Nov. 5, 2024, General Election Endorsements
Santa Barbara Independent Presents
Its Picks for National, State, and
Local Races and Ballot Measures
by Indy Staff | Updated October 9, 2024
This is the Independent’s third and final round of endorsements for the November 5, 2024, election. Here you will find the federal, state, and regional candidates, propositions, and measures that we feel sufficiently confident to recommend to our readers. As always, we do not endorse in every race or on every issue.
Ballots began being mailed on October 7, and election officials say that some could take as long as two weeks before reaching all mailboxes. If you are registered, but have not received your ballot within that timeframe, you can call the elections office at 1-800-722-8683 for help.
Whether you agree with our suggestions or not, please vote. It matters. Really.
NATIONAL ELECTION
U.S. President: Kamala Harris
U.S. Senator: Adam Schiff
U.S. House of Representatives District 24: Salud Carbajal
STATE ELECTION
State Assembly, District 37: Gregg Hart
State Senate, District 21: Monique Limón
SANTA BARBARA CITY COUNCIL
District 1: No endorsement
District 2: Michael Jordan
District 3: Oscar Gutierrez
Measure I: Half-Cent Sales Tax Increase: YES
GOLETA CITY COUNCIL
For Mayor: Paula Perotte
For Council, District 3: Jennifer Smith
For Council. District 4: Stuart Kasdin
Measure G2024: To preserve some agricultural land 20 more years: YES
SANTA BARBARA COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
District 2: Kyle Richards
District 3: Jett Black-Maertz
District 4: Dave Morris
Measure P: Bond Measure to Fund Campus Building Repairs
and Renovations: YES
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
Area 2: Nadra Ehrman
Area 4: Guy R. Walker
Area 6: Katya Armistead
SANTA BARBARA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Area 2: Sunita Beall
Area 3: Bill Banning
Area 5: Celeste Kafri
LOMPOC UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Measure M2024: YES
Hope School District
Measure Y2024: YES
COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA
Measure H: Half-Cent Bed Tax Increase: YES
STATE PROPOSITIONS
Prop. 2 (Authorizes Bonds for Public School and Community College Facilities): YES
Prop. 3 (Constitutional Right to Marriage): YES
Prop. 4 (Authorizes Bonds for Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, and Protecting Communities and Natural Lands from Climate Risks): YES
Prop. 5 (Allows Local Bonds for Affordable Housing and Public Infrastructure with 55% Voter Approval): YES
Prop. 6 (Eliminates Constitutional Provision Allowing Involuntary Servitude for Incarcerated Persons): YES
Prop. 32 (Raises Minimum Wage): YES
Prop. 33 (Expands Local Governments’ Authority to Enact Rent Control on Residential Property): NO
Prop. 34 (Restricts Spending of Prescription Drug Revenues by Certain Health Care Providers): NO
Prop. 35 (Provides Permanent Funding for Medi-Cal Health Care Services): NO
Prop. 36 (Allows Felony Charges and Increases Sentences for Certain Drug and Theft Crimes): NO
U.S. President
Kamala Harris, Obviously
The United States can ill afford another four-year, egotistical temper tantrum blasting from the White House. The world, quite literally, is blowing up. Wars proliferate. At home and throughout the planet, we are enduring climate-inflamed catastrophes of unprecedented frequency and death. Yet we, in America, are facing an even more immediate threat.
The Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has repeatedly throughout his campaign spewed hatred, lies, and rage. The consequences? An increasingly divided nation, many of whom distrust institutions, disdain facts, find conspiracy theories comforting and undermine basic principles of our country, such as the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump is not making this country great; he is weakening it, spreading chaos and fear. Clearly, we are teetering on the edge of the precipice.
In Kamala Harris, we have the means to right this pending disaster. She and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are level-headed, experienced politicians who actually care about making government function. Emergency response matters. Facts matter. They’ve spent a lifetime perfecting the give-and-take necessary for strong, effective leadership. When Donald Trump was notified that his former vice president, Mike Pence, was in immediate peril during the January 6 uprising, his response was, “So what?” This might make for a catchy bumper sticker if you’re into ironic nihilism. But it’s self-destructive if you’re interested in governing a country.
