Arlene Blum
Founder and Executive Director of Green Science Policy Institute
“You have to work with stakeholders at all levels”
Erin: We’re hoping to have a conversation with you; find out your background, different initiatives and projects you’ve been a part of; really any insight you have in terms of the field of sustainability and bringing about change within communities.
Maddy: You can focus on whatever you think is most relevant.
Erin: The idea is how do you go about working for sustainability and environmental initiatives in a successful way?
Mr. Carbajal: Santa Barbara is unique in that, besides many of us thinking the sun rises and sets on Santa Barbara, it is one of, if not the place of the modern environmental movement, at least in the United States. I think internationally people might argue with that but we’ve been working on sustainability issues for many years. Before I even moved to the area, for example after the ‘69 oil platform blowout, it really galvanized not only our community, but the nation to the pitfalls of oil development off our shore and what that could do to the environment. I think that was a catalyst for a lot of attention to environmental protection not only as it is related to offshore oil development but, in Santa Barbara for some reason a lot of other passions were born regarding sustainability. Paul Relis and the Community Environmental Council was formed and they were early believers in recycling which led to a robust recycling program in our county and statewide and even now nationally. But our community was early believers and there was an effort to establish sound recycling efforts. Now Santa Barbara County recycles at the rate of 73% of all our solid waste. Which is a big deal and in general when it comes to environmental protection years ago the Community Environmental Council set out some very strong goals of advocacy to fossil free within 2033. I’m not sure how successful they’ll be in achieving that but establishing audacious goals is really what needs to be done to be able to bring about change. Realistic but audacious because if you don’t have a goal it’s hard to shoot for something; you have to have something to shoot for, a milestone that you want to achieve.
So I only give you that background because that has lead to a critical mass of constituents or passionate individuals in our area that have been galvanized with the same passion to address sustainability issues. We have a public interest law firm called Environmental Defense Center and they have been instrumental in litigating on behalf of the publics interest in making sure that with development or industry we’re always looking at compliance with CEQA the California Environmental Quality Act. This is to make sure that we look at the environmental impact of development and industry and that we’re building the best alternatives. Whether through a legal approach or just advocacy groups out in the community a lot of attention is given to the question of what is good sustainability for the values that we have come together to develop as the hallmark for Santa Barbara County. All of those constituencies have created a critical mass and environmental protection is the standard for the values for our community. That has been key in the folks that run for office and the folks that get elected into office more often than not even our, and take this the right way, even our worst believer in environmental protection and sustainability and climate change they still have strong environmental values in Santa Barbara County. Sustainability practices in public policy becomes the norm. You still end up having strong discourse from different ideologies on sustainability issues but at the end of the day more often than not you don’t start from extremes that you would see in the Midwest or certain communities because we’re so far ahead. Decision makers tend to have, irrespective of political ideology, a common denominator of sustainability values.
So things that I’ve been involved with – I have been involved with a gamut of issues. One has been our recycling effort; making sure that our public policy is shooting for high recycling thresholds and today we are 73% recycling effort. A major project in that area that I have been working on has been working with four other jurisdictions – with the County of Santa Barbara, city of Santa Barbara, city of Goleta, city of Solvang, city of Buellton and even Carpinteria. We’ve been working on this inner-jurisdictional project called comergent technology and what it is, it’s an anaerobic facility. We did an RFP [request for proposal] to find out what kinds of emergent technologies exist out there because it’s really innovative and you have the gamut of innovative technology but some are more environmentally friendly than others and more realistic for the state of CA and the one we chose is called an anaerobic facility. It consists of a dirty MRF [materials recovery facility] which I’ll let you google and learn more about, but what it does is it takes that 27% of trash that I’m telling you about and further recycles that trash. And whatever can’t be recycled would be either composted, then turned into energy or it would be a small residual that would go back to the landfill. But the amount that would go to the landfill would reduce to very little and then whatever we can’t further recycle we will convert through methane and other purposes through the anaerobic process into electricity so we would be converting and creating renewable energy through this facility. And again our recycling rates would likely go up to 85, high 80s percentile.
Erin: So what stage of implementation is that project in?
