That was the question Santos asked me last night at the City Council hearing on the Milpas crosswalks at Yanonali and Ortega.
Both intersections have nothing other than a painted crosswalk and a yellow sign mounted on a pole to warn drivers to stop, notable exceptions to stoplights in a continuous visual line running down Milpas. Intersections outside the stoplight vernacular cause confusion. When a pedestrian steps into those crosswalks at Ortega and at Yanonali, they are dependent on sheer luck that 5 lanes of traffic will see them, and stop. Two fatalities and another injury in March prove this is a dangerous course of action. The police have written north of 30 tickets at a time at these intersections for drivers blowing through them. People don’t stop for anything but a red light.
So the neighbors asked for them, for years. The death of 15 year-old Sergio Romero last October ignited this issue. John Palminteri did 
Yanonali, however, was the sticking point.
The proposed solution there of flashing yellow lights didn’t seem effective. Traffic volumes at this intersection run at 20,000 cars per day. It didn’t qualify for a stoplight because people avoid it for fear of being run down, so the pedestrian counts were too low. In other words, in avoiding a known safety hazard, the neighborhood no longer met the criteria for the best remedy for it.
A neighborhood coalition formed to push for a stoplight at Yanonali and Milpas. Santos Guzman is the owner of El Bajio, a wonderful restaurant on Milpas at Yanonali. He was a cornerstone of that neighborhood coalition, along with the MCA, Father Marin of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, whose parishioner was killed in that intersection, Casa De La Raza, Latino Democrats (Latidems), and Casie Killgore, Franklin Elementary principal. Three city advisory committees also recommended a stoplight there.
I think most of us have this faith in democracy, as part of our collective roots. We the people should vote, articulate ideas, and participate in our government. We mostly trust government to keep our welfare foremost in their minds. We are always shocked when they don’t, even after repeated incidents of malfeasance. We still want to believe that our elected reps actually care about what we think.
Santos, like many, was suspicious that his voice counted, but felt called upon to make the case for Milpas pedestrian safety. He didn’t know he was signing up to lose two evenings just to speak for 2 minutes at public comment. Evenings are the busiest time for his restaurant, but he felt this was too important.
This enormous time requirement is a huge deterrent to involvement in government. If you knew that you’d burn north of 5-10 hours at lengthy government hearings, to contribute a few minutes of input, and that you would spend another slew of hours on research and organizing …well, you’d give up at the start. It’s just too much effort. People with fulltime jobs and families just don’t have the ability to regularly attend 3-hour meetings, and some issues require multiple hearings. The process grinds willing participants down, and eventually out.
Who has this kind of time? Enter the paid lobbyists, advocacy organizations, and nuts with nothing else to do.
But I digress…
Santos doesn’t ask much of the city, other than to leave him in peace to carve out a living. He doesn’t haunt hearings or write prolific emails to council. This is the first issue he’s ever been involved in.
He spoke powerfully on the dangers of the crossing at two marathon city hearings. He was joined by Pedro Nava and Abel Maldonado, the former supporting the neighborhood on this issue from the start, and the latter recently opening a campaign office on Milpas St at Ortega. Their unity on this in itself is striking – when have those two agreed on anything???
They agreed with the neighbors on traffic signals for Milpas. Score one for bi-partisanship. Score another one for prominent Latino leaders standing up for a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Surely with this kind of support, you’re going to prevail….you can’t blame Santos for thinking along these lines…
Santos also was deeply moved, as was everyone, by the testimony of the mother of Sergio, killed at the Ortega crosswalk. He pleaded with the City Council for a traffic signal at Yanonali.
Tuesday night, 6 months and 9 hearings later, they made their decision. Their comments ranged from acknowledging the need for small business parking, to how we all put our lives on the line when we step into traffic, yet let’s not be emotional and glom onto the popular wisdom of a traffic light. The council voted 7-0 to cave yet again to the Arch Druids of the Traffic Dept accept the staff’s recommendations, with Cathy Murillo perfectly willing to sacrifice parking spaces needed by small Latino business owners like Santos, for a concrete median to satisfy the walking-as-cool-lifestyle-choice set. That group longs for a world where none of us drive cars anymore, yet thinks little about the actual needs of people that have to walk out of economic necessity. Taking out bus stops to get a concrete median – no problem. Just walk a few more blocks laden with children and groceries.
