Nick Welsh

Planning Commission approves transfer of ExxonMobil permits.

When the Music Academy of the West — shown here surrounded by serrated lines — announced it wanted to increase the number of students that could enroll there and hold up to 15 weddings a year, neighbors became unglued. There was already too much traffic, they complained; this would make things worse. The Montecito Planning Commission saw it otherwise and so did the county supervisors this Tuesday. | Credit: Courtesy Residents of Montecito's sylvan woodlands have fallen to feuding over operational changes proposed by the Music Academy of the West to allow the school to bump its enrollments by 25 students per semester and to hold as many as 15 weddings a year on the campus's sprawling grounds. Neighbors complained to the county supervisors this Tuesday — showing up en masse — that the proposed changes would create hazardous traffic conditions on the neighborhood's narrow winding roads, that the noise generated would disrupt the ambient tranquility for which the neighborhood is known, and that the changes would violate the 2004 conditional-use permit that's kept a tight lid on academy events for the past 20 years. The supervisors unanimously rejected the neighbors' appeal, finding that all the changes proposed comply with the operational limits established back in 2004. The changes allow the music school to increase the number of students at any given time from 150 to 175, to allow up to 15 weddings to count among the 41 “significant life events” — non-music events — that the school is allowed to hold, and to allow greater-use amplified spoken-word and non-amplified music outdoors. Initially the school sought to increase its enrollments by 60 students at any given time, increase the number of participants of seminars from 175 to 350 and to eliminate the total summer attendance cap of 22,000 and, for other times, 25,000. These proposals were withdrawn in the face of stiff neighborhood opposition. All the many attendance caps established in 2004, county planners insisted, will remain firmly in place. If anything, they argued, traffic impacts might be reduced because of the school has vowed to increase shuttle transport and to encourage ride sharing and bike commuting by staff. These changes were approved by the Montecito Planning Commission earlier in the year and the neighbors hoped to get a more sympathetic response from the supervisors. They got sympathy, but they did not get the votes.

From left: Michael Jordan, Wendy Santamaria, and Oscar Gutierrez | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom There was little joy in Mudville this Tuesday night, not even among the victorious candidates here in Santa Barbara. As the victors — all Democrats — and their supporters assembled at downtown bars and nightclubs, there was the obligatory happy talk about gratitude, humility, service, and the opportunities that lay ahead. But even the most upbeat kept an apprehensive eye on the big screens behind the bar. Was there any reason to hold out hope or joy for Kamala Harris, their party's presidential standard bearer who sought to make “hope” and “joy” campaign buzzwords? In a word, the answer was no. In the battle of vibes, Harris fell decisively short against the most grimly dystopian and openly racist candidate ever to represent the Republican Party — the golem of American politics — Donald J. Trump. Beyond the White House, the Senate flipped decisively in favor of the Republicans, 52-42. By night's end, the fate of the House was at best uncertain. The final results, the party faithful were told, would not be known for days. The sky had fallen. As the revelers traipsed from their “celebration” at S.B. Biergarten in the Funk Zone 18 blocks up State Street to SOhO, the Biergarten waitstaff tidied up. Waitresses were on their phones in tears, crying over the night's results. They called their families. They called loved ones. Could this really be true? There were no stiff upper lips. The sky had fallen. And hard, too. On the TV, pundits were discussing the contours of the Diploma Divide and how Trump won thanks to economically alienated white voters, blue-collar workers without college degrees, who live in what's called “flyover country” — America's rust belt, h0llowed out by the benign neglect of globalist trade policies and the ascendancy of the new tech-bro economy. It was the clash of political civilizations, one talking head said. The chasm of two Americas, said another. But politics being politics, the show must go on. And to a large extent, Santa Barbara is inoculated from the gathering storm of encroaching inevitability. In an election marked by a less-than-expected turnout, Santa Barbara city voters elected two City Council candidates who strongly support rent control: incumbent Oscar Gutierrez in District 3 and a newcomer to the city council, Wendy Santamaria in District 1. Depending on the reliability of the math, that means there will now be four councilmembers — a voting majority — who support rent control. To