May 2005 – Terrain Consulting hired to facilitate the development of Santa Barbara County Association of Government’s transportation sales tax expenditure plan.
Santa Barbara County Association of Governments
At its March 17, 2005 meeting the SBCAG Board established the November 7, 2006 general election as the target date for placing a renewal of Measure D before Santa Barbara County voters. Renewal of the measure will require 66.7% voter support due to changes in State law since the measure originally passed in 1989 with 55% voter support. Measure D is set to expire in April 2010.
The Board hired the private consulting firm Tramutola to assist the agency with determining if the November 2006 general election was the optimal time to seek a renewal, assist the agency with preparing an expenditure plan, ballot measure and ordinance that would be supported by voters, and to implement a legislative strategy that would keep city councils and the Board of Supervisors supportive of the entire effort, including voting to support placing the measure on the ballot. Tramutola leads a team comprised of True North Research and Terrain Consulting.
November 2008 – Terrain Secures Win for Measure A, Santa Barbara County Transportation Sales Tax
Support unprecedented for Measure A roads tax
Overwhelming approval of transportation tax Measure A by Santa Barbara County voters included unprecedented support in the North County, where similar measures had met with strong resistance in past elections.
A breakdown of election returns shows that voter approval north of the Santa Ynez Mountains was about 75 percent, well above the two-thirds threshold required for Measure A’s passage.
The measure, which received 79 percent approval countywide in the Nov. 4 election, will extend for 30 more years a half-percent local sales tax for road and transit projects that was first approved for 20 years as Measure D in 1989.
Back then, the majority of North County voters rejected the tax, as they did when a proposal to raise Measure D to three-fourths of a cent per sales dollar failed in November 2006.
Only 42 percent of North County voters — and about 54 percent countywide — favored the 2006 measure, which needed 66.7 percent approval. It drew strong, vocal opposition from groups such as the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association.
This time, “there was essentially no opposition to Measure A,” said Jim Kemp, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG), which administers state and federal transportation dollars throughout the county.
Instead, groups such as the Taxpayers Association; the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business (COLAB); and others advocated for passage of Measure A, which “was huge,” Kemp told the SBCAG board Thursday at a meeting in Santa Maria.
The community consensus for Measure A “was a big part of why this measure was successful,” he said.
It received more than two-thirds approval in every city and community throughout the county, ranging from 92 percent in Isla Vista and UCSB to about 68 percent in Cuyama. It got about 79 percent approval in Santa Maria, nearly 75 percent in Lompoc and 72 percent in the Santa Ynez Valley.
“This vote is a truly historic one for our county,” Kemp said. “To my knowledge there has never been a county tax measure passed by this large a margin.”
Measure A will raise an estimated $1 billion over 30 years for a wide range of road improvements, transit programs and other projects. Of the total, $140 million is earmarked for widening Highway 101 to three lanes in each direction between Carpinteria and Santa Barbara.
The remaining $860 million will be evenly split between projects and programs in the North County and on the South Coast.
“This obviously is a big victory both for the (SBCAG) board and the citizens of the county,” Kemp remarked.
So much so that one board member, county Supervisor Joe Centeno of Santa Maria, suggested running newspaper ads with “a big thank-you letter to the voters of Santa Barbara County, saying we truly appreciate the overwhelming support this measure received.”
County Supervisor Joni Gray of Orcutt, impressed by the broad support from factions of the community that are usually at odds, wished “we could just somehow capture the spirit of Measure A“ when dealing with other major issues. ”This is the first time I’ve seen this kind of (unified) effort,” she said.
Countywide, the number of “yes” votes cast for Measure A was nearly double those for Measure D in 2006. That was partly due to a record-high turnout for the 2008 election, however.
Writer Santa Ynez Valley News | Posted: Sunday, November 23, 2008
cschultz@syvnews.com
November 2009 – Terrain Consulting Defeats City of Santa Barbara Building Heights Initiative Measure B
December 2009 – Terrain Qualifies Historic Land Use Initiative for Election
Carpinteria Council Opts to Put Venoco’s Paredon Project on Ballot
By Lara Cooper, Noozhawk Staff Writer | Published on 12.14.2009
Carpinteria residents will get the chance to vote on whether to approve Venoco Inc.’s slant-drilling project next June after a late-night decision Tuesday by the Carpinteria City Council.
