Monte Wilson is racing fast in his effort to win a seat on the Santa Barbara City Council. He has the endorsement of prominent individuals such as Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse and retired Santa Barbara Police Chief Barney Melekian.
He’s also raised more than $65,000 so far for the campaign.
Wilson appears in the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina. The podcast was produced by TV Santa Barbara and supported by the Santa Barbara News-Press.
“If there’s ever been a consequential election, this is it,” Wilson said. “This is gonna determine the kind of the strategy, the themes, where the council’s going for probably the next 10, 20 years.”
District 4 has emerged as the most competitive and most talked about contest on the November ballot. The current councilmember for the district, Kristen Sneddon, is termed out, and running for mayor. She has not publicly endorsed any candidate.
Also running in the district is Devon Wardlow, a member of the Santa Barbara Planning Commission, Genevieve Taft-Vasquez, a former Coca-Cola executive, and Jason Dominguez, a former council member.
The district includes the San Roque and Mission Canyon area, as well as Coast Village Road.
Wilson has already blitzed social media with commercials of himself walking around downtown, with photos of himself as a child and growing up in the Midwest. He’s been on the campaign trail, knocking on doors and meeting with business executives to build support.
In the podcast, Wilson offers his views on rent stabilization, the city’s budget, State Street, housing and other city topics.
On rent stabilization, Wilson said high rents have always been a problem in Santa Barbara.
“We’re solving the wrong problem,” Wilson said. “Where in this rent stabilization ordinance is it talking about how do we solve the root cause problem of creating more housing?”
Wilson said rent stabilization punishes property owners.
“I don’t like punitive things that are trying to solve a problem,” Wilson said. “I like to create incentives versus penalties.”
He said the city should give landlords incentives to keep their rents below the median income.
“So I would love to see some type of thing that’s a multifaceted approach. What if we gave incentives to landlords that kept their rent below the median income? What if we made it easier to build housing faster downtown? What if we allowed the use of modular housing? There’s a lot of different ways that we can generate more housing.”
Wilson has gained much support from the real estate community. He describes himself as a fiscal conservative, but “fiercely independent.” He said he has been a registered independent since 2014 and that he supports Planned Parenthood.
“I find party politics exhausting,” Wilson said. “Candidly, from a personal level, I think that’s half the problem we have, even in our own City Council, is that people disagree based on the party they belong to. I just don’t subscribe to that in any way.”
Wilson also talks in the podcast about downtown and how he would like to open State Street to cars.
“I do think we need cars back on State Street,” Wilson said. “Now, does it have to be all the way through? Does it have to be seven days a week, 24 hours a day? I think this is where I guess, if I had to say I’m a fan of something, I’m a fan of the bollards because the bollards give us flexibility.”
Wilson is a former software executive at Oracle and Adobe companies.
Click on the YouTube link above to watch the entire one-hour interview with Wilson.
