I wrote Miss Laura, unfortunately my supervisor, and the others and never heard back. I think we have to do what Carpinteria did to Das Williams, vote them out.
What I'm most concerned about is:
1) is this an irrevocable raise?
2) can we recall them? (which to me seems the only power we taxpayers really have)
This is an outrageous behavior on the part of Santa Barbara County! Those of us who have been here for generations have seen a huge decline in service from the Board of Supervisors. The roads are terrible, more roundabouts in the Santa Ynez Valley which are not needed but in fact create more accidents due to Americans not being as familiar with them as Europeans, traffic intolerable and too many potential incursions into private properties and businesses for hiking or biking trails which always means trash and incursions!
Santa Barbara County and I’m sure most of CA are plagued with the worst, obscenely over-paid, money hungry, nit wit politicians.
Never forget that the City Administrator of Santa Barbara makes more than the salary of the President of the United States! DOGE DOGE DOGE the whole corrupted system.
The city government is in its own world of make-believe. The only way to get their attention is to make them feel as if something might impact their job (or their existence).
Yes, I'm talking in generalities about any government. County or city, it's all the same to me. My amusement with city and county is when neither takes the responsibility of something and can only comment "it's the other."
Great article Andy, I've always been a reader of your articles going back to the News Press days.
Taxpayers are being royally screwed by the city and county governments. You mention "part time" jobs are being paid as full-time jobs. I hereby proclaim on February 23, 2025, all "part time" jobs are declared as "no paying" jobs with absolutely no benefits such as medical or retirement. "Part time" jobs are considered as any "work" under 40 hours per week dedicated to either a city or county position. The definition of work is defined as the participants physical body to be located in a city/county building performing only city/county work. An Efficiency Group, the new "sheriff" in town, will oversee the productivity of all employees. The Efficiency Group is made up on non-government, volunteers. If a city/county employee spends more than !0% of their time doing nothing, then they are fired. It's time for a major change.
Don't be brainwashed thinking simply government is about "effectively protected their citizens." The real question is WHY does someone take a government job. From my lifetime observations, it's for easy money. Easy money comes via a salary or theft of taxpayers' funds. My wife's sister once bragged she only answered the phone messages after a week or two at her San Luis Obispo County job. I'd estimate the majority of government worker don't give a crap about the taxpayer.
I have come to the conclusion that working in government is a form of piracy without the usual appearance of a sea-going pirate. Look at the similarities: (1) Both a pirate and politician engage in theft, (2) they have to find somewhere to "bury" their stolen treasure, (3) they attempt to operate in great secrecy, (4) they don't give a hoot about the people or groups of people they steal from, (5) they will attempt to squash (literally kill) those that want to reveal their treasures. The list goes on.
Excellent question. Perhaps the answer is simply complacency. I look at it as someone that owns a vehicle and never changes the oil till one day the engine dies. And now we have witnessed what corruption Trump and Musk have discovered. We'll now think about changing the oil, too <g>.
By the way, the next SB "top gun" candidate should support seniors in having free engine oil changes, transmission fluid, rear axle fluid brake fluid, windshield wiper and cooling fluid changes performed by volunteers using donated supplies. I do this work myself because dealers always find other stuff that supposedly needs to be repaired or replaced. Think about the senior taxpayers, they are beaten to death with expenses. My Honda Pilot costs about $200 for any of the above maintenance costs, plus the dealer's add-ons and sabotaging things, too.
I read this article titled "The Dirty Details on the 48% Raise for County Supervisors
by Andy Caldwell" and I quote the Key Statement from Mr. Caldwell's article below>
"The justification for the obscene raise is to keep up with the salaries of the largest counties in the state, as well as a percentage of the salaries of superior court judges. Lost in all this is the fact that the position of county supervisor was never meant to be a “good-paying job”; it was meant to be a sacrifice of public service rather than self-service."
I have a new title "Santa Barbara County Utterly Fails to Protect Their Citizens"
Let me be very clear to everyone reading this including the supervisors>
Supervisor Roy Lee, Supervisor Laura Capps, Supervisor Joan Hartmann
and Supervisor Bob Nelson and Supervisor Steve Lavagnino.
If you fail to Protect your community and its Citizens and in fact Hurt Them
Violate Thier Civil Rights, Abuse the Legal System and thereby Misuse County Funds
you need a pair of Handcuffs and not a Salary Pay Raise.
