AnonymousBy Anna Marie Gott
Councilmembers, Commissioners and Board Members,
Have you noticed that Jill Zachary can’t, or won’t, give the public or the City Council a straight answer on when the swimming pool will be built if the Ortega Park Master Plan is approved without changes? Well, last night, from the proverbial horse’s mouth, we have the “not to be shared with the community” answer.
Her estimate? It will be 8 to 10 years before a new swimming pool is built at Ortega Park. Yes, you read that correctly.
How do I know? Ms. Zachary disclosed this little tidbit to one of our City Coucilmembers, who shall remain nameless, that her best estimate is that it would take 8 to 10 years before a new pool is built at Ortega Park.
Why? Between the grant and the lack of funding on the City’s part the City won’t have the money necessary to complete the project today. Preserving the historic and culturally significant cluster of murals, changing the location and size of the aquatics facilities, building a skate-park, and then completely refurbishing Ortega Park in one phase can’t be done with such limited funds. This is why the Ortega Park Master Plan is in phases and the meager aquatics facility is “not part of the project”.
So, if the funding won’t pay for an aquatics facility and the City won’t either. Who pays? That tidbit is interesting too. The “plan” is to have residents help fund the aquatics facility or wait years for the City to obtain another grant. Now, isn’t that a kick in the pants?
Now, if that isn’t painful enough to hear, how does it feel to find out that there is a tiny asterisk denoting “hazardous material mitigation” that is currently unfunded. Yep, the cost is likely to go up once demolition and grading begin.
A swimming pool should have been included in the City’s infrastructure decades ago. So, I’m betting that residents, upon hearing that they will have to pony up money for a pool while the Council orders the destruction of one, will cause outrage throughout the community. What do you think?
Speaking of costs, it would be less expensive if the murals were knocked down and the aquatics facility were left incomplete, which is what both the Parks and Recreation Department and the Save Ortega Park Arts Committee (SOPAC) is advocating. Knowing this, I have to question the sudden appearance of SOPAC when they crashed the April 24th Mural Workshop at Ortega Park where they advocated for the destruction of the murals in accordance with the Ortega Park Master Plan.
Stranger still, is that some SOPAC members apparently received a stipend from the City to show up at the workshop. Makes one wonder about who is pulling the strings behind the scenes especially when it looks like a City employee is behind all of this…
Right now, it appears that the City Council is damned if it approves the current plan and damned if it doesn’t.
Don’t you think it would look bad politically to move forward with the current plan? I do and I’m thinking the dystopian scenario I described earlier of this week of residents calling for protests, resignations and then chaining themselves to the murals to save them can quickly become a reality.
There is a short time frame in which the City Council can take action to avert the looming PR crisis. Here are my recommendations to the Council to avoid one:
First, order a Special Meeting of the City Council or add this item to Tuesday’s agenda in order to direct the Parks and Recreation Department to: Hold the necessary workshops to re-design the Ortega Park Master Plan in order to meet grant deadlines while leaving the murals in place, ensuring that residents have a natural grass soccer field, and including an aquatic facility that meets industry standards.
Second, order the Police and Fire Department and City Administrator to provide an estimate of the amount of funds the City spends annually providing services for alcohol related crimes. – It is now time to recover the costs the City spends annually to police the customers of those who profit from alcohol related sales.
Why am I recommending this? The City needs to immediately fill the gap in funding in order to complete the new Ortega Park Master Plan in one phase. In order to do this, it needs to move forward with an alcohol ordinance and tax, if necessary, to recover the funds it spends annually on alcohol related calls for service. Why? It is currently estimated that this is 1/3 of the SBPD’s budget. – That’s over $13,000,000 last year for the SBPD and doesn’t include the Fire Department.
So, with few actions and strategic decisions the City Council could reallocate what it spends annually to operate the SBPD back into community, recover the costs of policing the problems that business profiting from alcohol create which is equitable, and permanently change the way a large portion of the City’s budget is used in order to fund future projects. Doesn’t spending money on apprentice programs, homeless, health and wellness, affordable housing and other needed programs and projects sound grand to you?
This is an urgent matter to address and time is running out. I urge you to take or urge immediate action.
