State Senator Bob Hertzberg spent just over an hour this week in the modest downstairs room of the Isla Vista Clinic building, after taking a van ride through the college town. His visit — to “listen” and to “understand” the place — came two weeks after the state bill that could set up a community services district in Isla Vista passed out of the Senate committee that he chairs.
AB 3 is the political football Assemblymember Das Williams threw long last December. In its infancy, the bill intended to bring a stronger voice to residents living in the county’s so-called Wild West, but it specified few details about the services it could realistically support from tax revenues. During the past six months, a group of students and long-term residents met dozens of times to wrangle with each other over wonky details of the legislative language.
The spelled-out services were narrowed down to include a tenant-landlord mediation program, a graffiti abatement program, a planning commission, additional police services, and a parking district, among others. The bill must pass out of the Senate Appropriations Committee and off the Senate floor before reaching the governor’s desk. After that, a two-thirds vote of the residents would have to approve operation of the community services district — a board of seven members, five elected, and one appointed by the county and one by the university.