The world may weep that Donald Trump did not get enough love as a young child. But at age 78, the former president is well beyond any therapeutic intervention.
Vote for Kamala Harris.
Regional Elections
Community College Board:
Jett-Black Maertz, David Morris, and Kyle Richards
It’s been about 10 years since Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) was named the best community college in the country. Since then, student enrollments have dropped, and the slow, steady decline caused by deferred maintenance of underutilized buildings has become more apparent. In the past 15 years, the school has gone through no fewer than nine executives. It’s still a gem of a school, however, having provided — among other things — totally free education to 2,000 low-income South County high school students in the past year alone. This year, three of the school board’s seats are wide open with no incumbent. The three candidates the Independent believes can do the best job moving forward are Jett Black-Maertz, representing the Eastside District, David Morris, representing the west end of Goleta, and Kyle Richards, representing Goleta. Black is now a private consultant specializing in government grants to private nonprofits with a focus on homelessness. Before that, she worked for the County of Santa Barbara on similar projects. For all her experience in the public sector, Black — a Santa Barbara native — exudes a can-do competence with an almost entrepreneurial spirit of innovation. Morris is a retired City College history professor who actually studied at SBCC in his youth. And Richards is a wonk’s wonk, having spent 27 years as a policy analyst for UCSB as well as serving two terms on the Goleta City Council. All three candidates we endorsed are itching to serve.
County Office of Education:
Nadra Ehrman (Area 2), Guy R. Walker (Area 4), Katya Armistead (Area 6)
Even the most diligent follower of civic affairs might be hard-pressed to know much — if anything — about what the County Office of Education does. Its 554 full-time employees work on five major support programs for 70,000 students in 20 school districts throughout the county. It operates on a $100 million budget. It’s akin to that part of the brain that handles autonomous bodily functions, like breathing. Except with the County Board of Education, many of these support programs involve traditionally underserved populations.
Most striking is the high caliber of board candidates who have been drawn to serve this obscure but critically important administrative support entity.
Nadra Ehrman, an incumbent in Area 2, is now running for reelection against Christy Lozano, a high-profile right-wing culture warrior. Ehrman brings a boatload of community engagement, including as the sustainability director for the Towbes Group, on the Community Environmental Council board, and, most recently, on the State Street Advisory Commission, where she has a reputation for being dedicated, prepared, and great to work with.
Guy R. Walker, running in Area 4, is the founder of a Santa Ynez wealth management company, with a 30-year history of working for community involvement and student advocacy, having served on numerous boards, including the Allan Hancock College Foundation, where he chaired the successful inauguration of The Hancock Promise, which offers two years’ free tuition to all North County high school graduates.
Katya Armistead in Area 6 is an assistant vice chancellor and dean of student life at UCSB with a doctorate in student counseling and more than 30 years’ experience in education. She has promoted campus inclusion and worked with students, especially during periods of crisis and conflict. As a parent, she has volunteered in Santa Barbara public schools and on various boards, and has participated in many community meetings.
Santa Barbara City Council
District 1: No Endorsement
This one pains us. Of the three council races, this battle for District 1, which encompasses much of the city’s traditionally underserved Eastside, is the closest and most consequential. While there is much to admire about all three candidates — incumbent councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez, challenger Wendy Santamaria, and persistent candidate Cruzito Cruz — we have too many concerns about any to offer an endorsement.
We are troubled by the large number of council and committee meetings — over 61 — Gutierrez has missed. Serious health issues were involved, but we wish Gutierrez communicated this more clearly to the community. We had high hopes for Gutierrez — who was born, raised, lives, and works in the district she represents — but her reputation for missing appointments predate her term on the council.
Santamaria, by contrast, is a recent newcomer, but in her time, she’s cut a charismatic figure as a high-energy, high-profile progressive community activist affiliated with CAUSE, the Tenants Union, and some labor unions. We worry about crusaders on the council. Can she tread gently enough to find the common ground required for legislative success?
Within this prism, we cannot recommend any candidate with certainty.
