(The following is a smattering of the more than 34 comments, observations, claims, and suggestions received by Santa Barbara Current in the wake of Bonnie Donovan’s latest “Did You Know?...” column. Now that the Current has more than 5,000 subscribers, the conversations have become numerous, heated, and engrossing. There is no room to print the entirety of them, so here’s a suggestion: to enhance your own reading enjoyment, please follow the thread that appears immediately after the column you find most intriguing and add your own comment if you wish. If you’d like to contribute a letter to the editor to this page, please add your city/town.)
Whose Town Is This?
Yes! Yes! Yes! You’ve nailed down in words what has been on our minds about the full throttle degradation of our once beautiful and well-thought-out city.
Emerald Eye
Can’t Even Save the Forests
In the future, Santa Barbara's liberal leadership will surely turn this beautiful, peaceful, rare Blue Zone into another impoverished, crime-ridden rat hole. It was the good, hard-working generations of the past that insured a means to preserve this entire county. The ignorant liberal-left ruined our once pristine, ranger-protected forests. By never cleaning the forest floors they set up the fire storms. Any conservation attempts to preserve the health of our protected wildlands, they screamed, was clear cutting! The Democrat consensus appears to be a desire to create overpopulated, devastated regions straining resources for people and wildlife. Not a very green approach! Shame on them!
Peanut
Lucky Me
This rambling, incoherent diatribe bouncing from one perceived 'sky-is-falling' problem to another is pretty juvenile. I mean too many one-way streets? The 'get-off-my-lawn-not-in-my-backyard vibes with no proposed solutions or nuance to these issues would make a great opening monologue on FOX News. The title itself- "Whose Town is This?" is right out of the Trump playbook – making perceived victims of people like the author who believe that since they were lucky enough to afford real estate in this town, nobody else gets to have a voice.
Will
(Editor’s note: Bringing FOX News and/or President Trump and – hey, why not, Hitler too? – is tiresome, but I guess when you’ve got nothing else, the boogieman will do. – J.B.)
Worked Hard to be Here
Lucky has very little to do with why most people live here. In fact, the main point is quite the opposite. People should not expect government to provide housing in a place they can’t afford just because they want to live here. Most of us worked very hard for the privilege to live here because we appreciate and want to preserve the beauty and unique rich history this community has fought hard to preserve. Complaining about one-way streets may be petty but not wanting Santa Barbara to be destroyed like Los Angeles or San Francisco is not a rambling perceived problem.
Jolynn
Head Thee to LA
I could not agree more! Not everybody who wants to live in Santa Barbara can afford to. I would love to live on 17-mile drive in Carmel... I simply cannot afford to. I do not expect someone to subsidize me, and destroy its beauty, so that I can live there. If these people want more crime, congestion, pollution and packed ugly developments, the answer is simple, go to Los Angeles.
Ray Johansen
Should Leave but Can’t
Great article. Lived in Santa Barbara since 1960 and worked here for the last 52 years. Love working here mostly because of the climate. Obviously, change is inevitable, and "growth" is the primary influence for that and almost all the change unfortunately is negative. The downtown parking issue is kind of the last deterrent I needed to never go downtown to shop, go to a movie or go to a restaurant. I can't be the only one that feels that way. On the rare occasion I do want to see a film I'd go to Goleta or the Riviera theater. I would leave Santa Barbara in a heartbeat if the people I work for and with would go with me.
Larry G. Mousouris
They’re In Control Now
Everyone that has lived here and has a clear head can see that the Good Ole Boys and Good Ole Gals own this town and always have. Until recently. Bonnie Donovan states that, “Santa Barbara is careening downhill fast. If we don’t apply the brakes soon, it will be too late, and the city that we know – and that the world knows – will be lost to forced, haphazard, and state-mandated development.”
As Tom Parker stated in his “Perceptions of Public Corruption” article in the Independent, and I quote: “For those of you who may not have knowingly experienced such behavior in your own community, and for purposes of this article, let me give you a quick homegrown lesson in what that malfeasance smells like.”
Folks, read Tom Parker's article very, very, carefully because he flat out tells you who is here. So, who now controls Santa Barbara, folks? The United States Government with the DOJ and the FBI.
Howard Walther
Member of a Military Family
Could Tell Change Was On Its Way
Saw this coming over twenty years ago! Now most of downtown is lined with vacant storefronts and homeless living in doorways. It was a great place to live back in the day!
Stan
A Little Old Uncommon Sense
Is it just me or has anyone else noted the parallel between the reduced downtown retail vitality and the deleterious progression of parking fees? I will never understand why it is called common sense when it is so unbelievably uncommon.
Ronald Hays
Housing for Homeless, not Low-Income
Sadly, the property by the Quality Inn Bonnie mentions in her article is literally in my backyard. Total disregard for our neighborhood is deplorable. They keep telling us that it's only for low-income, but the reality is it's for homeless. Homeless don't pay rent; the city and state pay it. They say the service people need housing, but that's not where this project is going. And ask about how this affects our property values, they have the nerve to tell me that it will increase property values. Really???
Kelly Griffon
Mailing it in is Safe and Secure!
Umm. Mailing in your ballot is perfectly fine and safe and study after study shows this. In fact, it was mainly conservative voters who used it for years before the Pandemic. Heck the entire state of Utah uses mail in voting. Do you have a problem with Utah? I'm assuming you don't. Hmmm. I wonder why?
Will
Leakage is Likely
Mailing ballots in either direction is fraught with potential for ballot leakage. Plenty of proof: check out “2000 Mules” for a start. Not sure what "studies" you can possibly claim that prove vote by mail is "fine and safe." Please direct us to those studies.
J. Livingston
Ballots Galore
You are wasting your breath on Will. The movie “2000 Mules,” and other video evidence shows multiple people depositing stacks of ballots into multiple drop boxes. Where does one person acquire so many ballots? I wouldn't trust anyone with mine to drop it off. No way. Even if it's all legit, why drive around to multiple boxes depositing multiple stacks? This video can be staring people in the face, and they'll still deny it. I'll wager Will never watched the movie, but instead just relied on 'the news' to tell him what to think. More than one link below is left leaning, so of course they are going to deny whatever we say. As for mail-in ballots...OK, I'll bite. Mailing the ballots might be 'safe', but the issue is that many ballots mailed with no oversight are actually bogus or stolen ballots!
Patrick
Just Go Away
Will, vote by text is safe and secure as is vote by Post-it note. Your debunking nonsense proof is a bunch of biased crap from biased A-holes with an agenda. Now go put on your proud Democrat hat, jump into your electric car, and go out and get your fifth booster. Stop on the way home at Chaucer’s and pick up a copy of Obama's fourth autobiography and perhaps a quart of Ben and Jerry's tranny chunk ice cream.
Jeff Barton
Will is living proof that liberalism is a mental disorder.
Have a nice day.
Steve
Jim Buckley still learning how to think and write, and STILL wreaking havoc. Some things do not improve with age……why don’t you give yourself a long needed rest?
Nancy Freeman