Santa Barbara Talks Podcast 70: Remembering Lee Moldaver

For years, everywhere a person turned at a city or county government event or affair, there was Lee Moldaver. Quiet and unassuming but with laserlike observation skills, Moldaver could recite Santa Barbara history, chapter and verse, like Billy Graham could preach on the Bible. Endowed with wit, humor and a phenomenal memory, he would quote Greek philosophers and slip in historical war references into everyday conversation. The loss of Moldaver marks an end to another chapter in Santa Barbara's history. He was one of the few remaining activists in town who knew the likes of former Mayor Harriet Miller and former City Administrator Sandra Tripp-Jones, knew the lineage of council members and county supervisors dating back 40 years. While City Council members, mayors and city administrators come and go, people such as Moldaver are once-in-a-generation fixtures, with Santa Barbara losing a signficant part of its institutional memory.