The Importance of Small Business and Tourism In Our Local Economy

By Sharon Byrne

Series of questions and answers on tourism, perceptions of Santa Barbara, and stimulating the local economy.

Do you agree that visitors are choosing not to return due to negative experiences during their time in our area, such as aggressive panhandling, dirty beaches, and concern over youth/gang violence? Y/N YES. As executive director of the Milpas Community Association, we have several hotels and restaurants in our membership. They report that the conditions of the neighborhood, allowed to occur by the city, have made it an uphill struggle for them. The Blue Sands Inn reports that reviews on Yelp and other internet tourism sites tell potential tourists not to come here, because they'll spend $300 on a hotel room to look out over a lot of blight. Families visiting the area rush past lower State to get above Haley, because conditions there are very poor. This is unacceptable if one is trying to cultivate a tourism business. Under my leadership, the Milpas Community Association has worked hard to turn lower Milpas around, including cleaning up and fencing the Cabrillo ball-field, getting bike cops along the beach, and putting more police in the area. I organized a coalition in May of the MCA, the GSBLRA, and the Downtown Org to lobby the city for more police to service all three areas (Milpas, State St, Waterfront) during the police budget hearing. This city is a precious jewel, and it needs careful stewardship to ensure its legendary appeal to residents and visitors alike remains a strong asset.

Do you agree that residents are avoiding our core retail & community areas due to those same concerns? Y/N Yes. People have already said they won't shop on Milpas due to negative transient and gang behavior in our area. Lower State, especially at Gutierrez, has seen a spate of stabbings and fights lately. This cannot be anything but off-putting to residents who might normally come to the area. It's a self-defeating downward spiral. Because there is crime, business drops off. The more business drops off, the more crime there will be, because areas will be darker, less populated, and more vulnerable. Residents see it, and avoid it even more. It disappoints me terribly when longtime residents tell me they will no longer take a family stroll on State St, or shop at one of the great markets on Milpas, or jog along the beach.

Would you publicly support and advocate for separating the issues of homelessness and the criminal-element transients, and addressing each challenge differently? Yes. There are a great many homeless we never encounter + the transitional homeless. They've recently lost a job, had their house foreclosed on, and found themselves homeless. They are homeless 2 days to 2 weeks to 2 months, and all they want is to get back into a life with a home and a job. They are the easiest and lowest cost group to help. They also use the fewest services, and don't cause problems. The chronic homeless are a smaller percentage of the population, and use the most police, fire, and ambulance services, are the hardest to help, and most resistant to services. This group also is known for drug use, public inebriation, passing out on street corners, and breaking into sites to camp. They don't tend to be violent, but they do shoplift, engage in risky behaviors, and harass passers-by. This is the group that the Santa Monica model works best with in terms of directing resources appropriately to either relocate them with family or get them into permanent housing so they do not remain on the street. The last group is perhaps the most worrisome, and that is a criminal-element mistaken for homeless. They've broken into stores, including on State St, committed two violent attacks on State, and strong-arm thefts, and other criminal behavior. That group requires strong enforcement, in partnership with State Parole. Three different approaches for three very different groups are needed, if we want to be effective in dealing with this problem.

Do you favor stricter ordinances and other initiatives to reduce panhandling and criminal homeless activity throughout Santa Barbara? YES. Santa Monica passed a no-panhandling ordinance within their Third St Promenade, and it is now a clean, vibrant retail area, with throngs of people. State St should be at least this vibrant, but cannot if panhandling and criminal homeless activity are allowed to go on. Our city attorney has a copy of that ordinance, but we have not enacted it here.

Do you favor directing funds to increase police protection in our city? Y/N I have advocated for this, as I pointed out above, and I have had heartburn over it afterwards. The police and fire budget is $56 million annually. It is the greatest allocation of our general fund monies. If police and fire spend, say, 30% of their time dealing with a chronic homeless issue here, and all we're doing is maintaining that issue in place, and not solving it, then we're wasting money in resources. A better solution would be to significantly reduce the number of homeless on our streets, which would reduce costs overall. In the short term, however, I have talked this over with the police, and we feel we can police our way out of some of the criminal element. So yes, increase in police protection is required until some of the gang violence and criminal-element in the transient population is under control.

Do you believe the Tourism Industry is facing increased competition from other destinations? Y/N Absolutely. I have heard Carmel, Pasadena, and Santa Monica are more pleasant, cleaner, and more tourist-friendly destinations lately than Santa Barbara. That's distressing. We ought to be the reigning champions in tourism because nowhere else is both as beautiful and as historic as this city. It's the one place you can go in the United States, and feel like you went to Italy, the South of France, or Spain....without having left the country. I am also discouraged when I go online to book airline tickets, and get promotions for San Francisco and San Diego, but see nothing for Santa Barbara. One thing I would do, if elected, is sit down with the tourism industry and the Visitors bureau, and insist we run online ads to attract people here, partner with airlines and Amtrak to put together special discount packages, and boost our tourism immediately. We should not be losing visitors to Pasadena. We have something far more special on offer. We need to highlight it and capitalize on it.

