I read this article with interest as it applies to a building permit issue I had. I put a 120 square foot Tuff Shed in my back yard. A structure 120 square feet or less would not need a permit according to the city guidelines. A neighbor complained to the city about some construction going on when the shed was installed. Someone from the building dept came to my home and determined the square footage of the structure, measured incorrectly, was 122 square feet and 4 inches too high. I was told the $7,000 Tuff Shed would need to be removed or have earthquake footings put in with some additional structure reinforcement to the walls. Between paying the city fees along with an architec and surveyor the $7,000 Tuff Shed costs increased an additional $24,000. All because an inspector decided the structure was 122 square feet.
Now there are new plans by the city for creek buffer zones for any building/structure within 15 to 50 feet of the edge of the all the creeks in Santa Barbara. It is unclear what the real intent of this new legislation will be? But guaranteed the city will be charging high fees to anyone living next to a creek. Not to mention, this will reduce the value of each home. Who will reimburse the homeowners for the loss of value imposed by the city?
There needs to be some "de minimus" sliding scale exceptions to many of our very strict and draconian city codes. You presented an excellent example, Scott.
I find the "tree tzar" city urban forest rulings about private property trees particularly intrusive, and being forced to expensively maintain undesirable private property trees at the owner's own expense as well as repairing root damages, or jump through equally onerous appeal hoops for the city to make decisions about trees on one's own property that will most likely be denied anyway.
I love trees, but when they cost more to maintain than any property owner value received and are actually damaging the property's infrastructure, after having been swept into the city urban forest protections, there needs to be some sort of de minimus wiggle room offered the private home owner.
JL: The plan is confiscation of property, and termination of property rights. Another power play. I’ve found that winds and storms that remove tagged trees (that I cut down) on my property is an accepted explanation. Problem is City creates view corridors, oak tree circumference restrictions, urban forest rules, then charges fees to pays staff to enforce but staff tells property owners it’s a civil matter. If City or County charge a fee and then refuse to get involved, fail to remedy, we pay for nothing, and our time wasted.
I relate to Scott on Tuff Shed. Mine was 120’ and exactly 25’ from property line, staff claimed 24’10”. . County also argued shed ‘exterior’ measured an inch or two longer, also, and wanted deep footings installed. It’s been about 15 years, and I never heard back after I paid the fee or fine.
I’ve concluded there are simply too many rules created simply to collect fees and harass owners. The pending City Creek Ordinance impacts about 2400 owner’s. Good luck.
Someone with a legitimate construction project that's not going to negatively impact the city gets crap-slapped. But the officials make all sorts of idiotic and unnecessary changes to Old Town Goleta and businesses suffer. We have the worst government in SB, except for Rowse, but what can he do?
We need to help elect candidates in districts other than our own - and that means walking precincts and getting the message out when another district's candidate matches where we went to see our entire city/county go.
We need to support "slates of candidates" that are committed to the best direction for the city to get the new message out. The current divide and conquer district election format, with its built in rotten borough corruptions allowed under the Calif Voting Rights Act, has proven to be one more failed "election reforms".
When I was on SB City Council they tried this approach for filling an appeal, which they sincerely dislike.
Listed in cost recovery was, minimum of four hours, mayor and 6 council members time, City Attorney time, City Administrator time, many hours of the head of Community Development and many Planing staff, and many other things. $1,400.00 to file them possibly more depending on how much time and other services are needed. At this time the total cost was $350.00 no matter what.
I called every community preservationist I knew and this effort was defeated.
Elected officials regularly call on consultants to figure out how to wring more money out of people.
Great comments by everybody. I just wanna point out that there needs to be an audit of the types of fees that are being billed. If you think about it, all these permits, licenses inspections, and all these different things are made up by the people who are charging for these Fees, Permits and Services. How many of them are really necessary? I recently went through a 2 1/2 year construction project with my employer and the number of inspections and extra delays and fees and stupid little things that could be consolidated into one department or exorbitant and expensive and unnecessary. I think there should be an audit of all of the different licenses, permits and fees and see which ones are truly necessary. I also think we as the public should vote onnew ones.
At UCSB forty years ago we saw the same mechanism, but it was the domain of the Rate and Recharge Committee. What they would do is verify the “costs” of the service group (communications services, and other units) and then determine the billable hours fee for their services. Of course, when meeting with these units they always had the newest equipment, carpet, paint, furniture, etc. They had no incentive to reduce their “costs”, only to recover them. There is no competition when these internal systems are designed.
Interesting request we only "politely" respond to our elected supervisors. Agree, they do automatically reject impolite constituent communications. And once branded as a hostile constituent, that is the end for any further substantive input to that elected official.
