Three candidates for Santa Barbara’s District 4 City Council seat made their closing arguments on Newsmakers TV Tuesday, citing their grounding in fiscal matters and experience — professional and lived — as qualifications for the post.

The fourth candidate, front-runner and Democratic Party favorite Devon Wardlow, canceled her appearance on the program, calling the host two hours before taping to say she was unable to meet her commitment to join the conversation because of “a personal situation that just came up.” She did not elaborate.

Two weeks before Election Day, make of that what you will.

Residents of District 4 — which includes the Riviera, Upper East, Mission Canyon, Eucalyptus Hill and nearby neighborhoods — are a key cohort of Newsmakers’ hyper-local audience, and the candidates were all invited to make their elevator pitches to undecided voters.

Key excerpts from their statements:

Jason Dominguez: “I say it comes down to experience. I appreciate my colleagues and everyone here is doing this for the right reasons, but I’ve done it for four years (during a 2017–2021 term as District 1 representative). I did it successfully. I changed the housing plan that the city had 180 degrees. I put forward a motion to ban smoking on State Street and the waterfront. I also was able to pass some reasonable tenant protections. I was named one of the two council members to provide oversight to the renter-landlord task force. I was also part of the housing task force. My colleagues supported me 100 percent by putting me on as a liaison to all the land use bodies — planning commission, architectural board of review, et cetera. And I had great success and I’d love to do this again and bring more stability to the council, which I think has been going sideways.”

Genevieve Taft-Vazquez: “I’m born and raised here. I’m raising my kids here. I’m a homeowner here. And for the past 20 years, my work has been focused on helping communities thrive, building coalitions, managing large budgets, keeping companies accountable to work that they promise to do. And that’s the experience that I’m proud of and that I will bring to city council … as a voter, I want somebody with a strong professional background, with a strong track record that they can be proud of, and someone who actually has skin in the game. And also, just to be clear, this is not some sort of political stepping stone for me. I am running to serve the community that I am from, where I was raised, where my forever home is, and where I want the next generation, including my own kids, to be able to build their future.”

Monte Wilson: “I’ve come from a private sector background. I’ve never run for political office … but I just couldn’t sit back and watch what was going on any longer because I’ve lived here in the district since 2014 and in Santa Barbara since 2010. I’ve got skin in the game. I’ve been evacuated three times. I volunteered for the Montecito mudslides with the bucket brigade. And I do worry about things like evacuation routes. So I’ve really kind of lived that side of it. I’m the only one of the four candidates who actually owns a business on State Street and has been there for 14 years … But to me, the number one issue that we need to focus on is the budget, because we’re kind of going down a slow death here if we don’t turn things around.”

Challenging Democratic hegemony. In our conversation, the candidates unanimously expressed frustration at Wardlow’s last-minute withdrawal and offered muted criticism of her work as a lobbyist for the retail cannabis industry and for a traffic safety company that uses AI to collect data, among other matters.

While offering their own policy prescriptions on issues from road repair to reserve funds, the District 4 hopefuls also offered words of criticism for:

The outsize role of backroom politics and the local Democratic Party organization in city elections, including its endorsement of Wardlow: “I do think that there should be more transparency for voters because … it’s really hard to make a decision and have all of the right information,” said Taft-Vazquez.
The inexperience of the Democratic city council slate: “I think they need an adult in the room. They need someone who has life experience, who maybe has owned a home or raised kids in this town. If you have a bunch of kids on city council who just don’t have that wisdom from life experience, it’s going to be a struggle,” Dominguez said.
The 4-to-3 liberal majority of the incumbent council pushing through rent control and the closure of State Street: “It was abundantly clear … that four-to-three vote with Kristen Sneddon, Wendy (Santamaria), Oscar (Gutierrez) and Meagan (Harmon) — they were heading down this path regardless of what data was put in front of them, what facts were demonstrated to them, and the voices of the stakeholders. They just didn’t listen,” Wilson said.

The three candidates also offered their perspectives on the ongoing referendum campaigns to repeal rent control and the State Street Master Plan, saying the ballot measure signature efforts are evidence of the need for major change at City Hall.

“This is indicative of the failures of the city council to adequately listen to stakeholders,” Taft-Vazquez said, “and clearly this has gotten to the point of incredible frustration that is resulting in this.”

And another thing. For the first time, Taft-Vazquez was asked publicly to address speculation and gossip that has swirled for months around her candidacy — alleging she was enticed into the race by other political figures as a way to blunt Wardlow’s candidacy. She responded that she decided to run solely because of her desire for public service, and sharply objected to previous commentary on Newsmakers TV in which a panelist characterized her bid as a “mean girl campaign.”

“I’m going to address that term because on behalf of all women — somebody with 20 years of professional experience, very good professional experience that I’m proud of, as a mom, as someone who is proudly 50 years old — don’t call me a girl,” she said. “And if you guys are gossiping, don’t call me a girl.

“I heard that videocast and I was offended. I was offended that two male journalists would call me a mean girl. What a weird, weird thing. And Jerry, you didn’t say anything,” she added.

Mea culpa.

Check out our final arguments session with Jason Dominguez, Genevieve Taft-Vazquez and Monte Wilson 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.

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