Budget Cutbacks Loom for 2009

I saw on EdHat today that a Noozhawk article points to Goleta Library cutbacks which bums me out as it is one of my favorite places in Goleta. Yet another article on a local MSNBC article points to increases in fees at the County Clerk's and at the Planning Department.

"How does it cost so much to get copies when Kinko's only charges 10 cents," asked Donald Ricketts, attorney for California Public Records Research, a document-management company that has filed written opposition to the fee increase.

Kinko's real cost can't be more than a few cents for a copy. County Clerk Joe Holland is lowering prices on "digital copies" which is more affordable to the title companies that get discs every month....versus individuals who are more likely to pay the following:

In Santa Barbara County, the charge for individual copies of real estate documents is $3 for the first page and $1 for each subsequent page. With the increase, the fees will change to $2 per page. For example, 10 copies under the current fee structure would cost $12, but it would cost $20 under the proposed change.

I like Joe Holland but when he says the fees haven't changed in five years -- I wonder why he would be considering this when the copy fees are high versus the actual cost anyway? That isn't a fair justification for raising fees for something that takes a few moments to copy and very little cost -- even with increases in paper costs. $2 per page -- even at a generous .25 cent cost for the copy, paper and labor -- is eight times what the true cost is. I guess when you have a monopoly, you can charge what you want. What he is really doing is offsetting other costs or future costs with fee increases when he can likely get away with it.

Wolf Calls for Greener County Building

While Pappas spent $10,000 for one vote, Farr announced her staff and then Wolf called for a greener County Building :) I think it's time to move on...

At yesterday’s Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors hearing, Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf called for the County to “get it’s own house in order” by reconstituting the County’s Green Team as the “Conservation and Sustainability Team,” under the direction of General Services, charged specifically with developing a strategic plan and action steps within 90 days so that County Departments can begin to immediately and significantly reduce their energy consumption in existing buildings and activities. Wolf’s motion to the board calling for a bold strategic plan and action steps within 90 days was approved 4-1.

In the past year, Supervisor Wolf strongly advocated for the hiring of the County’s first-ever Energy Manager, who began work in April 2008. In a recent briefing, Wolf learned that the County could be doing much more to reduce energy costs and establish sustainable practices.

Wolf said, “While the County has been moving ahead with some good programs in conservation and sustainability, we need to quickly and comprehensively reduce energy use in our existing County buildings and practices. We need to model sustainable, energy efficient practices in the County, and we need to do it now.”

The County is in the process of certifying its carbon footprint and establishing a baseline. Wolf said, “Not only can we reduce energy consumption and save money, we could choose to bank the dollars we save and invest them in renewable energy with the goal of someday making the County ‘carbon neutral.’”

Consumer Advocacy Coalition Has Town Hall at Faulkner Gallery

The Consumer Advocacy Coalition, a recently formed group of mental health advocates, recently held a town hall meeting at the Santa Barbara Library, More than 120 people came, including a good amount of public officials in response to a shortfall in mental health funds at Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services (ADMHS) anticipated for this coming year. Complicating matters is an investigation led Auditor-Controller Bob Geis of a County practice of over billing Medi-Cal for mental health services, perhaps as much as $31.5 million.

The coalition was formed by a client of mental health services, Roger Thompson, who has said publicly that he has bipolar disorder. ADMHS Medical Director Dr. Edwin Feliciano told Noozhawk that: “The community lacks an understanding of what mental illness is. We need to educate ourselves on what services are most effective.”

The organization hosts weekly meetings held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Sundays at Unity House, 1626 Santa Barbara St. A second town hall has been scheduled for the North County on March 18 at the new Santa Maria Main Public Library.

Caruso/Miramar Project Emails Released

The enclosed PDF was released to the media late last week by the law firm representing community groups opposed to the current Miramar project. It represents a series of email communications between County staff, employees and officials -- as well as emails from the applicant in a drama which continues to unfold.

Decide for yourself -- but this project looks like it was fast-tracked on an unrealistic timeline. These emails also give us a view of the circumstances around two project managers who had issues with the process and the ethics surrounding the County's approach.

