Regarding the Feb. 10 article, “County Supervisors Will Audit Overtime by Sheriff’s Office, Require Monthly Reports,” why limit these audits to one department?
The story reports that Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson said he would support an audit of the Sheriff’s Department’s current overtime practices but added that it should be done for more county departments.
Nelson recommended the top five departments to see whether other departments also have issues with overtime.
“I think that if this is something that we state is wrong in the Sheriff’s Department, it needs to be wrong across the board,” Nelson said.
I would start with all the nonprofit organizations that receive grants from Santa Barbara County. What are they doing with all that cash? How much of the grant money is going to the people it’s supposed to help and how much is going into the pockets of the overhead staff of each nonprofit?
Then have a report on how much oil industry tax revenue has been lost over the last decade. The Sheriff’s Department budget isn’t the problem. Maybe the county wouldn’t have budget woes if the Board of Supervisors hadn’t killed the golden goose.
Ron Fink
Lompoc
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As a taxpaying, full-time resident of Santa Barbara County, I am extremely disturbed to learn about the millions of dollars in overtime spending that has already cost our county dearly.
In these difficult times, with the withdrawal of many federal and state promised funding, everyone is being asked to “do more with less.”
The county’s $66 million budget hole leaves our community with a multitude of unmet needs. Parks are being left in disrepair, potholes are unfilled and sidewalks are cracked and split, resulting in a danger to young and old who can easily slip and fall when simply out for a stroll.
In addition, badly needed health and human services are being reduced for our most vulnerable populations.
That makes it especially sad to learn that these badly needed dollars are all being used to backfill the cost overruns of the Sheriff’s Department. Why isn’t Sheriff Bill Brown being asked to tighten his department spending?
Instead, using the mantra of “inadequate staffing,” he is asking for overtime costs this year that are expected to reach more than $20 million.
Twenty-nine employees earning more in overtime than in their base salary sounds extreme.
I was curious to learn that the Sheriff’s Department is less understaffed than many of our other county agencies. If they can do more with less, why can’t Brown?
Further, Brown has had approval to hire additional officers but, as of now, says they are “not ready for the field.” Why not? What are they doing?
I personally am glad that Supervisors Laura Capps and Joan Hartmann have bravely called for a true audit and an increased accountability for the Sheriff’s Department.
It seems that we are simply wasting badly needed money.
Beryl Kreisel
Santa Barbara
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At the end of his Feb. 13 weekly column, Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen refers to the article about the Santa Barbara City Council voting to ban single-use plastic items:
“Determined to show how unserious it is about a gaping $1.6 million budget deficit, the Santa Barbara City Council has voted … to ban styrofoam containers, plastic cutlery and mylar balloons.”
LOLROF
For that, Macfadyen earns yet another of my “Beacon of Reality Awards,” especially for the use of the word “unserious.” Next time I see news reports that the City Council wants to fix problems with State Street, I’ll remember that word.
Finally, after I’ve complained in these letters column for years, the City of Goleta is finally repaving Calle Real between Rochester Way and Salisbury Avenue. I’ll be able to ride my e-bike along that road and not get pelted by gravel from the failing asphalt as cars fly by.
And Goleta is reportedly soon to fix Calle Real between Cathedral Oaks and Winchester Canyon roads.
But wait, there’s more: After a near decade-long delay, the city is also going to fix the Cathedral Oaks “crib wall” and repave Cathedral Oaks Road between Winchester Circle and Calle Real.
To the Goleta City Council, thank you, thank you!
Better late than never, people.
Hib Halverson
Goleta
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Regarding the Feb. 19 article, “Lompoc Rotary Steps Up For Ryon Park Stage Replacement,” you can buy a nice house in Lompoc for $525,000. Why does a flat concrete stage with some ramps and steps cost that much?
I would think you could do it for $100,000 easy. It’s just a concrete foundation. I can’t help but think this is another government project with wings.
Someone look up how much concrete will be needed for this project and then add the labor for the forms and jack hammering the old one out. Maybe you can pour over the old stage and save money.
I don’t live in Lompoc anymore, but I think this is a good project that could bring in some future entertainment besides the Lompoc Flower Festival. I just don’t think it’s worth half-a-million dollars.
Bart Bader
Goleta
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Monte Wilson’s Feb. 14 commentary, “Santa Barbara’s Housing Crisis is Self Inflicted,” should be mandatory reading for Santa Barbara City Council members — especially those who are new to their role and those who do not have years of “real life” experience addressing and resolving difficult, challenging and critical community issues.