District 2: Michael Jordan
This one’s a no-brainer. Michael Jordan embodies the wonderfully contradictory characteristics you want in a city councilmember — someone who’s ambivalent and anguished by the complexity of the issues he confronts on the dais, but dead certain to the point of brashness when he arrives at a conclusion.
He started out as a representative of the business community, but today business interests find him too liberal; progressive activists, by contrast, write him off as an undependable flip-flopper. They are both wrong.
Jordan took it upon himself to knock on all 52 doors of the 215 Bath Street apartments when tenants there were first notified that they were facing renoviction and sought help from the City Attorney’s Office. He later backed off on some of the protections proposed and is no fan of rent control. But he put in the work to make his decisions.
A self-described grumpy old white guy who can mansplain about how entitled he is, Jordan has served on the council, the Planning Commission, and a host of so many other city boards and commissions that he qualifies as City Hall’s institutional memory bank.
Along the way, Jordan never mastered the art of party-line speak — and never really tried. He is, above all, a pragmatist’s pragmatist more comfortable navigating the messy interchange of human personalities than ideology. He is open, accessible, and not afraid to work hard on intractable issues such as homelessness.
What’s most striking, after all his years in the trenches, is how excited Jordan remains by Santa Barbara and its possibilities. For him, Santa Barbara is a real-life, complicated thing — where the shortest distance between two points is always a squiggly line — not some abstraction or blue print. We recommend a vote for Michael Jordan.
District 3: Oscar Gutierrez
During his first stint on the City Council, Oscar Gutierrez has made it his mission to be pretty much everywhere all the time. On social media, no one is more omnipresent, except perhaps for John Palminteri, and he never sleeps. It’s obvious to even the most unobservant that Gutierrez — better known simply as Oscar — absolutely loves it. But as he explained, it’s also his way of making himself, and his office, accessible to a wide swath of people who are not comfortable going inside City Hall.
From the dais, maybe Gutierrez could say more to explain his votes. But compared to some of his more loquacious councilmembers, he’s mercifully brief. He talks to everyone, even those with whom he strongly disagrees on issues such as rent control, of which he’s a strong proponent. At a recent forum on the arts, Gutierrez explained how he passed out his business cards to all downtown street musicians. If they get hassled, they should call him. When members of Santa Barbara pelota mixteca sports team approached him looking for a playing field — a big challenge, given the demands of their ancient sport — Gutierrez put shoulder to the wheel and reportedly found a space. Most immediately, Gutierrez didn’t just whine about how school fields were not available to district residents on weekends in the Westside area he represents. He knocked on the school district doors and got those fields opened. For one of the most underserved communities in town, those fields make a huge difference.
He was less successful, however, when trying to get some of the out-of-town food vendors taking over city streets to apply for city permits. He offered to help them get through the system, but they shined him on. The point here is not that Gutierrez gets a hit every time at bat. The point is he tries and delivers far more times than he doesn’t. And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work in district elections. Oscar is running against Tony Becerra, longtime dojo owner and martial arts instructor. On the mats, Becerra is undeniably great, as his students attest. But his council goals remain murky and ill-defined. Gutierrez has our support.
Measure I:
Half-Cent Sales Tax Increase: YES
“Everyone wants to go to heaven,” Joan Armatrading likes to sing, “but nobody wants to die.” Likewise, we all expect City Hall to provide a wide range of services, but nobody wants to pay for them. According to city bean counters, even on a relatively benign year, expenses outpace revenues by about $7 million. To plug this gap, new city administrator Kelly McAdoo has launched Measure I — a half-cent sales tax increase — which she reckons will bump city revenues by about $16 million a year. Half that amount, the bean counters say, will be paid by tourists and other visitors.
The fact is that sales taxes are inherently regressive, meaning that the impacts are felt disproportionately by those holding the short end of the economic stick. It’s also undeniably true that without these increased revenues many of the services relied upon by this same short-end-of-the-stick demographic will be severely trimmed or eliminated. In reality, the additional funds will go into the city’s general fund; this means it’s a grab bag, technically speaking, where the money will actually go. But McAdoo and the councilmembers have said the funding will keep 9-1-1 emergency fire and police response working, library services maintained, affordable housing trust fund replenished, parks clean and safe, and homeless people humanely responded to. That’s a tall order even with the additional funding. Without the infusion of Measure I funds — “I stands for ‘investment,’ ” says Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez — those services will all certainly suffer. Cops and firefighters, necessarily, will get the first bite at the apple.
