DBOA Radio Series 06

Chapter 6 (0:56:25) of the "Don't Bank on Amerika" radio series takes place in Winter 1969/1970.

This episode contains the following:

• Becca Wilson interview on the nature of Isla Vista
• Greg Knell interview on chronology
• The Smith Survey
• The Goleta Sloughway
• Kunstler speech excerpt from campus stadium, 2/24/1970
• Fall 1969 chronology
• Greg Knell interview on the Bill Allen issue
• "Bank of America: A Second Check"
• Opposition to the Bank of America
• Tim Owens documentary excerpt

Musical excerpts:

• Jefferson Airplane: Eskimo Blue Day
• Quicksilver Messenger Service: What About Me?
• Beach Boys: Student Demonstration Time
• Mothers of Invention: American Way
• Jethro Tull: A New Day Yesterday

DBOA Radio Series 05

Chapter 5 of the "Don't Bank on Amerika" radio series (0:61:42), originally produced in the 1980s, takes place in the Fall of 1969, before the Bill Allen demonstrations and the later riots.

Contents include:

• Becca Wilson interview excerpt
• The local effect of the Vietnam War
• The Smith Survey
• Richard Nixon
• The Vietnam Moratorium
• ROTC on campus
• UCSB background history
• UCSB student body composition
• UCSB student action groups
• Vernon Cheadle's financial conflicts of interest
• The Goleta Sloughway
• Field Nigger vs. House Nigger
• Buffalo Springfield music to end

Please feel free to not only listen, but download and share with friends:

"A Citizen's History"

Carmen wrote in:

"It's almost perfect, except the Free Press was three years, not two, and the book is not available in full at www.islavistahistory.com

AND, whatever does she mean: "the growing rift between students and community members"? We talked nothing of anything like that.

Not bad for the Nexus, I guess.

C.

Local Publicizes New Book
Over 150 Pictures Included in New Isla Vista History

By Alex Llerena

Published Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Issue 21 / Volume 90


Author and former Isla Vista resident Carmen Lodise hosted a book signing in Goleta last Friday to promote his new publication: Isla Vista: A Citizen’s History.

The 200-page book includes over 150 pictures and first-hand accounts of significant events in our vibrant college town. Lodise used a collection of articles written during his time in Isla Vista as a foundation for the book, which was first published last year.

Lodise said he chose to write a book chronicling the history of I.V. because of his appreciation for the infamous local community.

“People remember the burning of the bank, but it’s what happened after that was so important,” Lodise said. “Students and townies came together to make living in I.V. a better place.”

Lodise moved to Isla Vista in 1972 to work as an assistant to a cultural anthropologist, and quickly became involved in the local community. In 1987 he started his own newspaper, called the Isla Vista Free Press, which ran for two years.

“I couldn’t compete with the Nexus,” Lodise said, commenting on the short life-span of the paper.

In 2002, Lodise took several of his articles from the newspaper and published them online. He decided to expand his online work into a book in 2008 after noticing the site had received over 1.6 million hits.

Although Lodise’s book recounts the “dark ages” of Isla Vista — including charges of corruption, greedy landlords and the growing rift between students and community officials — the author said he has high hopes for the future of the community.

Lodise also advocated for Isla Vista to become its own city, noting several potential advantages.

“I.V. is a liberated territory,” Lodise said. “It’s a hell of a great little town. … If I.V. could have control over the community including police, transportation and the quality of housing, through becoming a city, then it would be a great place to live.”

Besides running a local newspaper, Lodise said he also took part in the establishment of the park district, worked to establish funding for the medical clinic, sat on the I.V. community council and helped start the annual joint rolling contest.

The book, priced at $17.50, is available at the UCSB Bookstore, the Isla Vista Bookstore, the Isla Vista Food Co-op and Chaucer’s Books in Santa Barbara. The book, in its original form, is still available online at www.islavistahistory.com.