Do you favor allocating additional funds to clean up the City's beachfront, Milpas corridor, and main community areas such as State Street? Y/N Absolutely. These are the tourism arteries. They need to be pristine, well-maintained, friendly, welcoming, and easily accessible. I walk the beach from Stern's Wharf to the Cabrillo ballfield daily, and it is not a pretty sight at present. If I think that, what do the tourists think? I also think that these same areas that are tourism hubs are resident-hubs as well. I walk down State to the beach. I go out to dinner on State, because it's walking distance from my home. I like being on Stern's Wharf, and taking walks on the beach. Everyone here wants to enjoy these beautiful areas. They need to be clean and attractive for residents and tourists alike to enjoy. These three areas are the most trafficked, and therefore are the heartbeat of our local economy. If they're poorly maintained and not safe, we're at risk of becoming Venice Beach. No one wants that outcome.

Will you accept campaign funding from any labor unions? I received the public safety endorsement. What attracted them to me was my strong public safety stance and leadership skills. Public Safety is the only union contribution I could conceive of accepting.

Short Answer Questions:

How would you rank the tourism industry in importance for the local economy and employment?

I think I've articulated this above, but I know that there is no other major industry here. We don't have manufacturing, a strong tech sector, or a big finance industry here. Tourism is the major industry, and as such, it's both an economic engine, and a jobs generator. It needs to be given utmost prominence and importance in local government decisions, and supported and encouraged appropriately in public policy making. I don't see any other hope for getting out of this recession in the near timeframe, which means property and sales taxes will continue to be depressed. The only economic factor we can stimulate and have any hope of return on investment is tourism, and this is where I would place my bet on creating jobs in this city, and improving our local economy.

What approach have you seen work or do you think would work in curbing problems with vagrancy and youth/gang violence in Santa Barbara?

I am getting to be quite the policy expert in these areas, which marks an interesting turn in my life that led to the decision to run for city council here. I led a trip of two councilmembers to Oxnard in Nov '10 to explore their approach to gang intervention. Assembly Rep Pedro Nava arranged for us to meet with a gang-intervention team there that has had a lot of success. Between their gang injunction and this team's effort, they have dropped the gang-related homicide rate from 26 in 2003, to 6 in 2010. That's effective. They use a combination of prevention, intervention, and enforcement, and it works. As Executive Director of the Milpas Community Association, I am using an adapted version of that model, tailored for our area and needs. I pushed hard with the police, sheriff and District Attorney for the gang injunction, now in process through the courts. I also engaged with local gang prevention and intervention groups to work specific blocks on the lower Eastside that are overrun by the Eastside gang. I've partnered with SBPD's gang suppression team to start scattering this gang in this area, and organized the neighbors to form a watch to ensure their streets stay safe. I took back my own neighborhood in West Downtown, also from Eastsiders, and Westsiders coming in to try to attack Eastsiders. For the past 2 years, we've had no violence here. It's very tactical approach in nature, where we carve out various blocks, and then spread wider in our reach. I hope that by continuing this work, one day there will be no blocks, East or West, where gangs can run the show and dominate the neighbors.

I led the trip of City Council and staff down to Santa Monica in March of this year to explore their solutions, and see if we could use them here. Some of these cost a lot of money, and would be hard to implement, because we'd need to add city staff and fund non-profits more than we already do. Some cost little money, and could be easily implemented, such as relocating vagrants with family members willing to take them. We could set a policy and enact the political will behind it that says that having people living on our streets is not acceptable, for them or us. That drives a lower level of decision-making. For example, we could insist that non-profits that serve the homeless be responsible for meeting our policy goals in order to receive funding. We already give them this funding, we just don't ask for any measurable goals or check results. We could do that in future.

Those are the kinds of policies I would pursue, that I have seen are effective in other communities. We can adopt proven methods here, rather than try to re-invent the wheel.

How does tourism benefit our community?

It's the main economic engine in this community, so it provides jobs and generates revenues for the city. Our city is famous as a tourism destination, which means that there is a ready supply of people that will come here, spend money, and enjoy our city. As our reputation for beauty, history, and recreation spreads, it generates more opportunities for tourism, and it provides a beautiful place for our residents to live in. However, we can only continue this trajectory if the city is safe, clean, and healthy for both residents and visitors.

What do you believe makes Santa Barbara a unique tourism destination?

A stunning combination of natural beauty, architectural appeal, lush landscaping, and historical preservation. American cities are often too new and too young to offer a historical perspective. Our heritage has been well preserved, and as such, offers visitors a unique chance to walk Paseos like one would find in Old Spain, when Old Spain no longer exists, even in Spain! Very few places in this country, or in the world, allow visitors to experience a living past-into-the-present the way our city does. If you're not that much of a history buff, that's ok. There's loads of outdoor recreation on offer, much of it free, such as beach visits, hiking, mountain drives, and strolls up State St. Few places offer so much to singles, couples and families in terms of a delightful visit as our city does.

How should growth be managed in order to not only maintain the current standards of our area, but improve upon them so that the experience of Santa Barbara matches the perception of Santa Barbara? I do think it is a mistake to jam density in the downtown core in the hopes of providing affordable housing. Other cities, such as Rome and Prague, have made choices to put high-density residential buildings on the outskirts of their cities, to keep their historic areas as preserved as possible. Admittedly, these are ancient and medieval cities that experienced growth over centuries absent some consistent planning process. For Santa Barbara, people enjoy the views, the landscaping, the architectural theme, and so these should be preserved and kept free of intrusion. The city is already very built-out, and while dilapidated buildings dating from the 40's through the 70's can always be replaced with something more architecturally suitable, and appealing, we need to be careful in their placement and intended use. We are not trying for New York or San Francisco. We are trying to hold fast to what makes us unique.