Mr. Lee, Ms. Capps, Ms. Hartmann and Mr. Nelson you all know exactly who
is in town and has been here since 2015.
Service to your country does not require pay and should not require pay
especially under the events and circumstances over the last ten years in Santa Barbara.
I predict the BOS will approve this outrageous pay raise for themselves! Sure, just like pigs eating from a trough, it’s a great gig if you can get it…right? The argument of giving a pay raise when our infrastructure is failing and running a deficit is par for the course for these tone deaf politicians. The proposed pay raise is in essence a raise to our property taxes because renters only pay local sales taxes.
When will the BOS take action and fire those responsible in County Fire for the AMR fiasco resulting in buying millions in ambulances and then trying to hide these EMS units from the public and conceal their purchase? This is criminal activity. We need DOGE now for our County and State officials and departments in order to “flush” the waste from our government! We need to demand the right sizing of our workforce and have only those employees necessary to service our communities based on LOS and population, NOT as a local jobs program and NOT a cushy job for the campaign managers for the BOS. Wait, isn’t that how Salud Carbajal got on the gravy train, working for Naomi Schwartz as her campaign manager/lap dog?
Voting for this outrageous pay raise for themselves will only send the wrong message to other public employees, wondering when will they get a 48% pay raise?
Please send a team to audit the government of Santa Barbara California. It is in great need of accountability to the public.
This week the County Board of Supervisors intend to vote themselves a 48% pay raise, obscene.
The county and city are bankrupt with unfunded pension obligations, and NO classroom of children (except private schools, of course) is testing above 50% proficiency in any subject.
This is the HOUSE DOGE Caucus address, not the top level.
THIS IS THE REPLY I GOT FROM this DOGE:
Thank you for contacting the House DOGE Caucus. The Bipartisan House DOGE Caucus works in partnership with Congress and President Trump’s United States DOGE Service to streamline government operations and save taxpayer money. The nation expects sweeping common-sense reform, and the House DOGE Caucus will work to ensure that every dollar spent in Washington delivers a direct benefit to the people it serves while prioritizing transparency, accountability, and efficiency.
We value your input and ideas on ways to help DOGE do its job. No amount of waste, fraud, abuse, duplication, or administrative bloat is too small or too large to fix. Please continue to submit your ideas at any time. We appreciate hearing from you.
I live and pay taxes in Santa Barbara, CA. We are very much in need of an auditing of our city and county government. Please send a team here. On February 25th our County Board of Supervisors will be voting for them to get a 48% raise. We taxpayers are not being allowed to vote, only our government. https://www.countyofsb.org/1599/Board-of-Supervisors
The role of the Santa Barbara County Supervisors is to reduce the cost of living in Santa Barbara County.
Now is not the time to vote for this large salary increase. Supervisors need to audit Santa Barbara County spending to look for ways to shrink local government and return money to taxpayers.
If supervisors do that, then they can justify to the public a reasonable merit increase for a part time position.
Thank you, Sir but "For all these reasons, please voice your opposition to the 48% raise by contacting these county supervisors before Feb. 25..." Contact corrupt crooks?
We are missing a very important example of the Trump/Musk team. Trump and Musk don't require a government salary. Therefore, why does a Mayor of Santa Barbara necessarily require a salary and any benefits? I'm retired and not money hungry and could perform any government job without a salary. I'm sure many of you could, too. A good requirement to be a mayor and others would be a multi-millionaire or a billionaire <g>. Nice if taxpayers could obtain free services. You can pay someone to provide bad services, that's for sure.
There are two main job descriptions when choosing to be an elected county supervisor: (1) insure the fiscal integrity of the county; and (2) insure the administrative integrity of county services overseen by the county administrator. The recent **majorities** of partisan county supervisors have failed both key tasks. (*too often 3/2)
The county is running a deficit with millions in unfunded liabilities. Failed infrastructure maintenance, repairs and improvements are now unsustainable without constant and extortive demands for new and higher taxes. This is not new; this has been known and brewing for decades. Yet past county supervisor majorities have done nothing except expand the problems.
So what in fact have county supervisors been doing these past few decades when they claim they "work so hard" and deserve this additional and unconscionable personal enrichment for themselves?
