July 20, 2001
Santa Barbara

Opening Comments

The Speaker's Commission on Regionalism (SCOR) held its 9th meeting on July 20th at the Faulkner Gallery in the Santa Barbara Central Library. SCOR Chairperson Nick Bollman gave welcoming remarks and discussed the upcoming August Commission retreat.

Chairperson Bollman then reviewed highlights from the New Governance retreat held June 28-29 at USC. He requested that the Committee on New Governance begin work on crafting a report that would build on the retreat discussion. Chairperson Bollman also spoke to the Final Report being a communications document, to be completed in late fall by the Commission.

The agenda began with a discussion of the Barbour, Teitz, and Silva paper, "A Proposed Framework for Collaborative Regional Decision-making in California," by the Commissioners and Michael Teitz. The Commissioners came to the consensus that if the Commission were to adopt the recommendations in the paper, the proposals would have to become more detailed and specific. Further discussion of the recommendations was approved.

Discussion of the Barbour, Silva, and Teitz paper entitled "A Proposed Framework for Collaborative Regional Decision-making in California."

The morning discussion focused on the elements of a new framework for regional collaboration brought forward by Barbour, Silva, and Teitz in their report. Briefly, the purpose of the paper was to provide the commissioners with additional perspective on creating a new regional decision-making framework. The elements the authors outlined included policies and institutional frameworks. The authors further broke the program framework into three specific developments: regional planning compacts, multipurpose regional plans, and a state commitment to regional compacts. Michael Teitz presented the paper.

Overall, the commissioners praised the report, citing only a few areas for improvement. Commissioner Wright began the discussion by asking whether the report was recommending a RGEC-type of regional government, with regional consultation backed by the state hammer. If so she questioned whether citizens would get behind the regional government.

Commissioner Cabaldon questioned the incentives given by the report as well. He noted that they do not appear sufficiently attractive, and that local governments would need policy objectives similar to those in the Commission's State-Local Finance Reform report to make entering into a regional compact seem worthwhile. Commissioner Cabaldon recommended giving regions fiscal responsibility and clear standards. He also stressed that the Commission explores the applicability of regional governance, not ways to deal with growth. He believes that the creation of smart growth policies should be separated from the Commission's other goals.

Commissioner Parra voiced a concern that local government would perceive an authoritative, fiscally independent regional government as another unwanted oversight agency. Michael Teitz suggested an appeal in the regional compact process for local governments. Commissioner Cabaldon commented, however, that with the goals outlined in the report, which he characterized as broad, fuzzy, and exogenous, a regional commission would have too much leeway to develop into an oversight agency.

Commissioner Bacharach voiced a concern that the Commission is, in fact, outlining a permanent regional governance structure, whose oversight mandates would create an additional burden for local government. She also questioned how the regional entity would deal with those parts of the region that are considered expensive or a burden. Commissioner Bacharach reiterated the point that local governments would need better incentives, or alternatively, punishments for them to participate in regional compacts, a bigger carrot or stick.

Commissioner Mazmanian made the observation that the discussion was at its core about scaling solutions to problems. He asked whether the people of California had any interest in changing the past and present ways of governing. Do they really see a change in the governing structure as a way to solve California's social and economic problems? Commissioner Mazmanian was of the mind that just switching to a regional governing structure would not help underlying problems.

Michael Teitz quickly pointed out that he believes there is a compelling state interest in growing in a way that maintains quality of life by protecting the environment and steadying the economy. California's citizens have an interest in avoiding the further degradation of the state's natural resources taking place under the current haphazard government system. He asserted that California will be looking at serious growth and continuing with current trends will cause the state irreparable harm.

Commissioner Wright voiced concerns that by providing state resources such as described in the report the Commission would provide an incentive to game the system, a sort of regional gerrymandering. She explained that the Commission began with a state-local fiscal reform emphasis, and already came to the conclusion that vaguely throwing money at another oversight agency would not solve underlying fiscal issues. Commissioner Wright questioned how the report would ultimately hang together with conflicting recommendations. She emphasized that the Commission needs to take the ideas in the report to the next level and view how the resulting concrete recommendations will complement each other.