the extent Santa Barbara's council races carried any drama, it was in District 1; Wendy Santamaria, a labor union organizer by trade and a progressive activist by avocation, was all smiles Tuesday night. And Santamaria, who made rent control her number-one talking point, happens to be graced with a 150-watt smile. That's a useful attribute for a candidate better-known as a firebrand. “We are looking at a new era of housing, reform, and justice for working families of this city,” Santamaria said on election night. “And I'm not exaggerating. I literally mean finally having enough votes on the City Council to really make some reform and really create policy based on lived experience and not on special interests.” Little surprise, then, that Santa Barbara landlords, rental property associations, and property managers had pooled their resources heavily behind District 1 incumbent councilmember Alejandra Gutierrez, an avowed foe of rent control. Her own parents were mom-and-pop landlords. Gutierrez, who initially won a seat on the council by a margin of only eight votes, lost — at last count — by 138 votes to a candidate she castigated as a carpetbagger. Beset during her term by pressing health problems she did not publicly disclose, she missed 61 council business meetings. Imbued with the fierce and prickly independence of someone born and raised on the city's much-neglected Eastside, Gutierrez made it clear she would march to her own drum. All politics is personal. But in District 1, it got personal, and silly too, as the campaign descended into a comic last-minute micro-drama featuring competing sign-stealing conspiracy theories. On election night, Gutierrez did not concede defeat but instead said, “I was born and raised in Santa Barbara and am rooted in that community…. I understand the needs of my district, the needs of the entire district. And I know how to make that connection.” By contrast, District 3 — the city's Westside — was always incumbent Oscar Gutierrez's to cakewalk his way through. On election night, he did just that. Gutierrez beat out his challenger and his former martial arts sensei, Tony Becerra, by a decisive 500-vote margin: 59 percent to 40.6 percent. Although Becerra is also blessed with a brilliant smile and generous donations from local landlords, he was too nice to really go on the attack against Gutierrez. Both candidates are children of Mexican immigrants who grew up in households where Spanish was the first language. Gutierrez takes pride in claiming he's the most responsive city councilmember in the City of Santa Barbara, estimating he responded to 27,000 constituent calls, texts, or emails. Gutierrez supports rent control and shrugs off arguments about rent control's unintended consequences. Renters need protection, he says. And they've told him so. Like Alejandra Gutierrez, Oscar Gutierrez lives at home with his mother, who also happens to be a small landlord. She opposes rent control and many of the protections her son champions. It's one of those issues, he says, where he and his mother agree to disagree. It's worth noting that countywide, voters overwhelmingly opposed Prop. 33, a statewide ballot initiative that would have extended the grasp of state rent control laws at the local level. Landlords, admittedly, spent lavishly — and effectively — to defeat it. In addition, county voters narrowly endorsed a measure hatched by the statewide landlord association designed to financially punish the tenants' rights organization that put Prop. 33, or a variant thereof, on the ballot for the third time. In the city's District 2, Michael Jordan, who represents the Mesa, holds a bulletproof lead of 80 percent over a candidate named Terra Taylor who spent less than $100 in a come-out-of-nowhere campaign. Jordan first emerged as a business-minded candidate who, over the years, has gradually shifted in a quasi-liberal/progressive direction. To the extent there are swing votes on the council, Jordan is one of them. He does not, however, support rent control — for him, it's a bridge too far — and is willing to explain why. But he'd much rather explain how downtown Santa Barbara is poised to be reborn, and spectacularly so. “Not since the earthquake [of 1925] have we had this many things lined up, from the underpass to State Street to De la Guerra Plaza and the just-opened library plaza last weekend,” he gushed. “I personally think we're on one of the precipices of some of the greatest good things, particularly in downtown.” Perhaps the biggest sleeper among Santa Barbara city races is Measure I, the half-cent sales tax increase, gently reviled by some councilmembers who point out it's regressive. Measure I was ahead by 62.55 percent. It needs 55 percent to win. Its backers — principally City Hall's newest City Administrator Kelly McAdoo — spent nothing. They waged an almost nonexistent campaign. In exchange, Measure I promises to generate $17 million a year. By contrast, backers of Measure P — the $198 million building repair and rebuild bond package — spent nearly $350,000. No social media platform was safe, no mailbox un-intruded upon. The money — a lot, by local standards — came from the Santa Barbara Community College Foundation but achieved its desired results. Even the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association, normally just-say-no when it comes to such measures, endorsed it, thus generating an interparty rift among Santa Barbara's community conservatives and fiscal hawks. That's all for now. Fri, Nov 08 5:00 PM Santa Barbara Sun, Nov 10 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Sun, Nov 17 11:00 AM Solvang Wed, Nov 06 All day Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 06 10:30 AM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 06 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 07 5:00 AM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 07 4:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 07 5:00 PM Goleta Fri, Nov 08 5:00 PM Santa Barbara Sun, Nov 10 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Sun, Nov 17 11:00 AM Solvang Wed, Nov 06 All day Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 06 10:30 AM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 06 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 07 5:00 AM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 07 4:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 07 5:00 PM Goleta

Santa Barbara County Jail Health Care Provider Declares Bankruptcy Wellpath Says It's Looking to Reorganize Not Go Out of Business; County Public Health Director Says, ‘If We Need to Step in, We Know What to Do' Santa Barbara County Public Health Director Dr. Mouhanad Hammami said he doesn't want to take over health care at the county jail but can if needed. | Credit: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Executive Office Maybe the toughest gig in Santa Barbara County is health care in the county jail. Every few months or so, the county supervisors square off with Sheriff Bill Brown over just this — jail deaths, medical quality control issues, and whether the county's getting its money's worth from Wellpath, the private company that's paid $17 million a year to take care of inmates in the county's two jails and juvenile detention facility. The county supervisors, increasingly frustrated, recently put the jail contract — which expires at the end of next March — out to bid. And just this week, the parent company of Wellpath — which provides health care services for county jails in 34 of the state's 58 counties — filed for bankruptcy in a Texas court. According to company press releases, Wellpath — the biggest private correctional health care provider in the nation — is looking to re-organize more efficiently, not go out of business. The company promises a seamless transition for however long it takes for its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case to wend its way through the legal system. But in county government circles — where the politics and economics of crime and punishment command a vast portion of the supervisors' collective cranial capacity — the news qualified as a great, big wait-and-see WTF. “We're all on the edge of our seats waiting to see how this plays out,” stated Tanja Heitman, the county's onetime and longtime probation chief recently hired to bird-dog criminal justice reform for the county administrator's office. Everywhere one looks, Heitman noted, Wellpath is getting sued for medical malpractice by inmates and their families. It's not the only provider getting sued, but as the biggest, the company generates the lion's share of litigation and media notice. As what goes on behind bars has come under greater scrutiny by civil rights activists and mental-health advocates, such lawsuits — and likewise the awards imposed by juries — have been piling up. The most recent skirmish over the jail involved what the supervisors contended was lax contract management and oversight by Sheriff Brown and his commanders over Wellpath's contract. The company failed to meet the medical staffing levels required by the contract but got paid in full. By how much exactly, the numbers vary . But most estimates hover around $500,000. At supervisors meetings, Brown has stood up for Wellpath with the ardent loyalty of a foxhole buddy. It's easy to see why. Together, Brown and Wellpath have weathered the nightmare of COVID and the inevitable logistical challenges involved in opening up the new Northern Branch Jail. And even under the best of circumstances, running a medical and psychiatric ER in a county jail setting 24/7 is flat-out hard. The supervisors want Brown to make sure they get their money's worth and that inmates get the care they need. But as sheriff, it's Brown's jail to run as he sees fit under state law. And he's made it clear he won't tolerate any encroachment on his jurisdictional domain. The two sides, however, hammered out a deal a few months back. The County Public Health Department would hire a full-time nurse and part-time doctor — newly created positions — who would be assigned