An Open Letter to the Redistricting Commissioners:
I am writing you at 4 in the morning because I am so aghast at what is proposed for the Santa Ynez Valley by Map 821C. As a former county planning commissioner who has represented the valley and a resident for 32 years, I strongly protest this proposal to dismember the valley in an attempt to solve a problem that would not exist except for Map 821C’s separation of the valley from the Gaviota Coast. As the former chair of the General Plan Advisory Committee that worked on the first draft of the Santa Ynez Valley Community Plan, I am flabbergasted that any agency such as the commission, that is supposedly working on the behalf of the public, would advocate such an ill-conceived threat to regional planning.
Map 821C advocates claim that this patch job is necessary to address the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians' request to maintain the connection between their reservation in the valley and important historic and spiritual sites on the South Coast. The Chumash solution to this issue was to simply maintain what has existed since 1880, a 3rd District that connects the Gaviota Coast to the valley, with as little change to the district as possible. They requested your support for Map 818 not Map 821C. They did not ask for the valley to be reassigned to the 4th District and then have their lands divided from their neighbors by a line that defiles the integrity of the valley and the Santa Ynez River Watershed upon which we all rely.
