Some upcoming events of interest

What: Second Thursday at El Paseo
When: Thursday, September 9, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Where: El Paseo Restaurant (off State Street)
Join COAST for our monthly Happy Hour.

What: Safe Routes to School Task Force Meeting
When: Tuesday, September 21, 12-1:30 pm
Where: Mental Health Assn. Building, 617 Garden Street (across the street from City Public Works), second floor meeting room
This is our big planning meeting for the year. It is free and open to the public. Come and find out what’s new in Safe Routes to School!

What: Walking Wednesdays with Santa Barbara Walks
When: Wednesday, September 29, 5:30 – 6:45 pm
Where: TBD
For September, we’re teaming up with 11th Annual Creek Week program (Sept 25 – Oct 3) and will be leading an Urban Watershed tour.  Note that this isn’t the typical “4th Wednesday of the month” so that we can participate in Creek Week.  Details soon!
Walking Wednesdays usually meets every 4th Wednesday of the month  (EXCEPT for SEPTEMBER) with a new topic and new location.

Something we missed? Please email Courtney to let us know!

Program’s Site
The City of Santa Barbara has began the process to update its General Plan
with an extensive public outreach to gauge the pulse of the community. This
process (“Plan Santa Barbara”) is expected to generate major policy changes.
Four public workshops were held at the beginning of the summer with a second round planned for the fall.

In order for a community to make shared decisions, it must be in possession
of shared FACTS and not proceed from misunderstandings and prejudice. That
is the message that COAST forwarded to City representatives at the May 17
presentation. How do you elevate the discussion from the usual rhetoric
(i.e., “Preserve the quality of life”, “Live within our resources”) to more
concrete topics?

Policy questions should be focused and informed instead of asking about
people’s “feelings”. COAST requests that the City provide updated
statistical information about population and development patterns as
background for these discussions. The community needs factual information
to evaluate how our population and region are evolving.

~To see COAST’s comments to City Staff click link below~

(more…)

Monday, October 9th at 7pm

Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara Public Library

Informational discussion with panel of prominent city residents and employee including Mayor Blum, David Landecker of the County Steering Committee for Yes on Measure D and Jim Kemp who is the Executive Director, Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG)

Please join us for a great opportunity to learn more about this initiative; what projects will be funded with its passing and what is at stake if it fails at the polls

Admission is free

Discussion is co-sponsored by COAST and SB CAN

This morning’s Memorial Ride for Jake provided an outpouring of sympathy from our bicycling community to the family of Jake Boysel who was killed while biking to school. Over 100 bicyclists formed a half-mile stream along Calle Real and State Street, filling the lane in Downtown Santa Barbara.

Jake Boysel’s family attended and was moved by this expression of sympathy from their community. The ride ended in De la Guerra Plaza where County Supervisor Susan Rose, City Councilmember Helene Schneider, and COAST representative Eva Inbar spoke for greater efforts to make sure all children are safer walking and biking to school.

More evidence of everybody’s concern over this sad loss is that our web site has had over 1000 visitors in the past 5 days — more than double our record weekly total. People care, they are disturbed, they are looking for safer conditions. Today’s ride wasn’t the end of action, it is the beginning of a challenge to us all to energize our collective abilities and make sure that this tragedy will not happen again. We can, indeed we must make it so.

~~ Ralph Fertig, President
~~ Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition

“Jake’s death demonstrates the tragedy that follows careless and aggressive use of the roads and may sober some folks up on their own behavior, but what a price to pay to accomplish this.”

Curtis Ridling