I’m frankly shocked that the Santa Barbara Independent has endorsed Eric Friedman rather than Kristen Sneddon for mayor. Friedman, despite his past as a liberal democrat, has chosen to run as the candidate for the real estate, landlord, and developer interests in our community. These interests have engineered our extreme housing costs and seem eager to perpetuate them. The national and local real estate lobbies have invested some $100,000 in Eric’s campaign. He claims to have led the formation of the city’s recently created Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Actually, coucilmembers Kristen Sneddon and Meagan Harmon proposed the fund and a broad grassroots coalition, inspired by Housing Authority Director Rob Fredericks, organized support for this essential measure.
Eric’s support helped get it passed because the council vote was divided. But more recently he has opposed funding it. Had his preference for maintaining reserve funds prevailed, significant affordable housing development, now going forward, would have been lost. Nor has he advocated the necessary local revenue raising required for affordable housing at scale,
Indy’s endorsement of Eric Friedman fails to ask necessary questions about his stances in office and in his campaign and how they relate to his business support.
Here’s a glaring example: Although he reluctantly voted for the State Street Master Plan, he advocates a car-free pedestrian mall for only half of the Master Plan proposal. His biggest contributor is Jim Knell, who owns a large number of State Street commercial properties. The Indy mentions these facts — but fails to note that one factor in assessing commercial property value is the number of vehicles that pass it.
Is Eric’s stance on this matter clarified when these dots are connected?
In 2022, the California Legislature passed SB1439, which prohibits an elected city official from accepting campaign contributions greater than $250 from any party who has or is seeking an entitlement from the city government. The size and nature of Eric’s campaign contributions suggest multiple possible “pay to play” conflicts like the above Knell example. Were he to become mayor, he might have to recuse himself from deciding some of the most consequential matters facing the community’s future. More importantly, whether or not he’s already a party to violating this law — the huge donations from the Realtor associations and other business interests should raise questions about his capacity to be the unifying leader the Indy imagines.
His leadership record on council raises further doubts. If he were an effective leader in a city whose work force is maybe more rent burdened than any other, he could have declared support for a strong rent stabilization measure and offered ideas to overcome his concerns about it. The specific size of the rent cap might well have been negotiable, for example. Kristen Sneddon twice suggested raising the cap — Eric could have seconded such a motion. Of course, then he wouldn’t have been able to attract those campaign dollars.
I suggest readers who are trying to figure out who to vote for — reread the endorsement article. Between the lines one can see that Kristen Sneddon is a visionary, principled human being who has fought in very specific and effective ways for the needs and rights of the least of us. She is, moreover, a scientist whose knowledge areas include matters like water and emergency management. And she may well be a mayor who can build wide community trust in a government of, by and for all the people.
