Santa Barbara County Election Update

There was little joy in Mudville this Tuesday night, not even among the victorious candidates here in Santa Barbara. As the victors — all Democrats — and their supporters assembled at downtown bars and nightclubs, there was the obligatory happy talk about gratitude, humility, service, and the opportunities that lay ahead. But even the most upbeat kept an apprehensive eye on the big screens behind the bar.

Was there any reason to hold out hope or joy for Kamala Harris, their party’s presidential standard bearer who sought to make “hope” and “joy” campaign buzzwords?

In a word, the answer was no. In the battle of vibes, Harris fell decisively short against the most grimly dystopian and openly racist candidate ever to represent the Republican Party — the golem of American politics — Donald J. Trump.

Beyond the White House, the Senate flipped decisively in favor of the Republicans, 52-42. By night’s end, the fate of the House was at best uncertain. The final results, the party faithful were told, would not be known for days.

The sky had fallen.

As the revelers traipsed from their “celebration” at S.B. Biergarten in the Funk Zone 18 blocks up State Street to SOhO, the Biergarten waitstaff tidied up. Waitresses were on their phones in tears, crying over the night’s results. They called their families. They called loved ones. Could this really be true? There were no stiff upper lips.

The sky had fallen. And hard, too.

On the TV, pundits were discussing the contours of the Diploma Divide and how Trump won thanks to economically alienated white voters, blue-collar workers without college degrees, who live in what’s called “flyover country” — America’s rust belt, h0llowed out by the benign neglect of globalist trade policies and the ascendancy of the new tech-bro economy. It was the clash of political civilizations, one talking head said. The chasm of two Americas, said another.

But politics being politics, the show must go on. And to a large extent, Santa Barbara is inoculated from the gathering storm of encroaching inevitability. In an election marked by a less-than-expected turnout, Santa Barbara city voters elected two City Council candidates who strongly support rent control: incumbent Oscar Gutierrez in District 3 and a newcomer to the city council, Wendy Santamaria in District 1. Depending on the reliability of the math, that means there will now be four councilmembers — a voting majority — who support rent control.

To the extent Santa Barbara’s council races carried any drama, it was in District 1; Wendy Santamaria, a labor union organizer by trade and a progressive activist by avocation, was all smiles Tuesday night. And Santamaria, who made rent control her number-one talking point, happens to be graced with a 150-watt smile. That’s a useful attribute for a candidate better-known as a firebrand.

“We are looking at a new era of housing, reform, and justice for working families of this city,” Santamaria said on election night. “And I’m not exaggerating. I literally mean finally having enough votes on the City Council to really make some reform and really create policy based on lived experience and not on special interests.”

Little surprise, then, that Santa Barbara landlords, rental property associations, and property managers had pooled their resources heavily behind District 1 incumbent councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez, an avowed foe of rent control. Her own parents were mom-and-pop landlords.

Gutierrez, who initially won a seat on the council by a margin of only eight votes, lost — at last count — by 138 votes to a candidate she castigated as a carpetbagger. Beset during her term by pressing health problems she did not publicly disclose, she missed 61 council business meetings. Imbued with the fierce and prickly independence of someone born and raised on the city’s much-neglected Eastside, Gutierrez made it clear she would march to her own drum.

All politics is personal. But in District 1, it got personal, and silly too, as the campaign descended into a comic last-minute micro-drama featuring competing sign-stealing conspiracy theories. On election night, Gutierrez did not concede defeat but instead said, “I was born and raised in Santa Barbara and am rooted in that community…. I understand the needs of my district, the needs of the entire district. And I know how to make that connection.”

By contrast, District 3 — the city’s Westside — was always incumbent Oscar Gutierrez’s to cakewalk his way through. On election night, he did just that. Gutierrez beat out his challenger and his former martial arts sensei, Tony Becerra, by a decisive 500-vote margin: 59 percent to 40.6 percent. Although Becerra is also blessed with a brilliant smile and generous donations from local landlords, he was too nice to really go on the attack against Gutierrez. Both candidates are children of Mexican immigrants who grew up in households where Spanish was the first language.

Gutierrez takes pride in claiming he’s the most responsive city councilmember in the City of Santa Barbara, estimating he responded to 27,000 constituent calls, texts, or emails. Gutierrez supports rent control and shrugs off arguments about rent control’s unintended consequences. Renters need protection, he says. And they’ve told him so.

Like Alejandra Gutierrez, Oscar Gutierrez lives at home with his mother, who also happens to be a small landlord. She opposes rent control and many of the protections her son champions. It’s one of those issues, he says, where he and his mother agree to disagree.

It’s worth noting that countywide, voters overwhelmingly opposed Prop. 33, a statewide ballot initiative that would have extended the grasp of state rent control laws at the local level. Landlords, admittedly, spent lavishly — and effectively — to defeat it. In addition, county voters narrowly endorsed a measure hatched by the statewide landlord association designed to financially punish the tenants’ rights organization that put Prop. 33, or a variant thereof, on the ballot for the third time.

In the city’s District 2, Michael Jordan, who represents the Mesa, holds a bulletproof lead of 80 percent over a candidate named Terra Taylor who spent less than $100 in a come-out-of-nowhere campaign. Jordan first emerged as a business-minded candidate who, over the years, has gradually shifted in a quasi-liberal/progressive direction.

To the extent there are swing votes on the council, Jordan is one of them. He does not, however, support rent control — for him, it’s a bridge too far — and is willing to explain why. But he’d much rather explain how downtown Santa Barbara is poised to be reborn, and spectacularly so. “Not since the earthquake [of 1925] have we had this many things lined up, from the underpass to State Street to De la Guerra Plaza and the just-opened library plaza last weekend,” he gushed. “I personally think we’re on one of the precipices of some of the greatest good things, particularly in downtown.”

Perhaps the biggest sleeper among Santa Barbara city races is Measure I, the half-cent sales tax increase, gently reviled by some councilmembers who point out it’s regressive. Measure I was ahead by 62.55 percent. It needs 55 percent to win. Its backers — principally City Hall’s newest City Administrator Kelly McAdoo — spent nothing. They waged an almost nonexistent campaign. In exchange, Measure I promises to generate $17 million a year.

By contrast, backers of Measure P — the $198 million building repair and rebuild bond package — spent nearly $350,000. No social media platform was safe, no mailbox un-intruded upon. The money — a lot, by local standards — came from the Santa Barbara Community College Foundation but achieved its desired results. Even the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association, normally just-say-no when it comes to such measures, endorsed it, thus generating an interparty rift among Santa Barbara’s community conservatives and fiscal hawks. That’s all for now.