Except for angry demands and protests coming from whom they view as preferred constituents. Bike lobby, tenants, climate change zealots, anti-oil crowds etc.
This request lets those of us driven to "impolitely" demand fiscal accountability know where we stand. Save your breath is the real message. But ironically I think we already knew this anyway. Listening to the frustration that led finally to impolite expressions remains the real message.
An elected official needs a far more organic intuition about constituent communications, than demanding only "polite" communications.
I read this "very interesting" article titled "SB County’s Multi-Million Dollar Illegal Billing Practices"
and "No One Is Out to Get You Just Overbill You" by Andy Caldwell and I will propose a New Title "SB County and Cities Honest Service Fraud Against Its Citizens" I quote from Mr. Caldwell's Key
statements as follows> "The county charges tens of millions of dollars in fees every year. AND "The real problem is the tax revenue hasn’t kept pace with the salary, benefit, and pension costs of county employees, which is some $825 million per year." AND "What it means is that the county charges its “customers” 100% of the employee and overhead costs associated with fee-based programs." AND "We have been complaining about this policy for years but recently a big gun showed up to support our complaint. The county hired a subject matter expert in fee studies to review the fees charged by just one department, which is a division of the public health department." AND "The expert and the consultant for the study, Chad Wohlford, has over 36 years’ experience analyzing and managing government costs and operations, including 12 years of direct government management and analytical service." THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.
What SB Currentors and the "Good Folks" of Santa Barbara does not know is that a Definitive World-Class-Expert showed up in Santa Barbara in 2014. Over the course of six years that expert "Investigated" Santa Barbara and found crimes committed, including extensive "Honest Service Fraud" against the Citizens of Santa Barbara by certain "So-Called-Leaders" of Santa Barbara.
The Expert sent their Report of the "Alleged" crimes against the Santa Barbara Community to the Attorney General of the United States William Pelham Bar. Many of these "Alleged" Crimes have a Statute of Limitation of at least 10 years. Some of the "Alleged" Crimes like Attempted Murder for financial gain have NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS WHATSOEVER.
There are eight former senior law enforcement, including five former federal officers, Investigation Reports in support of the aforementioned "Alleged" Crimes. (3 former FBI Agents)
Welcome Folks to your Lovely Lil Ole Santa Barbara Beach Town where Crimes are Concealed.
"And Now You Know the Rest of the Story" or at least a portion thereof > AKA Paul Harvey
PS2 - The 5 Federal Agents listed above collectively have over 150 years of experience, 3 were former instructors and one rose to be a Director of a Forensic Federal Agency. This is exactly what SB Currentors need to execute to "Uncover" the systemic Corruption here and in CALI.
Good read Polly , and the examples provided are particularly egregious in our Democrat super-majority controlled state. Just breaking up the current Democrat super-majority lock on this state would be progress.
What does the current Democrat super-majority look like in our state. Our local contributions: Senator Monique Limon(D) and Assemblyman Gregg Hart(D)
What are the numbers needed to break this current Democrat super-majority, and become a statutorily less powerful majority? How many "population-based" rotten boroughs have been created under CVRA that now belong de facto only to the Democrat party?
Anyone see the tree in the street on Nextdoor? I am placing it on X, should be an award of Times Magazine Cover Picture titled, "The Dumbest Cities in America."
Sadly, the unbridled politicians and the unelected/appointed/hired underbody of bureaucrat minyons will fight to the very end of time to keep collecting fees, fines and taxes. Wonder what would happen if 80% of all residential property owners refused to pay their annual property taxes for one year.
Things Laura Capps does that we are billed for:
1) Getting her hair done.
2) Smiling into her phone when a taxpayer complains at a public meeting.
3) Talking to Jerry Roberts about her enemies list so he can call them fascists on air.
Things Laura does we are not billed for:
1) Anything she does for us who live in her district. Because she never does anything for us.
I read this article with interest as it applies to a building permit issue I had. I put a 120 square foot Tuff Shed in my back yard. A structure 120 square feet or less would not need a permit according to the city guidelines. A neighbor complained to the city about some construction going on when the shed was installed. Someone from the building dept came to my home and determined the square footage of the structure, measured incorrectly, was 122 square feet and 4 inches too high. I was told the $7,000 Tuff Shed would need to be removed or have earthquake footings put in with some additional structure reinforcement to the walls. Between paying the city fees along with an architec and surveyor the $7,000 Tuff Shed costs increased an additional $24,000. All because an inspector decided the structure was 122 square feet.
Now there are new plans by the city for creek buffer zones for any building/structure within 15 to 50 feet of the edge of the all the creeks in Santa Barbara. It is unclear what the real intent of this new legislation will be? But guaranteed the city will be charging high fees to anyone living next to a creek. Not to mention, this will reduce the value of each home. Who will reimburse the homeowners for the loss of value imposed by the city?
