Dear Mayor Rowse,
Personally, I have always been fond of you. I have appreciated your devotion to this community and to family life for over 30 years. I have seen you show up for Santa Barbara with care and consistency, and that history makes what I am about to say both harder and more necessary.
At this moment, I am profoundly disappointed by your lack of true leadership and moral courage regarding the scourge of dubiously trained and purposely masked ICE agents operating in our city. Your recent public statement was technically flawless about rule-following and jurisdiction, yet it displayed no empathy for the human toll — the reign of terror and chaos that these actions have unleashed on our most vulnerable neighbors, especially children. You must be aware of how many young children are not able to sleep at night due to fear for their family, friends, or themselves. You must know how many people are arrested without any criminal record.
Policy language without compassion for victims of senseless prejudice is not leadership. Procedure without protection is not safety.
You are the mayor of this entire beautiful city — a city that is 53 percent non-white, a city of immigrants, workers, families, and children who deserve to feel safe walking their own streets.
Why have you not addressed the mortal fear many of your constituents now feel as masked officers roam neighborhoods, detaining people without what looks or feels like due process? Why has there been no clear moral stance, no public reassurance that their dignity and humanity matter to their mayor?
If your own child faced this fear every day — watching strangers in masks take people like themselves away — would you then speak up differently?
Randy, I implore you to speak from your dignity and decency instead of from a detached position of privilege. Our community does not only need compliance with federal policy. We need a leader who names harm when harm is happening. We need visible empathy. We need moral clarity.
It would mean so much to so many of us to hear you speak directly to the unmitigated pain our community is feeling — to affirm that every resident, documented or undocumented, is a human being worthy of safety, respect, and dignity.
Leadership is not only about what we are required to say. It is about what conscience compels us to say.
I hope you will choose to stand fully for all of Santa Barbara.
