Bonnie, wonderful reporting!! Have you considered posting/publishing to a wider audience? The data and the manner in which you present them is so compelling that I think all but the extreme would see and agree with you.
Well done Bonnie. Excellent detail and explanation. Keep it up. The “Ma & Pa” landlords are the fairest of all for their tenants. Too bad these government policies are chasing them away.
Spot on. I wonder if a law firm would take this up as a class action forcing the city to allow housing providers to match city expense increases with dollar for dollar rent increases which just allows us to remain the same instead of going backwards. Seems fair. If there is a legal shot at suing the city on this I am all in.
Once again, thank you, Bonnie, for throwing some inconvenient truth against the fortress of ideology, which represents the current Santa Barbara government.
Unfortunately, facts don’t seem to dissuade ideologues from their entrenched socialist agenda. It would be like telling the new mayor of New York, that socialism won’t work, and he should start studying economics.
Bonnie nicely done. The city of Santa Barbara and now it appears both Carpinteria and Goleta are on the same insane inflation game to pay for explosive wage and benefit packages.
It has been clear for 2 decades the supposed representative leaders for government workers have been unabashed Political Action Committees and have cared less about the base producers of society. Where has been the call by these PAC's and their minions to halt inflation causing pay for government workers who are now earning more than the private sector? Has anyone noticed the private companies are now stating you want to be paid? Show up to work, and show 5 days a week.
When will the elected state if you are paid for full time work and benefits, you cannot hold another job?
The base increases in city services is bankrupting the small rental market and inflation of the private sector repair is piling on. A close friend pointed out how his costs and government demands have made his rental market a nightmare. It has removed almost any profit margin. When his renters saw the reality of why the proposed rent control would force sale, most were sympathetic but half stated "that is the cost of business in Santa Barbara."
Somewhere the radicalized Left that want to take the profits of years of saving in the housing market has to stop. The most radical of the Council are renters. They have a serious and immediate conflict of interest. It is also interesting that both of them are not locals, they came from out of the City with the backing of the Socialist Trademark.
As the density drum is beat, and the area is being hammered by government housing that does not pay taxes. What is the answer? The State is losing population and will lose House representation as a result. The exodus is mainly the wealth producers that have allowed ridiculous County and City wages/benefits. Has the City Council of SB said enough, and the benefit/wages will now stop? There was a time not too long ago that the Council was made up of locals. They served as a calling not as "professional politicians" who only ran for the gold coins in their pockets.
With that I'll take my soap box platform and say thanks Bonnie.
I read this article titled "Ten Years of City Rate Increases and Rent Caps That Ignore Them"
by Bonnie Donovan who digs to find what is really going down in SB on housing and I quote from same> "It comes directly from a Public Records Act Request (PRAR) I submitted to the City of Santa Barbara seeking documentation of all City-approved increases over the past ten years"
I have a new title "Look and Ye Shall Find MASSIVE Corruption"
If you all good people actually knew what was going down in your nice Lil Ole Santa Barbara
you would not believe it, not one bit. But then again Documents do not lie unless they are Manufactured. Think Manufactured, Fraud and Concealments when discussing Santa Barbara.
Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Be Very Careful What You Find.
"What these absolute animals did .... the barriers that broke down and the guardrails ... I'm not shocked often ... seeing it in detail for the first time ... you can't run and Republic like this."
Lunna29: yesterday I got a letter from my insurer that “We made a mistake” in your annual premium calculation resulting in a 32% increase. Increased housing costs are endless! Good luck to tenants and landlords as housing supply shrinks.
Great details, Bonnie. One thing is probably true for many cities is when the city billing costs of utilities increase, they never decrease again ... even when the cost of the source, such as electricity, decreases a lot. We can look at City Governments being a business of making a profit via the taxpayers. The ideal City Government decreases the cost to the taxpayer when previous increased expenses decrease. But it's always a one-way direction and that's increasing. Most taxpayers never say "ouch," so up the costs of City Governments. And the bleeding-heart Dems have to have their sanctuary cities and homeless giveaways adding to the never-ending expenses, turning what should be CA state activities into small City Government activities. What a pile of crap!
Seems like a lawsuit is needed. Alignment with costly taxpayer provided entitlements needs to be addressed by the 4 Council Reps pushing rent stabilization. The clustering of utilities as rent could prove a windfall for tenant eligibility for EBT Debit cards, SNAP, MediCal, etc. “Those housing services are explicitly defined to include water, sewer, refuse removal, electricity, utilities, and utility infrastructure, along with …” Your investigative work, your posted info Bonnie increases awareness of why our taxes and fees keep increasing.
