Op-Ed: Santa Barbara Needs New Leadership

May 22, 2021, 2:29 am 11.2k Views 58 Comments

By Ernest Salomon

Do the people in Santa Barbara want four more years of indecision and weak leadership.

We will all have an opportunity to answer this question in November.

Some of the homeless are on their way to burning the city down with fire after fire.  There is a fire set almost every day with the Loma Fire almost wiping out TV Hill and its residents and KEYT!  The Loma fire is the canary in the coal mine!  No area in our city is immune to a firestorm!  Fire insurance policies are being cancelled all over Santa Barbara.  Our next-door neighbor’s policy was just cancelled. City Hall all but ignores the criminals in the homeless population. They have to be weeded out and dealt with.

The number of homeless camps is increasing within more areas of the city.  They are a health and safety hazard. The City Administrator and Council have tied the hands of our excellent police force.  They are as frustrated as the public!

Crime is up, especially personal crime and burglary and there is little or no apprehension, let alone punishment.  A car is not safe in any public parking area in the entire city from a break-in and theft.

The foothills have no police patrols, something we pay for.  Most of the police budget is spent in the lower State Street area drunk zone and downtown.  The city is wasting our tax dollars on feel-good projects and thus not giving us the police protection that we pay for.

Street sweeping is a myth in the foothills and other outlying sections of our once clean city!

The street cleaner that is being used where streets are swept is old technology and brushes much of the waste on our streets into the air and into our lungs.  This airborne filth includes human and animal waste, brake lining material,  automobile fluids, herbicides, pesticides, etc.  What is not “swept up” flows into our creeks and water drainage system and pollutes our ocean and kills sea life, infecting humans as well. So much for city City Hall’s slogan: “Help Keep Our Creeks Clean”!

State Street is a filthy, dangerous slum! Many local residents, especially women with their children, do not feel safe from being accosted, so they do not go there. 

Remember in November!

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  1. Ernie should know better. The homeless issue has consumed city politics for most of the last half century. We tried the get tough stuff and it did not work. His neighbor, like he lives in a high wildfire danger zone where getting fire insurance is tough. It has been for years. Please stop acting like these are new problems.

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  5. I sign what I write with my name, not a nom d plume! Fire dangers and high insurance are not the subject of my comment. The city is suffering an inordinate number of arsons, just like the Loma fire set by a guy who has set others. I don’t care where you live in Santa Barbara, pal, your house is not immune from being burned to the ground by some idiot who starts a fire far from your home.

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  8. To the Poster- You live in CALIFORNIA- This is not just a Santa Barbara issue with regard to “hands-off” criminals and little to any criminal prosecution- unless there is body harm done by a perp…
    Your Democratic lead government, at all levels, from the Governor to the insane State Senators, Assembly Members and all the way down the political food chain CREATED the new California we all have to live with. Burglary, Theft, Car theft and if the perp is under 19 is absolutely not punished in our “criminal justice system” Local D.A. are the culprits, NOT THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR- The City’s hands are tied by the new California Justice system- City Attorneys are afraid of the ACLU and will not prosecute ANYONE. There is a reason why so many businesses and Californians who are able too are leaving the State… Our population is quickly turning into a majority that are TAKING government AID and Social Welfare than paying into the tax system-

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  9. Actually the fires that have done the most damage here are ones that were started by unmaintained SCE equipment. exhaust pipes, even a guy flying a kite. There was the Painted Cave fire that was allegedly set by a tripper that wanted to get back at his neighbor. Your obsession with the homeless fire hazard is out of proportion to the actual risk.

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  10. People seem to forget that our homeless problem would be much/much worse if we did not have Mayor Murillo spearheading the campaign to reduce homelessness. Do not let her near complete silence on this issue lead you to believe that she’s doing nothing. She walks the walk, and we are all much better off that she’s our “Top Pol.” Not to mention, but I will, the homeless overwhelmingly support her and her policies.

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  11. Ernie is an old Testament prophet. Full of sturm and drang signifying nothing. He has railed about unclean streets for a couple of decades. A bit of obsessive on that subject. Let’s ask him who he would like to be in charge (other than himself). Tiresome bromide.

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  12. I’m so tired of hearing folks hold others responsible for the ever growing problem with homelessness without offering any LEGAL solutions. All this talk of “leadership” is empty bombast as anyone can stump on solving the problem only to walk it all back when the solutions aren’t plentiful, cheap or easy. But then MAGAworld is accustomed to being overpromised and underdelivered.