We urge a vote for Measure I.
Goleta Mayor
and City Council:
Paula Perotte, Jennifer Smith, and Stuart Kasdin
From left: Paula Perotte, Jennifer Smith, Stuart Kasdin | Credit: Courtesy
Since its inception in 2002, the City of Goleta has been buffeted by the onslaught of intense new development seemingly at odds with the small-is-beautiful ethos of the Good Land. This has required road improvement projects to keep up with the increased traffic flow on the one hand and trying to decrease traffic for neighborhood comfort on the other. Throw in the plethora of new state mandates designed to accelerate the building of more housing, and you get a picture of the push-me-pull-you pressures that occupants of City Hall in Goleta must navigate. It’s anything but easy, but somehow, they make it look as if it is. To this end, we are endorsing two candidates seeking reelection, Mayor Paula Perotte and Councilmember Stuart Kasdin. Possessed of common sense, pragmatism, and even keels, both bring a wealth of knowledge — Kasdin is a certified über–policy wonk — and equanimity to the job that makes Goleta council meetings uniquely devoid of drama. Kasdin and Perotte have been forced to accommodate new state housing mandates they may not agree with; Jennifer Smith, a long-time planning commissioner, brings with her years of experience heading the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County, a nonprofit law firm that typically defends tenants from being evicted, handles elder abuse and domestic violence services, and assists in consumer protection cases. Given the alternatives, this seems the best threesome to competently navigate the yin and yang of small government without spilling a drop.
Education Bond Measures
P, Y, and M: Yes on All
It takes money to spend money, especially if what you’re spending it on is education. In the case of Measure P, Santa Barbara’s highly decorated but much embroiled city college is asking voters to approve a $198 million bond measure to make much-needed building repairs. If voters reject Measure P, they will also reject the $38 million in matching state funds that have already been allocated for our community college. That’s a whole lot of money to leave on the table. Yes, it’s true that much of the repair bills will be spent on the campus’s gymnasium and physical education plant. But that’s just a start. And the gym, we are told, is not seismically safe, has lead pipes, and is home to asbestos. Many campus buildings need repair, many more than 60 years old. But the state simply does not provide funding for building maintenance unless a campus puts skin in the game. Measure P is an extension of an existing bond that was originally passed in 2008. It will be paid off over time by a property tax surcharge of $8.50 per $100,000 of assessed value. Translated, for a $1 million home, that’s a property tax bump of $85. Put it in perspective, that’s about 10 large lattes plus tip. Given that City College has provided an exceptionally affordable beacon of educational excellence — at a time when any of the UC campuses cost about $45,000 a year — it’s a small price to pay.
Similarly, we strongly endorse Lompoc’s Measure M, a $160 million bond measure that will be paid for with a slight increase in property taxes. Lompoc’s schools are in dire need of repair. Measure M would also qualify Lompoc’s schools for $50 million in matching state funds.
Meanwhile, the people running the Hope School District are hoping to raise $40 million in bond revenues in the form of Measure Y. Translated into lattes, it’s about twice as expensive as the City College bond measure. While that might sound like a lot, the Hope District will soon be scrambling to accommodate a big surge in enrollments when La Cumbre Plaza undergoes the radical makeover envisioned when 600 new rental units soon go up where parking lots and retail storefronts now exist.
Please vote yes on all three measures. Yes, education can be costly, but ignorance much more so.
