With 2026 marking Santa Barbara County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino’s last year in the role, his chief of staff, Cory Bantilan, threw his hat into the ring to take the soon-to-be vacant 5th District seat, along with two others: Santa Maria City Councilmember Maribel Aguilera and Santa Maria-Bonita School District board member Ricardo Valencia.
All three candidates on the ballot for June’s statewide primary election took part in interviews with the Sun where they opened up about their campaign platforms and why they feel they’re worth prioritizing.
Get informed
Find information about the Santa Barbara County 5th District supervisor candidates on their websites:
• Ricardo Valencia, valenciaforsupervisor.com
• Maribel Aguilera, maribelforsupervisor.org
• Cory Bantilan, coryforsupervisor.com
Advocacy in action
One year ago, Valencia—a longtime teacher at Santa Maria High School—marched toward Santa Maria City Hall in solidarity with hundreds of students as part of a carefully organized rally to protest against federal immigration enforcement tactics. Valencia was among the adult chaperones who walked alongside young protesters during the student-led walkout on Feb. 18, 2025.
He remembers being especially proud of the students when they didn’t stoop to the level of cursing back as they heard epithets from some vehicle drivers and other passersby.
“What was beautiful to see is that the students didn’t reciprocate that negativity,” Valencia said. “I literally saw somebody flipping off our students when all they’re doing is engaging in a peaceful protest against draconian, undemocratic measures. And I was so proud to stand with the students and see that they did not react. Instead, they used their voice at the City Council to demand justice, and that justice has not been served yet.”
If elected to serve as 5th District supervisor, Valencia—an active Santa Maria-Bonita School District board member since 2020—said he wants to hold local government entities, including the county Sheriff’s Office, accountable for any collaborations with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.
“I believe that the majority of our law enforcement want to do the right thing, but unfortunately the sheriff is not providing the transparency or the leadership that our community is demanding at this moment to protect immigrant families,” Valencia said. “Because the sheriff is also an elected office, it requires transparency to the public on how our taxpayer dollars are being spent. … Unfortunately, the sheriff has not been transparent, not even with the supervisors when they’re requesting information.”
“This is personal to me,” he continued. “Both my parents were actually undocumented at one point. I have students and families that I work with that are undocumented, and they’re living with fear and anxiety.”
Born in Los Angeles, Valencia was a first grader when his family moved to Guadalupe. He lived in Santa Maria during middle and high school. Like his aim of ensuring “not a single dollar” of county taxpayer money goes toward supporting local law enforcement collaborations with ICE, Valencia’s goal to expand child care accessibility came from a personal place.
“Child care wasn’t something that my parents could access, so they worked long hours while my older sisters and I looked out for each other,” he recalled. “I spent a lot of my childhood at the Guadalupe Wrestling Club and in the Boys and Girls Club in Santa Maria. Those places became more than after-school programs. They became a safety net.”
After venturing from the Santa Maria Valley to pursue undergrad and grad programs in Berkeley and Boston, Massachusetts, respectively, Valencia returned to the area in 2010 to teach at Santa Maria High School, his alma mater.
He currently resides in the same Santa Maria house he’s lived in since 2011—a distinction his two opponents in the 5th District race do not share, he explained.
“I’m the only candidate who did not just move into District 5 to be able to run,” Valencia said.
Smooth move
When Santa Barbara County underwent redistricting in 2021, one 5th District candidate’s previous home was drawn out of eligibility to represent the area, “by a few blocks,” Santa Maria City Councilmember Aguilera said.
“The nuance here really matters,” Aguilera said in an email interview. “The district lines moved, not my community. … The same community I have called home my entire life.”
In January, Aguilera moved into her current Santa Maria home because her former residence “was no longer technically within the county’s 5th District boundaries, even though I was still living in Santa Maria, in my hometown, that I’ve been part of since I was 5 years old.”
Aguilera wasn’t the only 5th District candidate who moved in order to meet eligibility standards, as Bantilan recently became a first-time Santa Maria resident after living in the Lompoc Valley for many years.
