When Abstinence Is Not the Best Policy

Thought I read somewhere the City has updated procedural guidelines for staff and getting the word out has begun.

If so, I agree with Mayor Schneider. It seems like Hotchkiss and Rouse are kicking a dead horse.

This should end the issue, then as the other two seem to have behaved responsibly.
Seriously, Frank Hotchkiss belongs nowhere near anything involving aesthetics.
What is Dale "Prop 8" Francisco's position? Now that the Prop.8 view is considered extreme Right wing by conventional wisdom, has he also evolved? I'm sure his supporters are as curious as I.

If this reprehensible corporate toxic chicken dispenser opens for business here in SB, I exhort EVERYONE to honk long and loud EVERY TIME you pass the place. I will be doing that so they can hear me inside. My honk is my protest as well as my personal boycott against a terrible company that supports inequality.

If you work for them, shame on you! Remember: HONK LOUD AND LONG!!!!!

Yea Draxor, tick off all the neighbors and businesses in the area...after all, your horn will magically only send sound waves towards your intended target...

LOL. Draxor --- and someone will post a sign saying Honk if you love Chick-fil-A so the neighbors, businesses and the upscale Hitchcock Ranch behind, will be furious.

Great idea Draxor, until the cops arrest you for disturbing the peace.

Council members Randy Rowse and Frank Hotchkiss still don't get that when there is a conflict of interest officials must abstain. But they're accustomed to violations and frequently engage in discussions and voting on behalf of their friends and associates of like-minded. Both council members neglect those that are more needy and those 'other' constituents that are in need of representation. They're both masters of distractions; snorting and kicking up dust because that's what right wingers do when they think they can rile their base of the ignorant populace.

And if they feel so strongly about these abstentions and integrity of democracy, protocol and all, then why didn't they call for the censure of their like-minded council member Kathleen Michael Self when she was cited by the Fair Political Practices Commission for participation and voting on a multi-million dollar public works project that would improve her property value by removing vehicle traffic out of her residential enclave and onto already abused and neglected nearby neighbors on Calle Real. Because, council members Rowse and Hotchkiss have very little sense of fairness and representational integrity. They are political opportunists.

Chic Fil ahs' COO funnels considerable millions to right wing organizations whose leadership have through their speech and millions communicated really outrageous policies and injurious activities.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content...

Make it a Money Hole-A

Don, your comment "Council members Randy Rowse and Frank Hotchkiss still don't get that when there is a conflict of interest officials must abstain." is incorrect for several reasons. I'll stop at 2:

1) Personal beliefs that differ from the applicant are not valid reason for determining a "conflict of interest". Political beliefs and the location of begonias are mutually exclusive.

2) If the ABR felt they just could not be fair because they were raised by people unqualified to teach a human being to navigate society, then they should have recused themselves, not abstained. There's a difference.

Either way, none of them should have allowed their inner-voice to allow their logic to circumvent item #1 on the list. So Rowse and Hotchkiss are, in this extremely rare instance, absolutely correct. This issue should not be over until there is a new ABR. I believe in homosexuals' right to marry, but I feel that the First Amendment trumps it EVERY TIME.

Under the General Functions of the ABR, where does it state that the Board of 7, make ethical or moral decisions pretaining to usage of the property or building that the one who occupies the real estate?
"General Functions
Insures that high standards of design are maintained in development and construction in the City of Santa Barbara.
Protects and preserves, as nearly as practicable, the natural charm and beauty of Santa Barbara, including the historical style, qualities, characteristics of the buildings, structures and architectural features associated with and established by its long, illustrious and distinguished past.
Reviews, approves, conditionally approves or disapproves all applications for commercial, industrial, multi-family except in El Pueblo Viejo Landmark District or other landmark districts or a designated Landmark for:
Building permits for the erection or exterior alteration of any building (except single family or one-story duplexes);
Grading permits and any structures requiring permits;
Changes of the exterior color of any building;
The use of existing buildings for office use in the R-O and C-O zones;
Appeals of decisions of the Sign Committee; and
All buildings or structures erected upon any public land or allowed to extend over or on any street or other public property"; http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Governm...

