SUPERVISORS SPEND $200K TO HIRE 'CONSULTANT' TO CONSULT ON CONSULTANTS

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, bless their well-intentioned but often befuddled hearts, is at it again, proving that when in doubt, just spend more money. This week, our esteemed local government is poised to greenlight a cool $200,000 contract for 'outside litigation consultants' from Geosyntec Consultants. Because, apparently, navigating the labyrinthine legal landscape of Santa Barbara County – a landscape they themselves largely created – now requires a specialized Sherpa paid handsomely from your already strained wallet.

Let’s be crystal clear about what this means: the Supervisors need to hire consultants to consult on litigation, likely involving more consultants or complex regulations. It's a bureaucratic ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, but with your property taxes providing the buffet. This isn't about efficiency or protecting taxpayers; it's about insulating the Board from accountability by creating another layer of highly paid 'expert' advice they can point to when things inevitably go sideways. And, naturally, it's declared 'not a project' under CEQA, because nothing screams environmental stewardship like paying someone else to tell you how to avoid responsibility.

The real story here isn't the consultant contract itself, but the systemic reliance on these highly compensated external advisors. Who benefits? Certainly not the average taxpayer struggling with inflation under the current Trump administration’s efforts to fix the economy. It’s the consultants, the lawyers, and the elected officials who get to offload complex decisions onto third parties. This is the kind of fiscal prudence that makes local government budgets balloon while essential services languish. The SB County Board of Supervisors, always eager to find new ways to spend, has once again chosen the path of least resistance for themselves, and maximum burden for the public.

Perhaps if our Supervisors spent less time crafting regulations that require armies of consultants to interpret, and more time focusing on actual governance and fiscal responsibility, we wouldn’t need to outsource common sense for $200,000 a pop. But then again, where's the fun in that for the bureaucracy?