Anonymous
By an edhat reader
Week of October 3 – October 7, 2022: council and advisory committee meetings of Santa Barbara City
A long-time Edhat subscriber, hoping for more public participation in our local government, thought it would be helpful and interesting for the community to have a weekly listing of selected meetings, those of city-wide interest. We agreed. Please tell us what you think. There have been requests for coverage of other jurisdictions; volunteers to do that, please contact info@edhat.com. If we’ve mis-posted an address or there’s a meeting that we failed to list, please note the correction in the Comments section below. Thanks!
Santa Barbara has a City Calendar of meetings; for October: https://www.santabarbaraca.gov/cals/. (NB: City Calendar is a guide and may not be complete or, as for this week, completely accurate.) City TV covers many of the meetings and has reruns and updates with newly-scheduled meetings. However, Consent Calendar meetings are not televised. Our new city website design is a mixed blessing, prettier-looking but with some information harder to find if it exists at all.
Common acronyms, abbreviations: hybrid or Hyflex, meeting access is both in person and via Zoom or other webinar; PDA, Project Design Approval; FA, Final Approval; CAR, Council Agenda Report. Meeting locations: City Council chambers upstairs at City Hall, 735 Anacapa Street; David Gebhard Room (DGR), 630 Garden Street; or where noted. Noted also for Council and Advisory Committee meetings are non-public city addresses; these are addresses for those public servants who attend the meetings at home or elsewhere.
A quiet week for public meetings, with the major celebration the 150th anniversary of Stearns Wharf on Saturday. (Noted for curious, interested members of the public, there is still no agenda reference to the absence of Ariel Colonne, City Attorney.)
MONDAY, 10/3
Single Family Design Board, 11:00 A.M., DGR, in person: Consent Agenda, 3434 Marina Dr, FA.; 807 Dolores Dr., FA; 1034 Garcia Road. PDA & FA; 1626 Mira Mesa Dr., PDA & FA; 507 Alan Rd, PDA, “…Proposal for substantial redevelopment of the existing….” Architectural drawings link.
Architectural Board of Review, 1 P.M., Consent meeting: Cancelled.
Architectural Board of Review, 3 P.M., DGR, Hyflex, see Agenda for access info: 36 E. Montecito St, PDA & FA; 20 Oceano Ave, PDA & FA.
TUESDAY, 10/4
Sign Committee, 9 A.M., DGR, cancelled.
City Council, Special Ordinance Committee meeting (two times given: 12 and 12:30 P.M., 12 is the most likely) Agenda: Single Family Design Board Membership Criteria and Quorum Requirements. CAR, proposal to reduce the SFDB to five members, with an interesting discussion about the difficulties of recruiting board members: ” …staff proposes that the SFDB be reduced from seven to five members; that at least three members possess professional qualifications in fields related to architecture, building design, structural engineering, industrial design, or landscape design; and that the requirement for licensed professionals be removed. Up to two of the five SFDB members would be appointed from the public at large.”
City Council, regular meeting, 2 P.M., city council chambers., Hyflex, access info at the Agenda; Consent Calendar, and item 10, Community Development block grant funding, processes and criteria, CAR.
WEDNESDAY, 10/5
Staff Hearing Officer, 9 A.M., Cancelled.
THURSDAY, 10/6
Planning Commission Site Visits: 8 A.M. Agenda, 2315 Edgewater Way, 222 Mesa Lane; no public input but open to the public.
Parks and Recreation Commission, Street Street Advisory Committee, 8:30 A.M, Parks Office, 402 E. Ortega Street, in person, Agenda, consideration of various street trees, setback trees; see the staff’s 48-page illustrated 9/27 report; and the Street Tree Master Plan of the 500-700 blocks of N. Voluntario Street, request for designation change from silk trees to acacias.
Planning Commission, 1 P.M., Hyflex, for Access info. see: Agenda, 2315 Edgewater Way, 222 Mesa Lane.
FRIDAY, 10/7
no meetings.
Saturday, 10/8
https://santabarbaraca.gov/events/stearns-wharf-150th-anniversary with many events: https://stearnswharf.org/saturday-october-8th-stearns-wharf-to-celebrate-150th-anniversary/
Of general interest:
City Advisory Commissions are listed with their duties and powers described in the Charter of the City of Santa Barbara, See: Article Vlll, Appointive Boards and Commissions, pg; 25 et seg. Other commissions may be formed by the City Council for certain issues of public concern. Santa Barbara Municipal Code. The fall recruitment is presently on-going for these volunteer positions: https://santabarbaraca.gov/government/boards-commissions/applications-vacancies.
See also: Vacancy Notices, recruitment in process: https://santabarbaraca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/Current%20Vacancies%2009-23-2022.pdf — a bit inaccurate or just not friendly to present commission members, since those members whose terms are to the end of the year are not even listed, eg the Transportation and Circulation Committee with 5 vacancies.
AIA-Santa Barbara, August 2020, State Street Promenade and housing community survey results, more than 4,800 responses, linked here. Civic groups concerned about city government: Allied Neighborhoods Association, Citizens Planning Association, League of Women Voters -Santa Barbara, and various hyperlocal neighborhood associations.
City of Santa Barbara emphasizes transparency: https://santabarbaraca.gov/government-transparency. Not listed under city transparency is a link to the Ralph M. Brown Act (“Brown Act“), “In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.” On 9/15/22, Assistant City Attorney John Doimas gave the Harbor Commission two presentations, on the Brown Act and, also, on Conflict of Interest considerations; item 2, approximately 12:31 minutes into the meeting. (There are no documents listed online.)
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