Different day, same street.
The Santa Barbara City Council on Tuesday voted to keep State Street as it is now—closed to vehicular traffic from the 500 to 1100 blocks.
Instead, the issue of whether to open or close those blocks of State Street is likely to go before voters next year. The city has not yet determined a date for a public vote, but it is likely to happen in June.
State Street property owner Jim Knell funded an effort to gather signatures to place the matter on a ballot next year for a public vote. The 8,700 signatures collected are currently being verified by the city. Only 5,480 signatures of city voters are required to place the matter on a ballot.
The council could have also voted to work with Knell and others to re-open State Street in some form immediately before a public vote.
“There’s no solution here,” councilman Mike Jordan said Tuesday night. “All the solutions suck.”
The vote was 5-1-1, with councilmembers Jordan, Oscar Gutierrez, Meagan Harmon, Wendy Santamaria and Kristen Sneddon in support. Mayor Randy Rowse voted no, and councilman Eric Friedman abstained.
Re-opening the street now before a public vote would cost $1.53 million. If voters were to reject the measure and vote to close the street, it would cost the city an additional $1.13 million to close it again.
Jordan called the situation “pretty depressing,” and that maybe it would get better in January, when new councilmembers Ian Baucke, Gabe Escobedo and Devon Wardlow take office.
“There are no good choices tonight,” said councilwoman Meagan Harmon. “And I am very disappointed to be in this position.”
The city is also facing a potential lawsuit from Knell. The law firm of Nielsen Merksamer, based in San Francisco, sent the city a warning letter threatening to sue the city if it kept State Street closed to vehicles before an election.
“Voters who signed the referendum petition did so with the understanding that State Street could only remain closed if and when a majority of Santa Barbara voters cast their ballots in favor of its permanent closure,” the letter states. “The City’s proposed action—which would keep the street closed for an ongoing, indefinite period of time without a vote of the people—is contrary to voter intent, and would violate the right of referendum as enshrined in the California Constitution…”
Harmon said her decision to keep the street closed is not a political decision, but a financially “pragmatic one.” It would cost the city “$1 million-plus” to open the street and then close it if the referendum passes, but an estimated $500,000 between now and June to defend a lawsuit.
“The goal is to ensure that the status quo remains between now and the election,” Harmon said. “It is about ensuring the current state of play in order to allow voters to exercise their right to have their voice heard via this referendum.”
Councilmember Wendy Santamaria said the situation has gotten “messy” and that she would not want businesses to have to take out their parklets and then put them back if the referendum fails.
The street should remain how it is, she said, until a public vote. She worried that if the city were to negotiate an interim solution, it would send a signal to wealthy interests that threatening to sue would be a “backdoor entrance to negotiate interim solutions.”
“Quite honestly, wealthy interests are going to sue,” Santamaria said. “There is no avoiding that someone with enough money is going to do it, even if their claims are unsubstantiated.”
Santa Barbara Mayor Rowse, who has long advocated for re-opening the street, said initiating a lawsuit is “not fun, a waste of life, a waste of time and energy.”
“Referendums happen when people feel like they have been dismissed or unheard,” Rowse said.
He said the downtown is a business district, not a “park or open space.” Business districts need people to spend money to fund programs and services, he said. There is a real problem, he said, when property owners sue their own city.
“It’s not just a cavalier thing that is some rich guy’s play thing,” Rowse said.