They have badly defined their own elected tasks that they chose to undertake when they asked for these jobs - they chose not to be responsible for a well run county, but instead became merely in-house extension of the county government unions concerned primarily about their own re-election or their next move up the partisan political food chain. .
I cringe whenever I see them show up in their county logo uniforms as wallpaper backdrops for requisite "concern" photos. They were not elected to be extensions of the county and its often self-serving and now highly partisan agenda. Instead they were elected to oversee the county on behalf of the residents and taxpayers of this entire county. They have misread their roles entirely.
They are not elected to be problem solvers for individual constituents, as personal Lady Bountifuls spending other people's money, in order to curry their own re-election favors. We handsomely pay the county CEO and department heads to to the day to day work of the county.
We do not handsomely reward five disparate elected county supervisors to duplicate efforts that belong to the already well-compensated county administrative structure itself. If the county is not providing adequate constituent resources, it is the supervisors job to work with the county administrator to set new goals.
Taxpayers should never reward mission failure with increased compensation packages. Back to basics, because the majority of county supervisors have been fundamentally negligent of their primary duties to oversee and insure fiscally prudent and competent county services.
I wrote Miss Laura, unfortunately my supervisor, and the others and never heard back. I think we have to do what Carpinteria did to Das Williams, vote them out.
What I'm most concerned about is:
1) is this an irrevocable raise?
2) can we recall them? (which to me seems the only power we taxpayers really have)
It takes a lawyer to look into all the alternatives to fighting city hall.
This is an outrageous behavior on the part of Santa Barbara County! Those of us who have been here for generations have seen a huge decline in service from the Board of Supervisors. The roads are terrible, more roundabouts in the Santa Ynez Valley which are not needed but in fact create more accidents due to Americans not being as familiar with them as Europeans, traffic intolerable and too many potential incursions into private properties and businesses for hiking or biking trails which always means trash and incursions!
A huge increase in salary? Don’t think so!!!!
Santa Barbara County and I’m sure most of CA are plagued with the worst, obscenely over-paid, money hungry, nit wit politicians.
Never forget that the City Administrator of Santa Barbara makes more than the salary of the President of the United States! DOGE DOGE DOGE the whole corrupted system.
I sent my email several days ago to Carpetbagger Capps--not even an acknowledgement.
They have no intention of doing the right or legal process as you
all have seen in Washington as the entire system is being exposed.
SB has been TOTALLY EXPOSED but SOMEONE needs to lay it down.
The city government is in its own world of make-believe. The only way to get their attention is to make them feel as if something might impact their job (or their existence).
This is County we are talking about NOT city
Yes, I'm talking in generalities about any government. County or city, it's all the same to me. My amusement with city and county is when neither takes the responsibility of something and can only comment "it's the other."
Total corruption , government, state, city , DOGE needed .
Agreed !
Career politicians are generally
Out of touch with the power they feel spending our tax money
Great article Andy, I've always been a reader of your articles going back to the News Press days.
Taxpayers are being royally screwed by the city and county governments. You mention "part time" jobs are being paid as full-time jobs. I hereby proclaim on February 23, 2025, all "part time" jobs are declared as "no paying" jobs with absolutely no benefits such as medical or retirement. "Part time" jobs are considered as any "work" under 40 hours per week dedicated to either a city or county position. The definition of work is defined as the participants physical body to be located in a city/county building performing only city/county work. An Efficiency Group, the new "sheriff" in town, will oversee the productivity of all employees. The Efficiency Group is made up on non-government, volunteers. If a city/county employee spends more than !0% of their time doing nothing, then they are fired. It's time for a major change.
Bill it has nothing to do with Job Equivalency. Pay on this level is
determined by whether the County Leaders have effectively protected
their Citizens. Are you safe in Santa Barbara and the answer is
NO WE ARE NOT SAFE IN SANTA BARBARA.
Don't be brainwashed thinking simply government is about "effectively protected their citizens." The real question is WHY does someone take a government job. From my lifetime observations, it's for easy money. Easy money comes via a salary or theft of taxpayers' funds. My wife's sister once bragged she only answered the phone messages after a week or two at her San Luis Obispo County job. I'd estimate the majority of government worker don't give a crap about the taxpayer.
