2026 Santa Barbara Mayor Debate | Newsmakers with JR

0:00Thank all of you not only for what you do in office but for putting yourself out there as candidates and we don't always see eye to eye and it's not easy but thank you. We're honored to host the first mayoral debate of the election season. In a year when Santa Barbara's political future and the balance of power is at stake. I want to take a couple of minutes to thank some people before we get going. I want to thank TV Santa Barbara for producing this event. I want to also thank Santa Barbara High School for loaning us all of this incredible furniture to allow us to

1:03have Jerry and I up here. So this is great. I want to acknowledge Voice Magazine, our Santa Barbara NewsPress partner, as well for helping to promote this event. It's my pleasure to be able to address you all as the editor of the historic Santa Barbara NewsPress. Now Restructured. Now Restructured as a non-profit community newsroom. Founded in 1868, the newspress is Santa Barbara County's oldest and newest daily newspaper. On a personal note, I want to mention that I got my start at the newspress. First job ever, 1999, a reporter. I was there seven years. I quit. I were a duct tape. I protested against Wendy McCar. And I was part of that exodus and it was a

2:09terrible time because all of our careers were disrupted. And I never thought a day would come when the Santa Barbara NewsPress would return. And it is back and it is the honor of a lifetime professionally to be able to be editor of the newspress and lead it into the next generation. So thank you. Tonight is the first of many events the newspress is going to have. And again, thank you for attending. I want to introduce the candidates for Santa Barbara Mayor. Christensenetting teaches geology at Santa Barbara City College. She was first elected to the City Council in 2017, reelected in 2021. She says she wants to be a strong mayor in a week mayor system.

3:09Council member Christensenetting. Eric Friedman is a longtime crew member at Trader Joe's. He was also first elected in 2017 and reelected in 2021. And he says he will lead the council from the political center. Eric Friedman. Wendy Sims Moton is executive director of first five Santa Barbara County and served two terms on the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Education. She says she would bring a fresh perspective to Santa Barbara. Wendy Sims Moton.

4:13I want to hand over the microphone to my colleague over here who is my mentor. He is incomparable. He is QB1. He is the best of the best Jerry Roberts. Thank you Josh. All the introductions I've received that was the most recent. Thank you all for coming. I want to just sit at first. I mean it's not even Labor Day. What a town. There's over 220 people here to see a mayoral debate. What a gift of something.

5:17So I confess first of all I haven't been around this much news press signage in quite a while so I am having a serious bout of PTSD but I will soldier on. There's an old definition of a journalist that dates back to the Civil War which I did not cover would despite I know all of you were thinking. I know you are thinking. It was a union general who said a journalist is a person who watches the battle from high a top a far away hill and then rides down to shoot the wounded. So with that in mind I'm very honored to have been asked to go moderate tonight's debate. It's a personal pleasure because I have the privilege of covering these great candidates from the start of their careers in local office. Back to 2017 when Kristen and Eric were first on the ballot and when Wendy first joined the school board. So I am privileged and honored and thank you

6:23for joining us tonight. All right the format is simple. We'll have a series of 10 minute topic and issue segments. Each will start with a question from Joshua for me and each candidate will have two minutes to answer and we will start alphabetically and rotate the order of speaking. Okay there's going to be a quiz. So pay attention on here. All right then we will invite an open discussion among and between the candidates of about four minutes that will start with a follow-up question by one of us. There will be no opening statements but each candidate will have two minutes for a closing statements and I want to thank all of you who sent questions, suggested questions, readers and viewers and we have incorporated many of them into the questions for the candidates. So let's get right to it round one and I'm talking of the candidates. Santa Barbara is meant to have

7:2525% of its general fund budget and reserves representing three months of operating expenses to support the city in case of an emergency. This year the city dipped dangerously into and nearly drained its reserves and only balanced the budget using a one-time court settlement. I want to ask all of you why did this failure and governance happen and what is one specific cut revenue increase or policy change you would seek to carry out as mayor to make sure it doesn't happen again. Mr. Friedman we're going to start with you. Thank you Jerry and thank you all for being here in this great night and I appreciate my two colleagues being up here. So in terms of the the budget it's the single most important thing we do on the city council because it touches every service that the city delivers and as we get into the further questions tonight it's important that each and every one of you asks yourself just one question on all the on all the questions

8:27tonight and all the answers that are given is how are we going to pay for that again how are we going to pay for that the city is in a dire financial circumstance as our many cities but what we need to do is one make sure that we are strategic in our spending and control our expenditures. Over the past four years when we've had one time funding I worked with our finance director and his staff to ensure that $20 million went back into the general fund. We also use one time strategic funds to create the local housing trust fund and we created a pension trust fund of $2 million that has grown to $3 million that's responsible budget. When we don't listen to our finance director we can ask questions but we say his assumptions are wrong or we ignore what he is presenting with the city administrator that's how we get into trouble. Now going forward we need to

9:28be very clear that Santa Barbara needs to find a way to expand our economic base. We can no longer be a city that runs just on tourism, tax and taxes to fund our budget. What we need to do is look at the other industries that are ahead of household jobs such as the building trades and construction of housing, the green economy with the commercial fishermen and partnerships with UCSB who is now downtown. We have a new chancellor so there's a great new chance to reinvest in Santa Barbara and what that will do is generate new jobs, new activity that will pay those taxes without raising them. Thank you thank you Mr. Friedman. Ms. Simmsmountain suggestion cuts revenues policy changes on the budget. Yes first of all thank you so much for all being here and thank you for the invitation and sharing this stage with my wonderful colleagues here. I worked on budgets for over 27 years at first five Santa Barbara and we were in a declining revenue so I'm also important about how important

