Gabe Escobedo rides an e-bike down State Street, takes breaks at the corner coffee shop and speaks off the cuff.
He campaigns door to door at a measured pace, and he says he’s learned to not waste emotional energy on every conflict.
“I don’t take myself too seriously,” said the former city Planning Commissioner and outgoing Santa Barbara Unified School District trustee. “I’ve been my most effective when I’ve been my authentic self.”
The tone belies a public life that’s unfolded in weighty and contentious ways—teacher wage negotiations that turned sour, a police oversight push that ended in distress, a personal bankruptcy and now the District 6 race for Santa Barbara City Council.
As Election Day approaches, Escobedo looks to succeed Councilmember Meagan Harmon. Downtown voters will have a chance to judge the 37-year-old’s record, bruising public disputes and desire to be perceived as more than what he calls “a caricature of an elected school board member.”
“I think that what I have learned, honestly, I wish I had been more proactive about developing relationships,” said Escobedo, adding he hopes to bring more one-on-one conversations to City Hall. “There’s just so much more perspective that I can share in that setting that I can’t in a council meeting or in a board meeting.”
From SoCal to the Bay Area
District 6 spans a wide swath of the Santa Barbara downtown core and surrounding central neighborhoods.
As Harmon terms out, Escobedo, a UCSB recreations program director, is running against electrician Jason Carlton, loan signing agent Anabella Lehne and real estate advisor Alexander Stoeber.
A renter, Escobedo supports rent stabilization. He also wants to keep State Street closed to cars and build more affordable housing downtown.
Born in West Covina and raised with two siblings and a nephew by a single mom in Ontario, Escobedo grew up in the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles.
After high school, he attended Cal State San Marcos north of San Diego, earning a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and exercise science before moving to Oakland. In the Bay Area, he worked at UC Berkeley and earned a master’s degree in kinesiology at St. Mary’s College of California.
After school, Escobedo got an intramural coordinator job at UCSB and has lived in the area since. He currently works at UCSB in student and youth recreation as deputy associate director for programs.
“He’s very thoughtful and has the best interests at heart. He’s brave,” said Santa Barbara City Councilmember Kristen Sneddon, who’s running for mayor. “He’s been very committed to affordable housing and to thoughtful planning for the city.”
Endorsed by the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party, Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club, Escobedo brings hefty progressive bonafides to the race. His supporters include the Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara City firefighters, SEIU Local 620 and the Central Coast Labor Council.
But two constituencies tied directly to the most contentious parts of his public record are conspicuously absent from that list.
School board strife
While he’s supported by the California School Employees Association Chapter 37, a union of local non-teaching staff members, notably lacking from Escobedo’s endorsements is any organized support from Santa Barbara teachers.
Elected to the school board in 2022 for a four-year term, Escobedo joined amid the COVID-19 pandemic and entered into a fray of teacher pay negotiations he calls the most contentious in district history.
He took heat for being too supportive of controversial Superintendent Hilda Maldonado amid an exodus of longtime cabinet staff and frequent protests, rallies and marches by students and teachers demanding more pay and the preservation of threatened arts programs.
‘Regularly frustrated’
The Santa Barbara Teachers Union didn’t make endorsements in any Santa Barbara council races this year, although it did endorse Sneddon for mayor. If it had, chances are Escobedo wouldn’t be on the list.
“I appreciate Gabe’s approach and understanding for our community but was regularly frustrated by his continuing to approve what district administration presented,” said York Shingle, teachers union president. “He has great intentions but allows the dysfunction of the district to continue while he’s in this seat of power.”
Frustrations over his school board term, Escobedo says in his defense, are due in part to COVID-era pressures and the high cost of living.
“We’re asking teachers not only to educate the kids and meet the kids where they’re at and probably adopt a new curriculum, but also to be somewhat of a social worker and be there for the kids socially and emotionally. That’s a lot,” he said.
‘More on the front end’
Escobedo draws a sharp line between his appeal inside and outside school board meetings.
“Folks see me up on the dais as a caricature of an elected school board member,” he added. “And we’re in this really rigid environment where you have to follow Robert’s Rules of Order and you can’t have dialogue with the audience.”
But outside the boardroom, “I can give my perspective, and almost every single time that person and I have walked away with a stronger relationship,” he said. “And oftentimes many of those turn into friendships. I wish I had done that more on the front end.”
During his tenure, Escobedo says health benefit contributions have increased and teacher pay rose nearly 20%. He combatted anti-Blackness, and he played a significant role in approving affordable housing projects on school properties.
