Santa Maria leaders say city is strong, healthy during annual ‘State of the City’ address

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- Santa Maria leaders delivered the annual "State of the City" address Wednesday morning.

"We're doing great," said Mayor Alice Patino. "We're growing. Businesses are doing very well.”

The yearly report is hosted by the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce and provides the community with an update on how the city has performed over the past year, while also looking ahead into the future.

Patino, who has served as mayor for 10 years, spoke at the two-hour long event, along with City Manager Jason Stillwell.

"The city is on a good path," said Stillwell. "We're here to deliver, and we've been able to deliver, and we're really proud of that, and we want to continue to do more." 

Much of the presentation focused on housing. It's a key issue as the city grapples with constant growth.

Patino said Wednesday the official population of Santa Maria is 109,000, but the city believes it's closer to 120,000. In addition, growth is expected to significantly push the population up much higher in the future.

To help meet the demand, the city is now undergoing a building boom in order to handle current needs, but much more is needed.

"We want to build," said Patino. "We have the will. We have the political will to build, which is different from a lot of communities. A lot of communities fight that.”

Stillwell went through a slide show that highlighted a vast of array of housing projects that are currently being built or soon will be.

"We are building a lot of housing," said Stillwell. "Forecasts show we're going to have 45,000 more people in Santa Maria over the coming decades, and so a lot of the housing development you see now is working to get ahead of that and recognize that we have people who are living in more families to a house than they would like to, and we have a need for more housing options for our employers here. We have some single family homes, but also a lot of affordable homes and a lot of apartments as well."

Commercial construction is also busy. Most notibly, the ongoing growth of the new Enos Ranch West shopping center, which opened several businesses over the past year.

"There is a lot of shopping in Santa Maria now," said Patino. "People are coming here to do a lot of their shopping and spend money, and we want to encourage them to spend more."

During his presentation, Stillwell noted all of the city's Primary city revenues are all up, including sales tax, property tax and hotel tax.

"The increased revenue has allowed the city council to expand services and reinvest in infrastructure," said Stillwell. "One thing they've done is double the amount of road funding they've provided, and so that both makes it better for people driving around town, but also allows us to reduce costs over time by doing different maintenance now rather than more maintenance later."

Both Patino and Stillwell also emphasized the city's commitment to public safety, especially law enforcement, which receives the lion's share of the city's annual budget.

"Crime is an issue and is something that we really need to deal with and make sure that people who are committing these crimes are put away," said Patino."People in Santa Maria have said public safety is number one and people in our city love our policemen. They have a good relationship with them and it's a two-way relationship. It's not just a one-way relationship."

Stillwell displayed crime statistics, showing numbers that are ticking upwards, a trend currently being experienced across the region, state and nation.

In addition, he mentioned how Santa Maria now employees a new overall vision of, "smart city, smart city."

"What that means is for us to use more technology and be smarter in how we provide public safety," said Stillwell. "You've seen and will see a lot more technology used with our public safety, both as being able to alert folks both when the arrivals are going to occur, but also to make it easier for people to receive information and to communicate with public safety, on the back end, there's more technology for them to be more responsive, and then it allows us to be able to address the crime and follow up on the crime easier. We have technology that allows the detectives to follow up on crime."

Overall, Santa Maria leaders are happy with where the city is at, while at the same time cautiously optimistic about the future.

Stillwell pointed out a possible economic downturn, labor shortages or some other unexpected issue could negatively impact the city's standing in 2023.

However, there is optimistic the future will remain bright for Santa Barbara County's biggest city.

"It's the people in Santa Maria that make it that way," said Patino. "The everyday person in Santa Maria. The people who belong to organizations. The people who have businesses. All of them contribute to make Santa Maria the great city it is."