10:28those reserves are. It's important to make sure where are our resources coming from? Where is our revenue coming from? Is it restricted? Is it unrestricted as we look at policies? And so with the income then we start to look at the operating what does it cost to expend? Do we have enough to operate based on the revenue that's coming in? Those are decisions we have to make sure that we happen before we even stick to our reserves and we also need to have a spending plan. So as we start to look at our revenue we start to look at our operational costs what is our plan should those not equal out? Because we always want to have a zero balance and when we cannot and when it does not equal out then we start to look at the reserves only at that point and maybe there's even a even further strategic reserve. But I'll go back to the root of make sure we're understanding we don't often include the very folks who's impacted by our budget decisions our workers are public. So I would offer a budget study session that we often did not also at the county also at the school board so that everybody is educated as to the revenue when it's coming in where it's coming

11:31from how limited it is. We have to educate those who are impacted by our by our spending, by our policies even from the planning department and even from the person who's visiting people everybody knows but they don't know the impact of the budget on them individually. So it's important to make sure that we're educating not only our workforce but also with regards to our community because when people understand they have ideas where we might have to make reductions where we can make efficiencies. So it's important to educate our workforce to know if you're in the planning department I don't know why I'm picking on the planning department I'm not. I'm just saying that if you're in there you know where you sit in the budget and so when we're making decisions the decision is not just laid at the feet of the council it's because it's come from folks who know it who are educated and willing to do their part to make sure that we do have a balanced budget. Thank you thank you Miss Simmsmotan Miss Naden. Thank you yes I want to make first it very clear that we need to replenish our full reserves full stop we've all agreed on that as a council

12:34we've all prioritized that as a city our administrator our finance director that is the common goal it's really only been the last two years that this has been an issue and I want to explain a little bit that the general fund is one of our funds out of the total budget of around say 750 million dollars the general fund is 250 million dollars and our enterprise funds and this is very important the funds that take care of our water systems delivery the funds that take care of our clean creeks the funds that take care of our waterfront or our downtown parking those are enterprise funds and each of those have their own reserves all of those departments have very healthy reserves so you get to the smaller portion the general fund and it's absolutely essential that we have fully replenished emergency and contingency reserves no question full stop it happened two years ago

13:42and if you look at where the really big dip happened it happened suddenly we had the start of the construction of the police station this is a temporary issue in the next year and a half that revenue is going to be freed up again and it's going to replenish its temporary but another thing that happened that was a surprise to all of us was the economy tariffs inflation things that came to us this wasn't a circumstance of council deciding to wildly spend money it was a matter of the things we were used to spending money on services for the community for you suddenly cost much much more so we have to make difficult decisions one year passed it was shocking I'm not embarrassed to say I was shocked by how off the budget was from what our projections were and we need to commit thank you very much I'm just going to follow up real quickly on this city budget question as you know I'm in the room every Tuesday I was there when we had the big budget blow up

14:49so I want to direct the question to both council member freeman and snet in you essentially blamed each other council member snet in you said you know Eric was chair of the finance committee and how could this happen under his watch council member freeman you said that council member snet in was you know implied that she didn't know that the budget what that you were burning through reserves in the meeting you called her out on it it was very public so I'm going to start with you council member snet in can you just address what what role is Eric Friedman's chair of the finance committee in terms of not being aware of the budget situation earlier oh I think he's very aware and he was very vocal about it if we went back and looked at the tape because it was important to me to get this straight what I was surprised about in the meeting after saying I mean my quotes were we all prioritized not spending reserves we all asked last year that this come back balanced and I was

15:52using we statements and I was a little bit surprised to have it turned on me to to say you didn't understand and I will say I did understand I understand the numbers I understand how a budget works I'm doing this for nine years I was shocked that what came back to us was a budget that had deficit spending still it came out of finance committee with deficit spending and it was surprising to me it wasn't until later that that you know we got a little heated but that was one in a series of budget talks and by the end by the next meeting it was fixed I suggested some some additional measures we were being okay I want to give council member Friedman a chance here I mean I was there you blew up right you said how can you say this you've been here the whole year and you've approved these things and how can you act surprised that we have been burning through the reserves do you stand by that can you clarify your position and then the assumption is you're on

16:57the finance committee why did you say something sooner 100% stand by it here's why it didn't just happen over one year you go back three years and council member Sneddon directly challenged the finance director who is one of the top finance directors in the state of California about his revenue assumptions and said that we can we are going to have more revenue because she wanted to fund new programs rather than reducing and funding those programs so what happened was a year later those programs were spent and the revenue came in right where the finance director said it was going to be so that contributed to the deficit then last year a year ago it was brought up that we were going to contribute additional funds into the local housing trust fund and it was clear that it was coming from emergency reserves at the time and so myself and mayor rouse and mic jordan

18:04said let's just wait six months to see where our revenues come in because we were under contract negotiations with our public safety and those were going to add to a potential deficit and as we're coming to finance and finance not doing a job that's 100% false even though I voted against christian sneddon's deficit budget that went into emergency reserves I did my job with Megan with wendy san ameria we held two meetings at the finance committee to solve the operational deficit of the budget this year and we turned a ten million dollar operational deficit into a three hundred thousand dollar surplus the reason we couldn't go back into and replenish the emergency reserves is because you have to get out of the operational deficit first okay that's what happened and I stand by it not to leave you out miss sims moton what as the as the outsider what do you think of this

