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Isla Vista Rebuilds

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Parent Issue
Day
23
Month
July
Year
1971
OCR Text

ISLA VISTA REBUILDS

We were going to rewrite the following article, but after reading it over decided that that isn't necessary, so what follows is the original AP release as it appeared In the Detroit News.

"Welcome to Isla Vista," the sign says."

Welcome to the town that's really got its head together," says a scrawled addendum.

Getting heads together, in the parlance of the young people who make up the overwhelming majority of the town's residents, means getting organized, calmed down.

Last year, Isla Vista lost its head. The student bedroom community of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), was ripped by three major riots and a bank burning. One student was shot to death.

This year Isla Vista is operating peacefully "within the system." In place of rocks and rallies, most militants and many moderates are concentrating on running an unofficial government of their own creation --complete with elected legislature, legal aid, volunteer police, health services and 16-year-old voters.

Nestled on a seaside cliff, Isla Vista, was once an oil company boom town. In the 1960's the area was carpeted with dozens of apartment buildings to house the university students.

There are 9,000 UCSB students there now - 74 percent of the UCSB enrollment-- plus 4,000 nonstudents. The population concentration is the highest in California. Two thirds of the residents are under 22 years of age.

Last year hundreds of youths rioted, three times in Isla Vista, burning a Bank of America building and destroying and damaging many other buildings. Gov. Ronald Reagan called out the National Guard once. The riots were attributed to a general anti-establishment protest.

Out of the riots came the Isla Vista Community Council.

The council is an elected body of 12 residents, half of them students. Formed in May, 1970, its decisions usually are heeded by both the university and the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, which has legal authority over the unincorporated community.

Working closely with city and county planners, a group of councilmen and other residents put together a master plan for Isla Vista that calls for a system of bicycle lanes, and more sidewalks and street lights.

County supervisors already have begun instituting the community beautification plan -- more than 300 trees have been planted -- and bicycle paths are now being mapped out. The other recommendations are being studied.

The council arbitrated a rent strike that had split the community. A "basic contract" that tenants and landlords must agree to was drafted by the council.

The council is also a mother hen to about 40 cooperative enterprises.

"All these institutions are alternative institutions, not just kids' copies of establishment systems," said Tejeda, 26, a community organizer and UCSB senior.

The original council -- there have been two elections since -- was formed by a coalition of militants and moderates who agreed that change wouldn't come from violence, but from "bootstrapping" politics.

"The riots gave many persons a sense of taking a hand in their own affairs for the first time," says Paul Gassaway, 22, outgoing student vice-president at UCSB.

In the council's wake other community groups began sprouting up.

There' s now a medical clinic run by Dr. David Bearman, 29, a veteran of Haight-Ashbury clinics . He dispenses contraceptives and treats flu, VD and drug overdoses.

A People's Patrol was started - to serve as a buffer in confrontations between sheriff's deputies and youths and to thwart petty crimes.

There's also:

*Joint Isla Vista Effort that puts out trash cans painted "earth brown" to solve Isla Vista's litter problems.

*Concerned Women, a female liberation lobby.

*Ecology Action, which collects bottles and recycles paper.

*A legal aid office with five lawyers on call and a sort of Travelers' Aid office that finds food and lodging for displaced hippies, teen-age runaways, and draft-dodgers who stop in Isla Vista while hitchhiking between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

*Switchboard, a crisis and counseling center for drug users.

*Rumor Control, which tries to extinguish wildfire falsehoods.

The UC board of regents voted last November to give Isla Vista more than $350,000 over three years. The UCSB student government contributed $8,000 this year.

Another contributor was the Bank of America, It gave $25,000, no strings attached. (!)