Tracy Macuga Leads Public Defender’s Office in New Directions
She Inherited Department With Morale and Turnover Issues
Most days in the dawn hours, Tracy Macuga opens her office on the third floor of the courthouse and puts on Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Overlooking the Sunken Garden, Santa Barbara County’s Public Defender can see some of the city’s well-known homeless men huddled by the steps in the chilly mornings. These are just some of the folks we are here to protect, Macuga said, referring to one man by name.
Last October, Macuga was appointed to head the Public Defender’s Office, which has locations in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, and Lompoc and is made up of 39 attorneys and 32 staff members.
In recent years, the department had morale issues and considerable turnover. Macuga emerged, by many accounts, as a dynamic professional who is, as Santa Barbara Undersheriff Barney Melekian put it, “no-nonsense about her work.”
