The Race for Santa Barbara City’s Second District
Five Candidates Run to Represent the Mesa and the Westside
There’s something improbable — miraculous, even — about the Mesa, the heart and soul of Santa Barbara city’s District 2. Sprawling from Las Positas Road to the harbor, it boasts more beachfront and park space than anywhere in town. In the city’s early days, the Mesa was covered in lima bean fields, and then in rows of oil derricks. But by the end of World War II, the oil fields had gone dry, and swatches of modest matchbox homes began spreading over the Mesa on small suburban lots with multimillion-dollar views.
To the extent the California Dream — middle-class homeownership coupled with affordable higher education — is still alive in Santa Barbara, it lives on the Mesa. About 40 percent of households make between $75,000 and $200,000 a year. In this unhinged economy, that’s middle class. Nearly 70 percent of its residents live in single-family homes; a lucky 56 percent are owners. Mesa kids attend one of three district elementary schools. Santa Barbara City College, a world-class community college, has a campus overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and its tuition is free to any student graduating from a high school in its district.
And the waves aren’t terrible, either.