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  13. @ OCEANDREW- FYI, the MAGA influence is about ZERO in California politics. In fact, the Dems have been in control of the State and how it’s run for more than 25 yrs… PLENTY of time to turn things around, which, they actually HAVE… Unfortunately we are all paying the price and seeing how this dem control has come to fruition. MAGA has absolutely NOTHING to do with CA Politics… This used to be REAGAN COUNTRY- back in the California Golden Years.

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  14. Yep… it’s only a matter of time before one of the dozens of homeless fires lead to something big. Heck, there is even a homeless encampment on the San Marcos preserve… which we all know is a high fire danger spot.

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  15. Solutions have been offered. Solutions that work in other cities.
    Government run and funded tent cities.
    With structure and facilities on site that are not near residences.
    Our government instead of researching and implementing instead ignores and distracts with fluff pieces and further “research” while expecting the private actor to solve a government issue. The government weds to take care of its citizens homeless and not homeless. Tax payers & those that don’t make enough to file taxes.
    Perfect example is the New Beginnings Safe Parking Program. 100% if the parking is provided by the private sector.
    While the City posts no overnight parking in its City lots and forced people to move off public parking areas.
    I thought it was illegal to move people living in their cars or camping on public land. Apparently it is not “illegal” if the City generates revenue from that parking lot.
    Seriously?!?!??! Wake up people, the lazy City bureaucrats expect private sector to do all the work and suffer the consequences.
    I encourage you all to write in as this person did to all news media and the City administration & council and tell them you are tired of their inaction in serious matters.

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  16. My tax money pays for street cleaning. Yet they do not clean my streets.
    And the City allows homeless to live in their vehicles on my street while they piss and defacate in the street and neighbors bushes snd kea e trash behind.
    And zero street sweeping. They expect us residents to clean up after these bad “guests”.
    Seriously. Enough is enough.

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  17. Just wait until a camp fire burns and kills people and damages residences.
    Is that when the City will act.
    Anyone incurring any damage or loss of businesses arising from homeless camps should due the City for negligence. The City is well aware of the issues and continues to ignore them putting people in danger.

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  18. Its comical that the council will roust you for living in a van or self contained mobil unit,-they passed laws for this-and made anyone with a big sprinter type van get a permit but if you’re in a tent along a freeway that’s totally ok.

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  19. Totally! a Democratic issue! LOL! Sure this isn’t tied to republicans from the eras past that allowed manufacturing to shutter and send middle class jobs to cheaper countries? Or maybe the republicans, that pulled the plug and state hospitals? Oh, and I forgot the dems totally wanted to repress real wages too, right? I don’t think that was a democrat thing.

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  20. The street sweeping really only happens in the flats, where it’s overpopulated and cars are ripe for ticketing. Ernies point about the archaic sweeper rig is spot on! But the city has bank to buy state of the art multi camera parking enforcement rigs? So, yes, a change would be nice. Those sweepers should be rolling all day, everyday, like any other city of it’s size whether there is ‘street sweeping’ on your street/day or not. Santa Barbara is a filthy mis managed stye. It really is and people are so enchanted by the hills and sea they refuse to believe it.

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  22. Ernie is 100% right on. Here’s what true leaders could have done at the city:
    1. Pounded on the county for Behavioral Wellness outreach teams to work the toughest mentally ill cases. Demanded more hotel vouchers, and a widening of the criteria to get more people indoors.
    2. Worked to secure a large lot somewhere where people could go and pitch a tent. This is what Fire Chiefs across the county recommended. Send the service providers in – everyone would be in one place. Worked down a list of those living outdoors until they got to zero left.
    3. Cleared the encampments because people now had a place to go. That gets them past the CDC, Governor’s orders and Boise decision. CDC advised don’t disturb camps to prevent spread of COVID. We’re in the vaccine administration phase now. The Boise decision said you can’t make them leave a camp with nowhere to go. Providing temp shelter would have addressed all of these issues. And this would have reduced fire danger.
    4. Take the federal and state monies and used them to house people or send them home to mom, check into sober living, etc. Instead, they backfilled city coffers to keep paying staff, and took homeless people’s belongings…while leaving them right where they were.
    Police and fire teams are soooooo frustrated.
    How many encampment fires is it going to take before you demand your leaders do their job? If they can’t do it, and they clearly can’t, get someone in there that can. None of the current candidates or electeds, particularly the AWOL Mayor, are showing you any kind of A-Game tactics that would inspire confidence. Hopefully some solid candidates with actual talent will get on the field. Just because the mayor campaigns hard does not mean she can do this job, and she’s shown you that loud and clear, since State St started imploding in the mid 2010’s. The Thomas disasters and pandemic – she’s AWOL. Now we have a homeless explosion, encampments everywhere, and the worst fire season staring us in the face. She hasn’t got the goods for this job. We need someone with disaster management and economic development skills. Deborah Schwartz and Randy Rouse don’t have those either. Stop electing mediocrity. We clearly need better.

