Sirens

This past Friday, my dogs in the courtyard of my house howled three times within thirty minutes of my arrival. This is a behavior they have adopted in recent years to signal the sound of sirens below on Highway 154. I always wonder if it is a fire truck, an ambulance, or the California Highway Patrol giving someone a ticket. Very often it is a call to the lake for some emergency there and, until recently, was seldom for ticketing speeders or drivers under the influence.

Because the level of traffic has increased over the years due to more and more commuters for work during the week and the north-south migration on the weekends, CHP presence has increased as well, but never to the level that those of us who live on Highway 154 would like to see.

 

Caltrans has provided what they referred to as “improvements” to the road, approved and funded by SBCAG through its Measure D funds. Among other things, passing lanes have been provided to allow slower vehicles to be passed safely, in the judgement of Caltrans engineers. What has happened instead is that drivers are driving faster and faster, and now through traffic and large, through tractor-trailer trucks are using this road routinely.

Add to this mix an explosion of wine tasting rooms, expansion of the number of establishments where alcohol is sold, and an increase of drug-related incidents in our valley. Surely, to my mind, this would have prompted officials to increase law enforcement presence on the highways. I have written about this before to no avail, even though I can sit at my house and listen to the often rude drivers honk their horns, either to let someone know that they just cut them off when the lane was ending or to make them move over so they can pass.

 

I have experienced this more than once myself on 154 because it seems there is always someone coming up fast behind you attempting to get ahead of you even though it means they will arrive at the bottom of the pass less than a minute before you. For this they are willing to risk their own life and yours, and possibly others as well. Just how selfish have we become?

While waiting in line at the DMV office a couple of years ago, I noticed a pie chart describing the allocation of funds that are received and distributed for the California Highway Patrol and discovered that it is a very small part of the pie. I always thought that public safety was one of the most important jobs of elected officials, and it appears that the agencies charged with providing it are the first to lose funding when economic times get tough. Have our elected officials lost sight of their purpose for being?

 

For example, the sheriff’s department has over 30 vacancies at the moment and was told by the county to leave it that way. In the meantime, the county is spending $1.875 million in Isla Vista to buy property to improve a community plan. While this is most likely an admirable way to help upgrade conditions in a neighborhood, can we really afford this at this time?

Recently Santa Barbara County and twelve different agencies have been the recipients of somewhere around $650,000 to deal with the problem of drunk driving. Meanwhile, new wineries with tasting rooms are appearing in neighborhoods, and the casino is applying to expand its liquor license.

Is there some rationale for not looking at this topic on a countywide basis in public? Focusing on major holidays is a good place to start, but that does not cover the rest of the 300 days that we all traverse the roads and highways. Why are we being so shortsighted?

 

This past week we lost a wonderful member of our community, Laura Cleaves, who with her husband Steve and their family have been friends to many of us. A young, allegedly drunk driver slammed into her, pushed her through our airport fence and apparently then hit someone else, injuring them. This occurred on the same curve named “airport curve” where numerous accidents over the years have had horrible consequences.

When Caltrans proposed to add a passing lane past that curve I argued that it was going to create a very dangerous situation and also make it dangerous for people entering and exiting our main ranch entrance. I spoke at SBCAG as well and was politely ignored.

This is not the only potentially dangerous part of the San Marcos Pass. Everyone who uses this road knows how tricky it can be to safely navigate from one end to another. So why are we turning it into a speedway? I have seen, as I am sure you have, the huge difference in people’s driving habits when there are CHP around, and how things change rapidly when they leave.

Since this most recent accident, I have noticed a significant increase in CHP presence, not only through the ranch (hence the howling dogs) but also on the Santa Barbara side. I am grateful and happy to see it, but why did it take the death of one of their own to wake up to what we’ve been dealing with for a number of years now?

 

 

Propositions 98 and 99

On June 3, 2008 the Statewide Direct Primary Election will include two ballot measures related to eminent domain. A few years ago legislation was passed — called the Kelo Decision by the United States Supreme Court — that changed the historic meaning of eminent domain from what landowners had always understood it to mean. Traditionally, land could be taken by a government agency for a public use such as a road, dam, airport and public facilities.

Having grown up under eminent domain proceedings, I can tell you that, generally speaking, all the property owner gets to discuss is how much they are to be paid for the property, and that discussion often occurs in court. Since the Kelo decision, local governments have been taking property across the nation, and in many cases transferring rights to a non-profit organization or a private developer who, under normal circumstances, would not be able to acquire the property.

This has outraged many people who see this as a bad expansion of government power. So far, forty-one states have enacted property rights reforms — but not California.

 

Propositions 98 and 99 are respectively referred to as the “California Property Owner and Farmland Protection Act” and the “Homeowner Protection Act.” Prop. 98 essentially makes restrictions about what kind of reasons may be used to take private property, and it restricts the use of eminent domain to bona fide public projects and do not just transfer property from one private owner to another.

Furthermore, government will be required to compensate property owners for the loss of use of property due to environmental legislation, something that was promised but never delivered to the nation’s landowners. As a result, most rural landowners have lost the ability to use large parts of their properties due to radical environmental agendas while still being required to pay taxes for that same property. Consequently, there are numerous radical national environmental organizations listed as opposed to this proposition.

Another part of the proposition that is more troublesome is the removal of rent control that has its good and bad points. There is also some question about government’s ability to take property for affordable housing, electric utilities services and public ownership of water. This last issue is potentially a huge problem because as the population grows and droughts continue to occur periodically, there is less and less water to go around. It is a huge temptation for governmental agencies to try to take water away from private owners, citing “public health” while squandering it on environmental theories that have no legitimate science behind them.

 

Proposition 99 also is concerned with eminent domain, but it pertains primarily to owner-occupied single-family homes, which government is prohibited from taking and transferring to another private party except to protect the public’s health and safety.

This could include taking a home where there has been a history of criminal activity, where environmental contamination has occurred (according to whom?), or for public use such as a toll road or an airport operated by a private party. This would not apply if the owner of the property did not live in the house or had not lived in it for at least a year. This could have some serious negatives for rental, leased or agricultural properties.

Santa Barbara County is considering opposing 98 and supporting 99. I see some significant problems with both. While I firmly support reimbursing property owners for making environmental efforts, I believe that much of the legislation is frivolous or even counter-productive and impinges on one’s constitutional right to enjoy one’s property.

I think freedom from unreasonable governmental control of private property is a good thing. I also think something in the middle on the issue of rent control is also appropriate. Further, health and safety issue need to be more narrowly defined to eliminate government abuse when using these terms. You can look further into these issues at http://yesprop98.com and at http://www.no98yes99.com.

 

 

Looking to the Future

A couple of issues which deserve an in-depth look in future columns include the postponement of the Happy Canyon winery development for another two weeks due to continued problems with information that staff is reluctantly providing the Zoning Administrator regarding the safety of the roads; the very unhappy ending of the filly who won second place at the Kentucky Derby; and Santa Barbara County’s Social Host Ordinance, which makes property owners responsible for underage drinking on their properties, whether they have control of the property or not.

Isn’t it really the responsibility of the parents to be aware of their children’s behavior, not the apartment building owner or the pasture owner? How ridiculous!

 

Finally, there’s a lot of hot air being expended regarding the high price of gasoline these days, with many willing to blame the oil companies, the President and anybody who has nothing to do with it.

Let’s just tax them all is a common response. Unfortunately, I noticed as I waited for ten minutes to get out on Highway 154 this past weekend that the high price of gas didn’t make any of them stay home. So much for it being too high!