The sequel is rarely as good as the original.
Except when it comes to Santa Barbara budget hearings.
A week after a public flare-up over burning through budget reserves, a new controversy emerged Tuesday at the Santa Barbara City Council meeting.
Councilmember Wendy Santamaria chastised, even politically threatened, her colleagues over their opposition to freezing three vacant Santa Barbara Police Department positions to save $576,000.
“Just know I am proud to be the only one doing this,” Santamaria said. “This is now something I have to carry with the community and I have to tell them ‘sorry, I didn’t have other colleagues who were willing to make those hard decisions.’ Keep that in mind if you are running for anything else.”
The explosive comments came about two hours into a tense, awkward and politically charged budget meeting that featured some councilmembers pointing fingers, rolling their eyes, shaking their heads—even reading from press releases.
Nearly seven hours into the meeting, City Administrator Kelly McAdoo called a halt to the discussion because it was getting too late into the night to take a vote, setting the stage for another special meeting next week.
In addition to Santamaria’s outburst, councilmembers Kristen Sneddon and Eric Friedman—who are both running for Santa Barbara Mayor in November, took jabs at one another over their budget prowess, and who knew what and when, regarding the severity of the city’s budget crisis.
But it was a debate over funding for the police department that stole the show Tuesday night.
Santamaria proposed saving $576,000 by freezing the hiring of three police officer positions for a second year. The money, she said, could be placed into the general fund budget. She made a motion to shift the money and had support from Sneddon, who seconded her motion.
But after Police Chief Kelly Gordon said that the three positions were needed and that freezing them would set the department back several years when it comes to hiring, Sneddon changed her mind and sided with Gordon over Santamaria. The department, Gordon said, is in a position to fill those three positions.
“When those positions are frozen, we are not able to recruit or hire for them,” Gordon said. “If we don’t continuously keep that pipeline going, all we do is fall further and further behind.”
She added that when she was hired the department had a 25% vacancy rate and now that number is down to 12%.
Sneddon retreated.
“Yes, we need the officers,” Sneddon said. “I am happy to have this filled. Of course we need to be fully staffed.”
The withdrawal of support for Santamaria’s motion opened the door for Santamaria’s comments.
“I am disappointed, honestly,” Santamaria said. “I thought I would have more colleagues that would be more willing to make those hard decisions.”
She then took aim at Mayor Randy Rowse and councilmembers Eric Friedman and Mike Jordan.
“What a coincidence that my three male colleagues who won’t support rent stabilization, who won’t support money into the Housing Trust Fund, who won’t support solving our housing crisis, are very happy to put additional funds to police,” Santamaria said. “Is that because you think the solution to the housing crisis is to just sweep the homeless?
She added: “So if it doesn’t go forward, it’s fine that it doesn’t go forward, but everyone here, my colleagues, you all need to know that the community is watching.”
The City Council has been wrestling with its $257 million budget and a reckoning that the city has burned through its budget reserves—essentially its savings—and is about to spend its emergency disaster reserves, unless it takes swift action. So far, the seven members have not been able to agree, and the emotion and anguish has played out at public meetings.
Sneddon a week ago complained that the budget numbers were not transparent and she expressed surprise that the city had spent its budget reserves. Friedman fired back and expressed disbelief that Sneddon did not understand the numbers.
Sneddon countered that she understands the numbers, but that staff was not presenting them in a clear way for the public to understand. Santa Barbara is supposed to maintain about 25% of its total $257 million budget in reserves, but is projected to only have about 12.1% left next fiscal year.
Santamaria said that the police officers do a great job, but that the money from the positions could be shifted to help address the city’s financial challenges because there are “plenty of police officers” out there.
“As a representative of the Eastside I can tell you there are plenty of police officers on the Eastside,” Santamaria said.
The Milpas holiday parade is over-policed, she said.
“I can’t take anybody seriously when they say, ‘careful with our emergency reserves, we’re dipping into it,’ but then you are seeing money literally sitting there and you are saying ‘no, we’re not going to move it,'” Santamaria said.
Santamaria’s style and tone have increasingly rankled her colleagues in recent weeks. Elected in 2024, she brings a full-court press style to her governance, and while she has significant support from renters and tenant advocates, she has not displayed a finesse for building a coalition or rapport among a majority of her colleagues. The simmering frustrations boiled over Tuesday night.
“I’d love to live in a perfect world and be able to tell the [police] chief that you are doing a wonderful job, but ‘freeze, don’t do anything else and it will take care of itself,'” Jordan said, looking at Chief Gordon.
Jordan said the department “graciously and courageously,” lived without those positions. He said that every call for service only features one officer in a car and that they have to call for backup. More officers on the streets are needed, he said. Freezing the officer positions for another year, he said, was “unacceptable.”
Friedman went so far as to read a city press release from June 12 about a man who stole a car and allegedly tried to ram a police officer.
“Yes, every dollar counts, and the public is counting on us to keep us safe, Friedman said.
