Meet the Six Candidates for Goleta City Council

Goleta voters face an interesting lineup in November, with the mayor’s seat in contention as well as two seats in western Goleta, the first time district elections have been held in those two areas. Goleta’s council consists of four councilmembers, plus the mayor. Competing for these three offices are all longtime Goleta residents.

In the mayor’s race, the incumbent, Paula Perotte is opposed by Rich Foster a well- know figure in Goleta politics. Sitting planning commissioner Jennifer Smith and a hospitality business man Ethan Woodill are seeking the District 3 council seat which covers the area from Glen Annie to Winchester Canyon. Current Councilmember Stuart Kasdin is competing against Eric Gordon, a professional photographer in District 4, known as the Ellwood area. 

When Perotte and Kasdin entered Goleta politics, the city was experiencing an overwhelming amount of growth — large housing tracts, tall apartment structures, and hotels were sprouting up along Hollister Avenue. They each campaigned to control such development, and city voters elected them to the council as part of a slow-growth majority.

Now the state-mandated Housing Element is demanding another spurt of home building — and threatens to stop the grant funding to cities if they don’t comply. This has resulted in the rezoning of Goleta parcels to allow construction. Foster, Woodill and Gordon have been spurred into running, for the most part, by this rezoning in their neighborhoods. 

But Goleta is a Small Town.

For the most part, all six candidates running for office are familiar with each other. In fact, Rich Foster called Paula Perotte the other day to ask her to check out a pile of green waste on a hillside near her home. Perotte headed out to take a look sans makeup, encountering a barefooted Foster, when the landowner came along in an ATV. He explained they were just piling brush before moving it.

And who are you? the landowner asked.

“I’m the mayor of Goleta,” said Perotte

“And I’m running against her,” said Foster.

Laughing, the landowner asked, who he should give money to?

Well, both of us, they replied.

For Mayor: Paula Perotte and Rich Foster

Mayor Paula Perotte is very conscious of residents’ objections to the rezoning and said she wasn’t happy about the result either. While she recognized the need for housing, Perotte thought the state was taking a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach.

“This is ruining the character of cities,” Perotte said of the state’s requirements. “The governor may have good intentions, but he doesn’t understand that we have to work with developers. And for them, money is what gets a project built, not our zoning approvals.”

Perotte was elected mayor of Goleta in 2018, having served as a councilmember since 2010. She got her start in politics advocating for crosswalks and reduced speeds near schools. Professionally, she helped parents of special needs children navigate the multiplicity of available sources through the Community Action Commission, which is now called CommUnify.

Perotte has a ready laugh and is quick to size people up, much as any experienced waitress can do, which Perotte was for many years at Joe’s Café. She often lets her sometimes meandering colleagues weigh in on a topic before she does, but she is outspoken when she disagrees and also when she’s found an argument persuasive.

The restriping of Hollister Avenue in Old Town is what people most often call her about, Perotte said: “People ask, ‘Why did it all happen at the same time?” The city had intended to begin in 2019, but the pandemic arrived and COVID-created delays pushed a number of the projects into the same time frame, she explained. “We could have waited three years, which would have turned into five years, and then costs would rise even higher.”

On the city’s long list of capital improvement projects, what Perotte wants to see completed is the repair of the crib wall on Winchester Canyon Road. Erosion is occurring deep under the road from water movement, causing the closure of the bike lane headed south. “Kids use that bike path to get to school,” Perotte said. At the same time, she acknowledged the projects list might have to have some removed if they were going to be able to finish any of them.

Rich Foster is particularly frustrated by that very list of projects.He was among the neighbors who spoke to the council about rezoning, many very angry and upset. He has memorized the costs of recent projects and rattles them off at will. Foster calls the city’s new train station a “vanity project” and the bicycle path along San Jose Creek an unnecessary expenditure of $50 million. And he thinks the restriping of Old Town is an example of Goleta becoming a prisoner of its own success in winning large infrastructure grants.

Pleasant but determined, Foster worked as a general contractor on small projects in the region when he moved to Goleta and later worked with Perotte on cityhood in 2002 and Measure G, Goleta’s agricultural preservation vote of 2012. 

He moved here from Seattle after crewing on a yacht for a couple years and completing Wheaton College in Illinois. He’s also the author of 13 novels, among them a half-dozen featuring detective Harry Grim.

Foster would like to change the conversation around big expenditures. If projects can’t be fully funded, then spend the money on fixing the roads, he said. Foster estimated that road maintenance and repair was underfunded by about $7 million annually, which means it gets further and further behind every year. This was as frustrating for Public Works as it was for the residents who complained every day, he said.

And he’s not against the train station or the bike path, Foster said. “But what gets used the most?” he asked. “Roads. The train? About 100 people ride it a day: 50 in, 50 out. It’s not like New York City where 2 million people take the train every day.”

