Can Eric Friedman go from collecting carts to cutting ribbons?
The Trader Joe’s cashier is looking to become Santa Barbara’s next mayor.
“I love working at Trader Joe’s,” Friedman said. “It’s funny when people ask me ‘what do you do?’ The first thing I lead off with is ‘I work at Trader Joe’s’ and then I tell them I’m on the City Council.”
Friedman, a former staff for Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, and current City Councilman, appears in the latest episode of the podcast Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina to talk about his campaign for City Council.
In the episode Friedman talks about the city budget, rent stabilization, State Street, La Cumbre Plaza, housing and other city topics.
On his opposition to a rent stabilization ordinance:
“I’ve never said that it doesn’t benefit some,” Friedman said. “It does benefit those who initially get in there because they get those stabilized rents. But the issue comes in the totality of what it does to the rental market, and it actually drives up rents.”
Friedman said rents go up for everyone who is not in the rent-stabilized apartment. The ordinance only applies to apartments built before 1995.
“It does reduce supply because units become off the market,” Friedman said.
Friedman said owners of small apartment buildings will sell to hedge fund investors.
“It’s exactly the type of owners we don’t want in our community because they’re not from the community,” Friedman said. “So ultimately, when you look at a couple years down the line, the rents overall will be higher and you will have reduced demand.”
The city, he said, should focus on funding the Housing Trust Fund to support working people.
Regarding State Street, Friedman said he supports an approach that allows for cars to return on some blocks, to increase circulation.
Implementing that master plan is gonna take many, many years,” Friedman said. “We have to find a way to improve the circulation and let the public, whether it’s the businesses or the longtime Santa Barbara folks who have had a lot of change, be able to say, ‘we want to come downtown again.’
Friedman also opens the podcast with a talk about how he recovered from a near-deadly heart attack last year.
Friedman was paddling as a member of the Santa Barbara Outrigger Club. Friedman said his heart went out in front of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club after a 13-mile venture. His coach, Corey Simpson, and others paddled him into the shore, where they happened to be an off-duty firefighter who performed CPR. Friedman was then rushed to hospital. He survived, but doesn’t remember much from that day.
“I wouldn’t want to be the person I am today without having gone through that because it’s made me stronger, made me more resilient, made me more appreciative of every day,” Freidman said.
The Santa Barbara News-Press and Newsmakers with Jerry Roberts is hosting a mayor’s debate from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Sept. 3, at the New Vic Theatre. News-Press editor Joshua Molina and former editor Jerry Roberts will host the event. For tickets, click here.