Whether they should have recuse(d) or abstained I guess could be important distinction except that the result would be the same.

So if the abstainers decided that the plans and plantings of begonias were not acceptable and the applicant thought they were discriminated against by renegade human rights activists then the applicant would have cause for action.

But still the point is that this action by the narrow and hypocritical duo of Rowse and Hotchkiss is now more of a grandstanding platform for the right wing to stir up their base. That is what they do at election time. Find some little wedge issue. Be afraid of the gays, be afraid of the black Kenyan. Be afraid of obamacare. Be afraid of women in power. Be afraid the ABR is obstructing businesses. Be afraid. Be angry. And then go vote.

And in the end this dusting up of smoke and dirt will likely cause some major oversight, like backed up traffic on State, and parking problems. Maybe a housing problem. Who knows maybe direct helicopter flights to a nearby hospital due to the high sodium content of the chicken sammiches. But at least the begonias will look nice.

@3domfighter

Regarding your statement #2:

The difference in recusal and abstention are irrelevant in the ABR case. A recusal is a *type* of abstention--and is more specific to judicial action (or in-action, if you will).

I pretty much agree with #1, and your assessment that the ABR members should have voted, but bringing up the First Amendment is also irrelevant--although, I can understand why you think it is. [The First Amendment is protection from government persecution. It also prohibits the barring of free speech, but does nothing to prevent *public* reprisal--basically, one can express an opinion, but is not guaranteed protection from any consequences that arise from the expressing of said opinion....barring criminal acts perhaps, but I will assume you know what I mean!]

Gary Mosel ROCKS!

We are lucky he remains on this Board because the rest of the members are professional architects whose firms, friends and/or clients are seeking a favorable ruling by the same Board members.

But I commend Hotchkiss for pandering to his rightwing political base and thus pissing off the political moderates who comprise the rest of the electorate and the votes that Hotchkiss will need if he hopes to be reelected. As for Rowse, he yet again bets on the wrong team and looks even more the desperate bloviator increasing greenhouse gas emissions in the council chambers.

One down, 2 (or 4, depending on whether you believe that 2
'didn't understand' the rather simple proposal) to go.

Don and John_Adams, what's with the animosity towards Hotchkiss and Rowse?

Isn't pretty simple?

Members of the ABR are charged with duties related to upholding architectural standards. If they can't do this because they feel compelled to use their position to promote their political beliefs they should resign or be dismissed. It's really just a simple question of being able to do the job.

Robert Ramey

What's being forgotten here is that at least one if not two of the abstainees had been out of town on vacation and thus did not have the appropriate info and thus not being able to make an informed decision, abstained.
And this is where Hotchkiss and Rowse expose themselves as just grandstanders. They know this full well, but wish to curry favor with donors ect.

And why does City Attorney Steve Cooley get a free pass on this issue? he's the one who advised the abstainers to do so! he should know about politically motivated decisions, he spearheaded the the closure of the medical marijuana dispensaries in town. He should've resigned before anyone!

Chik-fulla-hAte.

It is not the function of the ABR to make any decisions for reasons other than visual aesthetics / design / function of a project. No personal or political beliefs of the owner of the project can have any bearing on the decision.

The valid grounds for recusal are simple : an actual existing relationship with the applicant & board member. Not a "feeling, judgement, political difference, or belief" about the applicant, but a real bonified relationship of some kind that would present a conflict.

Abstaining for pure political posturing / pandering is not an acceptable option either.

Cartoonz, the one member who abstained on political grounds has resigned; the other had been away on vacation and felt inadequately informed to fairly vote.
I think that is a legitimate reason- and wasn't the vote then rescheduled anyway? Especially after all this furor? Hotchkiss and Rowse must be eyeing the Mayoral post, Francisco having already been humiliated.

