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More Giving=Less Helping

Weekly Column by Loretta Redd In a recent Santa Barbara News Press article, four City Council members were interviewed, all of whom expressed exasperation with the increase in panhandling on our streets.  Even the cuddly Grant House was quoted as saying, “Threatening behaviors…often perpetrated by people who are neither homeless nor down and out, are ... Read More

This is What Santa Barbara Looks Like….

With the arrival of summer, the “Central Library on Anapamu Street is seeing transients in greater numbers,” reports the Santa Barbara News-Press. “I don’t know if there’s necessarily an increase,” said Dave Lombardi, president of the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization. “It’s been a continual problem. In the summer we get the transients, young kids who ... Read More

Moving to Government 2.0, One Step At A Time

Sharon’s Take… A Sharon Byrne column on the cover of the Santa Barbara Sentinel Thinking about reforming our current government model and all its inherent problems can quickly overwhelm the average citizen. Where to start? Contribution limits? One could spend years on Maplight.org tracking campaign contributions immediately before the vote to see how government officials ... Read More

Santa Barbara Harbor Lights

Santa Barbara photo of the week by Bill Heller, click to enlarge. Hanging around the Santa Barbara Harbor in the evenings this time of year is not only a wonderful for photography, but it’s a nice cool place. Literally! We’ve had quite a few hot days lately, and the harbor and wharf are my favorite ... Read More

EcoFacts: Car Sharing

Sharing is on the rise. Seems like a silly claim to make, it having been an integral part of the human community for millenia. But the trajectory has been towards private property, everyone owning their own…well, everything. Now, some have acquired enough and are more willing to lend it, share it,  or borrow something instead ... Read More

Santa Barbara Business Beat

Students Big Winners at Annual Awards Dinner

Westmont College received the excellence in service award at the annual South Coast Business and Technology Awards June 13 at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort & Hotel.

Sonos was named company of the year, Joanne Funari was executive of the year while Barbara Rosenbaum was given the entrepreneur of the year award and Larry Barels received the Pioneer Award.

More than 700 people honored the award winners for demonstrating “extraordinary commitment to the economic vitality of the south coast of Santa Barbara.” During the last 19 years, the event has raised nearly $1.5 million for scholarships given to local students studying business and technology at Westmont, Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara.

Women’s Business Events Coming Up

“Fitness … A Secret to Success,” is the title of a June 26 panel presentation from 11:30 a.m. 1:30 p.m. at the Montecito Country Club, sponsored by the Santa Barbara chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.

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More Giving=Less Helping

Weekly Column by Loretta Redd

In a recent Santa Barbara News Press article, four City Council members were interviewed, all of whom expressed exasperation with the increase in panhandling on our streets.  Even the cuddly Grant House was quoted as saying, “Threatening behaviors…often perpetrated by people who are neither homeless nor down and out, are inappropriate and harmful to all involved as well as to our city’s reputation.”

Bravo. Now, what do you intend to do about it?

We may have greater police presence on State Street, and a restorative policing program, but the cops cannot do it alone.  While Councilman Rowse points out, “much of this unsavory activity is disturbing, but not always in violation of the law,” that’s where the political will seems to end.

Other organizational leaders wring their hands, or turn their heads.  Mr. Lombardi of the Downtown Organization can’t see any solution beyond the police, and apparently, neither can the Chamber of Commerce nor the Greater Santa Barbara Lodging and Restaurant Association.

But I’ve found a place where denial and defeatism aren’t the default answer.  The city of Atlanta, Georgia dared to not only address the issue of panhandling head-on, but has been bold enough to solicit the assistance of residents and of visitors alike.

In a program called “Change that Makes Sense,” they have enacted a three-tiered strategy including: (1)stepped up enforcement by public and private security forces, (2)public education, and (3)redirected giving.”

Atlanta officials acknowledged that panhandlers and “street drunks” were making downtown an unsavory, if not dangerous, place for conventioneers and tourists.  The problem was also identified in a poll as the primary reason residents rarely ventured into the urban core.

In our own little tile-roof town of Spanish make-believe, we’re afraid that admitting we have a problem will cause tourists to suddenly become aware of the very drunks and panhandlers they’ve just been harassed by.  Believe me, whether they came by car or cruise ship from London or Lompoc, tourists know when they are being targeted.

Atlanta’s Council felt no apology for facing the problem head-on; they recognized that rather than denying someone’s “civil rights” they were actually saving lives.  Santa Barbara can do the same if residents, store managers and organizations would agree to a new direction.

