Say goodbye to democracy in Santa Barbara. Our City Council is at it again. To be specific, four councilmembers, Wendy Santamaria, Kristin Sneddon, Oscar Gutierrez, and Megan Harmon, currently control our city.
Rent control or rent stabilization, whatever you want to call it, as they are the same to me, has been a hot issue for some time now. There has been a parade of people who have made public comments, written letters, met with our City Council, or participated in working groups organized by City Council. Most have demonstrated the willingness to compromise. They have presented a mountain of evidence demonstrating these measures have countless unintended consequences that have been proven to harm not only small property providers, but also reduce housing stock, cause gentrification, and ultimately drive-up rents in the long run. This is not only from property providers or Realtors, it includes people like our most respected local economist from UC Santa Barbara, Dr. Rupert, who has studied mountains of research and data on this topic. Plus, there are budget implications as the city is already having to cut back on services.
So, what does this have to do with democracy? These four city councilmembers have literally ignored everything that was presented or asked of them and taken the most extreme position provided to them by the Tenants Union and CAUSE and used it verbatim. Almost all small property providers like myself have come to the conclusion it is a waste of time to continue to provide input. Tenants and others who don’t agree with their extreme policies are either too busy or afraid to speak out because of the intimidation tactics used by the Tenants Union and CAUSE. Their constituents have come to council meetings yelling obscenities and personally attacking anyone who dares to disagree, including our mayor, Randy Rowse. At the same time these organizations provide political support for the same four councilmembers.
In an attempt to ensure that this is something our community at large actually supports and is not simply a small fraction of our community dictating their will on the rest of us for their own personal reasons, Mayor Rowse suggested that anything this divisive and with such a large impact to the community be put out as a ballot measure to the voters. Doesn’t this sound like the proper thing to do in a democracy? Well not to the four councilmembers. They shot it down. The real reason is they know very well that voters in the City of Santa Barbara believe the experts and voted against “rent stabilization” measures by a large margin every time. They really don’t care about what voters want. Does this sound familiar? These are the same tactics used by the Trump administration to bypass our democracy.