to monitor the medical charts of county jail inmates to make sure they're getting the care they need. In addition, they would suggest ways to improve treatment under admittedly challenging conditions. To date, the new registered nurse has been hired and has been working in the county jail for six-to-eight weeks. It's his job to chair the jail's medical advisory committee and its quality improvement committee. Before that, a Wellpath employee chaired these committees. The part-time doctor has just been hired — she has 20 years' experience in correctional medicine — but has yet to start. Public Health Director Dr. Mouhanad Hammami said the initial experiences have been positive. He described relations between Wellpath, the correctional staff, and his nurse as “collaborative, constructive, and congenial.” The county's bidding process for new medical providers just recently came to a close. It's not clear how many applicants applied. Anecdotally, it's said to be a small number. They have yet to be screened by the scoring committee. When that's done, the ball will once again be in the supervisors' court. To the extent the county might have an ace up its sleeve, it's Hammami himself. Before assuming his Santa Barbara post nearly two years ago, Hammami worked as Public Health Director for Wayne County, Michigan, where he had direct hands-on oversight over three county jails — think the City of Detroit — and a juvenile facility from 2009 to 2015. He knows first-hand how hard it can be. “It took me three years to hire a psychiatrist, and we were offering three times the going rate,” he exclaimed. When the supervisors authorized hiring the two new positions, they also instructed Hammami to run the numbers to run the jail himself — how many staff would need to be hired, how much would it cost. He knows how that's done because he's done it. But he's not itching to do it. There are other major initiatives — one a massive collaboration with the Department of Behavioral Wellness over the mentally ill on the streets — demanding his attention. “I don't want to,” he stated flatly. “There will be a lot of challenges. It will be hard. But can we do it? In a word, ‘Yes,'” he said. “If we need to step in, we know what to do.” His department currently runs five health centers, he noted, three clinics, and a raft of services for homeless people. Three more would not be the end of the world. “It's not impossible.” Hammami praised Brown, calling him both a good friend and partner. “I don't want to step on anyone's toes here,” he said. When Hammami started out his medical career, he spent 12 years doing pediatric research. Running a jail health program was the furthest thing from his mind. When he heard Wellpath declared bankruptcy, his first reaction was “I don't know. It's too early to say.” His next reaction was different. “If something no longer works, there has to be a better way,” he added. “Maybe this is the time.” Thu, Nov 14 4:00 PM Lompoc Thu, Nov 14 5:00 PM Carpinteria Sat, Nov 23 2:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 28 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Dec 14 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 4:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 6:00 PM Virtual Wed, Nov 13 7:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 9:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 14 4:00 PM Lompoc Thu, Nov 14 5:00 PM Carpinteria Sat, Nov 23 2:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 28 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Dec 14 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 4:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 6:00 PM Virtual Wed, Nov 13 7:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 9:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 14 4:00 PM Lompoc Thu, Nov 14 5:00 PM Carpinteria

It wasn't the Prize Patrol, but for Santa Barbara County homeless housing providers, it may have been the next best thing. Santa Barbara County just got awarded $5.3 million in state homeless funds, courtesy of Governor Gavin Newsom's fifth and latest installment of HHAP (Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention) grants, in which Newsom disbursed $827 million to 37 regional areas statewide to get people off the streets and into transitional or full-time housing. This announcement comes at a time when state and federal funds for such purposes is drying up, but Newsom's sense of urgency to get people off the streets is ramping up. The money will be used to create incentives for landlords to take in tenants who would otherwise be homeless and to underwrite the cost of “wrap-around” services designed to make the transition from outdoors to indoors more successful. Ten percent of the money is to go to youth experiencing homelessness. Such funds have reportedly served 1,681 individuals — unduplicated — countywide since 2020. Of those, 800 have reportedly transitioned into permanent housing. Most of the new funds will be used to get people into short-term transitional housing.

