(The following is just a trickle of some of the many comments, observations, claims, and suggestions received by Santa Barbara Current, a publication that is reader supported and receives no direct or indirect USAID or nonprofit funding. To enhance your reading experience, please follow the Comment thread that appears immediately after each column. If you’d like to contribute a letter to the editor, please send separately to jim@sbcurrent.com, and add your city/town in your comment.)
Stop The Business Fee Increases!
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday is going to consider approving fee increases charged to the business community from the Environmental Health Department. The SBCTAC opposes these fee increases. Essentially, my main opposition is based on my belief that Santa Barbara County is the most expensive place to do business on the Central Coast and that our neighbor counties to the north and south, do not charge their businesses as much as Santa Barbara County.
That begs the question as to why? Consequently, I have called on the Board to create a Citizens Advisory Committee that will review this fee increase proposal and all future fee-increase proposals to assess what 'comparable counties' (Ventura, SLO, and Monterey counties) charge. The Board of Supervisors used that process to justify their pay raise of 48% just two weeks ago. If that process is good enough for the Board to use to increase their salaries, it is good enough to use to assess what we charge our businesses and what comparable counties charge their businesses. If the Board truly cares about our businesses, they should be committed to charging no more than comparable counties are charging. The bottom line is our businesses should not have to pay more to do business in Santa Barbara County than what their counterparts pay in Venture, SLO, and Monterey counties.
The SBCTAC will continue to be vigilant when it comes to supporting the business interests of businesses in Santa Barbara County. The SBCTAC will make the appointment of a Citizens Advisory Committee to review fee increase proposals charged to the business community a top priority going forward. We intend to sponsor an initiative to deal with county government in 2026. If the board does not approve the appointment of this committee, we very well may include the creation of such a committee in an initiative that would mandate the Board to appoint such a committee.
STAY TUNED!
I urge you to oppose the fee increase proposal and support the appointment of a Citizens Advisory Committee as well. You can submit your comments via email to sbcob@countyofsb.org.
Mike Stoker
President & CEO, SBCTAC
Creek Ordinance
If City Council approves the proposed ‘Creek Ordinance’, a Barker Pass Rd City Creekside property owner can:
1) Sue the City for knowingly approving, issuing building permits for these five custom homes along Barker Pass Rd within the City/EHIA Boundaries;
2) Stop paying current County tax bill until devalued property reassessed.
In 1979-1983, the City of Santa Barbara had flood maps and other engineering reports that were subject to intense review by the City, County and EHIA, prior to approving the “Vista del Montecito” 23-home development; 11 homes are in the City/12 homes in County. This review process is on microfilm in County Building & Planning archives.
Therefore, the City is liable for approving the five homes adversely impacted by the proposed ‘Creek Ordinance,’ and the County needs to reassess property valuations to reduce property tax on each parcel.
In my 45 years here, there has been no water in the culvert — so-called “creek” — except for a trickle in 1998.
Moreover, our planned development has a large grant of over a $million obtained after the Thomas Fire that is under the jurisdiction of Montecito Fire to keep our subdivision Barker Pass Rd creek clean.
Think of the can of worms City is opening.
Property owners already have enough problems getting insurance without City adding another liability.
Denice Spangler Adams
Red State Republicans Are the Worst
Six-year Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw from suburban Houston, TX is arguably the worst example of someone who isn't conservative. He is the opposite of “America First,” but who knows how to say the right things in a comfortable, wealthy, solidly Republican district and campaigns on the buzz issues that differentiate Republican voters from the wackos in the Democrat Party that don't stand a chance of getting elected in districts such as the Second Congressional District of Texas.
Once guys like Crenshaw traverse the first primary and win their first general election in districts like the TX Second, they are home free. The Party underwrites its incumbents and makes sure they aren't "primaried" by anybody who could force the incumbent to "waste" a lot of the Party's money on swatting unknown flies in the primary. Negative issues raised by primary challengers in the spring are used then by Democrat opponents in the fall. That takes more money in the Fall to ward off the Democrat candidate.
Tucker Carlson Network spliced together an 11-minute video from public addresses in which Carlson singled out Dan Crenshaw for hiding his falsely earned Republican credentials in Washington, D.C. while colluding with other bipartisan UniParty members on the biggest issues of the day. If Republicans and Democrats at the highest levels agree on the Big Picture issues, chances are it's the average America First working voter who isn't represented at the table where all the real decisions are made.
Just a few days ago, Dan Crenshaw doubled down on his threat to kill Tucker Carlson if the two ever met in public. Take 11 minutes to discover how and why Tucker Carlson has gotten under Crenshaw's skin, and that will most likely lead to a major primary contest in the Spring of 2026.
The battle for truly transforming the way our federal government makes policy and does business must take place mainly within the Republican Party. The big issues that divide the Republican Party from Donald Trump and America First must be fought in the next year and a half and America First must be the winner. Otherwise, nothing significant will change in how America does business between the oceans or across the oceans.
David Samuel McCalmont
Santa Barbara
Totally agree with David's comments on getting the RINO's out of the party.
This is the problem with the America First Movement is that it has extremists like the letter writer in the Letters to the Editor published by the Current excoriating Dan Crenshaw, a war hero who lost his eye fighting the enemy in Afghanistan as a member of Seal Team 3. Tucker Carlson, an armchair conspiratorialist, who never experienced combat or enlisted in the military, is making a ton of money spouting off about things he knows nothing about. Dan Crenshaw has voted consistently with the Trump agenda and has been a great advocate for the Conservative cause. The only sin committed by him is that he admitted that Biden won the 2020 election. Stop listening to people like Carlson who monetize outrage and division and is essentially a performance artist appealing to the base instincts of the far right fringe.