Goleta Throws Down the Gauntlet on the County with RNA Alternative Tax

A major issue during the last campaign for council, NoozHawk reported that the City of Goleta's revenue neutrality agreement (RNA) with the County of Santa Barbara came under fire this week with the Chamber Trio of Onnen, Bennett and Blois seeking to put the issue on the ballot next November. One proposed measure would allow the City of Goleta to "unilaterally amend" the unaptly-named RNA. Aceves and Wallis dissented citing something called "contract law" and the fact that there are more appropriate ways to address the issue.

If that wasn't enough -- Goleta Chamber's Trio threw a tea party at the harbor and proposed an alternative sales tax for Goleta which would compete against and almost certainly derail Measure A.

Agreed. The RNA is not fair and the County of Santa Barbara took advantage of the deal by not including a sunset clause. Now with Montecito looking at incorporation -- we can expect a a firefight over this issue in Goleta. With shrinking revenue from all sides, I wouldn't expect the County to give up easily on this tax for which they have to do little but sit back and collect from the likes of Costco and Home Depot.

The final council vote to put these measures on the ballot is July 1. What is unsettling about this turn of events to me is not just the in-your-face approach which is clearly an election ploy to gain a fourth vote on council and retain Jean Blois -- it is the complete disregard for the bigger picture. It will cause a huge strain on the City budget in legal fees and puts the trio's rush vote to create in-house council in perspective. It will also likely derail the county-wide vote for Measure A with the amount of votes coming from Goleta in a presidential election holding court in the Fall. Like much of our society, the Chamber's Trio is only thinking of themselves with this entitlement tax.

Carbajal Attends State of the Union

I received a community post from an anonymous reader related to County Supervisor Salud Carbajal's attendance at the State of the Union on Monday night. The reader called it the "State of the Lame Duck" and wondered about Carbajal's recent right wing associations including a recent award from the Building and Industry Association County of SB Industrial Association as Public Servant of the Year and his apparent cozy relationship with News-Press Editor Travis Armstrong. "Does Salud Carbajal have any principles and scruples left?" is the question anonymous wanted to pose.

I don't agree with Anon's assessment. Why? I'd go to the State of the Union if I had a chance -- whether or not I agreed with who was President. There is something about the office and the once in a lifetime opportunity that would call any of us to action.

What I could almost have an issue with is the fact that the County's Communications Director sent the following email with a very fancy ASCI signature.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Santa Barbara County Board Chair attends President's State of
Union speech tonight/ Santa Barbara County Communications Director
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:07:35 -0800
From: Boyer, William

Here is a great news tip for you. Salud Carbajal, Chair of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors (and First District Supervisor), will be “under the dome” tonight in the U.S. Capitol to attend, and hear live, in person, the President of the United States give his annual State of the Union address. This is a great opportunity to localize a national story. Should you want comment from Supervisor Carbajal, call him on his cell phone (after the speech, of course,) at (805) YABBA-DABBA.

Supervisor Carbajal is back in Washington, D.C. on County business meeting with government and elected officials on County issues and was invited to attend the State of the Union speech, one of the most important events to attend in Washington.

/*/W/*//*/illiam H. /*//*/B/*//*/oyer/*/
Communications Director
County Executive Office
Santa Barbara County

Perhaps a bit on the political side considering it is a non-County related event before an upcoming reelection bid for Carbajal? Careful to say Carbajal was on County business anyway, I guess you have to give /*//*/B/*//*/oyer/*/ the benefit of the doubt. ASCI-man should be more careful though as we get towards election season.

As for Salud -- again, I don't blame him for going. I'd give anything to see Obama ignore and turn away from Hillary live and in person. More power to him.

Community Post: Mortage Collapse Hitting SB County?

I received the following email from an avid reader who put words to something I've been thinking about for a few weeks and wanted to tackle after the election. So, here's something to think about today and I've been working on something else for an couple days from now. Perhaps someone could explain the foreclosure process and what the data on this web site means? -- Sara

Community Post from an Avid Reader Below:

The mortgage lending collapse isn't just a problem for investors and bankers who suddenly find they've lost a gazillon dollars. While a handful of CEO's will be forced to slink off under their golden parachutes, thousands of real people may be losing their homes in our county.