19:07this back and forth blame game from two members who've been on the council for nine years look at this I've been in contiguous budget I was on the school board and we worked with our labor negotiations so I'm not on the outside I'm not on the inside of this but I'm not on the outside of you know with regards to budget and but hard budget times but it's important from the very beginning not blaming we all have to be accountable for it wherever our vote wherever actions are but is there a process that we have to put in place so just we're looking at the budget what is the plan to expend our emergency what what happens if we said this revenue is coming in it's it's not coming in as projected what are we going to do coming back more often the budget has to be a living document that's coming and reviewed not just quarterly but when we're keeping our eye on it which is the CFO obviously in our city managers all that's regard of that in our case it's our CFO at the county and also our CFO that was with the school board is keeping an eye on that in the sense of bringing it back more regularly particularly when we're in we're in budget times that are that are crucial and crazy with regards to that but I think it's always we got to have a plan that centered us and bring us bring us back when we have back and forth but we need to

20:11have something that centered and that centered hopefully is on a financial plan of how we're going to budget how are we going to spend those reserves and or our operating cost thank you before we we want Miss Nettin I just want to give you 30 seconds to respond uh Mr. Friedman said he voted against christian's Nettins deficit budget what do you think uh yeah I would like to point out that I'm not pointing a finger I'm having fingers pointed at me and it's the council's budget and it is the city's budget and it was the majority of council and it was to be two million dollars that was supposed to be replenished within that same year that was the motion that was the motion I made stand by it it was supposed to be replenished went to finance committee for a year and I want to be very clear our finance director is impeccable and I think you know up here we use those terms finance chair finance committee it's chair Friedman or it's finance director Keith D Martini who is impeccable and the city organization came up with revenue generating plans a list of 200

21:16there to be commended and we are replenishing the reserves thank you all right round two okay we're going to move to the topic of downtown and housing we constantly hear different perspectives about the future of downtown most people agree that we need more housing however developers architects say that the current city rules do not make it financially feasible for developers to build downtown largely because they don't have the density and the city's policies do not allow allow for increasing height what policies would you advocate for so that we can build more housing downtown both market rate but the real need being affordable housing and we will start with Wendy Simmsmotan thank you for that for that question and what I think is we need to change

22:19the policies are men the policies that allows us to do what we need to do in this day and in this time to be able to address that issue secondly with regards to building downtown is that where the people who are without housing that are struggling with housing is that the place where it needs to get built if we're saying it's about affordability then it needs to remain affordable not affordability and then it becomes market rate we've got to figure out how we're going to do that and whatever we need to do to make sure that everyone in this county that had excuse me in this city work for the county the city knows that we're working on to make sure that we're having less four or five families living in one place what are we going to do about that and if that policy change we need to do policy change let's look at policy change how do we invest fees that perhaps the development fees what where did they go whether they reinvest those if their developer fees do they reinvest those in our housing policy to increase to increase the housing need here just in terms again and I think it's so important that we oftentimes we think the people who are most impacted by the policies

23:22they don't get to have their opinion and we are missing that data seriously missing that data what do the people who are impacted by the policies that we make what do you think do you want more housing in downtown or would you have it closer to where you are or if you're living four or five people in a family where would you like more housing to be able to do when we worked on the housing and work with the housing authority through the school board it really had to come from the teachers what are you looking for what are you asking and we have to adjust the policies just because it's always said that doesn't mean that we can't amend it okay thank you let's move over to councilmember snetting thank you there are a few things quite a few things actually so one is to stop vacation rentals and and this isn't for development yet but it's it's all part of increasing the housing we really need to have houses being lived in de incentivize vacancies on the Riviera the mesa you know upwards of a third of those homes are vacant because they're second or third homes I worked very hard on adaptive reuse and so that's so that empty vacuous spaces could

24:29be reconfigured for housing downtown in particular we really need to focus downtown and away from the high fire zones away from debris flow areas away from flood areas and where the services are streamlining the process absolutely it takes far too long takes two years or more when it should take less than a year I'm for increasing density if you have an envelope of a building why not have as many units within there as you can I'm looking at our city on sites and partnering with the county and with the school district to see if there are land swaps available using public land for affordable housing and really our state street master plan half of that plan is getting the infrastructure in place the storm water the utility structures in place to be able to accommodate that extra housing downtown so yes it needs to be faster absolutely and more welcoming great thank you councilmember Friedman thank you well it's first important to understand that everybody up there we all agree all

25:34three of us everybody on the council the whole community agrees the rents are too high and we need to build housing in the areas where we want people to be able to walk or bike to work especially downtown those are common points of agreement another point of agreement that I fully agree and we've talked about this and we set it up in the dias is on using city land to reduce the cost we've done it already there's a project that is under construction and we need to do more of that where we also need to do is look at innovative strategies like adaptive reuse and making sure that it goes to the permitting process much quicker one of the things we should also look at downtown is a project that worked it now has UCSB invested it built 80 units on the corner of Gutierrez and State Street that are going to contribute to the economic vitality of State Street and here's what the city processes are flawed and we can change it and I plan to bring this forward when I'm the mayor Santa Barbara the developer of that project he bought a lot there's three lots one two

26:41and three the first lot that he bought could only get 40 units on the lot because of the city's codes wasn't economically viable so he bought lot two and he bought lot three time and expense then he merged the lots into one giant lot again more time more expense leading to higher housing costs now that he had the one giant lot the density that he built went up and he built an 80 unit project guess where he built it in the footprint of the original lot one so why if everyone thinks it's a great project he could have built it with just buying that one lot why did the city force him to buy two lots merge them and add that extra time and expense making those units less affordable so that is a way when we look at things like floria ratio how to increase density that we can come forward in these innovative solutions and that's what I plan to do all right thank you

