Jerry Roberts
By Jerry Roberts of Newsmakers
“You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste.” Rahm Emanuel, former President Obama’s first chief of staff, famously said during the darkest days of the global economic meltdown in 2009.
He meant that, for political leaders, the harrowing challenge of managing severe financial and social disruptions also presents propitious opportunities to enact favored policies that would be difficult to implement in normal times.
Emanuel’s Law comes to mind in witnessing the performance of Rob Dayton, transportation and parking czar for the city of Santa Barbara, during the pandemic crisis and and its economic turmoil. A tenacious advocate for bicycling as a crucial element of a multi-modal, alternative transit strategy, the savvy and high-energy Dayton over the past year has orchestrated an ambitious — and controversial — push on behalf of his prized pet project.
From the city’s new electric bike share program to the sweeping design and engineering changes wrought by the new Sola Street bicycle byway connecting Westside and Eastside, along with the broad expanses of cyclist space carved out of the State Street promenade, Dayton’s policy choices and sensibilities — as well as his inside political skills — are much in evidence, and much in the news.
“We’re trapped between two worlds,” Dayton said in an interview with Newsmakers on Wednesday, as he described how the pandemic has created an extraordinary set of urgent and immediate demands for action by city officials that contrast, and often conflict, with Santa Barbara’s characteristically deliberate and slow-moving approach to planning and traffic issues.
Passionate, purposeful and persuasive, the 55-year old Dayton now is working his 30th year for the city, having emerged as a key player at City Hall on nearly every major planning and land use project.
Like other high-ranking city bureaucrats, Dayton has undergone the Gallup-Clifton Strength Assessment, a widely-used management tool that evaluates the skills of administrators and executives. His bottom-line assessment, Rob told us: “Futuristic activator.”
Elsewhere in our conversation, Dayton also:
- Expressed respect and admiration for the work of the Historical Landmarks Commission in protecting and preserving Santa Barbara’s landmark aesthetic values, but said the HLC’s traditional, long-term perspective could not apply to some of the fast-moving, emergency measures implemented to aid downtown businesses by closing a large portion of State Street to cars and traffic.
- Defended as a good deal for the city the agreement with the BCycle company to provide an electric bike share pilot project, adding that other local bike rental companies were informed and had the chance to compete for the contract.
- Disclosed that the description of the controversial Sola Street bike path as the “Westside Community Paseos” project was coined by a paid marketing consultant to Public Works in an effort to make the venture more palatable – but admitted the name flopped.
- Confirmed that he has applied for the position of Community Development Director, a critical management job in carrying out plans for the future of downtown, but believes it will go to an out-of-town applicant.
- Acknowledged that his personal relationship with high-powered developer Ed St. George, who has led a campaign to try to oust City Administrator Paul Casey, makes for a “very awkward” situation, given that the Administrator is his boss, but offered glowing praise of Casey’s professional performance under the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic.
Watch our interview with Rob Dayton via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here.
I can’t imagine a worse example of a city employee than Rob Dayton. Putting a bike path through the middle of State Street (painted neon green no less) is simply one bad effort of his. Let’s hope that he moves on soon.
Press articles clearly stated the neon green areas would only be at the intersections but people saw the green and freaked out.
I can’t take your comment seriously, he is the single worst employee because he had a hand in putting in a strange bike path during strange, unprecedented times? Lol, what you’re saying is comical.
Maybe we should paint him Green 🙂 and have him Use a pedal power bicycle and ride all over his bike paths that he’s helped create just kidding he should try to get one thing done at a time finish one bike path then finish the next bike path then all the sudden we have a bike share program but we don’t have any dedicated bike path hopping all over the place And getting paid big bucks
Novel concept, before any road or bike land changes the powers that be should commute regularly on these paths to see how traffic flows.
For example Cabrillo, what is the speed limit? Goes from 35 to 25, to 30 to 25. Along the water front from the skate park to the stop sign at Leadbetter. Why? People are crossing the road all along g this route. The sections of varying speed limits are short.
Speed traps? Or poor planning?
Bike/Drive the road yourself before you make any changes.
