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County Split Debate Draws Valley Voters |
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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 17 May 2006 |
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County Split Debate Draws Valley Voters
Los Olivos— Voters turned out last Wednesday to hear debate between local representatives over an upcoming, June ballot initiative, Measure H, to split Santa Barbara County.
Sponsored by the Santa Ynez Valley Alliance and the Womens Environmental Watch, the debate was moderated by Jean Reiche of the League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara.
A partial transcript (49:04 of 1:34:35) follows, including opening statements and questions from audience members:
Transcript of Measure “H” Santa Barbara County Split Forum
Participants: Bob Geis, Santa Barbara County Auditor-Controller; Mary Ellen Barilotti, Coalition Against County Split; David Cross, Citizens for County Organization (CFCO)
Moderator: Jean Reiche, League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara
Date/Time: 19 April 2006, 7:00 PM
Location: Saint Mark’s In-the-Valley Episcopal Church, 2901 Nojoqui Ave., Los Olivos, CA
Forum Sponsors: Santa Ynez Valley Alliance; Womens’ Environmental Watch pf Santa Ynez Valley (WE Watch)
Jean Reiche: Good evening. Welcome to the community forum on the county split. I'm Jean Reiche. I'm with the League of Women Voters in Santa Barbara and I've been invited to be the moderator for this evening.
We're going to start this evening with Barbara O'Grady…and—I have to read the name—Doreen Faar, telling you about the alliances that are sponsoring the forum this evening. And then Bob Geis will open with the facts on the county split—the dollars and cents. We're giving him fifteen minutes. I've heard him before—it really does take that much time.
And then we have Mary Ellen Barilotti against the county split and David Cross for the county split, and each of them are going to be given ten minutes. It has not yet been determined who gets to go…first. Somebody's going to toss a coin, but I think we'll wait until Bob Geis finishes and then we'll ask for a coin tosser out there.
Following that, we'll have some…questions from the audience, and I think we can go right ahead without a break on that.
If somebody needs to get up and walk around, this is small enough that you can get in and out and move around.
I ask that you formulate your questions to try to put it as one question at a time. If you have three or four questions in your mind, to ask one then wait a turn for another one.
We're not writing questions this evening. You can ask directly from the floor and I will point to who gets to go next. You may direct your question to an individual speaker up here, or you may direct it to all three of them, but all three of them will have an opportunity to respond.
And they get three minutes for each response, which is quite a bit of time, so they should be able to answer questions completely. And then we'll have a wrap at the end at 8:45. I've given you some times.
We have timers sitting here [points]—one with a stopwatch because ten or fifteen minutes is a lot of time, but we mean it at that point.
And the other one with some cards…that will warn the speaker of three minutes, two minutes, one minute and thirty seconds, and then a red sign to stop. I'll let you finish a sentence, but it better not be too big of a compound sentence… [laughter].
So, let's start with Barbara O'Grady who is going to tell you a little bit about WE Watch.
Barbara O'Grady: Hello. I'm here in place of Carol Herrera who is our president and at a meeting at VPAC tonight and [who] couldn't attend. We're so glad you're here.
This is such an important issue, and the [Valley] Alliance and the Women's Environmental Watch have joined to sponsor this forum, and we think that this is a very critical issue for the county and so we have, we feel, a very good panel presenting both sides and a commission report so that we have a chance to learn more about the issues. We have a table over there [points].
It's the big one with the Milky Way on it and our new brochure. Women's Environmental Watch is an advocate—we are advocates—for the environment of the Santa Ynez Valley. Our membership includes not only women, but men and families.
And so if you'd like more information about the Women's Environmental Watch we have a sign-up sheet and we'd be happy to send you some further information and…there are some more hand-outs out there. Thank you very much for coming.
Jean Reiche: And Doreen Faar…
Doreen Faar: Good evening everyone and I would also like to welcome you tonight to this forum. My name is Doreen Faar. I am the president of the Valley Alliance. The Valley Alliance is a group of individuals that has come together over the last year and a half with the mission of working with other individuals and groups and government agencies.
We want to protect the rural character of the Santa Ynez Valley and support good stewardship of our natural and agricultural resources. Currently, we are involved in a number of projects, both comprehensive and individual.
We are involved with the update of the Santa Ynez Valley Plan, as well as individual projects that are going on now like the expansion of the airport, the Old Mill project—some of you may be familiar with [that]—and the Rancho San Marcos Golf Course, to name a few.