I have come to the conclusion that working in government is a form of piracy without the usual appearance of a sea-going pirate. Look at the similarities: (1) Both a pirate and politician engage in theft, (2) they have to find somewhere to "bury" their stolen treasure, (3) they attempt to operate in great secrecy, (4) they don't give a hoot about the people or groups of people they steal from, (5) they will attempt to squash (literally kill) those that want to reveal their treasures. The list goes on.
Question ? Why do we allow these political Thieves to stay in office ?
Excellent question. Perhaps the answer is simply complacency. I look at it as someone that owns a vehicle and never changes the oil till one day the engine dies. And now we have witnessed what corruption Trump and Musk have discovered. We'll now think about changing the oil, too <g>.
By the way, the next SB "top gun" candidate should support seniors in having free engine oil changes, transmission fluid, rear axle fluid brake fluid, windshield wiper and cooling fluid changes performed by volunteers using donated supplies. I do this work myself because dealers always find other stuff that supposedly needs to be repaired or replaced. Think about the senior taxpayers, they are beaten to death with expenses. My Honda Pilot costs about $200 for any of the above maintenance costs, plus the dealer's add-ons and sabotaging things, too.
I read this article titled "The Dirty Details on the 48% Raise for County Supervisors
by Andy Caldwell" and I quote the Key Statement from Mr. Caldwell's article below>
"The justification for the obscene raise is to keep up with the salaries of the largest counties in the state, as well as a percentage of the salaries of superior court judges. Lost in all this is the fact that the position of county supervisor was never meant to be a “good-paying job”; it was meant to be a sacrifice of public service rather than self-service."
I have a new title "Santa Barbara County Utterly Fails to Protect Their Citizens"
Let me be very clear to everyone reading this including the supervisors>
Supervisor Roy Lee, Supervisor Laura Capps, Supervisor Joan Hartmann
and Supervisor Bob Nelson and Supervisor Steve Lavagnino.
If you fail to Protect your community and its Citizens and in fact Hurt Them
Violate Thier Civil Rights, Abuse the Legal System and thereby Misuse County Funds
you need a pair of Handcuffs and not a Salary Pay Raise.
Mr. Lee, Ms. Capps, Ms. Hartmann and Mr. Nelson you all know exactly who
is in town and has been here since 2015.
Service to your country does not require pay and should not require pay
especially under the events and circumstances over the last ten years in Santa Barbara.
Howard Walther, Member of a Military Family
I predict the BOS will approve this outrageous pay raise for themselves! Sure, just like pigs eating from a trough, it’s a great gig if you can get it…right? The argument of giving a pay raise when our infrastructure is failing and running a deficit is par for the course for these tone deaf politicians. The proposed pay raise is in essence a raise to our property taxes because renters only pay local sales taxes.
When will the BOS take action and fire those responsible in County Fire for the AMR fiasco resulting in buying millions in ambulances and then trying to hide these EMS units from the public and conceal their purchase? This is criminal activity. We need DOGE now for our County and State officials and departments in order to “flush” the waste from our government! We need to demand the right sizing of our workforce and have only those employees necessary to service our communities based on LOS and population, NOT as a local jobs program and NOT a cushy job for the campaign managers for the BOS. Wait, isn’t that how Salud Carbajal got on the gravy train, working for Naomi Schwartz as her campaign manager/lap dog?
Voting for this outrageous pay raise for themselves will only send the wrong message to other public employees, wondering when will they get a 48% pay raise?
Write DOGE and our President to have Santa Barbara Politicians audited
doge@mail.house.gov
Message sent to DOGE:
Please send a team to audit the government of Santa Barbara California. It is in great need of accountability to the public.
This week the County Board of Supervisors intend to vote themselves a 48% pay raise, obscene.
The county and city are bankrupt with unfunded pension obligations, and NO classroom of children (except private schools, of course) is testing above 50% proficiency in any subject.
We need DOGE.
This is the HOUSE DOGE Caucus address, not the top level.
THIS IS THE REPLY I GOT FROM this DOGE:
Thank you for contacting the House DOGE Caucus. The Bipartisan House DOGE Caucus works in partnership with Congress and President Trump’s United States DOGE Service to streamline government operations and save taxpayer money. The nation expects sweeping common-sense reform, and the House DOGE Caucus will work to ensure that every dollar spent in Washington delivers a direct benefit to the people it serves while prioritizing transparency, accountability, and efficiency.
