The inmates are running the asylum. Until there is significant public accountability for these forced failed policies and programs it will get worse. What the City has allowed...actually encouraged...with high density housing, etc., is beyond immoral.
One need only to look at SB's zoning very reasonable ordinances in the 70's and 80's where open space, off street parking, setbacks, height limitation, shadow factors etc., were a basis for a well planned community. Today that has all been trashed...not just figuratively, but literally.
The claim that the State of California has "mandated" this debacle is weak cheese. If the CA State legislature told our local so-called "leaders" to burn the City to the ground would they (or have they)? Taking instructions from the most incompetent, bankrupt and corrupt legislature on the planet is indefensible.
Hear hear. I'm an advocate of identifying the players... good, bad, ugly or indifferent....they should be called out. The inherent problem is that the list is so long, neither time nor space permits.
I would like to see a weekly or at least monthly chart or graph of how our elected officials have voted on a variety of significant issues. For example, if one views the collective voting record of someone like Salud Carbajal, it would be very difficult to conclude he has the back of the American people. Go down the line on a local level also...similar results. At the end of the day, these people have been voted into office and we must respect the process...including the fact that unions such as public employees or teachers unions have enormous influence in the outcome in these elections. Which explains in no small part why someone like Carbajal opposes parental choice when it comes to educating their own child.
Also, hotbed institutions of far-left ideology funded at taxpayer expense...such as UCSB and SBCC...vote monolithically at a 95%+. Which explains in no small part why someone like Carbajal, et. al., oppose parental choice regarding education or free tuition for illegal aliens, etc. Again...it's a long list.
Yet on the list, you have to have a column for those who sat on their hands, called in sick, or were absent. This is a thing they all do. When they don't want you to see a vote by them on something we oppose (or is BAD for SB). They know they have the vote for it to pass so they sit out.
All of us obediently hump-bump over the speed-reducing obstacles placed in residential streets, and wend our way on the major cross-town streets now narrowed for non-existant bicycle traffic ... except the manic children on the electric motorcycle bikes.... and watching out for corner bulb-outs and trees unaccountably planted in streets taking up random parking spaces, and streets blocked with dead-end "bike only" barricades. ... On-street parking insufficient for high density "Builders' Remedy" projects and downtown workers driving in circles looking for a free place to stash their car all day.... CUI BONO? in English "to whom is it a benefit?", is a Latin phrase about identifying crime suspects.
Yes almost all busses have just a very few riders that I have noticed. Why does MTD use the huge busses? What a waste! Adjust to ridership numbers and use the small bus/vans.
I don’t wanna sound like a broken record, but again this comes down to our school system turning out a bunch of mind numb robots that have brand programmed to agree with this nonsense.
In the name of “we are from the government, and we are here to help you” this demonstrates the folly of delegating problems to government bureaucrats. Once in place, with fat checks and pensions lined up, they feed at a public trough which they continue to fill and expand. The train to nowhere in Central California is a classic example of the result of central planning and misguided ideology. This article brings the folly of central planning down to our own area. Seeing cranes all over, and high buildings filling in ever empty lot or replacing a demolished older building is truly sad. These planners are turning our once beautiful city into just another Oxnard, or whatever ugly place you might think of. And yet the local voters keep re electing these folks, once again demonstrating Einstein’s definition of insanity.
Santa Barbara continues to lose 25-45 year olds at an alarming rate, and the decline continues. Those in their working prime are heading for the exits, why? It’s the local economy, duh! Young people (my kids included) find it more important to have a good job elsewhere than to continue to live in la-la land, while many in this age group continue living at home with Mom and Dad. This is not how things are supposed to work. Past generations establish their careers, get married, have kids and buy a home, all of which has been canceled, courtesy of the liberal, lefty machine. Simply put, if you don’t work for the local, Democrat controlled governmental cabal, you don’t work!
Those that will remain from this failure in public policy will be illegals and senior citizens, left to pick up the tab. The other remaining workers will be highly compensated public employees, living in taxpayer subsidized high rise apartments, and yes, will get around by bicycle. This is all by design, folks! In the meantime, BOS Capps continues to look for County owned land to earmark for employee housing.
Those retirees also planning another protest against Billionaires on Labor day. Seems like the government workers make a pretty hefty salary plus Pension and benefits. Yet no one complains about them who make up the majority of our workers in this community.
