CLUE Santa BarbaraCLergy & Laity United for Economic & Social Justice
CLUE Santa Barbara Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice
CLUE Santa Barbara Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice
Larry Severance was born and raised in Southern California. He graduated from U.C. Riverside with double-majors in psychology and economics. He went on to earn a Ph.D.in social psychology at Duke University. He served in U.S. Army from 1969-1971 and was honorably discharged. He became interested in criminal justice while teaching at Skidmore College in upstate New York, and taught residents inside a maximum security prison (“University Without Walls”). He later moved to Seattle, Washington, attended law school at the University of Washington, and became a lawyer. He worked for about 4 years as a half-time as a public defender and half-time research faculty in U.W.’s psychology department. He published research on how to improve jurors’ understanding of jury instructions.
While living in Seattle, Larry served on the Board of Directors of Community Psychiatric Clinic, a lead community mental health agency, engaging in strategies to meet community mental health needs. He attended Holy Cross Lutheran Church, in Bellevue, Washington, served as its Council President, and participated in church efforts to support to Tent Cities in the area.
Larry is married, with two step-children and 4 grandchildren. He and his wife have had a home in Santa Barbara since 1993. Larry has lived full-time in Santa Barbara since 2016. Here, he is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church, https:\\telcsb.org, and is a combo musician at Sunday worship services. He has participated with Social Venture Partners and New Beginnings Counseling Center to advance affordable housing. As co-Chair of CLUE-SB’s Criminal Justice workgroup, he is a vocal advocate for transformational changes to Santa Barbara County’s criminal justice system.
Larry values multi-cultural perspectives. He has traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and Antarctica. In his leisure, he enjoys rock climbing, playing guitar, and photography.
R. Lane Clark is a member of the Ministry and Care team of the Santa Barbara Religious Society of Friends, (Quakers), also taking active roles in its Peace, Earth care, and Social Concerns Committee, Truth in Recruitment, and the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). Clark earned his Masters of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1993, and works as an artist and teacher in painting, documentary video, clay, and garden design. He has lived and worked in Ghana and Switzerland, maintaining active relationships with people in both places. He treasures learning from various forms of cooperative governance, and from different religious traditions. Cross cultural exchange, human rights, and justice are recurring issues in Clark’s varied endeavors. Through a variety of artistic mediums, he hopes to help people access their empathy and imagination, and to deepen their spiritual and physical well-being.
Clark is currently serving as president of the Board of CLUE-Santa Barbara.
Wayne Martin Mellinger came to Santa Barbara to do graduate work in Sociology at UC-Santa Barbara and received his Ph.D in 1990. His areas of concentration include critical social theories, qualitative research methodologies and social psychology / micro-sociology. He subsequently taught at the Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Berkeley campuses of the University of California, the Fielding Graduate University, Ventura College and Antioch University Santa Barbara. He has long been interested in power, inequality, oppression and domination and is an outspoken social justice activist for numerous causes. Passionate about critical pedagogy, Wayne envisions classrooms as sites of liberation in which oppression can be unlearned and all can become “allies” in the struggles for social justice. A psychological breakdown in 1999 left him psychotic, addicted and living on the streets. Through these events Wayne discovered that he has bipolar disorder. Subsequently he worked as a social worker helping those with mental illness transition off the streets. He has worked for WillBridge of Santa Barbara, the Safe Parking Program, New Beginnings Counseling Center, Casa Esperanza (now PATH) and Transition House (where he managed their program on Homelessness Prevention). This journey has allowed him to bear witness to innumerable social injustices, and lead him to become involved in mental health and homeless policy issues. Wayne is committed to empowering those who are marginalized, displaced and silenced to have a voice in policy decisions at the community level. To those ends, he is active in community affairs and sits on the boards of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE SB), the County’s Behavioral Wellness Commission, the County’s Continuum of Care (housing policy for our unhoused neighbors) as well as the boards of Showers of Blessings, the Committee for Social Justice. He was greatly honored to join Social Venture Partners-Santa Barbara—a local think tank prominent on matters of housing and homelessness. Wayne has been a member of the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara since 2005. He has been exploring the intersections of science and religion in a series of essays on Religious Naturalism which he hopes to turn into a book, tentatively titled The New Religion of Nature: Re-Imagining Religion During the Anthropocene. He blogs about Nature Religions at thedionysiannaturalist.blogspot.com.
Rich is a retired UCSB Professor (officially retired in July 2014, after 42 years), where he shared the MacArthur Foundation Chair with Nelson Lichtenstein, where their research focused on workers’ rights throughout global supply chains – a focus that reflects his lifelong work and passion for social justice. At UCSB, he co-founded the Global & International Studies Program, and ran the two-year MA program, which sent students abroad for 6 months to work with NGOs and other organizations concerned with social justice, sustainability, and other good things! He also has been a part-time faculty member at Fielding Graduate University for many years, where he chairs the PhD concentration in Sustainability Leadership.
In Santa Barbara, he is involved with a number of organizations and projects that should be relevant to CLUE. He is a member of Congregation B’Nai Brith (CBB), and hopes to coordinate CLUE activities with CBB. He works on human trafficking issues with SB ACT, and in the past one homelessness with Social Venture Partners. He is on the Boards of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the Fund for Refugee Initiatives/Chad Relief Foundation, and the Santa Barbara Gray Panthers. He is also the UCSB Faculty Lead for the UC-wide Disaster Resilience Network, which brings faculty, students, and community leaders together to address disaster related issues.
Gene moved from Green Bay, Wisconsin to Santa Barbara in 2012. Gene brings many strengths to our work. He is an active member of the Community Covenant Church of Goleta and is a spiritual activist, passionate about social justice issues, especially the lack of affordable housing and homelessness in Southern Santa Barbara County.
