Back to the Future… in an Automobile
by Scott Wenz
They rode in on a Palomino horse with a flashy silver saddle, waved at the crowd and sold the failed Frisco based MIG Game Plan, for a narrowed State Street.
Forty years of effort failed – This City Council has overseen the final collapse of economic success of downtown Santa Barbara.
The unfulfilled hopes and dreams of the “MIG Game Plan” include effort to convince the public that:
Bikes would replace cars; the public would give up – forever – in-person shopping. Wrong.
Emergency response would be able to meet high-density catastrophe. This seriously compromised idea turned out to be… Wrong.
Doubling down on what has failed locally in other cities would work in Santa Barbara. Wrong.
Using intentionally divisive social rhetoric and pretending to be "moderate" would allow council members to destroy what is left of a working transportation grid. Wrong.
What you have now is an anti-business and anti-capitalist cabal controlling the Ciy of Santa Barbara that is empty and void of success.
It is past time to unleash the economic success of Capitalism as has been proven in Goleta.... and remind them, their current failure in Old Town is a rubber stamp of Santa Barbara.
It is obvious the Santa Barbara City Council direction is incapable of filling the widening economic gap that used to be successful Old Town. This is a widening gap between reality and council ideologue failure. A reality the council cannot accept because of ego.
Santa Barbara is not an isolated political island for socialism, where the unrealistic come to disconnect.
The loss of a retail tax base, and ongoing failure is clear. A Major Disconnect is the outcome staring the City Administrator and City Council in the face.
Cars Are Basic (CAB) states: the City of Santa Barbara has hit a destructive and terminal velocity by listening to the anti-car and anti-free travel groups.
The latest clear example of waste, fraud, and abuse by anti-car groups and businesses: B-Bike, and bike shops that are now selling electric motorcycles and saying they are bicycles. These are the modern upgrade of mopeds that the State has regulated.
There is no affirmation of MIG's decayed 40-year economic model. The supposed experts have failed with council members who hide from the public
CAB has always stood on the side of economic success, and the historic maintenance of the Pearl Chase downtown. A downtown that attracted people from all over the world.
Within the past decade City Hall has broken downtown.
Repeated Mayors and Councils have refused to take adult responsibility. The current majority has created a toxic threat to the entire south county. Goleta "Old Town" and Carpinteria "T" are trying the failure known as Santa Barbara.
This Council was supposed to be working as the COVID recovery Czar, but they have massively failed. All while open streets and adequate parking continue to succeed on Coast Village Rd., outer State St., Camino Real in Goleta, and along Hwy 246 in Buellton/Solvang.
After the beat down Santa Barbara has suffered for years, it is unrealistic and unsustainable pretending Mardi Gras with Fat Tuesday and Fiesta Holidays will be ongoing long term successes. A city that spurns being a tourist center and turns away tourist and locals alike, is a city that spites itself.
Q) What has floated this city through thick and thin for over a hundred years?
A.) Tourists. The council turned its back on visitors as a spurned suitor and cannot admit they have failed.
Tensions between a free and open market for downtown, with open streets and parking, has escalated beyond control. The Santa Barbara Council and now the rubber stamp Goleta Council are creating outrages with the middle class.
Leaving the ship?
Elias Isaacson is one of four city department directors in the past month to have left their jobs. He follows Cliff Maurer, public works director, Wendy Levy, human resources director, and Jessica Cadiente, library director, who accepted $500,000 as part of a settlement to leave the post.
Isaacson, an architect, was hired in June 2021 and formerly served as the Planning and Land Use Director for the City of Santa Fe.
“Being the community development director of Santa Barbara was an incredible experience,” Isaacson says. “I got to play a part in shaping the city’s future while respecting its history and character. (Noozhawk quote).
Why would the Council accept this attitude of failure? Was there a pistol in its face and/or was it beaten into submission?
There is no "Creative Genius" who has waved a magic wand here.
Repeated failure is directly at the feet of Mayors Marty Blum, Helene Schneider, Kathy Murillo and their feckless councils and now the current Council. City Administrators who smiled and failed, and every news outlet that has been willing to "massage" failure by talking about the future. Not only is there no “happy ending,” there is no "Back To The Future" magic car either.
It is time to stop decades of failure. It is time for a massive 180-degree turn-around. But that would take mature adults. Cars Are Basic, Inc. does not believe the City of Santa Barbara has those adults.
CarsAreBasic meets the last Wednesday of each Month at the Elks Lodge in Goleta 12:00 Noon. Scott Wenz can be reached at cab@carsarebasic.org
As a native born Santa Barbarian I have seen, obviously, many changes in our town throughout the years. I try to be realistic in the fact that changes are a part of the natural evolution of life. Having said that, one has to be a complete moron not to see that the "changes" in our once unique town are absolutely insane. I think we all have, pretty much, the same opinion of downtown State Street. Shopping in Santa Barbara is a no-go as well and as far as Old Town Goleta one can only shake their head. I have met no one that thinks either Santa Barbara or Goleta have improved in any way and one has to wonder if the only ones that might like the improvements have been making money hand over fist from these changes. A well done article, Scott.
Good synopsis. I tried last year in Goleta (ran for city council to bring common sense) but like any addict, our small town has not hit rock bottom yet. Our little seaside town of 30K residents still spending state money like it’s a big city of 1M+
It’s funny you mention “Back To The Future”. I wrote an entire piece countering the insane bicycle lobby entitled “Back to the Future”. But the “Independent” refused to publish it (probably because it was a rebuttal to multiple articles they published promoting Thousands of unaffordable high density housing projects, $50M bike paths, $5M library remodel, $5M restripe project, $25M Homeless shelter, and $25M train station projects…among others…all in a town of just 30K)
They are too far gone. They have to hit rock bottom 1st. By then it will be too late. This was the plan all along.