West Beach (Santa Barbara)

West beach is in Santa Barbara, California. It is home to Santa Barbara's New Years and 4th of July Fireworks shows.

Activities

It is an industrial beach and swimming is prohibited, however kayaking, windsurfing, and sailing are common activities.

West Beach Music & Arts Festival

West Beach is also the home to the West Beach Music & Arts Festival.

The 2008 lineup featured Ziggy Marley, Jason Mraz, Natasha Bedingfield, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and much more.

In 2009 the festival sold out, bringing over 33,000 people to the beach. It was a flagship year for the young production company, Twiin Productions.

In 2010, local government bureaucracy denied the event permit, resulting in an appeal of the decision by the organizers. In February 2009, with local politics and the Nederlander controlled Santa Barbara Bowl fiercely competing against the event, the Parks & Recreation director, went as far as to say the decision to deny the permit was unappealable. Citing due process in the United States Constitution to the City Council, the appeal process was allowed.

On May 19, 2010, the production company won the appeal to put on the event and was granted it's permit by the Park & Recreation Commission.

13 days later an appeal of this decision was filed. Three days past the allowable date for appeal - two appellants, Hilary Kleger, UCSB's associated student's "Community Advisor" and Tony Romasanta, owner of Harbor View Inn, separately submitted their appeals at the same time.

Hilary Kleger, hired by UCSB to be a liaison for students to the community, assist with program development and event planning became a different citizen all together at the hearing. Though the event organizers contacted her several times in 2009 and 2010 when her concerns were voiced, she refused to respond, and instead grandstanded to City Council at the appeal hearing. With no understood motive of why this community activist would want to shut down a community driven event, industry insiders have concluded that she was paid off by Nederlander, the promoter of the Santa Barbara Bowl.

Tony Romasanta's appeal was more straight forward. A known litigious attorney, Mr. Romasanta denied the organizer's offer to buy-out the hotel, citing the wrong demographic for his hotel. Comparing the community festival to a "drunken mob," he successfully presented a scare tactic to the City Council of which he has paid them off through political contributions.

Even the endorsement from the Santa Barbara Region Chamber of Commerce couldn't withstand the politics and money at play. After four hours of the hearing, the powerful and influential minority had the festival moved 1,500 feet down the street to Chase Palm Park across from Allan Herschell 3-Abreast Carousel.

The City Council went even further in denying Constitutional rights to the organizers by stating, "Staff’s decision on the application cannot be appealed to the Parks and Recreation Commission or the City Council."

Staff took full advantage of their unappealable power by requiring incredulous, comprehensive plans to be developed, increasing costs by 250%, moving up deposit deadlines, requiring turf replacement costs, and reducing the capacity of the festival to a mere 13,000 over two days. This was down from 45,000 and three days in 2009. This was catastrophic to the festival and organizers. Forty days following the festival, the local production company, Twiin Productions filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

External links

• West Beach Festival Website