By Cheri Rae
This beautiful place once felt like a safe refuge from the rest of the world, a place that embraced creative spirits who could make a simple living. We could afford a downtown office space, regular dinners in local restaurants, and even shopping in a variety of mom-and-pop-owned boutiques and specialty stores. We felt safe walking everywhere at all hours of the day and night: around the nice old neighborhood, to State Street, and all the way to the beach.
Out-of-town friends have envied our living situation, calling it a modern-day “Leave it to Beaver-ville,” for its old-fashioned feel and neighborly ways. We actually kind of liked the comparison and expressed gratitude for our great luck to live in such a safe and special place—and to raise our children in a community that felt protected from modern-day city life.
But it’s not that way any more.
A young man was recently murdered just a few blocks away from where I live, a few doors away from a friend who has always thought she was secure in her little cottage in a safe neighborhood. There are more thefts in the neighborhood than I can even count (including an unsolved break-in and bicycle theft I recently documented here); graffiti and vandalism of private property are encroaching, and it’s an unwinnable battle with the City to get the infrastructure repairs that are so needed—where curbs are crumbling, sidewalks are cracked, and the much-needed storm drains are on indefinite hold.
Residents are told to file their own police reports; to pay obscenely inflated and ever-rising fees for everything from parking tickets to building permits; and to tolerate doubletalk and double standards from a nearly impenetrable city bureaucracy that exists to maintain itself.
The citizen who dares ask questions, and even worse, expects honest answers and accountability—is scoffed at and given the run-around. And the rare one who digs a bit deeper is treated as an enemy of the establishment (don’t even get me started on that subject).
I have shelves full of books, articles and references to a time when Santa Barbara mattered, when the local residents were asked to weigh in about such important matters as “How Many People Should there Be in Santa Barbara?” But today, Santa Barbarans are more of a bother than a benefit, unless it’s election time.
In recent years, we have seen a total transformation of this town as the city bureaucracy tries to simultaneously turn it into a shelter for the homeless; a chi-chi getaway destination for the wealthy; an expensive mecca for students from all over the world; and a subsidized housing haven. And the average citizen is valuable only for how much money can be leveraged from them to pay for it all.
How long this delusion will continue is debatable, but it can’t go on forever, as the ever-present “situation” between haves and have-nots appears to be escalating with no end in sight.
And still, the so-called leaders of the city say nothing, do nothing, and are not apparently accountable for the transformation they’ve foisted upon Santa Barbara’s citizenry. Right about now, it’s feeling like one big failure, with no way to fix it, no one up to the task of leading this this city in a different direction. Instead, we’re reminded it’s about time for another slate of candidates to assert their competency, attend another round of special-interest endorsement meetings and meaningless community forums as our city continues to slip away.
It’s enough to break your heart, this recognition that Santa Barbara isn’t Santa Barbara anymore.
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“We felt safe walking everywhere at all hours of the day and night: around the nice old neighborhood, to State Street, and all the way to the beach.”
You obviously did not live in Santa Barbara in the 70′s and 80′s.
I’d agree…as a child in the 70s and 80s, Lower State Street was the ultimate curse and boogeyman. While I think folks often have rosy colored memories of their childhood in SB, the fact is, many aspects of the town, from gangs, to homeless to development are do seem to have actually gotten worse.
In a related vein, has anyone heard those AM radio advertisements promoting sustainable planning? It reads like a script that every developer uses to pull the million dollar wool over the eyes of our little leaders. Those more conspiracy minded might actually think all the talk of UN Agenda 21 has a grain of truth at the core…
When you allow too many illegal immigrants to find safe haven in your town this is the result. You can thank Obama.
Tell it like it is! The mountains and oceans are still there but that’s about it. And here comes La Entrada
State Street is the worst of the worst. When is a leader going to emerge and clean up the vagrants, homeless beggars and stray dogs. Dont remember picadelli square being seedy. Madam Mayor Tear Down the Wall / the half round one next to the Habit
Markus Sandy: I lived here then and I did feel safe living in the general area of the recent unsolved murder. I live now in the lower east and though I do walk my small dog at night, I am cautious, not yet doing as a friend does, always carrying pepper spray, but always with a flashlight and never going on Milpas, watching carefully my fear level.
