City Council Election FOR DUMMIES
over the general plan, White played a key behind-the-scenes role negotiating a compromise just bearable to both sides to garner the five-vote supermajority needed to pass. Both White and Hotchkiss, it turns out, have been budget hawks when it’s come to employee pensions, and both were willing to go to the mat with the politically influential Police Officers Association (POA) over increased employee contributions. Four years ago, the POA endorsed Hotchkiss and not White; this time around, the union did just the opposite. Even if White wasn’t on their side, the union explained, at least he’d meet with them. Hotchkiss, they complained, was not accessible. Public safety is the impact point where law and order and fiscal restraint collide. And it illuminates how differently the two incumbents operate. Both agree that the number of homeless people congregating throughout downtown is a problem. White sees the issue more as a manifestation of the world economy and its recent collapse and the ever-shredding safety net; Hotchkiss sees it more as a case of people behaving badly. Where White sees a need to offer more help — while insisting City Hall is already doing far more than its fair share — Hotchkiss argues Santa Barbara is literally killing the homeless with compassion and that city police need to show “stiffer spine” in going after aggressive panhandlers. Hotchkiss argues that City Hall needs to expand the size of the police force by five or six more cops, in addition to the four additional positions recently approved. White notes that each additional cop costs the city $150,000 a year in salary and benefits and adds to the burden of Santa Barbara’s underfunded retirement system. Instead, he supports an incremental expansion of the city’s “restorative policing effort”— which relies on non-sworn, hourly civilian outreach workers supervised by three police officers. On the proposed gang injunction, White has been a supporter but acknowledged the lack of public input on the matter has caused alienation within certain sectors of the political community. Hotchkiss has no second thoughts and staunchly defends the injunction, arguing that to back off now would be to “abandon” the lower Eastside and Westside to gang violence. As Hotchkiss sees his job, it’s to set general policy and not sweat the details. And as general policy, he’s against new taxes. He believes City Hall must make do with what it has, pointing out the new efficiencies city administrators were forced to discover by the recession when they cut 81 positions — and $8 million — from the budget. By contrast, White worries about the city’s grossly underfunded infrastructure, the seismically
loggerheads with Caltrans over key details of this plan, Hart’s employment has given rise to allegations of conflict of interest from opposing candidates on both sides of the aisle. Hart has said he’d seek guidance from the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission but that he would not unilaterally recuse himself from such deliberations. Hart has argued that the city’s bargaining posture is self-destructive and that City Hall could achieve more by working cooperatively. In terms of dollars and endorsements, the next most serious contender is David Landecker. He served on the council for less than two years 22 years ago, when he was forced to
DEM DEMS:
GREGG HART, DAVID LANDECKER, AND MEGAN DIAZ ALLEY Gregg Hart, the first Democrat to throw his hat in the ring, has already served two terms on city council — 1995-2003 — and prior to that on the city’s planning commission and on the California Coastal Commission, all of which gives him a serious leg up when it comes to actual experience. The 53-year-old Hart has been known as a moderate Democrat and a skillful player. Although he never got along well with slow-growthers and preservationists, Hart pushed hard for Measure B, which secured for the city — via bed-tax revenues — $2 million a year to keep the city’s creeks and waterfront clean. This time around, Hart has been a more progressive candidate. He’s frustrated by the way the council’s conservative faction limited affordable-housing opportunities in the general plan, terming the document “emasculated.” The new plan, he charged, doesn’t go nearly far enough, and he vowed to reopen that process if elected.“I’m on the side of trying to do more for people who need help,” he declared. Hart grew up in Santa Barbara, the son of the city’s library director, and he remembers a time when middle-class families could find an economic toehold here. He takes exception to those who argue that increased densities will destroy Santa Barbara’s character. Many such developments have been built over the years without drawing much notice at all, he believes. Today Hart works for the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments as public information officer and is working to win approval for Caltrans’s freeway-widening and HOV-lane plan. Given that City Hall is now at serious CONT’D
PAUL WELLMAN PHOTOS
HARWOOD ‘BENDY’ WHITE: Raised $55,793;
$5,000 from SEIU Local 620.
unsafe police headquarters that will cost at least $50 million to fix or replace, and the network of pipes that hold the city together. In the meantime, White takes satisfaction bird-dogging pet projects that have yet to take flight, like the methane cogeneration electrical plant designed to convert the nutrient-rich fumes generated by the city’s sewage-treatment plant into electricity. And, as he points out to all the slow-growth preservationists angry about his smart-growth agenda, White takes pride in the fact that the new general plan effectively reduces the maximum building height from 60 feet to 45 feet except in exceptional circumstances.“We got something Santa Barbara scale,” he said. When Southern California Edison quietly notified City Hall it would no longer provide the massive Christmas tree traditionally planted by the Arlington Theatre, Hotchkiss quietly notified Santa Barbara’s media. In the ensuing hullabaloo, SoCal Edison saw fit to change its mind. Likewise, Hotchkiss takes credit for promoting the cruise ships now stopping in Santa Barbara 22 times a year. Yes, Mexico’s bloody drug wars hurt that country’s tourist trade, but Hotchkiss made it clear he thought Santa Barbara should roll out the welcome mats for the big ships. Likewise, Hotchkiss takes credit for Cabrillo Boulevard no longer being a place where homeless people in their RVs can camp with impunity. It’s true City Hall was already pushing in that direction, but it’s easy to get distracted.“We just kept the pressure on,” he said.
GREGG HART:
Raised $89,863; $10,000 from police and firefighter unions, loaned self $10,000.
DAVID LANDECKER: Raised $71,479; $6,600 from relatives.
october 24, 2013
THE INDEPENDENt
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