ROADS MORE TRAVELED

Environmentalists, Mayor Marty Blum, and singer Jack Johnson
attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of USA
Grown Fuel, Santa Barbara’s first public retail establishment to
sell B99, a fuel containing 99 percent plant-derived, biodegradable
diesel and less than one percent petrochemical fuel. The former
Shell station, located at 626 West Carrillo Street, is now a USA
Gas franchise. McCormix Corporation operates two other biodiesel
fueling stations in Santa Barbara, but they are not open to the
public.

Survey respondents overwhelmingly selected gas taxes as the
appropriate method of funding road maintenance, prompting 3rd
District Supervisor Brooks Firestone to insist on a public vetting
of the option. Until now, gas tax proponents have been unable to
get the idea on an agenda for discussion at SBCAG, the association
of local governments, which designed the Measure D local sales tax
measure to supplement state and federal transportation funding.
Seventy-six percent of respondents to the countywide poll said gas
taxes should fund roads, compared to 51 percent who said a sales
tax was appropriate, and 42 percent who selected property
taxes.