Letter to the Editor: Santa Barbara Mayor Responds to Newspaper’s Mudballs

http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/letter_to_the_editor_santa_barbara_mayor_responds_to_newspapers_mudballs/

By Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum

On July 2, the Santa Barbara News-Press editorial page editor launched a number of mudballs at me. Here is my response:

I did not cause a “deadly youth gang crisis.” The truth is that the budget for the Police Department has climbed each year I have been mayor. The fiscal year we just ended, it was $32,206,702 and this new fiscal year has an increase to $32,960,553. The overall crime rate has fallen steadily over the past decade, and this city has stepped up to pull together youth-serving organizations for a short-term summer strategy focusing on core gang members and a longer-term strategy preventing and intervening in gang activities. It is working. Government, nonprofits, schools, businesses are all working together, making a difference in the lives of our youth.

Saying that I am “approving overdevelopment that is changing the essence of Santa Barbara” assumes that I act alone and that there is overdevelopment going on. The fact is that I don’t act alone, and we are a well-planned and well-managed city. Do I like the two buildings on Chapala Street that are so controversial? Not much, but I did not have anything to do with their approval. They were approved at the Planning Commission without an appeal. Yes, this town is changing, a steady growth rate over the past 50 years of a little over 1 percent a year. Now the growth rate has leveled off, less than 1 percent each of the last couple of years. Do I like the way this town has evolved? Yes, very much. We have managed our growth well here. It is one of the best places to live in the world, not only for its physical beauty but for its wonderful people who live here. We are a caring, compassionate people, ready to help our neighbors and to celebrate this place.

The editorial page editor says that I twice tried to get him fired. Show me the letters or the e-mails to that effect. He can’t because they don’t exist. Early in his career, I tried to get then-publisher Joe Cole to get him out into the community so he can see who we are and what we are about in order to write better editorials and opinion pieces. I have never tried to get him fired, although everyone knows I have had many reasons to. He cannot come up with any proof of this.

Show me any proof that I resent former Mayor Harriet Miller. It does not exist. I don’t. She has her style and I have mine, which is the way it should be. It was the editorial page editor who canceled my appearance on her radio show for no reason that I know of. I stand ready to come on the radio station anytime, and I have an open invitation to the editorial page editor to come on my radio program.

I have no idea about the other mudballs he threw. I don’t remember refusing to have a picture taken with Bruce Rittenhouse on the beach of Puerto Vallarta, nor do I know of any letters about former Mayor Miller I would have delivered to the News-Press. Why would I do either of those things? Nor have I ever ordered my husband to do anything. We are married 44 years because of a mutual respect for each other, not for any ordering around.

Mud is better when it is not flung around.

Mayor Marty Blum
Santa Barbara

http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/letter_to_the_editor_santa_barbara_mayor_responds_to_newspapers_mudballs/