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CITY Unless the City of Santa Barbara rescinds or significantly amends its “bubble ordinance” restricting free speech rights near the entrance of Planned Parenthood, churches, and medical clinics, Katie Short, legal director for the Life Legal Defense Foundation, said her organization would likely sue. Short said the city’s ordinance runs contrary to the recent Supreme Court ruling that stated a Massachusetts law requiring a 35-foot buffer between anti-abortion activists and clinic entrances is unconstitutional. City Attorney Ariel Calonne noted Santa Barbara’s eight-foot buffer had been approved by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1999. But Short argued any sidewalk counselor would have difficulty engaging in meaningful conversation at that distance. After roughly a year and a half, the foundationfunded nonprofit news website Mission & State will go quietly into that good night. Originally the brainchild of Santa Barbara News-Press refugees, the outlet was designed to focus on investigative pieces that would be published via existing publications. After its advisory board fired the editor, feeling that the site was on a financially unsustainable path and not living up to its mission, its fiscal agent, Santa Barbara Foundation, hatched a plan to hand over management to Noozhawk. However, after representatives of several media outlets (including The Santa Barbara Independent) said they could not collaborate with a competitor, that plan has been scrapped. More than $300,000 in unspent donations, out of $1 million total, will be returned, said Foundation President Ron Gallo in a letter.
COUNTY Santa Barbara County’s unemployment rate in June (5.4 percent) jumped slightly from May (5 percent) but showed a positive trend from June 2013 (6.8 percent), according to the county’s Workforce Investment Board. The jobless numbers put the county in a better position than the state (7.3 percent) and the country (6.3 percent), bringing the county’s total workforce to 212,200 people. The report showed growth in many fields — particularly in government, trade, personalcare aides, and veterinary technicians — but
some losses in construction, manufacturing, and hospitality. The cities of Lompoc, Guadalupe, and Santa Maria continue to suffer unemployment rates in the double digits. Drug giant Allergan — famous for Botox — will be shuttering its Goleta facility and axing 1,500 of its 11,600 positions system-wide, the company announced Monday. Some of the 300 Goleta employees will be transferred to Irvine headquarters, said spokesperson Bonnie Jacobs. Jacobs declined to comment on when the closure and layoffs will take place. Allergan outlined its decision in its second-quarter operating report, which noted “the strongest increase in absolute dollar sales in any quarter in our history” but cited an ongoing buyout battle with Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. The cuts will save Allergan up to $425 million next year. Despite the fears surrounding the county’s revision of the 10-year-old winery ordinance, only about 20 people — including three county planners and two photographers and reporters — showed up on 7/16 to make suggestions for the upcoming environmental impact report (EIR). Five neighbors spoke about negative impacts of wine industry growth (traffic, drunk driving, and impacts to deer, among others), and three speakers criticized definitions (particularly over what constitutes a “winery visitor”) and called proposed restrictions confusing and onerous. Those issues will be integrated into the EIR, and a draft is expected by summer’s end, when a new round of hearings will commence.
ENVIRONMENT Supervisor Salud Carbajal and 25 regional leaders from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C., in the final in-person meeting of a White House task force on national climatechange issues. How to recover after extreme weather events and make buildings less susceptible to damage were among the objectives, as well as addressing agriculture and adverse health effects, and assisting tribes. “We’ve identified a number of recommendations that [President Obama] can put in play and pursue,” Carbajal said. “I think it is historic, and I think it’s going to be substantive.” The final recommendations will be made in the fall. ■
Caught on Camera? Attorney Again Accused of Misconduct
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the prosecutor’s counsel table and surveyed private defense attorney at the his surroundings.” The judge continued, “He center of some of Santa Barbara’s appeared to read and rearrange some docubiggest DUI cases has again been ments, then removed his cell phone and phoaccused of misconduct and flout- tographed something on the prosecutor’s table. ing courtroom rules. Darryl Genis, already in Mr. Genis then proceeded to hide a document the State Bar of California’s crosshairs and facing under a larger stack of papers.” The document a 90-day suspension of his right to practice law, was Greene’s reference sheet for objections. Hill also noted that in June 2012, he had has been newly charged, this time with photographing and tampering with the private notes admonished Genis for videotaping a witness of a prosecutor in a recent DUI trial and then and taking photos of the audience without the lying to the trial judge when confronted with court’s permission. This incident and Hill’s cauthe allegations. tioning, said the judge, The incident was proves Genis was recorded by a courtmade aware of such room surveillance camcourtroom rules yet ignored them on June era, and the footage was placed as evidence in the 9 to carry out his “willcase’s public legal file. ful and contemptuous The Santa Barbara Indeacts.” pendent has viewed the It’s not clear