Although the city embarked on the bike path to link the north and south sections of Goleta close to Old Town, Foster said he would have given preference to a western Goleta pedestrian/bicycle bridge that was on a priority list even before the city incorporated in 2002. The city convinced the Santa Barbara Association of Governments (SBCAG) to release $8.4 million for the Old Town Hollister work that had been set aside for the western bridge, Foster said. That bridge project has since had vehicle lanes added to it, under the theory it wouldn’t cost that much more and would de-stress Storke and Hollister. It joins 15 other projects on the unfunded list, Foster said.

As for being trapped by large grants the city could not afford to give back, Foster said that is why the San Jose Creek bridge repair is going on simultaneous to the Hollister restriping and double roundabouts — grants are paying the majority of Project Connect’s costs, just as grants are paying the majority of the train station and the bike path. “They were taking grants with large unfunded portions attached to them,” Foster said, which caused the city to deprioritize roads. Hence the crib wall damage, which FEMA determined was the result of a lack of maintenance, both Foster and Perotte said.

While Foster was critical of nearly everything the city has done recently, he also had suggestions for the future. If parking in Old Town was a problem, why not buy some properties by the railroad tracks and create parking there? For Old Town businesses whose customers needed to turn left onto Hollister, why not add more left-turn zones in the center divider? The tax revenue that the city must share with the county? Why not try to retain the tax on properties developed after the city incorporated? And western Goleta’s long-promised Fire Station 10? “I want to have that built before I have a heart attack and need the firefighters!”

District 3: Jennifer Smith and Ethan Woodill

Jennifer Smith leads the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County, an organization whose attorney caseloads are so punishing they are legendary. As the foundation’s administrator, she does not have court appearance duties, which she said has given her the latitude to serve on Goleta’s Planning Commission, and will allow her to serve on the city council for  District 3. “After seven years on the Planning Commission, I feel qualified for this next step,” she said.

Smith moved from District 4 to District 3 about eight months ago, and she notices the kids crossing over the highway at Glen Annie/Storke, often with alarm, and how they ride against traffic along Glen Annie Road. “Despite the bike lane improvements and new signals installed, it’s still difficult for students,” she said. “The current crossing could be improved. We need to look at the options.”

Part of the financing issues surrounding projects comes down to the Revenue Neutrality Agreement, or RNA, a tax-sharing agreement with the county that extends into eternity. When Goleta incorporated in 2002, it had to compensate Santa Barbara County for the tax receipts the county would no longer receive. Every year, the city must hand over 50 percent of property tax and 30 percent of sales tax.

“The city has very little leverage with the county because the county is also on a lean budget,” Smith said. “Perhaps we could phase the Revenue Neutrality Agreement out over time by mutual agreement.” If Goleta succeeds in adding the Glen Annie and West Patterson areas to its sphere of influence, that could affect state housing numbers, Smith said. “So we want to be mindful of what kind of leverage we could develop.”

The big issue in her district is Kenwood Village, which Smith would have to recuse herself from deciding if it came to an appeal, as she lives too close to the property. Paula Perotte also recuses herself from Kenwood issues. Smith said the majority of the council would be there to weigh in on difficult issues, and that if anything were to change, the city attorney would advise them.

What Smith sees on the horizon is the need to create opportunities for people in their mid-thirties. Demographic information shows that the number of people in their thirties and forties is dropping in the city, which she suspects is related to affordability. “The flip side of this is the ratio of seniors in the community,” Smith pointed out. “We need to plan how seniors can continue to age with dignity in their beautiful homes.”

Ethan Woodill was born and raised in District 3. He is self-funding his campaign, he said, to set himself apart from the entrenched leadership in the city. If elected, he’d advocate for term limits.

As his neighborhood’s councilmember, he would  hope to be prevent the squeeze of parking that would occur if Glen Annie Golf Club, Kenwood Village, and Colusa Avenue were all developed. The city leadership knew those big projects were coming down the pike and should have let people know, he said. Woodill estimated that if the 1,000 homes at Glen Annie were built, along with 190 at Kenwood and 44 at Colusa, those 1,234 units represented about 20 percent of the current population of District 3.

He’d worked out the numbers on his own cul de sac if all the homes were to add an accessory dwelling unit. “That’d be like a parking bomb in the neighborhood,” he said, which currently had only two extra parking spaces when everyone was home.

“I don’t want to leave the kids in my neighborhood something that’s broken,” Woodill said. “I’m working for my nephew and my niece.”

A cyclist who would ride to Santa Barbara when he was working, Woodill thought the restriping and construction work in Old Town was the greatest idea in the world but with the worst timing and execution. Further, any studies done during the work would be “unethical,” he said, as they could not take into account variables like the freeway and roundabout construction, which would affect the data.

