Wardlow for City Council

My work in Santa Barbara has long focused on public health and safety, prevention, and bringing community systems together to address difficult problems. That experience shapes what I look for in public leadership: an understanding of how policy works, a willingness to ask hard questions, and the ability to move from ideas to implementation.

Devon Wardlow’s career has given her an unusually broad view of that process. She has worked in federal government, private-sector public policy, and for nearly five years on Santa Barbara’s Planning Commission, serving as chair in 2025.

That career path matters. Policy looks very different when you are developing it, responding to regulation, working with local government, and then sitting on a public commission responsible for making decisions. Her Planning Commission record also gives voters something concrete to examine – including her work on housing and development questions facing Santa Barbara.

At this point in the campaign, I hope we can pivot toward that substance: the candidates’ records, experience, ideas, and what they propose to do for Santa Barbara.

That is the conversation voters deserve.

Christy Stillwell, Santa Barbara

Friedman for Mayor

I was born and raised in Santa Barbara and I have seen mayors come and go. As far as I am concerned, the most important quality of a mayor is judgment. It is judgment informed by heart, as well as based on critical and objective thinking, not beholden to any political party. In addition, such a person is willing to bring people together through compromise in order to find solutions which benefit us all. Eric Friedman is such a person and that is why I am supporting him for mayor.

Hadley Johnson, Santa Barbara

Let Science Speak Truth in MSD Election

Science is supposed to help drive good public policy. But in the campaign for seats on the Montecito Sanitary District Board, local politicians have taken scientific research, stripped it of its context, turned it on its head, and used it to create fear rather than understanding. 

I should know. The figure showing “wastewater discharge off Butterfly Beach” in recent campaign material is a figure I personally created from data collected as part of a study I led. The figure was created for a 2010 report to the State Water Resources Control Board, which I authored in my role as a research oceanographer at UCSB. 

That report describes a study of the Montecito effluent plume and concludes that the outfall was working as designed and that the discharged effluent was not shown to be responsible for adverse water quality off Butterfly Beach. 

Yet the campaign material presents the figure as though it shows wastewater being discharged onto Butterfly Beach. It does not. The figure shows ocean circulation patterns. It was created by a scientist as part of a scientific study – not by the environmental organization to which the campaign material attributes it. 

Even more troubling is the text accompanying the figure, which describes Montecito as having an “environmentally challenging outfall that now dumps secondary wastewater onto beautiful Butterfly Beach.” That is a very different message from the findings of the report from which the figure was taken. The report concluded that the outfall was functioning as designed and that the study did not show the discharged effluent to be responsible for adverse water quality off Butterfly Beach. 

Technical figures have meaning only when they are presented in the context, with the assumptions and purpose for which they were developed. Taking a figure from a scientific report, relabeling what it depicts, misrepresenting its source, and then using it to support a conclusion that the underlying study does not support is not informing the public about science. It is distorting it. 

The question is simple: Why would anyone seeking a seat on a local Board think misrepresenting scientific research is an appropriate way to inform voters about a public-policy decision? 

Montecito deserves candidates who will look at the evidence, understand what the evidence actually says, and make decisions based on the facts. The facts should drive the decision – not be turned on their head to support a decision that has already been made.

Carter Ohlmann

Support for Friedman

I have lived in Santa Barbara for nearly 60 years and cherish my home. This means I pay attention to local and state politics and follow the candidates up for election. Having heard Mr. Eric Friedman speak about his view of the current state of local government, and his agenda if elected, I found his opinions to be based on facts, which he has at his fingertips, and I appreciate his sober assessment of our city’s present state of affairs. He is a working man with his feet on the ground and I believe he is the mayor we should elect. 

Susan Shields

Enough Is Not a Strategy! Prevention Is.

I am heartbroken. And I am angry, very angry.

A former Cornell University student has filed a lawsuit alleging that seven members of a fraternity drugged and sexually assaulted her over approximately seven hours in October 2024. The lawsuit describes messages exchanged during the alleged assault, including one advertising “free p***y.”

Read those words again.

A young woman – a human being – reduced to something being offered around.

The allegations are horrifying. But what has stayed with me almost as much as what she says happened that night is what happened afterward.

For nearly two years, there were no criminal charges. Cornell says its investigation resulted in disciplinary action, including suspensions and expulsions, and disputes some claims about how students were disciplined. On September 28, after the woman’s civil lawsuit brought national attention to the case, the Tompkins County District Attorney announced that the criminal investigation would be reopened and the evidence presented to a grand jury.

There will be a legal process, and there should be. Allegations must be investigated thoroughly and fairly. But there is another question we cannot leave to prosecutors or universities:

Why do we keep waiting until after a woman or girl has been raped to decide this matters?