I thought that 3 had abstained on political grounds, 2 "did not understand the application" and 1 was out of town. Per yesterday (?) article.

Riceman commenting on a chicken place...rice..chicken...I'm getting hungry.

We need a diagram.

Wait, government employees are letting their own personal beliefs interfere with doing their jobs?
Shocking, just shocking.

1. They are not employees.
2. And one must abstain when there is a conflict of interest that could preclude the applicant from receiving an unbiased review.

So apparently they are all incapable of giving unbiased reviews, eh?

Okay, so maybe a couple of them were not biased, they were just plain uninformed because they were on vacation or what-not. Only a few of them were incapable of giving unbiased reviews, apparently.

Too bad BurgerKing is gone, but now that it is, I'd like to see this entire new plan scrapped, and have a new Habit installed, including the chili.

C'mon! An adult, in a position with some responsibility, isn't able to make a simple decision regarding the appearance of a patio because his ability to reason has been clouded by personal opinion about whether or not guys should marry each other?

Afterwards you claim you recused yourself so Chik-Fil-A will get a fair assessment of their patio? Thanks for saving them from your self-righteous, holier-than-thou point of view.

Just resign and we'll use a Magic 8-ball to decide what the patio will look like.

Isn't the applicant in this case just a guy who pays a franchise fee for the Chick-fil-a name? Some guy who likely didn't know about the politics of the corporation's owner, who then gets thrown under the bus when Mr. Cathy "I don't hate gays, I just want'em in the closet" gets all out there about it. Of course I don't know about the applicant's politics, but that's my point: how often does the board hear about the applicant's politics? If a big right winger wanted to change his chimney, would members of the board need to recuse themselves? Or, if a gay couple wanted to add a bedroom for their adopted child, would someone against gay adoption need to recuse themselves? What happens when the Sign Committee gets to review a new sign for our sweet little porno shop Adult Bookstore? I'm a big liberal myself, and I think Mr. Cathy is a dangerous creep, but fair is fair. The design review process in this town is already famous for its length and arbitrariness. ABR needs to stick to the subject at hand, and if incapable of doing so for any reason, members should resign.

Turns out nothing ever impeded this restaurant from opening, as the role of the ABR is largely ceremonial in this pre-existing structure.

@Nitz ... Chick-fil-A's franchise owners are screened & vetted carefully to conform with Cathy's "values":

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/072...

This is legal because the franchisees are not technically employees so are not subject to discrimination laws.

However, as the Forbes article points out, Chick-fil-A structures their franchise agreement in very unusual ways to give the corporation much more control over their franchises than you'd see in, for example, a McDonalds franchise.

Thanks East Beach, I didn't know that. Yet another reason to stay away from franchising. I am a small business owner and I've contemplated buying a franchise in the past, but it seemed like I'd be turning myself into a corporate pawn on my own dollar. No thanks, not for all the TV support and brand name recognition money can buy. Anyway the only national brand I'm loyal to is Best Foods mayonnaise :-) Well my point still stands: the applicant's politics should not come into it.

I nearly bought a CompUSA franchise 23 years ago. Thankfully I did not, but I did invest in a SubS that bought it. Imagine a business in which you have no control over advertising, pricing, cost of goods, or growth in franchise fees and you have CompUSA (which eventually did go bankrupt). The franchisees had no power at all. Our own We The People is a more local model. Good for franchisors, not so good for franchisees.

Agree about Habit with chili. Why do some not offer chili? Regarding ABR, those guys must fight Hotchkiss!!!

3Domfighter: Wrong, according to the Institute for Government Ethics publication "Public Service Ethics" used by Wiley in his ABR ethics training - pages 5,6. Animosity towards a permit applicant or opposition based on belief or ideology in a quasi-judicial decision such as this is a breach of constitutional due process requiring disqualification of decision-makers. This publication, provided to ABR members by Wiley, wasn't available to the public, a standard ethics violation by SB city, a requirement of the Brown Act, but any topic involving ethics and Santa Barbara city government is ludicrous.