Santa Barbara City Council race for the Mesa – Westside district has an incumbent facing a newcomer

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The Santa Barbara's City Council race for District 2 has voters on the Mesa, parts of the westside, and the waterfront up to lower State Street.

Mike Jordan is the incumbent who is a former city planner and insurance broker.  He is being challenged by Terra Taylor who has a banking, business, and service industry career.

Jordan says one of the biggest issues he sees to improve the district is to control unpermitted short-term vacation rentals because of both housing and financial issues.

"The management of short-term vacation rentals,  we have a terrible problem in the coastal zone that is displacing what is traditionally step up or first time homeowners that would have availability of housing in the district and to top that, about 90 percent of the 6-700 down there are not even permitted or paying TOT (transient occupancy taxes) taxes," said Jordan.

Taylor says she wants to help residents of the district who have specific needs and bring the community together for these causes.

"We can look to those programs and say how can we come together as a community to make sure our community remains beautiful and we are supporting each other in that the endeavor," said Taylor.

For Jordan, traffic safety is an ongoing priority on Las Positas Road and Cliff Drive. Both areas have issues with speeding cars, conflicts with bike riders sharing the space with pedestrians and cars, and many bad accidents. He says there is a safety plan in the work, "where we will have a whole lot of new stop signs and stop lights, and separated bike lanes."

Santa Barbara has somewhere between a seven and ten-million dollar deficit. When it comes to solutions, "anytime you have an issue where you have budgets that are established and not met it is a matter where someone is not communicating with each other and not stopping the bar where it needs to be met and say we can't proceed with this," said Taylor. "I don't think that continuously raising taxes to offset deficits is the answer. It is really a matter of saying how are we allocating funds, where are the places where we are  breaking the barriers of our budget?"

Jordan has seen it unfold. "We need to ask the question to the community, 'what does the next generation of the city look like?' in terms of full service or less service and begin to shrink those expenses down." 

When it comes to working as a council even when positions differ Taylor says, "my style of communication is when you and I disagree on something, be frank about it. To be very clear, not to be confrontational. What we want for the community is this. And how can you and I compare our ideas and perspectives and  come to a place with the best interest for Santa Barbara."

Mike Jordan says he researches city issues before a vote, "I think people appreciate when you bring in a perspective to the discussion or the argument that there is actually work behind the discussion or the argument that helps people come along and participate in the answer."

Both candidates say the residents of the Mesa and citywide should have hope despite the challenges the city is facing.

"There is a tomorrow coming that is really exciting, that is really ready to go. I can talk more than 90 seconds on where we are downtown where we are on the peripheral neighborhoods and what great things are just lying ahead of us," said Jordan.

Taylor's view is, "how we retain all of this community and culture and work together to insure that A: make sure it stays great, and B: insure that area where we need to polish up a little bit, we do."

( A full copy of each interview can be found at KEYT.com)