Mr. Carbajal: Well the environmental review is pretty much done. We have selected the company Mustang that will build the project. We are working on finalizing our agreement that we loosely have put to date with the contracting company and all the other jurisdictions, its called the joint powers agreement, and the agreement would include all the partners. And we’re in the cusp of moving that forward in the next few months and we likely would see it built in the next couple of years. Anyway that’s one major project and it’s taking various leaders throughout these different agencies to come together and weed through a lot of legal and financial challenges. As it’s a public private partnership, liability issues as to who owns it, what about the committed flow of trash; everybody has a lot of questions and at the end we all have to be on the same page and work through these issues and we’ve had to make sure we’ve had a consultant going out and interfacing with the public. Educating them about what is this facility, what does it mean; so its been meeting with all groups of all persuasions, especially the environmental groups. And most groups environmentally are OK and supportive of this concept; there are a few minor groups who have kind of gone and drawn a line in the sand and may not be supportive at the end. And the reason being is that Surfrider and Gaviota Conservancy believe that what we should do is divest ourselves of that landfill period, they would rather see the landfill closed. At the end of the day I think that this is a good environmental practice, it’s sustainable, it’s creating sustainability, but something has to give and nothing is perfect. We’re creating renewable energy, we’re reducing the amount of trash that goes in the actual landfill, we’re recycling more so the benefits far outweigh the negative impacts and its better than the current landfill right now and the current 27% of trash that’s going into the landfill. So that’s just one major project and its been a multi year effort in bringing everyone together; handholding everyone to make sure everyone’s educated on what we’re doing, hearing peoples concerns, trying to understand their concerns, and having a public conversation so that you bring everyone along with you. For any public policy to be successful, especially if you’re dealing with controversial issues, you have to work with stakeholders at all levels; And likely constituencies that are concerned or even supportive in bringing everyone together to make sure that you hear the concerns and you try to mitigate as many of those concerns as possible. To educate and build a broader critical mass of support, and you inform decision makers all the way down to your residents, every resident that you can reach so that at the end of the day you whittle down the issues, you have a strong project, you have good answers, and it just moves through the process easier.
Erin: A follow up question, in terms of when you’re trying to begin new projects, such as the waste disposal one you were just speaking of, when you go into initiate this project have you had experiences where there was just so much backlash that you decided to not follow through with it? And if so what are the factors that help you choose your battles so to speak?
Mr. Carbajal: Well for starters before you embark on anything you have to really bring stakeholders together and really hear people out because you might learn that a project you were interested in or some people had brought to your attention has way too many pitfalls or too many challenges. You have to assess whether its worth their time, whether its really viable or feasible or not and you do that through early stages of conversation. And then you decide how much time and effort and capital you want to put into it – political capital. Even if the early stages are thorough in the public arena you end up being surprised sometimes.
I’ll give you another example – I worked for supervisor Schwartz for 12 years, I’m in my 10thyear of my own services as an elected official, I was chief of staff to the previous supervisor; over the years in a community called Montecito we heard from the school constituency that ‘we really need safer routes to school, we don’t have sidewalks, we don’t even have trails and our kids are walking and parents and residents are driving really fast and we’re scared that we’re going to have a death sometime’. So we identified a few major thoroughfares in that area that we might be able to put in either sidewalks or trails or something and we embarked on developing a plan with our public works department. We sent it out to everyone possible but the funds weren’t available to build any project within that plan and so it was out of sight out of mind for a number of years.
Well finally we got a couple grants from the state of California and the federal government that allowed us to focus on one or two of those significant paths and we went back to the community and everyone was pretty much OK. And then the residents along one of the thoroughfares were upset that we were going to say, ‘Guys you have been encroaching on county land, we let you put nice vegetation out there, we’ve let you do all that over the years through encroachment permits, but we’ve always told you that if we needed the land back in front of your home on the street that we were going to have to ask you for a little bit of that back for the public needs.’ Well they were not happy campers and what ended up happening was a lot of misinformation by some that this was going to take the rural character of Montecito. And we had to overcome a concerted effort and campaign by a number of residents because the tides started turning where people started saying, ‘what are we doing? Why are we spending this money? You’re going to urbanize it.’ So we had to listen and hold our ground and we hired a landscape architect. We developed the most awesome decomposed granite trail with a little bit of curb cut out in certain areas because you have to abide by certain standards of public works. We also made it ADA accessible. We developed the best looking, most awesome path that I encourage you guys to check out on San Ysidro Lane in Montecito; that even the people that were against it, over the years have said ‘I take it back this turned out not only great for safety but aesthetically it’s awesome.’ We held our ground and it was tough, but along the process it became a better project. Because even people that are against it, you have to be open, and listening, and incorporating changes, and meeting people halfway, and mitigating their concerns. You can’t do it all but you have to be honest and sincere and at the end the project ended up being as good as it is because people were raising all these issues – even if some motives were sincere and some motives were not. We persevered in a storm of opposition; but I knew that morally it was right, we were able to address the arguments that were being used and step up and have good solutions. Now if we hadn’t had good solutions maybe I would have abandoned it but at the end of the day you had to weed out all the constructive feedback of sincere motives of wanting to make this a better project from those that were trying to derail it and sabotage it because of other ulterior motives. You have to allow people to be a part of the process and then at the end usually you succeed by having a good project.