Wilson’s advice is short, succinct and actionable. It sets forth a clear road map for success. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone would provide the council members with a similar map and approach for the visioning and revitalization of downtown Santa Barbara.
Kelly Rose
Los Olivos
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Monte Wilson tells us — the victims of encroaching overdevelopment — that we are also its cause. Gee, blame the victims.
He emphasizes a single sentence cherry-picked from the executive summary of a City of Santa Barbara study that found new residential construction is infeasible under the existing program.
In response, I would say 1) yes, it’s a draft document, thank you for your input, and 2) the document spends another 100 pages addressing that infeasibility and other problems.
He asserts that when a city study finds all housing prototypes to be infeasible, it is a “systemic policy failure.” I disagree with that alarmist conclusion.
Feasibility is often — as in Santa Barbara — an antagonist to desirability. The more desirable a place is, the less feasible it may be to develop.
In weighing that balance, feasibility should not be the main driving motivation. Period.
As a possible solution, Wilson calls for a “working group” to study the problem, like we need another committee. His suggested membership is (in rank order after city officials) builders, architects, lenders, property owners, residents.
His justification? “People who live with the consequences of these policies every day should have a seat at the table alongside those who write them.”
Well said, but where is the voice of the many residents and visitors who 1) enjoy our city, 2) believe the current version is why it’s appealing to live and build here, except 3) worry that changing to meet demand may kill what makes Santa Barbara sought after to begin with?
We will never build our way into feasibility. Demand will always be insatiable until Santa Barbara is no longer attractive. Then development will become feasible. When will too much development spoil the very reason Santa Barbara is so desirable?
Richard Closson
Santa Barbara
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I want to thank Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown for his Feb. 11 commentary, “On Immigration, Two Viewpoints Can Both Be Valid.”
I grew up in a lemon orchard 80 years ago and live in a lemon orchard in Nipomo now. I think the Reagan-era immigration law should be revisited for its strengths and weaknesses.
The strength was taking care of the many immigrants who had lived and worked here without documentation for some time. The weakness was lack of enforcement against employers that hired employees who were not allowed to work in this country.
Much of the uncertainty of a new employee being able to work can now be eliminated by e-verification with the Social Security Administration. Such verification was not available 40 years ago.
Rollie Cavaletto
Nipomo
• • •
If we are going to talk about immigration enforcement in Santa Barbara County, we should start with the numbers that actually affect us.
The Sheriff’s Department has already used half of its overtime budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, and is on track to exceed its allotment by $9 million by July.
That is not a rounding error. It is a warning.
Against that backdrop, calls for expanded immigration enforcement deserve closer scrutiny. Supporters often point to national polling to suggest a public mandate. But here at home, this debate is not abstract. It has real budget consequences.
Overtime at this scale reflects extended shifts, staffing shortages and operational strain. Deputies working prolonged hours face fatigue and burnout. Recruitment and retention become harder. If public safety is truly the priority, sustainability should matter.
Before expanding federal access to local jails or increasing enforcement cooperation that could trigger additional transfers and detention activity, residents deserve clear answers: Will this drive overtime even higher? If so, how will we pay for it?
Every additional dollar spent covering overtime is a dollar not spent elsewhere. Mental health response teams, homelessness services, fire prevention, road repairs, and community programs all compete for the same limited funds. Fiscal responsibility does not disappear when the issue is immigration.
Targeted enforcement against violent offenders is one thing. Broad policies that increase detention, strain local resources and risk undermining community trust are another.
Santa Barbara deserves solutions that are focused, financially responsible and grounded in evidence. Expanding enforcement without addressing cost, staffing capacity and community impact is not a comprehensive plan.
Public safety requires more than strong rhetoric. It requires disciplined budgeting, clear priorities and policies that actually make our communities safer.
Gina Rodarte Quiroz
Santa Barbara
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Thank you to Dennis Whelan for his Feb. 8 commentary, “UCSB Must Grow Without Erasing the Architecture That Made It Ours,” and his call to action to help save some of UC Santa Barbara’s architectural history.
All great universities seek to integrate life and learning, and a sense of place is an important part of the collegiate experience.
Great universities have managed to save essential buildings while they continue to grow, thus creating places with a rich history as well as vibrant present, which document their respective beginnings.
UCSB was founded on a mesa west of a slough on what had been, among other things, a U.S. Marine base during World War II.
The local architectural firm — Arendt Moser Grant, founded in 1906 and now known as 19six Architects — designed many of the campus’ first buildings in the midcentury vernacular established by William Pereira, who provided the first major master plan.
