I want to give you a brief update on the issues the COLAB board is engaging.
Redistricting:
Top of our list right now is redistricting of county supervisorial boundaries. This is for ALL the marbles. As far as we know, via the limitations of the ZOOM meeting format, we are the only organization in the county participating in these meetings. We are prepared to sue the commission/county if they violate the independence of the commission by way of hiring an attorney who is being pushed by democratic party insiders to inordinately influence the political independence of the commission. We will do our best to inform the community about the progress of the project which is barely begun and will last most of the rest of this year.
COVID Lockdown:
Continued advocacy to reopen our economy vis a vis covid lockdown. As you know, my primary job is as a government watchdog and business advocate. Well, in my 30 year career this has been the single biggest overreach we have ever witnessed. It affected our membership across the board not to mention increasing our national debt by 25% and completely obliterating the separation and balance of powers in government. Moreover, it was THE dominant issue for the county supervisors agenda every week, taking up one to two hours on their agenda. The other dominant issue, which also came up on almost a weekly basis, but which we are only tacitly following, had to do with marijuana rules, regulations and appeals!
Huge Residential Growth Mandate:
Known as the Regional Needs Housing Assessment, this state mandate, that now has serious teeth, will require local jurisdictions to prove they have created the capacity, via planning/permit allocations, to build 24,000 housing units in SB County. The question here, is due to the fact that every community is surrounded by land that has been zoned agriculture (despite the fact that some of these lands have no water, poor soil, and steep gradients) the options we have are "sprawl" or extremely high density, stack and pack housing. We are trying to educate the community that a couple of master planned communities can actually enhance our quality of life, along with allowing some family owned ranch properties to build a couple of units on their land that doesn't conflict with their cattle operations. I am not a fan of these plans because the state dumps the mandates on local communities without lifting a finger to help them deal with the impacts of the same. Two of the biggest impacts have to do with traffic and water. That is, the state is not going to send money to accommodate the traffic on streets and freeways, nor will it allocate more water to serve the development. This will put a strain on both urban and ag uses of water.
The War on Oil and Gas
This war is two-fold. First, as it pertains to production; the restrictions on permits for new projects and existing operations. Second, as it pertains to consumption, the GHG regs, prohibitions on natural gas hookups in new construction, and the upcoming ban on gas and diesel engine vehicles. We simply don't have the electricity supplies to serve all of our needs.
Organizational Viability
It is no small task to keep COLAB alive in light of the covid shutdown which deprived us of 50% of our revenue via the cancellation of our two annual dinners. Thankfully, our savings, and the generosity of our core members has gotten us through to this point. Additionally, my campaign for Congress indirectly benefitted COLAB as a result of attracting more donors, including new radio show advertisers, not to mention the addition of a third station broadcasting our show in SLO!
Please tune in from 3-5 pm daily on AM1290 in SB, AM1440 in SM and FM 98.5 in SLO.
In addition to continuing to write weekly opeds for the Santa Barbara News Press, we have added some new fire power to our radio show lineup. The show still gives us the best opportunity to reach members of the general public as the broadcast now covers most of the Central Coast from Atascadero to Ventura!
We added Steve Milloy from JunkScience.com fame, an advisor to the Heartland Institute, and an expert on the climate change junk science for the past 30 years, as a weekly regular on our show lineup every Friday.
We also added Karen Velie from Cal Coast news, a local Central Coast investigative reporter. She is on every Wednesday now.
Soon, we will begin featuring a regular segment with local farmers.
We also regularly interview the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Prosperity, American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, the Independent Women's Forum, in addition to numerous authors, academics and pundits.
Milloy and Velie have joined our existing weekday regulars:
Mike Brown- Mondays, we discuss local government issues.
Steve Frank- Tuesdays, state-wide issues.
Katy Grimes- Wednesdays, Editor of the California Globe, a focus on Sacramento.
Pacific Legal Foundation- Thursdays, Private Property Cases, Endangered Species, Covid Lockdown abuses, etc.
Steve Greenhut- Fridays, nationally syndicated columnist whose work appears in a dozen or so publications including American Spectator, Reason, and Orange County Register.
Finally, I am still serving to educate members of the community on community choice energy and the resultant impact to electricity supplies/costs and imports of foreign oil. This past week I spoke to the Santa Maria Breakfast Rotary club on these subjects (see below).
Thanks for your support!