I’m a firm believer in that usually when you start an effort or a project you have people that are for it, and people that are against it, and you have a bunch of people in the middle. You have people that are against it but will always be against it because just theoretically or ideologically they’ll never be OK with it so you have to take that group of people and give them the time of day and listen but know that they’re never going to come along so other than the courtesy, listening and you still have to provide your constituent service you know they’re not going to come along. And the people that are for it no matter what, you can put those in a separate section. But then there are those people that are borderline on the fence for it or against it, or against it but they have reasonable legitimate issues that if you address are going to be supporters. And you work with that middle, trying to make it the best project possible and then at the end usually you’ve dealt with many of the constituencies that were against it you’ve brought more people along. At the end you’re never going to have 100%, sometimes you might but rarely. It’s about the majority will and sometimes not just the civil majority will; you don’t want feel like ‘oh yeah, at least 55% were with me’. You want to feel like 70,80 you want as high support as possible but you never going to get 100% and that’s the household point to remember.
Maddy: So as a follow up question you’ve talked a lot about the communication with the public and stakeholders beyond the traditional town hall type meetings, how do you go about that communication?
Mr. Carbajal: Yes, well I think communication is any and all. You have to be willing to write letters, you have to be willing to meet with people individually, you have to be ready and willing to have community meetings, you have to go through not only formal hearings but informal meetings. You have to work with the constituencies that are for it so that they become advocates. I think you need to take the assets and the support that you have and help them work with you in mobilizing and creating a broader critical mass. And you have to work with those that are against it to find the legitimate concerns. When it comes to communication, it’s any and everything nowadays; social media plays a part, getting out written information to people’s mailboxes. If you can take all their arguments and have good answers and get that information out usually it diminishes the negative or the naysayers. In terms of communication I think you need to be authentically engaged and whether its town hall meetings, focus groups, formal hearings, informal hearings, meet with anyone and everyone. Anyone who requests a meeting you should meet with them on any issue. And it works well for all constituent services especially public policy or controversial issues. You have to be willing to step up and not discount people. There’s a tendency when we’re feeling attacked or opposition to kind of retreat, recoil, and only hang out with those that agree with you. It couldn’t be further from the truth. You have to go into the eye of the storm and be ready to engage in discourse and be ready to disseminate information in an effective manner to be able to deal with oftentimes misinformation. And that goes a long way.
Erin: In terms of implementing and managing projects how do you think your approach to that is different because you are an elected official and you do depend on voters to be able to continue in the long run. So how do you think your role as an elected official influences your managerial position compared to if you worked say for the private sector?
Mr. Carbajal: Well keep in mind that we have the Brown Act so there are certain laws that bind us to specific hearings, commitments you can or cannot make shy of a public hearing. There’s the Brown Act, its really a framework of transparency laws that avoid backroom deals and avoid inadvertent or purposely coming together with a majority of decision makers in crafting policy or decisions that could only be done in a public form or official hearing. Having said that as an elected official you have the bully pulpit to bring people together and again the same values and approaches that I mentioned earlier about being accessible, meeting with everyone, being respectful, civil, avoid being arrogant, avoid being know-it-all, being incredibly sincere with your constituents and at the end usually things work themselves out. But there comes a point where you do have to make some decisions, but before you make decisions you really have to be a good listener and everybody weighs what political capital, what battles you take on, when you make certain decisions, what decisions you make, timing. And if your MO [modus operandi] is to get reelected, some elected officials are constantly putting that finger up in the air to determine what would be best for reelection and I think most elected officials do that a little bit, some more than others and I think that is one thing that inevitably exists for elected officials. I try not to do that much, I’m not saying I’m not guilty of having done it, but having been in government for so long I think I’ve developed a good sincere, authentic, approach to decision making and policy development that usually I have a good sense of what the public, my constituents need or want or desire and I usually have found a good way of finding common ground with all my stakeholders and constituencies. Very rarely have we not come out with a good outcome that’s been polarizing and that’s maybe because of my many years of experience in government. But I shy away from doing the finger in the air because it’s not constructive, its not healthy, and sometimes even elected officials get it wrong and it’s not always right. I think if you mean well and you have your constituents and residents interests in mind and, if you do good things, if you fulfill your service, and fulfill your responsibility in a way that is authentic and the community sees that you’re a good listener, sees that you bring people together, sees that you go the extra mile to meet with people. Elections work themselves out. It’s just a natural occurrence. My observation is that it takes a long time to learn that. I’m fortunate in that I was chief of staff to the previous supervisor who was an extraordinary woman. The brightest, most awesome human being I have ever worked with. And I learned a lot from her and I like to think that a lot of my approaches to my public service has been as a result of obviously not only the sum of all parts but my former boss Naomi Schwartz played a major role in mentoring and my perspective and personal development in public policy. She was never one to put her finger up. It’s you do what’s right, and you work with your constituents, and work to find common ground.
