The six candidates running for Goleta City Council seats spoke about housing, Old Town and the library closure at Thursday night's election forum.
Incumbent Mayor Paula Perotte and city Councilmember Stuart Kasdin seek to be re-elected against political newcomers Richard Foster and Eric Gordon, meanwhile Jennifer Smith and Ethan Woodill are facing off for the open District 3 seat.
The candidates said state housing mandates are not the solution to the city's housing crisis, but most argued that the city does need affordable housing.
"We are holding onto property that's commercial and industrial zoned for tech businesses that we don't even have the housing for in the first place," said Woodill, a candidate for District 3. "These properties need to be rezoned to mixed use, commercial, residential and commercial, industrial."
Smith, the other candidate for District 3, said that state housing mandates don't factor in people of all income levels.
She noted that as a city planning commissioner, she supported a housing policy that calls for 20% of rental units in large projects to be deed-restricted affordable for low-income and moderate-income people.
"These are definite challenges for our community, but we need to do what we can and what's within our control to ensure that the housing meets the needs of our residents," Smith said.
District 4 candidate Gordon said the city should push back on the state mandates and that infrastructure needs to be prioritized.
"They're putting the cart before the horse," Gordon said. "They're trying to build the housing, and they're not building the infrastructure. They're not building the roads, the parking, the electric, the water supply; all of these things need to come before you put in a lot of houses."
Perotte, running for another term as mayor, said that the mandates are a cookie cutter approach that doesn't work for Goleta but that legally, there's not much that they can do.
"We can't fight it, we've looked at other cities that have and have lost a lot of money, millions of dollars in legal fees," Perotte said. "We can't do that, and it would be irresponsible of us; although what we can do is make sure that we hold developers to maximizing the affordables we want but minimize the impact that those affordables will have on our community."
When asked how the candidates would address the concerns of businesses impacted by the Old Town restriping project, Perotte said the city has done a lot for the area by adding new parks and flashing beacons for pedestrians.
Perotte argued that once construction is done, businesses will be better off because there will be more parking and they will be out of the flood zone.
"The widening of San Jose Creek (bridge) means they will now not be in a floodplain, and that will decrease their insurance," Perotte said. "This helps not only businesses, it helps the residents. This project was not to do damage to Old Town. We wanted to help Old Town and invest in Old Town."
Foster, a candidate for mayor, argued that the city should restripe the center lane on the eastern end of Old Town to allow people to turn anywhere they want. Right now, left turns are restricted in parts of Old Town.
"I'm not talking about everything, I'm just talking about one section that will help business," Foster said. "Telling businesses to wait and see what it looks like next March is not an answer to help them."
The candidates also discussed the upcoming two-year closure of the Goleta Valley Library, and where services should go in the meantime.
Gordon, running for District 4, said the building should have been regularly maintained so that it wouldn't have to close for two years and that the city shouldn't spend more than what's necessary on the project.
"If you don't have the money, then you're going to have to do without a library for two years," Gordon said. "I'm sorry, you have to do maintenance to buildings. This is part of a yearly budget that you should have had in place the entire time. For 50 years, you should have been making these adjustments to the building and doing this on a regular basis."
Kasdin, running for re-election in District 4, argued that it's not an issue of failed maintenance but that the project is about making necessary upgrades to the facility.
People working on the said it's not safe to keep the library open during construction, he said. Kasdin added that the city needs to make sure programming and books will still be available to residents.
"We'll look at different physical locations, whether in the community center or other locations, but we know what the goal is, and we're going to try and figure out a way that's cost effective in order to accomplish those goals that we have in mind," Kasdin said. "It'll be a limited period of time, and we'll have a great library as a result afterwards."
Thursday's forum was hosted by the League of Women Voters Santa Barbara at the Goleta Union School District at 401 N Fairview Ave., and was livestreamed by TV Santa Barbara.