Santa Barbara City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Kristen Sneddon broke from her strongest ally on rent stabilization on Tuesday, accusing Wendy Santamaria of “moving the goalpost” for an attempted political win—rather than putting tenants first.
“I am deeply, deeply disappointed,” Sneddon said, as she turned her head and glared at Santamaria. “There is a limit. We are playing with people’s lives here.”
Sneddon said she has been acting in good faith, but that feels like she has been “played,” by Santamaria.
The council eventually voted 4-3 to pass the ordinance, but only when Santamaria retreated from her original position after she saw that she had lost Sneddon’s support.
As a practical matter, Sneddon’s stand against Santamaria puts some distance between her and Santamaria, amid an increasingly close and emotional mayoral campaign.
Although Sneddon is a strong supporter of the rent stabilization ordinance, her primary opponent, councilman Eric Friedman, opposes the ordinance, and the race will likely be decided by moderate voters looking to support a mayoral candidate who can compromise on controversial issues.
Santamaria, who ousted former councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez largely over the issue of rent stabilization, has long been a supporter of the strongest ordinance possible. But her fervor for the ordinance has angered property owners, and even upset some supporters of the rent stabilization ordinance who believe that her views are too extreme.
Sneddon’s frustration centers on Santamaria’s push to include apartments managed by the city’s Housing Authority, as well as tenants who use Section 8 vouchers, in the rent stabilization ordinance. Rob Fredericks, the executive director of the city’s Housing Authority, opposed Santamaria, as did Santa Barbara City Councilwoman Meagan Harmon, on the exemptions.
Councilmember Harmon said multiple times publicly that she would not support the ordinance unless Section 8 vouchers and Housing Authority renters would be exempted.
Although Harmon and Sneddon over the past eight years have sometimes clashed over policy and personality—they united on Tuesday night in opposition to Santamaria. Harmon several weeks ago said that rent stabilization ordinance should not apply to property owners who accept Section 8 vouchers because it could force them to split from the program.
“Anything we do to discourage new or continued participation in Section 8 puts our most vulnerable tenants at direct and substantial increased risk of losing their housing or not finding housing altogether,” Harmon said. “We know the consequences of that loss. Families, valued neighbors, moving out of town. So many of our elderly residents without a place to go.”
Although President Trump halted funding in 2026 for new Section 8 vouchers across the country, the city of Santa Barbara closed the waiting list for Section 8 vouchers in 2023, when President Joe Biden was in office, because not enough landlords in Santa Barbara were accepting Section 8 vouchers.
The city closed its Section 8 voucher waiting list in 2023 when it had 1,518 people on the list.
“That’s 1,518 people who deeply need this subsidy, who cannot find a unit that will accept their voucher,” Harmon said. “The shocking thing about that number is that it doesn’t even come close to actually reflecting the real urgency of the need.”
She said the numbers were “galling” to her.
“We don’t even allow folks to put their name on the list,” Harmon said.
Santamaria took a jab at Harmon’s comments.
“I really want to thank you Ms. Harmon for the passionate speech, I just want to make sure we are being passionate about the accurate information,” Santamaria said.
Santamaria blamed the wait list on cuts by the federal government and defended landlords, saying they were eager to accept Section 8 vouchers. She said landlords want to participate and that the wait list exists only because of a lack of funds from the federal government.
“As a landlord you are going to want to take a Section 8 voucher because it is guaranteed money from the government,” Santamaria said. “Even if the tenant were to lose their job, etc., you still have that subsidy from the government.
But Fredericks, the Housing Authority director, strongly disagreed. He shook his head side-to-side at times when Santamaria spoke during the meeting.
“These exemptions do not leave residents unprotected,” Fredericks said. “These exemptions do not erase habitability standards, relocation rights, affordability covenants or fair housing protections.”
Santamaria, however, said that the Housing Authority’s “system is broken.”
“You don’t have the capacity to address these issues, even if you shake your head, that is what I am hearing from tenants,” Santamaria said, looking out at Fredericks.
She said she has spoken with tenants who said they could not get return calls from the Housing Authority for complaints about conditions of the properties.
“In bringing the Housing Authority and other deed-restricted units under the umbrella of the rent stabilization ordinance we are providing another avenue, a safe, one-stop-shop that a tenant can go to when there is a habitability, health and safety issue in case they can’t get in touch with the Housing Authority, which unfortunately happens very often,” Santamaria.
Fredericks objected. He said Housing Authority units and Section 8 voucher recipients are already regularly inspected for health and safety purposes.
The ordinance caps annual rent increases at 60% of CPI or a maximum of 3 percent. Santamaria in her comments agreed to withdraw her support for Housing Authority units and Section 8 vouchers to be exempted. She told the News-Press after the meeting that despite the disagreement with Sneddon and Harmon, she considers the passage of the ordinance a victory.
If the council formally approves the ordinance next week on a second reading, it will go into effect on Jan. 1. How long it will last is unclear. Property owners are talking about putting a rent stabilization repeal on the ballot sometime next year.
After the vote passed 4-3, with Mayor Randy Rowse and councilmembers Mike Jordan and Friedman in opposition, after several years of discussion about the ordinance, there was a single clap from one individual in the audience.
The vote marked an anti-climatic end to an issue that has gripped City Hall for years.
Even though Santamaria changed her mind and the ordinance passed, the division among the councilmembers remains.
“I have taken it on good faith, trust that I was being given the most up to date, the best standards,” Sneddon said. “I am deeply disappointed that this comes down to an argument about one very specific form of exemption.”
Sneddon said during the meeting that “every time it comes back the goal post moves, and moves, and moves,” Sneddon said.
After the meeting formally ended, Harmon and Sneddon talked and smiled for pictures with the media. Santamaria left the council chamber and joined a group of tenant rights advocates. She told the News-Press that she still supports Sneddon’s mayoral campaign.
Mayor Randy Rowse continued his opposition to the ordinance. He said the ordinance will create “a whole new bureaucracy,” that makes landlords look “greedy.”
“Socializing a private asset is not the answer to happiness,” Rowse said.