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  23. Thank you for your historical perspective. I differ with you in just one detail. This is not exactly a national crisis. This is a crisis of particular states with particular political policies. Sorry, but Florida, which has similar weather and a large economic underclass, has largely solved their homelessness problem. Over past 5 year, homelessness in FL has declined by 30%. How? Unlike CA and other states which can only put a temporary bandage on the hold times in which serious drug and mental health patients can be held, FL triages homelessness. Many of the drug and mental health are strong armed into treatment. The young and rowdy homeless by choice crowd? If they didn’t attend a FL high school they get a one way ticket back to there they came. Tough love, but real love. Not the fake CA kind which doesn’t actually help those in need.

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  24. why the desire to protect homeless at the expense of others whose property they destroy? The Loma Fire was set by a homeless man. Intentional or accidental will be key for his sentencing, but the hill and two homes have real fire damage all the same. The fact that the city turns a blind eye to any unauthorized fie is case enough for the city to be liable.

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  25. Thank you Ernest Salomon for stating the obvious, especially that which too many in politically correct SB are courageous enough to say. Yes, homelessness is dangerous, for the homeless and for the citizens who also suffer from their anti-social behaviors.

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  26. Thus starts the backlash. Finally, a person to speak their mind and not hide behind a screen name. Best part is he speaks the view what 80%-87% of the Isla Vista/Goleta/Noleta/Santa Barbara residents feel.
    Ernest, you nailed it on every level imaginable and I commend you for that. Here in Isla Vista our park district voted 3:1 to remove the tent city from People’s Park, it was a glorious day.
    The 1 no vote, aligned with the organizations making it difficult to mitigate the “houseless neighbors” problem such as Food Not Bombs Isla Vista, Bonfire Collective and Eco-Vista, no surprise there.
    Now Isla Vista can FINALLY get it’s park back, but my concern is the removals will lead to illegal encampments that will lead to more fires.
    Regardless, this problem will have to be dealt with one step at a time and replacing some public officials is a good place to start.

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  28. I’m hoping Babycakes made that comment tongue-in-cheek. Mayor Murillo loves to get on committees like SB ACT where she looks good as ‘chair’, but doesn’t have to do any work or commit to providing any real solutions. She certainly hasn’t mustered the forces of the city on this issue. However, be assured she’ll take credit ‘for her leadership’ for whatever they accomplish. Her ‘near complete silence’? I’ll say. Mayor Garcetti took a major lead in the Pandemic and in dealing with homelessness, did nightly press conferences in English and Spanish, and got out in front of it. LA has learned some hard lessons: money doesn’t solve it, homelessness is really hard, outreach workers burn out fast, and quit, and they’re the frontlines in working this issue. But he put a ton of $$$ and political will into combatting homelessness. LA started with 10X at least the scale of the Santa Barbara problem pre-pandemic.
    What has Murillo done, exactly?

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  29. Ronald Reagan was Governor when? over 40 years ago. He is dead. Can the current elected officials with a pulse do anything but collect large pensions? I think if you dig into the current impediments to strong arming the homeless into the services they need you’d find the ACLU. Unlike RR, they are very much alive

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  30. Your recollection of the golden Pat years is incorrect. Historically, California was always around the middle of the pack for educational spending. Here is the data. In contrast, the educational outcomes have collapsed since Pat’s days as CA educations began to favor teaching what to think rather than how to think. We now 47th in English and Math, about same as Alabama. How’s that for CA leadership and progress? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_194.asp

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  31. Your recollection of the golden Pat years is incorrect. Historically, California was always around the middle of the pack for educational spending. Here is the data. In contrast, the educational outcomes have collapsed since Pat’s days as CA educations began to favor teaching what to think rather than how to think. We now 47th in English and Math, about same as Alabama. How’s that for CA leadership and progress? https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_194.asp

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  33. The fine for littering in Santa Barbara County is $500. A violator can be given a warning notice and a five day time period in which to clean up the litter. If the litter is not cleaned up within the given time period, the violator is cited and can be fined $500. The County of Santa Barbara employs two Refuse Inspectors.
    By the abundant tents, garbage, waste, bicycles, found on most 101 freeway on-ramps and off-ramps in Santa Barbara, the littering law is ignored by the CHP, CalTrans, the City, and the County.
    So much for being a society of laws, enforcement, and penalties for violators.

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  34. On every measure, the current managers and elected officials that are tasked with the management and stewardship of our city have failed. Every single measure. These people are the highest paid civil employees in the nation, and yet they are among the least capable and effective. Our elected officials are weak, incapable and completely unable to challenge the forces at play. Real leaders marshal resources and move mountains. They create solutions and work to achieve them. What has Murillo done? Nada…not a damn thing.

