Annexation to Santa Barbara
Instead, LAFCO put on the ballot a plan to annex Isla Vista,
Goleta, and Hope Ranch to the present City of Santa Barbara.
Only Jim Slater, the County Supervisor representing Isla Vista
and Goleta, voted against the annexation plan.
In March 1975, area-wide voters rejected annexation 3-1; in
Isla Vista, the margin was 10-1 against.
Part of the campaign against annexation was conducted by a group
of Isla Vista residents who were followers of the radical Christian
theologian Thomas Merton. On the day of the election, five of
these individuals sat in at a polling place in Santa Barbara
as a protest against Isla Vista being included in the annexation
plan over the strong protest of community residents. A judge
later found them guilty of electioneering within 100 feet of
a polling place, but fined them only $25.
This annexation plan never had any significant community support.
It was put forward primarily by the UCSB Administration, which
had opposed the plan for an independent City of Isla Vista.
The local administration received a unanimous endorsement from
the UC Regents to oppose a City of Isla Vista and to spend money
to develop alternative municipal options for the campus and
Isla Vista. Estimates at the time stated that the UCSB Administration
spent at least $75,000 in support of the annexation plan; the
annexation proposal was even typed in the office of a UCSB vice-chancellor.
The Second Try
After
the annexation plan was defeated at the polls, the IVCC immediately
called for a new advisory election in Isla Vista in order to
get direction from the community as to what they should do next
in the campaign to bring municipal government to Isla Vista.
That plebiscite was held in May 1975. It was the third advisory
election on local government options conducted in Isla Vista.
This plebiscite produced another landslide favoring the independent
incorporation of I.V. Dutifully, the IVCC prepared and submitted
another request to the Santa Barbara County LAFCO in late 1975.
If LAFCO had approved the request for an election on I.V. cityhood,
and, if Isla Vista voters had approved it, the new City of Isla
Vista would have been created on July 4th, 1976--the 200th anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence.
Literally hundreds of Isla Vista residents attended the LAFCO
hearings to speak in favor of the proposal. The major opposition
remained some I.V. homeowners, business owners, and landlords,
but not a majority of any of these interests.
During this second effort, the UCSB Administration again asked
the UC Regents to oppose I.V. cityhood, and they did, but far
from unanimously; at least five Regents voted in favor of the
community's position.
During the discussion Regent Leo McCarthy, then Speaker of the
State Assembly and later the Lt. Governor, stated: "I've
traveled all over this state, and I have seldom found the kind
of commitment to community that the people of Isla Vista have
shown. I don't believe that it is in the best interests of the
University to be against this."
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