The council voted unanimously to put the item on the June 8, 2010, primary election ballot, but the only other option the city had was to approve the project outright.
More than 1,000 signatures were gathered earlier this year to place the slant-drilling operation, Project Paredon, on the ballot as a citizens initiative. The oil company argues that its proposed project would be a boon to city coffers and state revenues.
City officials appealed that decision earlier this year, citing concerns that the company could be trying to circumvent the environmental review required for a project of that magnitude, but a judge ruled in Venoco’s favor. The case is still under appeal.
At the last council meeting, city staff presented a 162-page report to the council detailing the effects of the project, since the normal environmental documents aren’t required under law for initiatives.
City Manager Dave Durflinger went over the report’s executive summary, which states that while the city would gain a “significant annual amount“ in revenue from the project, home values in the neighborhood surrounding the project would drop 10 percent to 15 percent, it would open the city up to litigation and it would allow effects not permitted in other projects.
Venoco spokesman Steve Greig said voters would decide only the first step of the process and that governing bodies, such as the California Coastal Commission, would have to sign off on the project, too.
He also contends the city was under-reporting the benefits the project would bring to the city. “This is an unprecedented windfall for the community,“ he said.
Greig and Venoco’s attorney, Mark Manion, were met by a thorny audience, many of whom identified themselves as members of the group Citizens Against Paredon.
“This is against the public interest,“ said Miguel Checa, a spokesman for the group.
He pointed to the city seal behind him on the wall, emblazoned with the title “City of Carpinteria: World’s Safest Beach.“
“Let’s keep it that way,“ he said.
Councilwoman Kathleen Reddington said that when she heard Venoco representatives talk, she didn’t hear anything about the community’s interest. “When I hear them speak, I hear money, and that’s all I hear,“ she said.
When Greig said the company would foot the bill to hold a special election in early April, instead of a primary in June, Councilman Joe Armendariz said he was puzzled by the choice.
“We really want to do what the voters of Carpinteria want,“ Greig responded, saying the company would like to do mail-in ballots after it saw the turnout success of Santa Barbara’s city election in November.
Councilman Brad Stein asked Greig what the company would do if it failed. “What if you go down in flames?“ he asked.
“Venoco will take that information and go from there,“ Greig said.
The sentiment that the planning and environmental process was being circumvented by the initiative was nearly unanimous on the dais.
“We were elected up here to uphold the laws and rules, and it’s being taken away from us,“ Stein said. He also said that many of the qualifying signatures for the ballot measure were from people who were misled by Venoco.
“A lot of folks didn’t know what they were signing,“ he said.
Councilman Al Clark agreed. “The homeowners were only told about an oil well and a bag of cash,“ he said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com
June 2010 – Terrain Consulting Secures Victory for Joyce Dudley for Santa Barbara District Attorney
Joyce Dudley Elected Santa Barbara County’s New District Attorney
She says the first order of business will be to mend wounds inflicted on the office during a divisive race
By Ben Preston, Noozhawk Staff Writer Published on 06.09.2010
After a long and heated campaign, the results are in: Joyce Dudley defeated rival Josh Lynn and won election Tuesday as Santa Barbara County’s next district attorney.
She received 31,811 votes, or 54.11 percent, compared with Lynn’s 26,791 votes, or 45.57 percent.
Dudley said her main goal upon taking over as district attorney will be to heal the scars left by what many considered to be a divisive contest.
“I think that I’ll be meeting with some people individually, some people in small groups, and some people in larger groups to see where the office is right now,“ she told Noozhawk.
While the campaign had moments of acrimonious debate, both candidates said Tuesday evening – while waiting for the results to trickle in – that outside of their differences, the most important issue facing the District Attorney’s Office in the future is continued dedication to providing the best law enforcement possible.
During his post-election soiree, Lynn reflected on a tough campaign, in which both candidates had been accused at times of being a bit rough with each other.
