The alarm sounded re: the San Ysidro Road “sidewalk” (which cost us $1,000,000) isn’t about aesthetics.
It is about fraud. Fraud in those who hold high elected office in Santa Barbara County.
Some background.
More of these “sidewalks” are planned for Montecito (at odds with our charter and semi-rural zoning codes.) They are part of a much grander effort called “Safe Routes to School,” spearheaded by an organization called C.O.A.S.T. How the San Ysidro was approved for construction is more complicated.
Ostensibly, C.O.A.S.T., advocates sidewalks and bike paths for children attending nearby schools. The San Ysidro project began with Steve Murdoch, who administers a foundation called Green Park, and had two children at MUS (until the Murdochs moved to England.) Murdoch wanted his children to walk to school(which they could have done without spending $1 million of taxpayer dollars by using the back path town children have used to get to school for fifty years.)
To get funding for a Federal Grant for this “sidewalk” (which too close to the road to be safe for walking) Public Works had to show pressing need. Murdoch was introduced to Mr. Carbajal by J’Amy Brown. Mr. Carbajal introduced Murdock to Dobberteen at C.O.A.S.T., Carbajal telling Murdoch that he’d get C.O.A.S.T. to push the “sidewalk” through. Murdoch was schooled by C.O.A.S.T. and Carbajal on how to manipulate “the system” so that Murdoch would get his “sidewalk.” (The C.O.A.S.T. website indicates that Murdoch’s Foundation, Green Park, is a large contributor to their organization.) Carbajal, clandestine, then solicited the $30,000 needed for an engineering survey. For funding, Public Works needed to include a “map” to justify an urgent need for the “sidewalk.” The “map” indicates the many, many non-existent homes where “schoolchildren,” the presumed beneficiaries of the “sidewalk,” currently live. The “map” would prove a lightning rod.
Taxpayers were not informed that project was going through, nor that Carbajal, of his own volition, solicited and received $30,000 for the engineering survey, nor that the “sidewalk” construction was to begin. Not until a neighbor saw Carbajal and Murdoch at the podium at MUS, in a press release, announcing incipient construction of the “sidewalk.” Murdoch states he fully noticed neighbors they’d lose trees, landscaping, and parts of their front yards when he hand-deposited (which is illegal) notes in their mailboxes. Presumably, this would have been to give the neighbors time to object. Naturally, no one objected because no one received this note.
What the neighbors did receive was a letter from Murdoch stating the “sidewalk” construction was beginning that week. It was in this note, when it was too late for the neighbors to object, that he informed them of the scope of the project and the impact it would have on their properties.
There was a hue and cry.
In packed meetings of the Montecito Association, neighbor upon neighbor rebuked the Association, averring that the “map” was a fiction. The homes, thus the “schoolchildren” did not exist. They remarked that the intent of the map was not accuracy, but an fraudulent, and illegal, trick for the construction of an unpopular project in exchange for campaign contributions to Carbajal from Murdoch.
I phoned Matt Dobberteen, Public Works’ grant writer for the County. My calls were not returned, so I went in person.
When we met, Dobberteen (a member of C.O.A.S.T.) said the “map” was provided by Dick Douglass, principal of MUS at the time, and Dobberteen affirmed the apocryphal map was used in his grant application. I asked to see the grant underwriting, a Public Record, which he said he would. This was over three months ago. I have received nothing from Dobberteen. Further phone calls to Dobberteen were not returned. I have sent the “map” to Virginia Alvarez at MUS, asking for the school’s input. I’ve not heard from Mrs. Alvarez.
I am informed by Jack Overall, chair of Montecito’s Planning Commission, that the County will soon begin construction of more “sidewalks” in the Cold Springs area. The neighbors have yet to be apprised of this.