We have a table there also with some information on it. We hope that you'll pick it up if you didn't get a chance before. Thank you once again for being here tonight.
Jean Reiche: Thank you very much. And Mister Geis…it's all yours.
Bob Geis: Thanks for the invite up to the Valley today. It was a very pretty drive. I had a good excuse to tell my staff that I had to work tonight so I took a couple hours off this afternoon.
You know, we worked—my office worked—a lot on the county split, so I have a lot of facts here, but I thought I would take a little bit of a different approach and try and get out some facts that maybe people don't understand, or that they haven't grasped yet.
You know, my office did do a lot of work on this, and some people say that the Auditor-Controller's office shouldn't get involved in the county split. Well, let me assure you that our office was involved. We put a lot of resources to it, but we really work for a commission, and that commission was appointed by the Governor.
They were five very respected people from the community. I learned a lot from them and they just simply did a great job. It was Ted Tedesco—you know his background. He was a former city administrator of San Jose, worked for American Airlines, did work at the White House on issues. Jack Boysen from Santa Maria—he's Joe Centeno's current county planning commissioner. He's an accountant by trade—developer later on—but he was a very sharp accountant. He could hold us to our numbers and Jack was just a great individual and has become actually a friend, you know, through this study. June Christensen, who is here from the Valley [involved] in Valley politics and [inaudible]. You know, my favorite member of the commission was Harriet Miller, the mayor of Santa Barbara. Just a brilliant person that knows politics, compromise, and how to give direction and get things done. The last was Dick Frank. He was elected Assessor in San Luis Obispo County, so he understood county government.
You know, they did a tremendous job over nine months. They told us what to do. We brought a lot of stuff to them, but they were a great decision-making body. They really made the decisions. They gave excellent direction to the commission staff, which were three members that I loaned from my office. I didn't have any control over those guys. They worked for the commission; they did a great job. And then eight other members of my staff—my senior staff—mostly certified public accountants [and] division chiefs. We worked under the direction of the commission to do the indebtedness report and the fiscal study.
You know, the commission is the one that made the fact-based decision, and the commission made the final determinations. I didn't do that. That was the commission's job and I think they did a great job of doing that.
One of the facts I want to bring up before we get too deep into the numbers—and I can always talk about the numbers forever—but you know, we're not just splitting the traditional county government that the five Board of Supervisors run. You know, we have twenty-four departments in County government and I could rattle those off. You know, Sheriff, Public Safety, Health and all that. And that's pretty much what we studied in the fiscal analysis. But there are other things when you split the county that create significant issues. The County is a variety of services beyond the traditional, you know, twenty-four units of government. The only worse thing than studying this thing would be to really implement the split. It would be one huge effort that would last a very long period of time. You look at the little City of Goleta—you know, three or four years later they're still struggling along, and this thing would just be very huge.
Let me just talk a few issues. Hopefully, people have thought about these. You know, there are things like independent special districts and dependent special districts that would get treated differently. The big news now is SBCAG trying to do the big transportation study and get a new half-cent sales tax. Well, SBCAG in its current form, with its current government, would no longer exist after the county split. We made some special recommendations—or the commission did in the study—that it continue until the current sales tax effort expires, but after that it would go away. Who knows what it would come back as. We couldn't study that. We couldn't even fathom what that really meant, other than, you know, the half-cent sales tax I guarantee you is a very valuable tax for this community for transportation. If it doesn't get continued in some form, some day we'll have a disastrous road problem on our hands because cities and counties don't get transportation dollars to fund safety. That's a whole different issue and I'll stop talking about it.
You know, things like the Air Pollution Control District. It won't exist in its current form. It has to be reformed under state law. Again, what that split would mean… You know, they addressed it in the report but left it at that. People haven't thought… [A] multi-county school district. The school district system will change. We will have seven new, multi-county, joint union school districts that cross county boundaries. The county superintendent of schools. Well Bill Cirone hopes that he gets to run both counties? It won't happen. There's fifty-eight county superintendents. We'll have fifty-nine county superintendents tomorrow. You will probably elect a new county superintendent of schools. And that whole effort is a big effort of how we run our school systems. You know, 60% of all property tax dollars go to the schools. They don't come to the county. They're going to the schools.