The Democratic Party campaign tactician, 48, died late last month in San Luis Obispo.

Marilyn Kirby Welsh shown with Josh, the last of nine. | Credit: Courtesy CURB YOUR HUMAN: When I was a kid, my mother had a “Shirley Chisholm for President” bumper sticker plastered to her car. That was 1972. Chisholm, then a congressmember from New York, was the first Black woman to run for president . She was a genuine badass. My mother was a genuine badass. All the way around, it was a good fit. Chisholm wound up with 300,000 votes in the primary. I think she got on the ballot in maybe 14 states. Back then, my mother posted signs reading, “I support the right to arm bears” over our kitchen sink. She was also a big believer in “ZPG,” shorthand back then for Zero Population Growth . By then, my mother had given birth to nine children It was that kind of house. Fifty-two years later, and another Black woman just ran for the White House. Different circumstances, I admit, but despite my foolhardy, optimistic predictions a few weeks ago, Kamala Harris didn't make it either I guess I owe you an apology. Right now, I'm focused on keeping my own house from burning down . Especially with me in it. Especially with me as the match. For all of you facing a similar challenge, self-immolation is never a sexy look . If nothing else, it makes your carbon footprint look fat. Right now, I find reading the news impossible . My eyes bounce off. I have to read the same paragraph three times. Then I give up. It's a common symptom for people bludgeoned with an ax handle I have taken to wearing a T-shirt I had made a few months ago that reads, “Fuck that noise.” It was part of a self-help regime I was then pioneering. I sent one of my shirts off to Anne Lamott , the great evangelist of radical self-care, self-love, and all that other Christ-infused radical self-stuff. I sent along a note explaining I was not a nut Strangely, Lamott — who spoke in town this week — never wrote back. In that same vein, I also made a T-shirt reading, “Love is the last light spoken,” a line I stole from the famous Welsh drunk — and poet — Dylan Thomas . I don't quite know what it means yet, but that's poetry. Back before he drank himself to death, Thomas spent some time at UCSB, where he famously ran off with the wife of a high-ranking English professor , inspiring yet another English professor to write a short story about it. Out of that drama, the College of Creative Studies was born. Or so I was told by my baby sister who went there. The moral of the story? Drunks and poets make history So do we all. But maybe right now, we need to exhale and inhale a few times . Gather our thoughts. Stop sputtering so much about him. And them. Maybe it's best to focus a little more on us and what we could do better. Last I checked, apoplexy was classified as a terminal disease that slowly renders its victims so boring that anyone within earshot flees Yes, we need to examine why nine million fewer of us voted for Harris than Joe Biden four years ago. How many times were we told that this was an Existential Crisis , the Death of Democracy ? Why weren't we alarmed when the Democratic Party opted not to hold a primary? Kind of a big deal when you consider it. There's a lot of necessary self-flagellation now taking place: How did the Democrats become the party of the educated, Tesla-driving elites and the Republicans the party of blue-collar workers and Latino men ? How is it Democrats could not feel — or even acknowledge — the economic pain so many are experiencing? This ground is currently being strip-mined by accomplished analysts. We will inevitably discover it's all Bill Clinton's fault — what isn't? — even though, ironically, Clinton was an absolute genius when it came to feeling other people's pain. Right now, the voice that haunts me most is that of Babatunde Folayemi , a longtime social justice advocate and Santa Barbara's first and only Black city councilmember . He died in 2012 — ancient history by Santa Barbara standards — so his name is not well-known. Folayemi was not a great councilmember, but his real genius was being a great human being . When the powers-that-be wanted to pass a gang injunction to stop youth violence then percolating in some parts of town, he suggested that we treated the kids causing the grief as if they were human beings . Maybe then they might respond in kind. Radical stuff, right? But when he said it, you felt it. It had the impact of revelation . One day, Babatunde and I were talking about another activist in town who was busy calling out all the other activists in town for not being radical enough, Black enough, or Latino enough. “I know what makes him mad,” Babatunde said, shaking his head. “But I still don't know what he loves .” At the risk of impersonating Anne Lamott: That is the question We've got four long years ahead of us. And they will be dark. And yes — to steal a line from a movie — they will drink our milkshake. To get through it, we need to focus on what we love It's not a matter of high-minded, preachy moral grandiosity. It's not about love-your-enemy. It's about survival We got four years. Hate's a luxury we can't afford Mostly, I don't want to burn myself up. I'd like to be able to read newspapers again. It's necessary for my