IV is a City

12/07/2017

The Santa Barbara Air Pollution Control District and the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department have issued a joint press release about the limitations of relying on masks to protect yourself from the current "very unhealthy" air quality levels that have been recorded at their local Goleta monitoring stations due to the Thomas Fire.

Masks come in different ratings, which determine how effective they are at filtering particles of varying sizes. Many of the masks that have been distributed by well-meaning groups are simple dust or surgical masks, which "are not effective" for today's conditions. Even NIOSH-certified N95 masks only "offer some limited protection".

Their recommendation is currently that "_everyone_ stay indoors", "avoid driving", "drink plenty of fluids", and "avoid doing anything to stir up ash". They also provided detailed information on the correct use of N95 masks, noting "masks do not filter out all of the harmful gases" and "they must also fit properly to be effective".

You can read the entire press release at the following URL.

http://www.ivisacity.org/8816094c-db92-11e7-b0f4-06a7f0c2cd6d/

I have attached a photo of three different brands of N95 rated masks, to show their characteristic shape (which allows the mask to seal against your face) and to show how the rating is printed directly on the mask. If you are not seeing such a rating (N or P followed by the number 95 or higher), then you do not have an effective mask.

05/21/2017

Every year, Isla Vista Surfrider hosts Concert for the Coast here in Isla Vista's Anisq'Oyo' Park to raise money for preservation of the Gaviota Coast. Here's Feral Vida finishing their set today at the 18th annual Concert for the Coast!

https://www.facebook.com/events/455360554814073/

05/08/2017

Tuesday, May 9th, is the deadline to vote in the ongoing Isla Vista Recreation and Park District election for Measure O. This election is a mail-in ballot only: there will be no polling place open to vote in person. People who are registered to vote should have received their ballot in the mail about three to four weeks ago. Your ballot needs to be postmarked by May 9th for it to count; so, if you are still holding on to one of these ballots, make sure to fill it out and put it back in your mailbox ASAP for your postal worker to collect.

04/14/2017

At the April meeting of the Isla Vista Community Network, Ethan Bertrand, Board President of the Isla Vista Community Services District, gave a report on the status of Isla Vista's new government, summarizing current work, committees, meetings, and programs.

(The next meeting of the IVCSD is Tuesday, April 18th at 6:00pm in the Community Room of 970 Embarcadero Del Mar; everyone is welcome!)

11/21/2016

Today, protesters on Pardall acted in solidarity with the people of Standing Rock, opposing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline; chanting "Hey-hey! Ho-ho! The Access Pipeline's got to go!", they stood in front of the local branch of Wells Fargo, one of the 17 national banks directly funding the pipeline.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1817016378586458/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1329377970415249/1368568929829486/

http://www.npr.org/tags/492631448/standing-rock-sioux-tribe

11/12/2016

The "Isla Vista Self Governance Initiative" hit a setback this week: two linked measures on the IV ballot, E & F, aimed to (respectively) 'E'stablish and 'F'und a new Community Services District for Isla Vista; while measure E passed with an overwhelming 87.30% of the vote, measure F had to clear a 2/3rds supermajority (as it would levy a new tax) but only ended up getting an insufficient 62.56%.

(The Daily Nexus reported the proponents of Yes on E & F - IVCSD 2016 were "hopeful" the 1,349 outstanding ballots might "swing the vote", but with 4,182 votes already recorded, measure F would have had to get a whopping 77.48% of those newly counted to pull the measure over the 66.67% required to establish a tax; and, as of today's "post election update" numbers reported above, it did not.)

Opposition to the new tax came from multiple sources: in addition to Chuck Eckert (of the Isla Vista Property Owners Association, which spearheaded No on Measure F, a group that distributed numerous fliers throughout the community), Patrick Galoustian, owner of IVmenus, took to the streets of IV with a megaphone on Tuesday to yell "No on E, No on F, No on taxes, No on rent increases".

This means that while a new district will be formed, and the initial set of elected directors will begin meeting, it is not clear where the money will come from to provide services. Options include: the University might decide to continue to chip in the $200k it promised (which had been contingent upon the passage of the tax); concentrating on having volunteers file for grants; or crowd-funding.

To do any of this, though, will require having meetings, and even those have costs: the overhead for the district itself, as reported in the Financial Feasibility Study, could have taken more than half of the new tax's funds. While it is certain that "just meeting" can be much cheaper, there are still legal and administrative costs to be considered in order to remain compliant with California law.