DBOA Radio Series 04

Chapter Four of the radio series begins Fall 1969:

DBOA Radio Series - Chapter 4 (0:56:15)

Subjects covered:

-- The United Front
-- Isla Vista, Summer 1969
-- Associated Students radical slate
-- Bill Allen case begins
-- Local drug use and availability
-- The "First" Isla Vista Riot, August 14, 1969
-- El Gaucho, October 2, 1969 covers most all issues of the period
-- Goleta "Sloughway"
-- Dick Flacks "controversy"
-- Angela Davis firing

Lou Reed's "Heroin" closes the chapter.

Dogshit Park

Kevin Billingjurst sent this link in, to an Isla Vista story written by Todd Brendan Fahey in 2002:

Dogshit Park

DBOA Radio Series 03

Chapter 3 of the Don't Bank on Amerika radio series aired over KCSB-FM during the last half of the 1980s covers Spring/Summer 1969...

Topics covered include:

-- SDS
-- Malcolm X Hall
-- Faculty Club Bombing
-- Universities as a growth industry
-- Vernon Cheadle's vision for UCSB
-- People's Park, Berkeley
-- Kent State, 1970
-- Bill Allen case begins, June 1969
-- The United Front

My copies suffered lots of tape degradation before I digitized them nearly 20 years later. Best way to listen is on headphones. Listen and/or download:

DBOA Radio Series 02

I've just begun making my radio series from the late 1980s available for listening and/or downloading.

Topics covered in this 1:03:24 length documentary episode ("Chapter 2"), beginning in Fall 1968, include:

-- Treatment of black athletes
-- Takeover of North Hall
-- UCSB backstory
-- IV/UCSB housing
-- January-May 1969 chronology
-- January 10, 1969 BSU rally
-- The United Front
-- BSU, SDS, UMAS
-- January 28, 1969 Oil Spill
-- Police repression
-- The role of the realty companies
-- Faculty Club bombing, death of Dover Sharp

Kevin Moran Park

The following from John Maybury via Gary via Becca:



"Kevin Moran honored as hundreds celebrate official opening of park in Saratoga" By Brian Babcock, Saratoga News, 07/21/2009

It was a day many Saratogans thought might never come. Close to 40 years of contentious discussions, long meetings and hard feelings had finally come to an end. One of Saratoga's darker chapters was closing and those intimately involved with the situation were ready to move on.

So it was only fitting that on a sunny, warm day in July, hundreds of residents would gather at Kevin Moran Park to celebrate its symbolic "grand opening." With new tennis and bocce ball courts, a meditation garden, bathrooms and upgraded landscaping, the park's official makeover was complete — almost four decades after the city bought the property.

But Saratogans didn't just gather at the park to see these additions. They had come to hear about one of their own.

"Increasingly as a society, we look toward movie stars and sports legends for inspiration and personal qualities we would like to emulate, often becoming disappointed," wrote Kevin Moran's brother, Brian Moran, in a memorial in 1995 marking the 25th anniversary of Kevin's death. "Many times we need not look any further than our own families and loved ones to find those that will inspire us."

Kevin Moran died in 1970 while trying to put out an arson fire at a Bank of America in Isla Vista. Kevin was attending UC-Santa Barbara at the time; as at many colleges at the time, protests against the Vietnam War were becoming increasingly [violent]...

In April 1970, such an incident occurred. The college's student body president called on more moderate students to head down to the protest to try and calm some of the more radical students who were rioting and lighting fires.

Kevin and his roommates headed down to the scene. After helping put out a fire in a Taco Bell, Kevin ran to Bank of America, which had also been torched. While the students attempted to put out that fire, police officers moved in and began tossing tear gas into the crowds. During the confusion, police reported at the time, an officer's rifle accidentally went off and fragments of the bullet struck and killed Kevin.

Thirty-nine years after his death, Sheila Moran Couch, Kevin's sister, would stand at a lectern at Kevin Moran Park and tell a crowd of mostly strangers about her brother. As her sisters, Rita Moran, Joan O'Brien, Kathleen Menasce and Margaret Weir listened, Couch would tell the crowd that she had shown up at the park a week earlier because she didn't believe the news that the park was finally finished.

Her comment was met with a round of laughter, perhaps because most of those gathered couldn't believe it either. After close to 40 years of bickering and contentious discussions among residents, the park had finally been completed.