job. Besides, I'm addicted to the funny pages. What do you love? It's the badass question. Thu, Nov 14 7:30 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Nov 23 2:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 28 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Dec 14 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 4:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 6:00 PM Virtual Wed, Nov 13 7:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 9:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 14 4:00 PM Lompoc Thu, Nov 14 5:00 PM Carpinteria Thu, Nov 14 7:30 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Nov 23 2:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 28 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Dec 14 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 4:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 6:00 PM Virtual Wed, Nov 13 7:30 PM Santa Barbara Wed, Nov 13 9:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 14 4:00 PM Lompoc Thu, Nov 14 5:00 PM Carpinteria Thu, Nov 14 7:30 PM Santa Barbara

It was Day Two after last week's presidential election. Sitting under a brisk autumn sun, Santa Barbara's Democratic Congressmember Salud Carbajal and his spokesperson Ian Mariani were trying to figure out the right words to describe the impact of Trump's election on Carbajal. The first word out of Carbajal's mouth—“bumming”—they disowned immediately. Carbajal, a lifelong Democrat, quickly leafed through his mental thesaurus of emotions. “Distraught,” he said. “Devastated.” What he was really feeling, he said, was considerably more intense. Those that, he insisted, needed to stay off the record. It's not like Carbajal hasn't been here before. He and Doanld Trump were first elected to their respective offices in November 2016. Then as now, Trump made the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally the centerpiece of his campaign platform. He says, the number is 21 million, a figure disputed by most official statistical sources as wildly exaggerated. “I just worry about the fear and the panic this is going to cause,” Carbajal said. “We all know he won't try to deport 21 million people off the bat. He'll start by going after people with criminal records. But how precise will he be? How many non-criminals will get caught up? What effect will all this have on families? The fear and panic will be something else. It will be enormous.” Carbajal knows something about the immigrant experience. He came to the United States from Mexico as a five-year old kid. His family landed eventually in Oxnard. By the time he was seven, he was speaking English with fluency. Carbajal's and Trump's political trajectories make for an odd juxtaposition. “You have to understand what “normal” has been for me. For me “'normal' has been chaos,” Carbajal stated, launching into his laundry list of weird and crazy. “It's been the January 6 insurrection. It's been attempting to overturn the Affordable Care Act. It's been government shut downs, the longest in American history. It's been two impeachments. It's been the speakership debacle. It's been chaos, extremism, and lack of basic competence at running the government. It's been COVID and what a nightmare that was. So that's ‘normal ‘for me. I don't know what normal is. Ask Lois [his predecessor Congressmember Lois Capps.] She could tell you about normal.” But when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris replaced Trump and Mike Pence in the White House, Carbajal—an upbeat, wise-cracking radical moderate famous for his insistence on “reaching across the aisle” in search of “win-win-wins”—found himself suddenly in heaven. During that period, Carabajal had a hard time containing himself, at times crowing about all the landmark legislation launched by the Biden-Harris administration. He called it the most productive in history. Congress passed a very small but still significant gun control reform that Carbajal authored—a red flag bill funding bill designed to keep armed weapons out of the hands of those with serious mental health histories or or who committed violent crimes. More significantly, The Biden Administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a multi-trillion dollar spending bill designed to fight global warming, create new infrastructure projects, and create jobs. Carbajal's district has received $1 billion so far, he noted; 1,300 jobs will be created. But when voters went to the polls—or mailed in their ballots– they weren't feeling the effects of any inflation reduction. Instead, they were remembering—and feeling–the all-too-real economic pain inflicted by inflation. “They just out-messaged us,” Carbajal said. “It was the economy. We were bested on the economy. We were bested on the messaging.” There's been a world-wide wave of political upheaval in the most recent election cycles, he noted. Pretty much every administration in power, across the globe, got tossed out, he stressed. Inflation has been a global phenomenon, largely brought on by COVID and its impact on the global economy. “It was an anti-status quo thing.” In a subsequent statement released after last week's interview, Carbajal elaborated, “It's clear the American people are unsatisfied with the status quo and the