We value your input and ideas on ways to help DOGE do its job. No amount of waste, fraud, abuse, duplication, or administrative bloat is too small or too large to fix. Please continue to submit your ideas at any time. We appreciate hearing from you.
Just did. Thank you!
I live and pay taxes in Santa Barbara, CA. We are very much in need of an auditing of our city and county government. Please send a team here. On February 25th our County Board of Supervisors will be voting for them to get a 48% raise. We taxpayers are not being allowed to vote, only our government. https://www.countyofsb.org/1599/Board-of-Supervisors
First of all, it’s insane that they can vote themselves a raise.
My property taxes are insane as well.
Not due how to go this,but let’s get the ball rolling g to change all if this and decrease the amount of money they make. Not increase it.
The role of the Santa Barbara County Supervisors is to reduce the cost of living in Santa Barbara County.
Now is not the time to vote for this large salary increase. Supervisors need to audit Santa Barbara County spending to look for ways to shrink local government and return money to taxpayers.
If supervisors do that, then they can justify to the public a reasonable merit increase for a part time position.
J Brett Marymee, Director
SYCSD
SYRWCD
Write them? They obviously do not care what the People think and will do whatever they please as per usual
Jenn, The louder message they get is when you don't write them.
DONE!
Thank you, Sir but "For all these reasons, please voice your opposition to the 48% raise by contacting these county supervisors before Feb. 25..." Contact corrupt crooks?
Helene the alleged "Corrupt Crooks" have been contacted and they
seem to not care or listen as is common with many Government Officials
who think they have it all figured out. There maybe a SURPRISE
coming for them all.
Helene, what happens if you do not contact them?
We are missing a very important example of the Trump/Musk team. Trump and Musk don't require a government salary. Therefore, why does a Mayor of Santa Barbara necessarily require a salary and any benefits? I'm retired and not money hungry and could perform any government job without a salary. I'm sure many of you could, too. A good requirement to be a mayor and others would be a multi-millionaire or a billionaire <g>. Nice if taxpayers could obtain free services. You can pay someone to provide bad services, that's for sure.
I'd vote for ya Bill.
Thanks Earl, I'd make sure to move MTG from Georgia to SB and she can chair the SB DOGE.
I'll lead the parade welcoming her to town - I _love_ MTG!
There are two main job descriptions when choosing to be an elected county supervisor: (1) insure the fiscal integrity of the county; and (2) insure the administrative integrity of county services overseen by the county administrator. The recent **majorities** of partisan county supervisors have failed both key tasks. (*too often 3/2)
The county is running a deficit with millions in unfunded liabilities. Failed infrastructure maintenance, repairs and improvements are now unsustainable without constant and extortive demands for new and higher taxes. This is not new; this has been known and brewing for decades. Yet past county supervisor majorities have done nothing except expand the problems.
So what in fact have county supervisors been doing these past few decades when they claim they "work so hard" and deserve this additional and unconscionable personal enrichment for themselves?
They have badly defined their own elected tasks that they chose to undertake when they asked for these jobs - they chose not to be responsible for a well run county, but instead became merely in-house extension of the county government unions concerned primarily about their own re-election or their next move up the partisan political food chain. .
I cringe whenever I see them show up in their county logo uniforms as wallpaper backdrops for requisite "concern" photos. They were not elected to be extensions of the county and its often self-serving and now highly partisan agenda. Instead they were elected to oversee the county on behalf of the residents and taxpayers of this entire county. They have misread their roles entirely.
They are not elected to be problem solvers for individual constituents, as personal Lady Bountifuls spending other people's money, in order to curry their own re-election favors. We handsomely pay the county CEO and department heads to to the day to day work of the county.
We do not handsomely reward five disparate elected county supervisors to duplicate efforts that belong to the already well-compensated county administrative structure itself. If the county is not providing adequate constituent resources, it is the supervisors job to work with the county administrator to set new goals.
Taxpayers should never reward mission failure with increased compensation packages. Back to basics, because the majority of county supervisors have been fundamentally negligent of their primary duties to oversee and insure fiscally prudent and competent county services.
You are so f***ing smart, J. Thank you for sharing what you know.