[ "Schneider on Hot Seat - Height Initiative Wins Tactical Victory," by Nick Welsh, SB INDEPENDENT, March 26, 2009 ]


An obviously agonized Helene Schneider  —  Santa Barbara City councilmember and mayoral candidate  —  cast the key vote giving traditional slow-growthers active with Save El Pueblo Viejo a significant tactical victory in their battle to put an initiative limiting the maximum size of new buildings on the November election ballot...

... Save El Pueblo supporters denounced the alternative  —  drafted by councilmembers Das Williams and Grant House — as an effort to leave voters, in the words of signature gatherer Bill Marks, “hornswoggled, boondoggled, or conned.”

... Schneider cast the tie-breaking vote to keep the alternative off the ballot, despite having initially criticized the initiative as “too simplistic” and having voted twice to authorize City Hall to pursue alternative language. After listening to the community and members of the city’s many boards and commissions, Schneider said she concluded that the alternative language was just not right. By voting against the alternative, however, Schneider found herself breaking with many close political friends and allies in the affordable housing and sustainability camp. Privately, she said the alternative process was fatally uncertain; the public would not vote on the precise enabling ordinance language until some indeterminate time after having voted in favor of the alternative itself. And that’s assuming that there would be five city councilmembers — the minimum legally required — willing to place it on the ballot.

None of this washed, however, with Mickey Flacks, an iconic affordable housing activist who until Tuesday was also a Schneider supporter. Flacks dismissed the vote as “politically calculated” and said she would no longer support Schneider in her mayoral run. (Flacks also said she would not support Councilmember Iya Falcone, whom Schnieder is now running against.) Despite past criticisms of the initiative, Schneider declined for the time being to state whether she would support it or oppose it come November...

Joining Falcone and Schneider to exclude the alternative was Mayor Marty Blum and Councilmember Dale Francisco. Joining Williams and House in supporting the alternative was Councilmember Roger Horton. Horton pointed out that the City Council never approved any of the projects on Chapala Street and that no civic groups now supporting the initiative appealed those projects to the council. He took offense that these developments had been approved by the city’s Planning Commission, and some of the most ardent supporters of the initiative were the very planning commissioners who approved them.

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SBI: Hotseat

Labels: building heights