Most people, both local and visitors, sincerely want to help and feel guilty when they don’t.  So why not follow the Atlanta model, and install “giving meters” on sidewalks, or on private property if owners are willing, where the money could be collected and transferred to programs of transitional housing or intensive professional service to assist those addicted to substances?

If every commercial space was willing to put a sign in their window, click to enlarge sign left, asking the public to help by not offering cash directly to the panhandlers, it would go a long way toward shoring up the will of those being accosted.

Lastly, use the cable, city web sites and local papers for an Public Service ad campaign reminding people of the Santa Barbara “Change for Change” program, and how to contribute to various groups.  Then ask the participation of all of the hotels and motels by placing literature in the rooms, or at the very least, at the registration and concierge desks.

If we truly care about the people on the street, as we profess to do, then it is time to face the harm we are doing by giving money to those unable to use it wisely.  Atlanta policy advisor Debi Starnes offered this honest and obvious assessment, “Giving cash to panhandlers is simply not a productive act of charity.”

I don’t pretend to have all the answers…I just know what we are currently doing isn’t working very well.  This isn’t meant to address homelessness or those with complex psychological problems.  In fact, Councilman Hotchkiss observed that “Generally, these are people who choose to live on the streets.”  This program would be designed to dry up the cash flow that makes Santa Barbara a magnet for panhandlers, period.

In the same article, Councilman House declared that, “Downtown is a safe and wonderful place to bring our families for cultural events, historic resources, shopping and dining, and for entertainment, day or night.”  Perhaps that makes a nice visitors bureau slogan, but it is far from the truth.

Is there the political or community will to make this happen…or does anyone have a better idea?

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This is What Santa Barbara Looks Like….

With the arrival of summer, the “Central Library on Anapamu Street is seeing transients in greater numbers,” reports the Santa Barbara News-Press. “I don’t know if there’s necessarily an increase,” said Dave Lombardi, president of the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization. “It’s been a continual problem. In the summer we get the transients, young kids who go between Santa Cruz and San Diego. They come here, they do their thing and leave. They’re the ones that tend to be more aggressive.”

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Santa Barbara’s Incredibly-Shrinking Publication

Last Thursday’s Blue & Green edition of the Santa Barbara Independent was down to 68 pages. In its hey day, the Independent had weekly page counts between 120-128, pages. The publication is down to roughly half its former size.

In a related note, the Los Angeles Times reported today that the newspapers’s ad revenue fell off almost $200 million (15%) over the last two years.

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Moving to Government 2.0, One Step At A Time

Sharon’s Take… A Sharon Byrne column on the cover of the Santa Barbara Sentinel

Thinking about reforming our current government model and all its inherent problems can quickly overwhelm the average citizen. Where to start? Contribution limits? One could spend years on Maplight.org tracking campaign contributions immediately before the vote to see how government officials are bought and paid for. Overturn Citizens United? Shorter legislative sessions?

There’s a lot of terrain. Rather than despair from overwhelm, let’s bite off what we can chew.

In this first installment of shaping a Government 2.0 model, I want to first look at ways in which our participation in government is limited, and find solutions.

Public Input: The Dreaded Public Hearing

The average citizen can’t take hours off work, or abandon picking the kids up from school, often repeatedly, to sit in a lengthy public hearing at 2pm so he can submit his two minutes of public comment. We can also surmise that those two minutes, or the email sent before the hearing, aren’t likely to influence outcomes, as it’s highly likely that staff has a firm direction they want to go in. Elected officials come and go. But staff stays. So the place to watch for agendas is in staff presentations.

The public hearing is more theater than anything, especially given you have to sit through the gadflies with nothing else to do but rant via podium every single session.

Then there’s the public hearing that’s not actually attended by the public, but by a coalition with an agenda of its own – the ‘Pack The Hall’ strategy. A good example of this is the recent hearing on the gang injunction.

I attended, but recognized few faces. The hall was loaded with activists, many non-local, and UCSB flacks shouting the evils of the injunction but proposing no useful substitutes. I searched the crowd for neighbors who have suffered gang violence and intimidation.

They weren’t there.

I don’t blame them. It was a hostile crowd to folks actually struggling with gangs.

When I heard one councilmember thank ‘the public’ for expressing its views at a public hearing in which no action would be taken, I laughed.

Political theater at its best.

Not everyone wants to participate fully in government affairs, but wants to weigh in on something that affects them, or make their opinion known on an issue of civic importance. There’s no real way for them to do that, other than by sending an email and hope it got read, or the dreaded public hearing(s). The public hearing is a very ancient way of doing public business. But it need not be so. There are some modern technologies available that could help.

