For students of history, the ongoing campaign to create a Community Services District for Isla Vista offers one of those occasions in which earnest endeavor, conflicting interest, opportunism, and farce may all be seen in outline and in great detail.
A reality of Santa Barbara politics is that proposals come forward, create public debate and scrutiny, perhaps go to a vote, and then, perhaps, go away. But what goes away has a way of coming back. Timing and opportunity is everything in local politics. The cause of Isla Vista autonomy, or some form of governance, has come and gone for over 40 years. The current creation of a special district will go to a vote in November, but for an observer like myself (who has seen it all), it has become comic and grotesque; advocates and antagonists change places; it is all folly and paradox.
A principle fact about the current drive for the Community Services District in Isla Vista is that it is not a student movement. The Isla Vista of the early 1970s had a highly politicized student population. Carmen Lodise, chief architect and organizer for Isla Vista cityhood, was a continuous and ardent advocate for students in Isla Vista for decades. With Lodise, the campaign for Isla Vista independence was a volunteer effort of students and their supporters. Scores of young people took part, canvassing and circulating petitions. Students crowded and overflowed the Board of Supervisors meeting room on many occasions. The project, however, always ran into the same stone wall: the denial of financial viability by the Local Agency Formation Commission. And, keep in mind, it was always adamantly opposed by the administration of the University of California at Santa Barbara.