Deltopia Information for Residents Thursday, April 2nd, 2015

Lieutenant Rob Plastino at IV Community Network

This weekend is Deltopia, what has come to be a massive unstructured event in Isla Vista that happens near the beginning of Spring every year. Due to a lot of destruction that has happened in previous years, as well as a riot that happened last year, the police presence and "response" from the County of Santa Barbara and the University of California at Santa Barbara keeps increasing. This year at Deltopia, there will be over 250 officers, borrowed from a number of jurisdictions in the surrounding counties at a cost to the county of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

However, there has not been a coordinated message related to enforcement. The closest has been from UCSB: Life of the Party's Deltopia Event is remarkably comprehensive. However, I found a few places where their information is incomplete and even a couple critical errors. In particular, UCSB states that cars must be moved off Del Playa by 9am, but I have just verified with IV Foot Patrol previous information from Rob Plastino that cars will be towed at 7am :(. (I am contacting them, but sadly, as their images were widely copied and re-uploaded, it will be difficult to fix.)

The goal of this article is thereby to provide a dump of everything we currently know about Deltopia that we have learned from attending public meetings and from discussion with various representatives and organizations. We hope that we don't end up contributing to further errors: if in doubt between two sources, we highly recommend taking a "conservative" approach and assuming the "worst case" between the two conflicting explanations. (Our primary sources are Isla Vista Community Network meetings, Pizza with the Police events, and discussions at IV Open Lab.)

Policy Enforcement

During the weekend (whether you are a resident or from out of town), there are a number of ordinances that you need to be aware of; UCSB AS has put together a page, Know the Laws, which contains detailed information, as has the County Sheriff at their page, The Law Says. As neither of these references fully covers the Festival Ordinance (or explains how it differs from the Noise Ordinance), we have put together our own guide on what these laws say and how they are being enforced.

Sergeant Mark Signa at Pizza with the Police

Another law to know about is the Public Right-of-Way Special Events Permit Ordinance. This law, which was enacted in 2012, states that any event which blocks the right of way on a public street in an unincorporated area of the County (such as Isla Vista) requires a permit, and that not only the people who host such an event without a permit but the people who participate in the event knowing that there is no permit can all be cited for being involved with the event. (According to Sergeant Mark Signa, there is also a Vehicle Code which states that you cannot block roads.)

Finally, a note on public intoxication: Sergeant Mark Signa has defined this broadly as someone who is unable to care for their safety or for that of others, due to having consumed alcohol or taken drugs: someone who is stumbling, confused, and by themselves. This is based entirely on symptoms, and not on any form of test of blood alcohol level (so you should not expect to be tested). Anyone found in this state will be taken to the station and processed to the County Jail: unlike downtown Santa Barbara, there is no Drunk Tank or Sobering Center operating in Isla Vista.

Roadblocks and Layout

The beach below Isla Vista will be closed, from Campus Point to Sands Beach, with officers guarding all of the entrances and warning signs along parts of Sands Beach. Goleta Beach will be open, as will the stretch of Sands Beach off to the North West (which Sergeant Mark Signa pointed out is the best location for surfers, so they should not be terribly affected). The beach on campus by Marine Biology will also be open, but will be one of the places where large numbers of officers will be coordinating their activities, so be advised.

Information from UCSB on parking restrictions

Traffic on Del Playa and Sabado Tarde (6500s, 6600s, and 6700s) will be blocked on Saturday from 10am until early in the morning on Sunday (3am at the earliest, 7am at the latest). Cars will be allowed to leave this area (if permitted by the crowds), but no cars (not even residents) will be able to enter. Starting at 7am, cars will be towed from Del Playa (but not Sabado Tarde), as well as along the North/South connections Camino Del Sur, Camino Pescadero, and El Embarcadero (from Del Playa to Trigo). They had wanted to push this until 9am, but they are using tow trucks from Goleta, and Goleta wants them back by then to start their own towing. Cars will also be towed from the segment of Trigo East of the loop (outside the IV Foot Patrol office), and other parts of Trigo may be cut off with a roadblock (but cars will not be towed).

