Snapshot: Robert Cawley
Age: 58
Occupation: Owner, The Yoga Studio
Background: UCSB, Environmental Studies Degree; Peace Corp.

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

RC: It goes way back to 9/11 … I heard Ralph Nader out at UCSB and he said if you want to make a change, if you want to make a difference, you have to get involved. … The more I look into our city, the more I see why I am running. … I’m really running as a private citizen. I’ve met with the mayor, every department head, except for airports … I’ve been probably putting 40 to 50 hours a week into meetings and research and talking to people.

… The city spent about $40 million for a homeless shelter at Cacique Street, Transition House, Salvation Army and Rescue Mission … and then they turn around and they only give the homeless shelter about $60,000 a year. … The money that comes into the city is for everybody, not just for the Downtown Organization or the people like that.

LD: So what would your plan be to help the homeless?

RC: My plan would be to give this Bob Hansen (council candidate and homeless advocate) a little job. He knows what they need or what they want.

LD: How would you pay for these programs?

RC: Freeze all salaries and benefits for a year. What I would trade for that is if you have a guaranteed raise given to you in time off. … Say you had a 5 percent raise coming; you’d get 5 percent off (1 day per month). The result would be less traffic, time for family, alternative transportation. The city has been using its reserves, so there is no money. The tourists are pretty much maxed out; so there’s not going to be a whole lot more money coming from that.

LD: What would be your priorities if elected?

RC: I’d take care of the homeless folks. That’s just such bad karma. … I think if they had $600,000 a year they could really make strides.

Second on my list would be this Granada parking garage. … I would like to put that on hold, that’s redevelopment money intertwining all that is that part of Granada Performing Arts Center. … They want to build this garage that will destroy more of our views. It’s fine to have all these things, performing arts and this and that, but not when you have citizens living on the street. I just want it that everybody gets a fair shake.

LD: What do you think about the arguments that a project like this would actually help revitalize that part of downtown and bring more money into the city to help with social programs?

RC: You know they’ve been shoving that down our throats for so many years, patting themselves on the back for making State Street so nice. State Street’s a wonderful thing, but I don’t want to walk down lower State Street at night. There are 36 bars down there and it’s alcohol-driven. … The cost to society from this money that they say they bring in. … They do not have the overall concern for the city. … On the one hand, it’s what are you going to do about Highway 101 and all that traffic, and no one will step up and say here’s what we have to do, we have to scale back the special events that the city promotes every year.

During Fiesta, police officers put 147 people in jail, issued 509 misdemeanor tickets, 311 citations to errant drivers and pedestrians, and 278 parking tickets. What do you think that costs in police time?

… All of these things were wonderful in their inception; they were designed for people in the community to have a good time. Because the city so heavily promotes it with advertising money, they say 80,000 people attended the Summer Solstice Parade. That’s a lot of traffic, that’s a lot of pollution, that’s a lot of garbage. It all costs money. Those things are about maxed out. They have to start going backwards a little bit. …You just don’t advertise them as heavily. … (Police) Chief Sanchez … did say 80 percent of these are alcohol related. … We’re subsidizing the liquor industry.

LD: What do you appreciate most about Santa Barbara?

RC: The view of the ocean. You’ve got ocean, mountains, anything you want to do here. We’ve got art, artists, great food, you can get all of the schooling you want here, there are six colleges. … All of these problems, everybody has to pitch in. People that have this community time, give them a job. They’re just trying to find something to do. Work on the “Green Team” as a way to work into a job with the city street cleanup – stir up more toxins than they pick up sometimes. … No drive days – that’d be nice. A day without electricity, you find other things to do.

LD: How would you attack the problem of the jobs/housing balance in our town?

RC: There’s obviously an imbalance, a schoolteacher starts at $38,000 a year and an affordable apartment is $1,600 a month, so that’s 2/3 of your pay right there just to live in this town. I say you’ve got to free up some money, some redevelopment money, there’s a lot of money there to start with, and put those people that know what they’re doing to work with it. We have incredible amount of resources in this town, there’s every kind of expertise that we do need, it’s a matter of channeling it in the right direction. Start with condensing your nonprofits. I think that’s something I could get involved in.