In speaking with the County, these costs will likely have to initially be satisfied by "in-kind contributions" of staff, meaning the IVCSD could end up borrowing the County's Clerk of the Board, Council, and Deputy Chief Executive Officer to file paperwork, post notices, provide legal oversight, and physically operate meetings. It will remain to be seen how long this will be feasible for the County.

Measures E and F experienced differing fates Tuesday night. Ballots from Isla Vista began to be counted at 11 p.m., showing an almost-secured win for Measure E but imminent loss for Measure F.

11/06/2016

Whether or not you vote yes on measures E & F (which would respectively 'E'stablish and 'F'und a new Community Services District for Isla Vista), at the same time you will be asked to vote on the initial set of directors for the potential new district.

Due to how the terms work for this district, in addition to those two questions for measures E & F, rather than one additional "vote for five" there will be three separate items on your ballot: a single "vote for one" and two "vote for no more than two".

This means your decisions are limited: Jay Freeman and Spencer Brandt are actually running unopposed for two seats; and while you will see another name running against Ethan Bertrand on your ballot, Joel Ruiz formally "suspended his campaign" long ago.

The only real decision is thereby in one race for two seats among four people. Last week, the Office of the External Vice President for Local Affairs (EVPLA) held an event to learn from all of the candidates, but you should pay particular attention to these.

• Michael Kile: co-founder of Santa Barbara Student Activist Network, negotiator for Voceros de UCSB, and UCSB Chemical Engineering major

• Natalie Jordan: Internal Vice President of Student Affairs for Associated Students - UCSB and Political Science / History of Public Policy major

• Father Jon-Stephen Hedges: volunteer chaplain at Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office and assistant pastor of St. Athanasius Orthodox Church

• Andrew Gabriel Pragin: local activist, socio-political consultant, and unofficial secretary for the Friends of the Isla Vista Community Center

The UCSB Associated Students Office of the External Vice President for Local Affairs (UCSBASOEVPLA) held a "candidate forum" for residents to meet the people...

08/31/2016

In June of 1990, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors enacted a Noise Ordinance for "unincorporated" areas (areas such as Isla Vista, that are not part of a city). These meetings took place during the summer, while the student population was away, despite protests from Associated Students and long-term residents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0VwrcbX1Wo [first hearing, 1990]

Voting 5-0, the ordinance stops amplified sound after midnight on Friday and Saturday and 10pm the rest of the week. At the second hearing, Michael Boyd and Carmen Lodise, who both spent decades fighting for Isla Vista to obtain true self-governance through efforts at establishing a city, spoke out against this new ordinance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eik_nc5exEY [second hearing, 1990]

Fast forward 26 years to earlier this month, at a meeting of the Isla Vista Community Network: Ruben Cintron, the new Lieutenant of the Isla Vista Foot Patrol, announced a potential change to this ordinance that would stop music at 10pm on every night. The hearing schedule? September 13th, before UCSB students return :/.

http://dailynexus.com/2016-08-13/evplas-thoughts-on-proposed-noise-ordinance-changes/

On August 16th, Ethan Bertrand and Spencer Brandt, two candidates for the Board of Directors of the soon-to-be-voted-on Isla Vista Community Services District, ran a "town hall" to allow people an opportunity to address some of the officers involved in this decision, including the Sheriff's South County Commander, Kelly Moore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEn5cYXA5UE [first town hall, 2016]

At this meeting, attended by numerous local politicians (including both Joan Hartmann and Bruce Porter, the two standing candidates for Third District County Supervisor, neither of whom chose to address the audience), stories were told and arguments were made. Almost no one, though, had kind words for these new restrictions.

http://www.independent.com/news/2016/aug/18/isla-vista-pushes-back-against-proposed-noise-ordi/

The current status is that the hearing before the Board of Supervisors has been postponed. As far as I know, we still are not certain when this will come before the board, but I was told "mid-October" (which could mean a meeting in Santa Maria; I pointed this out, so hopefully they will remember and change this to "late October").

http://dailynexus.com/2016-08-17/foot-patrol-postpones-noise-ordinance-change-in-response-to-community-pushback/

This new set of rules comes in the wake of a similar ordinance that has been put in place in the City of Santa Barbara, which was primarily designed to target students of Santa Barbara City College. One of the arguments is that this change will make the rules in unincorporated areas match the rules in nearby cities and counties.

http://www.independent.com/news/2016/feb/11/city-adopts-new-noise-ordinance/

In turn, these changes in the City of Santa Barbara were patterned after a similar set of rules in the City of San Luis Obispo, where they enacted a noise ordinance and an "unruly gathering" ordinance (which is designed to target larger parties: more than 20 people involving excessive noise, public drunkenness, fights, etc.).