If after reading my letter addressed to the City Council you find yourself concerned about the Ortega Park Master Plan please take the time to send a quick email asking the City Council to take action on one, or both, recommendations I mentioned. Send your email to: SBCityCouncil@SantaBarbaraCA.Gov, Clerk@ SantaBarbaraCA.Gov
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Murals or the pool, but not both is the deal. Plus, if it is a normal swimming/diving pool, there’s way too much liability for the city. Also, there are huge security concerns.
When they do community outreach, it’s meant to not reach anybody (via City of SB website, small-time newspaper, radio, etc). That way they can push through what they had wanted to push through, with input from their buddies and contributors. No lie.
Mural over pee-pool.
First, AMG knows what she’s talking about. It is clear as day that she knows more about how the city works than the Council does.
Second, did you notice who the letter was addressed to? The letter is addressed to the City Council and Commissioners. They will decide the next steps in this process and determine if new workshops are necessary, or the final grant proposal will be submitted as is to the State for consideration. – The $8.5M grant will be awarded by the State Parks Department. It is being applied for under criteria that includes a high rate of poverty in the neighborhood and park facilities that are in dire need of refurbishment because the city has let it become dilapidated.
Third, do you realize that getting people to advocate for change is fundamental for democracy? You are complaining that AMG needs to go to the City Council. She’s done that. Posting this letter on Edhat is her way of getting community members to weigh in on the issue. How do I know this? In the last paragraph she asks readers to contact the City Council who will make the ultimate decision.
Finally, you sound entitled when you say you are not “freaking out” about the lack of a pool. You might not feel it is important to you, but it is important to other community members. Put yourself in their shoes. Generations of kids used the pool and took swimming lessons at Ortega Park. No one told the community members who participated in the workshops that if the Ortega Park Master Plan eliminated the pool that it could be 8 to 10 years before another one was built. No one said that the City might rely on donations to build a pool after the city planned for the current one to be demolished either. Don’t you think community members would have chosen a design that kept the current pool until a new one could be built if they knew this? If Ms. Zachary said this out loud in a Council hearing what do you think the City Council would do? My guess is that upon hearing this the Council would be hard pressed to move forward which may be why Ms. Zachary muddies the water with her vague answers when Councilmembers ask about timing. As for using the pool at Los Banos you apparently don’t know that a lot of our community members don’t know about it, or feel comfortable going to Los Banos, which is hard to access. Why? Los Banos is booked for things other than general swimming (i.e. play time for kids) and youth swimming lessons. – I’m not even going to get into the high rate of death and injuries related to minorities who can’t swim which happen to be the majority of our youth. I think I’ve shown that you can’t relate to the people who will have their only community pool demolished because the community didn’t have the information to make good choices during the workshops.
That movement you talk about is the same individuals that got the skatepark built that we have on Cabrillo. One fact in this topic that cannot be denied is that the 21 year old current skatepark in SB has proven to be the most utilized parks facility by far for now over two decades. I am for having a pool, but dont drag the skatepark into your bargaining chip on needs. The use and demand has been proven. By the way, how many people live in the Ortega park neighborhood? Not too many. City Parks are for all. Pools are not considered community infrustructure. Safe sidewalks, ADA ramps, bike lanes, and lighting for dark areas for security are. Screw it, lets build luxury condos under the guise of affordable housing and mixed use enclaves for the homeless to lurk on the bottom floor.
Elderswimmer.. pools are awesome.. people love swimming, but dont make up fiction about troublemakers at the skatepark..
Funding comes from City Council, not a department head. Spend your energy there.
The idea that Parks & Rec is secretly delaying the pool displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how projects go down in local government…. as if they are sitting on a pile of money that could do this and are choosing not to. It’s all public information. You are right about one thing — there is no funding identified, and until there is it won’t happen. Funds come in buckets with specific purposes and restrictions. [For example, did you watch the departments budget presentation/approval to council that just went down?]
Just go to Council. If you succeed or fail there, that’s democracy. Or try to raise money and do community building on your own. Either way, you’ll be happier, more productive, and spare everyone a lot of needless friction if you advocate and lobby in the places where the decision you want can even be made.
In the meantime, we have a public pool like a mile away, so I’m not freaking out about this too much.
Does that pool recommendation differentiate between coastal cities and inland cities? If I want to swim, I head down to the Pacific Ocean.
8:38, I learned to swim in the ocean and lakes just like everyone did for most of recorded and unrecorded human history, and still do in unprivileged places that can’t afford pools. It’s possible, but very very scary for people like you.