Courtesy Photo
Don’t Underestimate the Mighty Lawn Sign
Green Grass of Politics: The cognoscenti sneer at election lawn signs. They’re just feeble mom-and-pop stuff from another era, and nobody pays any attention except to steal them. Right? Wrong.
Santa Barbara City Councilmember Bendy White tells me that they were a key factor turning the tide against the Measure Y Veronica Meadows housing development on last week’s ballot. Many were surprised when No on Y won by nearly a two-to-one margin.
Barney Brantingham
“We were outspent at least ten to one and had a bare-bones budget,” said White, a leader of the No on Y campaign. So, trying to match developer Mark Lee’s $250,000 Yes on Y war chest with about $25,000, White and others launched a lawn-sign effort, which he calls “true political advertising.”
With Lee stuffing mailboxes with slick mailers portraying Measure Y as a mere creek cleanup, it looked like he would win by a tidal wave. In truth, it would have allowed an access bridge over city parkland to his 25-home project off Las Positas Road.
White attributes the 2-1 defeat of Measure Y to voter rejection of “using public land for private purposes” and also to placing “suburban housing” on open space. So now what? Residents of Alan Road had bitterly opposed access up their street, which is why Lee resorted to the so-called “bridge over troubled waters.”
Mayor Helene Schneider, an opponent of Measure Y, predicts that in view of last week’s overwhelming defeat, developer Lee will have “a tough hill to climb” trying to muster four votes on the council when and if he returns with a new plan, much less the five supermajority votes required for a specific plan. Lee would also need Planning Commission okay.
But it’s widely expected that Lee will try the Alan Road gambit again. Maybe with fewer homes. Judging from all the No on Y lawn signs I saw along the street, Lee might want to spread some curbstone love around. Get creative.
What rankles homeowners? Mounting garbage, water, and sewer fees, among other things, right? Maybe Lee could offer to lighten their load, kicking in some bucks. Build a playground. Station a mobile lending library/daycare double-wide. Something, anything. But what’s enough?
Hot Time: The gods of show business were smiling on the Circle Bar B Ranch & Dinner Theatre when firefighters were able to stomp out flames that came within seven miles of the ranch on Refugio Road. I love that old place high above the Pacific and below the Reagan Ranch, smelling more of horse manure than actors’ greasepaint.
Despite the scare, the show will go on this weekend with producers Susie and David Couch staging Regrets Only. Lots of witty one-liners in Paul Rudnick’s play when I saw it, along with a more serious theme having to do with — well, go see for yourself. The usual gang is onstage: Susie, Brian Harwell, Jenna Scanlon, Kathy Marden, Jean Hall, and Raymond Wallenthin. Joe Beck, another regular, directs. On the boards through July 15.
Schools? Drop Dead: Resentment still simmers over the Santa Barbara News-Press’s stand that helped kill the Measure X and W school parcel-tax measures. Voters came within inches of giving them the needed two-thirds approval. Despite the paper’s declining circulation and influence, if owner Wendy McCaw had come out for the measures, the thinking goes, they would have won.
Schadenfreude: That’s the German expression for taking pleasure from the ill fortune of others. Santa Barbarans who can’t spell or pronounce the apt word are taking a certain joy in the long-awaited squabble between Wendy McCaw and her legal partner in many nasty battles, Barry Cappello. Barry, believed to have made millions in legal fees from Wendy, has gone to court to try to get the $411,000 he says she owes him.
Can’t Quit Smoking? If you live in one of banker Michael Towbes’s 2,000 rental units in the area, you have to stop puffing cancer sticks in your home, not-so-sweet (cough, cough) home. See a trend coming under the state law allowing this?
Million-Dollar Wheels: Part-time Santa Barbaran Craig McCaw, cell phone pioneer/ex-hubby of publisher Wendy, just bought a $35-million car, the most expensive auto in the world. But he can afford the wheels. He’s not only worth $1.6 billion — not bad for a dyslexic, eh? — but is selling his 780-acre private James Island off the coast of Vancouver, Canada, for a cool $75 million. The race car is an apple-green 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, built for the late racer Stirling Moss.
