Edhat Reader
By Christian Alonso of the Santa Barbara Young Democrats
The Santa Barbara Young Democrats are raising concerns about Councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez’s troubling record of absenteeism on the City Council.
At over 60 City Council hearings, she failed to show up.
A public records analysis reveals that from 2021 to 2023 Councilmember Gutierrez missed nearly 1 in 5 City Council meetings during this critical period, a time marked by major decisions that impact Santa Barbara’s future.
For example, Alejandra Gutierrez was absent from crucial discussions about increasing affordable housing production through the Housing Element Update.
On the state street advisory committee, Councilmember Gutierrez was absent from so many meetings that she had to be replaced by another representative.
In Spring of 2022, she failed to show up to 5 Budget Workshop sessions for critical departments, including Police, Public Works, and Parks and Recreation.
Finally, and of particular concern, Councilmember Gutierrez was absent for all three hiring committee meetings tasked with selecting Santa Barbara’s new City Administrator—one of the most crucial decisions for the city’s governance.
Santa Barbara Young Democrats endorsed Alejandra Gutierrez in 2019 during her first run for City Council. Since November 2023, Alejandra Gutierrez has changed her voter registration party preference from Democratic to “Other.” We believe the role of the Santa Barbara Young Democrats is to hold our elected leaders accountable, regardless of party. The role of an elected official is to be present, engaged, and accountable.
Councilmember Gutierrez’s record of absenteeism undermines the trust voters have placed in her to advocate for their needs and represent them at every opportunity. We call on her to address this pattern of disengagement and offer explanations to her constituents. The Eastside cannot afford an absentee Councilmember.
And a PS, Jason Dominguez is now endorsing Alejandra for re-election.
Way to call her out. That’s unacceptably low for an important position. She’s accountable to her constituents, including those who never even voted for in the first place. Be careful who you vote for.
Interesting point about showing up.
How often were the other members absent? Or was this just to target Alejandra now that she is not endorsed by the DNC?
Maybe – I wonder what the rates of attendance are for our local City Council members across the board too. Possibly many are slacking. I don’t know. Nothing would surprise me given the state of affairs down there!
That would be the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party, not “the DNC,” which is the Democratic National Committee.
Let’s remember that comment the next time–or 1000 times–right wingers (= pure hypocrisy) complain about overpaid government workers not doing their jobs and earning their keep.
Great question! I don’t have the hard data, but anecdotally every meeting I have ever had with her she has either stood me up or arrived 30-45 min late. That has not been the case with my meetings with all other Councilmembers.
Unless that ‘represents’ how the bulk of her constiuents behave, she is not a representative.
She sure does not do a good job of representing me and my neighbors on the EastSide. When presented with an example of public misconduct, she begged to differ and did absolutely nothing. And she does not return calls and emails at all.
Startling number of absences! However, two points and a third: 1. she was sick and unable to be present; 2. she apparently has been present this year; and, finally, 3. had the Y.D.s cared about good local government they would not have campaigned against Jason Dominguez who was a rare and unusually well-qualified and representative councilmember. Those 8 votes that Alejandra Gutierrez won by were probably due to the Young Democrats’s efforts. Congrats on being such capable community organizers but no thanks for working so hard to defeat Dominguez who was present and worked/spoke for all in the diverse eastside district….
And now is the time to move ahead and give the local, Alejandra Gutierrez, a chance to fulfill her promises.
City Council seats are non-partisan and having a moderate candidate benefits all Santa Barbarans. Each seat equals one vote on important issues that face Santa Barbara such as what to do with State Street, the redesign or our traffic corridors like Alisos St, misplaced housing developments such as Builder’s Remedy projects, more homeless shelters on the Eastside, and more.
This smear effort is seemingly being orchestrated by Wendy Santamaria’s campaign, as they have nothing else to fight with. The platform of Santamaria, a newcomer to SB, consists of rent control and nothing else. I suppose the greatest challenge to any newcomer here is the high cost of living. But what about all the other issues?
