Bryan D. Brown

So the lack of updates isn’t for lack of trying. I’ve started over eight entries, all of which got interrupted, and all of which are now either out of date or I’ve lost interest in completing.

They say moving is one of the most depression-inducing and stressful things one can experience next to divorce or a death. Whoever they are, they are right. While I only moved two blocks, I also moved out of a building I lived in for almost ten years. And we are moving again in August to someplace NOT in Isla Vista. Once all of this moving settles, I should have more time for side projects like this silly little website and hopefully - HOPEFULLY - getting back into some musical endeavors.

Unfortunately, moving is not the only thing on my mind. I had many a rant planned for my departure from Isla Vista and what I thought Isla Vista needs to take it through the next generation. Frankly, I’m not sure I have it in me, but I’ll try.

In all of my community involvement, I’ve learned that I am not a politician. I simply don’t have the stomach for it. That realization isn’t a dramatic one, but in dealing with politicians - and having pretended to be one at times - I’ve grown tired of compromising for the sake of compromising. This little parks and recreation district I represented with four others is at the mercy of people with questionable priorities, and sometimes questionable ethics. Perhaps that’s why they got to where they are and I am left having had my idealism slowly beaten out of me. When you sit at a restaurant arguing with your county representative about raising $3 million for the initial phase of the community center and he’s worth over $300 million… but it’s not just his fault. There are others who also don’t get it.

It is an absolute crime that the Isla Vista Teen Center provides the services in the worn-down buildings in which they provide them. Shame on the entire community of Isla Vista for NOT stepping up and demanding better resources for the teen center and these kids. Even members of UCSB understand and have helped. The IVRPD - the district that brought the Isla Vista Teen Center into Isla Vista - helps as much as we can. But this is supposed to be a community. What does it say about the priorities of those who live here - especially the “long-term Isla Vista resident” - that the Isla Vista Teen Center is allowed to linger in dilapidated portables? And yet, I attend meetings where there is outrage over the “increase in gang violence” and “what do we do” and “how do we fix the problem” - as if the best resource hasn’t been sitting right there in Estero Park for the last 10 years.

At this point, I’m convinced that there are only two things that could help Isla Vista: incorporation into Goleta or Santa Barbara, or a 3rd District County Supervisor who is committed to supporting redevelopment projects. The former will never happen. But there is no reason why the latter should be so difficult. Until a 3rd District Supervisor stops using Isla Vista as a political pawn and begins to proactively support redevelopment projects, nothing in Isla Vista will change. The landlords, tenants, long-term residents, students, property owners and even the homeless will continue to fight over whatever piece they can get. The unrepresented - who comprise a significant portion of the population - will continue to be ignored and marginalized, or driven out entirely.

I had hoped that Supervisor Firestone was the proverbial “person for the job”. Unlike some of my fellow left-leaning friends, I don’t despise Republicans - and I had hoped with all my heart that he was sincere in his expression to help Isla Vista. After the Capps Park victory, I was hoping lightning would strike twice. On a personal level, I do like the guy. “Just build it. Just build something. Don’t wait for the Environmental Impact Report of the IV Master Plan”, he says, as though waiting for the EIR is optional and not state law. Like some sick political version of Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First?”, we’ve pulled ourselves in every direction trying to make him happy and get his full support on an extremely necessary and valuable project. At this point, I think we might have to wait and see who runs two years from now.

As a said earlier, it wasn’t just his fault. For me, things really changed when we voted to not move the community gardens for the soccer field. Was voting to not move the community gardens and perhaps lose a $1 million grant the right thing to do? I don’t know. What I do know is that it wasn’t right for us to move those gardens when not one of the gardeners wanted to move. A lot of these garderners don’t speak english, and rely on those gardens for sustanance - it isn’t just some hobby for them. Could they have gardened somewhere else? Yes, but they really didn’t want to and that’s not something to ignore. Either way, I did not take this decision lightly, and knowing how the gardners felt was information we should have had long ago.

I wish I could have ended things on a more positive note. I wish I could talk about the good times as an undergrad, or the good times as a graduate student, and all of the amazing life-long friends I’ve made. Those things did occur during my time in Isla Vista. But in the end, I will mostly remember a community center that may never get built, members of that community and politicans too self-consumed to do the right thing, and the marginalized members who fell victim to the selfishness of others. Whatever legacy the 1960’s Isla Vista left us is long gone, and that’s the saddest part of all. No matter how many peace monuments we build, things haven’t really changed. We may have won that battle, but we definitely lost the war.