People may not realize, you know, people think north county will get a new fire chief. Guess what? They wouldn't get a new fire chief. We would have a multi-county fire district that would operate in both counties. There are plenty of multi-county fire districts throughout the state. And it just so happens that fire district with—I think it's six stations in the north and two in the south—would still be run by the south county Board of Supervisors. That's how special district financing works.
We have the same issue with our Flood Control District and we have the same issue with our water agencies. Those districts would continue to be run by the south county until we got some kind of legislative change to change flood control and water agencies.
The courts are now—they used to be part of county government. A couple years ago, the state moved the courts away from county government and they answer to the state…body. It's slipping away from me at the moment what they call it. The state office of the courts. And we pay a $9 million maintenance of effort payment to that. We're supposed to also give them all our court buildings, and along with that comes seismic retrofit. And so we're supposed to pay for the seismic retrofit. So we're going to get all these. We not only to get to give them our buildings, we get to pay a maintenance of effort to keep them so they can pay for the ongoing costs and we also get to do the seismic retrofit.
Those are just some of the things that are not in the study. Well, they're in the study—they're addressed—but they're not addressed in the fiscal impact. I want you to think about the community based organizations. There's a report in here. They're mostly south county driven. And when I was elected, you know, fifteen years ago, my first term of office I lost the First District. I lost the Second District. I lost the Third District. I got elected by the Fourth and Fifth Districts. I think I owe it to the citizens to make sure I tell the truth and say, "You know, you don't want to lose that support from those south county community based organizations, because it's very good for the north county.
You know, just a little fun fact. The Board of Supervisors would probably become vacant. And they would be kind of a conflict of interests because three north county supervisors could be handling the transition and eventually their terms would expire and you'd have a new election up north and the same board members might run. One school of thought from the Auditor's position is that I'd have to rerun for the Auditor of the new county because this election shouldn't count for my continued election. I think that's wrong. But then the second school of thought is that I get to become the Auditor and I also get to become the Fifth District Supervisor and replace Joe Centeno because under the county emergency ordinance if something happens to Joe I'm the guy. [Laughter] So, I get to be the auditor and Supervisor at the same time.
When I started this study, I always told my wife—and I meant this—you give me $250 million, $200 million federal and state dollars, you give me $50 million discretionary dollars, [and] I'll go run a county in north county, and we'll be successful. At the end of this study, I changed my mind and said if Mission County happens I would not want to be the Auditor of Mission County. Nor would I want to be a finance officer for Mission County. It just simply would be very difficult to make it run.
If the split does occur, each side's going to need a room full of attorneys. There're so many facts in here, there are so many things, that the formation law wasn't able to address. We did a great job I think with the law. The commission did a great job. But that's a very old law. It would require a huge legislative effort to change things. Santa Barbara County is littered throughout hundreds of codes. Mission County isn't in any of those codes. And some of them are fiscal formulas. Some of them are mandate formulas. All those codes would have to be changed, and that would probably have to be done by some massive legislation. State agencies systems—they don't know who Mission County is. They'd all have to be changed to recognize Mission County and give them their right money.
Let me just talk about one thing. I think I can sum up the fiscal study really easy regarding the finances and the accuracy of the study. You know, I'm just going to make one big point, then I'm going to let the pro and the con [sides] go. In the report final say, which the proponents issued, you know—little tiny rebuttal to the fiscal study—they didn't say anything really rude. Actually, it's an interesting report. They did say that the author points out that the 1978 study was better than this commission study. They say they got it right—the 1978 study got it right. A new county is feasible. The '78 study said a new county is feasible. This study said that upon, you know, based on the nature and estimated amount of current revenues available the proposed county upon formation in 2006 would not be economically viable at current levels of service. Big difference between the two reports. They also say what stands out is [that] the issues and concerns have not changed. And I think [that] from a political thing Dave's going to make some good points of why he believes in that. They also remind us right in the next paragraph that Prop' 13 was on the same ballot. And if you guess why the fiscal report worked back then, it's this fact: the fiscal report in 1978 balanced the budget the old fashioned way for Mission County. Prior to Prop' 13. You estimated the amount of expenses you needed, and the Auditor set the tax rate to balance the budget. That's how it worked. That's what Prop' 13 took away from us. And so the difference is today the old study required an increase in taxes to balance. We couldn't increase taxes [now] to balance this study. And, you know, you could raise a one-cent sales tax and it wouldn't get you close to there.
