NOLETA KNOCKING: The City of Santa Barbara moved one small step
closer to absorbing the eastern Goleta Valley – or Noleta – on
Thursday afternoon, when the Planning Commission unanimously
supported expanding the city’s “sphere of influence” to include the
unincorporated region between the cities of Goleta and Santa
Barbara, beginning at Mission Canyon Road. The Committee for One
has an application pending before the Local Agency Formation
Commission to expand the sphere, preliminary to annexation. The
commission also recommended that city ordinances be changed to
allow Noleta residents to sit on Santa Barbara city commissions and
boards; according to their public testimony, they already do. All
of the eastern Goleta residents who spoke at the hearing said they
wanted to be absorbed by Santa Barbara, a move that would increase
the city’s population by about 30,000.