There needs to be some "de minimus" sliding scale exceptions to many of our very strict and draconian city codes. You presented an excellent example, Scott.
I find the "tree tzar" city urban forest rulings about private property trees particularly intrusive, and being forced to expensively maintain undesirable private property trees at the owner's own expense as well as repairing root damages, or jump through equally onerous appeal hoops for the city to make decisions about trees on one's own property that will most likely be denied anyway.
I love trees, but when they cost more to maintain than any property owner value received and are actually damaging the property's infrastructure, after having been swept into the city urban forest protections, there needs to be some sort of de minimus wiggle room offered the private home owner.
JL: The plan is confiscation of property, and termination of property rights. Another power play. I’ve found that winds and storms that remove tagged trees (that I cut down) on my property is an accepted explanation. Problem is City creates view corridors, oak tree circumference restrictions, urban forest rules, then charges fees to pays staff to enforce but staff tells property owners it’s a civil matter. If City or County charge a fee and then refuse to get involved, fail to remedy, we pay for nothing, and our time wasted.
I relate to Scott on Tuff Shed. Mine was 120’ and exactly 25’ from property line, staff claimed 24’10”. . County also argued shed ‘exterior’ measured an inch or two longer, also, and wanted deep footings installed. It’s been about 15 years, and I never heard back after I paid the fee or fine.
I’ve concluded there are simply too many rules created simply to collect fees and harass owners. The pending City Creek Ordinance impacts about 2400 owner’s. Good luck.
Scott - boy does that piss me off ! ! ! Two stinking feet over city ordinace !
Three possible courses of action:
a) Apply for a variance
b) Get a lawyer - are any of BOS lawyers?
c) Send your neighbor the bill.
You are so great Earl.
Someone with a legitimate construction project that's not going to negatively impact the city gets crap-slapped. But the officials make all sorts of idiotic and unnecessary changes to Old Town Goleta and businesses suffer. We have the worst government in SB, except for Rowse, but what can he do?
We need to help elect candidates in districts other than our own - and that means walking precincts and getting the message out when another district's candidate matches where we went to see our entire city/county go.
We need to support "slates of candidates" that are committed to the best direction for the city to get the new message out. The current divide and conquer district election format, with its built in rotten borough corruptions allowed under the Calif Voting Rights Act, has proven to be one more failed "election reforms".
You are so right, Polly. Goleta is a prime example of government going completely haywire. What a mess has been made of it!
When I was on SB City Council they tried this approach for filling an appeal, which they sincerely dislike.
Listed in cost recovery was, minimum of four hours, mayor and 6 council members time, City Attorney time, City Administrator time, many hours of the head of Community Development and many Planing staff, and many other things. $1,400.00 to file them possibly more depending on how much time and other services are needed. At this time the total cost was $350.00 no matter what.
I called every community preservationist I knew and this effort was defeated.
Elected officials regularly call on consultants to figure out how to wring more money out of people.
Great comments by everybody. I just wanna point out that there needs to be an audit of the types of fees that are being billed. If you think about it, all these permits, licenses inspections, and all these different things are made up by the people who are charging for these Fees, Permits and Services. How many of them are really necessary? I recently went through a 2 1/2 year construction project with my employer and the number of inspections and extra delays and fees and stupid little things that could be consolidated into one department or exorbitant and expensive and unnecessary. I think there should be an audit of all of the different licenses, permits and fees and see which ones are truly necessary. I also think we as the public should vote onnew ones.
Agree.
Good points!
At UCSB forty years ago we saw the same mechanism, but it was the domain of the Rate and Recharge Committee. What they would do is verify the “costs” of the service group (communications services, and other units) and then determine the billable hours fee for their services. Of course, when meeting with these units they always had the newest equipment, carpet, paint, furniture, etc. They had no incentive to reduce their “costs”, only to recover them. There is no competition when these internal systems are designed.
Interesting request we only "politely" respond to our elected supervisors. Agree, they do automatically reject impolite constituent communications. And once branded as a hostile constituent, that is the end for any further substantive input to that elected official.
Except for angry demands and protests coming from whom they view as preferred constituents. Bike lobby, tenants, climate change zealots, anti-oil crowds etc.
This request lets those of us driven to "impolitely" demand fiscal accountability know where we stand. Save your breath is the real message. But ironically I think we already knew this anyway. Listening to the frustration that led finally to impolite expressions remains the real message.
An elected official needs a far more organic intuition about constituent communications, than demanding only "polite" communications.
Agree.