27:42miss nid I want to follow up on the State Street master plan and as you note the construction of housing is central to that you said and both you will note both you and Mr. Freeman voted for the master plan but you said I'm not worried that we don't know where exactly every dollar is going to come from it sounds a little like wishful thinking can you be specific about where in the 96 million dollars to start is going to come from for the State Street Master Plan in your view yeah thank you and I think the rest of that quote was today I'm not going to worry where that is coming from today well the rest of the quote was if we make a plan and that's how we're oriented the funding will come yes there are investors who are waiting for us to be decisive there are yes so orienting towards the future means first having a plan once you have a plan then you can find

28:51what funding you need one example for that is we were the first one of the first in the state to develop a sea level rise adaptation plan I was the chair of that committee once we had that plan in place we got grant funding because we were one of the first that had a plan having the plan allows you to unlock funding part of half over half of the funding for this plan needs to come for critical infrastructure our storm water system beneath State Street is broken in some places disconnected that is the drainage system I mean we have superlignio coming maybe this weekend that's the drainage system for the city off the mesa off the Riviera we need a connected storm water system to handle that flow so that's critical infrastructure we have to take care of that there are other funders there's friends of State Street and their philanthropic funding and others to transportation grants but we need the plan first all right thank you

29:52let me just bring mr. Friedman and Eric or mr. Femi you said I can almost give in to you it's not gonna cost a hundred million dollars and be done in such years it's going to cost more and it's going to take longer how are you gonna pay for it isn't that the question I asked all of you to keeping Ryan earlier today how are we gonna pay for it so for me when you look at the plan this is the reason why at Tuesday's meeting I proposed starting with the first four blocks and there was a specific reason about that a lot of it is budgeting when we would look at master plans prior to this I reached out to two of the most successful closed streets in the United States because 90% of closed streets fail so I asked myself what do the 10% do to be successful and what are the lessons we can learn so we don't have to make expensive mistakes I tied an hour and a half conversation with Boulder

30:58I had a long conversation with Burlington Vermont and here's what they both told me they said one you have to have a plan and you have to have community buy-in and you need and you do to all this in the right order then you fund it then you construct it and it should not be longer than four blocks because you will never be able to properly clean it maintain it you won't be able to properly police it first people feel safe and you won't be able to put the programming into a downtown to affect the businesses that you want with the programming that's why and on top of that by focusing on the first four blocks which is in our plan and allowing the blocks just north of Canaan Perdido where the circulation is off where the businesses are failing now we get the best of both worlds because we get to keep those businesses that are thriving with it closed we help those that aren't we address public safety issues and then finally what we learn when we go in and start digging up we will learn

32:02how much it's actually going to cost and for we start digging up the further blocks so that's why the four block compromise would save us on costs thank you miss seems well if you they've been on council as you look at the state straight master plan as it's constituted would you vote it for or against an end you agree or disagree with mr. Friedman that it should be limited the four blocks for now I go back to the question of or we spoke about earlier about the density and what does that look like as we are looking at to build more housing downtown and I think it's really important to make sure it's not just density we our children he places to grow and play so this is very important to be able to to not crowd them out or not meet their needs they often get overshadowed when we are just building for density and not also for the needs of our children and are used to be able to expand and be a part of the city the state master plan I have questions of it I will look at that you know most of it's been really about whether we're going to either open

33:04it to back open it back up to to cars or not that I I would necessarily because I wasn't in the conversation but I would have more questions about is there a short period is there a place where we have to start we have to start somewhere and we know that once we get in the in the depth of things you really don't know until you get in the depth of things on the school board when we were looking at building the P body building we didn't realize that it was over a slew and so we had a budget that said it's going to be this but once we start to to dig in and figure out it was going to cost us more so things do cost more that for things that you can't see and so therefore we have to take that consideration so I would have to have more of a conversation really be more involved in that conversation with regard but I want to appreciate the fact that the master plan has been started we have to start somewhere and it's important again I can't say enough about how critical it is to have the input from the people there are people who don't go to state street but their voices are not heard I want to keep saying that we have to make people's senate policies to make sure that this is a city that functions for all thank you thank you

34:10boy you started with a P.M. stadium you can talk about PTSD you're going to give me okay let's talk about rent stabilization I'm going to be quick and with my question we know that council member Friedman opposes the current ordinance that's proposed proposed we know council member Snetton supports it rather than talk about whether we would vote for it we know it's going to pass the votes are there it's going to happen in five years what do you think the rent stabilization ordinance is going to do to Santa Barbara what is the housing market going to look like according to sort of your vision of the rent stabilization ordinance and let's start with council member Snetton thank you so first why we need a stabilization ordinance in the last nine years since we were first on this stage rents have gone up 60 to 80 percent the whole time we've

35:14been talking about it the fastest growing growing group of people experiencing homelessness is senior women we have many displaced from our community we met with over 36 stakeholder meetings many public meetings on what would be some of the ways to address this crisis one of the ways is building affordable housing which we talked about one of the ways is rent stabilization I'm sorry I forgot in five years so it's passed oh in five years yes thank you many many of the developers say a lot of people oppose this so thank you what would you say what's it going to look like in five years what success will look like is it's not going to slow down development because it does not apply to anything newer than 1995 so development will still continue in five years time the idea is not to stop profit for property owners it's to smooth it out instead of having steep spikes that's the whole

