In a bizarre meeting by even Santa Barbara City Council standards, the council voted 6-0, with one abstention, to recognize Italian Heritage Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day on the same day — Columbus Day, the second Monday of October. The discussion featured a power outage while a Franciscan Friar was speaking.

Councilman Oscar Gutierrez lectured the Italian-Americans in the room for not liking his compromise suggestion to create a joint Italian-Americans Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day, prompting a blunt response from an audience member. Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon passionately argued for an indigenous peoples' day of its own, not shared by Italian-Americans. And Randy Rowse covered his face with his hand in frustration that the council was even discussing the matter at all.