direction of our society and that many of the people who voted for Trump did not do so out of total agreement with his policies or personality, but out of feeling unheard on the issues that matter to them most.” Although Carbajal is now solidly ensconced among the ranks of the comfortable middle class, he said he experiences sticker shock every time he buys groceries. For families trying to cover child care costs the burdens are very real. “I feel it. You go shopping and you can't believe your eyes.” In addition, Carbajal acknowledged widespread frustration “with the chaos at our Southern border, public safety risks from crime and gun violence, and the deadly threat of fentanyl.” In 2016, he said, Trump had to figure out what he wanted to do. He had to get an executive team in place. Many of those early appointees sought to slow things down. But in the second term, Trump will proceed with greater speed and abandon, Carbajal said. He is surrounding himself with loyalists and extremists who won't question the implications of Trump's policies. “Just imagine how expensive food is going to get if Trump's immigration policies are put into place and he tries to deport all the people he says he is. Imagine the impact on the economy. We should be fearful.” At the time of this interview, Republicans had won the Senate, though the fate of the House was still unclear, Carbajal thought it likely the Republicans would take the House. But even so, he suggested the margin of victory would be sufficiently slim that on certain issues Republican members could be persuaded across the aisle to vote with Democrats, for example, to save funding for programs popular—or relied upon—by their constituents. In his recent statement, Carbajal noted that during Trump' first term Democrats managed to preserve the Affordable Care Act despite having a minority in both chambers and that they effectively blocked a Muslim ban .Whether that's as likely now, with far fewer Republican mavericks still on the political landscape, remains to be seen. In conclusion, Carbajal reminded his constituents that the times in which he's served have been “unprecedented,” adding, “We haven't stopped facing them since then.” He expressed a willingness to keep working “to get back to a place where you can forget about the history we're living for a few moments,” but added, “But I can't do it without the engagement and advocacy of all of you.” Sun, Dec 01 5:00 PM Santa Barbara Fri, Dec 13 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Fri, Dec 13 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Nov 23 2:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 28 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Nov 23 7:00 AM Santa Barbara Sun, Dec 01 5:00 PM Santa Barbara Fri, Dec 13 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Fri, Dec 13 7:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Nov 23 2:00 PM Santa Barbara Thu, Nov 28 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Sat, Nov 23 7:00 AM Santa Barbara Sun, Dec 01 5:00 PM Santa Barbara Fri, Dec 13 12:00 PM Santa Barbara Fri, Dec 13 7:00 PM Santa Barbara

Kimberlee Albers, unofficial and de facto homeless czar for the County of Santa Barbara since 2018, has taken a job with the County of Ventura, where a new position was created giving her more direct and immediate authority. Albers, known for her vast, detailed, and encyclopedic knowledge about the many bureaucratic path points leading into and out of homeless care, took the position with Ventura County three weeks ago. During her tenure with the county, the budget for Homeless Assistance programs grew from $3 million to $10 million. In part, this surge reflects the vast infusion of state and federal dollars made available during COVID to help deal with a flashpoint in a broader national health crisis. But it also reflected Albers's keen understanding of the new funding sources then coming online and her ability to respond quickly. Albers, who seemed animated by a quiet but definite sense of mission, expressed gratitude for the time she spent in Santa Barbara. To the extent that thousands of previously unhoused people found housing during her tenure, she was quick to credit her team. In Ventura County, Albers will be reporting directly to the county administrator. In Santa Barbara, there were a couple of administrative rungs separating her from the chief executive. For those hoping to get things done, bureaucratic chain-of-command issues have real consequences. Albers will be replaced on an interim basis by Emily Allen, who brings long and extensive experience with multiple organizations dealing with issues of homelessness. Albers's departure comes not just as state and federal funding for homeless-related projects winds dramatically down, but also as other key players in the county's team have taken positions elsewhere. Lucille Boss — whose desktop computer provided a commanding view of every homeless encampment in the county — has recently transferred to another position within the county bureaucracy and will now focus on housing issues. Jett Black-Maertz, just elected to the City College Board of Trustees, also recently left the county to work as a private consultant specializing in homeless funding issues for local governments.