36:17idea if you have four units as one unit becomes vacant because it's vacancy decontrol that unit can go right up to market rate as high as the market will bear and we know this market will bear a lot as each unit becomes vacant it also goes back up so it doesn't level set forever it's not a cap that's forever more it's on vacating the unit goes back up so the idea in five years and we should keep this data with a rental registry we should check and see if that's actually what's happening as it has in other communities that are well established since the 70s you see that instead of spikes in rent and over time it's smoothed still making a profit but both parties can budget and know what to expect for their futures great thank you councilmember Friedman what will Santa Barbara look like in five years once the rent stabilization ordinance passes well a few things over the next five years there are going to be some major housing construction projects such as the Cooper Plaza that's coming

37:22online that will provide new units into the marketplace so that's one positive factor assuming we can address the issues and the impacts into that neighborhood but that's one thing but in terms of rent stabilization the proposed ordinance is one of the most extreme in the state and the .6% cap will lead to a lot of petitions a lot of costs that will not be covered by the fees that are charged i've spoken with staff to run through the numbers because it's been claimed that it will pay for itself but when i went through his staff and looked to understand it it won't for a number of reasons right now we can't even make that claim that it will pay for itself because we don't know what the cost will be for enforcement we don't know what the cost will be for fair petition returns which can cost up to twenty seven thousand dollars per per unit if they're out there we don't know what the fees are because we haven't even done the fee study and we're going to

38:24adopt the ordinance before all that takes place that's backwards planning but in terms of rent stabilization itself i've never said that there won't be those that benefit the initial people that get into those units will benefit but everybody else the rents will go up and and council members then just acknowledge that when she talked about vacancy de-control because when a unit becomes vacant there is zero incentive for that property owner to keep that unit affordable or less than market rate in fact they're going to raise the rent as high as they can above market rate the other big factor that comes in with the rent stabilization that's being proposed is that owners will sell to out-of-town corporate investors which we don't want that will drive up costs and units will come off the market so again everybody else who doesn't get in those units will be competing for fewer units which drives up the cost for everybody else that's why I

39:29have concerns with being proposed on the flip sides since we're talking about years i'll just wrap up and say this is why i worked with Megan Harmon to create the local housing trust fund which is the most pro housing legislation passed in the last decade and the money we put in there okay has created a 45 unit affordable housing project right down the street from where I live okay thank you council member Friedman Wendy Sims Moton we don't really know where you stand on this issue you have you're not on the council do you support the rent stabilization ordinance that is currently proposed and why here's what I think that I'm a renter myself been in this community no in partner with you know local organizations who support folks who are trying to just to live here with regards to rent stabilization I support it not for five years because so much change is so quickly so we read box stand I think with with no opportunity if I'm not knowing the details of it

40:30but what I'm saying is that I would support it because you know my mother is a nurse I can just want to make sure how I can make an example here she would often say we have to make the patient stable before we can move into the next place and I think the rent stabilization gives us a time to pause and really think because we are being talking around each other up about each other in between but never really talking to each other and I think the rent stabilization will give us time to pause and I also want to keep going back to the folks who are most impacted by rent stabilization what does rent stabilization mean to you are they understanding what maybe it's going to change we have got to make sure that we are bringing the folks who are most impacted who are most on the edge that don't fully understand what that means to them exactly to the point where it's saying that once you're out of a unit it goes up do people really understand that so it's really so important for us to make sure the public who's are going to be the consumers of this to make sure that they fully understand and the rent stabilization again not for five years but given us time to pause to really

41:32see how the rent stabilization affecting you as the homeowners landlords who at house effect use who are renters we have got to stay centered about the folks who are going to be able to live here and rent here and understand how these policies that we're doing impacts them on a day-to-day basis all right thank you very much just to follow up there have been a number of votes on the stabilization ordinance they'll be coming up in September they've been four to three four to three which is not it as a matter of governance consensus I want to ask each of you why not put this issue on the ballot you don't have to put the whole ordinance on the ballot you could put a couple of sentences which explain the policy in in broad terms and let people decide whether they think it's a good thing or a bad thing because it's been so polarized and I wonder if it's the kind of issue which affects the community so broadly that it ought to be passing on a four to three vote Eric let me start with you I agree put it on the ballot the sims-mountain put it on the ballot as long as

42:38the voters are educated around it you could put something on a ballot and people don't really understand some yes may mean no and no may mean yes so it's important to make if we're going I'm not supporting put it on there because we don't always educate the voters and what we're asking them to vote on and what would that look like how would we educate the voters before putting you have to have town hall meetings we have to call the way we have to go to the neighborhoods get it and don't have people coming to us go in the neighborhood so that we fully understand what do you think about this ordinance does it make sense to go and about would it make sense to you can you you can you in real understand it and vote for it and fully understand what you're voting for fair enough miss that and put it on the ballot yes or no may I explain why well it could just say yes or no first okay okay I'll okay I won't vary you won't be for a moment no because what we are needing is the flexibility to adapt to what the needs are the rental registry will tell us is this working it did we set the limit too high is it too low how many you have a constitutionally

43:44protected right of fair return are we having too many petitions this is something that I think could be phased in it might not be the same percentage every year it might not be reasonable to be the same percentage every year we need to be flexible on that if you don't put the actual number on the ballot no matter how broad your statement is I'm I'm not sure people would know what they're voting for I wouldn't know what I was voting for and you can't change it if it's been on the ballot unless you go back to the ballot so you want to make a little adjustment to be more favorable to property owners you can't unless you go back to the ballot so in this way we can be adaptive responsive again the idea is to have balance between the two and to have mediation between the two and on on all sides of this it's not to be extreme and so the way to keep flexible and more moderate is to allow for changes over time all right fair enough fair enough all right round four