I just found 2,963 foreclosures listed in our county on http://www.foreclosure.com/search/CA_083.html

Can this be true?

Are almost 3,000 people losing their homes? If so, we've got a bigger economic disaster brewing here than San Diego County had in terms of wild fire destruction.

What does this mean to the county? What will happen to all these working families? Are we supposed to blame them? Are they just a write off for investors?

Why isn't this news?

Mohr on Government Employees

Former County employee Greg Mohr had an interesting opinion piece in The Santa Barbara Independent this week that speaks to our discussion on government employees over the last few days...thanks to an avid reader and County Planner for pointing it out to me.

Community Post: Brown's New Contract Kept Under Radar

This post was written by a citizen stringer.
==========================

County CEO Mike Brown becomes even more unextractable despite costing county $$ millions.

Blogabarbara missed this as an exclusive story by a few minutes after the ubiquitous Chris Meagher of the Santa Barbara Independent posted his article Friday afternoon.


Still, here is the story written independently of the Independent.

During the Board of Supervisors meeting on June 11 immediately at the beginning and just prior to the Pledge to the flag, County Counsel Shane Stark announced that nothing was to report from the Closed Session that started earlier that morning. He noted that it was continued to the meeting later in the week to Friday, June 15. However, no report about any closed session was made that Friday morning at the Board meeting, but just after the last item for the day (the approval of the county budgets) and some flowery remarks by the retiring county Budget director. At that time, County Counsel Shane Stark said --in the legally minimal style-- "the Board of Supervisors will recess to close to consider the business previously transacted." With that, after a slight stumble about adjourning versus taking a recess, Board chair Brooks Firestone declared "We'll recess to closed session."

According to the county government TV showing of the meeting and the video archive at the county web site, the meeting then appeared to end, with the TV music swelling the the production credits rolling. However, under state law, the results of the closed session have to be announced to the public when results are concluded. The Board of Supervisors indeed did reach a conclusion about their closed-session discussion, but it was not shown on the government TV nor was it recorded on video.

The announcement following this closed session was that the County government's Chief Executive Officer, Michael Brown, would be given a two-year contract, to 2011, with a boost in retirement benefits and a extension to nine months as a severance deal. The severance means that the County would have to pay him the equivalent of nine months of pay if the County Board of Supervisors decide to terminate his job and contract. Thus, getting rid of Mike Brown would become even more expensive for the county taxpayers.

The biggest news from this closed session announcement (which was not, perhaps deliberately, shown on TV or in the video archive) was that the Board voted to retain Mike Brown as the County chief executive and extend his contract by two years. The vote was a classic 3-2 split, with Gray, Centeno, and Firestone voting to keep Brown, while Carbajal and Wolf voted to get rid of him for the good of the county.

This brings up some thought questions. After his moves to run the County government like a dictatorial corporation that has had to settle several personnel lawsuits against his actions and costing the county millions of dollars to settle, did the majority of the elected Board of Supervisors do the right thing?

Will Joni Gray and Brooks Firestone have more to answer for when they try to get reelected early next year? Or, is this just another brick in the wall for a history of bad decisions by Gray and Firestone?

Ex-Public Defender Sues County

Apparently County CEO Mike Brown will have some 'splainin to do in court. Former Public Defender Jim Egar filed a 51-page lawsuit las Friday which accuses Brown of intimidation, profanity and even spitting.

Here's the Santa Maria Times article on the subject.

Office Space at the County

Bring me my red stapler! A County staff TPS-style report suggests that South County office space needs will exceed 1.2 million square feet according to The Daily Sound today. The North County estimate falls a bit lower to 715,973 square feet. Supervisors Centeno and Firestone thought that was unfair and did not vote to adopt the plan saying population differences should be taken into account. They did "receive" the plan...is that some kind of 1984ism?

Apparently the plan does not take into account the possibility of a new jail which would be placed in North County. Construction and payroll associated with a new jail should more than make up for the several hundred thousand square foot difference.

For Office Space fans , here's a link so you can make your very own TPS Report.