COUNTY TO BLOW ANOTHER HALF-MILLION ON... PAPERWORK?

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, in their infinite wisdom and boundless capacity for fiscal prudence, are poised to rubber-stamp a truly breathtaking resolution: spending a cool $466,788.00 this fiscal year just to apply for a slice of the much larger $3.7 million Transportation Development Act-Local Transportation Fund pie. One might assume that nearly half a million would actually build a discernible pothole repair, or perhaps a new sidewalk that doesn't immediately crumble into the Pacific. But no, dear taxpayers, this is merely for the privilege of *filling out the forms*. It's a gold-plated pencil and clipboard budget, apparently.

While the SBCAG will eventually disperse the funds, our bet is this 'claiming' fee ensures a few more 'consultants' can enjoy the fine wine and scenic views of Montecito at the public's expense. The Supervisors claim this non-project doesn't touch CEQA because it's 'continuing administrative or maintenance activities.' Right. Because nothing screams 'environmentally neutral' quite like a bureaucracy generating enough paper to deforest a small Amazonian island, all in the name of securing funds that will then, presumably, be spent on *actual* projects that *will* affect the environment. The shell game of public finance continues, unabated.

This is the kind of 'efficiency' only a government agency could dream up – spending nearly 13% of the total allocation just to file the claim. It's like paying a broker $1.3 million to wire $10 million into your account, and he tells you it's 'administrative.' The sheer, unadulterated gall of it all is almost admirable. No wonder our roads look like lunar landscapes and our public transit is a punchline – we're too busy funding the process of *asking* for money rather than actually *using* it. Meanwhile, the actual people who need transportation improvements are left to ponder how many miles of bicycle path could have been paved for the trivial sum of half a million dollars.