Snapshot: Brian Barnwell
Age: 57
Occupation: Real Estate Appraiser and Carpenter
Background: Vietnam Veteran; Community volunteer for Peabody Charter School, Santa Barbara Junior High, Pony League Baseball, Public Education Foundation, Elings Park, Community Youth Performing Arts Center, Rental Housing Mediation Task Force, Planning Commission.

LD: Why do you want to be on the city council?

BB: … I love the town very, very much. I have no desire for higher political office, which has freed me to a great degree from any of the ego that’s associated with running for these offices. I just want to help the city and protect the city and save it and keep it as I love it. And I think I can bring to that task my experience and do the kind of job that Santa Barbara really deserves. I don’t have a steep learning curve. I know how things are working and I’ve got some ideas about trying to continue to make it the great place it is. But it basically stems from a love of the town. I’ve been in love with the town since I first came here as a teenager. … This is the time; if I want to do anything I should do it.

LD: What issues would be your priorities if elected?

BB: If you’re running for city council and you don’t want to keep the place clean and beautiful, then you shouldn’t be running. … But having said that, I think the two largest issues facing us are housing and transportation. And I think they relate in the sense that housing is the issue and transportation is the key.

I don’t think either of those two issues can be handled anymore by the city of Santa Barbara alone, they need to be handled on a regional level

…I have a couple of pet projects – I’d like to see Pershing Park field turned into a legitimate ball field so that the Forrester’s could play there and maybe we could have visiting professional teams play there.

Because of my experience with the schools, I’d really like to establish some serious cooperation with the school district. The city has a huge planning staff with a lot of experience in land use and I know that the school district is pressed for funds … I would like to help them utilize their land better and maybe capitalize on some of the assets that they have that they don’t realize they have.

… We’ve got an outstanding Parks and Recreation Department … but I’d like to see some more skateboard parks. ... One of the hoteliers down at the beach has suggested we continue the lawn that’s on the east beach side of Stearns Wharf … west between Stearns Wharf and the Marina; so there’d be green grass in that section. … It’s underused, and it would nice if we could just put in 30-40 feet with grass.

… I want to preserve neighborhoods and bring the focus back on Santa Barbara. I know that we owe our very existence to visitors and tourists and that’s a given. But I want to bring the focus of the city back to the citizens who live and work here. And I want to restore some confidence in governance. I want people to feel as though they can depend upon consistency. And I think I can bring that, if anything else I can bring that because I have a long record of both familiarity with the city and as well as how the city government works.

LD: What do you appreciate most about Santa Barbara?

BB: I like the way Santa Barbara is a walking town. … We are blessed by our geography, steam, mountains and beach… Probably the heart and soul of my platform … is neighborhood preservation. Trying to hang onto that old-timey feeling, that walkability feeling, while at the same time recognizing we’ve got to do something about housing. We’ve got to build a little bit more.

LD: What would you most like to see change?

BB: I think regional cooperation is top on the list. And transportation, I’d like to institute that light rail. I’d like to get that bottleneck removed in the least offensive way.

LD: What about your views on spending?

BB: We’re going to have serious budget problems. … I am a big supporter of police and fire, and I believe that we’ve cut that budget to the bone. I’d have to be very much convinced that we need to cut it any further. Having said that I think probably water (is a priority). I see water as one of those enterprise funds that generates its own money through the rate payment on water, so water is kind of taken care of.

And then after that we get to the things that make life wonderful … Parks and Recreation and the planning department and the harbor and things like that. … They’re all going to have to bear equally the burden of finding ways to trim even more.

LD: Where does preserving the environment factor in your values?

BB: Transportation is a huge issue. There is this growing … awareness in the environmental community that it’s a big picture deal. Not just globally with the weather and the oceans and the air, but it’s also globally and regionally with jobs and housing.

And it doesn’t work to fight one individual housing project or one individual construction, without recognizing that growth will occur, that people will continue to move here, and they need to get back and forth from their house to their work. And that means that if you want to preserve the environment, you’ve got to get control, again, of transportation issues, and housing issues, and how is the land used most effectively to house the people.

And then how are transportation systems created to be most efficient in moving people.

LD: Which current or former city council member do you admire the most?

BB: Harriet Miller. She was a no BS woman. She was a practical idealist. I’ve never met anyone at any level of government that could run a meeting the way Harriet ran a meeting. She is efficient, a keen manager of time. She’s not hidebound by party politics or the way things have always been done. Plus she’s a really, really sweet lady.