The Charger Account attempted to reach out to current Goleta Mayor Paula Perotte who is running for reelection. However, due to scheduling conflicts, no meeting could be arranged for this article before the deadline.
With the upcoming United States General Municipal Election on Nov. 5, Goleta will be electing a mayor for a four-year term alongside two council members. The Charger Account sat down with mayoral candidate Richard Foster to discuss his vision for Goleta. Here are his responses, some of which have been edited for clarity and brevity.
What is the role of the Goleta Mayor?
[The] Goleta Mayor oversees the operations of the city in conjunction with the city manager, runs the board meetings for the city council as a whole, completes those meetings, is the voice and representative of the community for ribbon cuttings [and] openings, and hopefully helps to set policy for which direction [the] city goes in.
Can you tell me a bit about your background and what inspired you to run for Mayor?
I came out of construction as a general contractor for quite a few years. I also write; I have about 13 novels on Kindle, which makes me enough money to buy a cup of coffee every now and then. I’ve gone to city council meetings for a lot of years. Usually, there were four or five issues each year that really got me wound up enough to go speak at public comment, and along the way, different people have said, ‘Why don’t you run?’ and I was busy. I was working. I’m retired now, so A) I have time for it, and B) I’m very concerned about the direction they’re going with their capital improvement project under funding.
What unique perspectives or skills do you bring to the role of Mayor that set you apart from your opponent?
I have a completely different view in terms of spending policies for the city. I believe that we need to be taking care of our infrastructure first. We have a tendency in our city to do fun, boutique projects, like a train station. It’s $32 million, but we’re not building a fire station out in outer Goleta. That’s probably the biggest issue between us in terms of where we’re going. I don’t want the city to crank up more debt. I don’t want to see a vertical JPA, which is a way to issue bonds, leaving your generation with debt to pay for what we didn’t take care of at this time. And so that’s the biggest issue: what we spend money on, and how we’re spending money.
What do you see as the biggest challenges facing Goleta right now, and how do you plan to address them?
The biggest issue is capital improvement projects, which have a five year plan. We have $140 million that’s not funded, and there’s talk, ‘Maybe we can get a grant, maybe we can borrow money.’ Overall, there’s $470 million of capital improvement projects that are underfunded, where we take money for a grant and we agree to build it, no matter what the cost. And then, as time goes on, the cost keeps skyrocketing, but you’re still obligated to build it. We have, for example, the San Jose bike path went from $20 million in grants, $2 million from the city, to $20 million in grants and $30 million from the city. We can’t actually afford that, so my goal would be to cancel some of the grant projects, return the money, and long term, that frees up more money to start doing infrastructure on roads which are grossly underfunded.
Affordable housing is a pressing issue for many. What specific policies would you support to improve housing affordability in Goleta?
One of the things is, people talk affordable housing. There’s not economically affordable housing. One thing I think we could do is we could look at ADUs and bonus density. If a developer has 20 percent inclusionary, they can go almost up to 50 percent over what they’re zoned for to include more housing. I think we should have some kind of rent control on those where the developer looks at and goes, well, maybe I won’t build it, but if I do build it, it’s actually going to be something that’s economically affordable. Goleta has a good record of building housing. Over the last 20 years, we’ve built enough housing for our growth. We don’t have economically affordable housing. Rents are off the charts. There’s no easy answer for that to tell you the truth.
Environmental preservation is essential to many Goleta residents. How would you balance development with protecting our natural resources?
That’s one issue of the housing element from the state is that they start mandating [that] you have to find places to put housing. I think we need to do two things. One, the county told us the Glen Annie Golf Course shouldn’t be in the city 20 years ago because we would urbanize it. Now, they want to urbanize it, and they may continue just doing that right down Cathedral Oaks in different parcels. That is a problem we need to push back on. And we’re probably gonna have to look at going higher and denser in certain areas. Develop it so that if we want to preserve agricultural land outside the city, because I support a Measure G. Then, we’re going to have to figure out ways to do it more and, plus, higher and denser tends to be cheaper per square foot than, say, residential single family, which no longer exists really.
How do you plan to engage with young people and ensure their voices are represented in city decisions?
Hopefully, young people engage more with the city. We have a lot of people who don’t know, adults, too, but there’s public comment before every meeting, and somebody is free to come in and speak for three minutes on any subject that’s not on the agenda for that day, which is a great way to get your concerns out to people. People can send emails and stuff. The city is doing a pretty good job with outreach, but it’s really a matter of students that need to get involved.
What role do you believe transparency and public input should play in your administration, and how would you promote these values?
I think public input is very important, which, as I said, unfortunately, we don’t always have a lot of public input. There’s quite a bit of letter writing, but all you have to do is have a hot topic, and the City Hall is packed with people. It’d be nice to see more engagement that way along the way. I think as far as transparency goes, the city overall does a pretty good job right now getting information out through their website. Kelly Hoover, our Information Director, does put a lot of things out. They do coffee socials for people, where people can engage with city council members. So on that score, I think our city is doing pretty well.
What role do you see the city playing in supporting local schools and educational opportunities for young people?
We’re kind of separate entities. I mean, the city has no control, pretty much, over what the school district does. I think that they do some outreach where students can get involved in commissions, which is sort of an interface between the two.The city could help the schools simply by starting to try and address some of the traffic issues in terms of accessibility here. Facilitating access to schools, I think, is one of the more important things the city can get involved in, pressing MTD for more frequent and better bus service to the destination schools.
If elected, would you develop initiatives that focus on mental health resources for youth in our community?
Not that I have developed. We certainly have mental health things. I support spending more money on mental health. I mean, obviously our homeless problem, a large proportion of that population has psychiatric difficulties. I think that probably for the younger generation, the issue of fentanyl and drugs, especially if there’s a level of depression and despondency, becomes attractive. I don’t know what program the city could do, but awareness about depression. If the school district had anything they wanted city support with, I would certainly support that.
What message would you like to leave with young voters who may be new to the voting process?
Vote. It’s easy. I mean, a lot of the time people will say, ‘Oh, yeah, I support this. I support that.’ And then when it comes time to vote, they don’t get around to it. Mail-in ballots certainly help the turnout on that; you don’t have to go stand in line. I’d also say get engaged. It’s not just the voting once every two years or every four years, depending which the election is. It’s a matter of showing up and speaking up, following on the subject matter. There is a high level of ignorance about what goes on. Keep the chin up. Get out and vote and make your voice heard.
Edited Nov. 4, 2024, for clarity.