And he wasn’t about to shame Maldonado, Escobedo said. “If people expect me to be the person that publicly humiliates someone when they make a mistake, that’s not going to be me.”
Police commission meltdown
While he draws support from firefighters, Escobedo has failed to win over the Santa Barbara Police Officers Association. The union that represents rank-and-file cops.
He’s not surprised.
In 2021, Escobedo chaired the Community Formation Commission. The City Council appointed the panel to guide the creation of a civilian police review system, following mass protests the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
After meeting for 14 months, the commission recommended independent oversight outside the Police Department. But that conflicted with the goals of interim Santa Barbara Police Chief Barney Melekian. He advocated for investigations to remain internal with subsequent reporting to a civilian panel.
The commission, Escobedo said, was shut out of the final decision-making process by Mayor Randy Rowse and then City Administrator Rebecca Bjork. A confrontation with Police Chief Barney Melekian followed.
While claims circulated that Melekian had to be physically restrained, Melekian reportedly denied them and Escobedo acknowledges that he didn’t refute them at the time. Melekian got close but never touched him, Escobedo says.
“I just didn’t want to talk about it,” Escobedo said. “My dad was in and out of prison. My cousin was incarcerated. We grew up afraid of cops. If I saw Barney and we could rehash it and just move forward, I would absolutely do it.”
Sneddon, noting the heightened scrutiny of police nationally at the time, praised Escobedo’s leadership of the commission.
“The way that Gabe led that commission was to not be treating it as an overbearing punitive process, but to really look at how it could also highlight all the good work that our community-focused police department is doing,” she said. “The rocky end to it wasn’t his fault.”
Bankruptcy proceedings
Escobedo—owing more on two vehicles than they were worth and carrying $132,000 in student loans—filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2018. He completed the process in 2024, receiving a discharge that eliminated about $23,000 in non-student unsecured debt.
“It was one of the best decisions I ever made, because it allowed me to reset,” he said, adding he got into a financial hole using credit cards to get by while working two jobs and going to school in the pricey Bay Area.
“I’m not ashamed about it,” Escobedo said. “So many families are living more and more precariously, and they’re using debt as a coping mechanism to deal with the cost of living.”
Like most candidates for public office, Escobedo is raising funds.
Asking for money is his least favorite part of campaigning, he said, adding his favorite is knocking on doors.
“I don’t know if it’s a growing-up-poor thing, but we didn’t spend much time talking about money,” he said. “Money was always a very stressful topic.”
He’d raised $24,569 this calendar year by Monday—placing him a close second in the District 6 race for dollars behind Stoeber, who’d pulled in $25,812 during the same time period.
Stoeber, who’s running as an independent, said people want change—not, he said, someone like Escobedo who’ll pick up where they left off.
“He has this way about him where it’s the Dem way or the highway,” Stoeber said, adding he doesn’t view Escobedo as authentic. “The Dem way or the highway doesn’t work when there’s a lot of people who aren’t represented by that.
“I’ve taken care of my finances in my life,” Stoeber said. “I’ve taken care of my business.”
A culture of ‘yes’
To create more affordable housing, Escobedo said he views city-owned parking lots like the one at Figueroa and Chapala streets as ripe for construction.
In addition, he wants to streamline the downtown business permitting process—to boost what he describes as a much needed culture of “yes” at City Hall.
“I would love to see us switch our frame of thinking to ‘How do we help this person through this process and get to yes?’ versus ‘How do we just apply this checklist or these rules indiscriminately?’”
Escobedo noted city finances will remain a big issue in coming years. He wants to rebuild reserves before expanding spending, he said, adding he’d seek to eliminate positions through attrition versus layoffs.
Sticker shock and soccer shape
Reflecting on a project that went awry, Escobedo appeared to take a paid political advertisement error in stride. Escobedo and his team designed a sticker placed on every cover of the Oct. 1 Santa Barbara Independent print edition that incorrectly promoted the November election as happening June 2.
“I saw it and I go, ‘Oh wow, I’m going to get roasted,’ and I’m okay with that.”
Off the campaign trail, Escobedo is making time for exercise and fun—something he didn’t do enough during his last run for office, he said.
“I’m doing things like playing soccer. I’m seeing my friends more often. I’m getting back into shape a little bit, so it’s nice,” he said. “My mind is doing one thing, and my body’s doing a completely other thing, and they’re getting closer.”
