On City property, including parks and public spaces, landscaping should be organically created and maintained.  Fossil-fueled landscaping equipment must be phased out and replaced. 

Leafblowers

One of the first steps our city should take is to finally tackle that most loathesome of devices, the gasoline-powered leafblower (often known as "dirt blower").  These machines have long been recognized as inordinately large sources of noise pollution and air pollution (both through emissions and through fugitive dust), and have been illegalized in many cities, including Los Angeles, Berkeley, Beverly Hills, Los Altos, Santa Monica, and others.  The City government must place a priority on enforcement of our gasoline leafblower ban - passed by public referendum but ignored by the City for the past 12 years.  To help promote this, the City should give free business licenses to fossil-free landscapers.  For violators, the city must issue citations to property owner and/or business licensees, and then track the violations.  First offense merits a warning, second offense a citation with significant fine, and third offense would cause impoundment of the leafblower, which would be recycled.  Enforcement would thus be self-funding through revenue from tickets.  This system has been quite successful in other cities which have been more willing to put enforcement efforts behind such laws.  This would rapidly lead landscape crews to switch to other means for debris clearing, as less noxious alternatives (brooms, water, even electric blowers) are readily available and without signficant switching costs. 

The City must no longer maintain its lands with the use of toxic herbicides and insecticides.  Private lands, if treated with toxic pesticides, should be clearly labeled for the safety and education of nearby residents (sometimes called "neighbor notification").

We need to support bicycling for transportation wherever feasible.  A bicylce path along the railroad tracks would be a valuable step forward.  Likewise, the Cabrillo Beach bicycle path was created for transportation, and such use must be protected.

 

Energy efficiency
Our city should also place a moratorium on air conditioning in City offices and properties, using natural cooling methods instead. 

 
Open spaces

We also need to increase availability of community gardens, and preserve park accessibility and outdoor open space.  One good step would be to turn the city golf course into an open-access area with garden space available for residents.  This would also allow reducing the golf course's heavy irrigation requirements. 

2.  Localizing and democratizing city government:

City council seats should be districted.  Local media and local-access TV continue to provide much air time for candidates.  Building code limitations should be negotiable in cases providing affordable housing.

Out of respect for true democracy my campaign will take no money,  recognizing the fact that money has been a contaminating influence on our electoral system and also understanding that money is just a medium for effort.  Electoral decisions should be issue-driven, without the noise, distraction and conflicts of interest which inevitably follow fundraising. 

 

My campaign will remain an all-volunteer effort, and I encourage other candidates to consider a similar stand.

 

In solidarity with taxpayers and workers, if elected, I will return half my pay to the city coffers.

 

Improving our local economy includes several important elements, including:

 

 

Cost recovery: 

Under Art. 13 of the California constitution,  we can collect fees for services rendered or needing to be rendered.

 

The consumption of alcholic beverages leads to a large fraction of  SBPD law enforcement activity.  These city services are currently not specifically funded by fees.  I propose a Alcohol Law Enforcement Fee on all alcoholic beverages sold in the city in bars,  restaurants and stores in the amount that will make the city whole on this expense. 

 

Parks and Recreation spends a good portion of its budget cleaning up our parks, beaches and creeks.  The city should charge a Park, Creek and Beach Recovery Fee on all plastic bags given out by stores in the city to pay for this.

 

Likewise, a separate assessment on high-risk building locations could help recoup the enormous costs of defending isolated structures from wildfires.

On a longer time horizon, the city is on the hook for the costs of city employees sent overseas on military deployments, including credit toward retirement.  We can work with other municipalities to shift these costs back to the federal government. 

 

Pension expense has become exorbitant and unaffordable for Santa Barbara, as has occurred in many California municipalities.  We must reform the pension process in order to secure our financial future.

 

 

We can, working with our county government,  increase the title transfer fee to prevent excessive speculation, with a once-in-five-year exemption for families.  Funds raised could go towards housing projects.

 

We need greater caution with spending public money as well.

For example, housing homeless in cohousing projects could save money, and provide healthier social settings as well.
Housing SBCC students in nearby dormitories could also free up additional local low-cost housing, while cutting traffic of commuting students. 

 

Immigration and the local economy: 

Illegal immigration has also harmed our local economy, dragging down wages for legal workers.  Additionally, much of illegal immigrants' pay does not remain in our local economy, but returns to their homelands.  Mass migrations have hurt countries of origin as well, often draining societies of their most productive workers.  El Salvador in particular has recognized this, and is now focused on repatriating its citizens from the US.  All of us should support such efforts in order to reunite families and rebuild communities south of our border, while putting US jobs back on track with strong penalties for employers hiring illegal immigrants.

 

Other thoughts: 

     A community currency can  strenghthen the local and economy while improving local social ties, much as the neighborhood exchanges already do.

     In order to maximize affordable housing options, our city needs room for negotiation.  The strict limits of Measure B are thus inappropriately restrictive.

See more about Measure  B:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYxI0s_qUtM&feature=email

 

 

 

The city is more secure when work is done locally and the revenue on projects is spent in the community.  For this reason we will use Project Labor Agreements to keep our local workers employed on our local projects.

The city is more secure when its emergency responders live in the community.   We will begin to use selective Cost Of Living Allowances and Security Bonuses in future negotiations to increase the number of local firemen and police.  We will also negotiate with the police to establish a security exchange so that police that live in our community but work in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Lompoc or other communities can report to work in Santa Barbara in emergencies (and our police that live there report there).