Lee Moldaver, an activist, volunteer and community fixture whose knowledge of Santa Barbara — from water quality and the environment to housing and transportation — knew no peers, has died. He was 71.
For more than four decades, Moldaver was often the eighth City Council member, who floated in and out of City Hall with as much purpose and belonging as the electeds themselves. He was the whisperer to those in office, the journalists in town, and often displayed more knowledge and expertise in two minutes of public comment than some people who have held office for multiple years.
“Lee was a contradiction,” said Mike Jordan, who served with Moldaver on the city’s Creeks Advisory Committee in the 1990s. “He was an understated guy in the corner who didn’t mingle much, but when engaged was a super intelligent and enthusiastic source of people, local history, economic and environmental topics offered in a sort of finger-on-the-pulse-of-Santa Barbara method that was always spot on. He never sought the spotlight or asked for anything in return.
“His insight, advice and presence will be missed in this community.”
For years, everywhere a person turned at a city or county government event or affair, there was Moldaver. Quiet and unassuming but with laserlike observation skills, Moldaver could recite Santa Barbara history, chapter and verse, like Billy Graham could preach on the Bible. Endowed with wit, humor and a phenomenal memory, he would quote Greek philosophers and slip in historical war references into everyday conversation.
The loss of Moldaver marks an end to another chapter in Santa Barbara’s history. He was one of the few remaining activists in town who knew the likes of former Mayor Harriet Miller and former City Administrator Sandra Tripp-Jones, knew the lineage of council members and county supervisors dating back 40 years. While City Council members, mayors and city administrators come and go, people such as Moldaver are once-in-a-generation fixtures, with Santa Barbara losing a signficant part of its institutional memory.
“Lee was a walking, talking encyclopedia of Santa Barbara history,” said former Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider. “He was a great storyteller, even for just two minutes at a time, speaking frequently during Council’s public comment period to commemorate someone’s passing, or about a significant anniversary of a local historical event. He was ubiquitous; if there was an important community gathering, you know Lee would be there. I’ll miss him.”
As loquacious as he was when talking about public life, he was private about his personal life, choosing not to go into detail about his sources of income, his past or even his present.
He told Noozhawk reporter Josh Molina in a Santa Barbara News-Press article in 2005: “I keep my personal successes and failures private, and there are many of them.”
Although he spent most of his public career as an activist, he did make a run at office in 1982, for Santa Barbara County clerk-recorder, but lost to Howard Menzel. He served on dozens of boards over the years, and he was a longtime board member for the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District. Moldaver was a regular and frequent bus rider who could be seen dashing along the sidewalks trying to catch the bus.
Among the boards he sat on were for the Allied Neighborhoods Association, the Coalition for Sustainable Transportation, the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, and the Citizens Planning Association.
A consummate environmentalist, he advocated hard for Measure B, a tax on hotels to fund creek restoration and water quality. He helped preserve the one-time Veronica Meadows, which had been slated for luxury condos. A longtime member of the Santa Barbara Audubon Society, he was an appreciator of the outdoors and a naturalist. He spent years also on the board of the Gaviota Coast Conservancy.
Steve Forsell, president of the conservancy, said, “I am really going to miss him,” adding that Moldaver’s knowledge of “everything” was astounding.
“He had this encyclopedic memory, this institutional memory,” Forsell said. “Whenever we needed something done, he knew everybody. If we were planning an event, Lee would itemize a list of everyone we need to be involved in that and he was spot on. He had such tentacles in the community. He knew their history. He knew their biography.”
Forsell said that Moldaver had not gone out in public during the past year. He spent his days at Cottage Health or in rehab, and had been fighting a bacterial infection, sources said. They spoke every two weeks and enjoyed a strong friendship. Forsell, also a longtime community activist, said Moldaver would often introduce him at events and gatherings.
“He recited my biography better than I could,” Forsell said.
Moldaver came to Santa Barbara from the East Coast and was sometimes a consultant for the tech industry.
While he was private about himself, he seemed to know nearly everything about everybody else. He seemed to know what the mayors and council members ate for breakfast in their homes, whether they were getting along with their spouses and, most importantly, how they were going to vote on any given Tuesday.
He knew things long before anyone else did, possessing an ability to see the political terrain early, which boosted his credibility.
He sported thick, square glasses, always a big smile and a cap on his head promoting whatever environmental group he was involved with at the moment. He was a friend to journalists, leaving long messages with tips and background on their voicemails, or making impromptu visits to shoot the breeze — or, in some cases, to figure out what the reporter knew.
Former Santa Barbara councilman and planning commissioner Brian Barnwell called Moldaver “a good man” who knew the zoning code and every bus route in town.
“He always saw every side of every issue,” Barnwell recalled. “He knew more about city affairs then anyone I ever worked with. He knew as much about the planning department and the parks department as anyone I knew. He was a valuable asset to the city.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.