I read this "very interesting" article titled "SB County’s Multi-Million Dollar Illegal Billing Practices"
and "No One Is Out to Get You Just Overbill You" by Andy Caldwell and I will propose a New Title "SB County and Cities Honest Service Fraud Against Its Citizens" I quote from Mr. Caldwell's Key
statements as follows> "The county charges tens of millions of dollars in fees every year. AND "The real problem is the tax revenue hasn’t kept pace with the salary, benefit, and pension costs of county employees, which is some $825 million per year." AND "What it means is that the county charges its “customers” 100% of the employee and overhead costs associated with fee-based programs." AND "We have been complaining about this policy for years but recently a big gun showed up to support our complaint. The county hired a subject matter expert in fee studies to review the fees charged by just one department, which is a division of the public health department." AND "The expert and the consultant for the study, Chad Wohlford, has over 36 years’ experience analyzing and managing government costs and operations, including 12 years of direct government management and analytical service." THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.
What SB Currentors and the "Good Folks" of Santa Barbara does not know is that a Definitive World-Class-Expert showed up in Santa Barbara in 2014. Over the course of six years that expert "Investigated" Santa Barbara and found crimes committed, including extensive "Honest Service Fraud" against the Citizens of Santa Barbara by certain "So-Called-Leaders" of Santa Barbara.
The Expert sent their Report of the "Alleged" crimes against the Santa Barbara Community to the Attorney General of the United States William Pelham Bar. Many of these "Alleged" Crimes have a Statute of Limitation of at least 10 years. Some of the "Alleged" Crimes like Attempted Murder for financial gain have NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS WHATSOEVER.
There are eight former senior law enforcement, including five former federal officers, Investigation Reports in support of the aforementioned "Alleged" Crimes. (3 former FBI Agents)
Welcome Folks to your Lovely Lil Ole Santa Barbara Beach Town where Crimes are Concealed.
"And Now You Know the Rest of the Story" or at least a portion thereof > AKA Paul Harvey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_of_the_Story
Howard Walther
PS1 - Paul Harvey "If I Were the Devil" on how to take over the United States>Sound Familiar?>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnPE8u5ONls&ab_channel=BradDison
PS2 - The 5 Federal Agents listed above collectively have over 150 years of experience, 3 were former instructors and one rose to be a Director of a Forensic Federal Agency. This is exactly what SB Currentors need to execute to "Uncover" the systemic Corruption here and in CALI.
You all should read this NY Post article.
https://nypost.com/2025/03/22/opinion/california-dems-are-nervous-about-republicans-speaking-out-and-taking-control/
Good read Polly , and the examples provided are particularly egregious in our Democrat super-majority controlled state. Just breaking up the current Democrat super-majority lock on this state would be progress.
Yep.
What does the current Democrat super-majority look like in our state. Our local contributions: Senator Monique Limon(D) and Assemblyman Gregg Hart(D)
What are the numbers needed to break this current Democrat super-majority, and become a statutorily less powerful majority? How many "population-based" rotten boroughs have been created under CVRA that now belong de facto only to the Democrat party?
https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/californias-supermajority-what-the-legislature-can-do/
Insanity at the highest level. Get Trump in yo get tif if 50%of all these employees.
Translation, Rita: Get Trump in and you get to "rif" 50% of all these employees?
What a good article, Andy!
Everyone: look at the end for the emails of the supervisors and stand up and speak out .
Anyone see the tree in the street on Nextdoor? I am placing it on X, should be an award of Times Magazine Cover Picture titled, "The Dumbest Cities in America."
Bill, need a revision statement "One of The Dumbest and Corrupt Cities of America"
Certainly, add corrupt.
Ok Quickstraw to my BobaaLouie...........
I think there are some Bad Obreys in this here town!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wms1ZzEOdGA&ab_channel=StevenHanson
Can you post here???
I haven't worked on this yet for X, the picture is worth a thousand words. And I can't post pictures here, unfortunately.
Billl can you post a link to Nextdoor?
Done, see below.
How about a word picture? I found nothing on NextDoor - any identifying clues for a search?
https://nextdoor.com/p/L3w6jMTw9xFP?view=detail&init_source=search&query=tree%20in%20street
Posted by Anthony Ruiz 4 days ago. The intro is "What are these for? Besides eliminating a precious parking space? Gillespie and Pedregosa."
Looking at this, I see the attempt might be to prevent someone from going around a speed bump (?). Regardless, it's stupid.
Sadly, the unbridled politicians and the unelected/appointed/hired underbody of bureaucrat minyons will fight to the very end of time to keep collecting fees, fines and taxes. Wonder what would happen if 80% of all residential property owners refused to pay their annual property taxes for one year.
Thank you, Mr. Caldwell!!
Good luck with that. When was the last time the county or city reduced fees? Before the universe was created?