Both intersections will thus join a long list featuring strange configurations: bulbouts, curb extensions, re-striping (sometimes erratic – see Chapala and Gutierrez, to accommodate a bulbout), brick crosswalks, concrete medians, and now rapid-flashing yellow lights that are supposed to stop drivers trained to brake for red. Confusing enough for locals…never mind tourists.
As the hearing concluded, I saw in Santos’ face a question I dread when urging people to advocate for their street / neighborhood / city:
Why should I bother? I had to abandon my family / business / life, just to speak for 2 minutes. The city did what they were going to do anyway. They always do. It didn’t accomplish anything.
I have no real answer to give him.
} – 
Excellent column. There’s a hope every election that the elected will listen to – and hear – the electors. The only one in recent memory who did so was Michael Self. Murillo is a huge disappointment and power has gone to her head even sooner than expected.
But as for Tuesday’s hearing, it again showed how meaningless are the very time-consuming “advisory” groups. It was also interesting to hear House reference the East Side Study Group that has been dead for about 15 years and pay little to no attention to the present and vibrant M.C.A.
The Yanonali decision is a BIG disappointment, but not really a surprise to anyone who watches the city council.
FWIW: another area of concern is the intersection of Alisos and Cacique, which needs a 4-way stop.
The first clue about Murillo was the Micky Flacks/union fundraiser she accepted when she also refused to disclose her campaign debt or need to build a future campaign war chest. Voters, you now have a clue which way Murillo will flop in the future.
Educated and licensed staff whose expertise in the subject brings more weight in decision making than volunteers who many time are just reacting to emotions and gathered opinion (advisory staff are still very necessary in the whole process for exploratory tasks which require in depth discussion). BTW, we are looking at the intersection of Cacique and Alisos to install a 4-way stop, as we are now analyzing the new users of the underpass …..you may see changes there. -Steve (City of SB)
Emotions of the residents affected will always trump some bureaucratic behind the desk cramming down something he/she found in a book.
Really? And what was the final vote again? I saw the news on channel 3 and it looked like everyone was working with each other, but maybe it was the way they explained it.
ITS CALLED SPIN AND THE UNINFORMED MASSES BUY IT!
Thank you, Steve, for the info about the Cacique/Alisos stop. Having had a couple of close calls in just the brief time it’s been open, I think it is a dangerous intersection.
As for the “educated and licensed staff”, I would agree to a certain extent; however, as impressive as Mr. Bailey was he would have been more impressive had he given the public some reference material, urls, for instance — maybe he did to the council but it was notable that none of them referred to it.
Too often, it’s ‘trust us, we know’ and that’s not trustworthy. And as a member of an advisory board (an educated one, too) I’ve seen firsthand how the city administration, including – especially – the city council guided by Jim Armstrong, simply does _not_ pay attention to those outside the cozy tent.
Respectfully, disagree with Mr. Nava: this is not an argument for district elections. Both upper Riviera resident House and White are in the general district as it probably would have been defined.
Agreed. We had a very brief recommendation without many educating references. I think after a daylong public open house, and hours of explanation at the public meeting at Transportation Circulation Committee, we felt that more resources for the public on the matter wasn’t necessary. We knew going into the meeting our role of offering a professional opinion, even if we agreed with many of the communities concerns. What we never wanted to distract from was the lost of a life, that brought us all together. It was up to council what to do. It is not productive to point fingers, only to move forward and continue to seek improvement. The only breakdown, to answer Sharons question, was the leadership of the community to provide realistic expectations. She fails to give the efforts of the Eastside community any credit at all in pushing the issue forward and getting Council to allow something at all to happen. Our staff answered the request for lights early on, but that answer was not good enough. Many people now view this effort as a failure, I view it as a pivotal start of a conversation from a part of the community that is typically very quiet. Since most of the traffic complaints come directly through me in the last 12 years, I can say that rarely have I heard any complaints about those 2 intersections, even though we all agree that they could use improvement. I encourage everyone on the Eastside to identify some problems and solutions and not be discouraged to make your input. We do listen, we do read the blogs, and we try to pragmatically look at any problems. I have met some great people in the process, and hope to continue to help if I can. I can give you realistic answers, even if they are frustrating to hear. I too wish I had a magic wand to cut through some of the red tape. And if you still are left with question about lights; they are not out of the question in the future if conditions allow.
