Edhat Staff
[Disclaimer as of 2/28/22: At the request of LA Magazine, their articles have been retracted and any associated links have been removed. For further information read our latest update here. The original article is available in its entirety below.]
By edhat staff
Santa Barbara residents are reeling from a new investigative article exposing potential corruption, or at least, deeply concerning behavior from city officials.
Los Angeles Magazine published an article Friday by Mitchell Kriegman focused on one city employee who held a variety of titles raising many eyebrows.
The employee in question is Anthony Wagner. He arrived in 2017 from San Diego as the Public Information Officer (PIO) for the Santa Barbara Police Department Public at the behest of former Police Chief and fellow San Diegoan Lori Luhnow.
Wagner has been accused of flashing a badge and bullying an Eastside business owner, even though Wagner is not a sworn police officer.
Despite complaints, in a short amount of time Wagner obtained other coveted positions such as PIO to Mayor Cathy Murrillo and the point person who awarded cannabis dispensary licenses for the city.
More controversy swirled around the cannabis licenses as San Diego friends of Wagner’s were able to secure one of the eight highly desirable cannabis dispensary licenses before promptly flipping the license and selling it for a profit to a Florida-based company.
Councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez appears to be the only official who has sounded the alarm on Wagner prompting an investigation that was conducted internally by the people he works with and for.
Not to mention, the article points out the inflated salaries of high-ranking city officials, some earning more than California’s Governor and officials in Los Angeles with the same title.
While this article is surely making city employees and politicians sweat, it appears to be angering local tax-paying residents. Will anything be done or properly investigated? That remains to be seen but so far nothing has been done.
On Saturday, Santa Barbara City Mayoral candidate James Joyce sent a press release calling for an independent investigation into Wagner, his hiring, and his influence on city offices. Joyce called the article “deeply concerning” and stated transparency is the key to better local government and that all facts in this matter should be made public.
Joyce commended Councilmember Gutierrez for speaking up and admonished Mayor Murillo for the “allowed and possibly even encouraged flagrant abuses of power” by Wagner.
“I am calling for a referral to the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury for an independent investigation into these matters, and specifically the distribution of cannabis licenses in the city. A transparent government is a good government and what happened here is just a clear example of bad government. Mr. Wagner is a clear cut example of how community relations can go awry and wind up being counter-productive: we need to do better,” said Joyce.
These are just a few of the concerning issues raised in this article, but you can read it in full at lamag.com.
Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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Nick Welsh can never make himself question Cathy and her lack of performance. He’s her apologist. Casey flies under the radar mostly. The police chiefs have typically gotten far more scrutiny than either of those two. I suspect every journalist in this town is wondering why they weren’t the ones to blow open this story. They’re so accustomed to things being wrong here that they don’t even see it or question it anymore.
Firstly- Prior to his recent announcement of his intention to run for mayor , Joyce has never showed interest in, nor made a public peep about, Santa Barbara’s government or the issues facing our city. He has never served on a city committee or commission. I am left wondering how many of our city council’s or commission meetings he has attended, if any! He has zero experience in our city government.
New mayor, new governor AND new President in 2021!!! Add in this possibly having been the last time we ever change our clocks, schools reopened and humming along and vaccinations approaching 3 million per day and WOHOO… things are looking up!!!!!!!
Perhaps D.A. J Dudley need to look into this… at the very least, SB voters should demand the city council change the compensation scale to be more appropriate. These transplants cry about the housing prices but they are benefitting from multiple pensions. CA needs pension reform- City, County, State workers should not be able to double dip on pensions.
ABC-Anyone But Cathy
wow, your hostility is so deeply engrained that your “go to” is to turn any story or bit of news into a reason to personally attack the Mayor. If you truly knew the background [and if the “journalist” knew it] you might see that some of your more favored leaders had a hand in this mess….
Have you been able to come up with anything in support of the mayor … anything? What has she accomplished in her time? Because the best she could come up with is how impressive her campaign donations and have been…
Because when I asked a friend who voted for her, the best he could come up with was “she’s not really around much or really seemingly do much, so… at least she’s not doing too much bad”.
Which… ok… yeah, I can agree… not doing much bad is Better than doing much that is bad. But can you come up with something (anything) tangible????
Santa Barbara seems to be awash with gross overspending and negligible positive results. Coupled w/this article, (disgusting if true), I’m also shaking my head because after multiple costly studies (anyone know the grand total?), it took COVID to get these do nothing, foot dragging bureaucrats to clean up state street, and open it up for dining.
I gotta add gauchos catching CREIGHTON in March madness… that’s a winnable game!!!! Things are looking up !!! (As long as we can get rid of the current mayor of course… it all hinges on that… and the vote to keep this time change… and our three point shooting!!!).
I know nothing about Wagner’s corruption or lack thereof, but reporter Mitchell Kreigman refers to Santa Barbara as “gentile Santa Barbara.” Pretty sure he meant to say genteel. But if Kriegman doesn’t even know the difference between those two disparate terms, his credibility is in question.
