For Santa Barbara City Council candidate Ian Baucke, age is just a number

When Ian Baucke was born, people were partying like it was 1999 — because it was.

The world didn’t end, but the Y2K baby Baucke certainly became a disruptor.

The Santa Barbara native graduated from George Washinton University, works as an aide for state Senate President pro Tempore Monique Limón, is chair of the city’s Transportation and Circulation Committee and serves on the board of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party.

Oh yeah, and his father is on the Santa Barbara Planning Commission.

Baucke, a 27-year-old policy wonk and whiz kid, is now making his next big move, looking to serve on the Santa Barbara City Council in District 5.

Don’t call this Gen-Zer apathetic. 

“A lot of people my age are very jaded, and they feel like the system is basically rigged against them and we’re going to be stuck with the consequences,” Baucke said. “I like to be optimistic.”  

Baucke said the Santa Barbara he grew up in is slipping out of reach, in terms of affordability. He is seething with impatience to do something about it — so he’s decided to take matters into his own hands.

“We’ll always have wealth and the rich and famous, but we also need to be a town where working-class folks, who we depend on to keep this city running, are also able to live here and ideally build a path towards homeownership and multigenerational wealth and security,” Baucke said.

Baucke is running against James Zurlinden, a media buyer and former chef, and Cevin Cathell, a film producer.

Baucke first made a name for himself locally as a member of StrongTowns Santa Barbara, a bicycle and pedestrian advocacy group that supports the State Street Master Plan and no cars on downtown State Street until the Master Plan is completed.

He also has vocally supported the city’s rent stabilization ordinance and affordable housing projects downtown.

District 5 consists mostly of the single-family home neighborhoods of San Roque, Upper State and Samarkand.

Baucke has outraised Cathell and Zurlinden by $9,266 and $16,781, respectively. He has also racked up endorsements from 43 community leaders and 18 organizations.

Baucke is a local kid.

He was raised in the Hidden Valley neighborhood of Santa Barbara. He attended schools, however, all over the region, including Washington Elementary on the Mesa, Open Alternative School in San Roque, Santa Barbara Junior High School and San Marcos High School.

“I kind of got to grow up across the city and get to know the community, the neighborhoods,” Baucke said. “That’s what I love about Santa Barbara. It’s not just what you see on a postcard. There’s real depth and diversity, and I think that’s awesome.”

A self-confessed lover of history and global affairs, Baucke set out for the nation’s capital to attend George Washington University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s in political management. Four months into his master’s program, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and he returned home during what became the spring break that never ended.

During the pandemic, Baucke interned for Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, while home in Santa Barbara. In addition, he began getting involved in local politics, realizing quickly the impact he could make locally.

But a new job in D.C. was calling, and Baucke answered. He packed up his things and moved back to D.C. in 2022 to do research in intelligence policy for a corporate advisory firm. Two years later, his partner Hannah Cohen graduated from college and together they decided to make the move back to Santa Barbara.

“You grow up here and you don’t realize how lucky you are,” Baucke said. “You really don’t, until you live somewhere else.”

Since 2024, Baucke has been working as a district representative for Senate Pro Tempore Monique Limón. Some of his campaign critics have suggested he would have a conflict of interest working for a state official and serving on the City Council, but Baucke disagrees.

“You’ve just got to be transparent about what hat you’re wearing, but if I’m on the city council, I will be, just as I have been the past few years, very honest about where I stand on things,” Baucke said.

As an advocate from Strong Towns Santa Barbara — the local chapter of a national coalition, which has had an increasing public voice on city issues — Baucke supported efforts to transform State Street into a bicycle- and pedestrian-centered downtown corridor.

Baucke has been a vocal supporter of the State Street Master Plan because he says it moves the city forward on an issue it has stalled on for nearly six years, and creates the flexibility for cars on State Street.  

“There’s no unanimity, no total consensus amongst any demographic in the community, including among State Street business owners,” Baucke said of the master plan. “At a certain point, we do have to move forward. It would be irresponsible to keep dragging this back and reducing it to ‘cars or no cars.’”

The State Street Baucke said he wants is a “safe, vibrant and welcoming street that people of all ages and levels of ability are able to enjoy,” rejecting the framing of the master plan as a debate over cars.

On finding solutions to address affordable housing, Baucke takes an “all of the above” approach, seeing the issue as key to preserving the diversity of Santa Barbara.

“It’s getting harder and harder every year for working class people to live here,” Baucke said. “Even folks who were fortunate enough to own and buy a home back in the 50s and 60s.”

He supports the city’s rent stabilization ordinance to cap rent at 60% of CPI, building larger housing developments downtown or in mixed use business corridors and making it easier to build affordable dwelling units. The State Street Master Plan, he said, is essential to getting more housing built downtown.

 “We can’t build new subdivisions like they were back in the day — hundreds of new homes available at once,” Baucke said. “But also, we don’t want to head in the direction of Monaco or Carmel even, which used to be a real town, and it is now basically a Disneyland.

“I don’t want us to become a theme park or like a museum to a city that used to be, and everybody who we rely on has to commute.”  

Although Baucke would be one of the youngest council members ever, behind current councilwoman Wendy Santamaria and former councilman Das Williams, he sees his age as an asset, not a detriment.

“We need people who are going to work with a group of council members as a team, to get stuff done, and think for the long-term.” Baucke said. “I’m going to be here in 30 years. This is where my family lives, this is where I hope to have my future family and I want to be around for the positive impacts that the next council could do if we get our act together and work together well.”

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