http://mustangnews.net/slo-is-getting-quieter-according-to-law-enforcement/

However, there are important differences. The San Luis Obispo Police Department has a partnership with nearby schools (Cal Poly, Cuesta College, and Allan Hancock College) to fund a Student Neighborhood Assistance Program (or SNAP): fellow students who can hand out warnings (rather than police showing up).

http://mustangnews.net/oh-snap-why-you-may-want-to-keep-it-down-the-next-time-you-turn-up/

In fact, the Santa Barbara Police Department has made a similar partnership with Santa Barbara City College, establishing their own SNAP. SBCC has already pledged $100,000. While there has been some talk of such a program in Isla Vista through a Community Services District, UCSB and the County Sheriff are still waiting.

http://www.thechannels.org/news/2015/11/16/sbcc-gives-100000-to-student-run-community-patrol-program/

That said, many students in SLO have found the new noise ordinance to be unfair, which echos the sentiments of many residents in Isla Vista, not just with the new changes on the table, but with the original ordinance in 1990. In many ways, midnight was already a compromise: now, the County Sheriff wants to renegotiate those terms.

http://mustangnews.net/noise-ordinances/

05/20/2016

Come witness LightWorks, an event "designed to transform the central parks of downtown Isla Vista into illuminated spaces for art, performance, and evening engagement with the community"! The exhibit, which features a number of works funded by the California Arts Council, opened Thursday night, but will still be up on Friday and Saturday. There are also musical and dance performances!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1731383713767138/

Over the past year, Isla Vista has seen a number of projects inspired by "light". Professor Kim Yasuda, a UCSB professor of Art, was working with her class, IV Open Lab, on an event in the parks called Isla Vista First Fridays. When it ended, she noted just how dark the area became as the lights were turned off. This thought became a mission to light up all of Isla Vista in unique and creative ways.

http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/lightworksiv/

04/11/2016

"IV Safe" is a committee formed by the Santa Barbara District Attorney as a response to the Deltopia riot of 2014. Meeting behind closed doors, this group consists largely of representatives of groups external to Isla Vista, including the City of Goleta. While there are now three residents of Isla Vista who participate, they had to argue to be included and their opinions do not seem to carry as much weight.

From the perspective of this group, Isla Vista is nothing more than a place that "has had a wild reputation for many years, and threatens to tarnish the sterling reputation of the community [by which they mean UCSB, SBCC, and the City of Santa Barbara], unless something is done to repair its image". To this end, IV Safe launched a "rebranding campaign", which has involved a series of online advertisements.

Starting with the slogan of "Don't Risk It", the marketing message focussed on the heavy police presense in Isla Vista during major events, a point which was made using images of people behind bars, being arrested by police, and watching their cars get towed. One series of advertisements concentrated on s*xual assault, awkwardly stating that "s*x can last a few moments; a r**e charge can last a lifetime".

This campaign was admonished by the Black Student Union and the UCSB Task Force Against Police Brutality for "using humiliation and scare tactics, spreading photos of real students in serious health conditions as a deterrent to participating in Deltopia" in a list of demands that were given to the Chancellor of UCSB where they called for the "demilitarization of police at major events such as Halloween and Deltopia".

In an effort to move away from negative messaging, later efforts from IV Safe included what (frankly) amounts to a campaign advertisement, in part paid for using public funds, for a handful of local politicians (none of which are from Isla Vista or represent a local governmental entity in Isla Vista). Their plans moving forward involve using celebrities from Santa Barbara, such as Oprah or Michael Douglas, in their commercials.

Isla Vista "Rebranding" Campaign Ad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdECBPBREyc

Last week, at the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, the IV Safe Committee presented their Report to the People, which documented work done by numerous agencies in Isla Vista over the past two years. I spoke during "public comment" (where you have up to three minutes, so I had to speak quickly) to make certain that the Board could see some of the actual marketing images used by this campaign.

Board of Supervisors Meeting Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZVnq-cADDk =1h53m30s

IV Safe Report Presentation Slides
https://santabarbara.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4370459&GUID=4494B84A-6B54-4EE2-BC0C-67CEB65A98D6

IV Safe Final Report to the People
https://santabarbara.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4370458&GUID=B2C86932-B829-4F02-BD70-F085BB1166C1

Article by Santa Barbara Independent
http://www.independent.com/news/2016/apr/07/supervisorial-candidate-blasts-iv-safe-program/

Last month, the marketing consultant in charge of this campaign was asked to speak before the Isla Vista Community Network last month (the closest thing Isla Vista currently has to a community council), but they failed to show. On Thursday, April 14, we expect they will not miss again. If you care at all about these issues, I highly recommend attending this meeting: this is a rare glimpse behind the curtain.