44:48I'm going to ask each of you a question about your record in the in the public arena we won't have any follow up questions here but you each have two minutes to answer and I think Eric it's Mr. Friedman I think we're back starting with you if I'm following my alphabetical snake correctly some of the biggest and most impactful housing projects in the city are taking place in district five which you have represented for nearly nine years including the redevelopment of la Cumbra Plaza development two developments two big ones among the hundreds of units being planned only a very small percentage are identified as affordable why did you not exert more leadership in shaping those projects to get them more affordable well I disagree with that statement Jerry and here's why that there's a small no that I didn't have any

45:53leadership on there so I worked with councilmember Jordan and the housing authority and the owners of the macy's for a year period to try to get them to come to the table because they're using state bonus density they can almost completely ignore all of us and the needs that we want and one of the priorities of a number that we actually got them to say we would go forward and explore it was to double the number of affordable units from 55 to about 110 on that project the others that I have strongly advocated for is that the park they are planning is a public park because that area of town does not have enough parks for the residents and if you add 1200 new units we need more parks another benefit to the community that I asked for is that one of the commercial

46:56units would have the city a right of first refusal so we could create a civic center in the north part of town such as the satellite library or other services and also work to address some of the traffic impacts it took a lot of work to get them to even come to the table because they didn't have to but once they said they were open to it we brought it to the city council we put it on the agenda and the council unanimously supported what I brought forward with Mike Jordan and staff went to work working with the developers to try to make that a reality but ultimately it didn't work because the mechanism to get those affordable units didn't work for the developer so they backed out I am still working with private affordable housing developers to understand new options that have been successful in other communities that can re engage that specific project and those discussions

47:59I've already had with the city administrator and others to get double the number of affordable units thank you mr. Friedman thanks uh miss sims moutain um mr. Friedman and miss nettin have been dealing with these complicated thornies city issues for nearly a decade you haven't why should an undecided voter choose you for mayor given that you would comparatively speaking start from the ground up and be well in the last position to hit the ground running where may be clear that I'm not new to some of the issues there didn't went necessarily on the council but I certainly dealt with these issues on the school board and it had to make difficult decisions uh to make sure the best of the best environment that we can provide for our students if you're undecided with regards to I am about people centered government governing making sure that we're including people's opinion their experiences on the policies that we're making is so important to be able to do that I just wonder how many people in this audience down on every day are here here asking and wondering what we're doing and that's the

49:03people that's the importance about being undecided I want to make sure why are I want to ask get out there and ask why are you undecided I want to be that mayor that governs for at least to to every last person and making sure the policies that we have it fits every person in terms of where their experiences are to be able to do that sell on the center of upper school board and had to make very very complicated we've talked about housing we talked about budget we talked about racism that was there talked about had hard conversations where our students were committing suicide because we didn't necessarily have policies in place to make sure their mental health was taken care of so it made very hard decisions in the sense of because that's why we often have to always start with the people what is your experience I want to be that mayor that you know that you can come and we can talk about what you're experiencing and how do we can affect you nothing none of these policies should exceed any one person's needs we have to make it become a community of practice that we're going to hear from the people that are dealing with everyday things oftentimes even things that we're

50:03discussing here they're impacted but they over they the everyday needs get overshadowed so we must stay in content constant constant constant communication how are you doing what what do we need to do and that's how I governed on the school board to make sure that I where our students were and having to make difficult conversations calling in colleagues when we had racism issues in in our school board it was not okay for us just continue to say well we're going to figure it out we were saying for sure I've taken leadership that we're going to do more than figured out we're going to bring some in here and we're going to own and be accountable for our institution to making sure that when our students don't feel safe what do we need to do with our policies making sure our leaders reflect who our students are coming in with regards to that also leading on early care and education we have to start there and make sure that our kids have their best start in life thank you miss ms mone miss nenn I'm old enough to remember when that you first ran for office the democratic party tried

51:03to pressure you to withdraw from the ballot because it didn't want you opposing this endorse candidate this time the democratic party is endorsing you after you've supported some of its priorities at city hall can you identify any part of the democratic party's 7,000 word platform with which you disagree or can or can voters expect that you would govern as mayor as a functionary of the party thank you for this question Jerry and I think it's fair to say that my values have not changed I've been a democrat my whole life I've fairly progressive democrat and the platform has changed a little bit I mean in the first time around actually I I I teach geology I was not a politician I was moved to run by the march for science I follow the instructions on the website all the endorsements had already happened and I believe in democracy I believe in the power of running and running on what you believe in and they didn't hold it against

52:07me later that that I had and they endorsed me the next time around and unanimously endorsed me this time I have read the entire platform and proudly I stand by all of it I there was nothing in there that gave me pause or hesitation but also throughout the rest of the year we don't really talk to each other much they're not directing votes or paying attention on that molecular level on that we just happen to be aligned the democrat proud of it good good science pull getting molecules in there nice nice nice thank you okay we are going to ask a couple of questions directly at the candidates we're going to shorten the response time to 90 seconds and it's the same question for everybody what's one mistake you've made in public service how did you rectify it

53:14what did you learn from it we will start with Wendy Simms Moton who I covered for eight years on the school board so I know you have a lot to choose from here did you just say that I thought you said you were going to be nice and decent I don't know that that's the case I just associate myself from the comments though yeah at this moment so well thank you for that question I think no appreciate the question we you know as leaders we make mistakes because we're doing what we do at that moment and it also taking the opportunity mistakes aren't bad are they are you learning from are you doing something different as a result of it I don't know that it's necessarily mistakes it might be in terms of was I making the right decision in that moment perhaps you know one of the the times with the most contentious times on that board of many of which they were in terms of obviously during the COVID did we really know and did we were we ready to deal with that and we did