Please add supportive evidence. Otherwise, it isn’t relevant, just one person’s opinion.
This is a hit piece orchestrated by Dem insiders. Unfortunately the Party has a monopoly on politics in California now that the Republicans are irrelevant. What this means is that, even at the local level, if candidates don’t have the blessing (and do the bidding) of the local Party bosses they barely stand a chance at being elected and re-elected.
It’s a sad state of affairs but unlikely to change anytime soon.
Can you explain a little more how pointing out attendance is a ‘hit piece’? I don’t argue that we’re a one party city, county, state – and there are problems with that.
SCHIFTER – I think it’s pretty common throughout political history that candidates are beholden to their party. Not sure this is much different.
As for CA and SB in particular being overwhelmingly blue, how do we change that? I don’t think it’s something that can be changed. It’s how people think. We have a highly educated population with certain values and shared ideals. Look at places like Texas or Idaho that are all red. Should those change as well?
Having one party dominant in certain places shouldn’t be viewed as a problem that can be fixed. It is what it is I think.
Sacjon’s analysis is sort of like saying that racism, sexism religious intolerance and so on “are what they are” ant there is no fix for it. Shrug. So much for progress, discussion, reason. The aspirational point of having “non partisan” offices is to get out of the party rut (regimen). Remember Washington and other founders warned us about the danger of party politics.
ANON – uh…. no, not at all. What I’m saying is, pretty clearly, that some geographic regions are going to be primarily one-party and I don’t see a fix for that. What’s your plan? Force people to change their morals and ideals or relocate so as to mix it up? Have fun with that.
Steering our country to a more bi-partisan or non-partisan system would be great and that’s different from what I was talking about. How you plan to do that? We have such a deep divide in our nation thanks to tribalism and leader worship of the right that absent some drastic event (alien invasion, zombies, etc) I don’t see us all coming together any time soon. The fringes of both sides need to go. We need someone to bring the moderates back to the middle.
Halfway between good and evil is not a good place to aim for.
DALGORF – I don’t think moderate Republicans are necessarily “evil.” The MAGAs and other weird fringes definitely support racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, yeah.
I think bringing our country back to a more sensible Left/Right system would be a HUGE accomplishment, given where we are now. From there, we could then focus on reasonable differences as opposed to hate and fear vs freedom and compassion.
I think bothsidesism is a morally wrong false equivalence. The “deep divide” is between the sociopaths and grifters and everyone else.
Yeah, that’s true I suppose. Still, I’d like to see some real bipartisan policy efforts WHEN Kamala wins. I think there’s a lot we could do for our country if we can shut out the hateful morons trying to take our country back to the “good ol’ days.”
BTW, the moderate Republicans are voting Democratic.
Oh thanks for the crystal ball ‘Gorfy!’ Such insight, it’s amazing. You’re a pure ultraliberal hater here based on your thousands of nasty comments, who wouldn’t know a damn thing about how a moderate might vote. Have a great Labor Day.
BASICDUD – It’s actually pretty common knowledge that a lot of centrist Repubs are swinging her way. No wonder you’re so confused.
Since 1990, there have been 6 governors in California and three of them have been Republicans. (Deukemejian, Wilson and Schwartznegger.) And the legislature only relatively recently has been the one-party state it is now.
Don’t confuse these magas with facts.
People vote blue because they *aren’t* racist, sexist, religiously intolerant, etc.
I wouldn’t doubt that for a second. If so, hopefully it’ll amount to a big zero (relatively few citizens even read Edhat/Noozhawk, statistically) and voters do find a way to choose the best person for the job.
Perhaps she should be required to return 4/5th of whatever her salary was during that time period, and so should any others with anything like that record of absenses.
There is a bigger issue concerning our city council: Why does the city council take up so much time and effort discussing and in some cases voting on, issues that have nothing to do with their portfolio to govern and do not control?