Permits are available to students to park their cars on campus during the weekend in lot 22. Otherwise, on UCSB campus, on both Friday and Saturday night, from 5pm until 7:30am the following mornings, parking from the public is not allowed: only vehicles with campus permits (real stickers, not temporary paper tickets) will be allowed to get past checkpoints. For more information on parking restrictions, UCSB Transportation and Parking Services has put together a detailed website.

Medical tents will be placed at the bottom of the loop (where Embarcadero Del Mar and Embarcadero Del Norte meet El Embarcadero) staffed by volunteers from Santa Barbara Street Medicine. People with more serious concerns will be brought to a triage center operating out of the IV Foot Patrol office. There will also be a Search and Rescue unit at the corner of Trigo and Camino Pescadero. Associated Students will be running "hydration stations" to make certain everyone has water. Finally, there will be portapotties along Camino Pescadero between Trigo and Sabado Tarde.

Goleta Parking Enforcement

On March 3rd, Goleta's City Council discussed the issues of parking in the area of Goleta next to Isla Vista. For those interested in the conversation, you can watch the video online. They discussed a recommendation to enact parking restrictions from Vyto Adomaitis, Neighborhood Services & Public Safety Director. The overall strategy is the same as it was for Halloween, with the costs of signs and enforcement (which were $14,400) being paid from the Camino Real Marketplace Public Safety Donations Fund Account (which makes them sad).

Goleta has signs placed through the area

From Saturday (April 4th) at 9am until Sunday April 5th, all parking in the area North of El Colegio through to Hollister and as far West as Cannon Green will be restricted to residents, who should have received two parking permits per dwelling by mail. Cars found in violation will be cited (a $37.50 fine, though there might be service fees) and towed (which is both inconvenient and more expensive). In case some people have been out of town, cars will be checked against the registration database to make an attempt to see if the owner is a resident before towing.

Map of resident-only restricted parking area in Goleta Map data provided by Google

At the meeting, Lt. Butch Arnoldi, Goleta Chief of Police, also gave a breakdown of enforcement: in addition to the normal three cars and their supervisor, all five of their motorcycle units (four from Goleta and one from Buellton) will be active from 10am until 8pm. They will also have some extra personnel (including the City Bailiff) in two-person units: one uniformed in a marked car, and one plain clothes unit covering the local businesses and hotels. These extended units will be active from 1pm until 11pm. (He believes that they will not have issues in the night.)

On the matter of enforcement, he says that "again, it's going to be zero tolerance; people drinkin', hootin', hollerin'... throwing stuff out the cars as they are going in and out of the main arteries... are going to be stopped and dealt with". He also responded to a concern about the low fine from Mayor Pro Tempore Jim Farr (who made the case that the citation alone is insufficient to "scare"), saying that a benefit of the staggered hours is that they will have more time and opportunity to tow cars (as well as to run all the plates required to verify residency).

UC/IV Public Safety Company

A new project out of the UCSB Associated Students Office of the External Vice President for Local Affairs (UCSBASOEVPLA), the UC/IV Public Safety Company is a volunteer group of 50 students who will be moving through the area, and will be attempting to improve the safety of the event by providing water bottles, maps, and general information. They will be operating in two and a half hour shifts, and will stop at 6pm (as Deltopia is an event largely during the day, they believe the risk to benefit tradeoff will increase to a level at night that is less acceptable).

They also intend to act as "legal observers", using cell phones to record interactions that they witness with the police (standing away at a safe distance: they will not interfere with any arrest, and will only be documenting). One service that many of the volunteers intend to provide (though this is not required of them) is to help warn houses related to the Festival and Noise Ordinances, in order to help people avoid having visits from the police. External Vice President Cameron Schunk describes their mission as "combating police saturation with student volunteer saturation".

ChillTopia

On Friday, starting at 2pm, The Excursion Club is hosting the party known as IV First Friday, which is an alcohol-free block party run in Perfect Park at the bottom of the loop on the first (or second) Friday of the month. This event is the brainchild of IV Open Lab, a UCSB course run by Professor Kim Yasuda in Isla Vista with the goal of improving Isla Vista. Every month the event is hosted by a different group, and is sponsored by various parties, including IVRPD and UCSB AS IVCRC. Their mission (not just for Deltopia) is to draw energy back to the commercial district.