Today, property taxes are limited to %1 of assessed value. The existing values today are almost $50 billion. We generate $500 million in taxes. And the difference is 69% goes to the south, and 31% to the north. And that's the big difference. For the north, there are problems and the reason they have a deficit is really all about taxes and I'm just going to give you a few numbers. [To timer] Two minutes. The taxes for '02–'03, which was the base of the study, you know, $99 million total. Only $30 million to the north and $69 million to the south. Total discretionary revenues, $168 million. Only $52 million to the north, $160 million to the south. And if you're really a student of county government—and the commission got this—those taxes pay for basic public services. Sheriff, fire, district attorney, public defender—those are the kinds of services that property taxes have already paid for. If you form a new county up there, they're going to be fine on health. They're going to be fine on welfare. They're going to be fine on those kinds of services, except those extra dollars they get from the community based organizations. But where they're going to suffer is on public safety services. They've also made a more recent… They've… Well, the revenues have grown up there between the time of the study and now. Yeah, property taxes grew. But you can’t say that without saying expenses also grew. And they ate up that growth in revenue. The base has just not changed. There's a lot of development going on up in north county—good stuff. But it's mostly single-family residential, and when you build those kinds of homes that property tax goes to pay for the basic education functions and not a lot of it comes to county government.
So, those are kind of the facts from the fiscal study that the commission gleaned from this big project. Thank you.
Jean Reiche: Thank you very much. Who's going to do the coin toss here?
Audience Member: We'll let Bob [Geis] do it. [Laughter]
Bob Geis: Oh God! And who's going to call it?
David Cross: [Pointing at Mary Ellen Barilotti] She can call it.
Bob Geis: Mary Ellen?
Mary Ellen Barilotti: I'm not calling it! [Laughter]
Bob Geis: Come on. Heads or tails? Okay Dave… [Flips coin]
David Cross: Heads.
Bob Geis: Heads it is.
Jean Reiche: Alright. David Cross.
Audience Member: Put the quarter in the Mission County budget! [Laughter]
Mary Ellen Barilotti: I go first?
David Cross: Yes.
Mary Ellen Barilotti: Alright. Hello. I'm Mary Ellen Barilotti. I worked for thirty years with the County of Santa Barbara before I retired. I had a variety of hats in terms of my work with the County, including working with the Department of Social Services as well as the County Counsel's office. I retired as Chief Assistant County Counsel. I was going to talk a lot about the things that Bob just talked about because I figured he would tell you that the county—the new county—faces a $30 million deficit. And, by the way, you can't have the term 'deficit' when you talk about a county. You have to balance your budget every year. So, the question becomes how do you pay for the transition period when you're in the County of Mission? When the county is supposed to provide for all the same services at least for six months, and up to a two-year transition period? You don't have the money to begin with to pay the county the start-up costs. In addition, the deficit doesn't cover the start-up costs at capital improvements, contingency fund litigation… It doesn't cover the retirement debt of $98 million over a period of years. It has to be paid off by 2021, or… The one good thing I guess the commission did in terms of the County of Mission was to defer or to transfer liability for capital costs to the County of Santa Barbara. So they forgave $16 million in debt to Mission County even though they still have this approximately $30 million in debt.
But one of the issues, aside from the debt—you can read the report, you see it. It's right there. There have been vignettes about it in the small brochures. It's on the website. Read the county commission's report. But the other issue, as Bob touched on [and] I wanted to address, is the issue of special districts. It's not only the fire department that will be governed by the Board of Supervisors. So, who do you seek your redress to? You have an unelected body that is running the fire department in north county. It's the same with the Water Conservation and Flood Control district. It's the same with the water agencies. Those are called dependent special districts and you must seek legislative changes to change it. So, the constituents in north county may or may not be able to elect the people who control those districts in the future.
