Peak Oil: What Are We to Do?

The Community Environmental Council Has an Idea or Two

By Tam Hunt, energy program director, Community Environmental Council

The County Board of Supervisors will be holding a hearing next Tuesday morning, August 26, to discuss the ongoing energy crisis in our region, state and country. With “peak oil” perhaps already here, or arriving soon – as more and more respected analysts now agree – this hearing is timely. While the Community Environmental Council is convinced that peak oil is a very serious problem, we are concerned that the growing awareness of this slow-moving crisis will lead to some bad choices regarding solutions. There are many non-solutions being discussed in the popular media, including increasing offshore oil drilling, coal power and nuclear power. Offshore oil drilling is a non-solution because it won’t help in the short-term or the long-term. It’s all about numbers. Using the best available data, from the federal Energy Information Administration, we can see that opening up all federal waters to offshore drilling will contribute a drop in the bucket to our country’s oil supplies even by 2030 (160,000 additional barrels a day, compared to a projected consumption by 2030 of 24 million barrels per day). Offshore drilling is a distraction from the real solutions.

Changing the City Map

Santa Barbara Wraps Up Talking, Looks Toward Doing

By Martha Sadler

Thursday, July 24, 2008

The final gathering for PlanSB saw less fighting than one might expect, though its undercurrents of tension will surely rise to the surface when push comes to shove and the City Planning Commission and City Council start hammering out the actual changes to Santa Barbara’s general plan. The city last undertook a massive reappraisal of its basic shape and direction — updating the land use and housing elements of its general plan — in 1989, and the result was Measure E, which limited commercial development to 3 million square feet, from a potential 100 million. Back then, it was slow-growth urban environmentalists squaring off against developers, and the environmentalists won.

Goleta Tax Won’t Endanger Measure A

Council Vows to Form Better Profit Split With County

By Ben Preston

Thursday, July 3, 2008

While slow-moving tedium usually defines City Council meetings, Goleta’s was abuzz with meaningful activity on Tuesday evening. As the smoke from the Gap Fire off West Camino Cielo Road hung above the mountains across from City Hall, decisions were made about issues Goletans have been watching anxiously. Not least on this list were two proposed measures for the November ballot — one to push a renegotiation of the revenue neutrality agreement with the county, and the other a half-cent sales tax measure for the City of Goleta that may very well have put the brakes on the county’s Measure A. If approved by voters this November, Measure A would replace the expiring Measure D, a major funding source for countywide road maintenance and improvements.

In order for the sales tax measure to be included on the ballot, four of the five councilmembers had to approve it, and councilmembers Roger Aceves and Jonny Wallis were opposed to it. “We all have to work to get Measure A passed. A lot of cities depend on it,” Aceves said, adding that the council had agreed to pull the proposed measure from the July 1 agenda by consensus.

Maneuver by Goleta Could Endanger Measure A

A Taxing November

By Chris Meagher

Thursday, June 26, 2008

As the deadline approaches to get items placed on this November’s ballot, talk of filling the ballot with local tax measures has intensified. Too many taxes usually turn voters off, and with taxpayers already fatigued from two elections in 2008 — themselves containing tax measures — public officials might have a tough time getting this fall’s measures passed. “People obviously are not going to vote for a laundry list of taxes,” pointed out Joe Armendariz, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayer’s Association.

Public Speaks on UCSB's Expansion Plans

Additional Students, Faculty Could Overwhelm Goleta Water Supply

By Ben Preston

Friday, June 6, 2008

UCSB gave members of the public a chance to comment on its Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) Wednesday night, June 4, at the Isla Vista Theater, having presented it the day before to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Following a brief presentation on the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) by Crawford, Multari & Clark's Chris Clark—hired by UCSB to complete the study—the 40 or so community members who showed up had a chance to air their grievances with the University's planned expansion.

How Bicycle Riders Donate to Car Drivers in Goleta

Two-Wheel Commuters Give Us Less Traffic and Pollution, Lower Gas Prices, and More Parking Spaces

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

By George Relles

Margaret Connell’s recent column “Getting to Work In Goleta” was excellent, as usual. However, I would like to supplement her focus on buses and trains by highlighting the benefits of another type of alternative transportation that benefits all of us, even when we don’t use it.

The Future of the Sta. Rita Hills Development Below the Radar in Santa Ynez Valley Wine Country

The Independent, Thursday, November 29, 2007

By José Baer, manager of Rancho Viña.

While the battle rages along the Gaviota Coast over development of agriculturally zoned land, Lakeview Estates in the Sta. Rita Hills quietly attempts to slip in below the radar. Most of you will have heard of the Sta. Rita Hills, which has gained fame with its world-class pinot noir, but chances are few of you have heard of Lakeview Estates.

Lakeview Estates is a 1,568-acre subdivision consisting of 35 parcels and located above a proposed, but never completed, reservoir (hence “Lakeview”) on the Santa Ynez River, about 10 miles west of Buellton and five miles east of Lompoc. This subdivision spills down from the ridge of the Sta. Rita Hills to the Santa Ynez River and contains some of the most coveted wine grape land in Santa Barbara County. The subdivision is surrounded entirely by agricultural lands in a region that produces some of the best wine grapes in the world, as well as a mix of other crops, from broccoli to tomatoes. Registered in 1968 with little forethought to development, the hope was these “lakefront” parcels would become valuable in the future.