Jerry RobertsBy Jerry Roberts of Newsmakers
As she seeks a five-year second term, Mayor Cathy Murillo said in an interview that her decade of City Council experience merits her re-election, declaring that “everyday people are happy” in Santa Barbara and describing the city as “well run.”
Despite the growing problem of homelessness in Santa Barbara, the city’s top elected official added, however, that conditions here compare favorably to other Southern California cities.
“I don’t know how it sounds if I say it, but if you look at other cities, we’re not so bad,” Murillo said, noting the proliferation of homeless camps in Venice, near Dodger Stadium and in other areas in of Los Angeles County.
“We have a really great outreach team and we do get some people into housing,” she said. “It’s hard, it’s management — we have to manage the problem. Until there’s another shelter or until there’s little apartments to put them in, we’re going to have a challenge.”
The mayor, who recently celebrated her 60th birthday, was first elected to council in 2011 and now faces at least two major challengers in a bid for a second, and final, term in the only City Hall office still elected citywide. Longtime Planning Commissioner Deborah Schwartz and anti-racism activist and entrepreneur James Joyce both have announced candidacies; whoever wins will get a five-year term, as part of Santa Barbara’s shift of its municipal election schedule, from odd to even years.
Our previous interviews with Schwartz and Joyce are here and here.
Last week Murillo agreed to a one-on-one conversation: originally scheduled for 30 minutes, the interview lasted nearly an hour, as Cathy generously agreed to hang in and answer further questions.
Among the highlights:
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On policy: The mayor associated herself closely with current city and county efforts to combat homelessness, calling the issue “one of my assignments on the council” and highlighting her position as chair of SB ACT, the organization seeking to coordinate some $40 million in annual services provided by local governments and non-profits — adding that she also favors a special parcel tax, or increased bed or sales levies, to finance a new homeless “navigation center.” She also strongly defended the new, union-friendly Project Labor Agreement policy she championed on council; described the State Street Promenade as “a work in progress” and said that her biggest priority in a new term would be to “make policy decisions that create housing opportunities, (which) would solve a lot of our issues.”
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On politics: Murillo spoke proudly of having raised nearly $80,000 to date for her re-elect campaign. Asked to identify specific accomplishments that warrant her re-election, she pointed to the Project Labor Agreement, the city’s enactment of demands by Healing Justice/Black Lives Matter, and a citywide Women’s Summit which she convened. She also asserted that a far-flung network of personal working relationships she has forged with what she called “my residents and my businesses,” as well as with city staff, homeless people and “gang risk youth” represents a major contrast with her rivals.
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On high-profile controversies: She provided her fullest explanation to date of the incident in which she publicly clashed with leaders of last spring’s Black Lives Matter demonstration outside the Santa Barbara Police Department; offered her perspective on a widely-publicized dispute she had with council member Kristen Sneddon at a recent council meeting; and spoke candidly about her confidence of ultimately winning endorsements for her re-election of more than the two council colleagues — Meagan Harmon and Oscar Gutierrez – who have backed her to date:
“I’m working on (Mike) Jordan and (Eric) Friedman,” Cathy said. “Alejandra (Gutierrez), I haven’t even broached her about it — it’s like if you’re asking your wife for a favor…you kind of have to wait for the right moment and, you know, wait until she’s in a good mood.”
Below is a transcript of key excerpts of Newsmakers’ wide-ranging interview with Mayor Cathy Murillo on March 5. It has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Watch the entire interview via YouTube below or by clicking through on this link. The podcast version is here.
The city is “well run”? What city is she living in? Yes, homelessness is a serious issue in SB and needs to be addressed, but we need to have tailored services. Assess the population and determine needs (or desire) for service. Help the people who truly need help, and for the people who just want to “live the homeless life” or get high or drunk, stop throwing our money at them which only enables them. Oh, and this is the same mayor that was nowhere to be found for 2 months while our town was being ravaged by the Thomas Fire and the mudslide in 2017/2018. Remember that in the next election.
CHIP – “They are not suffering from a lack of affordable housing!” Have you interviewed any of them? That’s a pretty big blanket statement about our homeless population. Yeah, the “gamey” ones usually are on the streets because of mental or addiction issues, but to say our homeless population isn’t really homeless is pretty out of touch.
There are exceptions, but the problem we all see on the streets that is termed “homelessness” in common parlance is primarily an addiction problem and not a housing problem. Unfortunately, it seems most people around here are addiction deniers. In order to solve the problem, we must first recognize and acknowledge it for what it is.