Steve, with all due respect, I was part of organizing the Eastside on this whole process as the head of the Milpas Community Association. I also serve on the Neighborhood Advisory Council. When I was on the Franklin committee, we asked for lights there for years, and NO ONE from the city ever came back and told us why our request went into a black hole. I worked with a lot of Eastside neighbors and partners to get participation in the meetings starting in November last year. I met with Derrick and Pat Kelly several times. You, however, I never met, in those 9+ hearings and sessions with the engineers that I was in. And finally, what is a traffic employee doing reading blogs and lobbing shots during the working day?
Thank you very much, Steve. Understood about TMI, especially at a public meeting!, but showing urls would help or referencing them to the City website. I did not disagree with the statements, from research, that lights at Yanonali would cause more accidents (how could I!) but I’d to like to read the reference material used.
One relatively, in the scale of things, minor point: Sharon Byrne does not “fail to give the Eastside community any credit….” Were it not for MCA’s (and her leadership) efforts the Eastside “community” would be much less united and vocal and, yes, effective, as much as it is. Prior to the reactivated MCA, there was essentially nothing here re neighborhood and political action – and I was here at the time of the East Side Study Group.
But, again, thank you for your encouraging response.
(by “anon.” – but a typo produced “aon” which is better.)
Sharon, I applaud you for your efforts and your selfless motivation. I may have been not in the front seat, but I have been involved the whole time. And after long lunch meeting with you year ago, I offered my help to you, and have yet to get a call from you Rather than jump to assumptions, I do not work today… And despite what most people on here think, employees are also citizens of the community. I am not lobbing, only clarifying and reaching out to those who feel we don’t care. I do love reading the trolls and their creative writing! Keep up the good work!
District elections are not the obvious answer. They also make it easier for narrow, dysfunctional special interest groups to take over: employee unions, single agenda candidates; etc.
Plus they narrow the candidate base too severely where one area of town may have a higher percentage of very capable civic activists, these multiple civic minded folks who have the time and interest to be involved are then precluded from further participation because their “district” only allows one of them at any given time.
Employee unions have the means, organizational structure and strongest interests to take over smaller district election seats. Keep city elections at-large. Maybe carve up the city into a few broader residential areas for candidate residence requirements where multiple candidates can qualify to run for open seats, but keep the overall voting at large.
Thanks Anonymous for engaging in how do we make a change in how Santa Barbara City defines representative government. It is fascinating to me that the last time district elections was considered by the council, the “liberal” majority rejected it out of hand-no discussion about how to improve the process, no consideration of accountability, no study about how to link neighborhood representation in a real way to governance-they instead left in place the same process that took the present Neighborhood Advisory Committee recommendations and trashed them while offering apologies and “wish I could make it all better” statements.
The real power in this city wielded behind the scenes by well-paid, long-term staffers like Betty Weiss, Jaime Limon and Paul Casey and several others who all work together in lockstep with winks and nods between them. When things go wrong (which they often do). it doesn’t matter because the meltdown of the media in SB has served them well; the little interns have no idea or ability to report, and those in the know have been eased out of the business. The electeds and appointeds are merely the facade of what goes on between the powerful development community and those city staffers who serve them. The rest is just Kabuki theatre to make the people think there is some sort of process that includes them, time consuming and ineffective as it is. As in this case, the General Plan, traffic “calming” the recent ethics violation by the ABR member and so much more. There is no accountability in our CIty government.
As someone who has tried to follow the law by working with the planning department…never again. These people are not working in the interests of their constituents and their actions and policies are so over the top intrusive, they are a disincentive to participate. Rather than bloated and bureaucratic, if government was small, pragmatic and responsive, people would feel they have a partner they can trust and work with rather than an opponent who will give you bulbouts when you ask for stoplights.
Great idea!!!!! A smaller, pragmatic and responsive government. local, state and country levels.
Too many job protection regulations already built into the system after too many years of union-friendly council persons and legislators. The only hope is to slow government growth because you can’t get rid of what is already in place.
DONT GIVE UP AND DONT LAY DOWN, THE POWER OF THE PEOPLES INFORMED VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
City staff job protection and salary/benefit increases always are the first drivers for city government decisions. This is what happens when you put a majority of public employee union backed council people on both sides of the bargaining table.