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  36. How predictable VOR. But if we to be honest here, you’re just being intellectually lazy and taking the blame route instead. For example: How are things going in the states where the other color is in control? Any of those in the top 10 in world economic measures? How about in education or well being or upward mobility? They are not doing better, in fact they’re all in the lowest quadrant. So maybe it’s not a Party thing but a systematic problem? However, that would require you to be honest and willing to do the hard work instead of just point your fingers and yelling at the sky… try and do better. That is if you really care about these things and are not just a grumpy curmudgeon.

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  37. Ernie you couldn’t have hit the head on the nail more perfectly. The cathymurrillo_do_nothing show must come to an end. The homeless run rampant the fires are out of control, all the local threads are exploding with displease in the councils performance. They literally cannot do something fast enough. The cost of no action is a massive negligence lawsuit waiting to happen. What were seeing is how Murrillo Beautifies Santa Barbara. Great job Cathy! Maybe since you didn’t have a whole year to wave at people on alll the floats at all the parades we didn’t have you could’ve influenced some people to clean this up, but instead you supported it and now look what we’re all left with. Thanks for all you do, keep up the good work, at this rate Santa Barbara will look like Bif’s world from back to the future in another year or two. If you’re goal is to make Sb rot from the inside out, You’re doing an outstanding job. Look at all the low cost housing shes created next to the Haley Northbound on-ramp.

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  38. Military-style barracks, mess halls, latrines and labor requirements to maintain them and commune-style gardens, chicken yards tended by camp residents. No “catch and release” for arrested miscreants; fenced guarded areas for them until their term is served.

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  39. Santa Barbara has really gone downhill and is becoming a dump. It’s a dirty city. Just a few weeks ago a family member was visiting and we were standing at the edge of the driveway and he noticed some airplane liquor bottles in the bushes. How embarrassing and gross. Just the other day a schizophrenic lady was walking down our street screaming wildly, concerning and scaring everyone. I tell people, don’t waste your hard earned vacation money coming here, I wouldn’t. It’s lipstick on a pig, and who really suffers is the lower/middle class who cannot afford to live behind a gated mansion in Montecito or Hope Ranch where you see none of this somehow, they are able to keep it out. Why do we pay so much to live in such a dump?

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  40. OCEAN DREW first, it’s our right to criticize our elected leaders and it’s not our job to solve it for them, that is what we elected them for and why we pay them. Also, why is it that when we go to Carp, Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Ynez, Buellton, Lompoc [which we often do now], we don’t see this problem? What are those towns doing differently? We prefer to shop out of Santa Barbara now, even if it means going to Goleta instead if time is a constraint.

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  43. 840am – what are you basing those thoughts on? I did a quick lazy search and the first thing that came up was a US news and world reports article that has California dead last (50th) in opportunity.
    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/opportunity
    A huge factor of upward mobility is being able to own a house, and not be a lifelong renter. Costs in much of California (like right here in SB) are prohibitive for most.
    Maybe I missed something… so please do explain how you reached that “upward mobility” conclusion of California.

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  44. I agree strong leadership is a necessary, but it requires civil engagement from the community. We get the government we deserve. Getting people with the best skills and experience and skill set requires a bit of detachment from single issue focus,emotions, and political party.
    Mr Salomon, the homeless problem is epidemic and has been interesting for years , and not just in Santa Barbara, but everywhere. Given that during the pandemic US billionaires gained over a trillion in wealth the poverty rate has increased 50% over the period I doubt it will get better.
    Ok, you identified that Santa Barbara has a homeless issue, what solutions do yousggest?

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  45. For several years I have suggested that Camp Roberts be used to house and rehabilitate homeless people. It’s finally going to be used to house thousands of kids from Central America and Mexico, who are being dumped in our country without their parents.

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  46. Cathy Murillo doesn’t manage the streets department. And if she spent her time micromanaging that department, people would complain that she was doing that instead of their own pet peeve. None of these complaints are intellectually honest or reflect how government–or the world in general–works.

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  49. Are you saying that “THEKID5” is your legal name and not a nom de plume? BTW, you’re posting your responses to different comments than the ones that they are actually responses to, which is confusing.

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  51. “back in the California Golden Years”
    That’s Pat Brown you’re thinking of, when California was #1 in per capita spending on education, before St. Ronnie let everyone out of the mental institutions, wished cheese-borne botulism on people, called ketchup a vegetable, and figured one redwood tree was plenty.

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  53. I was out for dinner Saturday night on State Street. The restaurants and bars were packed. I saw no homeless people. The market does not believe your Santa Barbara is going to hell in a hand cart act Ernie.

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