Why are we still treating sexual violence primarily as something to respond to rather than something we have a responsibility to prevent?

I have spent more than two decades working in relationship education and violence prevention. I founded ‘what is lOVE’ because young people deserve to be taught how to build healthy, safe, abuse-free relationships before they are expected to navigate intimacy, sex, power, boundaries, and conflict on their own.

Yet too often, we wait until college.

We hand an 18-year-old a laptop, require a short online training about consent, check a compliance box and tell ourselves we have educated them.

Clearly, that is not enough.

Consent should not be a 45-minute lesson someone clicks through during freshman orientation. It should be a conversation that begins long before college.

Young people need opportunities to understand boundaries, recognize coercion, communicate clearly, seek an enthusiastic yes, respect when someone changes their mind, understand that drinking or drugs can affect the ability to consent, challenge degrading attitudes about girls and women, intervene when a friend crosses a line, and know what healthy relationships look like.

And this is not wishful thinking.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies teaching healthy relationship skills to adolescents as one of its evidence-informed strategies for preventing sexual violence. Relationship education works to prevent violence!

Education does not eliminate every act of violence. No responsible prevention professional would make that claim. But we know enough to stop pretending there is nothing we can do until someone gets hurt.

And this cannot simply become another conversation about teaching girls how to protect themselves.

Girls have been carrying that burden for generations.

Watch your drink.

Don’t walk alone.

Text when you get home.

Don’t get too drunk.

Stay with your friends.

Hold your keys between your fingers.

Be careful what you wear.

Be careful who you trust.

What if we put at least as much energy into teaching young people not to abuse, exploit, coerce or violate another person?

What if we taught boys and young men that masculinity is not measured by conquest, dominance, or access to another person’s body?

What if we taught every young person that another person’s humanity matters more than social standing, fraternity, reputation, or staying enrolled at a university?

Nearly every woman I know has a story.

Sometimes it is her own. Sometimes it belongs to a sister, roommate, daughter or friend.

I have one too.

That should stop us in our tracks.

We cannot continue accepting sexual violence against women and girls as an inevitable part of growing up.

Parents need to talk about consent before their children leave for college. Schools need comprehensive, developmentally appropriate relationship education. Universities need more than compliance videos. Men and boys must be part of prevention. Community leaders need to invest in programs that teach the skills and social norms that make violence less likely to occur.

Here in Santa Barbara County, we have the opportunity to decide what kind of community we want to be.

Do we continue responding after a young person has already experienced violence?

Or do we invest earlier?

Enough cannot simply be something we say when another horrific story reaches the news.

Enough has to mean educating our children differently.

It has to mean expecting more from our institutions.

It has to mean teaching consent early and often.

It has to mean giving young people the skills to build relationships grounded in respect, boundaries, accountability and care.

And it has to mean investing in prevention with the same urgency we bring to responding after violence has already occurred.

Because our kids deserve more than our outrage after the fact.

They deserve our commitment to prevent it.

Christy Stillwell MA Psy, 
what is lOVE Executive Director

Explicit Reality

Carlos was humming a Neil Young tune when he rounded the corner at the rise that led to his den. At least he thought it was where he lived. He pricked his ears, stood on his hind legs and surveyed what he thought was his territory. Strange images flooded his ursine brain. Cleared of chaparral, bulldozer tracks crisscrossing barren ground, but oddly his den was in plain view. There, stapled to his door, was a note:

EXPLICIT REALTY

Where Surprises Become Reality!

Dear Neighbor,

It is with great pleasure we have sold the property adjacent to you. In preparation for the construction of our clients proposed 20,000-square-foot home we thought we would tidy up your yard for presentation purposes and offer to represent you in the selling of your own, older property. Our clients are planning an ADU for rental purposes along with their new home, and are willing to offer you a substantial, market ready deal you may find quite equitable. As you may already know, property prices in our area are skyrocketing and investors, such as your new neighbors, are clamoring to see returns on their investments.

If interested, please contact me.

Riff Raff, Subterfuge Group

Explicit Realty Division

Broker Associate

What in the blazes? Stunned, Carlos calmly assessed the message. His mother grew up here, his cubs were born in this den and now, some adjacent billionaire wanted to buy him out! He knew he was getting older and Medi Bear was not keeping up the rising cost of Bear Care. Connie Cougar sold and so did Frisky Fox, so why not him? He liked living here just fine, or used to, until the humans started in on this real estate craze during COVID. The area had become unrecognizable to him. Everyone was moving faster. People were running down wildlife with their speeding cars while being pushy drivers to boot.

No! He would stay and suffer the consequences if he could! Carlos went inside his den, put on his headphones, cued up The Grateful Dead’s, Bear’s Choice and danced!  

Carlos The Bear
Translated by Michael Edwards