I just drove down Cabrillo. 35 east of Cesar Chavez, 30 west of Cesar Chavez. Made sense to me
Marty: Doc, what time are we in? The streets are all painted green!
Doc: The display says 2021, but the streets were normal that last time we were here. Something must be wrong with the flux capacitor’s futuristic activator!
Confirming why this person should not have his present job much less something more significant. The BCycle deal is probably corrupt. It has no real value for the alleged purpose of reducing commuter traffic or helping with the environment. This morning’s SB News Press story point this out. No one can really afford to drive these vehicles home and pay big bucks to leave them outside the front door at $3 hour. Better to take a bus. They do make sense for tourists who want to use them to drive from their hotel to the harbor and then check them in while they do their lunch thing, except that there are no place at the harbor to check them into. The offer of annual passes does not mean that the actual cost of using the bike is not excessive for a permanent user. The idea that he would hire a consultant to create a PR name to sell the invasion of the Westside by a few bike riders at the expense of locals is really daunting. Does he not have any sense of shame? This is , apparently, the nexus of the bike lobby. Somebody needs to end their influence. And to be in cahoots with St. George i even more scary. How can a city employee affirm this sort of relationship when St. George is constantly pushing to corrupt the city staff with his schemes?? Don’t they teach that people in public places need to avoid even the appearance of conflict?
Eastsiders have been subjected to City employee corruption in conjunction with the owner of an illegally zoned business. But try reporting that to any of the administration.
Alert to Westsiders, and everyone who drives on or around Gillespie: there are plans to block Gillespie street at various points, in order to reduce car traffic, and to make it bike friendly. The purported reason is to make it safe for kids to bike and walk to school (Harding School, and La Cumbre Middle School). Look up “Westside Community Paseos” on you tube, and on the city site. It seems to be a done deal, but you can still give input about some of the minor details.
RHS, the plan only takes a few parking spaces. Can you really say that the loss of those few spaces means that we shouldn’t create bike friendly routes? I can see a future with fewer cars overall, since people here can ride ebikes and take ubers to where they need to go.
You are the 1st one I’ve seen talking about parking. Most people are concerned about the inconvenience of the several traffic diverters that will be used.
The experts says that if we are going to save the planet, we will have to make a LOT of sacrifices. You know that our current living situation is unsustainable, right?
Ach, we are going to have to make big changes if our species is to survive. Maybe increasing bicycle use is part of it, especially now that we have ebikes. Creating bike friendly streets is necessary, because bike vs car stories on Edhat are very common and can be deadly. Even if it inconveniences you and makes you sit in your air-conditioned car listening to KTYD several minutes longer than you used to.
You raised a big fuss and stopped the Chino bikeway project. Maybe you can list a bike project that you support on the Westside? I doubt that there is one.
Do not trust anyone connected to Ed George. (and yes deliberate omission of saint)
Just wondering how much of our taxpayer monies did the city spend to an outside marketing company to come up with the stupid name “Westside Community Paseos” for the Sola Street bike lanes. Public Works is the worst for wanting to use outside consultants at high prices for stupid projects. At least when we had the one person on City Council who really cared how our money was spent, was told to “shut up” by Cathy Murillo our so called “Mayor”.
I can’t imagine a worse director for Community Development.
We would be better off if they brought anyone in from out of town and shiped him out of town.
We are loosing what sets us apart from any urban town.
The council set a new presedent supporting him and this awful direction
when they rolled over HLC for his neon green thru historically protected areas downtown.
Pitmix, in answer to your question from my perspective (as a Westside resident): No, this commentator does not support any proposed “bike project” on the Westside because each and every one of them takes resources from the community and converts them to benefit a very small group of bicycle enthusiasts/hobbyists. The Westside is a community of small homes and small streets. These streets provide crucial parking for residents who may not have off street parking at all. Many of these residents work out of trucks for their living and need to park the trucks near their home (they do not have a business parking lot in most cases). They are not going to do business on a bicycle (or an ebike). All of this is a higher priority then forcing a bicycle route across this community to no real purpose. Remember when freeways were pushed across neighborhoods willy-nilly? Now we are tearing them down to return local use to locals. Let’s not ignore that lesson.