On April 6, in the Santa Barbara News-Press, Andy Caldwell challenged the proponents of the Safe Air and Water Initiative to Ban Fracking to a debate. As one of the initiative’s signatories, I am pleased to accept.
Here’s how we’ll do it:
Santa Barbara News-Press will sponsor the debate in a mutually acceptable forum in Santa Barbara moderated by a neutral third party and open to the public at no charge. The News-Press provides Andy with a soap box for his vitriolic rants, provides tacit or explicit endorsement of his views, and published the challenge to debate.
Andy’s side will state who will represent them in the debate and disclose their financial affiliations. They will be voters in Santa Barbara County, where our initiative will take effect, not ringers from Houston.
I will select a partner for the debate, and here is our full financial disclosure: Santa Barbara County Water Guardians is an all-volunteer organization that represents only the people of Santa Barbara County. We do not represent deep pockets in Texas or China or on Wall Street.
Andy says there is no fracking happening in Santa Barbara County while Lanny Ebenstein says, in the pages of the News-Press, that it is essential to the economic wellbeing of the county. Since this point is the crux of the debate, maybe Andy and Lanny can reach an agreement and let us know.
Andy will acknowledge any financial interest in this matter, whether or not he will be one of the debaters. I will also be happy to learn if he is just a passionate advocate for environmentally devastating industrial processes and isn’t being paid by the corporations that, he says, aren’t interested in fracking but hate the Clean Air and Water Initiative to Ban Fracking.
The Santa Barbara News-Press will disclose all financial ties between the paper and its officers and the oil industry. The paper has invested heavily in impugning our motives; it is eminently fair for interested voters to understand the motivations on both sides of this issue.
Andy will retract his accusation that we “make [our] living blurring the lines between fact and fiction.” No one in our organization receives any compensation for their work on this cause.
Andy will acknowledge his support for Measure M. This is Supervisor Peter Adam’s ballot measure, qualified with signatures gathered by his team, to force taxpayers to maintain the oilfield service roads that would be required to support the 7,700 proposed new oil wells in north Santa Barbara County.
Andy will explain how that measure would not amount to voters effectively being asked to bypass the normal public process of enacting laws, as he accuses us of doing with our initiative.
Andy will retract his slanderous accusation that Katie Davis and Janet Blevins, two of our members, are “charlatans.” If we are to engage in a civil debate, we will start with civility.
We will not debate climate change or gravity.
Of course, this debate is happening right here, right now (to borrow Andy’s melodramatic Rocky VI flourish) all over Santa Barbara County, and the only way for everyone to have a voice in the debate is to add their signature, get the initiative on the ballot, and vote your principles in November.
Please contact me with the above information and to schedule the debate.
Gary Paudler lives in Summerland. Send comments to the executive editor at rmiller@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Apr 24 – May 1, 2014.