We need to find and elect new fiscally competent leaders! SB City Water staff hire consultants who use flawed assumptions to calculate ‘cost to serve’ as per state law created by voter initiative in 1997-98.. Approximately 7000 SBWD household customers reside outside city boundaries and for decades were charged a 30% surcharge for water to subsidize City resident customers. This was unlawful: finally paused in 2016, and stopped in 2017. It was an 18 year effort. Legal compliance depleted the City’s emergency reserves, resulting in an increased cost for Tier 2 and 3 users residing within SB City boundaries.
Tier 1 users remain subsidized by all Tier 2 and 3 customers regardless of whether a City or County residents. Tier 3 users pay for all advertising and water conservation rebate costs.
Requiring that SBWD Customers pay for 2 desal plants confirms bureaucrat/ Council incompetency. The first desal plant was gifted to Iran, not sold, while customers continued to be billed.
For almost a decade, SBWD Customers also paid CA state to hold onto desal permits when there was no desal plant. Then being a ‘good neighbor’ SBWD negotiated a water deal with Montecito Water District favorable to its MWD Customers at a cost to SBWD customers.
SBWD could learn how to fairly bill from MWD. All admin and direct infrastructure distribution costs need to be loaded into Tier 1. End the SBWD Tier 1 water subsidy at the expense of Tier 2 and 3 users.
Great article and thanks for the research, explanations, and transparency. For the landlord it is death by a thousand cuts. The owners are now paying (subsidizing) the renters, originally it was the other way around, this is not best business model.
Anyone else remember the City Council promising on record it would not raise rates years ago? .
Gotta love the government hiking rates on a basic humanitarian need while telling property owners they cannot raise rates by the cap they already enforce.
Gotta love the propaganda pitting tenant verse landlord. Thank you SB you continue to prove to be not public servants.
My home insurance was cancelled and the unfair Fair Plan is twice as expensive for less coverage, plus requires a second policy because it ONLY covers Fire. Implicitly unfair if that kind of expense increase is not able to be recouped by landlords. In swoop Blackrock and Vangard, and off go units to tax-free socialist housing schemes. "You will own nothing, and be happy."
Bonnie, wonderful reporting!! Have you considered posting/publishing to a wider audience? The data and the manner in which you present them is so compelling that I think all but the extreme would see and agree with you.
Good job Bonnie, too bad you don’t run for council!🌸
Well done Bonnie. Excellent detail and explanation. Keep it up. The “Ma & Pa” landlords are the fairest of all for their tenants. Too bad these government policies are chasing them away.
Spot on. I wonder if a law firm would take this up as a class action forcing the city to allow housing providers to match city expense increases with dollar for dollar rent increases which just allows us to remain the same instead of going backwards. Seems fair. If there is a legal shot at suing the city on this I am all in.
Once again, thank you, Bonnie, for throwing some inconvenient truth against the fortress of ideology, which represents the current Santa Barbara government.
Unfortunately, facts don’t seem to dissuade ideologues from their entrenched socialist agenda. It would be like telling the new mayor of New York, that socialism won’t work, and he should start studying economics.
Bonnie nicely done. The city of Santa Barbara and now it appears both Carpinteria and Goleta are on the same insane inflation game to pay for explosive wage and benefit packages.
It has been clear for 2 decades the supposed representative leaders for government workers have been unabashed Political Action Committees and have cared less about the base producers of society. Where has been the call by these PAC's and their minions to halt inflation causing pay for government workers who are now earning more than the private sector? Has anyone noticed the private companies are now stating you want to be paid? Show up to work, and show 5 days a week.
When will the elected state if you are paid for full time work and benefits, you cannot hold another job?
The base increases in city services is bankrupting the small rental market and inflation of the private sector repair is piling on. A close friend pointed out how his costs and government demands have made his rental market a nightmare. It has removed almost any profit margin. When his renters saw the reality of why the proposed rent control would force sale, most were sympathetic but half stated "that is the cost of business in Santa Barbara."
Somewhere the radicalized Left that want to take the profits of years of saving in the housing market has to stop. The most radical of the Council are renters. They have a serious and immediate conflict of interest. It is also interesting that both of them are not locals, they came from out of the City with the backing of the Socialist Trademark.
As the density drum is beat, and the area is being hammered by government housing that does not pay taxes. What is the answer? The State is losing population and will lose House representation as a result. The exodus is mainly the wealth producers that have allowed ridiculous County and City wages/benefits. Has the City Council of SB said enough, and the benefit/wages will now stop? There was a time not too long ago that the Council was made up of locals. They served as a calling not as "professional politicians" who only ran for the gold coins in their pockets.
With that I'll take my soap box platform and say thanks Bonnie.
