••• “The city has abruptly terminated its consultant contract with MIG, the consultant it hired under a $780,000 contract to manage the State Street Master Plan. The City Council on Tuesday plans to hire a new consultant [architect and urban planner Stefanos Polyzoides] to finish out the remaining part of the contract. The city paid MIG $570,000, leaving about $210,000 on the contract.” The reason cited was “an evaluation of project progress and scope alignment.” —Noozhawk
••• Meanwhile, “Santa Barbara is staring at a budget shortfall of $5.9 million in 2026 and $11.4 million in 2027. The city’s three-member Finance Committee met Tuesday to prioritize some of the ideas for raising revenues and cutting costs.” Some of those ideas include raising hotel and cannabis taxes, reducing hours for city workers, a tax on homeowners to help fund libraries, RV campsites at waterfront lots, taxes on short-term vacation rentals, allowing more cruise ships to visit, and more. —Noozhawk
••• “Santa Barbara is seeing fewer tourists, especially international visitors. […] This trend is not Santa Barbara specific; the entire state is seeing similar decreases. Visit California reported that August 2025 saw a 7.5% decrease in international tourists compared to August 2024.” —Noozhawk
••• “The Santa Barbara County supervisors voted […] to ban the issuance of any new well permits for onshore oil operations in Santa Barbara County. That ordinance will take at least a year to wind its way through the county’s process, but that’s just the easy part. The hard part—maybe an impossible part—is to phase out all the existing oil operations. That will take three years at the very soonest and will require the expenditure of what might be $2 million the cash-strapped county—now looking at laying off more than 100 full-time employee positions—does not now have.” —Independent
••• “Sable Oil Loses Major Courtroom Battle with Coastal Commission […] Santa Barbara Judge Rules Company Needed Permits Before Doing Pipeline Repairs.” The Independent‘s article also includes a handy recap of the whole situation.
••• “A regional trail project connecting Buellton, Solvang and Santa Ynez is gaining momentum, with more than $1.1 million in early funding secured and design work expected to begin this fall. Led by the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, the Santa Ynez Valley Active Transportation Regional Connector”—it rolls right off the tongue—”would create a roughly 9-mile multiuse path from River View Park in Buellton to the junction of Highways 246 and 154.” —Noozhawk
••• Noozhawk ran an update on the Electrify America vehicle-charging station under construction at the corner of Chapala and Carrillo. “The location will include 20 DC Fast Chargers, along with new landscaping. […] Santa Barbara has 44 public fast chargers, but 28 of them are owned by Tesla [and] only vehicles licensed to charge at a Tesla charger can use them.”
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Could you update your pedlet picture please? It looks a lot better now that they removed the cones, fixed the ramps, and added a lot more plants.
“Santa Barbara is staring at a budget shortfall of $5.9 million in 2026 and $11.4 million in 2027 ” = lets raise taxes & fees …So the BOS wants to push Sable out to the tune of $2 milion- could they possibly see the potential tax revenue from renewed drilling solving any of their problems? Mind boggling how they think. How do other oil producing Countries do it, remove and get oil products safely to the United States? Is the technology available here ? Asking for a friend.
Sam- do you need ketchup with your fries? I have house made mango ketchup if you prefer.
Most of you comment should be directed to the county. Not the city. Hugs.
So, I only had two years of college economics, but:
– Tourism is down, so increasing the hotel tax is supposed to help raise revenue?
– Legal marijuana enterprises are already losing out big time to illegal vendors, because of the taxes they have to pay, and we’re going to significantly raise those taxes even higher?
– Cruise ship revenue is fine, I suppose, but these visitors don’t help the hotels or evening restaurant business at all
– Lots of talk of raising revenue, but the cost cutting seems pretty weak– a voluntary reduction in hours for a few workers, not much else
Well said, you get it.
Is there an update on Mackenzie market? I drove by today and I saw 15-20 people working. Can you please give us an update on when it will open and what it’s going to be?