“My opponent [Bantilan] relocated from District 3, a completely different area, to run for this seat. That is the distinction voters deserve to know,” Aguilera said. “There is no comparing a lifetime of roots to recently purchasing a property on the edge of a district in order to run for office. Santa Maria is my hometown. … My entire adult public service life—eight years on the Planning Commission, and now on the City Council—has been in service to this community.”
Aguilera’s time served on both boards helped prepare her to take on the county role she’s campaigning for, she explained. Those experiences also informed her platform to support synergy between economic development and housing policy.
“The Planning Commission is where I built the foundation and learned that land use decisions are not just about buildings, they are about people,” Aguilera said. “The questions I learned to ask there are identical to the ones that drive county-level land use decisions every single day: How do we ensure growth serves the people who are living in the community, not just the people who want to move here? How do we protect open space and environmental quality in neighborhoods? How do we revitalize underserved commercial corridors?”
Strengthening the county’s fiscal stewardship is another platform Aguilera feels her time in city government helped pave the way for.
“Balancing competing community priorities against finite resources is not a new challenge for me because I have been making those exact decisions at the city level for years,” Aguilera said. “I understand that sound fiscal governance is not about choosing between serving residents and being responsible with public dollars. It is about being disciplined and experienced enough to do both.”
New kid on the block
Bantilan wants you to text him. Literally. He told the Sun to give out his cellphone number: (805) 680-2226. He welcomes calls too, and insists they won’t go to a burner phone.
As part of his run for the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors’ 5th District seat, Bantilan said he’s been leaving his cell number with those who answer their doors when he’s out canvassing neighborhoods in Guadalupe, Tanglewood, and Santa Maria.
“I’ve had people text me, ‘Is this really you?’ … Or, ‘Oh, so you have a second cellphone.’ Try calling it, it’s the same one in my pocket,” Bantilan said. “That is part of my pitch: Local government should be accessible. … No one expects this from a U.S. senator, but they do expect to be able to get their county supervisor on the phone.”
For the past decade and a half, Bantilan has worked for current 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino as the elected official’s chief of staff.
If there’s one 5th District candidate with backstage insight into a successful Board of Supervisors run from beginning to end, it’s Bantilan, who spearheaded Lavagnino’s first campaign that nabbed him the role in 2010.
“He’s almost like a big brother that I never had. I mean, I do have a big sister, but I don’t have a brother,” Bantilan said of Lavagnino. “We just have this really good relationship. … I’d say we probably agree 95 percent on policy. But when we disagree, we have very, very frank conversations.”
As chief of staff for the 5th District for the past 15-plus years, Bantilan said he’s eager to represent the area in the role of supervisor because “this district suits my politics well.”
“This is a swing district. This is a moderate district,” he said. “I feel like Maribel puts her finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. … I think Ricardo clearly occupies the far left space—that’s a 1st, 2nd District kind of thing.”
Bantilan’s neck of the woods was the 3rd District—where he owns a Lompoc Valley property that he put up for rent—prior to recently making the 5th District his home. In response to criticism he’s received about the move, Bantilan said he’s no stranger to residents of Santa Maria, Guadalupe, and Tanglewood thanks to his chief of staff role.
“I’m not some unknown person from far away,” Bantilan said. “I think a lot of campaigns are about change, and a lot of people want to disparage the person that came before them. Obviously, that’s not the case with me. I think we did a pretty good job in the 5th District, … Steve and I.”
One of Bantilan’s campaign platforms is to enhance public safety, which he described as “an uphill battle, given the current climate and the current conversation around the sheriff’s department.”
“Right now, the sheriff’s department, I think, is unfairly maligned,” Bantilan said. “I would like to change that narrative.”
If elected, Bantilan said he wants to be part of solving the budget problems the county Sheriff’s Office has recently faced, along with the backlash from some supervisors about unbudgeted costs tied to the department’s overtime use.
“Unfortunately the narrative has become, ‘Let’s just slash the sheriff’s budget.’ … That is absolutely the wrong answer,” Bantilan said. “People say there’s too much overtime, but this is all legal. … We cannot just cut public safety.
“We don’t live in a utopian society. I wish we did, where nobody committed crime,” he continued. “I live in reality.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.