HOT Issues in the Santa Maria Valley
By Joyce Howerton, Executive Director
For many years, the Santa Barbara County Action Network has held HOT — housing, open space and transportation — meetings in Santa Barbara.
This is a coalition of community organizers, government and business members who come together to network, educate ourselves on issues facing the community, and offer information and support to each other.
In September of this year, we started the Santa Maria HOT Committee. We began meeting every month to work on and become informed about issues affecting our community.
At our first meeting, an energetic man showed up to talk about trails. Luis Escobar is a photographer and coach of the St. Joseph High School cross-country team. He hadn't been active in politics or community organizing until about three months ago.
Luis had to do something when runners and hikers started getting tickets for being on trails on Orcutt Hill that had been used by the public for decades. That, along with notice from county parks that runners would have to pay a fee to use Waller Park for a cross-country meet, something they'd been doing for free for years.
Luis started talking with others he met on the few trails in Orcutt that are open. They started the Santa Maria Valley Openspace Partnership to create legal opportunities locally for hiking, biking, horseback riding and walking with their dogs off leash.
Luis created a Facebook page for the group on Sept. 20. It has grown to more than 170 members.
We brainstormed who they might want to meet with to attain their goals, and we told them we would support them any way we could.
In the next two months, they met with private property owners, county staff and elected officials. Supervisor Steve Lavagnino appointed Luis to the county's Riding and Hiking Trails Advisory Committee on Nov. 8, where he will be able to give input to the Board of Supervisors on trails countywide.
Also at that first meeting was Orcutt historian Lillian Smith. If you want to know anything about the Orcutt Community Plan, ask Lillian. She can tell you line and verse where everything is, including where the Orcutt Community Plan had designated more than 40 miles of trails for public use.
Lillian is a wealth of information on Orcutt, as well as a fascinating woman, full of facts of all kinds. She has attended almost every meeting dealing with growth and development in the Orcutt community.
These individuals are just two examples of people stepping up to work on issues that impact the whole community. SB CAN is excited to work with them and other community members on issues that affect us today and for years to come.
If you are interested in the Openspace partnership, they will meet again on Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. at Orcutt Brew, 315 S. Broadway in Old Orcutt, or visit their website at www.orcutttrails.org.
If you are interested in development issues in Orcutt, please go to the Santa Barbara County website: sbcountyplanning.org.
SB CAN's HOT Committee will meet again in January. Anyone who is interested in workforce housing, preserving open space, transportation and social justice issues is welcome to attend.
Contact me at joyce@sbcan.org, or call 563-0463 if you'd like to receive notice of our meetings.
Joyce Howerton is executive director of SBCAN. She can be reached at joyce@sbcan.org. Looking Forward runs every Friday, providing a progressive viewpoint on local issues.
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Date:
25 Nov 2011 - 12:00am