(A sampling of just some of the letters we’ve received over the past week concerning both issues and candidates for election or re-election. – J.B.)
And the Oscar goes to…. Councilmember Kristen Sneddon
When the rent stabilization ordinance (RSO) was on the consent calendar, ‘actress’ Kristen Sneddon made a motion to set the rent cap at 3%. After a multitude of meetings with housing providers, all saying 60% of CPI was too restrictive, she didn’t make any such motions during previous opportunities.
Hearing from critics that this RSO is too restrictive and it’s hurting her mayoral campaign, she tried to make a pivot that was pure theater. Councilmembers Friedman, Jordan, and Rowse all said this proposed change could have happened months ago.
Her angle? She can tell voters that she listened and tried to compromise, but that it was too late to make that move without creating legal liability, which is something she has not shied away from in the past. There was nothing sincere about her motion. She amended and moved to adopt the ordinance in its original form.
It passed.
It was all theatrics meant to benefit her bid to become the next mayor of Santa Barbara. Do we really want a mayor that manipulates governmental processes for her benefit, or do want true, responsive, transparent leadership as demonstrated by Mayoral Candidate Eric Friedman?
Michele Carbone,
Mom-and-Pop Housing Provider
Santa Barbara
*****
Eric Knows How to Make Balanced Decisions
Santa Barbara needs a mayor who can match our aspirations with our ability to pay for them. I’m supporting Eric Friedman because his emphasis on fiscal responsibility, transparent budgeting, and long-term financial stability aligns with what I want from City leadership.
Our city faces difficult choices. Housing affordability, essential infrastructure, public safety, and dependable services, all deserve attention. But worthy goals do not eliminate financial limits. Responsible leadership requires deciding what we can sustain, how we will fund it, and what obligations we are passing to future residents.
I appreciate Eric’s willingness to question reliance on reserves and press for sustainable funding. Reserves protect our ability to respond when revenues fall, emergencies occur, or unexpected costs arise. Spending them deserves careful scrutiny, even when the proposed use is worthwhile.
I also share his skepticism about adding another layer of local rent regulation. Tenant stability matters deeply. So do maintaining rental homes, encouraging investment, and expanding housing opportunities. I favor an approach that weighs those responsibilities together and takes unintended consequences seriously.
For downtown, I want practical leadership that listens to businesses and residents, remains open to adjustments, and pairs a long-term vision with a credible implementation plan. Eric’s emphasis on reducing barriers to investment and supporting local businesses speaks to those priorities.
As an accessibility advocate, I also trust Eric to take access seriously. Fiscal responsibility and accessibility are not competing goals. Thoughtful planning should help us spend wisely while making community life available to people of all abilities.
An endorsement does not require agreement on every issue. Nor does it diminish my respect for others seeking the office. It reflects a judgment about which candidate’s approach best fits the challenges ahead.
For me, that candidate is Eric Friedman.
Nick Koonce
Santa Barbara
*****
NO on Rent Control
As an owner of properties in Santa Barbara, I find it amusing that the city council should even consider a rent stabilization ordinance. Wages are going up, cost of goods and services are going up, labor costs are going up.... so the city council wants to pick on one industry – property rental – to hammer and not allow the owner to make a fair return on his or her investment in real estate.
Tenants can move if they feel rents are too high due to a mis-managed economy run by people who are less than talented in many cases in handling rental issue, other than rent control, which this bill is all about. Vote NO on it. This is America, not some Communist Community where everything is controlled by the city and state.
Vote NO on the “Rent Ordinance.”
Jim Delmonte
Santa Barbara
*****
Background Check, Anyone?
The Democratic Central Committee and the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed Gabe Escobedo for Santa Barbara City Council in District 6.
Do these groups run a simple background check?
