Jerry RobertsBy Jerry Roberts of Newsmakers
The noted barrister Steve Amerikaner, aiming his comment at a notorious, local poison pen editorialist, once memorably said that, in political and policy disputes in Santa Barbara, “the people on the other side are not our enemies — they are our neighbors.”
With the election of Randy Rowse, and the ouster of Cathy Murillo, voters have substituted openness, moderation and a desire for civic unity for incuriosity, ideological rigidity and devotion to political faction.
They’ve replaced a mayor who kept score of those who opposed her, who yearned for higher office, and for whom every political difference was a personal affront, with an affable but earnest former bar and restaurant owner whose singular motivating political principle is to do the best he can to nurture and sustain the future of his town.
“No partisanship, no ideology,” Rowse said in a Newsmakers interview this week, when asked to explain how he intends to help govern an embattled city fraught with divisions of wealth, race and age. “I have my own beliefs. I have my own politics. I park them at the door. That’s the way I rolled when I was on council. That’s the way I roll now. It’s the only way I know how to be.”
As a political matter, Randy faces the challenge of wrangling the same six, quarrelsome liberal City Council colleagues as the departing mayor. The key difference: she was the most left-wing of the bunch, and consistently tried to pull the others in her direction, better to serve the planks of the Democratic Party platform and public employee unions to whom taxpayer-financed budgets seem to be mere booty.
In contrast, the new mayor will become the most moderate member on the dias and hopefully shift the balance of power in the other direction, the better to hear and heed the concerns of businesses and homeowners, those who foot the bill for the social engineering schemes cooked up by council members who understand the spending side of government finance very well, but seem to lack much interest in understanding the sources of the revenue they like to lavish.
In the end, of course, Rowse is just one of seven votes on a council that is staffed and routinely guided by a bewildering bureaucracy that, for too many citizens who come in contact with it, is perceived as arrogant, aloof and unresponsive.
Amid the multiple recent resignations, firings and mysterious departures of key administrators, however, the mayor-elect not only has an opportunity to help remake city government to align with his own approachable and accessible values, but also to move the center of gravity on council towards the common sense center of the political spectrum.
Best wishes for his success.
And now the awards…
A political reporter has been defined as someone who watches the battle from high atop a distant hill, then rides down to shoot the wounded.
Winners
Sheila Lodge. It was hard to find anyone happier on Tuesday night than Sheila, the long-serving Planning Commissioner, former Mayor, local historian and embodiment of Santa Barbara’s Pearl Chase discernment. She went all-in for Randy and celebrated his victory along with the re-election of protege and District 4 council member Kristen Sneddon, while perhaps taking a measure of satisfaction in the political fates of mayoral hopeful Deborah Schwartz and Kristen challenger Barrett Reed, two pro-development planning commission colleagues, both of whose terms are coming to an end, none too soon for the slow-growth Lodge.,
James Joyce. The “Coffee with a Black Guy” guy and mayoral contender actually fulfilled the political cliche of winning by losing, besting Murillo to finish a surprising second, despite running a woefully underfunded campaign. Before the race, the former legislative aide to Das Williams and Hannah Beth Jackson was scarcely known outside the circle of local political insiders, but his seriousness of purpose, sincerity and coup of snagging some key media endorsements obviously created a broad impression in the community, making him a strong bet for future political success.
Independents. In a town (and a state) with only one functional political party, Randy took on the hegemony of local Democrats as a bona fide No Party Preference independent and won, by appealing to the sensibleness of voters in the middle of the political spectrum. And Sneddon, who carried the Democratic endorsement but seemed to spend as much time running away from it as trumpeting it, won easy re-election on the basis of her record as the most independent-minded member of council despite Reed, a young, smart and attractive challenger, raising an astonishing quarter-of-a-million dollars in a contest for fewer than 7,000 voters.