When government sweats a contentious decision, they sometimes hire a polling firm to take the public pulse on the subject. Let the polls tell us what we should do. No sticking one’s neck out that way.

Since they take that road already, instead of spending $30,000+ on a one-time consultant for a single issue, what about installing a real-time citizens polling mechanism instead? That could be used repeatedly?

Cell Phone Voter Registration

When you register to vote, register your mobile too, one mobile phone per voter. There can still be full public hearings, or multiples of them, as is often the case. But instead of scanning the newspaper for hearing notices in government-ese, or agendas via email, now you get a push message to your mobile about the hearing, the subject to be discussed, and text your response – yea or nay, with comments within a certain timeframe before the hearing, say, a week. Cut off mobile voting the day before the hearing so results can be tabulated. There’s probably software that can receive incoming texts, check against registered mobile phones in the city voter database, and filter out the non-registered and duplicates (in case someone tries to game the system by texting multiple times). Tally the valid mobile votes from registered voters, and you’ve got an instant real-time read.

You can sign up to follow topics, like you do on Twitter, so you get hearing notices of interest to you, whether your issue is public safety, potholes, planning, permits, parks or parking.

We can easily find two minutes within a week to send a text message on what we think in response to a mobile push message from our government. No time off work needed, no ridiculously long hearing, and we had our say.

The county could easily provide a similar mechanism. Voter registration data can be sorted by district, so state and congressional representatives could do this too. Mobile voter polling would provide air cover for representatives, ensure staff knows how the public feels, and increase transparency in government.

That would be a huge improvement over present (archaic) conditions that limit citizen participation, and would cost less than ballot initiatives. Why wait months and mount ridiculously expensive campaigns to find out how people feel today?

The next job will be for the government to properly frame issues for an active citizen engagement model.

That will be covered in a future column.

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This Date in History: Santa Barbara Hit 133°F

For a long time, Santa Barbara held the record for the hottest day-time temperature in United States history. The morning of June 17, 1859, dawned sunny and pleasant, with the temperature reaching about 80 degrees by noon. Then, about 1 p.m., according to Walker Tompkins in his book, Goleta the Good Land, a ‘blast of superheated air’ came from the direction of Santa Ynez Peak and hit the Goleta Valley, alarming the residents and sending them scurrying for cover inside thick-walled buildings. By 2 p.m. the temperature had reached an incredible 133 degrees!

A United States government report stated, “Calves, rabbits and cattle died on their feet. Fruit fell from trees to the ground scorched on the windward side; all vegetable gardens were ruined. A fisherman in a rowboat made it to the Goleta Sandspit with his face and arms blistered as if he had been exposed to a blast furnace.” By 5 p.m. temperatures fell to 122 and by 7 p.m. it was back to 77 degrees.

June 17, 1859 in Santa Barbara remained the highest ever recorded temperature in the United States for 75 years until the Weather Bureau recorded a temperature of 56.6°C(134°F) in Death Valley, California.

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Santa Barbara Harbor Lights

Santa Barbara photo of the week by Bill Heller, click to enlarge.

Hanging around the Santa Barbara Harbor in the evenings this time of year is not only a wonderful for photography, but it’s a nice cool place. Literally! We’ve had quite a few hot days lately, and the harbor and wharf are my favorite places on a hot day.

-Bill Heller

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EcoFacts: Car Sharing

Sharing is on the rise. Seems like a silly claim to make, it having been an integral part of the human community for millenia. But the trajectory has been towards private property, everyone owning their own…well, everything. Now, some have acquired enough and are more willing to lend it, share it,  or borrow something instead of buying their own. It also may be, that a sharing economy will make survival possible, as there won’t be enough resources in the future without it.

Car sharing is a particularly good example; cars require tons of resources and energy to build, lots of money to buy, and they sit in driveways or parking lots most of the time, an example in economic terms of underused asset utilization. Especially if you live in a city, owning one could be difficult and even more expensive. The most famous example of car sharing is Zipcar, so successful a model that Avis has just bought it and many similar companies now exist.

Zipcar works really well for some. My friend in Hollywood can get in one a couple blocks from her office and drive away for a while, then drop it off there or somewhere else. Granted she doesn’t use it much, but  is happy to have spent around $400 in the last six months instead of the close to a couple thousand a car might have cost her, for lease or payments, insurance, etc.. Gas and insurance are included in the Zipcar membership.

