Frustrated by a lack of results at the bargaining table, Santa Barbara city police are now considering whether or not to take their demand for better wages and benefits directly to the voters in a special election, bypassing negotiations with city administrators altogether.
STINK FEST FOLLIES: The enduring dust-up at the News-Press calls to mind the old schoolyard axiom: 10,000 flies can’t be wrong. In other words, something supremely stinky’s going down at Santa Barbara’s oldest daily despite the hyperventilated protestations to the contrary by owner-publisher Wendy P. McCaw, her in-house hit man Travis K. Armstrong, and her professional mouthpiece Agnes Huff, PhD.
Supporters of Measure D, the $1.6 billion countywide congestion relief measure, came up short when the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce declined to take a position on the controversial sales tax measure.
Teamster organizers flanked by current and former Santa Barbara News-Press newsroom workers announced they were commencing a communitywide drive to hurt News-Press owner Wendy McCaw in the pocketbook until she agrees to restore journalistic ethics and free speech to the newsroom.
TERROR BY TEDIUM: It was hardly the trial of the century. It only felt like it lasted that long. In point of fact, last Friday’s courtroom proceeding-an institutionally contained spasm of political perversity-took just six hours start-to-finish. At issue was the ballot language in support of Measure D 2006, the proposed quarter-cent increase on an existing half-cent sales tax that will fund $1.6 billion worth of freeway widening, commuter rail service, bike lanes, mass transit, road repairs, and more pork than all the public works directors throughout Santa Barbara County could ever hope to eat.
Former News-Press editor Jerry Roberts has accused lawyers representing Wendy McCaw, the Santa Barbara News-Press, and its parent company Ampersand of leaking the fact that McCaw filed a $500,000 claim against Roberts that will be handled through arbitration, rather than the court system.
Embattled developer Bill Levy (pictured) won a high-stakes showdown before the California Supreme Court with longtime foe and onetime friend Richard Berti, who charged Levy had grossly abused the judicial process by using it as a cudgel to silence critics. The critic in question was Berti himself, who waged a nine-year legal campaign to find out how Levy spent his investors’ money on what’s since become the Ritz-Carlton time-share condo proposal slated for lower State Street.
Who will cover the Santa Barbara High Dons, San Marcos Royals, and Dos Pueblos Chargers now that the News-Press’s sports reporter Mike Traphagen is gone? Plus, the N-P drops their Unfair Labor Practice complain against the Teamsters. Read on….
Elected officials representing the often acrimonious polarities of Santa Barbara County-both geographical and ideological-gathered on Tuesday for an unprecedented display of political unity on behalf of Measure D, the sales tax surcharge meant to help ameliorate local freeway congestion. Joining the usual coterie of slow-growth, predominantly liberal South Coast politicians at a press conference held at Santa Barbara City Hall were a handful of conservative North County politicos: 4th District Supervisor Joni Gray, Santa Maria City Councilmembers Marty Mariscal and Alice Patino, and Guadalupe Mayor Lupe Alvarez. Together the group expressed support for the extension of the original Measure D-a half-cent tax surcharge approved by voters countywide in 1989-and called for a quarter-cent addition to the tax. If approved by voters in November, the new Measure D is expected to generate $1.5 billion over the next 30 years, the great bulk of which will go toward funding freeway decongestion projects. The existing Measure D-which won’t expire until 2009-has raised $350 million thus far.
SUPERSIZE THIS: Should I get a notice that my water bill’s a couple months past due and they’re thinking about shutting off my spigot, my palms would sweat, my eyes would twitch, and I would go into gastrointestinal overdrive. But when developer Bill Levy is notified by his lender that he has defaulted on his $35 million loan-$10 million of which is the interest that accrued in just one year-he’s cool as a cucumber. That money was due, by the way, in July. Say what you want about Bad Boy Bill, the man is pucker proof. For those tuning in late, Levy is attempting to transform the portion of lowest State Street-around the Californian Hotel-into a beehive of Ritz-Carlton time-share condos, each fetching a modest $350,000 per three-week use. In his own ingenious and determined way, Levy’s been pursuing this Levytown dream for more than 30 years.