She is funded and gets her “direction” from the Santa Barbara Democratic Machine and all that goes with it… Accept it and swallow the pill ’cause there ain’t no cure for this sickness in SB
May not be as bad as LA. But, it’s way worse than 5 years ago. Last thing we need is more tiny homes and a city approved tent city. How could anyone get behind that without also some form tougher approach. She needs to go. I would love to see Jason Dominguez get in the race. He’s stood up to her before.
I only wish I could put in my vote, for her opponent. She’s done a poor job and isn’t bright enough to be mayor. SB city has gone down the tubes in many ways for the past few years, even before COVID. That being said there’s a reason she got elected by city voters in the first place. Too bad.
Yet another politician saying what they think will get them elected.
CHIP you are spot on.
Two years ago when Brian Campbell ran for City Council he brought to light the growing homeless issues this town has and pointed out that it is growing and the City/County have done nothing but bandaids and put money in the wrong pockets.
Murillo, Jordan, Oscar, Nick Welsh and the rest of the candidates running for that seat all said there was a no homeless issues or problems. Some of the candidates even stated they never see any homeless on the street. Seriously?
Did anyone read about the tent cities they’re building g in San Fran area that will cost $5,000.month per homeless to build , maintain and provide services to homeless?
Seriously? $60,000/year per homeless person. That did not include medical and other needs.
In SB the PIT count had stated there are over 1,800 homeless in SB & growing.
That’s $108 million/year. Guess we’re almost half way at $40m/yr per this article. With no where near the services or law enforcement needed.
Per the article above it appears that SB spends $40 million/year on homeless issues now.
$40 million/yr puts about 100 or do homeless into housing.
It appears no one in government has ever balanced a check book, or run a project with their own money.
No she talks about tax increases following the worst economic year in over a decade.
Lala land. I vote NO.
Until govt can balance a check book and actually do a good job and spend public money responsibility I vote no on all tax increases.
Murillo: unskilled, weak resume, wrote for the Indy, UCSB radio. Not stellar. And it shows in her lack of intelligent leadership.
Schwartz: she’d be worse than Murillo. Only in city hall because of Mommy Schwartz, who gave us decades of delay to 101 improvements, and Salud Carbajal (thanks for nothing Naomi).
Homeless: Goodness! When will politicians and misguided bleeding hearts stop wasting our money. They need intervention for drug and alcohol abuse. No if’s and’s or but’s. Take generous help or leave!
Affordable housing: chasing a dream, and in the process ruining the charm of Santa Barbara.
My 2 cents.
I would voted for a bag of hammers over our current mayor.
Sooo, Cathy thinks property taxes should be raised for the County to better address SB’s homeless issues? How in any way is that fair to taxpayers in Santa Maria, Lompoc, Solvang, Los Olivos, et al?
Just evidence of goofy thinking by a Mayor who should be replaced by a logical administrator of any party.
The way things are done now with City Council need to change. Whatever new laws, ordinances, offerings to the gods, etc, that Council wants to force onto the public, need to be voted on by the people as a backup. This will curtail demented moves by the few people that want to drive the bus. We need that overall control so political forces cannot infect the real world.
Murillo won in 2017 with only 27% of the votes and four other candidates on the ballot. Surely someone else can win this year? Someone with practicality, fiscal experience, and a desire to improve the quality of life for the tax-paying, contributing members of our community. I am strongly left-leaning, but Murillo and others like her just need to GO. SB needs to try something different for a few years, see how it goes.
I think i pay more than my fair share in property taxes this opens the flood gates for every homeless person who would like to come to paradise. I am not the uber 1% I make less than 30k a year and sometimes work 2 jobs. Murillo needs to resign
Every citizen needs to watch this. This is your mayor, and she’s a disaster. She’s been AWOL in the 3 disasters we’ve gone through since 2017. She’s learned nothing, she’s incompetent. The city deserves someone so much better, so much more capable. Her big achievement? We transitioned to virtual meetings in the pandemic. This is a well-run city?????? EVERY government went to virtual meetings, so did schools and companies. She’s totally transactional – pay to play. She says we don’t have a homeless issue? We need tents??? I think the homeless have those…. just saying.
Please, people, call the Dem Central Committee and DEMAND they cough up someone better than this.
What you subsidize you get more of, what you tax & regulate you get less of. We should just put a free drug and alcohol vending machine at city hall, and she can keep it stocked out of her salary.
Until people stop voting for blue candidates you can’t expect anything more than mismanagement and incompetence.
Who in their right mind would want to be mayor? Anyone with adequate management chops and experience to succeed would be taking a massive pay cut moving from the private sector. If they try to change things, they’re swimming against a current of nepotism and a deeply distorted system. I actually wish the GOP was a functioning party with substantive local policies instead of a mess of jackaloons talking about space lasers and Dr. Seuss.
Is it possible to change my screen-name to ;….AGOG!..?