Commissioner Wright also questioned how to frame the Commission's regional recommendations in a way that appeals to the public and legislature. She asserted that people are worried about job creation, prosperity, schools, housing, and equity issues. People are not interested in the fiscalization of land use or jobs housing balance, at least not when those terms are used. Commissioner Wright felt that the Commission needed to connect with people through ground level issues, and that regionalism should be the conclusion to the subject, rather than its beginning.

Commissioner Parra reiterated Commissioner Wright's assertion, saying that he has a serious problem tying the regionalism concept to problems in Central Valley communities.

Commissioner Clark joined the discussion saying that SB 45 should be reviewed for effectiveness, and that it could be used as a model in the Santa Barbara region. He mentioned that a recurring question in the governance debate is what communities should be required to do regarding housing and growth management. For example, should a local community have the license to decide it's own jobs/housing balance? Or, is that a policy that should be directed by the state?

Chairperson Bollman asked whether there are state interests, such as providing affordable housing in all areas, that might override certain regional interests.

Michael Teitz responded to Commissioner Clark by asserting that local communities can adopt no-growth policies, but growth will still take place and it will come with no infrastructure to support it. He stated that a crisis or popular movement would need to precipitate any change in the housing status quo of the community.

Commissioner Bacharach brought up that the state does not articulate a state growth plan, and that it needs to step up to the table and give local communities some support in their planning efforts.

Commissioner Cabaldon brought the discussion back to the state's overriding interests. He questioned where those lie and of what they might consist. He asked whether the Commission should outline what those might be prior to recommending that the state come in on the issue of local growth, which met with general agreement. Commissioner Cabaldon also voiced concerns over the "countification" of cities, where cities became dependent on state funding and direction to carry out all duties, if the state government became too involved in local growth issues and started to issue mandates. Would a state-level structure subvert local discussions and problem solving?

Commissioner Wright asked what indicator measures local governments should use to create a report on what issues are important to the state? She urged the creation of objective measures to promote regionalism. Commissioner Parra voiced the concern that performance indicators have not led to political action or change for the better.

At this point Chairperson Bollman made some concluding remarks to close the discussion, and the Commission broke for lunch.

Summary and Conclusions of Afternoon Presentations

The afternoon consisted of five presentations to the Commission. The first was an overview of the Santa Barbara Region Economic Community Project. Jon Clark, Executive Director of the Wendy P. McCaw Foundation, Brian Cearnal, President of Cearnal Architects, and Bud Laurent, Executive Director of the Community Environmental Council were the presenters.

Jeff Onstead, a University of California- Santa Barbara graduate student, and a colleague gave a demonstration of urban modeling tools developed by the Geography department at UCSB.

Sandra Tripp-Jones, a Santa Barbara City Administrator, and Micky Flacks, a community activist, gave the afternoon's third presentation. They spoke on how to influence policy through collaborative action. The Commission discussed with the presenters how community redevelopment agencies could invest some money in neighboring communities as a type of informal regional effort. The idea was developed that agencies could set up a cooperative inter-jurisdictional fund share program without shirking responsibility to their own constituencies.

Lee Moldaver, a community leader, and Michael Brown, the Santa Barbara County Administrator gave the fourth presentation. They outlined a conceptual process for a community discussion on regional governance, and eventual creation of a regional compact. However the central point was made that NPOs would need incentives to work or meet together. The Commission discussed whether housing and community development was a top down problem, or one that could be solved through the creation of regional compacts.

Joan Hartman, of the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project, and Cory Gallipeau and Michael Summers, of the Conception Coast project, gave the final set of presentations. Ms. Hartman spoke of the regional effort underway to preserve remaining wetlands in the Santa Barbara area. Mr. Summers introduced the Commission to the Conception Coast Project and its vision for the region's remaining wildlands.

After each group of speakers concluded, commissioners were given a brief opportunity for questions and discussion. At the end of the final panel, the floor was opened for public comment.