Voters do this to themselves. And voters can stop doing this to themselves by simply rejecting candidate beholden to public employee unions: fire, police, and even teachers – any “friends” of a public employee union political fronted candidate. You know who they are by election day. Stop voting for them or stop complaining.
I agree with Susan Jordan of Facebook- why the resistance to installing these lights!
Traffic department very concerned about traffic flow and the rights of out-of-town commuters who still chose single occupancy vehicles to come to our town. Traffic lights foul up commuter traffic flow, so commuters win over mere local residents. Anyone plot out where the city traffic department lives and what routes they use to get to work?
I know a girl at the city and I can say for certain that most of the traffic staff rides their bikes or walks everyday to work, and some of them do frequent that area, and none of them live out of town. Btw residents of milpas also do drive as well. Drive through the neighborhoods, you will see lots of cars.
Darn, I could have sworn I saw the words “Arch Druids of the Traffic Department”. Was I just imagining this? Why is Rob Layton getting a pass or is he gone now?
Why don’t we just agree to let a developer build a tract of homes there if he’ll put in a stop light?
The Santa Barbara City Council’s decision to ignore the pleas from the neighborhood and deny stop lights on two dangerous Milpas Street pedestrian crossings is more than disappointing-it demonstrates why Santa Barbara should have “District Elections” instead of at large, as is done now. A representative elected from the “District” would be accountable to the constituents of that neighborhood, would have to live in that neighborhood, would have to face the families threatened with traffic and could be voted out. Time For A Change.
Would work great if each neighbor was allocated their own money. I don’t want every interested neighborhood to be spending a half million dollars on anything they come up without the interest of the rest of the City.
Hey Sharon! Why are you singling out Cathy Murrillo here? The council vote was 7-0. Are you still pissed that she kicked your ass in the election? I mean really,bringing in the race card here? Get over yourself….I guess it’s lucky this website gives you a column or no one would listen to your self- serving nonsense. Maybe you should seek professional help, getting some meds might help.
BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR TRUTHFUL OPPOSING VIEW. the mods look for that, speaking from experience.
I think the mods are more interested in discouraging ad hominum attacks than opposing points of view, ACORN.
Pritchett? Is that you?? Must be…..Defend Murrillo? Check. Personal attack on Sharon? Check. Attack this website? Check. If you’re not Pritchett, you two should hang out together. Your personal insecurities seem to overlap…..
Now that she has taken office, the sunny, stealth campaign that Ms. Murillo waged, all sweet and light about libraries, being Latina and concerns for “your prosperity,” has turned into the reality that she occupies the seat that her husband so desperately wanted and could not earn on his own merits. From her lack of transparency about the Mickey Flacks breakfast to her refusal to even cast a symbolic vote on behalf of the local residents (which would have meant something to the local constituents, many of whom likely supported her) she’s just no different at all. This duplicity gives future candidates a blueprint for how to run and win–and then do just the opposite. There’s little that’s more discouraging to voters than that.
Short attention span here, but what, exactly, do you mean by the lack of transparency about the Mickey Flacks breakfast? Agreed that a symbolic vote for the residents AND the advisory committees would have been preferable to a yearning for unanimity on the council.
Search back here for the comments on the Flacks campaign event where Murillo refused to disclose how much of a campaign debt she had acquired, and/or how much of an employee union-sponsored war chest she was already building up before she was even sworn in.
A game changer for most of Murillo’s supporters who thought she would be an independent voice on the council, but Flacks and the unions bought her out early just like they did to Bendy White who became compromised and useless.
This campaign donation information can now be searched in the County Elections Board file on Murillo, but when it was requested Murillo knew but refused to tell as all the filings were not yet due in public at that time. Breach of trust. She is history.
Flashing lights in crosswalks work http://www.ksby.com/news/do-san-luis-obispo-s-lighted-crosswalks-cut-down-on-crashes-/#!prettyPhotogallery/1/. SB isn’t installing this type of flashing light that highlights pedestrians – we’re installing lights above and at each side of intersections which divert attention away from pedestrians.
Derrick Bailey is very amenable to communicating with residents regarding traffic light accident data – is it more reasonable to assume that he has an ulterior motive in opposing traffic light installation or to post his data on this?
City council members are elected by the public, and acting on the general public’s misinformed perception of the optimum solution to problems translates to voter support for elected officials, rather than solving problems.