Thanks
The owners are the folks behind Teddy’s and Brass Bird in Carp, and they’ve said that they’ll open a branch of Teddy’s there (but rumors persist it will actually be a Brass Bird). Either way, I’m sure they have no idea when construction will be finished and the restaurant will be ready to open.
Hi Erik,
I am a Peabody mom and friends with the owners of Mackenzie market. The original plan was for this location to be a Teddys by the sea but you are correct that it will know be a brass bird coffee house similar to their carpinteria location. I am not sure on when they will open but it looks like they are getting close to finishing.
MT
CAF knows what’s up. And we just had a sales tax increase as well.
Maybe SBPD could post a couple motocycle cops up on Cliff Dr., handing out tickets for speeding and dangerous driving. This could easily net a couple million annually. A safe street would be a happy byproduct.
Open State Street, keep it clean/lawful, treat businesses here like customers and stop waisting our tax dollars on multi year studies and woodshop sidewalk projects
C’mon, you don’t like seeing money wasted every 6 months for a fresh new “best” idea for State Street? It’s a political piggy bank.
State Street and our City are being radically mismanaged. Our City officials do not understand people (locals or tourists). They evdiently have no idea how an economy works or thrives. Coast Village Rd, Linden Ave, Solvang, and San Luis Obispo having thriving downtown streets. We have the State Street Dump from the 400 block to the 1200 block – one long black hole. You can’t tax your way to prosperity. As a local family, we don’t go downtown anymore. It’s a dump. The 500 block is a bunch of bars and restaurants. Terrific. How much alchohol can one small city and a group of college students consume in a week, every week? What about the rest of the inaccessible Street? State Street is a mismanaged abyss.
LMFAO State Street and the city of fails. International tourism down, affordable housing for all up! Way up! Didn’t see this train wreck coming did we? Keep your heads buried in that warm sand Santa Barbara.
And…tax the homeowners for their careless spending and hiring new “consultants”…no wonder we have a budget shortfall……crazy.
Santa Barbara has an incredible pool of leadership talent among us. Residents and homeowners are primary stakeholders in our county/city, Might we try a volunteer citizens advisory council? The salaried city and county managers would be perfect to organize this group and apply the advice they offer.
Maybe we get away from the district elections. This town is too small for that. We end up work uncontested, unqualified candidates that lack understanding of financial basics & pander to special interests.
It would be nice if the Noozhawk article mentioned the largest revenue generator on the Finance Committee’s list of options: “Increase Waterfront Slip Fees to market rate” with a predicted increase of $1million-$3 million in revenue. This would have a big impact on how the harbor runs, which I don’t think is fully understood.
As I have written before, if the city had hired Rick Caruso to complete a plan for State Street it would have been completed by now. Why? Because the plan would have made sense for retailers, the public and tourists, retaining the beautiful and historic aspects of State Street with with restaurant expansion, safe walking paths and bike lanes. The plan would have been so good the city could have already raised the funds off it. Instead, the inept council has someone bring in ugly metal walkways to solve the problem? Let’s all work to vote the entire city council out asap.
I agree with you, Paul. I propose we go back to the basics & return Council Member Compensation to a monthly stipend emphasizing public service over lifelong political careers.
Prior to 2004, council members received a modest monthly stipend reflecting the part-time, public service nature of their roles—a model that echoed the historical American tradition of citizen-legislators serving without lavish remuneration.
The pre-2004 stipend system supported effective governance for decades. Proving that modest compensation fosters dedicated public servants without creating career incentivized politicians.
Fast forward to 2025, the city’s total annual budget is approximately $577 million, with personnel costs (including elected officials) of $124+ million spent on salaries & benefits annually. $124+ million is only for the City of Santa Barbara.
The County of SB annual payroll (including benefits & pensions) is close to 1 Billion per year! This is unsustainable.