County 5/29
After receiving 99 letters commenting on the draft Subsequent Environmental Impact Report for Rick Caruso’s Miramar proposal, county staff asked that a special Montecito Planning Commission meeting originally scheduled for 6/10 be moved to 7/7, as the county needs time to respond to each comment, according to a letter from Deputy Planning Director John Baker to the Board of Supervisors and CEO Mike Brown.
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Effective 7/1, Fresno County Chief Legal Counsel Dennis Marshall will replace Daniel Wallace as Santa Barbara County Counsel. Wallace was filling in after the retirement of Shane Stark, who had been chief counsel for 13 years. Salud Carbajal, chairing the Board of Supervisors, announced the board’s decision to hire Marshall, who will make roughly $190,000, at its 5/27 meeting.
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With Brooks Firestone and Joni Gray dissenting, the Board of Supervisors voted on 5/27 to initiate a June discussion on whether money received annually as a result of litigation against the tobacco industry should aid the county’s adult Mental Health Department. More than $5 million in these funds is current saved away, and the board could decide in June that to give that money to the struggling department.
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In a 5/26 press release, 3rd District supervisor candidate Dave Bearman accused his opponent Doreen Farr of having supported the exclusion of Isla Vista from the City of Goleta, and for being part of a Goleta Now proposal, which he said ignored the “fiscal reality” of the future. Farr has said she supported Goleta Now, but wasn’t part of it, and couldn’t vote on the issue because she didn’t live in the 3rd District at the time.
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A Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 5/22 to determine the weapon system’s reliability and accuracy. The unarmed re-entry part of the missile hit its target 230 nautical miles southwest of Guam after traveling roughly 5,250 miles. Tracking systems were installed on the equipment, designed to collect data.