“declaring that “everyday people are happy” in Santa Barbara and describing the city as “well run.” — uhh.. is she mayor of another city as well? Did she not read the multiple consultants reports saying the city is in fact, not well run? Maybe not reading them is also why she hasn’t taken action to remedy it? I’m also hard pressed to believe “everyday people” are happy with schools still closed, significant unemployment, trash and fire risks with the ballooning transient problem, and businesses on life support. I guess if you’ve worked from home this entire time, not missed a paycheck, and didn’t have any kids yeah, I guess I’d be pretty happy too.
None of those things happened under her watch or as a result of her decisions. Her hands on the homeless are tied by the State directives to let them camp in peace to prevent the spread of Covid. She’s a smart politician who may very well be re-elected due to support from the Fire and Police unions when the dust settles.
While the issues with the city didn’t form under her watch Pit, the consultants reports were generated under her watch and also under her watch, nothing was done about it.
Any candidate that the police union and/or teachers union backs…VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE! That’s a massive MASSIVE red flag. Cathy sounds staggeringly (completely!) out of touch with reality. That being said…she probably will win…
Why does the homeless issue have to be on the backs of property owners? I am totally against having my property taxes raised for this issue.
In my opinion, Cathy needs to go. Hopefully she will not win re-election.
For all of those who were pissed off about Cathy’s support of Measure M (I believe it was) and wanted her recalled or said they were going to fight so she didn’t get re-elected, what happened? Measure M (if you don’t remember) was the $288 million SBCC measure to add more to our property taxes for a state of the art sports pavillion & other repairs to the college. It got voted down thank goodness. I still have 8 school bonds on my taxes way back to 1995. When do these ever get removed?
Wow this lady is so tone deaf it’s not even funny. Completely disconnected and couldn’t care less about everyday people or how they really feel. Just don’t admit you aren’t doing your job lady, I guess then all is good right.
Expanded services for the homeless attracts more homeless, creating a bigger problem. Santa Monica did this and is now one of the biggest homeless magnets in the state.
So we are faced with a drug addiction and mental health crisis spiraling out of control. Obviously the solution is to just pretend it’s nothing more than a housing affordability issue that we can’t really do anything about. I love the “Santa Barbara, at least we aren’t as bad as LA” philosophy, that’s real leadership. However, I think this is exactly the type of leadership the voters of Santa Barbara want, and I expect that re-election is a foregone conclusion. I would caution anyone who owns property in the city or who is considering it to look at other options. Get out while the getting is good!
I gained some respect for Mayor Cathy Murillo when she refused to take the knee…with that said what prospects are the best to replace her? Angel Martinez former Deckers CEO?
Pretending these poor folks are “homeless” also makes the problem far worse. They are not suffering from a lack of affordable housing! Primarily, they are addicted to drugs such as meth and heroin. Unfortunately, it seems most people prefer to live in denial and we steadfastly refuse to take any action to address the root cause of the problem. The unfortunate consequence is that we also fail to help those who are unable to help themselves without intervention and most desperately need our help.
Why is it that we allow the PD and FD to formally endorse a candidate for government, when their own salary is paid by the government?
Agreed, same with the teachers unions. A publicly funded institution should be barred from endorsing, lobbying, or otherwise getting involved with politics.
This is what you get when you have only one party in charge. You crapped the bed, so deal with it. You want change, then choose the other party or form your own. I’m for forming a new party.
She flat out questioned whether there are in fact more homeless in SB… it’s just wildly detached from reality! We gotta change to a runoff of top 2 candidates…
Can’t speak to anything about lasers… but man… mceligots pool is a classic!!!! And yeah the GOP is a mess… but listen to our mayor… that’s also a mess!!! And a local one that is in pole position to lead for 5 more years! We need an option C!
She is a Failure! She doesn’t deserve to be in public office when she cannot and will not serve with action.
Be gone you failed public servant.
– Homeless people run rampant, fires happen weekly
– Talks about fixing homeless, but no action taken ever
– State street is dead, 2006 all over again.
– She failed when covid started
– Raise taxes for failure to find alternative income?
– Stop wasting money painting the street green
– Automate all parking structures
– Vax the homeless and remove the encampments
– Create affordable commercial rental spaces for small business owners
– SB has lost its mom & pop downtown feel.
– Even the big box stores are leaving in droves
– 30 restaurants in SB have closed since covid
– 20 retail stores in SB have closed since covid
– 10 national chain stores have left since covid
– People in our community have less money due to covid, even the government is Jumping in to help people out and she wants to tax them more? How is that the solution?
SB is in a horrible state, what reality is she living in? Not ours. She is disconnected from reality. It’s time to find someone who is connected and not in Lala land. Your time is up, get off the stage with your act, it’s no longer working for SB!