“Elections are political events, but law enforcement is 24/7,“ he said. “I’m proud to be involved in that, and I’m proud to have been a district attorney for 15 years.“
The big question, though, is what the interoffice dynamic will be within a politically divided office once Dudley settles into her new role. With rumors flying about that Lynn will be fired – a concern even he has expressed – Dudley said she is not yet sure whether she will keep him on staff.
“That’s contingent upon a conversation with him and others to see what’s in the best interest of the county,“ she said, adding that after the stress of a hard campaign, she plans to travel to Utah on Wednesday to begin “hiking, biking, smelling the roses; not working on this campaign. I’ve been working on this campaign for a year.“
When asked how Dudley had succeeded in the race, campaign manager Brian Robinson said it came down to running a more positive campaign than Lynn, as well as working hard to get the word out in the North County, where Dudley is not as well known.
“Joyce is on boards and committees and is involved in the community; she really cares,“ he said. “We ran a multidimensional campaign with TV and radio ads, mailers, calls and door-to-door visits.“
— Noozhawk staff writer Ben Preston can be reached at bpreston@noozhawk.com
November 2010 – Another Revenue Measure Victory for Terrain
School Measures Q and R Receive Strong Support
Voters approve the bond measures, providing $110 million for infrastructure improvements
By Giana Magnoli, Noozhawk Staff Writer Published on 11.02.2010
The Santa Barbara School District’s two bond measures received voter approval in Tuesday’s election, giving its elementary and secondary schools $110 million in combined funding for infrastructure improvements.
Measure Q, a $75 million general obligation bond for the secondary district, won handedly – 68.98 percent (33,401 votes) to 31.02 percent (15,023 votes). The elementary district’s Measure R, a $35 million bond, also secured a large lead, passing 70.85 percent (14,805 votes) to 29.15 percent (6,090 votes).
“We are very pleased to have so much community support for our school facilities,“ Superintendent Brian Sarvis said in a news release issued Wednesday morning. “We have a number of shovel-ready projects, including the Santa Barbara High School kitchen and replacement of the portables at San Marcos High School with a permanent wing to house the Health Academy. In addition, we have a number of other projects that we will be able to apply for state approval.“
Deputy Superintendent Eric Smith has said that every effort will be made to keep tax rates at the same level.
Priority projects include renovating and maintaining facilities and grounds, with an emphasis on fixing up the district’s oldest buildings and replacing portables.
Steering committee co-chairs Mark Ingalls and Lynn Rodriguez of the Santa Barbara Education Foundation advocated the measures as timely, necessary initiatives to support local education and the community at large.
— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @Noozhawk or @NoozhawkNews.
Election Results Wrap-Up
Santa Barbara Independent
Thursday, November 4, 2010
By Indy Staff
School Issues
Those anti-tax feelings did not hurt Measures Q and R, bonds for capital improvements at Santa Barbara’s public schools; both got around 70-percent support. Campaign consultant Brian Robinson chalked that up to a “team effort,“ explaining, “If it wasn’t for the hard work that the teachers do for our kids, these wouldn’t have passed.“
October 2010 – SBEF Boardmember
Brian Robinson Joins Santa Barbara Education Foundation Board
Land-use public relations consultant is president of Harding School Foundation
By Margie Yahyavi | Published on 10.21.2010
Brian Robinson, co-founder and principal of Terrain Consulting Inc., has been elected as a board member of the Santa Barbara Education Foundation. Terrain Consulting is a land use and natural resources public relations firm in Santa Barbara founded by Robinson and Jim Youngson in 2003.
Robinson is president of the Harding School Foundation, a member of the Oversight Committee for the elementary school parcel tax Measure I, former chairman of the Santa Barbara Police Department’s Citizens Advisory Committee, and a former associate member of the Old Spanish Days board of directors.
Robinson and his wife, Gena, live in Santa Barbara with their two young daughters, Zoe and Quinn, who both attend preschool at Harding University Partnership School. Robinson has been a Santa Barbara resident for 17 years and completed his bachelor’s degree at UCSB.
