More than 22 years after bowing out of the political arena, former Santa Barbara mayor and four-term councilmember Hal Conklin announced he’s making another run at the city’s top post in the upcoming November election. He kicked off his campaign Monday with a short speech and meet and greet alongside his wife, Haley, at the Mesa Café a few blocks from their home.
The crowd of two dozen or so supporters cheered at his slogan — “Hal Yes” — and called Conklin a longtime community leader with friends on both sides of the aisle who has a knack for getting things done. “When the federal government is paralyzed by saying no to everything and to one another,” said Conklin, “Santa Barbara could become a model of a city that knows how to say yes.”
City Hall lacks both the perspective and the vision to protect Santa Barbara’s history and keep it moving in the right direction, Conklin declared. “The institutional memory of Santa Barbara is disappearing. Leadership really requires having some knowledge not only of what is to come and what is, but what has been before.” And long gone are the days when the city was considered a vanguard of environmental activism, continued Conklin, a former head of the Community Environmental Council (CEC) and U.S.A. Green Communities. “The city has been resting on its laurels for years.”