Tenant Advocates Carried a Sign into City Hall Suggesting their Political Foes Deserve Beheading. We Asked Council if They Condemn It.
Reflections on the tone of intimidation and menace in the atmosphere at Tuesday night's big hearing on rent control in Santa Barbara.
Maybe I’m just overly sensitive.
But I’ve actually covered the assassinations of two local elected officials,1 so seeing a sign hoisted at Santa Barbara City Hall on Tuesday night that glorified the beheading of political leaders made me sick with disgust and outrage.
Is that who we are now? Is this what politics in Santa Barbara has come to — that anyone who disagrees with you on a policy issue deserves to be put to death?
Please spare me the lectures about freedom of expression. I’ve spent a lifetime manifesting and defending the First Amendment, and I’ve got the scars — physical, emotional, legal, financial — to show for it.
Count me all in for freedom of speech — but as a simple matter of plain civic virtue, in a town long distinguished by civility and mutual respect, can we not agree that graphically cheering the decapitation of political foes is, if not unconstitutional, simply wrong?
What council said. Newsmakers surveyed the seven members of City Council, all of whom saw the off-with-their-heads sign at Tuesday night’s packed meeting about rent control, and were also witness to hours of jeering, heckling and berating of members, City Administrator Kelly McAdoo and other city officials, largely by tenant advocates.
Their responses broke down into two categories — the gallant and the timid.
The Gallant
Eric Friedman, who is running for mayor, had a clear and direct response to the offensive sign and those celebrating its sentiments. “It’s not acceptable to me,” said Friedman, acknowledging the First Amendment argument. “In a time when elected officials have faced threats, violence and even been killed, everyone should take time to think about the potential ramifications of their actions.”
Mayor Randy Rowse, the target of much of the vitriol hurled at the dais, said he “100 percent” condemns the sign. “That kind of directed violent imagery tests the boundaries of free speech,” he said. “I assume the elephants on the picture indicate Republicans and perhaps it was directed at me. Too bad I’ve never been a Republican.”
Meagan Harmon responded with swift moral clarity to our question about the menacing sign. “It’s an easy ‘unacceptable,’” she texted. “I guess the First Amendment says it’s okay, but like, does anyone say it’s a good thing?”
Mike Jordan criticized himself for not speaking out in the moment with the outrage he said he felt. “I’m extremely sorry, looking back, that I didn’t just pop off about that, and the loud personal verbal attack on (McAdoo) and staff … I’m pretty much done politely dealing with immature (people) who think part of advocacy or discussion is jeering, attempting to intimidate, and generally acting like spoiled toddlers.”
Oscar Gutierrez, calling the sign “rage bait,” defended the free-speech right to wield it, but said that “for me personally it’s not acceptable,” adding that he plans to “voice my disapproval” to those behind it and “ask the city attorney if we can limit signs at the public comment podium.”
The timid.
Wendy Santamaria, to the surprise of no one, did not respond to our questions about the offending sign. Her one-note symphony of politics begins and ends with rent control, and she is more responsible than anyone for the toxic tone of public hearings on the subject.
More surprising is the silence of Kristen Sneddon, even though her support for rent control largely fuels her campaign for mayor. Over the course of an afternoon and evening, she didn’t respond to repeated texts and calls seeking response to a simple, binary question - does she condemn the sign, or does she find it acceptable?
So she either: a) doesn’t know what she thinks or; b) is trying to duck the whole thing. We’re not sure which is worse, but it is disconcerting that someone imploring voters to install her in the office that is the public face of Santa Barbara lacks the gumption to stand up for basic decency.
The death-to-my-foes message underpinning the beheading sign transported me back to Nov. 27, 1978, when San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot dead at City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White.
I knew, liked and had covered all three of those men, and I spent more than a decade reporting on and trying to understand all the interlocking, crisscrossing threads of politics, personality and policy that led to the horror of that day and its tragic aftermath.
To be clear, I am not drawing an equivalence between San Francisco in the 1970s and Santa Barbara in 2026. But when I think about those times half a century ago — an old man now — I remember the crucible of a city bitterly divided by political differences, a simmering atmosphere filled with rage and benighted moral certitude, when the only thing that mattered in politics was winning, and whoever disagreed must be silenced, not persuaded.
Thank you for this important commentary, Jerry. Our civic discourse has drifted a long way away from the days when Pearl Chase advocated for what she referred to as the 3 C's: "Communicate, Co-ordinate, Co-operate."
Thanks for laying it out there, Jerry. When our representatives are silent on stuff like this - very bad deal. 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. 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.