A century from now those buildings will represent the history of this now Nobel laureate-recognized university.
The UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum should be that champaign and catalyst to take on the task to ensure that these buildings, and perhaps others, identified in Whelan’s commentary can be saved.
Fred Sweeney, AIA emeritus
Santa Barbara
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I enjoyed Tom Modugno’s Feb. 15 commentary, “Two Powerful Women Rule History of Campbell Ranch,” and the history of Coal Oil Point.
With the recalcitrance of UCSB to maintain Campbell Ranch — a historical tie to its own history and the social, architectural and historical process of Santa Barbara as a whole — I would think a few of my professors are turning in their graves, especially David Gebhard, a noted architectural historian.
Shame on UCSB. Now get to work on the restoration process.
Brian Massey
Sonoita, Arizona, and formerly Santa Barbara
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Hundreds of years ago, citizens of this country established local, state and federal governments to fairly serve the public.
Governments were to maintain oversight of laws to give equal protection to everyone who deserved it. But all governments grew in size due to more demands by the people, which then allowed special interest groups to exert more leverage for different goals, usually money and power.
Now it can be shown that governments are moving in the direction to become money-making business entities themselves. Making partnership deals with private companies and taking some kind of ownership percentage has changed what a government was established to do.
One local example is the City of Santa Barbara becoming business partners with a bicycle rental company and sharing in the income of this partnership. This was evidently done “to improve transportation,” but with benefits.
City leaders have allowed public streets and sidewalks to be used in this “business,” with the citizens now losing the use of those assets.
This is not right. The City of Santa Barbara has moved into competition not only with other bicycle rental companies, but also taxi and ride-share businesses. When politics takes control of dollars and sense, bad things will happen.
Dave Blunk
Santa Barbara
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I’m wondering if the residual effects of Proposition 13 are as rosy as Jennifer Berger described in her Feb. 11 commentary, “Prop. 13 — Why It’s Misunderstood and Why It Matters.”
When Prop. 13 passed in 1978, a friend told me that it would be a decade or more before we saw the full impact; he predicted there’d be less money for what Berger describes as “essential local services, including schools, fire protection and public infrastructure.”
You get what you pay for. California schools used to be the best in the nation; now we have teachers seeking funds from the community for basic supplies, a fire station (10 in western Goleta) that has been pending for years, and many, many roads that are more potholes than solid surface — all because there’s never enough money.
I agree that the “old” property tax structure placed a burden on homeowners, but I don’t agree that Prop. 13 was the panacea that Berger claims.
Annette Winter
Goleta
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Thank you to Joan Hartmann and Sigrid Wright for their Feb. 9 commentary, “Don’t Let Donald Trump Sacrifice Santa Barbara for His Outdated Oil Politics,” on the importance of developing renewable energy sources and the damaging consequences of continuing America’s disproportionate reliance on fossil fuels.
Urging readers to understand more about geopolitics and America’s place among nations is vitally important to wake up our government to America’s losing out in the race for energy independence and the development of competitive, marketable products renewable energies spawn.
While we don’t know what kind of government America will have after the 2028 elections, it is frighteningly clear we don’t have the leadership now that we need for the future.
If there IS a “national security emergency” over energy it is that we need to stop the dominance of oil in our lives.
Can you imagine an America with government-subsidized solar panels on every rooftop? Can you imagine the jobs created by renewable energy industries supported by government incentives? I want an electric vehicle designed and built in America.
All we have to do is vote for leaders who get it and really understand the vast benefits that will accrue. If we don’t, we will continue to live in an isolated and outdated America.
Frank DiMarco
Goleta
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Brian MacIsaac’s Feb. 13 letter to the editor about Karen Talleen-Lawton’s Feb. 9 “Sitting Back or Standing Up” commentary is patently ridiculous.
National Public Radio is primarily funded through a mix of member station fees, corporate sponsorships, individual donations and foundation grants, with federal funding playing a small role. Federal funding is less than 2% of NPR’s funding.
Local public radio stations receive ~8%-15% of their budgets from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, funded by federal taxes; these stations then pay NPR ~30%-40% of NPR’s revenue via programming fees, making the effective federal share ~5%-10% of NPR’s total.
Recent 2025 cuts have slashed CPB funding by $1.1 billion over two years, reducing this further.
NPR is not the “lifeblood” of our country, but it does present interesting fact-based reporting and analysis. Right-wingers like MacIsaac don’t like the facts, so they have to come up with alternate facts that are not factual at all.
Brian Epstein
Santa Barbara
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