The other issue was—as a broad issue I'd like to raise, and he sort of touched on—is that the counties in general in this state are not cities. It may seem reasonable for the City of Solvang, for example, to incorporate because cities are able to charter themselves which, for example, gives them a home rule authority. What we have here—we will have two counties providing the same mandated services, and Mission County will be providing it with less money. That is to say the counties are political subdivisions in the state, and they report to the state. Most of what we do, with the exception of planning, which the state as we know from all the debates over the housing element, is getting more and more involved in planning as well. But the County's function consists of public health, alcohol abuse, mental health, Sheriff's department, the DA's office, the probation department, social services, agriculture weights and measures. We said twenty-four departments within the County. All of them have State mandates. And those State mandates have to be carried on regardless. And also you have to remember if you're thinking about incorporating, you have to think about the incorporated cities within the County. Those cities, and the constituents in that area—those areas—receive benefits from the County. The probation services will decrease. Sheriff's services will decrease. Unless, of course, you increase taxes, which is highly speculative. The commission, for example, suggested maybe a 1% increase in sales tax might help cover the deficit. Well, that 1% increase in sales tax requires a two-thirds vote of the people of the area. How speculative is that? Do you think the people in the community in north county are going to increase taxes by a two-third's vote when we're already paying—what is it?—0.50% for our public safety costs under Proposition 172? It doesn't make sense to vote for a county where all of these questions are there. And it also doesn't make sense in terms of cities. We are—there's no question in my mind—that we would be reducing the level of services to people throughout the county. Forget just the unincorporated areas of the County. And to do that because some folks are upset with our planning system does not make sense to me. We can correct that, and I think the County is starting to be more responsive to the planning issues throughout the county with respect to the concerns that have been expressed to the Board of Supervisors.
With respect to… Some people have said well, the County can […] conserve on its funding. They can be more like a city. And, as I said, we are not a city. We are limited by what we can do as a county. As I said, cities have home rule authority under the California constitution […] activites. They don't necessarily have to follow State law. For example, people, say in the north county you can contract out to the private sector for less money all sorts of jobs. Well, you might be able to do that in a chartered city because, as I said, they have home rule authority. They have municipal home rule authority to do things within their incorporated area that may conflict with State law. But the California constitution gives them that authority. The counties are bound by state statutes, because we are political subdivisions of the State. So, if you're going to subcontract something out you have to look at a State statute that gives you authority to do that. And there are limited opportunities for counties to contract out its employee, State-mandated functions to the private sector. It's in there, but generally the personnel of the County are County employees, not contractors.
The other issue here is—[one] we haven't talked about—is when you lay off over 2,000 employees from the County of Santa Barbara, who's paying for all of the accrued benefits they had? And we've considered our retirement liabilities over an actuarial table. Those have certain givens in it. Who's going to pay when half of the County workforce leaves? And how are they going to be hired back? And what is the system? And especially my concern, forgetting the fact that we have no money, is this transition period for people in the community and how that's going to work. It doesn't seem possible for it to work in any way that provides for a logical transition.
Also, we have a wonderful recreation area here at Lake Cachuma. What's going to happen to that? The contract with the federal Bureau of Reclamation is up. In fact, we've just continued it for one year. Who's going to take over Lake Cachuma? Will the feds contract with a county that it's being told has a $30 million deficit from the beginning? Are they going to want to contract with that? What is going to happen to that beautiful resource? I understand that about 814,000 people a year come to Cachuma Recreation Area. That's run by the County Parks Department. The County of Santa Barbara—this is going to be outside the County of Santa Barbara. Will they contract with the feds to provide a service someplace outside the county? I doubt it. Will it affect contracts with Mission County that has a bond rating in the [pointing down]…way down. I mean, how are you going to get bonds passed when you have a deficit? Your bond rating… I don't even know if there is a rating to suggest such a situation.
I think my time is up. I'll be happy to answer questions. Oh—I have thirty seconds? Alright! I'd like you to just look at the report. Look at the synopsis of it. See the figures. As I said, it's been reported in some circles that Mr. Geis's office, since it's so closely connected with the County, should not have been the particular body to provide services to the commission, but in my experience he's an elected official, he is responsible to the public, and the integrity of his office should not be questioned in any of the dialog or discussions before the public. Thank you.
Jean Reiche: Thank you very much. Mr. Cross…?
David Cross: Wow. All I can tell you is, Bob, I used to think you're a positive guy, you know. I mean, I've heard so much doom and gloom in the last twenty minutes I think a rain cloud's forming over your heads. Yes. We took a look at the commission study and thank you for pointing out final say. It's available on CFCO's [Citizens for County Organization] website—cfcostudy.com. You can look at the commission study. You can look at our study. I appreciate your aspect on that, but frankly we have some issues with it, and we think that what the commission did was take Santa Barbara County, cloned it, divided it in half, and created Mission County. They didn't look at ways to make Mission County work—it probably wasn't in their scope—or to make it more efficient, more effective. The cost of living is way higher in Santa Barbara and in south county. We don't think that was considered. We feel that Santa Barbara's government's outdated. It spends too much. It's inefficient. For crying out loud, they have departments that have computer systems with software that don't even talk to each other. We believe the $30 million deficit is wrong, and we think that for two reasons.