The 10.3-acre property now known as Kevin Moran Park was purchased by the city of Saratoga [California] in 1970 for $236,572. That same year, the city and residents overwhelmingly supported the idea of naming the park after Moran.

But that seemed to be the only thing that those involved would agree on for almost four decades. Almost immediately residents began butting heads on how the park would be developed. While Saratogans living near the park wanted to see it kept as a neighborhood park, others within Saratoga wanted to see it developed with play areas and a baseball diamond.

Ultimately, the Saratoga City Council approved a master plan in 1971 but most of the recommendations were never implemented. It wasn't until 1973 that pathways, a turf area, a children's playground and landscaping were developed within the park.

Although the topic of how to fully develop the park was never dormant for long, the discussion always ended up on the back burner since no one could come to a consensus on what to do with the area.

The most recent debate revolved around the idea of putting a soccer field in the park. Supporters said the park was the perfect place to develop a field for Saratoga youth soccer players. Opponents slammed the idea, as they wanted to keep it a peaceful and tranquil neighborhood park.

A Kevin Moran Park task force was formed in 2004 to come up with a "consensus plan." The task force included two city council members, two Saratoga residents who were to represent the city as a whole, two "user group" members and three neighborhood representatives.

One of the neighborhood representatives was Elaine Clabeaux. She said that although there were times where talks became argumentative, overall the task force members worked well together.

"We were different people with different bits of knowledge and it was up to each of us to educate the others on what we knew," Clabeaux said.

In January 2006 the decision was made — the Saratoga City Council voted 4-1 to approve a plan that would allow the development of a full-size soccer field at the park. The task force would later agree with the plan, to the dismay of the park's neighbors.

Multiple meetings were held by the city with each one lasting late into the night. A January 2006 council meeting lasted five-and-a-half hours alone as 80 people spoke on the issue.

But while the infighting among residents continued, it turned out that West Valley College would help resolve the issue as plans to build multiple soccer fields on the college campus were revealed. The council would allocate $250,000 in August 2006 to help care for the fields and make necessary improvements to them.

Although not the end of the story, those decisions would be the turning point in a 36-year debate. The task force, which had been disbanded months earlier, reconvened in September 2006 to come up with a new vision for the park. That plan would include adding bathrooms, a half-size basketball court, tennis courts, a bocce ball court and a meditation garden.

Those plans were kept and a groundbreaking was held at the park in November 2008. And eight months later the issue would be put to rest forever.

Before the grand opening began on July 17, Couch thought back on all that had led up to the event.

"He had such a violent death with being surrounded by protests and rioting and people not getting along in his own community. And to see the Saratoga community fighting over the park really created a lot of unhappiness. It was really sad. And it was ironic," she said.

But in the end, it all turned out.

"The outcome is wonderful," she said as she glanced around at the park. "It's nice to see that people sat down and worked on a compromise and came up with a beautiful solution. This is a really lovely place."

DBOA Radio Series 01

In preparation for the 40th anniversary of the burning of the Isla Vista branch of the Bank of America, February 1970, I am downloading the entire "Don't Bank on Amerika" radio series that ran on KCSB-FM during the last half of the 1980s.



In this series opener (length: 0:48:35), that takes place in Fall of 1968, subjects touched upon include:

-- The United Front
-- Isla Vista background history
-- Chancellor Cheadle talking about the United Front
-- The Black Students Union
-- SDS
-- Police harrassment
-- Obscenity on campus

Tape quality sometimes is poor, as these recordings were digitized from my personal cassette copies of the original program that -- I think -- is still archived in the KCSB Public Affairs archives (hopefully of better quality).

Also, I was never much of a radio announcer/producer. In order to do it right, you have to go with the very best take and if that one's not good enough, you cut it again and get it where it needs to be. I never felt I had that kind of time, so I slapped this 30-some individual audio documentary episodes together as best as I could, as fast as I could. Even so, I believe it is still listenable, certainly educational, and even fun hearing protagonists of the day along with music of the era.

I hope you enjoy it, warts and all.