After 6pm, when the various ordinances ban music, this event will be featuring "silent disco", where people listen to music on headphones, streamed from a website onto their cell phones. Attendees to the event should thereby bring headphones (and their cell phones). Additionally, movies will be projected (without sound: either with closed captioning or truly silent films) on the wall of the building on the edge of the park. More information is available from the official Facebook page for the event, as hosted by The Excursion Club.

Additionally, in coordination, Pegeen Soutar and Kim Yasuda have organized an exhibition of artwork from artists local to Isla Vista, which will be located in the Clinic Building behind the park. More information on the event can be found from the poster for the event. (Note: the poster says the event starts at 5, while the ChillTopia schedule has them starting at 6; I believe the correct time is 5, but as it is an art exhibit, it doesn't really matter when you show up, and at 5pm you can instead be listening to Erisy Watt perform: you should do that.)

UCSB's "The Warm Up"

With the goal to draw as many UCSB students from Isla Vista as possible, UCSB has also organized an event they call "The Warm Up", which will take place on Saturday at the Thunderdome. Throughout the day, The Warm Up takes the form of a festival outside; this festival is free to all UCSB students. At 9pm, the Spring Concert begins, featuring Purity Ring and Sweater Beats. This concert is only open to UCSB students, and requires a $5 ticket (which you can purchase from either the AS Ticket Office or the Theatre and Dance Ticket Office, both on campus).

UCSB will also be doing free (UCSB student only) screenings of movies and television shows throughout the weekend at some of their event locations: Jurassic Park at 8pm on Thursday at the Lagoon, the entire last season of Game of Thrones from 5pm to 2am on Friday at Campbell Hall, and Sharkfest (Jaws and Sharknado) at 8pm on Saturday at Campbell Hall. Finally, Improvability will be performing at 8pm at Embarcadero Hall on Friday (tickets are $3, sold at the door). They have their full event schedule on their website (the "official" Facebook "page" has less detail).

Adopt-a-Block

After Deltopia, starting Sunday morning at 11am, Isla Vista Recreation and Park District's Adopt-a-Block program is coordinating a post-Deltopia cleanup of the streets of Isla Vista. In previous years, both for Deltopia and for Halloween, this event has been quite successful. Of course, the more people who show up, the faster and easier this will be for everyone.

Tickets and Wristbands

No: you do not need a ticket or a wristband to attend Deltopia. Some people have been joking about this, and others have been running scams. However, the reason is because Deltopia is not really an "event". We have been advocating for the existence of a structured and safe event in IV to coopt Deltopia, and I have been supporting and working with IV Open Lab on IV First Fridays, but what people currently call Deltopia is just a mass of people showing up with nothing particular to do (but apparently cause a riot). There is no actual event open to the public that could require a ticket.

Keep IV Safe

Many people may have seen the Facebook Page Keep Isla Vista Safe, which has been posting somewhat over-the-top advertisements targeting students throughout California with the message "#NotWorthIt", showing videos of cars being towed and pictures of people going to jail. This page is a campaign run in collaboration by Student Affairs, Chancellor’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, City of Goleta, and Santa Barbara City College. They have hired a marketing firm to build these messages, the same company that worked on Halloween, and have the goal of keeping people from coming to IV.

It should be noted that some feel these tactics go too far. On Wednesday, April 1st, the Black Students Union and the UCSB Task Force Against Police Brutality protested the police presence in Isla Vista, and in particular targeted the Keep Isla Vista Safe campaign for how it "boastingly intimidates students with memes regarding the increase of profitable restrictions and police presence". The Daily Nexus published an article about their demonstration. Among other demands is a "demilitarization" at events in Isla Vista; they have requested a response by the end of the week.

More Information

If anyone has questions, I can try to get them answered (whether I already know the answer, know who would know the answer, need to call one of the appropriate offices or departments, or need to bring it up at a future meeting); I can be reached most quickly by sending a text message to my cell phone, +1-805-895-7209 (do not bother to call: I do not receive calls). I also recommend /r/ucsantabarbara on reddit as a generally valuable resource. IV is a City also has a page on Facebook.