Rebecca Bjork. When acting City Administrator Bjork nailed five campaigns with a total of $10,800 in fines for filing campaign finance reports late, some political professionals were astounded, likening it to using a cruise missile to stop a home invasion of ants. But we say good on her, not only for enforcing the law, but also for ensuring no one could charge that she was exercising favoritism towards Nina Johnson, her City Hall colleague, who challenged Meagan Harmon in District 6 and who was the biggest scofflaw of the bunch — with extra points for overseeing, along with steadfast City Clerk Sarah Gorman and the reliable county Registrar, Joe Holland, a smooth election, the city’s last of the odd-year era;
Media mavens. Covering elections is harder than it looks, and with cash-strapped local news organizations now fielding staffs of half-a-dozen reporters or fewer — who also must churn out a steady stream of stories on City Hall, school boards, county government and the courts, not to mention fires, shootings, weather and two car fatals — the Independent, Noozhawk, Montecito Journal and Edhat all did yeoman work on the campaign. Sure, political junkies had to spend time grazing the daily news landscape to get a full look at the latest from the trail, but Santa Barbara’s small but plucky political press corps consistently comported themselves with energy and caring, with the Indy’s high-impact endorsement of Joyce, the MoJo’s muckraking about the Dem party Josh Molina’s multi-media stylings and Lauren Bray’s stewardship of local treasure Edhat notably proving the abiding power of the press.
Losers
Majority rule. Newsmakers spent four years kvetching at Cathy as “our 27 percent mayor” because she was elected with just over one-quarter of the votes in a big, winner-take-all-field, and never seemed too interested in considering, let alone attending to, the public interests of the three-fourths who didn’t vote for her. Now comes Rowse, cruising to victory with 38.6 percent of the vote which, while an improvement, still raises the question of why SB’s shift to district elections of city council members didn’t include a requirement that the one and only official elected citywide must win a majority vote. Can we get an amen for a run-off or (heaven help us) ranked choice voting?
The Daraka-Das-Darcel show. The Big Three of the local Democratic Party apparatus produced a clown show blooper reel to aid and abet Cathy’s defeat, as former party chair Daraka Larimore-Hall went on Molina’s podcast, “SB Talks” to deliver a snarling diatribe in which he slimed Joyce, trashed prominent Dem women by name and lied about the Independent, a fiasco quickly overtaken by revelations that self-mythologizing Supervisor Das Williams tried to strong-arm Deborah Schwartz out of the mayor’s race and into endorsing Cathy. Current party chair Darcel Elliott topped things off with a WTF, post-election communique to the troops, trying to spin the Dem’s loss of the mayor’s office by declaring that, “We feel confident that Mayor Cathy Murillo will take second place in the Mayoral election thanks to the work we did specifically on Election Day” (This just in: Houston holds big parade to celebrate Astros finishing second in World Series); her confidence, alas, was misplaced as final results a few hours later showed Joyce actually doubled his election night lead over Murillo to leave her in third — but we hear James really appreciates you turning out those Election Day votes for him!
Developers. Builder Ed St. George and downtown real estate mogul Jim Knell both backed all the wrong horses, as their efforts to install more friendly faces on the dais on Tuesday afternoons collapsed along with the campaigns of Schwartz, Reed and Johnson. Big Ed also made himself scarce after some ill-conceived, ill-timed sexist comments on “SB Talks” (again!) blew up and won him a public rebuke from the Women’s Political Committee, while Knell later was hit with a substantive complaint to the Fair Political Practices Commission after eight separate business entities with which he’s associated each made big donations to Reed, Johnson, Schwartz and Rowse, raising questions about if he exceeded state contribution limits.
Alarmist reporters. The day before Election Day, when only 25 percent of mail-in ballots had been returned, the local press (we name no names) was full of dire warnings and civic duty tut-tutting about shockingly low turnout and voters “staying away in droves,” By the time the final deal went down on Thursday, turnout was at 47 percent, respectable enough for an off-year election and only four points off the open race for mayor four years ago. So never mind.
