It seems like the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office is working to course correct when it comes to the number of outstanding arrest warrants—something 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino has been asking for.
After he expressed concerns about the issue during a Northern Branch Jail expansion discussion in April—which will cost $165 million, by the way—he vowed to bring it up again during budget conversations. Without a warrant apprehension team, he said, law enforcement just happens to get lucky in arresting people who have felony or misdemeanor warrants.
As in, a routine traffic stop magically becomes more by happenstance. Nice. The wheels of justice work with a little luck and a lot of circumstance.
In June, as part of those budget discussions, county supes voted to disband the Sheriff’s Office’s Cannabis Compliance Team, “redistributing the manpower where it’s most needed,” Lavagnino said at the time.
Unlawful grows had declined and so had the tax dollars cannabis pays to fund things like compliance. So those deputies were reassigned to things like narcotics, and one was turned into a one-man felony warrant detective team.
“If you’re persistent and you believe in something, just keep hammering at it. Eventually, I think everybody finally saw the writing on the wall that I wasn’t going to go away on this issue,” Lavagnino said at the time. “I’m just glad we’re finally going to address what I think was a glaring hole in our justice system.”
In just a few months, the county’s slow-ass bureaucracy moved with quite the pace. Similar to how quickly the county moved with the senior mobile home park overlay to maintain affordable mobile home parks for seniors, government can move fast when it wants to! Or when a squeaky wheel stays squeaky.
So far, the detective has focused on six “high-profile” peeps with felony warrants for alleged violent offenses. For instance, a Santa Maria man arrested in August has warrants for robbery, carjacking, assault with a deadly weapon, and brandishing a firearm. After a four-hour standoff at his home, deputies took the dude into custody.
“He’s not solely going out as a solo deputy knocking on doors and putting handcuffs on individuals,” Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Erik Raney said. “He’s coordinating with the appropriate resources to get that person into custody.”
Better to be organized about it and coordinate with others than to accidentally pull someone like that over by yourself, you know?
With about 2,000 outstanding felony warrants (That seems like a lot, right?), the one-man team (with help when its go-time, of course) is focusing on 400 with the most violent crimes.
“We’re being way more proactive and … not just hoping and praying that we run into somebody,” Lavagnino said.
That’s valid, Steve!
I guess it’s better to start small and grow. With 400 warrants to tackle and six that have been worked on in the last six months, Santa Barbara County has a long way to go! Hopefully, the one-man team gets some research partners, otherwise it’s going to take more than 30 years to find all of those people!
And that’s only if no one else does anything too violent or crazy, then becomes a fugitive.
Keep on squeaking, Steve!
The Canary stays squeaky. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 18 – Dec 25, 2025.