COUNTY BOSSES AUDIT THEMSELVES, DECLARE IT 'GREEN'!

Your elected overlords at the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors have once again graced us with their profound wisdom, this time by bravely tackling the monumental task of... auditing themselves. Yes, the very same folks who brought us such fiscal triumphs as 'endless consultants' and 'where did that tax money go?' are now proudly reviewing their own homework. This week, an agenda item sailed through that basically says, 'We looked at our plan to look at our books, and it’s all good, folks! Nothing to see here, just efficient government doing efficient government things.'

But wait, there's more bureaucratic brilliance! In a move that could only be conceived by minds marinated in Sacramento's finest regulatory broth, the Supervisors also declared that their annual internal audit plan is NOT a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). That’s right, folks. The mere act of planning to look at how they spend your hard-earned cash has to be vetted against environmental impact because, apparently, a misplaced spreadsheet could cause a catastrophic butterfly migration or an angry sea otter to file a lawsuit. Our progressive leaders are so deeply committed to environmental purity, they even consider the carbon footprint of their own bean-counting.

What the other outlets missed in their breathless stenography of the County’s self-congratulatory process is the real genius: if the audit plan itself isn't a 'project' under CEQA, then nothing they do can possibly be questioned. It’s the ultimate bureaucratic self-licking ice cream cone, ensuring that the only thing 'green' about this county is the color of the money they’re spending, and the color of the faces of the taxpayers footing the bill. While the county insists this is just 'fiscal activity,' we prefer to call it 'fiscal activity that conveniently avoids any actual oversight.'

One has to wonder if this entire exercise wasn't just a clever ruse to avoid any awkward questions about those suspiciously large contracts handed out to 'community partners' with suspiciously large campaign donations. It's almost as if the audit is designed to ensure no inconvenient truths ever actually make it to print, or, heaven forbid, affect the next round of development approvals. Rest easy, Santa Barbara, your Supervisors have everything under control, especially the perception of control. The only thing they haven't declared CEQA-exempt yet is their own coffee breaks, but give them time.