The Isla Vista Community Network meets on the second Thursday of every month at noon in the "Community Room", which is on the first floor at the side of the Isla Vista Medical Clinic (behind Naan Stop and Deja Vu). The address is 970 Embarcadero Del Mar. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me using Facebook (alternatively, on Tuesday April 12th, I will be sitting at a booth in the Arbor at UCSB).

04/09/2016

Every Tuesday evening for well over a year, community members in Isla Vista, in discussions run by the office of Das Williams, have been meeting to consider establishing a Community Services District, a special form of government designed to collect taxes and provide services in areas outside of cities (such as Isla Vista).

This past week, plans were finalized with the Local Agency Formation Commission, and the result will appear on the November ballot: if the voters agree, an 8% "utility user tax" (a tax on all water, sewer, electricity, natural gas, and garbage bills), along with a contribution from UCSB of $200,000 per year, could fund eight services:

• a municipal advisory council (to represent our area in an advisory capacity to the Board of Supervisors)
• an area planning commission (so zoning and building decisions could happen at local meetings)
• graffiti abatement (which is quite inexpensive, but currently has inconsistent funding sources)
• a parking district (which will likely start by working on designing a comprehensive parking usage survey)
• expansion of landlord/tenant mediation services to non-UCSB students (SBCC students and families)
• additional policing services (most of us want to see this become a civilian community policing program)
• supplemental funding for sidewalks, street lighting, and some other road-related public works items
• ability to construct and/or operate "community facilities" (such as potentially the new community center)

While funding from the district might be "light", one of the more interesting decisions has been to include in the budget money to hire a half-time grant writer. Already, many large infrastructure projects in Isla Vista are funded by grants: combining a grant writer with the public works and community facilities powers is exciting.

And, from the perspective of self-governance, having a municipal advisory council and/or an area planning commission would be a major game changer; to my eyes, those are the most important of the eight services: despite being advisory only, they would allow us to meet as an official body and discuss wide-reaching issues.

To put this differently: having a municipal advisory council and an area planning commission is as close as we currently are going to get to establishing a City of Isla Vista. They would be able to act in a similar capacity to a city council and its planning commission (with the limitation of having to defer to the Board of Supervisors).

However, even with the ability to fund these services, without support from the Board of Supervisors, we will not be able to establish either of those bodies. This was underscored during the LAFCO meeting by Janet Wolf, 2nd District Supervisor, who tried to guide the conversation in a direction to remove those powers.

Thankfully, by the end of the meeting, even Janet Wolf was convinced to let the district go forward with full funding powers, but from all indications it sounds like, were we to succeed in voting in this district, we should be prepared to fight this out with the Board of Supervisors to get them to agree to give us these two bodies.

Now, the community moves on to the next phase: working to educate residents and prepare for the November election. With so many residents of Isla Vista being students who graduate at the end of the year, and with most everyone playing "musical apartments" every summer, we are all in for an intense handful of months.

For more details on the LAFCO meeting, I highly recommend the article from the Daily Nexus, written by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs.

http://dailynexus.com/2016-04-07/isla-vista-to-vote-on-csd-tax-in-november/

The full video of the meeting is also available from CSBTV20's YouTube channel (where they recently started live streaming).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc6y8d9pZ4w =8m50s

02/11/2016

Parking, or park? There is a (private) parking lot owned by the Isla Vista Recreation and Park District at the end of the loop, outside the building that will become the IV Community Center later this year. On their board agenda this Thursday is the question of whether to leave it as a paved lot (which could later build revenue through parking spot rental and is currently used for food trucks during some events, such as IV First Friday) or to break up the asphalt to get more park (a suggestion made by Lanny Ebenstein).

When I was a student, the entire bottom of the loop used to be a parking lot, but we now run events in the area that was turned back into park, so I can appreciate the idea of opening that up more; but, I can also understand the opposition, and have been involved working on events that have used that paved area for food trucks and staging of equipment for set up and tear down.

What do you think? Either come to the meeting (6pm on February 11), or leave your comments here and I'll make certain they are relayed both during public comment and as a printed handout. To help you decide, I've provided some arial shots of the parking lot highlighted, what it could look like replaced with grass (I realize my grass is "too green" :/ I copied it from a IV park), and how the area used to look back when there was a much larger lot there.