Escobedo’s Chapter 13 petition, case 9:18-bk-11465-RC, filed September 7, 2018, lists no business and no entrepreneurial experience. He worked as an UCSB intramural organizer. In his bankruptcy filing he reported $26,233 in assets, no real estate, and $192,322.90 in debts, including $132,294 in student loans.
In 2022 the trustee moved to dismiss the case because Escobedo failed to produce three years of tax returns. The trustee withdrew that motion four weeks later. The Department of Education received $7,661 of its claim. Other unsecured creditors received a few hundred dollars apiece.
Of course, people make mistakes. But such mistakes should be learned from, not hidden. None of this information is in his campaign bio. Is a candidate who doesn’t explain or own up to such failures the right person to lead our city? Are the Democrats and Democratic Socialists choosing their best and brightest? Or for people who don’t respect property rights and financial responsibility, is this as good as it gets?
R. Morrison
Santa Barbara
******
Fighting Fraud in Solvang
One of our residents at Atterdag has suffered in a major fraud scheme, and I am so worried that I had to write this. I don’t know if you can use it, but culturally we are in big trouble. I appreciate Santa Barbara Current’s work to get Santa Barbara back on track.
Overpopulation, climate cooling, climate overheating, polar bears dying, all fizzled. Then climate change and covid didn’t work either, and the treatment and vaccine were worse than the disease. Now the big boogeyman is AI to put fear into our hearts. But maybe something else has been seeping in, so slowly we were unaware.
Even in the 1950s and ‘60s there was a moral standard in our nation. We did see media and politicians who lied to us, but we could find the truth if we looked deep enough. Criminals were generally punished and not set free again. We didn’t lock our homes and cars, and shoplifting wasn’t a casual occurrence.
When we saw news clips on TV, we believed what we saw, maybe we even believed commercials. Now even when we know it’s a lie, can we even make our voices heard? When photoshopping and AI are able to distort reality and make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, how can our innate common sense create order of it all?
If we adults are having a hard time, how much more difficult is it for our future generations to even learn that there is a standard of truth and proper behavior to live by? Every time someone gets away with a criminal or dishonest act and ends up idolized, what kind of message does that send?
We see fraud, blatant theft of taxpayers’ money supporting extravagant lifestyles of the perpetrators, our U.S. money scattered all over Earth. Thank goodness there are finally investigators uncovering the theft and shutting down the money faucet.
We don’t know how detrimental data centers are to local communities, or whether protests are initiated by Chinese influencers to give them an advantage. We don’t know whether they will really produce local jobs once the construction is finished. We don’t know anything and maybe that’s the plan.
Even, maybe especially, we must look to uncover corruption in local school boards and city, county, and state government. In the founding days of our country, people served not to enrich themselves, but to build a new constitution guaranteeing freedom for all. But we must be a moral people if it’s going to continue to work.
All we can see is that our current government is keeping the border closed, deporting illegals and criminals, rescuing trafficked children, uncovering fraud, trying to open our own energy resources to lower our cost of living instead of importing it from across the oceans, and caring for our own people instead of all those who have illegally entered our country.
This is a very important election coming up. Vote wisely, and may it be an honest process. May our loving God watch over us.
Gretchen Kiedling
Solvang
*****
Why You Should Vote Early
We’re not asking you to join the military.
We’re not asking you to walk 100 miles.
We are asking you to vote. Yes, that’s right. To simply vote. To fill out your ballot as completely as you can and make sure it is returned as early as possible.
We have web sites to go to for all our recommendations on all the candidates, on all the measures, on all the propositions. All the Very Important Propositions, on all the judges requiring a Yes or No vote.
Yes, it’s a long ballot. Yes, it will take a little of your time.
But we are Americans. We still have choices in our country. Choices of where to live, what jobs to take, how to spend our time and our money. We even can decide whether to vote or not to vote.
Why would you want to let someone else make those decisions for you? If you don’t vote, that is exactly what you are doing. So please vote!
But why should you Vote Early?
