‘Change agent’ Monte Wilson cruising in his own lane in bid for Santa Barbara City Council

Monte Wilson’s career path has a duality to it.

On one side, his resume showcases around 30 years of experience working in tech. He was one of the earliest employees for Oracle, working his way up to an executive position. 

But after returning to his wife Maria’s hometown of Santa Barbara to lead a family-oriented life, his work couldn’t be more different. He helps Maria run her State Street small business “The Painted Cabernet,” and works with children-focused nonprofits.

“I’m not ready to retire yet,” Wilson said. “I feel like I can give back to the city of Santa Barbara.”

That conviction has led him to run for City Council. Wilson is one of four candidates running to fill mayoral candidate Kristen Sneddon’s contested District 4 seat. He’s been endorsed by Mayor Randy Rowse, former police and fire chiefs Barney Melekian and Pat McElroy and the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce.

Wilson said he’s different because he’s an independent, the only one in the race.

“I’m exhausted by the political divisiveness in this country,” Wilson said. “I don’t want somebody calling me up and saying ‘hey you agreed to this platform, why aren’t you doing it?’ I don’t want to be put in that situation.”

On the issues, Wilson opposes the city’s new rent stabilization ordinance. He wants to bring cars back to State Street, citing the direct impacts he’s observed from The Painted Cabernet.

Wilson says he has what it takes to run a budget on both ends of the spectrum — large corporations and small businesses — thanks to the path his career has taken. He describes his experience as “scar tissue” in it all.

He’s watched the city’s sales tax decline over the years, pointing to upper State Street surpassing downtown State in the amount of money brought in. It’s a bad sign, he says.

“We’ve forgotten how to make money,” Wilson said. “We need to increase the amount of economic activity downtown. Stimulating the economy in those areas to get the income back up where it belongs.”

As a State Street small business owner, Wilson has a few ideas as to why economic activity on State Street is on the decline. He says cars need to come back, and permitting processes need to be quicker. He described going through months of trouble just to try to change the location of a sink in the Painted Cabernet.

Though Wilson is taking the campaign trail very seriously, having raised over $70,000 so far and still knocking on doors, he said this is the first and last time he’ll run for office. But even if he isn’t elected, he said he still wants to host community meetings to hear from people.

“The ordinance for State Street and the other one for rent, they never should have had to happen,” Wilson said. “And I think it’s because the City Council turned a deaf ear to listening.”

Affordable housing is a personal issue for Wilson. He watched his son and grandchildren have to move away because they couldn’t afford to live in Santa Barbara. His daughter wants to stay, but Wilson said she’s struggling to. 

“She’s kind of my litmus test on are we doing things right, or are we doing things wrong,” Wilson said. “My goal is to keep people here.”

Rent stabilization isn’t going to make that happen, in Wilson’s opinion. Instead, he thinks the city needs to leverage public land, and make it more feasible to build on it. New affordable housing is being hamstrung by the amount of local commissions and boards required to approve a development proposal, Wilson said.

For renters, Wilson said the city must figure out how to encourage landlords to charge lower initial rents to incoming tenants and subsidize some of them. He feels the numbers prove that policies like rent stabilization are ineffective.

“I’m a data geek, and I’ve studied things,” Wilson said. “The numbers just don’t support it. We actually end up with something that has quite the opposite impact.”

He thinks such policy is “punitive,” saying that punishing property owners who are trying to run their business is counterproductive.

“I’m the first one to admit it’s way too expensive, that’s why my son left,” Wilson said. “But the rent ordinance is not the right way to do it.”

This experience with his son extends deeper into his campaign goals — Wilson has a vision of Santa Barbara where the youth have a future in the town they grew up in. He says it’s his “passion project.”

Santa Barbara’s three public high schools, Dos Pueblos, San Marcos and Santa Barbara High all have “academy programs” where high school students can focus their studies and take unique classes. For example, Dos Pueblos has an engineering academy and San Marcos has a health career academy.

Wilson wants to leverage these academies by creating direct trade-school pathways in Santa Barbara where students can build real world skills. The trade school could then partner with local businesses to set up students with jobs after high school, in an alternative to a four-year college program.

“We could create this ecosystem where people can see out a vision of how they can stay in Santa Barbara throughout their career,” Wilson said.

In a different attempt to connect with the youth, or at least with their shortening attention spans, Wilson has been very active on social media.

He talks to viewers while walking on State Street or along the beach with his dog Benny by his side. He also brought his followers along for an investigation into “who is stealing Monte’s signs?” eventually blaming Bigfoot.

“Sometimes, you just gotta laugh,” Wilson said. “I’m trying to keep it entertaining and informative.”

The race for District 4 is one of the most competitive in the city. Wilson is up against Planning Commissioner Devon Wardlow, attorney and former city councilman Jason Dominguez and retired Coca-Cola sustainability executive Genevieve Taft-Vazquez. Wilson said he’s trying to stay out of any drama in the contest and wants to just focus on political issues

He sent out an email to all his opponents early on and told them he’d never include anything negative about them in his campaign.

“Every one of them replied back and said absolutely,” he said. 

Wilson said his political independence, background with large budgets and his track record of transforming huge companies like Oracle and Adobe is enough to distinguish him.

“I’ve been able to be a change agent and show results for it,” Wilson said. “That’s not easy to do.”

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