Number one, you mentioned new property tax revenue figures. And yes, we did take those new property tax revenues and plugged them into your matrix for the '02–'03 budget, and at first we thought, man, that reduces that down to $5 million. But you took those figures at the request of the Board of Supervisors and said, well, if you use the same methodology we use it'd be $23 million instead of $30 million. We think that $23 million's more accurate, if that much. We don't agree that County expenses would have used all that up. Maybe they would have, but Mission County would be different. We believe Mission County would be much more efficient, much better run. North county, frankly, has a record of being more conservative fiscally. That was one reason why we don't think that is accurate.
Number two: we feel that the expenditures were inflated. We think that, frankly, you got your numbers from those department executives in the departments. And if I'm a department head, I gotta tell you Mister Geis, I'd say, "You know what? You're going to create this Mission County. You're going to need all these people. You're going to need all these resources and the kitchen sink. Here you go."
So, that's what we think happened. We think they're inflated and…we think those expenditures—if you just look at them. It shows basic expenditures more for north county, which would be Mission County, than south county; 46% of the discretionary funds to the north county. Well, anybody who's been in Santa Barbara in those government buildings and [who] has seen the staff, the offices, the resources, the equipment… No. The vast majority of all that is in the south county. It's not up here in the north county. And when you look at the department expenditures in the commission study it shows staff breakdown with all these people working on north county projects. Well, I guess if you just looked at the commission report you'd have to accept that, except we compared them to the county telephone directory that matches a staff person with a telephone number and it shows exactly what we expected. Most of the staff is down there. They're not up here. So that tells me one of two things. Either we can get by with a lot less people, or we're being short-changed. And I think it's both. And, yes, I do feel those numbers should have been verified by an independent agency for those reasons. And you know, again thank you, Bob, for bringing all those things out regarding the commission study. But Mrs. Barilotti, every catastrophe that can occur if you vote for Mission County, except global warming, has been presented by the opponents for Mission County. [Laughter]
Here's what they say. It'd be a $30 million deficit. We don't believe it would be that. We think that $23 million is more accurate. And we actually think it's smaller, based on the reasons I said. They said at one point in time [that] we're going to be the smallest and poorest county. They said that at some of the debates. They just pulled that out of thin air. We would actually be twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth, respectively, out of fifty-nine—right in the middle. And that's off the State's website. They said there'd be confusion, chaos, and disruptions of service. I don't agree. The state law mandates that two-year transition period for the purpose of making sure there's no disruptions in service. They said we'll be a poor county. Well, property tax revenues are increasing at a greater percentage in the north county than in the south county. That's off of Mr. Geis's website. Every economic forecast—every one—shows the north county as the economic engine of the Central Coast.
North County has tremendous potential. Mission County would—not as Santa Barbara has because it's too restrictive, but as Mission County—bring industry, jobs…higher paying jobs to the people who live here. They said that voting for Mission County, by voting for that, you’re voting for new taxes. Well, Mrs. Barilotti got it right when she said taxes can only be approved on a separate ballot by two-thirds of registered voters. They said the remaining Santa Barbara County will have service loss and disruptions. And I think Mrs. Barilotti said the whole county would experience that. That’s not true according to the commission study. Not only would service remain at a high level, but they’ll have the opportunity to increase service levels in the south county. They said we have a three-fifths majority on the Board now, so everything’s okay. Well, frankly, we have fifty years of layers of south county regulations and control to work off, and that’s not going to happen overnight. Mr. Firestone’s here today, but the next election we could elect someone from Isla Vista. Then we’ve got that swap again. The power shifts three-fifths to the south. Why even do this? Why have the shell game of power? Why not have five out of five supervisors in the north representing the north county. And in the south why not have five out of five supervisors representing south county interests?
They said the start-up costs are too high, but [during] that two-year transition period we would have the chance to incorporate those costs. And really, just like any endeavor, you have to weigh the long-term benefits of what you’re doing. We think Mission County’s beneficial. We’ve heard from the opponents that $1 million was too much to spend for this commission study. I heard that at one of my last debates. Well, Santa Barbara County government, believe it or not, is considering again to spend $1.5 million on another salamander study. I don’t hear any complaints from them about that. But here we spend a million to try to determine what’s best for the people of Santa Barbara County and they’re complaining about it. I don’t think it’s the same. I think they have their priorities wrong.