Spend an afternoon enjoying memories of the past with eighty ... Read More
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Comments
The NewsMess endorsement against public school funding probably shifted more votes the opposite way.
Cold Shoulder that.
John_Adams (anonymous profile)
June 14, 2012 at 11:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Barney: Sir Sterling Moss is still alive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling...
Perhaps you meant "retired"
Tigershark (anonymous profile)
June 14, 2012 at 5:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I never thought I'd see the day when Stirling Moss would be discussed in the blogs of The Independent.
One of the great question in motor racing history would be "what would have happened if he had waited another year before making his comeback"? Racing fans know what I'm talking about, but in the end, as Tigershark points out, Moss is alive and very well so his career-ending accident may have been a blessing in disguise.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
June 14, 2012 at 6:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Seems like eine kleine schadenfreude going on over at the Independent over the Measure Y results. But the real reason why Y failed is because people can be narrow, selfish and hypocritical.
The 'community' has a history of denying property rights, the stealing or taking of properties. The Wilcox property or now the Douglas Family preserve was devalued to the point where the 'community' purchased the now dog-poop-park-preserve.
So we have the systemic meltdown of our economy, smoke and mirrors, a prop-13 tax base and no real reform or no new sources of revenues that could support an existing park, mobile library or public facility that is currently falling apart-degrading.
I doubt anything except perhaps one or two houses or an estate would be acceptable to Alan Rd residents. I'd suggest Mr. Lee sell or operate Veronica Meadows as a organic farm. But it is not my property. Would anything be acceptable to the neighbors? Regardless, this rejection of measure Y was a very selfish taking of property. And the community lost many benefits that could not be realized from the popular perspective or from behind the windshield of the Lodge-Arias era environmental 'I was here first' paradigm.
DonMcDermott (anonymous profile)
June 15, 2012 at 6:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
@DonMcDermott,
First you’re Progressive.
Then you go on about Property Rights and then rile about Prop 13.
Lets talk about Prop 13 and Property Rights.
My Father lived to be 91. He built a home in 1971 for less than 30K, brand new but it was all wood.
He picked the wrong location, in 2006 the property was worth 1.4M, not because of the rundown house but because of the 35’x70’ lot value.
Why, a bunch of City People from the East liked the location.
At the end of his life he had a rundown home that needs about 80K to make it livable, because old people on fixed incomes just get by, I did all that he would let me do, he had his pride. Beach property is subject to massive amounts of dry rot.
Under your bash of Prop 13, he would have been TAXED out of his home many years before he died.
He never benefited from the increase in the value of his home, he just wanted to live and die there.
So what about his Property Rights?
Prop 13 was passed to protect against a Government going wild.
Now the property is back down to 750K, which is really only the lot value.
Homes should be lived in, not a piggy bank for Government.
You have one foot on each side of the stream and the end result is you are going to fall in and get wet.
howgreenwasmyvalley (anonymous profile)
June 15, 2012 at 11:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't mind Prop 13 for ones primary residence. I am simply pointing out (apparently you haven't got the message yet) that "we" don't do the budget; our legislatures do, or locally a council or supervisors do the ever-changing budget. And the voters have really tied decision makers hands. And so if we accept this Prop 13 with all of its warts we need to make up the loss of revenues from other sources. Simply it is a matter of math. Before regressive conservatives policies put the world-wide economy in a ditch we at least had growth. But even before that we had an imbalance of revenues. Locally we now have up to a $70 million backlog of deferred repairs to city buildings/facilities. We also have needs and wants for new amenities and facilities. So as you point out there is devaluation. There is stagnation. So we simply need to look at other sources for revenue; or just let everything go. One source is new taxpayers.
DonMcDermott (anonymous profile)
June 15, 2012 at 3:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Don't mention or write the V-word around Don Mickey-D.
Or how that bridge for a wholly private development would have been a private taking of public property.
John_Adams (anonymous profile)
June 18, 2012 at 4:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)