In standing up for his neighborhood, Woodill said the city took $8 million in Measure A funds from the western Goleta overpass that was to go in at Brandon or San Rossano. Instead, the city put it into Project Connect. “They took money from District 3 for District 1,” he said.

“I saw the Dos Pueblos cross-country team running across the [Glen Annie/Storke] bridge, and a Little Leaguer riding a bike across to play baseball. It’s not safe,” he said.

Woodill said he planned to work with Rich Foster to represent the citizens of the district and get things done. “I can’t sit on the sideline,” he said.

DISTRICT 4:  STUART KASDIN AND ERIC GORDON

Stuart Kasdin joined the council in 2016, before the city was divided into districts. Then, he campaigned as an environmentalist, unhappy about the effect of tall buildings on the mountain views. He voiced the same argument during the Housing Element hearings over two parcels along Hollister in the Ellwood area that were being zoned high-density residential, which the State of California interprets to mean affordable housing.

“We tried to use infill properties instead of creating urban sprawl,” Kasdin said of the city’s Housing Element attempts, “but the state wouldn’t include mixed-use properties” — or lots that had both commercial and residential uses, as the city had no track record of such developments.

Even though he lost that fight, Kasdin has found that being on council is an opportunity to do something positive, to have the satisfaction of giving back to the community. One of those positive efforts is the butterfly grove. A multi-year drought was killing the tall eucalyptus, home to thousands of monarch butterflies, and culling the trees was recommended for safety’s sake. Along with many city residents, the council worked with consultants and city staff to have only some of the deadwood cleared, put up signs to keep people off the trails that had dangerous trees overhead, and kept the windbreaks that protected the butterflies.

“This is an example of good planning,” Kasdin said, like the political science professor that he is at City College. “We asked ourselves, ‘What do we want to accomplish?’ We found the grant money, and we implemented our plan. And now we’re seeing more butterflies,” Kasdin said. As well, plentiful rains raised all boats.

Though it’s not in District 3, Kasdin also champions the new train station. “That was funded through state grants and through money that UCSB had to use on a project that benefited students,” Kasdin explained. A nice train station encouraged train use by providing a safe place out of the rain — the platform’s shed roofs are inadequate when it pours — that would be well lit. “The benefits are that train usage helps unclog the roads and adds a ton of convenience for employees at UCSB and the tech companies here.”

The problem in his district Kasdin continues to try to fix is airport noise. “When jets take off at 5 a.m., working people’s lives are really disrupted,” he observed. “The previous airport directors were not amenable to anything we had to say,” Kasdin said, but the new airport director, Chris Hastert, suggested forming a working group.

Hastert suggested the group tackle short-term solutions first, and then take on the items that involve the FAA. The group has met once or twice, and their ask has been for the aircraft to bank before Ellwood, as they are doing at More Mesa, in order to avoid going over homes.

Eric Gordon agrees with Rich Foster that roads are more important for the City of Goleta than the train station. Gordon makes Foster’s same arguments that too much money is placed elsewhere.

As a candidate for District 4, Gordon said he’s been knocking on doors to introduce himself to voters. The issue that keeps coming up is parking.

District 4 embraces the northwest borders of UCSB, and an overflow of vehicles come from the school and its housing developments, Gordon contends, who lives not far from the Camino Real Marketplace. He sees the same parking problem near his photography studio, which is a few blocks from the train platform. He advocates for expanded parking at the new station, better platform coverings, and bathrooms, but not a “full blown train station.”

Gordon calls himself a practical man. Raised in a family of architects, developers, and engineers, he said he was the black sheep who attended Brooks Institute in the 1980s. He grew up in the foothills of Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains and prefers the country life, he said, although his early career was the glamor and fashion world of New York City. He is no fan of the big box and chain stores of Goleta.

“I’ve been here since 1994,” he said. “And I see the city moving in the wrong direction for me and pretty much everyone I’ve talked to.” Gordon said he wasn’t opposed to development, “but don’t build 350 units before seeing where the traffic is going to go or how much water you have.”

While the airport noise was a problem, housing was the larger issue. “Glen Annie and Storke is getting dangerous. With hundreds more houses and I don’t know how many cars, it’s going to get worse.”

What about the employees who worked at the big companies in Goleta, Raytheon, Deckers, Flir, Gordon asked. They make $150,000 a year maybe, which isn’t enough when homes cost $1.5 million. What is called the workforce makes $60,000 in a good year, he said. “Who are these affordable homes for?” he asked.

“Developers expect a return of between 14 and 25 percent,” he said. “If the state wants housing, Goleta needs $15 million for the roads and infrastructure those residents will need. We may not succeed at first, but we should keep trying.”