Anonymous
Source: City of Santa Barbara
On February 10, 2020, City Administrator Paul Casey announced the appointment of Mr. Jason Harris as the City’s first Economic Development Manager. As Economic Development Manager, Mr. Harris will oversee the development and implementation of the City’s economic development program and related functions and goals. He will begin his duties in Santa Barbara at the end of March.
Jason is currently the Economic Development Manager for the City of Santa Monica where he oversees a division of fourteen staff and a budget of $5.5 million. His current responsibilities include oversight of four Business Improvement Districts (BIDS), four weekly farmers markets, two tourism marketing organizations, the Santa Monica Pier operations, and over 160 leases/licenses for the city. Prior to his work in Santa Monica, Jason was the Deputy Director of Community & Economic Development for the City of Phoenix, AZ. Early in his career, Jason also served as a Community Development Specialist in Costa Rica for the United States Peace Corps.
Jason received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Arizona and a Master of Business Administration from Western Illinois University.
Jason currently resides in Santa Monica with his partner Candice and their two children. He and his family will be relocating to the central coast this summer.
“I am thrilled to be named Santa Barbara’s first economic development manager and look forward to working with the business community, stakeholders and staff to support this amazing city” stated Jason Harris.
According to City Administrator Paul Casey, “Jason’s more than twenty years of economic development experience will prove invaluable as we launch the city’s new economic development program.”
I sure hope the City will be paying Jason enough to live here. so he doesn’t’t have to commute in from Los Alamos, Oxnard or Carp.
Any ideas to his salary? $85,000 per year?
First task: figure out why Santa Barbara has twice the number of city employees as any other California city of similar size and location. Ooops, except for the Peoples Republic of Santa Monica and Berkeley. Great call. Hire someone from a similar swamp to clean up this swamp.
Is that a joke? City employees are well paid, with good benefits to boot. I would not be at all surprised if he is clearing 150k or more.
Transparent California (bad company, good data) shows he made 175k in 2017 in his current position.
Noozhawk article reports he makes 182,193/year. Not tons to live in this town.
At $182,000 a year, this eaves him at least $4000 a month for house payments or rent, at 25% of income, since his medical and pension savings are already covered. Assuming any spouse/partner does not also contribute to monthly housing expenses. Don’t worry about him. He can live here very comfortably. He knew that when he accepted the job. Worry more he will impose Santa Monica values and inefficient practices on our town – and heaven forbid, no 5th Street Mall (Maul) nonsense.
Just another sb circle jerk. Funny, the government wonders WHY there are so many business vacancies on state Street. All of the locals say the problem IS overbearing government regulations.. and what does the gov do but spend almost $200k per year to hire some guy to TELL the local businesses what the problem is. talk to any business owner and they will tell you that GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM. They can grease the regs for rich Montecitites to rebuild their homes BUT they can’t make it easier for a business to remodel and manage their business. Government stupidity and arrogance!!
Correction; Jason Harris cost Santa Monica taxpayers nearly a quarter million dollars a year. Misleading to cite only their take-home pay and not include the value of their benefits in their total compensation package. Therefore Harris, under his Santa Monica compensation package, had over $171,000 in discretionary cash to spend on housing since big ticket items like retirement savings and health benefits are well covered under his full $240K compensation package. In this case his benefits package cost taxpayers ($67,500) What each employee cost taxpayers is the only number to put on the table, since that is the bill that gets sent to us. How an employee allocates this full amount between take home pay and benefits is negotiated between employee, any employee unions and the elected council members. Then they send us the bill for the full package. Therefore, work with the assumption Mr Harris will get $182 K a year for discretionary spending, and the typical full benefits package the city also provides. Similar to what he made in Santa Monica. Jason F Harris
Economic Development Manager (2018)
Regular pay:$172,332.00
Overtime pay:$0.00
Other pay:$972.00
Total pay:$173,304.00
Benefits:$67,563.00
Total pay & benefits:$240,867.00
I predict he’ll advise shutting down State and making it like the Santa Monica Mall. Which will fill with vagrants and be an open air Hooverville. Santa Monica is known world wide as the American “Home of the Homeless” and now we buy an expensive bureaucrat to bring it to us.
That’s why it’s called the PORK barrel.
True because he’ll have to pare back from going out to dinner 7 nights per week to just 5. The $25 per workday lunches will have to be whittled down to only $18 per so he can make it.
I thought pot taxing/growing/taxing/selling/taxing/smoking was all the economic development we needed.
City of SB government is way too bloated. Even so, they still get outside consultants and specialists like this guy to do their jobs because locals like Cathy are better at cutting ribbons than reading a budget. Maybe they should consider raising benefits/pay for positions like police department dispatcher, which has been unfilled for months. Nah, they would rather hire this guy to write a report saying the retail sector is declining and the sky is blue.
i thought blatant thread hijacking with grand standing about topics not directly related to the post was not needed.
