Santa Barbara’s Tuesday is busy before lunch and again at 2 p.m. The week’s other useful date is already on the books: Creek Week begins Saturday, Sept. 19, with Coastal Cleanup Day.
At City Hall today
The City calendar lists a regular Finance Committee meeting from noon to 1:30 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall, 735 Anacapa Street. The listing carries no cancellation marker. A special Finance Committee meeting that had been set for 11:30 a.m. is marked cancelled.
The complete Finance Committee agenda, the City says, is inside today’s City Council agenda.
That packet is still a set of proposals until the bodies act. Two items are worth knowing in advance because they touch housing and the budget at once.
Finance Committee item 2 is a recommended 30-year, $1 million loan to the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara for 915 East Montecito Street — the old Parma School site, east of Milpas. Staff names the source as Fiscal Year 2027 HOME Investment Partnerships Program money, itemized across three program years, not Measure C. The Housing Authority’s letter in the same packet says it may later seek Local Housing Trust Fund money; that is a future ask, not today’s loan.
The packet’s fourth-quarter review, prepared by Controller Nathalie Lecolley and submitted by Finance Director Keith DeMartini, states that all General Fund contingency reserves were depleted in FY2026. An agenda report is not a vote. Minutes or video are what settle what the Committee and Council actually did.
A 10 a.m. special Council meeting is noticed as closed session: labor negotiators for the supervisory unit identified on the agenda as SEIU Local 620 / Santa Barbara City Employees’ Association, and pending litigation captioned Jane Doe v. City of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Superior Court case No. 24CV04521. Closed session is lawful and routine. The public facts are the notice, the case number and the court. Nothing on the agenda reports out an action in advance.
Finance Committee calendar listing Cancelled 11:30 a.m. special City Council meetings / agendas
Saturday: Coastal Cleanup Day, then a week of creeks
The City invites residents to the 27th annual Creek Week, Saturday, Sept. 19, through Saturday, Sept. 26. “Creek Week will kick off with Coastal Cleanup Day, where community members can volunteer at over 25 beach and creek locations countywide,” the City listing says. Coordinators named on the page: the City’s Creeks Division, County Project Clean Water, the cities of Goleta and Carpinteria, UC Santa Barbara and Explore Ecology.
Explore Ecology, which organizes the local cleanup, puts the kickoff on Saturday, Sept. 19, from 9 a.m. to noon and calls it the 42nd annual Coastal Cleanup Day. Pre-registration is encouraged, not required; organizers ask volunteers to bring gloves and buckets if they have them, and site captains carry supplies. A waiver is required.
Butterfly Beach is on the site list. It sits on the Montecito side — its meeting point is on Channel Drive, across from the Biltmore. For City-lot sites, parking is free from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with a volunteer voucher from the site captain. El Capitan and Refugio state beaches use the parking attendant, not the captain, for the volunteer pass.
City Creek Week listing Explore Ecology, Coastal Cleanup Day Creek Week program page
Roads and beach access, south county
Noozhawk, citing Santa Barbara County Public Works spokesperson Lael Wageneck, reported that two south-county projects are moving this month.
Construction of a pedestrian at-grade railroad crossing to Santa Claus Lane Beach began Sept. 1 — a project Noozhawk reports at $11 million, with completion expected in summer 2027. While crews are on site, beach access is limited to an entrance west of the commercial stretch, and no-parking signs may go up and come down with the work.
A second job, an 800-foot multi-use path connecting the Ortega Hill bike path to bicycle and pedestrian facilities on North Jameson Lane in Summerland, starts later in September. Wageneck, as quoted by Noozhawk, said it “fills a long-standing gap in the California Coastal Trail and Pacific Bike Route.” The paper puts the cost at $1.5 million and completion in January 2027. When workers are on site, one lane of alternating traffic is the plan.
Those figures and dates are County statements as reported, not independently measured here.
Practical
Going downtown today: Finance Committee at noon, Council at 2, both at 735 Anacapa. Going to the beach Saturday: 9 a.m., bring gloves. At Butterfly Beach, the meeting point is Channel Drive, across from the Biltmore.