Before I move to the dark side, I’m going to give a shoutout to the Alisal fire burn scar for making it through this last storm relatively intact!
According to Santa Barbara County Public Works rain gauges, areas of the county tallied between 1.3 and 7.5 inches of rain. Wowzers!
And kudos to Santa Barbara County for raising the alarm early about the potential for evacuations in the area, which received more than 5 inches of rain in some places. By the time the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office issued an evacuation order, the evacuation center was all ready to go and hopefully all the evacuees were too, thanks to the warning.
Speaking of the Sheriff’s Office, sounds like Sheriff Bill Brown has some competition in June 2022. The Independent in Santa Barbara reported that for the second cycle in a row the Santa Barbara Deputy Sheriff’s Association is endorsing Brown’s opponent, who this year happens to be Lt. Juan Camarena, who currently manages the Sheriff’s Criminal Investigation Division.
Must be tough to be unsupported by personnel you oversee, but Brown shrugged it off. He’s got bigger fish to fry, such as getting his $110 million-plus North County Jail open. Like, for real, for real.
What’s unreal is the recently approved Santa Maria Police Department “Strategic Plan” for 2022-24, which would be more aptly titled: Committees That Will Accomplish Things We Have Yet to Define. The plan is long on vague, ill-defined words and short on details and definitions.
For instance, this plan has a deadline for the Wellness Committee to hold its first appreciation event for employees and their families, but doesn’t detail what wellness is or what exactly the department is lacking. Which is where I would assume a strategic plan needs to start.
Is staff wellness actually an issue? Shrug.
Suffice to say that after eight months of work, the department’s strategy for the next two years is to invest in its people, engage the community, and protect the city. And I’m guessing that was the strategy for the last two years as well—although this is the first ever strategic plan for the SMPD, which Santa Maria City Council members were just thrilled about!
Congratulations all around! Except from City Councilmember Gloria Soto, who wondered why the document wasn’t more specific.
“I didn’t see anything on implicit bias training. … So, I’m curious what the Police Department is doing to receive training on that?” she asked during a Dec. 7 meeting.
To which Police Chief Marc Schneider said: Don’t worry about it. It’s covered.
“We just didn’t, obviously, list everything. But that’s part of it,” he said.
Wonderful! I guess accountability for those unlisted items is also covered?
Correction
• I got a head of myself last week (“Lines drawn,” Dec. 9) when I said where the county’s redistricting map would head next. The Santa Barbara County Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission was scheduled to (and did indeed) make tweaks to and approve a more final map on Wed., Dec. 8. I regret my error and will keep flying above these county lines!
The Canary is drawing in the sand. Send boundaries to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 16-23, 2021.