GARY
JANEK
MICHAELS

The stark divide: Santa Maria has become a tale of two cities — the shiny, developer-built Betteravia commercial district, while much of the rest of our community, especially the Gateway District, is left dilapidated and in need of real investment.

Neighborhood packing and ADUs: Because City Hall has failed to build dense, vibrant housing downtown, our quiet neighborhoods are bearing the burden instead, with ADUs popping up on nearly every block.

Quality of life and the parking crisis: Unchecked neighborhood packing has created real parking shortages and degraded quality of life, making an aggressive push to fix the Gateway District all the more urgent.

21 years of failure downtown: Launched back in 2005, the Downtown Revitalization Plan has dragged on for two decades. Today's “big idea” is simply handing the old Sears and Mervyn’s buildings to a private developer — a copy-paste plan, not a vision for Santa Maria.

Underfunded and behind the curve: This entire revitalization project is only 10% financed by the city, with 90% left to private developers — a City Hall that never gets ahead of the curve.

Crumbling foundations kill job growth: We can't expect major employers to open offices or warehouses here if we don't take pride in our own streets. Cleaning up the Gateway District comes first.

Suffocating local business: High city fees and bureaucratic red tape make it too difficult for new employers to open a warehouse or office here. Santa Maria must move from reactive management to a proactive economic development strategy.

The ag-tech deficit: Santa Maria is a world-class agricultural community but hosts just four ag-tech companies when it should have forty. Actively recruiting modern industries is how we solve unaffordability — higher wages, a bigger tax base, and jobs that close the gap between local income and cost of living.

Passive leadership: Our leaders need to stop waiting for business to come to them. We'll partner with the Chamber of Commerce and go straight to industry hubs — like the World Ag Expo in Tulare — to recruit ag-tech entrepreneurs to Santa Maria.

Fixing the basics first: Just like a homeowner ignoring a leaky roof until the ceiling collapses, City Hall's deferred maintenance has forced emergency cuts to District 1 parks and public safety while utility bills climb.

The 15% and 1-to-1 mandates: Lock in at least 15% of city revenue strictly for infrastructure maintenance, and mandate a 1-to-1 replacement rate on aging city assets, so we never fall behind the curve again.

Taking back the checkbook: After blowing through our LEAF savings reserve and hiding behind accounting errors, City Hall can't be left to grade its own homework. We need an independent Citizens Oversight Committee made up of local residents.

An economic watchdog: This committee will audit downtown revitalization spending, verify that fee reductions for new businesses actually deliver local jobs, and hold City Hall accountable for the Gateway District and neighborhood quality of life.

Our youth programs should never be treated as lines on a chopping block. City Hall's recent proposal to shut down the Paul Nelson Aquatic Center for six months out of the year is a dire symptom of a broken financial model — forcing our children out of safe, healthy activities just to patch a budget deficit.

We don't have to choose between fiscal solvency and our kids. Cities like Merced and San Francisco use formalized Joint-Use Agreements with local school districts — unlocking existing school infrastructure on weekends and sharing maintenance costs — to protect recreation spaces during lean fiscal times.

Nashville and Washington, D.C. show that municipal budgets can proactively fund academic support too, allocating local dollars directly into K-12 high-impact tutoring programs alongside state learning-recovery grants and university work-study partnerships.

Gary's campaign is committed to bringing these exact blueprints to Santa Maria — combining public safety, school-district resource sharing, and dedicated K-12 tutoring into one strategy, so recreation centers stay open, neighborhoods stay safe, and students get the support they need to thrive.

As reported by Noozhawk and Santa Maria Times.