Maddy: What is your interaction like with the California state government and how do they help or maybe hinder you with local sustainability policy?
Mr. Carbajal: Well the state of California and our federal government both have actually been great in moving forward the legislatures and moving forward AB 32 and 75 which really have been the foundation for climate change – you know establishing targets, implementing climate change planning, the carbon trade program that they put in place, renewable energy portfolio that they legislated from our utilities they have done a lot. The state of California, we’re a rare state in the nation, we’re in the avant-garde of pushing these sustainability policies and climate change policies. Some counties are doing more than others but because of the state I think it forces all local jurisdictions and cities and counties to really come to terms with developing and working on good sustainability policies locally. Every once in a while they get in the way and then they’re a silo that isn’t as constructive, but for the most part I think we’re good partners. Counties are subdivisions of the state of California. There are 58 counties in the state of California and four hundred and eighty something cities.
Maddy: Is there any sort of information sharing among the counties? You mentioned that some are better than others in terms of sustainability so is there any type of interaction?
Mr. Carbajal: Yeah, well we have the California Association of Counties. As a matter of fact I just came back from a conference they were having in Anaheim. There’s this synergy of exchange and that goes on through that network as well as other networks. There are networks for county administrators, there are networks for county public works directors, there are networks for county planners or directors. So all of these associations play a critical role in communicating public policies and approaches and creativity that’s going on in different parts of the state and it allows us to learn from one another.
Erin: So on the opposite side of that, what is the interaction between the county and the city of Santa Barbara and city of Goleta?
Mr. Carbajal: I think sometimes we’re challenged because we’re in each of our backyards. We have some pretty good communication but every once in a while there’s a tendency to work in silos. We try to break beyond those turf issues and sometimes there are some subtle competitive or turf issues that exist, but often times I’d say pretty much we have good communication and collaboration with our cities. Every once in a while there’s an issue or two that gets a little contentious between counties and cities but for the most part I think in our county, I can’t speak for other counties, but we have pretty good communication and collaboration.
Maddy: Shifting gears a little bit, I know some people object to sustainability policies because they think there’s this divide between pursuing environmental goals and economic goals and I was wondering, while I don’t think that’s true, do you ever come across issues like that in prioritizing which policy options to prefer?
Mr. Carbajal: I think some of its ideological. I’ll give you an example, this whole climate change discussion has been quite interesting because it has become ideological in that even in Washington you know the Republican party has taken really strong positions against climate change and what have you. Whether you believe in climate change, or whether you believe greenhouse gas emissions are man made or not, nobody can deny, I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat or even a tea partier, you cannot deny that in the past 20 maybe even 30 years we’re seeing unusual extraordinary changing weather patterns. That’s creating havoc throughout the country through hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes, colder winters, warmer winters, increased fires, increased flooding, and as such we’re being forced to look at how well do we adapt and how do we create more resilient infrastructure and what does that mean for Alaska versus Florida versus California versus New York versus Iowa. There are regional impacts that are associated with all these unusual weather patterns and impacts from climate change. So even if you don’t believe, you cannot negate that these changing weather patterns are happening. So the question becomes how do we become more resilient to lessen the financial impact on our infrastructure on our agricultural products that we’re trying to grow, GDP, how do we spend less because we have to grapple with these impacts. And we have to take action to adapt and make our communities more resilient. And when you take that approach it usually diminishes a lot of that polarizing ideology that creates a divide. So it makes economic sense to be proactive in building more resilient infrastructure rather than waiting for disaster to happen. Say you just built a big 10 story building or desalination plant or a wastewater plant near the ocean and it just got inundated and guess what you have to spend another 20 million dollars just to get it back up and running. Wouldn’t it be nicer to just build it or move it in non emergency times and relocate it or push it back or if you’re building it for the first time you don’t build it right on the coast you build it a little bit back; just little things like that make economic sense. And it makes such economic sense that even the insurance companies now are stepping into the foray and identifying the risks that the private sector itself is catching up to underscoring and contributing toward sustainability practices especially as it relates to resiliency and emergency preparedness as well.
Erin and Maddy: Well thank you so much for your time.
Mr. Carbajal: You’re very welcome
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