Double check my post. Putting something in quotes that I don't post is misleading.
You quotes me as this ."no one complains about government employee compensation packages"
And what I wrote in my post was "Seems like the government workers make a pretty hefty salary plus Pension and benefits. Yet no one complains about them who make up the majority of our workers in this community."
I just read that article. Can you imagine that after investing all this money and time on students and the many local colleges we have , they can't even afford to live and stay in this community.
Who is buying up all the housing?Blackrock,Vanguard or the Chinese?
Leave it to Democrats to run a surplus into a deficit.
We literally have a dying community and economy. There are more homeless than tourists on State Street a once thriving center for the community.
The schools enrollment for one is also declining that should be obvious to the leaders that families are not moving in either.
The leaders need to open their eyes in SB and beyond as it is turning into a Retirement Community vs a thriving and growing economy.
My contrarian view, HC like any business is built on supply and demand. To be sustained on high demand, it must allow the entrepreneurs to be rewarded for taking the risk and making the innovations. Otherwise, you are left with the UK PHS.
You shouldn't put something in quotes that's inaccurate and wasn't said originally. Please refrain from that.Thats misinformation and misrepresentation
Respectfully, I have to disagree. I came back here some 20 years after graduating high school. Raised a family, bought a home and retired after many years of a successful career. I know many people (mostly health care professionals) that did the same thing, so it can be done. My kids, unfortunately had to leave and have no desire to return.
Santa Barbara doesn’t have to be “newly wed and nearly dead,” we need young professionals and entrepreneurs.
“Mostly health care professionals” are quasi-govt compensated (Medicare, MediCal, grants, tax exempt medical facilities and clinic). Our largest top 10 employers are government related funded. Their workers can manage to raise a family here.
Unfortunately, even health care is going to potentially have some hard times. In SB County, the “payer mix” is less private carriers and now overwhelmingly, Medicare and Cencal. Hospitals need private insurers to thrive, coupled with reductions by the Big Beautiful Bill, spells major cut backs. SB reimbursement rates have historically been lower because we are considered “rural” by CMS! Imagine that, being lumped in with Taft, Maricopa and Bakersfield!
The sad truth? The average “Boomer” has ZERO clue about healthcare delivery. While they’re protesting on Hope, millions of healthcare resources are being spent on illegals and the homeless, which means less care for them. It is not unusual for illegals to ring up a million dollar hospital bill on one patient or their neonatal kid who is in the Pediatric ICU for months.
I read this article titled "Population Down; Deficit Spending Up"
by Scott Wenz and of course I have a new title
"Complete Failure of Local & State Government"
I quote from Mr. Wenz below>
"The Demographic Projections of the 1960s are proving out. There is and will be a continuing population decline from the Greatest Generation, bringing it more aligned to the percentages of pre-WWII."
The Greatest Generation are all gone and it is better they all are not here to see the utter failure
of the WOKE-LIBERAL-DESTRUCTIVE-GOVERNMENT at work undermining the Great Generation
accomplishments since WWII. It is all a distant Memory as CRAZINESS REIGNS IN CALI
and in all of the other Destructive Local and State Governments. Any doubts look carefully here>
If that funding increase incorporates a 24/7 audio of Neil Young recordings, I would fully support it. Can't think of a better way to keep the homeless and other sundry bozos from assembling and/or loitering while being subjected to Mr. Young on a continuous loop.
Yes, the Santa Barbara City population has declined by about 10,000 people . It is too expensive to live there. Santa Maria population has increased. Why?
The inmates are running the asylum. Until there is significant public accountability for these forced failed policies and programs it will get worse. What the City has allowed...actually encouraged...with high density housing, etc., is beyond immoral.
One need only to look at SB's zoning very reasonable ordinances in the 70's and 80's where open space, off street parking, setbacks, height limitation, shadow factors etc., were a basis for a well planned community. Today that has all been trashed...not just figuratively, but literally.
The claim that the State of California has "mandated" this debacle is weak cheese. If the CA State legislature told our local so-called "leaders" to burn the City to the ground would they (or have they)? Taking instructions from the most incompetent, bankrupt and corrupt legislature on the planet is indefensible.
Hear hear. I'm an advocate of identifying the players... good, bad, ugly or indifferent....they should be called out. The inherent problem is that the list is so long, neither time nor space permits.