Here’s why:
1) Vote Early because Life Happens! You or someone in your family has an accident: your water heater breaks; the car won’t start; the skies deluge Santa Barbara County with inches of rain and flood the roads as happened in 2022, or you just plain forget.
Did you know several races in our county were decided by less than 50 votes in 2022 and 2024?
Vote early because your vote does matter!
Don’t be one of the more than 20% of high propensity election day voters who did not make it to the polls in 2022.
2) Vote Early so you have enough time to fill out your ballot completely.
Astonishingly, many people vote for only a few candidates or items and leave many races, measures and propositions blank.
It takes time to read, study and vote intelligently on many items. Here are a few websites to assist you and they tell you about the Propositions too.
3) Vote Early so Your Envelope and Ballot will be accepted.
Did you Sign and Date in the right spaces?
Did you sign with a signature that matches your registration name and signature?
If something isn’t acceptable and you voted early, the Election Office has enough time to contact you and get it fixed (curing) before Election Day.
Otherwise, your ballot and envelope are collected in a separate pile and will be dealt with after Election Day. It’s also called curing but if your ballot cannot be cured in the allotted time, it will not be counted.
4) Vote Early so that your name can be removed from the list of those who can vote at the polls on Election Day because the Election Office knows you already voted.
Remember, there isn’t any photo voter ID checking at the polls. Which is another reason why you need to vote early and to vote Yes on Proposition 39 for Voter Photo ID.
If your ballot is sitting on your kitchen counter or in a drop box or in the U.S. mail a week or so before Election Day, the Election Office doesn’t know about it.
You would still be on the list of voters eligible to vote in person at the polls (making you a target for impersonation on Election Day).
5) Vote Early so that no one can vote in your place at the polls. If someone does vote as you at the polls, once their ballot is placed in the ballot box it cannot be removed, and it will be counted before any ballots still sitting in the mail, in a drop box, or not yet processed in the days before the election.
If someone can impersonate you at the polls and votes, your ballot in the envelope will not count; there is no way to fix this afterwards.
6) Vote Early and Sign up for Ballot Tracking to be sure your ballot has been received by the Election Office. They will send you an email or text. If you don’t see that it was received, you will have time to contact the Election Office and correct the problem. Sign up at:
https://california.ballottrax.net/voter/
7) Vote Early to eliminate election mail, phone calls and text messages. Your political party accesses the Secretary of State lists of those who have voted and removes you from their contact list. Every early voter costs the party $1, every voter who votes at the polls costs the party $20!
8) Vote Early and encourage others to do the same. You can set an example for the nearly 50% of registered voters who never even vote at all, even in presidential elections, by showing them how easy it is to vote early using their Vote by Mail Ballot and the Websites above.
9) Vote Early because waiting to vote after 2 pm on Election Day can be a little risky. It’s like waiting until the very last minute to do something very important.
10) So, VOTE EARLY … But if you still decide to go to the polls on Election Day – GO EARLY!!
Julie Bischoff
Santa Barbara
•••
Julie Bischoff taught classes on Election Integrity for several years, was a poll worker, a poll observer, and observed the processes of Ballot Adjudication, Signature Verification, installation of Dominion Software and other processes. She feels our county elections officials and employees do the best they can with the laws they have to follow. But many laws are a problem and encourage voter fraud. To reduce some of the problems – VOTE EARLY!
Community Calendar:
Yes, the DSA’s dream (more like a wet dream) was to elect Escobedo, Sims-Moten as Mayor and join existing DSA plants, Santamaria and Gutierrez. The end result would be a Socialist Junta, looking less like the Santa Barbara City Council and more like the Havana People’s Liberation Front! 🚩🇨🇺
DSA sure loves to spend OPM. So it is telling how they choose handle their own money.
Never forget Democrats loved Eric Swallwel too, when it came to handing out their endorsements and cash this year.
Escobedo has some serious 'Splaining" to do. District 6 - do you even care?