As so many other places have discovered, we need to go to ranked choice voting so that voters can, at the first ballot, rate their preferences thereby allowing an instant runoff in cases such as this where no one is likely to get a majority of the vote. It is correct that settling for a plurality is a bad idea.
Can anyone please provide an example where single party rule has benefited CA over the past 30 years? What would we NOT have been able to accomplish had we had a balanced and bipartisan state government?
Seaninsb: BINGO!
Duke, the homeless count from last year was not up dramatically from the year before. But your perception must be the reality, right?
Yeah, because red states like Texas are soo good at governing, and keeping the power on so people don’t freeze to death.
The blame
game
is so lame.
I see so much criticism of the Mayor on this site, and yet she keeps winning elections. I hope Edhat reposts this after the next election to see how prescient you all are.
Seriously Pit? TX’s power goes out during a 100 year weather event, ours goes out when it gets hot in summer. GT Townies point is CA and SB keeps voting the same way, decade after decade, and each time expecting different results. What word is it they use to describe doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results?
Pit – I do not mean to pry, but you don’t by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?
January 2020 was up 5% year over year. They didn’t do the count in 2021… so yeah, it’s based on my perception of Santa Barbara… and that perception is Cathy Murillo is doing a horrific job, and that homeless number is dramatically higher than January of 2020 (when they recorded 33 homeless in IV). I know you have a passion for teachers unions and the status quo… and are right that she probably will win.
Knee-jerk sheep following predictable Indy endorsements has nothing to do with Murillo’s value. Marketing by political parties can convince naive voters to elect really bad people. Unfortunately happens many times in Santa Barbara.
Oh, the blurred glamor photo, fuzzy like her thinking. Notice that when Jerry quotes her speaking about her council members she refers to the males by last name and the female by first name? Aside from her ineptitude she is also betraying her non-PC bias. We deserve better. Let’s build a mental institution for the addicts and aggressively unhoused and let her manage that, get all of them off the streets. Don’t tax me to pay for another study of what to do.
There have been multiple Mayor candidates in most mayoral elections here in the past decade or so— mathematically they ALL receive less than majority. To tarnish this Mayors legitimacy by such a routine mathematical fact just reveals your personal bias against her.
I cant speak for Seabird but I certainly don’t have any personal bias against her…I just have a strong disdain for her complete and utter mismanagement of seemingly everything! But hooray…she was able to transition to online governing, organize a summit and secure tons of fundraising dollars from unions…and is looking at spots for a full time tent city! What’s not to like/celebrate???!! Pitmix will smugly celebrate as yes…she will eventually end up winning again…which is a loss for us all (unless we are a city admin or donated money to her).
In essence, she legitimately IS the mayor…but she is also legitimately a terrible one!
LUCKY777 What? There is ONE quote in this article where she calls males by last name and one female by first name. So what? Yeah, we all dislike her as a mayor, but complaining about every little thing (a blurry photo lol) is getting ridiculous.
Not long ago we used to believe Santa Barbara downtown was better than Ventura, unfortunately that is no longer the case. Cathy pointed to Los Angeles as being in worse shape for homelessness than Santa Barbara, skipping over Ventura and many other cities closer to home.
Cathy has to work on people to get their support, which means she has to promise to do things they want.
Cathy is proud of Project Labor Agreement which requires hiring union workers for city projects, which translates to more taxpayer money going to unions.
No wonder Cathy wants more taxpayer money.
It looks like we will be voting for the best of bad options; Cathy (A union puppet), James (who worked for both Das and Hannah Beth ) or Deborah (trying to carry on a family political dynasty).
Got a thumbs down but still no answer on what those big tax breaks are…
Randy Rowse’s entry into the mayoral race may just be what much of the voting pubic wants. someone independent, business oriented, not annointed by Democratic Party (and I AM a democrat).
It seems that the blanket solution to any problem, perceived or otherwise is to raise taxes. Where is all this money going? How about opening the books to the public?
Watch for the public union sector to bring out the full court press to stop Randy or any other rational person who intends to intelligently manager our public funds.
Union donations have ALWAYS been PAY to PLAY. Let’s stop the BS’ing on that point. It’s how Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara County, became the way they are today.
You can’t blame the police and fire and public employee unions for playing a winning game on their contracts and benefits. Why haven’t the Jarvis people done a proposition to change the constitution on this? Because they are too busy making sure commercial real estate owners continue to receive big tax breaks?
hahaha, the uninformed/uneducated so quickly fall back on those damn greedy commercial landlords. Please tell us Pit, what big tax breaks?
Especially for a small town like ours running a small business should be a prerequisite.