I would like to see a weekly or at least monthly chart or graph of how our elected officials have voted on a variety of significant issues. For example, if one views the collective voting record of someone like Salud Carbajal, it would be very difficult to conclude he has the back of the American people. Go down the line on a local level also...similar results. At the end of the day, these people have been voted into office and we must respect the process...including the fact that unions such as public employees or teachers unions have enormous influence in the outcome in these elections. Which explains in no small part why someone like Carbajal opposes parental choice when it comes to educating their own child.
Also, hotbed institutions of far-left ideology funded at taxpayer expense...such as UCSB and SBCC...vote monolithically at a 95%+. Which explains in no small part why someone like Carbajal, et. al., oppose parental choice regarding education or free tuition for illegal aliens, etc. Again...it's a long list.
So thank your neighbor…Or not...
Yet on the list, you have to have a column for those who sat on their hands, called in sick, or were absent. This is a thing they all do. When they don't want you to see a vote by them on something we oppose (or is BAD for SB). They know they have the vote for it to pass so they sit out.
All of us obediently hump-bump over the speed-reducing obstacles placed in residential streets, and wend our way on the major cross-town streets now narrowed for non-existant bicycle traffic ... except the manic children on the electric motorcycle bikes.... and watching out for corner bulb-outs and trees unaccountably planted in streets taking up random parking spaces, and streets blocked with dead-end "bike only" barricades. ... On-street parking insufficient for high density "Builders' Remedy" projects and downtown workers driving in circles looking for a free place to stash their car all day.... CUI BONO? in English "to whom is it a benefit?", is a Latin phrase about identifying crime suspects.
Bingo!
Add to this the failed public transit boondoggle called MTD.
Every time I drive by a bus all I see is empty seats!
Yes almost all busses have just a very few riders that I have noticed. Why does MTD use the huge busses? What a waste! Adjust to ridership numbers and use the small bus/vans.
I don’t wanna sound like a broken record, but again this comes down to our school system turning out a bunch of mind numb robots that have brand programmed to agree with this nonsense.
In the name of “we are from the government, and we are here to help you” this demonstrates the folly of delegating problems to government bureaucrats. Once in place, with fat checks and pensions lined up, they feed at a public trough which they continue to fill and expand. The train to nowhere in Central California is a classic example of the result of central planning and misguided ideology. This article brings the folly of central planning down to our own area. Seeing cranes all over, and high buildings filling in ever empty lot or replacing a demolished older building is truly sad. These planners are turning our once beautiful city into just another Oxnard, or whatever ugly place you might think of. And yet the local voters keep re electing these folks, once again demonstrating Einstein’s definition of insanity.
Santa Barbara continues to lose 25-45 year olds at an alarming rate, and the decline continues. Those in their working prime are heading for the exits, why? It’s the local economy, duh! Young people (my kids included) find it more important to have a good job elsewhere than to continue to live in la-la land, while many in this age group continue living at home with Mom and Dad. This is not how things are supposed to work. Past generations establish their careers, get married, have kids and buy a home, all of which has been canceled, courtesy of the liberal, lefty machine. Simply put, if you don’t work for the local, Democrat controlled governmental cabal, you don’t work!
Those that will remain from this failure in public policy will be illegals and senior citizens, left to pick up the tab. The other remaining workers will be highly compensated public employees, living in taxpayer subsidized high rise apartments, and yes, will get around by bicycle. This is all by design, folks! In the meantime, BOS Capps continues to look for County owned land to earmark for employee housing.
https://www.noozhawk.com/santa-barbara-county-leaders-say-region-prepared-for-tough-economic-times/
Those retirees also planning another protest against Billionaires on Labor day. Seems like the government workers make a pretty hefty salary plus Pension and benefits. Yet no one complains about them who make up the majority of our workers in this community.
Um,not new. Read before contributing. Now contributing. But not sure what your insinuation is about.
Double check my post. Putting something in quotes that I don't post is misleading.
You quotes me as this ."no one complains about government employee compensation packages"
And what I wrote in my post was "Seems like the government workers make a pretty hefty salary plus Pension and benefits. Yet no one complains about them who make up the majority of our workers in this community."
I just read that article. Can you imagine that after investing all this money and time on students and the many local colleges we have , they can't even afford to live and stay in this community.
Who is buying up all the housing?Blackrock,Vanguard or the Chinese?
