Festivals, workspaces and collaborations were just some of the ideas Santa Barbara candidates had to support local art and artists.

The Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative and the Community Arts Workshop hosted a city council and mayoral forum Wednesday night with all the candidates running for office. 

While other forums have focused on housing, rent stabilization and other city issues, this forum focused on funding and support for art programs and artists. 

When asked how the city can provide access to affordable spaces for local artists to create their work, district four candidate Devon Wardlow said she wants to work with the Parks and Recreation Department to make it easier for artists to host events in the parks.

“I’ve probably had about seven friends mention that they reached out to our parks department, trying to host these types of events, and have not been able to get through the process,” Wardlow said. “I reached out trying to follow up to help them, and I have not been able to get through the process. So I think that there’s a lot of room for improvement with that because we’re such an arts community.”

She’s also excited about the opportunity in the State Street Master Plan to create an arts district downtown.

Monte Wilson said the city should do something like the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver and incorporate music and arts shows.

“I think it generates money for the city, which candidly we need,” Wilson said. “It also generates goodwill about the city because it’s something that everybody can enjoy and participate in.”

Jason Dominguez suggested that instead of implementing a vacancy tax on empty storefronts, the city could incentivize owners to house an art business, gallery or artist for a year or so.

“I would love to see more galleries because we can have the artists live here producing art, but we also need more places for them to show up,” Dominguez said.

Genevieve Taft-Vazquez said she’d like to see more affordable work spaces for artists. 

“Really a place where we can be and interact with artists as well,” Taft-Vazquez said. “I would love if some of those empty office spaces in particular, if we could turn those into studio spaces.”

When the district five candidates were asked how the city can incorporate and fund public art, James Zurlinden and Cevin Cathell said they want sculptures and murals incorporated into the La Cumbre Plaza redevelopment. 

Cathell said she’s seen other developments that have incorporated outdoor concert space, sculpture gardens and galleries. She wants the city to showcase to the developers how passionate the community is about art.

“This is what I envision for La Cumbre; I hope that the developers have the same idea,” Cathell said. 

Zurlinden also said he’d like to see access to chalk art on State Street. 

“It’s public property, I think that would be a wonderful use of it because it brings everybody down, gets the energy going, and our community benefits from that,” Zurlinden said. “There’s going to be higher sales for restaurants, so we’re going to be benefiting from the sales tax on that.”

Ian Baucke, who’s passionate about street safety, said he’d like to see more intersection artwork like what’s at State and Carrillo streets, which helps to slow down drivers.

“I think we have a lot of those high injury streets in our district, and that’s a great opportunity and a low-cost, very quick thing that we can do working with local neighbors or local businesses at all around those streets,” Baucke said.

When the district six candidates were asked how they would ensure arts thrive as the State Street Master Plan moves forward, Anabella Lehne brought up how in Mexico she’s seen heart-shaped sculptures that people can put their recycling in. 

She’d like to see similar concepts on State street, that have specific meanings and celebrate local cultures. 

“Making sure that we have a little bit of everything out and open for everyone to enjoy, but also have a meaning,” Lehne said. “So maybe recycling or environment, have a meaning for each one, and each one maybe will be funded by a wonderful donor.”

Alexander Stoeber said he’d like to see an homage to Santa Barbara’s film history and Flying A Studios.

He also wants to see artists incorporated in the design of State Street.

“I think that we can have just a lot of voices be heard on State Street, but also I think it’s important for us to look at how we can also adapt State Street and have the arts in mind when we’re thinking about the different courtyards or different seating arrangements,” Stoeber said.

Jason Carlton said there could be different art installations each month that go with different themes such as Black History Month.

“That to me makes sense because it keeps us changing and flowing with the seasons and has people coming here for a reason and bringing more traffic flow downtown,” Carlton said. “We need to encourage our artists to keep thriving and pushing forward.”

Gabe Escobedo said art should be incorporated into the architecture downtown.

“We have a lot of influence in the public spaces and how we invest in it in what we do in the environment,” Escobedo said. “Also in having a shared vision of what we’re trying to do downtown because we do have a historic district and we want to lean into that and incorporate art at the same exact time. And I would love to see us do that.”

After the three council forums, the mayor forum ended the night. The city’s current budget includes $2 million for arts and economic vitality, which council members and mayoral candidates Kristen Sneddon and Eric Friedman agreed was not enough.

“Of course, it’s not enough, it’s never enough for the arts,” Friedman said. 

Highlighting more than 25,000 arts jobs across Ventura and Santa Barbara County, Friedman acknowledged that the $2 million isn’t enough to promote them, but the city has to first focus on refilling the reserves and bringing in more revenue. 

Sneddon said that investing in the arts shows that the city believes in itself, but support should also look like streamlining permitting, prioritizing pop-ups in vacant storefronts, and encouraging local partners to prioritize arts. 

“It’s not just dollars; it’s support. It’s moving things more quickly through the permitting process,” Sneddon said. “We don’t need to make it so hard. We could be saving so much money by making those processes easier.”

Wendy Sims-Moten said that she trusted with the city’s current budget challenges that $2 million was enough to maintain some art. To get more funds in the future, she said that the city can look at public-private partnerships.

“I just want to acknowledge that it’s also an opportunity for economic development, and it’s so important to make sure every level of income that we have in Santa Barbara city is able to stay within our city,” Sims-Moten said.

Matt Kilrain, known as “Boat Rat Matt,” said he thought $2 million was enough for arts and wouldn’t spend more until the budget is “under control.”