I’ve spent the better part of 30 years in Santa Barbara, since I moved here to go to college.  The lifestyle (casual, laid back, outdoorsy, friendly) and the climate make it a great place to live.  Take a look at this view from the top of the courthouse tower in downtown Santa Barbara.

We got married at the courthouse, with our wedding in the sunken garden lawn in the middle of the building, and our reception inside in the large first floor hallway.  This is kind of where the story about the downsides of Santa Barbara begins.  The courthouse building is managed by the City of Santa Barbara, and the grounds by the County, a strange arrangement that made it that much harder to organize a wedding there.

Now, weddings in the sunken garden have been a Santa Barbara tradition for as long as I’ve been here.  But for some reason, when we started inquiring, we were told that weddings could not be scheduled (you just had to show up) and that weddings larger than 30 people were not allowed. Strange.  My wife pressed on, and in one meeting where the boss of the County event manager  happened to be there, the event manager stated these things, his boss chimed in that there were no such rules.  We seem to have gotten lucky in that the boss didn’t seem to be in on the notion that those rules existed.

Our wedding was of a good size, but overall pretty mellow.  Out of 160 people, I think 4 got drunk enough to notice.  But when we ran into the person that handled events for the building, she mentioned that because our wedding was too rowdy, they decided to disallow weddings as events in the courthouse moving forward.  Strange.

This obstructionist attitude is typical of our local government, as is a certain amount of disconnection from economic reality.  The next best example of this is the three years it took us to go through the planning and permitting process, despite not a single neighbor that was against our project, and 4 that wrote letters in support of it.

Another great example is the difficulty the City of Santa Barbara is creating for homeowners trying to get a permitted accessory dwelling unit.  On the one hand, some members of our city government cried foul when people complained about armies of homeless folks parking beat up old RV’s on residential streets (“but they have nowhere to go”) and put in place a ban on short term rentals because they presume it reduces the rental housing stock.  On the other hand, the city seems to be doing everything in its power to prevent the expansion of housing in the cheapest possible manner, the addition of granny flats within existing structures or as additional structures on residential lots.  The response to our particular application was a 5 page list of issues we had to address.

Another example of this extreme dichotomy of thought in our local government is the situation of our local retail sector, State Street, and the City’s response.  Our local shopping district has seen a significant reduction in sales tax revenue due to sales moving online, and vacancies have risen dramatically in storefront properties.  Our city’s response?  Raise the sales tax rate by a full percent above all of our neighboring communities.  (I should mention that the shortfall in sales tax revenue would have been nicely plugged by the bed tax on short term VRBO / Airbnb type rentals had they not outlawed them.) As a business owner myself, I can’t imagine thinking that the solution to a weak market and declining revenue is to raise prices.

(Mind you, living in Santa Barbara, we are additionally saddled with the high taxes the State of California imposes on its residents.  This is an expensive place to live, and more so because it is in California.)

And then there are the natural disasters, like fire (we’ve had 8 major wild fires in 10 years) and mudslides.

But still, we love it here, and we hope.  We are building a house we hope to live in for the rest of our lives (hence the elevator).  We hope that eventually we get some leadership that can actually lead.  We hope that moving away from the high fire area, and all the burning that has taken place, means we are out of the woods for a while.

We almost had our Michael Bloomberg moment in the last election, with the former CEO of a successful  business (Deckers) running for Mayor. But, sadly, he did not win.  We got a Bill de Blasio type instead.

But still, we hope.  And in the meantime, we will enjoy the 75 degree February weather and the great quality of life Santa Barbara still has to offer, until, someday, perhaps, it is no longer  viable for us to live here.