands to our inventory of open space and to take care of it and continue the community’s heritage of stewardship of our open space.”
To promote and protect the small businesses, Carpinteria has restricted big-box stores and is working on an ordinance to restrict formula chain stores.
“We are a tourist economy, yes, but we are also a community of residents,” Clark said. “The citizens are very active in volunteering to help each other and to help the town and the environment and they also participate in government.”
Santa Barbara City Administrator Rebecca Bjork, Goleta City Manager Robert Nisbet and Carpinteria Assistant City Manager Michael Ramirez also came together during the event to talk about their respective cities’ financial positions and other issues.
It was shared that the general fund revenue totals for the last fiscal year — which are made up of property tax, transient occupancy tax, local sales tax, and other taxes and fees — were $184.6 million for Santa Barbara, $35.4 million for Goleta and $17.9 million for Carpinteria.
Meanwhile, Santa Barbara’s expenses for the past year came to about $185.7 million, while Goleta’s expenses totaled about $54.5 million and Carpinteria’s expenses for 2022 were about $21 million.
Some of the biggest financial challenges for the cities have been staffing in both Santa Barbara and Goleta, as well as housing in Santa Barbara, Bjork and Nisbet said.
Ramirez said opportunities for revenue growth in Carpinteria have been fairly low.