The Santa Barbara Education Foundation promotes private support of Santa Barbara’s public education system, serving 16,000 students in 26 schools from Gaviota to Montecito. Click here for more information, or call 805.284.9125
January 2011 – Youngson Elected Boardmember Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce
Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce Welcomes New Board Chairman Steve Fedde
Chamber’s annual membership meeting highlights accomplishments of 2010, outlines plans for 2011
By Alex Kacik, Noozhawk Staff Writer | @NoozhawkNews | Published on 01.25.2011
The Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce held its annual membership meeting at UCSB’s Mosher Alumni House on Tuesday night, bidding outgoing board chairman Steve Greig farewell and welcoming incoming chairman Steve Fedde.
Fedde, vice president of Sares-Regis Group, the developer of Cabrillo Business Park, said his main priority will be to nurture a sustainable environment that allows startup companies to thrive in Goleta and surrounding communities.
“Locally born companies need to stay and grow local, and that’s really our goal,“ he said of the chamber’s 2011 initiatives.
Although the Goleta business community “weathered the (economic) storm quite well,“ Fedde said the city of Goleta has an opportunity to compete and minimize California’s statewide financial challenges.
Greig recapped his time as chairman, highlighting the rekindled relationship among the cities of Goleta and Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, the Workforce Investment Board and UCSB.
“The community is fortunate to have all of you who serve on a board that helps the business community,“ said Greig, government relations manager of Venoco Inc.
Kristen Amyx, president and CEO of the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce, noted that Goleta’s business community has been a popular topic of conversation among politicians, pundits and economists because of Goleta’s thriving job market, wealth and culture of innovation.
“We did it – we ended the year in the black,“ Amyx said of the chamber’s own finances.
The event, sponsored by Pepperdine University’s Graziado School of Business and Management, attracted business owners, entrepreneurs and a handful of political officials from all over the area. In a groundbreaking partnership, the Graziado School is working with the UCSB Alumni Association to offer master’s degrees in business to South Coast residents.
Among those in attendance were incoming board members Peter Brown of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Gene Lucas of UCSB, Steve Nicholson of Citrix Online, Eric Onnen of Santa Barbara Airbus, Bill Terre of FLIR Commercial Vision Systems, Emma Torres of Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, Jim Youngson of Terrain Consulting and Craig Zimmerman of The Towbes Group.
Amyx and Greig thanked outgoing board members Chick Baltuskonis of Community West Bank, Kathy Boomer of the Goleta Union School District and Joanne Funari of Business First Bank. Greig also bestowed the annual Chairman’s Award on fellow board member Michael Rattray, the organization’s treasurer and the CEO of the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County.
The membership meeting also gave the chamber an opportunity to honor its ambassador corps, the volunteers who coordinate, put together and staff such functions.
“People always ask me what do ambassadors do?“ said Drew Wakefield, director of sales and marketing at Ramada Limited and the outgoing chairman of the Goleta ambassadors. “I reply, ’One word: Everything.’“
Wakefield turned over the reins of the group to Hallie Avolio, sales and marketing director of Latitude 34˚ Technologies.
Title sponsors of the membership meeting were longtime Goleta Valley chamber supporters MarBorg Industries, Santa Barbara Airport, The Towbes Group and Venoco Inc.
Corporate sponsors were Noozhawk, Allied Waste Services of Santa Barbara, Ameravant, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Cabrillo Business Park, Citrix Online, Cox Communications, Latitude 34˚ Technologies, Marmalade Café, Media 27, Montecito Bank & Trust, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust and the UCSB Mosher Alumni House.
— Noozhawk staff writer Alex Kacik can be reached at akacik@noozhawk.com . Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @Noozhawk or @NoozhawkNews. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.
Santa Barbara Newspress
JOIN TOGETHER
Regional action required to solve local problems
10/3/04
The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments has just released "Taking Action Regionally," a report that for the first time reviews the jobs, housing and congestion crisis emerging between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and how best to address these interconnected problems on both local and regional levels.
What "Taking Action Regionally" discovered that is unique is an overall lack of community ownership in addressing these large-scale problems, and without that ownership and cooperation, our quality of life will slowly erode.
