11/25: The SB City Council decided to place a competing height measure on the November 2009 election, details to be worked out over the next months. This was on a motion by councilmember Roger Horton who changed his mind and asked for a reconsideration of his prior week's vote. See Loretta Redd, in 12/2 Daily Sound; also, the editorial in the 12/2 News-Press. Both of these have selections and are linked in our media page.
9/18: Noozhawk: Building-Height Initiative in the clear for November 2009 ballot.
9/15: Interestingly, the City found we had 11,573 signatures; the County determined there were 11,581. A count of 500 of the petitions, randomly chosen and counted by the County Elections Office, found 353 valid signatures, or 70.6% valid.
That indicates that we obtained approximately 8,176 valid signatures, considerably more than the 6,480 required.
It is item 10, scheduled on the Consent Calendar, at tomorrow's city council meeting, with the recommendation from the City Clerk's Office: "That Council receive the Certificate of Sufficiency from the City Clerkâs Office dated September 10, 2008, indicating that the subject initiative petition does have sufficient valid signatures."
9/16: The signature count was certified by the City Council without discussion.
Sept. 10: We have the signatures!!!
Santa Barbara City Clerk Cindy Rodriquez will be asking the City Council to certify the petition on its Consent Calendar on September 16th.
Congratulations to all the many, many and many more who helped in this effort, all who signed the petition and all who care about Santa Barbara and would have signed had they only lived within the city limits. The struggle for our city continues.....
UPDATES:
June and July and August
August 15, 9 AM: 11,252
signatures handed to the city clerk!
8/16 — Noozhawk (R.
Kuznia)
8/16 — Santa Barbara Daily
Sound (C. Frazier)
8/17 — Santa Barbara Independent (Nick Welsh)
8/16 — Santa Barbara News-Press (S.
Steepleton)
* 8/12: Signaturing gathering continues around town. We all are thrilled at the positive responses that we have been receiving at Saturday farmers' markets, at various festivals and in front of markets. We will turn in the petitions at on Friday, August 15, at City Hall and then the city's count begins. So as not to anticipate the press conference, we'll hold off on announcing on this update page how many signatures we have in hand. ...We have indeed exceeded our goal and surprised all of us. There is a great hunger for our city to grow slowly and low.
* 8/5: 9,650 signatures counted with
the petitions in our safe deposit box. With signed petitions being turned
in, it looks as though more than our goal of 10,000 people may have signed
their support of lowering the City's charter limit height to a maximum
of 40 feet in El Pueblo Viejo.
Prior petition drives have shown there is always a quite
high percentage of inaccuracies. For many, exact city boundaries are unclear;
for other signers, there's not a current registered address; or there are
wishful signers (despite our requests for SB City only) from Noleta, Goleta
and Montecito; or there's the legibility factor. We are continuing to collect
signatures.
* 7/29: 9,305 signatures counted.
* 7/24: 8,863 signatures
counted.
* 7/19: 8,462 signatures counted.
* 7/14: 8,348 signatures counted.
* 7/06: 8,172 signatures counted.
* 6/29: 7,841 signatures counted.
* 6/22: 7,478 signatures counted.
* 6/17: 7,295 signatures counted.
NB: The photo above is of West Montecito Street, a small business neighborhood, the jacarandas in full bloom, early on a June evening, showing people-sized buildings; it's a commercial zone, on the edge of the red-marked section of the height limits map. To see what's in the project "pipeline", click here.
