Santa Maria residents have more drive to change city logo after new Caltrans policy (2024)

A large sign with large lettering that says “Welcome to Santa Maria,” greets drivers cruising down Highway 101. A blue ship with a sunburst behind it is tiled onto the overpass above the sign.

That ship adorns Santa Maria’s city website, city documents, and until June was the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District’s logo. It appears on buses, trash cans, and police badges, but some residents don’t care for what one of Christopher Columbus’ colonial ships—aka the Santa Maria—represents, and they’ve worked to try to replace the imagery.

“It was around March of early 2021 when an Orcutt resident wrote letters to the daily paper explaining that he thought it would be worth seeing if the city wanted to change the logo, and the discussion continued,” city Public Information Officer Mark van de Kamp told the Sun.

The conversation carried over to the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District where students and community advocates approached the board to change the district’s ship logo and succeeded. The district hired a marketing firm and agreed to pay about $75,000 to redesign its logo, he said.

“The logo has its opponents as well as its supporters. There were comments in the press that agreed people should change the logo, and those who chose to support it wrote in and [said they] believe it salutes the spirit of discovery to continue moving forward,” van de Kamp added.

Although efforts at the city level have stalled, advocates are celebrating a victory as Caltrans looks to implement a policy that could remove all images, monuments, and statues with sensitive historical context from all Caltrans-affiliated highways and roadways.

Historically, the city of Santa Maria is not connected to Christopher Columbus, and the community has had several names over the years, van de Kamp explained.

“We were originally named Grangerville because of one of the first settlers here. We were renamed to Central City because we were between Guadalupe and Sisquoc,” he said.

It remained Central City until 1882, when it was changed because mail destined for area residents was sometimes sent to Central City, Colorado, and vice versa. John Thornbugh—another settler who donated land—suggested the name Santa Maria because it was used by Juan Pacifico Ontiveros, a corporal serving in several Spanish missions.

“In 1885, Central City, California, became Santa Maria with a population of less than 600 people. Then, we didn’t become an incorporated city until 1905, about 20 years later. It was another several decades until the City Council in 1971 adopted the city seal logo we are still using,” van de Kamp said.

In a 1971 budget document, the council explained that was imperative for the city to have an easily recognizable trademark, van de Kamp added.

“‘Taking the familiar motif of the ship, Santa Maria, the design simplifies and sharpens the details by placing the ship against the sun’s rays and implies optimism and pride,’” he said, quoting from the document.

Some people don’t see that ship as a beacon of optimism and pride, however. They see it as a reminder of Columbus’ damage as he and other colonists killed thousands of Native Americans and other indigenous people throughout North, Central, and South America.

In a city with a large population of Mexican indigenous people and nearby Native American tribes, there should be a logo to better reflect the entire community, Orcutt resident Scott Fina said.

“I never understood why the city adopted the ship anyway and was very surprised when I got here. I decided to try and do something, and write a public comment letter to the City Council and high school district. The city’s more drastic because it’s actually a city seal—it’s police badges, vehicles, firefighter patches, and probably its most observed location is up and down Highway 101,” the transplant from Philadelphia said.

Fina and several community nonprofits also sent a letter to Caltrans to address the imagery on Highway 101 and other public roadways at the state level, he said.

“Some months went by and we wrote again—a coalition of 11 agencies—and the new [Caltrans] director did respond,” Fina said. “We saw there was some promise that this was real and authentic. Caltrans is taking this seriously, this issue of monuments that are inappropriate and could affront people of indigenous culture and our Chumash population.”

In the meantime, Fina and fellow coalition members may try again to get the city to change its logo by providing public comment during City Council meetings, Fina said.

“We have an election coming up and that may have an ability to agendize the issue,” he said. “It will take time, and I understand the hesitancy of City Council ... [but] it can be done gradually.”

Chumash Tribal Chairman for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians Kenneth Kahn said in a statement that these efforts do make an impact, but it’s not up to the tribal officials.

“We support the efforts to de-emphasize Christopher Columbus, but feel it should be up to the residents of Santa Maria to decide which logo most appropriately represents their city,” Kahn said in a statement.

At the state level, Caltrans’ Office of Race and Equity is looking to develop a policy that will establish best practices or procedures for identifying, renaming, and removing logos, images, and monuments that have problematic historical context and impact the department’s 12 districts, Caltrans District 5 Public Information Officer Alexa Bertola told the Sun.

“It’s really important that this is in place so we have a statewide policy that all districts in California can go off of so we are on the same page, and people aren’t affected by images, monuments, or logos that may be sensitive to certain groups in the community,” Bertola said.

The Office of Race and Equity is currently in a preliminary investigation phase and will later hold community stakeholder discussions with cities, counties, and tribal representatives to adjust the policy as needed.

“A lot of things will go into it until it’s finalized. June of next year [2023] is our tentative goal. I believe the way it will work is we will have meetings with stakeholders and then form the policy,” she said.

While Caltrans works on the policy, it isn’t allowing new installations of Santa Maria’s ship image within the Caltrans right of way until it’s complete, Bertola added.

“We’re really looking forward to opening up the conversation with community members like local cities, our counties, and tribal representatives,” she said. “We want to include everyone in order to provide meaningful input into matters that may affect tribal communities.”

Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor can be reached at [emailprotected].