1-on-1: In Run for Mayor, Wendy Sims-Moten Says She Offers "Fresh Perspective" for SB City Hall
Former School Board President and early childhood development program executive says her professional experience, personal values and leadership ability have prepared her for City Hall's top job.
As she runs for mayor of Santa Barbara, Wendy Sims-Moten acknowledges a lack of detailed command of some critical issues facing the city, resting her campaign message on professional experience, leadership skills and deeply held personal values.
The longtime executive director of the First 5 early childhood development program, Sims-Moten also served eight tumultuous years as a Santa Barbara Unified School District trustee. She left the school board at the end of 2024, amid tributes and acclaim, and gave herself a year away from politics to refresh and renew before returning to the arena this year with an outside chance bid for mayor, facing off against City Council veterans Eric Friedman and Kristen Sneddon.
“I just think it’s a wonderful opportunity to take that next step in leadership,” Sims-Moten told Newsmakers, in our latest interview with candidates for mayor and council.
“I’ve been a leader in this community and have always had a very deep-rooted interest in — can we make this a better world and a better space for the folks that we serve, that we live with, who we play with and those that we go to school with?” she said. “So I’m here … and I want to be a choice in the change and bring that voice to the council.”
“If you have those leadership skills and wants and desires, and continue to learn to be a leader, it doesn’t matter what jurisdiction or where it is — what are you bringing to that? How are you serving the will of the people?” Sims-Moten said. “So it’s not different in terms of it being the city versus being a school board versus whatever the case may be. It’s who you are as a leader and how you are incorporating the will of the people to be able to do that.”
Our story to date. The 64-year-old Sims-Moten arrived in Santa Barbara from Texas in the 1980s, earned a B.A. from Pacifica Graduate Institute and went to work for the county, catching on when the First 5 Santa Barbara was launched in 1998 and eventually working her way up to the top job, which she has held since 2018.
In 2020, Sims-Moten emerged in Santa Barbara as a high-profile and influential leader on issues of racial justice, as local communities struggled to deal with the fallout from the notorious murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis.
Then school board president, she led an extraordinary and emotional six-hour public hearing before the Board of Supervisors that featured a parade of community voices spotlighting local concerns and first-person stories about racial inequities.
“I, as a person of color, a woman of color, a leader of color, it has been my experience that racism is there — subtle and not so subtle,” she said in a Newsmakers interview during that time. “There are some racial systemic issues that we need to all face if we really are to say, ‘in order to form a more perfect union.’”
Today, Sims-Moten says she carries the same set of social justice values she gave voice to then — despite a ferocious, and sometimes brutal, white nationalist backlash to that brief era of racial reckoning.
“In this era right now, the humanity is lost,” Sims-Moten said this week. “I feel we are in … a crisis of humanity. But also this is an opportunity in a crisis … an opportunity of courage, to speak out, to call people in, in terms of understanding it from a human aspect.”
In our interview — the first since her campaign was informally launched on Instagram several months ago — Sims-Moten reflected on the gulf between the Floyd and Trump II eras, defended SBUSD Superintendent Hilda Maldonado, discussed some of the key controversies from her time on the school board, and offered some broad concepts of how she would handle the city’s big challenges — while laughing in a Texas drawl about how some friends have reacted to her running.
“People keep asking me — ‘Why, are y’all crazy?’” she said with a big smile. “No, we’re not crazy. We’re just here and ready to want to serve. And I haven’t taken leave of my senses yet, but there are times where I wonder.”
On the issues. In the Nov. 3 election, the balance of power at City Hall is on the ballot, amid races to replace retiring Mayor Randy Rowse and three termed-out neighborhood district representatives on the seven-member council. Our conversation with Sims-Moten is the latest in a summer-long series Newsmakers is doing with candidates for council and mayor. In the interviews, we ask the candidates for their views on four key issues.
Here’s what Sims-Moten had to say about them, lightly edited for clarity.
Rent control. “I had a friend who really put something in perspective, for some in Santa Barbara city or county — ‘It’s poverty with a view’ … I don’t know all the specifics in terms of the various measures, but one thing I do say is that we do have to, at some point, get some stabilization, just to get some footing … I think about how does this overcrowding, how does this lack of housing, how does it impact our children? So I look at it through that lens. I’m always looking at: how do we make sure they have good space to grow up and be in? So I don’t know all the specifics in terms of the various measures, but if rent stabilization is that pause … perhaps the rent stabilization is a pause that allows us to come together.”
State Street. “I don’t know about State Street … When you look at State Street, what has that got to do with affordability for housing? … And I’m not blaming anyone, but I really have been — what is that? It was forced closed — Covid, we had to do things differently. But let us take time to look at: was there a benefit, and what was the benefit for it being closed without cars? And then whatever went on, I don’t know the specifics, and the in and out, because I don’t want to be the armchair quarterback over here, but I just think we need to take a pause here and figure out what is it that we are trying to achieve? And when we’re trying to achieve it, who’s being impacted by what? Because oftentimes when something’s so vehemently being opposed … sometimes you feel like you’re losing something, like … perhaps losing people who are coming in to shop …”
Budget. “I think we just had one (sales tax increase) recently, so just hold on — I think people get taxed out … You keep going back to the same well, it will run dry.”
Ranked-choice voting. “I think it is so important that we don’t create systems that eliminate the voter’s choice … that you don’t fully understand … So (instead) have a primary …”
Check out our interview with Wendy Sims-Moten via YouTube below or by clicking this link. Our podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, or on SoundCloud. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 5 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on weekends.
Newsmakers’ Candidate Conversations. To offer Santa Barbara voters early introductions to contenders for four City Council seats, including Mayor, in the Nov. 3 election, Newsmakers is publishing one-on-one interviews with the candidates over the summer. Upcoming interviews include mayoral candidates Kristen Sneddon, Jason Carlton and Anabella Lehne. Here is who we’ve spoken with to date:
Mayor
Wendy Sims-Moten, candidatae for Mayor, Aug. 13.
District 4
Monte Wilson, candidate for District 4 council seat, June 23.