As usual, Santa Barbara City Councilmember Mike Jordan asked the most questions. He also asked one that induced a condition approximating whiplash for Mayor Randy Rowse. The subject at hand was water, as in the Stage II drought declaration the council adopted this Tuesday at the insistence of Governor Gavin Newsom despite widespread grumbling that the governor’s one-size-fits-all approach treated Santa Barbara’s conservation-minded water customers unfairly.
Jordan, who in a prior incarnation served on the state’s regional water quality control board, was drilling down on what the new Stage II restrictions actually might mean. Why, he asked, were people still allowed to water their plants by hand during the afternoon if most irrigation under the new rules was limited to between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.? Jordan shared how when he watered his blueberries growing in his front yard, “I feel like I’m standing there naked with the hose,” he said. In response, Mayor Rowse joked, “I got distracted by my colleague Mr. Jordan watering his blueberries naked.”
Jordan’s point was that he felt naked in the eyes of his neighbors for watering with so crude and inefficient an instrument as a garden hose. He would be assured by the team of three city water planners present that hand-watering was not banned because it would pose a hardship on gardeners — who typically work during daylight hours — and because most hand-watering involves a relatively tiny amount of H2O.