True peer-to-peer car sharing is also now happening. I’m currently traveling. In some places, I could have dropped my car off, gotten a ride to the airport, and my car would be being used by someone else, with me making money on it while I’m gone.  Cool, eh?  Networks like these are popping up here, in Canada and Europe. In Santa Barbara, Relay Rides will facilitate car owners making money, while someone vacationing or needing a car for errands uses their cars. People are screened before rentals and rated afterwards, so there are checks and balances built in. Google your town and car sharing to find one near you, or other companies/networks to check out: Lyft,  GetaroundCar2go  More info.

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Political Season Is Underway In Santa Barbara

Weekly column by Sharon Byrne, as featured in the Santa Barbara Sentinel.

Frank Hotchkiss seeks a second term on Santa Barbara City Council

Frank Hotchkiss kicked off his campaign Saturday at Chuck’s Waterfront Grill, seeking a second term on City Council. Councilman Bendy White held his re-election kick-off a month ago at Casablanca. Parks and Recreation Commission Chair Lesley Wiscomb, seeking her first term, has also held a campaign kick-off event.

So that’s three officially on the field. Endorsements have been made by the Democratic Party organizations for their candidates, so expect more kick-offs soon.

At some point, I’ll write a column on the inside baseball view of local elections. It works quite differently than most people think, from fundraising to endorsements to campaigns. And it’s anything but non-partisan.

Frank was one of the conservative slates elected in 2009 by huge independent expenditures from one Randall Van Wolfswinkel. Loretta Redd pointed out in her recent column that the cost of a city council seat is north of $70,000 these days. The amount of money infused into 2009’s election was more than 10 times that amount.

That probably explains why Frank is putting careful thought and effort into what should be a fairly easy re-election effort. It should be easy because he’s not some heinous monster that has been slammed with a slew of Bell-style corruption charges. He’s a straight shooter that enjoys taking decisive action. He’s publicly admired some of the mayor’s efforts, clearly indicating a willingness to work collaboratively for the best outcome for the city. He was leading a charge on the gang injunction long before the mayor and Bendy put it on the council agenda last month. He doesn’t have the softest, most PC powers of articulation, but then neither do I, so I can hardly hold that against him.

The election calculus, then, is fairly straightforward: it’s hard to defeat an incumbent, especially when the incumbent hasn’t done anything to constellate significant voter backlash and seems to be a pretty good guy in office.

Supporters of Frank Hotchkiss

Frank has a solid base among conservatives and business types. Most of the city’s who’s who in those ranks were at his event, which was well-attended.

Frank’s more of a Libertarian, but doesn’t split hairs politically. So fundraising should not be much of a problem. After a crowd-pleasing introduction by Randy Rowse, Frank’s speech was straightforward, like the man himself, and highlighted his accomplishments, though I can think of a couple he left off. That’s ok, as no one likes a political speech that drones on. Time to cut it off when everyone is staring into his or her drink. Frank timed his nicely.

Bendy is facing a similar re-election calculus, as he’ll have all the endorsements and walkers the Democratic Party can provide. Bendy, with greater election resources behind him (never underestimate the Democratic Party’s ground game capabilities), is often far more hesitant on the dais than Frank, indicating on some levels he might even be more conservative, at least when it comes to bold actions. But that hesitancy has probably only caused the Democratic Party inside baseball team to break out into an instant sweat on occasion, and doesn’t seem to have made anyone else truly mad in any significant numbers. Some would say that makes him a good politician.

Both candidates probably well remember the Barnwell lesson: you have to actually campaign in order to win a second term. They both likely will campaign well, and achieve re-election, barring some unforeseen major development between now and election day.

The fight, if there is one, is likely to be for Grant House’s termed-out seat. Candidates with designs on that seat are Planning Commissioner Michael Jordan, Parks and Recreation Commission Chair Lesley Wiscomb, Parks and Recreation Commissioner Megan Diaz Alley, Afghanistan veteran Jason Nelson, and former Democratic city council-members Greg Hart and David Landecker. Hart is employed by the Santa Barbara Coalition of Governments (SBCAG), and like Cushman in 2009, there seems to be some consternation over the inherent conflict-of-interest in those two roles. That consternation seems to be mostly arising from within Democratic Party ranks at this point. Landecker was last the head of the Environmental Defense Council, and a subject of intense commentary on this site over the manner in which he departed his City Council seat last time.

This is a town with a long memory, after all.

Any way you look at it, political season has definitely arrived in Santa Barbara. Watch for gathering steam in August with the candidate forums. It escalates steadily to fever pitch until the mail-in ballots are sent in early October, and then moves to a Get Out The Vote game.

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Happy 7th Birthday to the Granada Garage!

granada This date in Santa Barbara history… on June 13, 2006, the $30+ million, miss-measured Granada Garage was officially dedicated on behalf of the City Council and Santa Barbara’s now defunct Redevelopment Agency. Happy 7th birthday to Santa Barbara’s barely-used Granada Garage!