Leave it to Democrats to run a surplus into a deficit.
We literally have a dying community and economy. There are more homeless than tourists on State Street a once thriving center for the community.
The schools enrollment for one is also declining that should be obvious to the leaders that families are not moving in either.
The leaders need to open their eyes in SB and beyond as it is turning into a Retirement Community vs a thriving and growing economy.
Good point
I never made the connection with bicycles until now. But what they didn't expect was ebikes which is complicating the issue for them
My contrarian view, HC like any business is built on supply and demand. To be sustained on high demand, it must allow the entrepreneurs to be rewarded for taking the risk and making the innovations. Otherwise, you are left with the UK PHS.
Disagree. Bought my home in my 30's. Both of us worked in the County. Raise to kids here.
You shouldn't put something in quotes that's inaccurate and wasn't said originally. Please refrain from that.Thats misinformation and misrepresentation
Respectfully, I have to disagree. I came back here some 20 years after graduating high school. Raised a family, bought a home and retired after many years of a successful career. I know many people (mostly health care professionals) that did the same thing, so it can be done. My kids, unfortunately had to leave and have no desire to return.
Santa Barbara doesn’t have to be “newly wed and nearly dead,” we need young professionals and entrepreneurs.
“Mostly health care professionals” are quasi-govt compensated (Medicare, MediCal, grants, tax exempt medical facilities and clinic). Our largest top 10 employers are government related funded. Their workers can manage to raise a family here.
Unfortunately, even health care is going to potentially have some hard times. In SB County, the “payer mix” is less private carriers and now overwhelmingly, Medicare and Cencal. Hospitals need private insurers to thrive, coupled with reductions by the Big Beautiful Bill, spells major cut backs. SB reimbursement rates have historically been lower because we are considered “rural” by CMS! Imagine that, being lumped in with Taft, Maricopa and Bakersfield!
The sad truth? The average “Boomer” has ZERO clue about healthcare delivery. While they’re protesting on Hope, millions of healthcare resources are being spent on illegals and the homeless, which means less care for them. It is not unusual for illegals to ring up a million dollar hospital bill on one patient or their neonatal kid who is in the Pediatric ICU for months.
I read this article titled "Population Down; Deficit Spending Up"
by Scott Wenz and of course I have a new title
"Complete Failure of Local & State Government"
I quote from Mr. Wenz below>
"The Demographic Projections of the 1960s are proving out. There is and will be a continuing population decline from the Greatest Generation, bringing it more aligned to the percentages of pre-WWII."
The Greatest Generation are all gone and it is better they all are not here to see the utter failure
of the WOKE-LIBERAL-DESTRUCTIVE-GOVERNMENT at work undermining the Great Generation
accomplishments since WWII. It is all a distant Memory as CRAZINESS REIGNS IN CALI
and in all of the other Destructive Local and State Governments. Any doubts look carefully here>
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1960752267369332968
https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1961108791476519137
Any mentally ill young adults in SB? School Shooter?
Howard Walther, Member of a Military Family
Decreasing population yet the push to build hundreds of small apartments
Who are they going to house in these lower income units?
10% of SB are illegal immigrants who occupy lower income housing. Taking away housing making housing more expensive.
Is Montecito building workforce apartments for their maids & gardeners?
Great points about declining population while unemployment is going up.
Wait, what?
Less people & less jobs?
Oh and we are in a housing shortage with fewer people too, what?
There you go. Public education math at work!
I hear the 11 million dollar spent to make the State Street underpass a tourist destination has been a smashing success
Everyone needs to change their $11 million price tag. It came back to the city council for an increase...............
If that funding increase incorporates a 24/7 audio of Neil Young recordings, I would fully support it. Can't think of a better way to keep the homeless and other sundry bozos from assembling and/or loitering while being subjected to Mr. Young on a continuous loop.
The original bid had all the conduit etc included!!!
Shazam !! Then it's all over but the weeping...
YEP! Jeff Shelton also had an increase...
What I don't appreciate at all is the complete design disconnect of the stamped sheet metal fencing along the walk way; Geeze, what sleeze!
(Get the designers name and ban them from SB)
You must not recognize the name Shelton!!
Thank you Scott. You are a valued, long serving, exemplary community asset!
Yes, the Santa Barbara City population has declined by about 10,000 people . It is too expensive to live there. Santa Maria population has increased. Why?