RHS: Randy is a straight shooter. Just call him up and ask him. One reason he got elected. People have known him in this town for a long time. Not a one trick pony carpet bagger, like some who have shown up at the last minute and expect us to hand them the top slot in town. So stop the smears and just ask him.
Now Cathy Murillo can kick back and wait for her city pension for life to start rolling in. Just like we taxpayers are on the hook paying former Mayor Martha Blum $22,000 a year for life, with an inflation clause. Compensation for elected office should begin and end only during the time in office. End taxpayer funded pensions for all future elected officials. Not part of any bargain I want to see when we vote. This lifetime perks needs more publicity. Check our your former favorite “public servants” on Transparent California, and see how much they are still soaking taxpayers in our badly over-promised and under-funded CalPERS pension system – taxpayer are on the hook for 100% of the make up costs. But these “public servants will be made whole, for life Even if they have been turned out of office by the voters.
Great article, my favorite part: “to hear and heed the concerns of businesses and homeowners, those who foot the bill for the social engineering schemes cooked up by council members who understand the spending side of government finance very well, but seem to lack much interest in understanding the sources of the revenue they like to lavish.” Spot on!
How can Rowse refuse to return the tainted Knell contributions! He wants to be “above the fray” but holding onto this dirty money brings him right into the pigsty of developer corruption of the government. He should not need this money considering the amount he collected in any event. Do the right thing Randy!
RHS: Worry about your self and those things that you need to deal with. Let Randy run his life as he sees fit. It’s obvious that those who hate Randy do not want what’s best for the citizens of Santa Barbara. Live the good life in happiness….not with hate and divisiveness because we are not putting up with it any longer.
Babycakes has to be kidding. Just let an elected leader run his life as he sees fit no matter if corrupt? How is that working out in Nicaragua these days? Having an opinion that someone in public life is doing things that are not good citizenship is not “hate and diviseness.”
12:03: You get an “A+” for effort, but an “F-” for comprehension. Sometimes I forget to take off my influencer hat and the less-capables take issue with the straight talk. Sorry for the confusion.
Great round-up, thanks for it and all the campaign news this fall. Without a quality daily paper, Santa Barbara needs more news and commentary, not least to shine light on the DCC and its aim to for Santa Barbara to be a one-horse town with only one way to think, theirs. (And I am a Democrat , voting so state-wide and nationally, but here I care only about local issues and local analyses, not Daraka’s.) Schwartz’s shocking condescension at PC meetings to fellow planning commissioner (and former mayor) Sheila Lodge got a very tasty payback. The dubious duo, Das and Darcel, must be relieved that she did not take them up on whatever was the offer.
Thanks Jerry for the insightful articulate analysis. I’m glad I actually sized up things similarly. Have talked with other Dem Friends who also voted for Rowse for the same reasons. And, yes, let’s hear more from Mr. Joyce! He’d make an intelligent thoughtful energetic representative in a legislative setting.
Were you clutching your pearls as you wrote this angry letter RHS? You poor thing. Being such a saint in a godless world must be really tough. Good thing you only water your plants and clean your dishes with tears…
Murillo and should pay us a monthly stipend for the rest of her life. That would be a retirement agreement with parity. The idea that she receive any compensation beyond her term is insane let a lone a lifetime pension for a few years of well paid service… This law needs to change. These people are supposed to be civil servants, not grifters. Another shining example of how Public employees fleece and cheat while the people they serve get shafted.
AlexBlue: I apologize if I offended you and others, but the victimhood status of several posters here is beyond the pale. It appears from their comments that ALL of their issues and problems stem completely from those with whom they disagree with politically. It’s simply not possible for a rational person to blame anything and everything on their political polar opposites. Even one of my Birkenstock wearing hippy/dippy neighbors has stopped yabbin’ about “Nixon this” and “Nixon that”….unfortunately, as the true victim that he is, it’s now “Trump this” and “Trump that.” Stop being a victim and move on with your lives for your sake and ours. Namaste my good neighbors and friends.