Eric Onnen opens up at SB County Board of Supervisors Meeting

Did anyone else happen to catch Goleta Councilmember Eric Onnen at Tuesday's SB County Board of Supervisors Meeting, during the Public Comment period?

Onnen, who showed up not as a representative of Goleta, but as a concerned citizen, spoke in regards to the Revenue Neutrality Agreement between Goleta and the County of SB.

Chair Carbajal didn't appreciate Onnen showing up with 'threats', and cited a miscommunication between the governing body of Goleta, as Supervisor mentioned he had met with Mayor Bennett just the day before in an impromptu meeting, and discussed the revenue neutrality agreement at length.

If you missed it, here is a link to the archived meeting: February 12, 2008 County BOS Meeting

Thoughts? Comments?

BlogaBarbara: The Back Story on Onnen's Absence

To truly understand my approach to Eric Onnen's absence from the last Goleta City Council meeting, one has to review what happened the week before when a vote for employee raises for City of Goleta workers took council to the midnight hour. While watching the meeting, it was clear that Onnen was keeping the meeting going unnecessarily with questions that did not pertain to government but were more suited to his extensive experience in the private sector. He brought up bonuses, for instance, which can't be given to public employees as it would be a gift of public funds. The meeting, it seemed, continued because he did not do his homework.

More at BlogaBarbara...

BlogaBarbara: Absent Eric? Goleta Budget Vote Too Important to Miss...

BlogaBarbara

For a rookie councilmember, that's a really tough vote to miss -- especially when there is apparently a movement started to recall the last election.

Funds Won't Buy Votes, Three New Councilmen Say

Sonia Fernandez at the Goleta Valley Voice has an article this week about the three new Goleta City Council members who received large, last-minute contributions from developers looking to build in the city.

Onnen also said he would not recuse himself from council proceedings unless required to by law.

(Interesting comment on Onnen's part...)

“It seems to me (the contributions) would have some effect, otherwise why would people give that much money? It seems that you would want to get a return on your investment,” said local resident Jeff Haight. “I would hope that that’s not the case.”

(And this seems a little bit closer to the truth. But we shall wait to see what happens. Bishop Ranch suit against the City is still pending, and a decision whether to go forward or not is supposed to happen on March 15th.)

Click here for Sonia's complete article.

City Council Meeting Dates Won't Be Changing

Agenda Item D2 of today's Council Meeting was another one of Michael Bennett's hopeful changes that quickly got derailed.

With Councilmembers Aceves, Onnen and Wallis voting No on moving the Council Meetings to Tuesdays, they clearly spoke in support of the fact that the City of Goleta does need to have representation at other public agency meetings held throughout the week, and that they possibly wouldn't be able to attend or have input at, if the Council meetings had been moved to Tuesday.