Instant Reaction: Guillotine Sign Creator Defends Placard, Plus More Discourse about SB City Hall Protests and Messaging
Amid rising political temperatures surrounding the city's contentious debate over rent control, concern that Trump's coarsening of the national discourse has made its way to Santa Barbara.
On Wednesday, Newsmakers’ pointed criticism of the sinister tone and imagery employed by some tenant activists during this week’s raucous rent control hearing at Santa Barbara City Hall struck a chord in the community.
The post, viewed by more than 2,000 readers, generated dozens of public and private comments and responses, the majority supporting our editorial stance — which specifically decried the display in chambers of a sign featuring a guillotine primed to be wielded against anti-rent control politicians — although a significant portion also took issue with our argument.
The most notable reply came from rent control advocate Ana Garcia, who identified herself in the comments section on our site as the author and bearer of the off-with-their-heads protest sign.
Garcia posted this comment under the post: “So the ‘violence’ of my SIGN is more important to report on as political violence than the ACTUAL violence these elected officials condone against the people every day?” she wrote. “Don’t be distracted by this. The sign has a ballot box as part of the guillotine, but that just gets ignored as well, right?”
In a follow-up exchange via Substack, seeking clarification and elaboration of her statement, Garcia criticized Newsmakers for over-emphasizing symbolic violence — as represented by the graphic of a guillotine, historically associated with the most bloodthirsty era of the French Revolution — instead of focusing on what she characterized as real violence perpetrated by elected officials who oppose rent control.
“It’s symbolism,” she said of her sign. “As for violence, I think choosing to side with people who are exploiting tenants and who make poor choices in their business endeavors, over helping to ensure constituents stay housed, is violent.”
Also noteworthy was the first statement on the matter from council member and mayor’s race front-runner Kristen Sneddon. In preparing the original story, I texted every member of the City Council a photo of Garcia’s sign and posed “a binary question”: Did council members condemn the display of the sign in City Hall, or did they find it acceptable?
Before deadline, I tried and failed repeatedly to connect with Sneddon, who later texted a 74-word comment, at 1:52 a.m. Wednesday, inserted a few hours later as an update to the original story on the Newsmakers site:
“We all support the First Amendment and welcome public comment at City Hall, from all sides, on any issue,” Sneddon wrote. “There are times when comments or images are used to provoke, and this one clearly did. I don’t think it affected any of our votes on the issue, one way or the other.
“Regardless,” she added, “I don’t think images that can be interpreted in this way should be broadcast on City TV, for all our safety.”
Here is a representative sample of other comments we received, pro and con.
Rent control supporter Zachary Cosseboom cited the opening line of the Newsmakers piece — “Maybe I’m just overly sensitive” — and employed multiple emojis to argue that the guillotine image clearly symbolized electoral politics, not physical violence. He also took issue with comments by Mayor Randy Rowse, saying it was a bipartisan warning to politicians, not just to Republicans: “Yes, Jerry you are overly sensitive 🍼,” Cosseboom wrote. “It is cutting a piece of paper. Also I don’t think Randy saw it had a rhino & a donkey 🤦♂️”
Journalist, teacher and friend of Newsmakers Cissy Ross also reacted negatively to the piece, saying that First Amendment rights of free expression far eclipsed objections to the message and content of the “rage bait” sign. “Concerning the sign at the rent control meeting — ‘rage bait’ is right,” she wrote, referencing a comment by council member Oscar Gutierrez. “Study how to make an effective argument. This ain’t it.”
Most of those who commented on the site or by email, however, agreed with Newsmakers’ condemnation of the sign.
"Thanks for laying it out there. When our representatives are silent on stuff like this — very bad deal," wrote environmental advocate Hillary Hauser, who applauded council member and mayoral candidate Eric Friedman's disapproving comments. "Thank you, Eric, for speaking up. The violence in this country is increasing by the day, thanks to the hatefulness of our Supreme Commander — and the only way to fight such stuff is in our own back yard," Hauser added. "We're all depressed/oppressed/obsessed by the news. We need backbone close to us right now; we need a City Council with backbone. A sign with guillotine/violence is NOT permissible in any city council chamber."
Planning Commissioner Brian Barnwell also connected the local episode to national politics. “It is what President Obama, in his statesmanlike way, referred to as ‘the coarsening of public debate,’” Barnwell wrote. “I am not supportive of silence on this coarsening, which is a form of bullying, and which is a page taken directly from the playbook of the most coarse and heinous of them all: the drumpf” — his final word a mocking reference to Donald Trump.
Former city Fire Chief Pat McElroy was critical of council members who did not speak out publicly at the meeting. “It was a shameful day,” he wrote. “How afraid of their own supporters are some of these council members? They can’t bring themselves to condemn something akin to the signs of January 6th. I think this council, and probably the next, will have a hard time keeping really talented staff, who they continually throw under the bus.”
Cheri Rae, biographer of Santa Barbara icon Pearl Chase, expressed regret on behalf of venerable local values, writing that “our civic discourse has drifted a long way away from the days when Pearl Chase advocated for what she referred to as the three C’s: ‘Communicate, Co-ordinate, Co-operate.’”
You can find further public comments about the post on the Newsmakers website here.
Image above: The Amherst Current.
Image: The contentious sign (Josh Molina photo for the News-Press).