I read this article titled "Ten Years of City Rate Increases and Rent Caps That Ignore Them"
by Bonnie Donovan who digs to find what is really going down in SB on housing and I quote from same> "It comes directly from a Public Records Act Request (PRAR) I submitted to the City of Santa Barbara seeking documentation of all City-approved increases over the past ten years"
I have a new title "Look and Ye Shall Find MASSIVE Corruption"
If you all good people actually knew what was going down in your nice Lil Ole Santa Barbara
you would not believe it, not one bit. But then again Documents do not lie unless they are Manufactured. Think Manufactured, Fraud and Concealments when discussing Santa Barbara.
Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Be Very Careful What You Find.
Howard Walther, Member of a Military Family
PS1- "Knowingly Manufacturing False Intelligence Report" ..... Tulsi Gabbard>
https://x.com/_Postive_Vibes/status/2016880876685316603
PS2 - Listen to Former DD FBI Dan Bongina>Because this is EXACTLY what occurred in SB.
https://x.com/seanhannity/status/2017067056533795024
"What these absolute animals did .... the barriers that broke down and the guardrails ... I'm not shocked often ... seeing it in detail for the first time ... you can't run and Republic like this."
Well Dan it Sure-Shocks-the-Hell-Out of Me.
Bonnie. Great article. But once again how can we have meaningful input and impact on the rent stabilization policy being worked on by the city.
We have a triplex where insurance has increased $7,000. $200/month per unit. Rents are below market.
Re Video. Dale Im disappointed.
Lunna29: yesterday I got a letter from my insurer that “We made a mistake” in your annual premium calculation resulting in a 32% increase. Increased housing costs are endless! Good luck to tenants and landlords as housing supply shrinks.
The HYPOCRISY of any democrat dominated local, state, or federal government enabled by the ignorant, democrat, zombie voters is clear.
Great details, Bonnie. One thing is probably true for many cities is when the city billing costs of utilities increase, they never decrease again ... even when the cost of the source, such as electricity, decreases a lot. We can look at City Governments being a business of making a profit via the taxpayers. The ideal City Government decreases the cost to the taxpayer when previous increased expenses decrease. But it's always a one-way direction and that's increasing. Most taxpayers never say "ouch," so up the costs of City Governments. And the bleeding-heart Dems have to have their sanctuary cities and homeless giveaways adding to the never-ending expenses, turning what should be CA state activities into small City Government activities. What a pile of crap!
Seems like a lawsuit is needed. Alignment with costly taxpayer provided entitlements needs to be addressed by the 4 Council Reps pushing rent stabilization. The clustering of utilities as rent could prove a windfall for tenant eligibility for EBT Debit cards, SNAP, MediCal, etc. “Those housing services are explicitly defined to include water, sewer, refuse removal, electricity, utilities, and utility infrastructure, along with …” Your investigative work, your posted info Bonnie increases awareness of why our taxes and fees keep increasing.
We need to find and elect new fiscally competent leaders! SB City Water staff hire consultants who use flawed assumptions to calculate ‘cost to serve’ as per state law created by voter initiative in 1997-98.. Approximately 7000 SBWD household customers reside outside city boundaries and for decades were charged a 30% surcharge for water to subsidize City resident customers. This was unlawful: finally paused in 2016, and stopped in 2017. It was an 18 year effort. Legal compliance depleted the City’s emergency reserves, resulting in an increased cost for Tier 2 and 3 users residing within SB City boundaries.
Tier 1 users remain subsidized by all Tier 2 and 3 customers regardless of whether a City or County residents. Tier 3 users pay for all advertising and water conservation rebate costs.
Requiring that SBWD Customers pay for 2 desal plants confirms bureaucrat/ Council incompetency. The first desal plant was gifted to Iran, not sold, while customers continued to be billed.
For almost a decade, SBWD Customers also paid CA state to hold onto desal permits when there was no desal plant. Then being a ‘good neighbor’ SBWD negotiated a water deal with Montecito Water District favorable to its MWD Customers at a cost to SBWD customers.
SBWD could learn how to fairly bill from MWD. All admin and direct infrastructure distribution costs need to be loaded into Tier 1. End the SBWD Tier 1 water subsidy at the expense of Tier 2 and 3 users.
Great article and thanks for the research, explanations, and transparency. For the landlord it is death by a thousand cuts. The owners are now paying (subsidizing) the renters, originally it was the other way around, this is not best business model.
Wow Bonnie...you just laid out a perfect legal case against the city! Excellent!!
Anyone else remember the City Council promising on record it would not raise rates years ago? .
Gotta love the government hiking rates on a basic humanitarian need while telling property owners they cannot raise rates by the cap they already enforce.
Gotta love the propaganda pitting tenant verse landlord. Thank you SB you continue to prove to be not public servants.
My home insurance was cancelled and the unfair Fair Plan is twice as expensive for less coverage, plus requires a second policy because it ONLY covers Fire. Implicitly unfair if that kind of expense increase is not able to be recouped by landlords. In swoop Blackrock and Vangard, and off go units to tax-free socialist housing schemes. "You will own nothing, and be happy."