Santa Barbara County Main Jail | Credit: Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office is still investigating how 41-year-old inmate Cecilia Michelle Covarrubias managed to hang herself on November 13 while being held in a single-person observation cell located within eyeshot of the Inmate Reception Center in the county's Main Jail on Calle Real. Due to a new state law, the investigation will be overseen by the state. Covarrubias, a Santa Ynez Valley resident, had been booked the day before on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, evading a peace officer, and wanton disregard for safety of others and was being held on $75,000 bail. What the actual facts are have yet to be finalized, but initial reports suggest Covarrubias had been under the influence of fentanyl at the time of her arrest and deputies felt compelled to administer Narcan to prevent a possible overdose. Some jailhouse watchers question whether Covarrubias was physically able to have caused the mayhem with which she's been accused. Others — like Aaron Fischer with the nonprofit watchdog group Disability Rights, which actively monitors conditions in the county jail as part of its long-running and partially settled civil rights litigation against the facility — have expressed deep concern. “That someone could have committed suicide in an observation cell, a place where they put people who are at risk of harming themselves, sends alarm bells through my head,” Fischer said. Fischer stressed he had not read Covarrubias's death reports yet, but said that as of July 2023, the county committed itself to removing the structural supports in jail observation cells that could be used by inmates to commit suicide. “There are certain tie-off points,” he noted, “that need to be removed. Clearly, that hasn't happened yet.” The record, Fischer added, is murky. He said it appears from county documents that the county claims it eliminated access points on the observation cell's ceiling from which inmates might hang themselves. Covarrubias's death comes months after recent reports by the Santa Barbara Grand Jury concluded the levels of staffing by both correctional deputies and the private medical professionals in the county jail are less than they should be and are called for. In response, the Board of Supervisors authorized the sheriff earlier this year to expand the number of private health-care employees working at the county jail. Given the difficulty in hiring medical workers anywhere, let alone in correctional facilities, it's unclear to what extent those hirings have occurred and what impact, if any, that decision might have made in preventing Covarrubias's death. Regardless, Covarrubias is the first inmate death in Santa Barbara County since a new state law went into effect this summer requiring that locally conducted investigations of inmate deaths be screened by a state agency, the Board of State and Community Corrections, otherwise known as BSCC. Although this agency has existed in some form since 1944, the state legislature voted last year to reconstitute its powers and responsibilities; it is now charged with reviewing the deaths taking place in county jails. Justifying this new level of state oversight over what's traditionally been a county responsibility, the bill's author cited the “disproportionate” number of deaths taking place in county jails. While the BSCC will not be conducting its own independent investigations of each death, it has been authorized to hire the medical personnel necessary to review the adequacy of the investigations conducted by local law enforcement officials. Likewise, the board is authorized to make operational recommendations to reduce the likelihood of future jail deaths. Under the terms the new law — authored by State Senator Toni Atkins and supported by both of Santa Barbara's legislative representatives in Sacramento, Gregg Hart and Monique Limón — local law enforcement officials will be required to respond to such recommendations, detailing how they intend to comply or explaining in some detail why they will not. The new law makes public for the first time the investigative documents of jail death investigations. Some redactions are allowed. To date, the new board has not conduced any such reviews, having only just appointed a director and its first medical personnel.