what video and has published effect, if any, the new it online at independent set of allegations will .com/news. have on Genis’s pendGenis has been ing State Bar case. If charged with contempt the State Bar becomes of court on three specific involved in the latest allegations: abusing the issue, it would likely process of the court by open a separate case. willfully deceiving the In February, State Bar court, violating rules of Court Judge Richard court by photograph- QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOR: During the trial Honn ruled that Genis ing opposing counsel’s in which he was accused of misconduct, defense had carried out “multitrial notes, and abusing attorney Darryl Genis claimed the Department ple acts of wrongdoing, the process of the court of Justice lab in Goleta had mishandled blood bad faith, significant by interfering with the samples in a number of DUI cases. harm to the administration of justice, indifopposing counsel’s trial notes. He’s been ordered to appear before ference toward rectification or atonement for Judge Donna Geck on August 1 to answer to the the consequences of his misconduct and concharges. For his part, Genis maintains he did temptuous attitude.” nothing wrong. Though Honn threw out two of the four alle“An unsworn accusation was made,” Genis gations against Genis, Honn nevertheless found said in an email this past Sunday.“I tendered the him guilty of “willful disobedience” for ignoring equivalent of a plea of not guilty. I am not guilty judges’ repeated orders in two different cases, of any of the three unsworn allegations. I look one here and one in San Luis Obispo. He recforward to being exonerated after Judge Geck ommended Genis’s law practice be suspended hears the evidence and applies the law to it.” If for 90 days, his license be placed on probation an attorney is found in contempt, a rare occur- for two years, and that he attend anger-manrence in Santa Barbara, punishment can range agement counseling. But, Honn noted, Genis’s from chastisement to monetary sanction to jail “lack of insight raises concerns as to whether time, and attorneys may be required to report his misconduct may recur and is particularly troubling to this court.” Honn’s verdict must be themselves to the State Bar. In the July 17 court order, Judge Brian Hill — upheld by a three-judge State Bar panel and the who presided over the DUI case in question — California Supreme Court. Genis, who has no prior record with the State details how on June 9, prosecutor Justin Greene said Genis had “deliberately disturbed or ‘fid- Bar, has appealed the ruling. So have State Bar dled’ with his papers” during a 15-minute recess attorneys, who contend the proposed punishin the proceedings. The actions were reportedly ment is too lenient. “In the end, I believe I will seen by a witness who remained seated on the be fully exonerated,” Genis told The Indepenwitness stand during the recess. The trial would dent in February. But even if he’s not, Genis said he would take comfort in knowing that he had later end in a mistrial for unrelated reasons. When Hill confronted Genis with Greene’s “worked tirelessly as an advocate for my clients.” accusation, Genis asked, “Does that deserve a And a suspension would let him spend time response?” After Hill said it did, Genis denied with his “beautiful two children and my beloved the incident four separate times, explaining he wife,” he said. “‘categorically den[ied]’ any interference with Rulings on both appeals are still pending. In the prosecutor’s papers.” the meantime, Genis continues to practice law. Hill wrote in this week’s order, “A review of [See independent.com/news for the full story.] the videotape reveals that Mr. Genis approached ■ PAU L WELLM AN F I LE PHOTO
Water Guzzlers’ Gulch
With meteorologists reporting the hottest first six months in California’s recorded history, the State Water Control Board has put water guzzlers on alert that they face $500 fines if they continue to water excessively, hose down their cars on public streets, or douse their lawns during daylight hours. Exactly how this edict from will be enforced, however, remains an unresolved question for county water czar Tom Fayram, who said he wasn’t entirely clear which agencies would be charged with taking push to shove. “I’m not calling this a stunt,” he said of state board action. “I’d say they’re trying to up the ante.” That’s because efforts thus far to get state water customers to voluntarily cut back by 20 percent have yet to bear significant fruit. That, it appears, might be changing. City residents managed to cut consumption by 15 percent in the month of June after posting negligible reductions in the months prior. City attorney Ariel Calonne said the $500 fines do not apply in Santa Barbara, because the city has a state-approved water management plan. Still, he said, the city can and will impose fines of its own, some, he said, as high as $500. The city’s new water rates — charging disproportionately high rates to the biggest water users — went into effect July 1, and officials are hoping the anticipated sticker shock achieves further reductions. Montecito, home to some of the state’s most extravagant water consumers, has seen conservation cutbacks as high as 40 percent. As the drought intensifies, Santa Barbara’s Environmental Health department has seen a 100 percent increase in the number of well applications; 114 such applications were filed in the 12-month period leading up to June 2013. In the two years prior, there were 54, and in the year before those two, it was 41. The depth of these wells remains the subject of — Nick Welsh further inquiry, likewise the failure rate of these and existing wells.
law & disorder
July 24, 2014
THE INDEPENDENt
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