As for Rae’s comments about city government, sadly, that is very much so. I haven’t had any need to contact Murillo, and don’t know whether she is infected yet with the us vs. them mentality of city administrators – mayor – “bendy” councilmembers and upper level city staff, but it most certainly is deep-rooted. And even more sadly there are _no_ activist city groups or media and regularly-writing columnists willing to take the heat and the scorn that comes with running against the wall.has no clothes.
Armstrong’s protection of the “family” of city employees, no doubt well-intentioned, has created a barrier of bureaucracy and left most of us out in the cold; the unionization of city employees has done the rest to make this city theirs, not ours.
El_smurfo: what ads are those? (I don’t listen to AM radio, but would be interested to know more about the ads.)
Apologies for the chopped line. Second paragraph should be: “running against the wall, challenging the city, the emperor that to most of us has no clothes.”
This “article” is a great example of why freedom of speech is so controversial.
17% of all housing in Santa Barbara now either city price-fixed or subsidized. This has permanently changed SB neighborhoods, voting patterns, revenues and economic vitality.
Anyone who thinks Santa Barbara is a “rich” community is confusing us with Hope Ranch and Montecito- both of whom are in the county anyway.
Demographically, the city of Santa Barbara is low to lower-middle income. Increasingly as more and more dense city housing dedicated to low income and seniors are added on top of what we already have. Time for Santa Barbara to recognize we will not solve all the world’s problems on our own. We bankrupted this city trying. How sustainable is that?
Far fewer voters are now left in the few remaining affluent parts of Santa Barbara to be a counter-weight to those increasing numbers personally receiving direct city funded benefits. This happened while you were asleep, if you did not know this has already happened. Or if you still think the left over “rich” in this town are expected to carry the increasing numbers of “poor” who are granted rights in this town few others enjoy.
So at least stop pretending and resenting that Santa Barbara is a wealthy town; because it is not. Except for city staff who we pay approx $100,000 plus a year. Since we took so many properties off the tax roles when they were mandated to be “affordable”, tourism now has to provide more and more revenue for the city.
Yet, past city councils went out of their way to attract more and more vagrants to this town which has ironically turned off many of the tourists. They let us know in their frequent letters to the editor there are far more pleasant places to visit than downtown Santa Barbara these days.
Killing downtown retail for local shoppers, particularly the senior shoppers with disposable incomes, was the worst legacy left after too many years of “progressive” city councils.
We need council members like Rowse, Hotchkiss and Francisco to turn things around and they can use one more majority vote this coming election to ensure we stay on track revitalizing our city commercial districts and making our own neighborhoods safer for all of us.
Time to spend time, money and focus on the rest of us already living here, instead of welcoming more vagrants who in turn exploit our prior city’s reputation for philanthropy and good will.
Any vagrant who comes to Santa Barbara demanding it is their right for us to take care of them needs to be asked this one simple question: ….. and what will you do in return in order to receive this expected largesse? It is time handouts to vagrants become payments earned for services rendered. This is not too much to ask of anyone.
Here is a litmus test for any city council candidate today:
1. Do you support the gang injunction?
2. Do you support more patrols in the downtown so shoppers can feel safe?
3. Do you think we have outgrown our limited local resources?
4. Do you think 17% is more than enough subsidized city mandated housing?
5. Do you think it is time to underground utilities and provide safe neighborhood lighting throughout our entire city?
6. Do you think it is time to streamline our city ordinances?
7. Do you think it is time to audit all city department for their intended purpose, results and efficiencies?
8. Do you support changing city pension plans to become a defined-contribution plan?
9. Have you received donations or campaign support from city employee unions or any other municipal or trade unions? Will you recuse yourself from any city contract negotiations if you have?
10. What is your vision for Santa Barbara. Do we need to re-invent the future and follow unknown, untested, edgy new urban design models or do we preserve what has worked best from the past and lower our expectations about what is doable and proper for any city to accomplish ?
11. Do you believe like I do that money grows on jacaranda trees?
Good job Precinct Counter
I would add to your list one item.
Would you support a commitment to tie the pay/pension of city workers to that of the average income of city residents?
This article could have been written / valid in the late 1960′s or 70′s or 80′s or 90′s. It’s relatively easy to write about the negative aspects of the city – and all the assaults to the senses. It is what is it is – and often all about money.