As public policy consultants to the project, we facilitated discussions of a diverse two-county Blue Ribbon Committee of leading citizens, government staff and consultants who convened in good faith to address the problems that confront the region, review analysis and models to verify public perceptions, and prioritize specific action steps in terms of policy and politics.
Two obvious -- but overlooked -- premises were discovered that our communities have missed in their well-intended efforts to address such large-scale challenges:
1) They cannot be solved city by city, or by a county in isolation, and 2) communities are clearly not working together to make substantial progress in bettering our region.
Cities, by their nature, have historically acted unilaterally, without consideration of policy effects across jurisdictional boundaries. This was fine decades ago, when urban areas were naturally separated by open spaces.
Moreover, it has been well documented that state tax policies in recent decades have resulted in cities competing against -- rather than cooperating with -- each other for prime sources of sales tax revenue, like big box retail and auto malls.
Today, however, individual community actions are clearly having unintended and detrimental effects on our entire region. For example:
- North Santa Barbara County risks becoming predominantly a bedroom community due to no-growth policies in San Luis Obispo's five-cities area and Santa Barbara's South Coast.
- While Santa Barbara County's South Coast holds a prime job base and flat population growth, its dependence on more than 20,000 Ventura and North County commuters has spiked traffic congestion and housing prices to alarming levels.
- Pinched between the L.A. metropolitan area and affordable housing-starved Santa Barbarans, western Ventura County experiences massive transportation and housing infrastructure pressures.
- After poring over various data sources and modeling forecasts, the group leveraged its collective insights to identify a series of immediate, action-oriented steps that must be taken to build community momentum to change. (To review the report and its participants, go to www.SBCAG.org.)
- The group did not agree on everything, but in the end, it unanimously underscored that we are facing a crisis and that meaningful change will require the development of inter-regional alliances, which heretofore have not been nurtured.
The report's recommendations provide a road map to problem solving in the following seven policy areas:
- Inter-regional communication and collaboration,
- Advancing housing polices that reflect regional priorities,
- Integrating regional thinking into job creation and economic development,
- Streamlining local permit processing,
- Support for ongoing programs to address congestion,
- Public education and involvement opportunities,
- Legislative advocacy for change.
First and foremost, the recommendations are built on the premise that communities must begin to communicate together before they can begin to address (let alone solve) large-scale societal problems.
Strategically, these efforts must begin slowly and build momentum over time.
In terms of first steps, the report recommends that:
1) SBCAG and the Ventura County Organization of Governments begin a dialogue (which, thanks to this report, they are commencing); 2) the counties and cities of Ventura and Santa Barbara, and ultimately San Luis Obispo, begin to talk about successes as well as challenges they collectively face; 3) key community organizations, such as the Ventura County Civic Alliance, Santa Barbara Economic Community Project and Improve North County, begin talking together about common interests and potential solutions; and 4) chambers of commerce and key economic associations engage amongst themselves and with government on issues of mutual concern.
Why haven't these discussions taken place before? Through our work, we discovered that the city-by-city and county-by-county approach that represents the status quo, by its very nature, disenfranchises the very people who feel the impacts the most -- those who commute have no vote and no clout. Addressing problems regionally requires elected officials to look beyond their borders to define community in a more regional sense.
We cannot continue to operate in isolation of each other, assuming that "local control" will determine our fate. We must start discussing these problems on a grander scale.
In our opinion, regional problems require regional solutions. Elected officials and community leaders have everything to gain by sitting down together and addressing these problems collectively, rather than in piecemeal fashion.
Our region must stay ahead of the curve by thinking together about the future. In "Taking Action Regionally," we call on local government and the private sector to join this effort and confront the worsening status quo. If not now, then when? If not us, then who?
Someone once said that leadership entails not only the capacity to have and maintain influence beyond your authority, but the ability to get people to face the gap between the values they stand for and the conditions in which they live.
It is that kind of leadership that is required if we are to meaningfully address the economic, housing and mobility conditions that confront Santa Barbara and western Ventura County.
John Jostes & Jim Youngson
John Jostes owns Interactive Planning & Management, and is a professional mediator; Jim Youngson is co-owner of Terrain Consulting, a public relations consulting firm.
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