Gene is using his experiences in organization and management, as a real estate broker, remodeling and construction contractor and entertainment agency owner, to contribute to the goals and mission of CLUE. He is fighting to solve the problems of persons experiencing poverty. He is editor of the CLUE website. Furthermore, he also performs in the church band on bass guitar.
He created Helping Those in Need – Southern Santa Barbara County in 2019, in order to find other advocates for social and economic justice. This group has grown to more than 23,000 persons from Southern Santa Barbara County. The site contains extensive information regarding the affordable housing shortage, homelessness, and many of the advocates and organizations fighting for social and economic justice. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/HTiN.USA/
Gene’s wife, Pat, is also an advocate for the poor and uses her registered nurse education and experience to help others.
Born in Riverside, CA, Emiliano Amaya-Andrade Campobello is a Chicano/Indigenous artist, entrepreneur, and activist who moved with his family to Santa Barbara in 1978.
He was educated in Santa Barbara from grammar school to U.C.S.B. This included following his passion to study and sculpt marble in Venice, Italy for a year (Education Abroad Program), receiving a B.A in Art Studio with honors in 1992. Since then, he has dedicated over 3 decades as a professional artist, creating fine-art murals for all types of settings, from healing murals in children’s hospitals to celebrity domiciles, as well as 2 decades devoted to the study and playing of Indigenous woodwinds.
Emiliano has 3 beloved children, 2 in The Netherlands and 1 in Heaven.
Coming from a feminist, Chicano family with a mother who worked with developmentally disabled children and a father who was an attorney for the oppressed, Service is in Emiliano’s DNA.
His heart was called into action by the Standing Rock (Hashtag #NoDAPL) protest in 2016 and the brutal mistreatment of his Native American relatives and their supporters and the violations of Sacred Waters. He soon became co-chair of the Santa Barbara Standing Rock Coalition and spearheaded the successful Divest Santa Barbara campaign, resulting in the City of Santa Barbara divesting $6.25 million from all banks funding the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as passing a Socially Responsible Investment Policy for Santa Barbara, setting guidelines to keep the City free from unethical business investments.
In 2019, as co-chair of The Climate Mobilization (Santa Barbara Chapter), Emiliano co-authored the Declaration of Climate Emergency for Santa Barbara County, calling attention to the current environmental crisis.
Emiliano has also contributed to the spiritual community in many ways. For 3 years, he taught Coming-of-Age Religious Education at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara and has organized many Interfaith gatherings with diverse local spiritual leaders.
Since 2018, seeing the need for a better understanding of environmental hazards, Emiliano became an air & water purification specialist dedicated to creating resilient communities in this time of need. This need guided him to organize the grassroots public health and safety initiative, The S.A.F.E. Plan (Sanitized Air for Everyone!), protecting homes and businesses to create healthier environments for all.
Carolyn Bjerke is a passionate advocate for social justice, community engagement, and the arts. She is deeply committed to creating inclusive spaces that uplift diverse voices.
Born and raised in the Midwest, Carolyn’s journey in service and leadership began early, shaped by her experiences in both the arts and ministry.
Educated at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Irvine, Carolyn earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and a Master of Fine Arts in Musical Theater. Her love for music and performance evolved into a deep commitment to spiritual care and community building. Carolyn later pursued a Master of Divinity from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, where she honed her skills in pastoral counseling, worship leadership, and social justice advocacy.
As the Intern Minister at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, Carolyn plays roles in the life of the congregation, leading worship, providing pastoral care, and contributing to community building efforts. Her work is driven by a deep commitment to inclusivieness and social justice, reflecting her belief in the power of collective action to create positive change.
Carolyn’s dedication to service extends beyond the church. As a Chaplain with Pacific Crest Hospice and the Ventura County Fire Department, she provides compassionate support to individuals and families navigating the challenges of grief, loss, and terminal illness. Her work in these roles underscores her deep empathy and understanding of the human experience.
Carolyn has spent nearly a decade as the Music Director at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura, curating diverse, multicultural worship experiences. Her work in music ministry is a testament to her belief in the power of music to heal, inspire, and connect communities.
Carolyn is honored to be a part of CLUE Santa Barbara, where she can continue her lifelong commitment to social justice and community engagement.
Born in Washington, D.C., to a State Department father and a Capitol Hill
mother, Art received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of
Michigan with a dissertation about congressional decision-making. He taught at
a college and two universities and then worked for the U.S. Congress, where he
learned how unhelpful power-oriented parliamentary procedure is for developing
cooperative communities.
By his early 40s, Art’s primary focus was spiritual life. He trained in
spiritual guidance and contemplative prayer, earned an M.Div. with honors, was
ordained a priest, and became spiritual director of the Episcopal Diocese of El
Camino Real. Since then, he has traveled widely with his mandala as a spiritual
guide, retreat leader, and preacher. His new book, Let’s Dance
with God: From Emotional Toxicity to Cooperative Community, describes
how Art’s ministries of healing memories and animosities developed. See https://letsdancewithgod.org/
Art has been married for 41 years to the Rev. Judith Stevens, a political
scientist and parish priest. Their “retirement” lives in Santa Barbara have
focused on immigrant rights. Art has served as board chair of PUEBLO
(immigration advocacy) and PALABRA (restorative justice between gangs), as
co-convener of the Pro-Youth Movement, and, in PODER, as an opponent of a
proposed gang injunction. Art and Judy have actively supported IDEAS (undocumented
UCSB students). They walked the “Migrant Trail” from Mexico to Tucson with
other protestors. Informally adopted sons have greatly enhanced Art’s and
Judy’s later lives.
CLUE Santa Barbara
