Protecting Our Coast, Parks, and Water
Protecting the Place We Call Home
Santa Barbara's environment is not something I think about only in terms of policy. It is part of why so many of us love living here.
Our beaches, mountains, creeks, parks, and open spaces are part of our identity. Protecting them means keeping our water clean, caring for our public lands, preserving access to the coast, and making responsible decisions today so future generations can enjoy the same Santa Barbara we do.
Leave It Better Than You Found It
One of the lessons that stayed with me from Scouting is simple. Leave No Trace.
For me, that has always meant more than following rules while camping. It means taking responsibility for the places we use and leaving them as good as, or better than, we found them.
I have participated in beach cleanups and often find myself picking up more trash from the beach than anything I brought with me. I have also joined cleanups with the local Santa Barbara 4WD club, helping remove trash from areas that many people may never see.
These are small actions, but I believe they reflect something larger. Caring for our environment starts with personal responsibility. We should not expect someone else to pick up after us, protect our beaches, care for our parks, or preserve our wildlands. Those places belong to all of us, and we all have a responsibility to take care of them.
Water Conservation and Clean Energy
Santa Barbara does not have unlimited water or unlimited energy, and I believe the City should keep treating both that way.
I support the City's continued investment in water conservation, from the Water Conservation Strategic Plan update to programs like WaterSmart that give residents real time tools to track and manage their own water use. Conservation is one of the most cost effective ways to protect our water supply, and it deserves continued funding and outreach, especially to low income and vulnerable households who benefit most from equitable access to water saving programs.
I also support Santa Barbara Clean Energy, our City's community owned electricity provider. Southern California Edison still delivers electricity over its poles and wires, while Santa Barbara Clean Energy determines the electricity supply. Most customers are enrolled in its 100% Green option, which provides 100% carbon-free electricity. That means most of us are already using clean energy today, often without realizing it. I think the City should keep pressing forward on this, continuing to grow the program, protect the renewable default, and use programs like the Residential EV Program and home electrification workshops to help more residents make the switch to cleaner energy without pricing out working families.
Conservation and clean energy are not abstract goals to me. They are practical, common sense ways to protect what makes Santa Barbara livable, and they save people money while they do it.
Photo Credit: Santa Barbara 4WD Club
Clean Water, Healthy Creeks and Beaches
Santa Barbara's relationship with the ocean begins long before water reaches the beach. What enters our streets, storm drains, and creeks can ultimately reach the ocean, so protecting water quality means thinking about the entire system.
I support continued investment in clean water infrastructure, creek restoration, storm water management, wastewater systems, and programs that prevent pollution from reaching our beaches. These investments are not only environmental investments. They protect public health, recreation, wildlife, our tourism economy, and one of Santa Barbara's greatest public resources.
Protecting Parks and Wildlands
Our parks and surrounding wildlands give people something increasingly difficult to find in cities, which is places to simply be outside. They are places where families gather, children play, people exercise, dogs get walked, and neighbors meet one another. Our surrounding mountains and open spaces also provide habitat and help define what makes Santa Barbara different from so many other communities.
I want the City to continue protecting and maintaining these spaces while ensuring they remain accessible to the public. Environmental stewardship should not mean putting nature behind a fence. It should mean protecting these places while allowing people to responsibly experience and appreciate them.
Preparing Our Waterfront for the Future
Few places demonstrate the need for long term environmental planning better than Santa Barbara's waterfront.
The City is currently developing its Waterfront Adaptation Plan, looking at how we respond to coastal erosion, flooding, major wave events, and rising sea levels over roughly the next 30 years. We are already seeing the effects. East Beach has been narrowing, storms and large waves have damaged waterfront facilities, and flooding and erosion have resulted in costly repairs.
I support the City planning ahead rather than waiting until repeated emergencies force us into more expensive decisions.
The City is still evaluating options and has not yet chosen a final strategy. A draft plan with a recommended approach is expected in 2027. The ideas currently on the table range from quick, fixes like temporary flood barriers and drainage improvements, to larger long term measures such as adding sand, berms, and dunes to maintain wide sandy beaches, upgrading West Beach with better storm water drainage, strategically relocating some facilities at Leadbetter and East Beach further inland, protecting the Harbor Commercial Area, and building a safer, continuous walking and biking path along the waterfront.
I support the general direction of these efforts, prioritizing solutions that preserve our sandy beaches and public access, improve walking and biking connections, and protect critical infrastructure before it is repeatedly damaged, while working with the coastline where possible rather than against it. The largest and most expensive interventions should receive careful engineering, environmental, financial, and community review before the City commits to them.
The waterfront belongs to the entire community, and I believe the public deserves a real voice throughout this process, not just at the end of it. Decisions that could reshape our waterfront for decades should not be rushed, and as your Council member I will push to keep this process transparent and keep residents informed and engaged every step of the way.
Stewardship for the Next Generation
Environmental responsibility does not have to be complicated. Keep our water clean. Take care of our beaches. Maintain our parks. Protect our wildlands. Reduce waste. Prepare responsibly for the environmental challenges we know are coming. And when you visit somewhere beautiful, leave it better than you found it.
That is the approach I learned through Scouting, and it is an approach I still try to live by today. Santa Barbara has been entrusted with an extraordinary natural environment. Our responsibility is to take care of it while we are here and pass it on to the next generation in even better condition.