A steady decline for the entire State. I loved Santa Barbara in the 70′s when a person working a regular job could afford a house. Very few rules and big name rock bands were stopping off in Isla Vista to play music. After the riots there were very few people living there. Magic Lantern theatre was the first place to play the movie Jaws. Borsodies after for a pot of tea or an expresso while the patrons took turns walking up on the stage, playing music or reciting poems. Santa Barbara was beautiful, friendly and captured my heart.
When I moved here there were all sorts of lurid murders with bodies left in one piece or many along the sides of the road, police calls nightly to the flop house Garvin Hotel on State Street and rapes on both City College Hill and the night shifts at Cottage hospital.
The Upper East was full of crumbling old houses getting rented out to multi-families, the El Encanto was a dump renting to UCSB students. Santa Barbara was known as the place the cocaine lords (the drug of choice in those days) laundered their money buying Montecito mansions with cash, that cost no more than $300,000. Few could keep those up too as many settled into genteel decay.
There was few decent restaurants, nor any that stayed open much past 9pm. No one dared visit Haley street after dark, even though the Rose Cafe stayed open until 4am then and was the only place to go for Mexican food.
The Westside and Lower Eastside were redlined unofficially by the realtors as the barrio with no meeting place for both Anglos and Latinos as each kept to their own separate world and even Fiesta was Old Spanish Days, not old Mexican days.
I can’t decide what part of old Santa Barbara I want to keep, but I do hear you. I think the turning point was after Ronald Reagan put Santa Barbara on the world map and we locals started losing our town to outsiders who decided to develop us as a brand. How city hall got so bloated is a story worth investigating.
But it is time to close down the Environmental Services Division -we all get it. We don’t need a whole department now carrying out make-work to justify their $100,000 jobs We are the greenest city in the US and you just can’t keep squeezing more drops of eco-goodness out of us, while the city’s basic infrastructure goes to hell in a hand basket. Traffic and transportation is next.
Then Planning has to be totally restructured to become present blight fighters, rather than utopian deconstructionists cramming down projects no one wants. Except the utopian deconstructionists. Yes, we did care and participate more. That is the good part. And that has been lost – there is a barrier between the people and the government.
Public employee unions, thanks for Jerry Brown I did that to us at the same time he was preaching “Small is Beautiful” he laid the groundwork for Big Government and the reigns of power being taken over by government employee unions to stop ordinary citizens from rolling up their sleeves and participating civically and civilly.
After the 1970s:
–we got branded by outsiders as the place to be
–public employee unions took over our role in local government
–the environmental movement was born and put a hammerlock on our town and politics
–regulations grew along with bureaucracy to implement and enforce the regulations
–for a short time, the whole state of California was a bargain real estate wise compared to other parts of the country
–UCSB student riots drove a wedge between public services and taxpayers providing them
Golden Oldie,
You might be right but I think the attention was from the soap opera “Santa Barbara” that portrayed the real Santa Barbara in a silly Hollywood way that was nothing like the real city… until Actors in Beverly Hills figured out they could escape the smog and still work at their craft…and then the City did start to resemble the TV show.
Santa Barbara and Montecito was old people and old money. The new money moved in, bought and fixed up the old until the pressure was on to pay up or move out and most of the middle class did…they took their increase in real estate value and bought big houses in other states and raised their kids. We now have a strange kind of new money, real estate wealthy and the subsidized poor. Many others hanging on by their financial finger tips who ironically rarely get to enjoy Santa Barbara for all their efforts to live here. Montecito has become a club for the rich and their Realtors. State Street is for Tourists and Bums as is the beach areas and wharf. Still love is blind and this city has captured my heart.
Much of the middle class in this area came because with the growth of Goleta and defense industry contracts. It is important to sort out what is the reputation for each “area” and what is in fact the reality of each individual political entity.
It does no good to claim “Santa Barbara is wealthy” and resent its political operations, when in fact Santa Barbara city itself is not wealthy. Old and new money congregate far more in the Santa Barbara county enclaves of Hope Ranch and Montecito, but in turn give identity to the monied brand called “Santa Barbara”. And the middle class continues to thrive in Goleta and Carpinteria.
In fact is it not Montecito and Hope Ranch that need to “pay their fair share” in this community if one continues to resent “Santa Barbara” for being wealthy and insensitive?