54:16the best that we could and I think again I think not necessarily a mistake but not taking the opportunity to make sure that we are every day checking in with our families one of the things that we learned in COVID is that what conditions our students were living in and understanding how critical being in the school district when they come to school how safe what a safe place that is for them and so making sure that we're checking in every day how are you doing what can we do and making sure that our policies reflect that the other would be in our labor and negotiation which was very contentious contentious and understand it and respecting you know where both sides were coming from but understanding that again we have to constant communication we cannot over communicate to make sure that we're checking in because relationships and trust is developed throughout that time so when you are in the middle of a crisis you're not wondering if I can trust this person we'll be building those relationships every day and speaking from a perspective of is it a student perspective is it a teacher perspective is it administrative perspective and how we work

55:17in across our governments as well to be able to do that so not necessarily mistakes but maybe mis timing on how we do things okay council member Snettin same question thank you I'm going to already guess which one you think is my biggest mistake and I'll give it to you it was not writing sample ordinance on every single page of that draft rent stabilization ordinance and it's it's to its detriment because it had already been through years of process so much public input and stakeholder meetings so much leading up to that point and it was stalled out for a year and I was impatient and wanted to try something new and had you know 14 attorney volunteers who were drafting an ordinance and you know it's still part of the process had been had been told by the city attorney at the time that a draft would actually be helpful would save time would save money for the city and you know put that forward and really learned a valuable lesson that it's not

56:21just important that community is involved but our colleagues did not feel involved and I think as a result of that don't participate in any of the discussions about it even though it would be a better process if they would participate I can apologize directly to each one of them that felt that that process happened outside of view but it was transparent once presented and I regret that and learned from that and we tried something and it was very bold thankfully it didn't hurt it so much that it completely stalled out again but I'll apologize to you council member Friedman and I will apologize to you council member Jordan in the audience and Mayor Rouse and you know Megan Harmon too it's it's um I apologize to my colleagues and I learned something very very valuable there that I wouldn't do again that's great okay council member Friedman same question right thank you

57:25for those words council members then appreciate those so for me it's it has to do with the state street master plan and when you go back two three years ago when there was a debate on how big it should be I did bring forward a proposal to base again on what I said earlier on how other communities have been successful and it was with the best of intentions but where I could have done a better job at that point was to reach out to the businesses in the lower blocks I spoke with some but not as many as I needed to and some in the upper blocks as well as members of the community to get an understanding and also to give information on why I came to that decision and so what happened was that some people took it that I wanted to completely reopen didn't

58:26want to listen to the community and that's never been the case I'm always listening to the community because that's our job I will meet with anybody I always do from all sides of an issue to get a full 360 so everybody is heard and then I make a decision and in that case I could have done more outreach I could have informed my colleagues better at the time when I brought it forward in the council on the reasoning behind the other communities that I spoke to why that was an appropriate choice and this time around if you look at the meeting on Tuesday night I did provide additional information had other examples and the partnerships that were there so kind of along the lines is just improving communication and I'll say this that nothing is a mistake whether it's up here or in all your personal lives if you learn from it and you grow and you don't make that mistake again and that's the way I view our jobs up here is none of us are perfect we don't

59:32claim to be we're going to try new things and sometimes they're going to work out and sometimes they're not and you just have to have the courage that when it doesn't work out to say I will do better next time and understand where you went wrong and do better and I think that is the philosophy that I have approached for my eight years on council okay okay a couple of things we're going to move to two minute closing statements and after that general manager will bow fury from the news press is going to send us off so I just ask that you stick around through all of that two minutes for closing statements and we will start with I think we're going in order here is this correct council member Friedman all right thank you so sacred safe and bustling a friend of mine told me that's what we want for our community sacred a place where we all feel

1:00:40that we belong safe speaks for itself bustling a city that is economically vibrant and socially diverse and it's not too much to ask for the past 25 years I have been putting those three words into action through service not politics you can be that service not politics for me it started 25 years ago again in the summer of 2001 I met my wife Julie on the shores of west beach and we fell in love and decided to raise our family here and I'm so proud of my two sons one of them is here tonight with my wife Julie and then we moved on to our careers we volunteered in nonprofits that all of you know and trust then I worked for county supervisors Naomi Schwartz and salute Carbohol at the

1:01:48time of county supervisor who taught me the incredible power of local government to make people's lives better 14 years I learned under them and I am extremely proud that congressman Carbohol has endorsed me from there when I worked under them they taught me that the importance of listening learning and collaboration from leadership that leads to action on the issues most important to all of you in addition they taught me it's two minute art can you wrap up yep and I'll say that finally I just really want to say that I want to thank all of you for what you did for me in my family and being there for us and showing up just like I'm going to show up for all of you as a Marisana Barbara thank you

1:02:48you sorry let's move to yeah Wendy says motion okay thank you I just want to make sure I'm in order right so first of all thank you so much for it for for for being here and for this opportunity this is such a privilege to be able to be here I am a people-centered leader to making sure that I'm listening to the folks who are impacted by the things that I'm suggesting and leader that is willing to lead to follow and to listen every day and everything that I may be a part knowing that this is not an eye job this is a weak job and knowing the power of the we being able to come from the eyes that we are on this campaign train I this I that but when we come together on that council it has to be a we and when we move from eye to we to us it becomes our Santa Barbara and when it becomes our Santa Barbara and everybody feels that they belong we start to look at how do