This. Our city department managers are so incredibly inept they cannot even perform the duties they’re assigned. They ALL need to have outside consultants tell them how to do their jobs! Imagine this scenario playing out in your workplace. No, you cant because there is nowhere outside of local government can an inept, incompetent manager remain in their role while they another person performs their duties. In the real world, you’re fired. But in Murrillo’s Santa Barbara, they just vote for another budget and tax increase while planning their next election luncheon…
Once upon a time our City Council had actual businessmen and women who knew and loved the community they lived in and understood what it meant to have a business and keep it running. They didn’t need to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars in studies and special consultants.
I’m a point-of-sale, not InstaCart, shopper. Plus, I eat out most days. I need three things: (1) good stores and restaurants (2) easy parking (3) to feel safe. Number 3 is actually number 1.
Once upon a time meth and opiod addictions weren’t issues, and Amazon didn’t exist. Referring to the good old days isn’t helpful.
Make sure to vote for her for Assembly!
Every election continues to have independent, business-oriented, fiscally-prudent candidate choices. And every campaign, voters continue to reject them. Plus once the local entrenched “progressive” political establishment cranks up their mean-machine politics of personal destruction, even the candidates mothers would not recognize anyone who run in opposition to this entrenched establishment. Of late, this tactic has worked on voters every time, which leaves us where we are today. Beware of the acute self-interested nature of campaign contributions in this town. Do not be seduced when by media reports of the “top campaign fundraisers” nor the candidates obtaining the most insider city employee endorsements. That is how and why we keep getting more of the same. District elections in very low turn out mandatory districts has added to this problem. The entrenched and self interested parties gamed the system, with voters tacit consent, to position themselves as the only winners. Voters who refuse to see what has happened are the real losers. Follow the money and the status quo endorsement media – what is their track record and why do they want to spend so much money holding on to those who only operate as party line puppets. Voters, this is in your hands if you want change. Don’t think it cannot change. It can.
Santa Barbara management have totally jumped the shark. There’s about $1M in salaries just to have people talk about how to generate business. There’s another $200k/yr. spent on hiring consultants to consult staff on if they are think what they thought was a good thought to think. Over just the past 6 months, SB has hired this person and a businesses consultant who’s main focus is Only to advise on permit processing on the State street corridor. Let this sink in. SB has such a difficult permit process that they hired a consultant to help astute business people “jump through the hoops” of getting permits! I don’t know, maybe rewrite the permit process? Now we get another person to help with economic vitality? These two salaried positions alone are ~$300k per year. Another layer of bureaucracy to tell us people are in fact, yes, shopping on Amazon. Yes, Sears collapsed under wall street shenanigans. Yes, restaurants are suffering. Yes, people eat at home. Yes, plastic straws are evil. Yes, hotels attract visitors. Yes, rents are at the largest portion of overall start up costs then ever before. And yes, pop up shops means short term failing idea. And I’m not sure if anyone’s noticed, but every department is now being run by people who did not grow up in Santa Barbara. As if smart people much be searched for everywhere else because, there’s just no way a local or someone from UCSB grad or Gasp SBCC could ever prove themselves. Who is controlling this rudderless ship?
Interesting. I’m pretty sure I read that an SB police sergeant made over $400k last year. The highest paid employee in the city. It was because he was working overtime in dispatch. So he basically made about $220k working part time in dispatch. Clearly 3 years of a very well salaried position. The perks are nice.
Change the word “inept” to “corrupt” and you’re spot on.
PITMIX – Drug addiction has always been an issue. In the good old days, it was cocaine, crack, heroin, acid, Valium etc… True Amazon didn’t exist but huge discount stores did, and everyone swore those would drive all the “little guys“ out of business. That didn’t happen. There are plenty of tourist towns full of unique stores that have been around for years. You cannot blame Amazon for the demise of downtown SB. High rents, crime, aging business owners and lax policies regarding the homeless are to blame. More people = more problems. Take a look at Santa Monica. Hopefully we don’t end up with an amusement park on our wharf and a pedestrian mall with so many people moving through it’s like herds if cattle.
so now you have it…add 1 resource who will now look to add 14 staff & spend similarly to his current Santa Monica staff & budget. Probably first order of business will to commission another study. A bloated gov’t with an hefty unfunded pension is now getting bigger. Soon will be the need to raise local sales tax again to pay for all this bloated gov’t.
I can hardly wait to hear this guy’s useless, trite blather, while he tells people who own businesses how they should run their businesses.