Watch: Randy Says He'll Run Again - "I've Still Got that Passion for the City"

Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse looks ahead to a 2026 re-elect race as he discusses the new budget shortfall, housing, homelessness, State St. - and comparisons of him to Donald Trump

Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse disclosed on Friday that he will seek re-election next year, saying his job “is about service, not about politics” as he contrasted his pragmatism with more ideological views of potential rivals.

The 70-year old Rowse, elected mayor in 2021, confirmed his intentions amid a swirl of political scenarios and speculation among City Hall insiders, political hacks, and other viewers of Newsmakers TV, where his comments came during an interview with Josh Molina and the genial host that also touched on a range of policy matters.

As a political matter, the mayor’s statements effectively kickstart the local 2026 campaign season. One or more of his current City Council colleagues is expected to challenge him on issues like rent control, the city budget, and future plans for State Street, controversies in which he often has been on the losing end of decisive votes.

“I’m planning on running,” Rowse said in his return to our “Ask the Mayor” program. “I still have a real passion about the city, and I have a real passion about its future.”

“My concern is recognizing what this job is, and what it’s not,” he added. “This job is about service, it’s not about politics. I’m kind of an ad hoc, line item person. I go back to my old analogy of being the town busboy: I’m the one that provides service here — streetlight doesn’t work? I happen to know the streetlight guy.

“Those kinds of things, that is not a global way of thinking, I get that,” the mayor said. “But this isn’t a global job. The job is very specific to the city.”

Anyone can run for mayor, of course, but to this point, Rowse’s most formidable possible challengers seem to be a trio of fellow council members who will be termed out of office next year: Eric Friedman, Meagan Harmon, and Kristen Sneddon.

Of the three, Sneddon seems the most likely contender, and has repaired her once-rocky relations with the local Democratic Party, which lost its hegemony on local elected offices when Rowse - a political independent - ousted one-term Mayor Cathy Murillo in 2021. Friedman, a more moderate Democrat, has been much-mentioned in gossip about the mayor’s race; he told us he has not ruled it out, but is still working to regain full health after a recent scary medical emergency. Harmon, who recently advanced up the California political ladder with her election as chair of the state Coastal Commission, seems least likely of them to run.

“I don’t think she would run for mayor,” Rowse said of Harmon, with whom he has a good personal relationship, in spite of gaping political differences. “Meagan can make a ton of dough as an attorney, she’s got three beautiful children…she’s still going to be chair of the Coastal Commission. I think Meagan’s going to be out of city politics.”

On other issues, Hizzoner also:

• Objected to a raid on city emergency reserves that transferred $2 million to a special housing fund and that was supported by four council members — Sneddon, Harmon, Oscar Gutierrez and Wendy Santamaria - in voting to approve a $577 million spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1; the move leaves Santa Barbara with a projected $1.2 million budget shortfall — six months after residents voted to tax themselves with an increase in the sales tax rate to cover a previous projected deficit.

• Suggested that a push by downtown property owners to re-open at least some of the nine blocks of State Street may be gaining traction. Since the move was made during the pandemic in 2020, it has remained a political sore point, as gauzy fantasies of a downtown pedestrian “promenade” gave way to the stark reality of barren urban stretches that please almost no one - beyond restaurant owners with lucrative outdoor dining facilities, heedless e-bike operators and an influential bicyclist coalition in whose pocket a majority of the council resides.

• Expressed frustration that the much-ballyhooed “Fostering Access, Resilience and Opportunity” downtown navigation center for homeless people, aka as FARO House, swiftly ran afoul of neighbors, with angry health and safety complaints about some of its clients, leading to a legal face-off between the city, which has the lease for the property, and ACT UP, the contractor hired to run the program: “How it gets cured is still kind of up in the air, but our intention is to cure it.”

• Demurred discussing details about a proposed, eight-story blockbuster apartment building proposed to be constructed behind the Mission, using Sacramento’s galling “Builder’s Remedy” legal pathway, because the mysterious out-of-town developer pitching the project has sued the city, alleging unfair delays. “I think if there’s ever going to be a time when I join in on civil disobedience, that might be it,” Rowse said.

• Laughed off efforts by left-wing political opponents to equate him with Donald Trump, as at least one protest sign did at last weekend’s big, anti-Trump “No Kings” rally. Not exactly a big fan of the game show host president, Rowse acknowledged that, “I’ve put on a couple of pounds and I have actually altered my golf score before, so there may be something to it.”

“Leadership does set the pace,” he added, addressing more seriously questions about the recent series of nationwide violent and deadly attacks against elected officials.

“When you are working through chaos, when you don’t have civility and decorum as past of your M.O., I think it trickles down pretty easily. So you get what we had on January 6,” he said.

“People saying these things out loud, it seems to be permissive, and all you need is somebody with a little touch of crazy to go, ‘I’m legitimate, I’m going to do this,’” Rowse added. “We have really come to a boiling point on so many levels, and the president doesn’t seem to be able to take the temperature down. He seems to bring a little can of kerosene to the barbecue and…that’s not the kind of leadership this world needs right now.”

All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV.

Check out our conversation with Mayor Randy Rowse via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast is on Apple, Spotify and other platforms, and on Soundcloud here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Image: Randy Rowse (screenshot); Protest sign at June 14 “No Kings” rally in Santa Barbara (Mahil Senathirajah for Edhat).