1:03:51we create and make sure that we have a good environment for our children the care and education of our children we also make sure that no one is more important than the other and when any one of us are afraid or we fear or we're unsafe all of us are fear in fear and unsafe we are interdependent on how we move in this world and it's so important that we remind ourselves of that oftentimes in the middle of crisis we can come together and forget our differences our divisiveness our conversation because there's a human being a human spirit that's that's at stake at that point we are in a crisis right now and it's something that we need to remind ourselves that we need each other we need to forget the differences and device we really have more in common than we think and I know that's something that's always said but it's more important I met them that later that's why I said I am since most and for mayor I am since most and for the mayor for the people to be able to hear it to make sure I'm hearing and listening and being and not just think and I know more because of

1:04:56data data is numbers in their critical but folks experience is even more crucial to how we do it and how we include everybody in our decisions from every level so they can be a part of making any any efficiencies that we might to make it better to make our to make our city better this is a beautiful city aesthetically how do we make it even more beautiful on the inside as well we have people come around all this all world to see this but can they also come because it's so beautiful the way we treat each other the way we take care of each other every day not in the middle of a crisis so I lastly just say you know a Constitution preamble says we the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union but that starts locally we the people of the city of Santa Barbara in order to form a more perfect Santa Barbara we want to make sure people know that they belong we want to take care of our environment we want to take care of our children and we want to know that they they have valued here heard it can you can you please so much thank you

1:05:57all right council member Snedden thank you Santa Barbara is our home it's my home it's your home everything I've done in my entire career in my life has been in service to people to quality of life to safety so I got into science in the first place protecting water quality and groundwater modeling for contamination it's why I teach in the subjects I teach are about debris flows water management earthquakes waste management issues that impact Santa Barbara every day issues that matter to you and issues that matter to the safety of people it's one reason I'm endorsed by the firefighters the city firefighters of Santa Barbara the Sierra Club indivisible knows that I care about people and I'm working towards keeping people safe and keeping people housed keeping people local prioritizing that our seniors can age in place prioritizing that our young people have job opportunities that they have housing opportunities that they see a future for themselves here in

1:07:01Santa Barbara that we don't lose our diversity that we have but that we celebrate it and we amplify it and we keep people home this is essential to what we're doing here and we're on the verge of so much brightness and so much ahead of us I think of us as having a very firm foundation like tree roots deep deep and intertwined with each other and as we're reaching up and trying to reach for the sun and we're trying to branch out and be all that we can be we're so close I don't want to go backwards I don't want to let go of the progress that we've made this is a lot at stake at this election there are three possibly four council seats that will change over overnight the things that many of you may be prioritized or enjoy may be entirely different the day after we're sworn in in a new council I'm forward oriented I'm oriented towards our future with optimism

1:08:08and decisiveness I lead with my heart I rely on data and I take action and that's what I'd like to do for you for the people of Santa Barbara and I ask for your vote oh and I'm endorsed by me the former four mayors of Santa Barbara with very different viewpoints and leadership and yet saw their confidence in me also endorsed by supervisor Laura Capps Roy Lee Joan Hartman many local people leading and who believe in what we can do for our future I ask for your vote thank you thank you all before I leave this stage I just want to say thank all of you not only for what you do in office but for putting yourself out there as candidates and we don't always see eye to eye and it's not easy but thank you

1:09:12well Jerry stole my thunder because I was going to ask for a rousing innovation for these mayoral candidates for putting themselves out there and running I just want to introduce the team of the Santa Barbara news press because it has been amazing to work with an old colleague new hires and six interns funded by the Sarah Miller McEwan Foundation the Santa Barbara news press is able to pay reporters a living wage with health benefits and we are able to pay interns for 20 hours a week and we believe in the power of cultivating the next

1:10:12generation of journalists guys like Jerry and I we're here we're not going to be around forever this town needs journalists who are going to stay and stick around and master gain a mastery of these communities because the news press doesn't benefit any single news outlet does not benefit you all benefit the community benefits from journalists who are able to work and live and stay in this community so I want to bring on our news press staff please come out it has been the joy of my summer to work with all of these individuals Tom Schatz Juliana Lazada Amanda Velasco Sophia Wallace Caitlin Sweeney Angel Horso Austin Smarth are social media manager these people have given their heart and soul and they will continue to do so and I am lucky to have

1:11:18have the opportunity to work with all of you and all of you I just wanted to give the round of applause because you guys are amazing and I would leave the stage as Will Balfiore will send us off thank you all right I'll get you guys out of here no way to follow that thank you Josh thank you all 60 seconds as mentioned my name is Will Balfiore I'm the general manager of the news press following in the footsteps of Jerry Roberts getting to work with Josh here I first wanted to thank all three mayoral candidates for joining us tonight mr. Friedman Miss Simmsmountain and Miss Snedden and wanted to thank Josh and Jerry on behalf of myself the news press everyone else as you all I'm sure are aware we are very lucky in this community to have journalists of the caliber capable of putting on an event like this tonight so thank you to you both um a couple more a couple more thanks to the new vick theater for putting up with us this was our

1:12:20first radio for thanks for helping a lot more with this came from thank you to Santa Barbara high school you guys put some props on stage for us love it and thank you to you all for being civically engaged to come out it's September as Jerry mentioned truly truly special so final I'll leave you guys all with in partnership with news makers with Jerry Roberts Santa Barbara news press was recently restructured nine months ago as a 501c3 non-profit non-partisan local newsroom we've been able to grow up to the staff of all the journalists you have seen and that has only happened because we are a listener reader and attendee supported newsroom from individuals such as yourself so I want to thank you all for believing in the return of the news press for 158th year there you go all right thank you all and have a good night

1:13:36so