We’ve heard at a different debate that we’ll pave every foot of north county. I think that’s typical. They don’t give the people of the north county credit to be able to balance the needs of the people and jobs and manufacturing incomes and homes with the environment. Everybody wants a clean environment. There’s no doubt about that. And let’s talk for a minute about growth. I’ve heard some people say not one more home. Not one more car. Not one more person. But I gotta tell you something. I’ve got kids. I’ve got grandkids. I kind of like them. I want them to stay around. They’re all going to need homes. They’re all going to need jobs. They’re all going to need a place to live and work. So, I don’t think it’s just about us. I think it’s about the future.
They said that Santa Barbara County would lay off half of the employees. Why? They’ve got two-thirds of the revenue according to the commission study. They could keep two-thirds of the employees. We can do the same with less people anyway. They say the Santa Barbara County employees will suffer. Well, if I work for Santa Barbara County in Santa Barbara and I live in Santa Maria I spend $50 a day in vehicle expenses according to AAA. I waste three hours of my life commuting, and I clog up the freeways. I’d say hallelujah if I could work for Mission County and stay in the north county. That would be terrific for me.
So why would you vote for Mission County? Better representation. Five out of five supervisors representing north county needs, interests and priorities. It’s the same in the south. Mission County will have a thriving economy. Mission County will have a more effective and efficient and conservative county government. It’d be more reflective of our needs and priorities. And I’m pretty much out of time, but I could just go and on, but I want to thank you. That’s it.
Jean Reiche: Alright. Thank you very much. We are now ready for some questions from the audience. I do have a note down here that your question can only be thirty seconds long, which just goes back to what I said. Please one question. You may direct it to an individual or you may address it to all three and I’ll just kind of keep circulating around as to who gets to answer first.
Audience Member: I’ve heard a lot of talk about the start-up costs and things that aren’t in the report. And in addition to the other start-up costs that were mentioned tonight […] nobody seems to be talking about the fact that there is no jail in the north county, which would be a major, major expense. I’d like to know how that’s going to get built and who’s going to pay for it without raising our taxes.
Jean Reiche: Do you have an individual to address?
Audience Member: I’d like to address to [everyone]—all three of you, in fact.
Jean Reiche: Well, why don’t we start down…this way [indicating Barilotti].
Mary Ellen Barilotti: Well, there’s no jail and the north county’s also [inaudible] the juvenile hall facility and also Los Prietos Boys Camp. It’s true. That’s a start-up cost and that was in the report.And it varied in terms of the tens of millions, or thousands, of dollars it would cost to create a jail. That, of course, is not within any of the contingent liability or the estimates for the deficit. So that’s another issue with respect to costs in the north county. They contract now with south county and whether or not, and what, those contractual arrangements would be should the county split take place—that’s again speculation. The other issue is Los Prietos Boys Camp, which is a juvenile facility but it’s considered a correctional facility. And 70% by the way of the deferrals to juvenile hall go to Los Prietos and 30% of the kids are referred from south county, so how is Mission County going to pay for those services if Los Prietos has to close? Because Santa Barbara County could contract out to somebody else.
Jean Reiche: Mr. Geis?
Bob Geis: I think Mary Ellen makes a good point about Los Prietos. We’d probably lose that facility. Mission County wouldn’t be able to afford to send their juveniles to Los Prietos. The only way that Santa Barbara County would be able to keep it is to try and bring people in from other counties. With regard to the jail in the split study, you know we address the north county jail. They don’t have a jail. And five hundred beds would cost a minimum of $50 million. To be fair though, the cost of operating the jail was allocated in the deficit study to Mission County, so part of the $30 million deficit includes the cost to operate a jail. But like we said, and like the commission said, their $30 million deficit—to cut that—they’ve got to cut public safety services. That’s where the problem is. You can’t cut welfare. You can’t cut health. You can’t cut social services. You’ve got to cut public safety. That’s where the discretionary property taxes go. Discretionary property taxes pay for jail services. That’s the nexus if you get it. We don’t pay for jail services with grants. We pay for it with property taxes.
Jean Reiche: Mr. Cross?
