The Political Hot Potato - Daily Sound 10-24-2007

As anyone who has been following our columns knows by now, public safety is at the top of the Turtle’s local concern list. We suspect that tolerance and accommodation of illegal immigration makes a certain amount of contribution to many of our City’s problems, including public safety. Now please notice we do not say that it is solely to blame, nor do we blame it for all of our problems, but it is definitely a significant contributor. So why do we tolerate this? Is Santa Barbara effectively a Sanctuary City for illegal aliens? The topic of illegal immigration is obviously a political hot potato. To the current leaders as well as to the challengers, the topic seems to be taboo and is always avoided, even though it contributes directly to almost every problem we have, if only in terms of population.

In order to get a feel for how the City Council and Challengers have prioritized the problem, some of the Turtles listened in on a few of the local radio talk shows on Saturday. Hosted by both Russell Palmer on the Palmer Patrol and the Mayor on her noon show, was City Council challenger Dale Francisco. In general we are impressed with Dale and his intelligence, demeanor and sense, especially since he has the priority of public safety in the right place. How he would handle the issue is more of the question. When asked by a caller what he would do to address the illegal immigration problem, he had nothing to say. Russell let him off the hook by asking the caller what he would do about it instead. The caller suggested more cooperation between local police and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), then there was a cut to commercial break. Dale never offered a response, and the topic was not continued after the break.

Also on the Mayor’s show was Daniel Litten, who was asked by the Mayor what issues are important to him, and what made him decide to run. He made it very clear that his top priority is enforcing the ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, because of their affect on air quality and health. Uh-oh, kidding, right? The Mayor gave him a second chance by asking him “what else?” is important to him, and he brought it up again! The Mayor even had the sense to know this is not the most urgent problem for Santa Barbara and asked him – what about public safety? He briefly touched on the idea that we need more police officers, then said “but my biggest passion is leaf blowers”. If you don’t believe it see danlitten.com.

In an effort to become more informed of the priorities of the incumbents and challengers, we dug back into last Sunday’s Oct 14 News Press Voices section, where the candidates were asked to detail their plans to reduce the gang problem. In reviewing the candidate’s responses to the gang violence issue, we rejected anyone that suggested “youth programs” or other positive re-enforcement as the sole answer, and any indication that “the environment” is more urgent than public safety. We vowed to support anyone that dared to mention that illegal immigration might contribute, or that it is a public safety danger in itself because of the lack of control of foreign criminals entering the country or the City, but we could find no one.

Here is what we have seen of the candidates on the public safety issue:

The Incumbants – Brian Barnwell, Helene Schneider, Das Williams

All the same and expect more of it, right along with the Mayor. The general attitude of the current set of politicians seems to be that saving lives of citizens on the streets today is less urgent than whatever symbolic and relatively insignificant and ineffective action Santa Barbara can take to save the planet for future generations. All of them are a little too proud of spending revenue on youth programs of questionable necessity and effectiveness that miss the target – which is - currently active gang members (as opposed to at-risk youth). A Big Zero for not addressing the overcrowded prisons and illegal immigration contribution.

We were sent an email exchange by a reader who had addressed the Mayor and Council on what they felt was the more important local issue, Global Warming and Impeaching Bush, or Illegal Immigration and Gang Violence?

Most of the Councilmembers had no reply, notably Helene Schneider and Brian Barnwell. We give kudos to the Mayor, Councilman Horton and Councilman Williams for replying. The answers however, made clear that the City’s position regarding illegal immigration left much to be desired, because they apparently don’t really have one.

Since Mr. Horton is not running for re-election at this time, and because he was the sole member NOT to vote for the Blue Line, we will leave him alone except for his notable answer, which seems to speak for the attitude of the entire Council, Police Chief and Mayor -

“As to illegal immigration, I was not aware of that being a matter for a local municipality.”

The response by the emailer to this was “The US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) web site in fact, conveys how they must rely and depend on local resources and provides agreements that can be entered into to empower local authorities. Has Santa Barbara entered into a 287(g) agreement with ICE?”

No answer.

Das proceeded to give a detailed rundown of the City’s efforts to address the gang problem, most of which are to be applauded for effort, but lacking in potential effectiveness. He initially ignored the Illegal immigration question however. When pressed on it, he responded with (we appreciate the honesty) :

“Illegal immigration is perhaps the most complex & difficult policy issue of our age. I only avoided the subject because I don't really know what to do about it that would be both just & functional.”

The emailer’s reply: “Regarding Illegal Immigration being a complex issue, I have great difficulty understanding what is difficult [and complex] about the concept of enforcing the law. It is simple. If we had done a better job of that years ago, we wouldn't be in this fix. Is the problem that you disagree with the [immigration] laws [because you feel they are unjust]?

No answer.

But Turtles still have questions…next time we will look more closely at the Council challenger’s views on this issue, and welcome their contributions in the meantime if they would like to speak for themselves.

The Conservative Turtle is not an individual but a group of like-minded individuals and a forum on local issues from a conservative point of view. Visit www.conservativeturtle.com for a link to the Conservative Turtle Blog if you would like to leave your feedback, input, thoughts, questions, answers, your concerns, your ideas, your support. Or email