Ballot countdown: Santa Barbara County’s 5th District supervisor candidates make their final pitches as Election Day looms

With Election Day just days away, the race to represent Santa Maria and Guadalupe on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors has narrowed to two familiar local names: Santa Maria City Councilmember Maribel Aguilera and Santa Maria-Bonita School District Board member Ricardo Valencia.

The winner will take over the county's 5th District seat, giving Santa Maria — the county's most populous city — a key voice on a five-member board that sets policy on roads, housing, public safety, water and land use for the entire Central Coast region. Both candidates spent the final stretch of the campaign knocking on doors and making their case that they, not their opponent, best reflect the working-class neighborhoods they grew up in.

As the Santa Maria Sun reported in its final pre-election interview with both candidates, the contest has drawn a sharp split in endorsements. Aguilera, a local attorney and registered independent, is backed by the Santa Maria Police Officers' Association, Santa Maria Firefighters Local 2020, the California School Employees Association, the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, Laborers' International Union of North America, and the Santa Barbara County Republican Party.

Valencia, a registered Democrat and longtime high school teacher, counts the Santa Barbara Democratic Party, California Working Families Party, Indivisible Santa Maria, the Dolores Huerta Action Fund, state Sen. Monique Limón and U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal among his supporters.

Two campaigns, two styles

The candidates' closing messages reflect sharply different campaign styles — and philosophies about who should power them.

Aguilera said her favorite part of the race has been direct voter contact, telling the Sun she has knocked on more than 9,000 doors during the general election. She has frequently campaigned alongside her young daughter, Natalie, whom she described as her campaign's biggest cheerleader, and credited her husband, Noe Hernandez, for his support.

"Every decision I make is about building a county where my daughter and every kid like her can grow up safe and have a real future locally," Aguilera told the Sun.

Valencia has run what he describes as a youth-employment campaign. He told the Sun that roughly 13 of his paid staff are high school and community college students, an approach he framed as a natural extension of his 18-plus years as an educator.

"Working-class kids of color don't always have the luxury to volunteer their time as much as they would like to," Valencia said, noting that many students are already contributing to household expenses. "Unless we provide internships that are paid, many of our working-class kids are going to be left behind."

What voters told the candidates

Both candidates said the campaign trail surfaced concerns that will shape their approach if elected.

Aguilera, who grew up in Santa Maria's Evans Park neighborhood and worked in the fields alongside her parents, said Guadalupe residents repeatedly raised unreliable internet service and the condition of roads connecting Guadalupe to Santa Maria. "It's one thing to understand these challenges from working in local government," she said. "It's another to stand on someone's doorstep and hear how those challenges affect their daily life."

Valencia pointed to affordability as the dominant theme, recounting conversations with middle-income families whose adult children can't afford to rent or buy locally and remain at home. He said one encounter stood out: a farmworker who told him he struggles to pay for food for his own family.

"The people who harvest our food cannot afford to provide what they produce," Valencia said.

Party labels take center stage

The sharpest disagreement in the race's final days has been over what the supervisor's office itself represents.

Aguilera has argued the seat is fundamentally nonpartisan. "One misconception in this race is that the Board of Supervisors' seat is a political one. It isn't," she said. "The job is about roads, public safety, housing, water, and land use, and those issues aren't Republican or Democrat." She pointed to her 12 years on the Santa Maria Planning Commission and City Council, where she said she approved hundreds of housing units and expanded public safety and youth programs — work she said was done "for our neighbors," not a party.

Valencia, meanwhile, has defended his record on the school board, including questioning whether paying for police officers to rotate through Santa Maria-Bonita elementary and middle school campuses was the best use of limited funds, or whether students would be better served by more counselors and mental health support.

Why the 5th District matters

The 5th District covers Santa Maria and Guadalupe, communities that have often felt distant from county decision-making centered in Santa Barbara. The seat's occupant will help shape decisions on homelessness services, oil and energy policy, cannabis regulation, and the county budget — issues where North County's interests don't always align with the South Coast's.

The winner also joins a board that has seen ongoing turnover in recent years, adding to the stakes: with the 5th District seat changing hands, the balance of the board on development, agriculture and labor issues could shift.

For Santa Maria residents, the practical stakes are immediate. The next supervisor will weigh in on road improvements like those Guadalupe residents described to Aguilera, on housing production that both candidates say the region desperately needs, and on services for the farmworker and working-class families whose struggles Valencia described on the campaign trail.

Both candidates will spend the final days before Election Day doing what got them here — knocking on doors, one neighborhood at a time.

The original interviews were conducted by the Santa Maria Sun, which spoke with Valencia by phone and received Aguilera's answers by email. Election results will determine which of the two will be sworn in as the Board of Supervisors' newest member.