SB’s Very Broken System: $200M Decisions Require More Than Two Hours!

On April 1^st, our Supervisors made decisions relating to new jail construction (384 beds) and in-custody care that will cost us $200M. These decisions – ones that will affect our County for decades – were squeezed into a 45-item agenda that included such things as proclaiming the week of April 21 “International Dark Sky Week.” There is a better way!

In 1952, the SF Chronicle ran a series of articles entitled “Your Secret Government,” that spoke to the lack of governmental transparency. The series led California to pass the Public Meeting law, i.e., the Brown Act. In our county, the Act prohibits three or more Supes from meeting unless it’s in an open public forum. In theory, the Act works well – but for deeply complex multi-million-dollar decisions, compliance needs to be reimagined. 

Our Agenda: Our county budget is $1.7B yet our Board meets just 38 Tuesdays each year. This leads to insane agendas, sometimes with 50 items, many that are Parks & Recs worthy fluff: Did we really need to have a resolution honoring the Dalai Lama on his 88th birthday? This agenda allotted “two hours” to a $200M decision and one hour for resolutions. Huh? Government guides advise “breaking down complex issues into a series, over time, of manageable items for more in-depth analysis.” Fun Fact:We spent 12 minutes presenting an employee commendation and 13 minutes discussing and then approving “Net Zero energy” adding (it’s unclear) $14M to $30M (financing) to the project. Doesn’t a $14M decision deserve a separate item? 

Working Sessions: The Act allows working and/or study sessions with the entire Board as long as such sessions are broadcast/open to the public. The jail expansion item had experts, consultants, and stakeholders present, and deserved more than a cursory discussion and rapid-fire public comment (without Q&A, no one can make an intellectual dent in three minutes). 

Better Process: At the meeting there was discussion about a decision that, in hindsight, is hugely perplexing. It was the STAR complex decision in 2015 where the Board decided to return $39M in state funding that would have built a $44M mental health treatment and re-entry facility to augment the approved North County jail project. Supervisor Lavagnino proved Nostradamus-like in his lone vote to support the STAR project: “For $1.9M we are going to get 228 beds… so, there will be a day when we will say this is what we should have done!” That day is today. Reviewing the 2015 meeting doesn’t show a failure of leadership but it does show a failure of process! Another rushed and staccato-like session that, unbelievably, included the North Branch jail as well; last-minute report revisions and vague operating costs made the outcome less than obvious. Unfortunately, the county learned nothing from STAR because our decision-making paradigm is the same, as is a venue (this is not a courtroom!) that does not lend itself to fact finding depth. Supes and staff, please – begin to ideate, innovate and reimagine! Fun Fact: We actually have “Innovate SBC” – a process improvement and innovation training program for employees at every level of County of Santa Barbara government.

Two Crazy Ideas: 1. Let’s add one day each month (no, not a Tuesday) to handle the fluff; and 2. For complex decisions let’s have a series of issue-focused workshops. I urge the Board and Chairperson Capps to read a bit about decision making optimization techniques and to please change something, anything, about how the county conducts its business. 

Finally, let’s not forget why our county is now required to spend 24% of our discretionary budget, for decades, to house 800 in-custody residents: It is based on a lawsuit and agreed settlement; i.e., county planning, leadership and oversight failed and now we must all pay dearly to correct it.  

Jeff Giordano, SB County resident