Three-Dee Devil Dogs

LONG DAZE JOURNEY INTO NIGHT: There’s something about the whole “Plan Santa Barbara” experience that brings auto-erotic asphyxiation fetchingly to mind. Only with Plan Santa Barbara, there are no fun parts. Other people have to be involved. And at the end, there is no escape, not even blacking out. I say this having endured yet another grueling marathon session by the Santa Barbara City Council on Plan Santa Barbara. That’s the catchy phrase someone concocted to describe the process of updating Santa Barbara’s General Plan, an exercise akin to rewriting the Constitution when it comes to growth and development. Mercifully, I experienced only half the deliberations this week — saved by the bell of newspaper deadlines. As a consequence, I can’t say for sure what the councilmembers ultimately decided. Or more likely — given their polarities of politics and personality — what they decided not to decide.

On the table is how much development the City of Santa Barbara should allow over the next 20 years, what kind it should be, where it should go, and for whom — what income brackets — it should be built. I have a hard enough time deciding where to hang pictures in my office or what I’m doing in two days. So I can see how drafting a blueprint to guide a city of 85,000 know-it-alls might seem overwhelming. Still, this thing has been slithering through the peristaltic gyrations of City Hall’s review — well over 100 public

hearings and meetings — for more than five years now. We’re drowning in spit from all this talk. But where Plan Santa Barbara is concerned, that talk ain’t cheap. Thus far, City Hall has sunk $3 million into the process. At some point, a decision might be nice.