Autocorrect is guilty of many sins of this type (typo).
A lot of lefty’s going down!
. I don’t have a dog in this political fight and don’t know the players, but insiders tell me this article is not really so much a hit piece about Cathy and Wagner, as much as clearing the way for Debra Scwartz in her run for mayor who, in turn, is in the pocket of a developer named Ed St. Gorge. And that he probably got his PR people onto the reporter to write this piece.
I’m curious why Nick Welsh was not the one to publicize the marijuana license flap. Did he not know about it (I find it hard to believe that he hadn’t heard) or was he carrying water for the City Hall crooks?
This is not “news”- it is a campaign effort and now its clear from which candidate- James Joyce- coordinated with a “journalist”- true “investigative reporters” do not use adjectives to describe or characterize actions or facts. They do not misstate facts- Wagner was NEVER- “PIO to Mayor”- he was brought in by City Administrator to use for public information purposes during a declared emergency. Shame on Joyce and his campaign manager Wade Cowper – who is taking $$ from a nonprofit set up to oversee opposition to the county cannabis ordinance- who now makes deals with cannabis growers to quash opposition. James should ask him about that before shooting off a press release.. –
Wagner, Murillo, Casey all need to be out by the end of the weekend. A thorough investigation of any favors Wagner pulled within SBPD needs to be conducted. Florida company with license needs to revoked immediately. My hope is the people who Wagner has hurt are allowed to place cuffs on him when corruption charges are placed on him. I know many good honest people who were recommended for hire with SBPD and were rejected by the Chief. I stand tall in support of law enforcement, but these dirty politicians must face the consequences.
James Joyce shows his naivety and eagerness for power by reacting so immediately to things he has no real knowledge about…he needs to do his homework first, as he will look pretty silly once facts do emerge…..perhaps his handlers didn’t reveal all of their connections first?
Amazing, Look up Santa Barbara City Employees Salaries here…. https://transparentcalifornia.com/
And yet some question my cynicism about local government.
Curious why people are questioning the integrity of the author. Because his writing is better than most and reads well? Or because others view it as more opinionated? It doesn’t matter if facts are presented with evidence to support these claims. Reads more straight forward than the laborious musings of Nick Welsh in my opinion.
I a glad that the word “corruption” is finally being used in conjunction with City of Santa Barbara public servants. My neighbors and I have been targeted continuously for years by the same thing. This goes all the way to the top. I wonder if my Councilmember will do anything about our reported issues.
A nother (outside) article about how lame SB is and how lame the employees are. they aren’t from here, they don’t care, they’re making big bucks and nothing will stop them, they all protect those jobs with the highest level of FU for asking. The Pharmacy is a cop backed (ironically, by a long time SBPD PIO named John Thayer), pay to play dispensary. When Murillo was MIA this time last year for Corona, that was it, packed up and moved. SB is so done. Corrupt is an understatement and how the DA who overcharges ever indictment is now writing her own press releases for her role at Hospice is disgusting.
Santa Barbara needs a wide broom to sweep out City Hall. It can start with the election of a new mayor and council members in the November election. the Mayor and council have not done their jobs for years. Now we have a city and our downtown area in decay. When is the last time that you saw a street sweeper or a police unit patrolling your neighborhood? The outlying residential areas are on their own. Crime is up all over our city and some criminals get a slap on the wrist. Car break-ins and burglaries are running unchecked. State Street has been abandoned by locals because it is filthy, unsafe and offers lousy shopping. In the midst of one of the worst crisis in our city’s modern day history, The Santa Barbara City Council and City Administrator have let the problems we have grow and done nothing about them. The council spends far too much time on trivial matters. This is the administration that gave us Police Chief Luhnow and Anthony Wagner. Both were pals in San Diego. Luhnow was a weak chief and Wagner looks like he has a problem with his past history in San Diego. The only answer is to vote in a new mayor and council members in November who know what they need to do and do it- or it will only get worse here.
Hard to stop the public safety union pension boondoggle when those unions use their power during elections. Seems like the rule could be easy- any public pension payment is offset by the salary you are making from another public agency. That’s how they do it for Social Security, right?
Kathy worked as a reporter for the Independent back in the 1980’s. Nick was and is her good friend. “Liberals” here, just like in Washington now, seem to think that the label means you can take or do anything you want, and do it quite “liberally”.
Thank you Alejandra Gutierrez for being the only politician in Santa Barbara with courage.
The rest of you can all leave town for good with the next high tide.
This article sounds fishy,…What Florida company bought the License, there is no name of the company? How would a Florida based Company, be able to use a Santa Barbara License? Who is Mitchell Kriegman, is he part of PR defamation ?
What is the claim that Deborah Schwartz is in the pocket of Ed St. James based on? Has he contributed to her previous campaign? Does she defend his schemes at the Planning Commission? Does she socialize with him? Please put forth some facts.