As part of Noozhawk’s Nov. 2 Santa Barbara City Council election coverage, we are publishing Q&As with candidates running for mayor and City Council seats. Candidate answers may be lightly edited for spelling and formatting, but are otherwise presented as they were submitted.
For mayor, candidates include James Joyce III, Matt Kilrain, Cathy Murillo, Randy Rowse, Deborah Schwartz, and Mark Whitehurst.
Two candidates are running for the District 4 seat: Barrett Reed and Kristen Sneddon. District 5 incumbent Eric Friedman is running unopposed.
There are four candidates on the ballot for the District 6 seat, including Jason Carlton, Meagan Harmon, Nina Johnson and Zachary Pike.
Mayoral Candidate Matt Kilrain
Noozhawk: Many residents responding to a Noozhawk survey said current City Council members have not been visible during the pandemic and are not always responsive to citizen concerns. If elected, how will you make yourself accessible to your constituents? Will you hold in-person office hours? Personally respond to emails and calls? Attend public community events?
Matt Kilrain: All citizens should put my cell number on their cell phone. They should also subscribe to my Youtube channel and I can give everyone the play by play as the emergencies evolve. We are in the midst of an emergency now. The man engineered electrical storm we had last night is a sneak preview to what we are about to get. The city of Santa Barbara needs someone with excellent communication skills and excellent team leading skills to deliver Santa Barbara through the pandemic into the Golden Age.
Noozhawk: What is your long-term vision for downtown State Street and live/work options in the downtown core? What is your plan for reducing the number of vacant storefronts in that area?
Matt Kilrain: I would like to see State Street with Ma and Pa businesses downstairs and Ma and Pa living upstairs. I would like to see a horse, dog and child friendly State Street without 5G, LED Lighting or Chem Trails. I would like Ma and Pa to rent all of the vacant storefronts and upstairs residences.
Noozhawk: Can you please define equity, and what your approach would be to make city government more diverse and more representative of the community it represents?
Matt Kilrain: To me equity means the children and citizens of Santa Barbara owning the business of Santa Barbara. Now I do have a Flint-Stone Amendment to my 4 Corner-Stone Agenda that is an Anti-Discrimination Initiative that will prevent people who use marijuana and people who refuse to get vaccinated from being discriminated out of the workforce. I also believe the Chumash were cheated out of their land and should be treated with some favoritism toward having equity in the business of Santa Barbara.
Noozhawk: How will you reduce the number of homeless encampments, unhoused people, and homeless-related nuisance crimes in Santa Barbara?
Matt Kilrain: To begin with, I will stop the county of Santa Barbara and the State of California from dumping their homeless problem off on the city of Santa Barbara. With the people who have hope I will offer them purpose in life. If a person is a threat to Santa Barbara I will pay that person $500 to leave town and get some fathers to explain to the person or persons why they do not want to come back.
Noozhawk: How should Santa Barbara respond to Senate Bill 9, which allows for duplex development (up to four units) in single-family-zoned neighborhoods?
Matt Kilrain: If people want to build duplexes they should be allowed to but not forced to build. The city should not be worrying about growing at this point and should be figuring out ways to take care of the people we have now. Let’s worry about growing after the pandemic is over.
Noozhawk: What can Santa Barbara do, that it’s not already doing, to reduce climate-change-related hazards for its residents and move toward a more sustainable future in terms of energy and water resources?
Matt Kilrain: I believe climate change is intentional man engineered much the way I believe the pandemic is man engineered. However, I am a green technology scientist who wrote Trumps Trillion Trees and got Trump to sign onto the initiative. I have also figured out how to use the ocean to clean the air, I have written a multi-billion dollar business plan and I will give this technology to the citizens of Santa Barbara.
Read all of the Noozhawk questionnaires with Santa Barbara City Council and mayoral candidates here.
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
(Noozhawk illustration)