Santa Barbara
Unified School Board
Sunita Beall, Celeste Kafri, and Bill Banning
From left: Sunita Beall, Celeste Kafri, Bill Banning | Credit: Courtesy
These three candidates we think provide the best shot for moving the needle on a board of an intractably complex educational institution beset with equally intractable challenges. Of the three, Celeste Kafri brings a rare mix of youthful outsider energy as a Goleta school mom who helped lead the charge for literacy instruction reform there. Sunita Beall — a physician by day — has served six months when appointed to fill a sudden vacancy. Her attention to detail is striking, but we are also struck by her empathy for teachers. That expression of empathy has been dysfunctional to the point of absence in the past year as relations between the teachers and the district leadership have achieved unprecedented lows. We think Beall and Kafri together might provide the necessary one-two punch to implement the teacher training requirements needed for the literacy instruction reforms the board has already adopted as a program objective. Although we have been frustrated by incumbent Bill Banning’s too-cautious-by-half reluctance to speak candidly about morale problems and the whiplash-inducing turnover among district administrators, he is the most seasoned professional on the board, having served both as a teacher and principal in other districts and as a Goleta district superintendent. When it comes down to the nuts and bolts of governance, we think his skills will help. While we were moved by the passion and experience of retired special ed teacher Chris Wichowski — who raised the most pointed questions throughout the campaign — we found the intensity of his anguished fatalism potentially problematic. If his temperament and Banning’s could somehow be fused, they’d make an ideal candidate.
Bed Tax Increases for County of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Buellton, and Solvang
Measure H, B, D, and E: YES
Yes, it’s true: We never saw a bed tax increase we couldn’t support. Such taxes — also known as Transient Occupancy Taxes — provide local governments with a semi-reliable funding stream to help underwrite the day-to-day realities of government service. Better yet, they are paid for by people who don’t live here.
In Measure H, the County of Santa Barbara is proposing to increase bed taxes from 12 percent of the room rate to 14 percent. People willing to shell out four figures to stay at places like the Miramar are not going to even notice the bump. Typically, tourists don’t factor the bed tax into their holiday budgeted expenditures. But for the County of Santa Barbara, this slight increase amounts to $3 million a year.
For the City of Carpinteria’s Measure B, it’s a jump from 12 to 15 percent with a gain of $750,000 a year.
Solvang’s Measure E would generate $1 million.
Buellton’s Measure D would generate $600,000.
None of this is enough for any local government to retire their pension obligations, but it helps.
State Propositions
As a general rule, we take a dim view of most state propositions. A scalpel is typically required to craft a piece of legislation that’s sufficiently nuanced to be reflective of real world conditions. Ballot measures tend to be written by committees populated by people armed with chain saws. The desired impact is often exactly the opposite of how it’s intended to seem. Double and triple negatives are not uncommon. There’s always at least one Trojan horse. And aside from issues in which taxation and binding measures must be resolved by the electorate, we feel most of these items can — and should — be addressed by the state legislature itself. If you feel confused by any of these measures, relax; it’s them, not you. They want you to feel that way. If you have more questions than answers, maybe that’s a sign you should just leave that space blank on your ballot.
PROP. 2: Authorizes Bonds for Public School and Community College Facilities — YES
Authorizes the sale of $10 billion in school construction and modernization bonds. Of that, $8.5 billion is earmarked for K-12. The rest goes to community colleges.
PROP. 3: Constitutional Right to Marriage — YES:
Right now, the state constitution proclaims, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This language, by the way, is no longer federally constitutional. Prop. 3 would strike this language from the state constitution so that, if in some MAGA-infused future, the federal constitution is amended to not recognize gay marriages, California will already have amended its constitution and gay marriage here will be protected.
PROP. 4: Authorizes Bonds for Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, and Protecting Communities and Natural Lands from Climate Risks — YES
Prop. 4 could rightly be described as an eco-pork bill, authorizing the sale of $10 billion bonds to fund programs designed to modify major water and energy infrastructures in response to climate change. In addition, $3.8 billion would go to groundwater and safe drinking water, $1.5 billion for wildfire protections, and $1.2 billion for address sea-level rise.
PROP. 5: Allows Local Bonds for Affordable Housing and Public Infrastructure with 55% Voter Approval — YES
Prop. 5 would make it significantly easier for local governments to pay for affordable housing or infrastructure bonds by lowering the percentage of votes required to be victorious from 66.67 percent to 55 percent. Money thus raised could not be used, however, to buy single-family homes.
PROP. 6: Eliminates Constitutional Provision Allowing Involuntary Servitude for Incarcerated Persons — YES
Bans the forced labor of inmates in state prisons.