David Cross: You know, the grand jury’s been indicating to the Board of Supervisors since the seventies that we need a jail up here. They never had the political courage to do it when it was weighted with south county majority. As a matter of fact, they had the money and they decided to upgrade the jail in the south county instead of building one in the north. So here we are in a situation where they decided not only to build one here, [but] now we’ve got to pay the price for not having one. It is a tough question. There’s absolutely no doubt about it. We do have options. You know, it’s not the only option to put people in prison in Santa Barbara County’s jail. There are other counties with other jail systems. Perhaps we can find some way to get it done less expensively. I don’t know. It’s tough. Maybe there’s a way. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a way to get federal and state funds involved. It would be nice to get our officials involved on that to try to do that. Unfortunately, we’d be without a jail without a fault of our own. That is a difficult question. We’re going to have to try some way to deal with it.
Jean Reiche: Another question…
Audience Member: I have a question for…Mr. Cross. Mr. Cross, can you tell us who primarily is funding this pro-split organization, and if those funders include land developers?
David Cross: You know, I knew that question was going to come up. I knew it was going to come up. Okay, here’s the deal with CFCO. We have not solicited, nor have we received, funds to finance this campaign. We haven’t reported because we haven’t received those. So, there’s the answer to your question. We are as grass roots an effort as you could possibly have. We’re getting the word out on these debates. We’re trying to do it through editorials. We’re trying to do it through emails, or having our document online. So, I’m glad you mentioned that because we’re as grass roots as we can be. We don’t have $22,000…$23,000 funding us. Or special interests funding us like the opponents do on some of their organizations. We’re grass roots.
Audience Member: Are you a volunteer?
David Cross: I’m a volunteer.
Jean Reiche: Mrs. Barilotti, would you like to have something to comment on that?
Mary Ellen Barilotti: I don’t know where they get any money from. No, I don’t have any comment.
Bob Geis: No. I’ll stay out of that one.
Jean Reiche: [Pointing] ‘Question back here.
Audience Member: Yes… Mr. Cross?
David Cross: Yes, Sir.
Audience Member: Your answer is evasive. Many of us in this county, in this area, know who’s paying for the proponents to keep the County together, but you’ve been unwilling to provide to us an honest answer as to who’s involved with your group. […] [TAPE CHANGE] We want you to tell us the truth.
David Cross: Okay. I’m going to tell you the absolute truth, and the truth is we have not solicited or got any funding for this. We’re on our own, and that is the absolute truth. So we haven’t had to report it.
Audience Member: So you’re going to stick to the legal line and evade the honest answer?
David Cross: And I’ll tell you something else, and here’s an honest answer for that. If you want to talk about those kinds of side issues, you can talk about it until you’re blue in the face. I’m here to talk about what’s best for the people of Santa Barbara County. That’s it. The issues.
Audience Member: Well, that’s very evasive. Thank you.
Jean Reiche: [Pointing] Another question back here.
Audience Member: You just spoke of telling the truth. I think I heard you say that you have not received any money. Mr. Diani at the earlier forum had encouraged people to go to the Attorney General’s website. There’s a Form 990 for 2003–2004 that says a loan was given to…I think it’s your group—it says “Citizens for County Organization”—for over $200,000 and it was guaranteed by Mr. Diani. Now how can you say, if that report is correct—which the Citizens for County Organization provided…submitted—how can you say that there’s no money that’s been received?
David Cross: Okay. Those are all public documents. Fully out there. There’s no doubt about it. You saw it yourself. I’m talking about the campaign.
Audience Member: [Interrupting] No, you said your group had not received that. And my question, based on…
David Cross: CFCO, for this campaign…we have not solicited or received any funds for this campaign. I’m not hired by CFCO. I’m a volunteer. I’m here to do what’s best for the people. That’s my whole reason for being here.
[Transcription time marker: 49:04 of 1:34:35]
Related Links:
The Santa Ynez Valley Alliance has posted a downloadable video link of the forum that may be viewed online [.mov Quicktime file, 150 Mb].
Mission County Formation Review Commission
http://www.missioncountyformation.org
County of Santa Barbara, Auditor-Controller’s Office
http://www.countyofsb.org/auditor/home.asp
Citizens for County Organization
http://www.cfcostudy.com
Coalition Against County Split
http://www.sbdems.org/cacs/
Santa Maria Sun article: “Money talks, voters want to listen,” by Andrea Rooks
http://www.santamariasun.com/index.php?p=showarticle&id=1475
Office of Attorney General, State of California
http://ag.ca.gov/
Related
* http://www.syvtimes.com
* http://www.missioncountyformation.org
SOURCE: http://www.sbindymedia.org/newswire/display/3411/index.php |
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