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Celebrity Properties in Montecito… on the Move

Ellen DeGeneres, along with wife Portia de Rossi, picked up a new property in Montecito last month, pictured left, for a cool $26.5 million… reportedly a gorgeous, bluff-front estate called the Saladino Villa. Although the home boasted everything “streamlined and modern for easy living,”  a major renovation of the 1928-built home is under way, as neighbors along Hidden Valley Lane can attest. Designed by architect Wallace Frost, the home was redone by designer John Saladino around 2009. With 6 bedrooms, 9 fireplaces and 7 baths, the two-parcel property sits on 13 acres with ocean views.

While Ellen and Portia move in, Dennis Franz and Drew Barrymore have put their Montecito estates on the market.
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This is What Santa Barbara Looks Like…

Santa Barbara View’s community project to encourage photographic depiction of what’s gone wrong, and what’s gone right in Santa Barbara leading up to the election…

Chapala One, located at Chapala and Gutierrez streets, was completed in 2008 but has remained vacant since completion. Five years later, the mixed-used monstrosity sits in a state of repair thanks to poor planning, defective construction and years of neglect.

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Santa Barbara Business Beat

South Coast Firm Marks 25th Year with Focus on Women Investors

Business observers around Santa Barbara have noticed that many of the enterprises that have started in the past few years have been geared up by women.

A national trend can be seen in the growing number of women – almost four times the number since the 1970s – are heads of households and control the purse strings of a growing number of families across the country. A well-established local firm seeks to fill the financial advice needs for women investors.

South Coast-based AmeriFlex Financial Services is marking its silver anniversary by addressing the need for financial advice for women.

AmeriFlex, 3700 State St., has been a provider of sound financial advice for its clients for the past 25 years. The new AmeriFlex Woman Investor program is for business owners, executives and busy families. (See www.AmeriFlex.com.)

The AmeriFlex Woman Investor program provides: financial empowerment; collaboration between spouses and trusted advisors; and establish goals to address family financial security. “We focus on responsiveness to our clients’ needs; we believe our clients are best served by the holistic approach to professional integration of various financial disciplines,” said Bibi Taylor, AmeriFlex financial advisor.

Women on average live between five and 10 years longer than men, according to a Boston University study. Half of those women will outlive their spouses. Women start 70 percent of all new businesses, according to Forbes Magazine, and by 2020 women are projected to control two-thirds of the wealth in the United States.

Host Families Sought for Language Students

The international language school Education First in Santa Barbara is seeking host families for the summer as well during it academic year, which starts in September.

EF’s yearly economic impact is more than $8 million to the local economy, school officials said. This comes from host family payouts, students’ spending money on food, clothes, activities and other items, and salaries of the school’s 25 teachers as well as 12 administrative staff.

“EF Santa Barbara embodies our mission to break down barriers of language, culture and geography not only for our students, but for the community as well,” said Fysal Safieh, school director. “We bring the world to Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara to the rest of the world.”

This summer, the EF school welcomes junior students as young as 12. Most of them travel with “school groups” who also have one or two adult leaders. Summer students usually stay between two and eight weeks because this usually fits in with their school breaks. In September, EF welcomes its academic year students who stay for three, six or nine months. Some students during that time that will stay for just two weeks or longer.

Safieh also said, “Every student brings a piece of their home to Santa Barbara and takes a piece of Santa Barbara back home with them. We make the world a smaller and more culturally enriched place.”

“We have hosted 20 international students during these past 20 years,” said Montecito resident and entrepreneur Patty DeDominic. “Our family has been enriched in many ways and now we have friends and adult ‘kids’ in every continent. Sharing our city and American culture with young people is an entertaining and educational odyssey we have lived and plan to continue.”

While the average age for EF students is 20, regular academic year students range in age from 16 to 72. Host families, who are paid a stipend, provide breakfast and dinner Monday through Friday and breakfast lunch and dinner on the weekends.

EF operates 42 schools and offices in 54 countries. Its global network includes 35,000 full-time faculty and 16,500 part-time teachers, leaders and tour directors. To date, EF has helped more than 15 million people to learn a new language, discover the world, or earn an academic degree.

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The First Santa Barbara City Council Straw Poll

The Santa Barbara View political team has identified eight (8) candidates who have declared to run for three vacant seats on the Santa Barbara City Council. The official filing period doesn’t open until July 15 and more candidates may declare; but with less than five months to go before election day, how about an early straw poll?
Per multiple requests, one vote per person. You can vote for up to three candidates.

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