SUPERVISORS SPEND ANOTHER $40K ON LEGAL ADVICE THEY WON'T FOLLOW

It appears our benevolent dictators at the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, bless their hearts, are once again reaching into taxpayer pockets for a bit of legal hand-holding. This time, they're shelling out a cool $40,000 to Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP for what they're calling 'professional legal services.' We here at The Whipping Post can only assume this is for advice on how to best circumvent pesky property rights, ignore constituent concerns, or perhaps draft even more Byzantine regulations to stifle local businesses. Given their track record, we're sure this 'professional advice' will be promptly filed under 'things we ignored in pursuit of our progressive agenda.'

What makes this particularly rich is the Board's determination that approving this payout isn't a 'project' under the California Environmental Quality Act. Oh, the irony! A legal contract for administrative activities, they claim, won't result in 'direct or indirect physical changes in the environment.' One might argue that the 'environmental change' is the increasing financial barrenness of Santa Barbara County residents, but who are we to quibble with CEQA's labyrinthine exemptions? It seems the only thing CEQA doesn't regulate is the flow of taxpayer money into the pockets of high-priced lawyers for our spendthrift local government.

This isn't about legal services; it's about political insulation. When the Board inevitably makes another ill-advised decision that tramples on individual liberties or economic common sense, they can point to this contract and say, 'But we consulted with legal experts!' It's a preemptive shield, purchased with your hard-earned money, to deflect accountability for their next bout of progressive policymaking. The question isn't what legal advice they're getting, but who's *really* pulling the strings behind the curtain to necessitate this kind of protective spending. Could it be a favor to a connected firm, a quiet backscratch for a political ally, or simply standard operating procedure for a bureaucracy that views public funds as its personal slush fund? We suspect all of the above.

While ordinary citizens struggle with rising costs and oppressive regulations, our local government finds yet another way to funnel resources into the pockets of the legal establishment. It’s a tale as old as time in Santa Barbara County: the more 'professional services' they procure, the less professional their actual governance seems to become. It's almost as if they need legal counsel just to navigate the mess they themselves create.