PROP. 32: Raises Minimum Wage — YES
This one will sting a lot of small businesses, but it’s necessary. And besides, the state’s minimum wage is already a confusing jumble. For most people, it’s $16 an hour. For health care workers, it’s $25 an hour. And for fast-food workers it’s $20 an hour. If Prop. 32 passes, the minimum wage — for most people — will jump for $16 to $18 an hour. That extra $2 an hour will elevate the economic floor for people now getting paid the least. Hopefully, the ceiling doesn’t rise at the same time.
PROP. 33: Expands Local Governments’ Authority to Enact Rent Control on Residential Property — NO
Under the state’s existing rent control laws, vacant properties, single-family homes, and properties built in the past 15 years are exempt from the consequences of any local ren-control measures. If Prop. 33 passes, these exemptions — codified in what’s called the state’s Costa–Hawkins bill — will no longer exist. Prop. 33 would allow local governments to pass stricter, more far-reaching rent control measures. We’re torn on this. We worry Prop. 33 could place a significant chill on new housing construction at a time when we clearly need new units coming on line. If this proposal emerged out of the traditional legislative process, perhaps language could have been inserted to exempt new development that provides a certain percent of below-market units. Similarly, we’re troubled by the persistently high drama content that’s surrounds Prop. 33’s principal sponsor, the L.A.-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. A month ago, the Foundation paid $575,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit with its own tenants alleging that their skid row rental property was infested with mold, vermin, and other problems. The prior year, the Foundation settled a similar class action — filed by unhappy tenants — to the tune of $832,000. This marks the third time the Foundation has qualified an action for the state ballot to expand the reach of local rent control bills. The two prior proposals failed.
PROP. 34: Restricts Spending of Prescription Drug Revenues by Certain Health Care Providers — NO
This is a measure for the landlords, by the landlords, and of the landlords. Prop. 34 is designed to harpoon the AIDS Healthcare Foundation right in its checkbook so that it can never sponsor another Prop. 33 measure again. The Foundation raises the money needed to sponsor these ballot initiatives through the medical branch of its operation. It makes money by buying prescription medications at special rates available to nonprofits while charging the insurance companies of their patients whatever the market will bear. This buy-low-sell-high formula has kept the Alliance flush enough to drive the landlords crazy over the years. This is their solution. We have no idea how many other nonprofits could wind up as collateral damage in this class struggle crossfire. That the landlords have so much money to spend fighting Props 33 and 34 suggests that maybe the rents they’re charging are way too high.
PROP. 35: Provides Permanent Funding for Medi-Cal Health Care Services — NO
For all we know, this is a great measure. But it would require an advanced degree in actuarial billing science to make heads or tails out of it. On paper, it’s designed to increase access to people who rely on Medi-Cal for their prescriptions by making such medications more affordable. If we got it right, Prop. 35 would increase funding for Medi-Cal by $2 billion to $5 billion a year. About half that, we are told will come from a new tax on health plans. We should know what this means. We don’t. You probably don’t either. The only reassurance available is that no organizations have marshaled in opposition to this measure. Probably, they didn’t understand it either.
PROP. 36: Allows Felony Charges and Increases Sentences for Certain Drug and Theft Crimes — NO
Proponents of Prop. 36 have seized upon high-profile smash-and-grab attacks at that have taken place at high-end shopping malls to make their case for an old-school tough-on-crime measure. We think their efforts would have been much better spent seeking more legislative modifications to existing laws that clarify what’s a felony and what’s a misdemeanor. As the measure stands, the definition of a misdemeanor would be the theft of anything worth $950 or less. Felony charges could be brought for defendants with two or more prior theft charges. Maybe that even makes sense. But what if these are minor shoplifting violations? California has invested massively in getting more and more people out of lockup and into treatment and recovery programs, for both addiction and mental health. Every year, local mental health and addiction treatment providers get a percentage of the money saved by diverting patients rather than locking up inmates. If Prop. 36 passes, the amount saved will be considerably less, and those programs will suffer. We understand the sense of outrage animating this effort, but it’s exactly the wrong approach at the wrong time.
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