A career built on service, media, and small business

I am running as a city hall disrupter because our families deserve a city government that actively invests in their future, not one that merely manages decline. For over fifty years, Santa Maria has survived economic downturns and state budget raids through a cycle of reactive, short-term financial patching. But survival is no longer enough. Today, under the weight of rising inflation and compounding regulations from Sacramento, these temporary fixes are failing us. I am running to break this cycle. The city’s identity has been micro-managed by Sacramento politicians and out-of-touch urban planners who treat our community as nothing more than a checkbox for their housing quotas. I am running to restore local control, protect our unique community identity, and ensure that decisions about Santa Maria’s growth are made right here by the people who live here—not by bureaucrats hundreds of miles away. Together, we will reinvent our local economy, champion fiscal responsibility, and transform Santa Maria from an afterthought into a Central Coast leader.

I have watched the competitive gap between Santa Maria and some other Central Coast cities widen since COVID. I arrived 21 years ago in Santa Maria in 2005 to launch a second career with Comcast Cable, contributing to the telecom industry’s build-out of the fiber-optic super information highway. In 2013, I bought a home here and moved my elderly parents from Chicago to care for them. They have since passed away, but I still live in the house located in District 1. I am currently a small business owner, a businessman and a consultant.

Fewer than five cities in California’s modern history have faced a multi-million-dollar structural deficit while simultaneously uncovering a massive baseline accounting error.

“On August 4, while Santa Maria was trapped in a historic financial crisis, City Hall chose to look out for themselves. In a split vote, councilmembers Gloria Flores and Maribel Aguilera pushed through a pay raise—with Flores even trying to downplay the impact by calling it ‘only’ a 17% increase. The truth is they handed themselves a 20% stipend bump while claiming the city can afford it. This is happening while we face a crushing $15.1 million structural deficit and a massive ledger error. To justify stuffing their own pockets, city staff compared their salaries to wealthy Santa Barbara. It is the ultimate example of a bureaucrat-first governance model: they make the mathematical blunders, they cut our neighborhood services, and then they vote themselves a raise while handing you the bill through soaring utility rates.”

On April 7, the city council appointed Ricardo Batalla to maintain the status quo. Despite promises of a structured Q&A session, the council delayed the item to the end of the night to avoid public comment but limited candidates to a strict three-minute public speech.

Santa Maria is trapped in a severe, compounding fiscal crisis. City Hall has completely blown through most of our $22.7 million LEAF savings reserve to mask an ongoing $15.1 million structural deficit. Worse, an accounting disaster artificially overstated city revenues. This compounding mismanagement forced an emergency $16.9 million budget cut that directly targets District 1, freezing ten police officer positions, stripping $600,000 from Preisker Park pond repairs, delaying $600,000 for Simas Field ADA compliance, and halting $1.3 million in sports lighting for Elks Field. Meanwhile, local families are being nickel-and-dimed through soaring water and trash bills.

For nearly fifty years, Santa Maria has bounced from one temporary fiscal band-aid to another—chasing volatile sales tax streams, hiking user fees, and deferring vital road maintenance every time Sacramento raids our budget or inflation spikes. The old style of revenue management is completely broken. We cannot continue to manage decline, burn through our emergency savings to mask structural deficits, and then turn around and ask struggling families to bail out administrative errors through endless sales tax hikes.

“As your First District Councilman, my approach to your tax dollars will match the absolute frugality of Governor Jerry Brown’s ‘counting paper clips’ metaphor. I will inspect every line item, challenge every unnecessary cost, and ensure City Hall respects your hard-earned money.”

— Gary Janek Michaels