Regarding the Aug. 27 article, “Santa Barbara Considers Stricter Rules for Using Dwindling Reserve Funds,” Santa Barbara is supposed to keep $56.7 million in reserve. But it has $27 million after years of treating “rainy day” money as a budget-balancing shortcut.
Credit where it’s due: City Councilman Eric Friedman, a Finance Committee member and mayoral candidate, is pushing back.
Rather than lowering the 25% reserve target to shrink the shortfall on paper, he wants to recommit fully to 15% disaster and 10% contingency reserves, with real rules on when the council can touch them.
Here’s what should give her own supporters pause: Councilwoman and fellow mayoral candidate Kristen Sneddon says she was shocked when the crisis became public in June.
But weeks earlier, she was part of a 4-3 majority that pulled $1 million from the Measure C capital fund — money Friedman wanted left in reserves — and redirected it to housing.
To be fair, Sneddon has flagged risky spending before and pushed for a stable, nonreserve funding source, but raising concerns after casting the votes that created the problem isn’t prevention.
You can’t pull money for a priority one month and claim surprise the next when the account runs low. The surprise is the problem, not an excuse.
Supporters can still believe in Sneddon’s priorities, but did she run the numbers first, or just make the case and hope the money showed up?
John Beardsmore
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the Aug. 25 article, “Santa Barbara to End Use of License Plate Reader Platforms for Now,” City Councilwoman Kristen Sneddon, also a mayoral candidate, warns that no matter how well local police protect data, “I just don’t think we do” have control over it — citing breaches, federal overreach and misuse as reasons to pull the plug on Flock cameras.
But what exactly are her priorities?
Police Chief Kelly Gordon has been unambiguous: no data shared with outside agencies, no officer misuse. The 12 ALPR cameras in use since late 2023 have helped identify suspects in a 2025 serial jewelry robbery, a stabbing and attempted homicide, and an assault — plus locating a missing child, a silver alert and stolen vehicles.
That’s not hypothetical risk — that’s public safety, delivered.
You can’t claim to champion public safety while stripping law enforcement of a tool proven to work, based on a breach that hasn’t happened.
And if data vulnerability is truly the concern, why does that worry stop short of the proposed rent registry? Are there others?
Selective outrage isn’t a data policy. It’s a tell. If the concern were really about privacy, it wouldn’t stop at the one program that’s actually solving crimes.
Sally Smith
Santa Barbara
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Hillary Hauser’s Aug. 21 letter to the editor offers a reassuring number for the Los Olivos-Sewer-to-Solvang project: $5,405 per ratepayer, per year.
But that figure only works if Los Olivos borrows $60 million at zero interest. No municipal loan works that way.
Once real interest rates are applied, the true 30-year cost climbs well beyond Hauser’s estimate. Run the real numbers and the picture changes.
The most likely financing vehicle is California’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a subsidized state loan program set at half of the state’s general obligation bond rate, recently running around 2%.
At that rate, a 30-year, $60-million loan costs $80.4 million in total repayment, and the per-ratepayer burden rises to roughly $7,241 per year — 34% higher than Hauser’s figure.
If any portion is financed at open-market municipal bond rates (closer to 4.5%), the total balloons to $110.5 million, with annual per-ratepayer costs approaching $10,000.
Real interest doesn’t just nudge Hauser’s number; it nearly doubles it.
Her cost comparison isn’t apples-to-apples. She weighs each ratepayer’s “share” against the full cost of an individual advanced on-site system, while omitting the pipeline’s ongoing operations, maintenance, connection fees, septic decommissioning, homeowners’ lateral pipe expenses, and monthly usage fees set by the City of Solvang.
Nitrates matter, but the Los Olivos Community Services District owes ratepayers honest financing models across realistic rate scenarios.
Kathryn Lohmeyer Rohrer
Los Olivos
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Just an observation watching an e-bike rider on La Cumbre Road going more than 40 mph at least. So what if a car that did not judge the speed pulled out in front of this kid?
I see it all the time so no one has a solution. Well, here is one:
- Have an age to even use an e-bike
- Pass the motorcycle test, both written and the ride course
- License required
- Insurance required
- Factory specifications cannot be altered to go faster than designed
- Penalties by law
John Sween
Santa Barbara
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I was selected to serve on a Santa Barbara County Superior Court jury starting Aug. 10. The judge indicated that it would be about a 14-day trial.
I was told that there was free parking at 1021 Santa Barbara St. but that it was extremely limited and I had to bring my jury summons or juror parking pass (which is displayed on the dashboard of the car) so the parking attendant could verify juror status.
During the first week (ending Aug. 13), each day I got to the parking lot at 8:30 a.m. (the court session starts at 9 a.m.) and there was never any attendant guarding access to the juror parking lot, nor were there empty parking spaces.
Jurors are warned not to park on the street since street parking is only 75 minutes and jurors cannot be excused to move their cars.
The result was I had to park in parking lot 7 (the library parking garage) all day at a cost of $20. At the end of the week, the total cost was $80 and for the duration of the trial (assuming no parking spaces in the “extremely” limited juror parking lot) that would be $280.
I might add that the court does reimburse for mileage but at only 34 cents per mile when the IRS states that mileage cost for 2026 is 76 cents per mile. So jurors are being reimbursed at half the actual cost of driving a car.
Trial by jury, while a privilege, is a burden for the jurors who have to take time off work (and some employers only reimburse employees for just five days of jury service per year) to serve.
The least the court system should do is provide free parking if the juror parking lot is full and be reimbursed at the IRS 2026 mileage rate.
I contrast the Santa Barbara County treatment of jurors with that of Ada County, Idaho, where my daughter lives. Jurors there are guaranteed free parking and are given a box lunch for every day they serve. They are also reimbursed at the current IRS mileage rate.
The judge is grateful we can serve and thanks us for serving, so why can’t Santa Barbara County treat its jurors with the respect and gratitude they deserve?
Al Todd
Santa Barbara
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