I just wanted to say what a breath of fresh air it was to read Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen’s July 24 column, “Dog’s Tragic Death Doesn’t Justify Online Lynch Mob.” I agreed with everything he had to say, as many here in Santa Barbara do.
I have been standing by and saying the same thing about the unethical vitriol and hatred toward this family and — yes, sadly — death threats to the Sorosky family, owners of Camp Canine.
The hateful, inappropriate, unjustifiable response to the horrible circumstance of Bruce’s tragic death is absolutely, unequivocally wrong.
I was raised next-door and have been best friends with Joanne Soroky since I was 4 years old, and they are a wonderful, caring, genuine animal-loving family. This whole situation has made me so sad and angry at the same time.
So thank you again for giving a voice of reason and compassion to both parties involved, as many of us feel about this family and the circumstances surrounding Bruce’s death.
Be well and safe, please. Sadly we live in a world where words can genuinely hurt you.
Melinda Rister
Santa Barbara
• • •
Thank you to Bill Macfadyen Yes, it was too bad and was not handled with dignity, but I wholly agree that the protest outside the business was not fair or warranted for the business.
It was a tragic experience for everyone involved. I feel the lynch mob just made it worse.
Lynn Meyer
Santa Barbara
• • •
I am not taking sides on the recent death of a young bulldog at a daycare facility.
I have empathy for the couple who lost their pet. However, drowning may not have been the cause.
At age 1, sudden or unexpected death in bulldogs (including English and French bulldogs) is usually caused by acute respiratory crisis, severe heatstroke or underlying congenital defects.
Because of their extreme anatomy, young bulldogs are uniquely vulnerable to rapid, life-threatening system failures.
Yes, the dog was found in the water, where he may have gone to cool off if he had heat stroke. Food for thought!
Andra Dillard
Santa Barbara
• • •
I don’t have a dog at Camp Canine now but feel for the facility owners as they did take responsibility for this sad situation while others developed, as you Bill Macfadyen wrote, a “lynch mob” mentality.
Cissy Ross
Santa Barbara
• • •
This is way over the top. We have thousands of people around the world who are being slaughtered on a daily basis for ideological causes and we’re worried about one dog that drowned in a pool.
It’s very unfortunate. They should get her another dog and be done with it.
Tom Gherini
Solvang
• • •
Please compare and contrast the recent unfortunate accidental drowning of a beloved pet dog to the lack of public reaction to the deliberate use and deaths of dogs by the Los Angeles homeless for drug testing.
Patrick McGinnes
Santa Barbara
• • •
I’m glad that Bill Macfadyen defended the owners of Camp Canine. I, too, was really affected by reading all of the articles. I have yet to talk to anyone unaware of this tragedy.
It is good to put a personal face to the business, which may never fully recover from this event. I feel sorry for Bruce’s owners and for the Sorosky family. It’s too bad for everyone.
Nice to hear another perspective.
Lynn Morris
Santa Barbara
• • •
When voters approve a dedicated funding measure like Measure C, they expect more than good intentions. They expect transparency, accountability and measurable results.
Homelessness remains one of the most pressing challenges facing our community. Residents see the impacts every day, and many are asking whether the efforts supported by taxpayer dollars are achieving meaningful results.
Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, what outcomes are being achieved, and whether those outcomes justify the cost.
This isn’t about politics. It’s about transparency, accountability and public trust.
The voters approved Measure C. Taxpayers provided the funding.
Joann Olejnik
Santa Barbara
• • •
Say goodbye to democracy in Santa Barbara. Our City Council is at it again. To be specific, four council members: Wendy Santamaria, Kristin Sneddon, Oscar Gutierrez and Meagan Harmon, who currently control our city.
Rent control, or rent “stabilization,” has been a hot issue for some time. There has been a parade of people who have made public comments, written letters, met with council members, or participated in working groups organized by the council.
Most have demonstrated the willingness to compromise. They have presented a mountain of evidence demonstrating these measures have countless unintended consequences that have been proven to harm not only small property providers, but also reduce housing stock, cause gentrification and ultimately drive up rents in the long run.
This is not only from property providers or Realtors, it includes people like our most respected local economist from UC Santa Barbara, Peter Rupert, who has studied mountains of research and data on this topic.
Plus, there are budget implications as the City of Santa Barbara is already having to cut back on services.
So, what does this have to do with democracy? These four council members have literally ignored everything that was presented or asked of them, and taken the most extreme position provided to them by the Santa Barbara Tenants Union and CAUSE, and used it verbatim.
Almost all small property providers like myself have come to the conclusion it is a waste of time to continue to provide input.
Tenants and others who don’t agree with their extreme policies are either too busy or afraid to speak out because of the intimidation tactics used by the Tenants Union and CAUSE.
Their constituents have come to council meetings yelling obscenities and personally attacking anyone who dares to disagree, including Mayor Randy Rowse. At the same time, these organizations provide political support for the same four council members.
In an attempt to ensure that this is something our community at large actually supports and is not simply a small fraction of our community dictating their will on the rest of us for their own personal reasons, Rowse suggested that anything this divisive and with such a large impact to the community be put out for a vote as a city ballot measure. Doesn’t that sound like the proper thing to do in a democracy?
Not to the four council members, who shot it down. The real reason is they know very well that voters in Santa Barbara believe the experts and voted against “rent stabilization” measures by a large margin every time.
Santamaria, Sneddon, Gutierrez and Harmon really don’t care what voters want.
Jim Carbone
Santa Barbara
• • •
Regarding the July 15 article, “Costco Eyeing Site Near Santa Barbara Airport for Possible Gas Station,” I don’t own an electric vehicle, though perhaps one day I will. Instead, I need gas in my truck.
Gas prices are very arbitrary. Costco management wants a gas station associated with every warehouse. Prices are typically 40 to 50 cents less than most other gas stations, and they have thoughtful attendants if needed.
As for additional traffic congestion, I don’t see it. The congestion occurs only if the lot fills up. Over time, customers will self-level their usage. I’ve seen this at many other Costco Gas stations.
Goleta isn’t getting screwed over. We are receiving a high-quality gas locally. Sounds like a win-win in my tank!
Mike Pollack
Goleta
• • •
The Lompoc Valley Community Healthcare Organization recently commissioned a report to assess the “health and well being of Lompoc residents.”
A July 26 article, “Lompoc Valley Has Higher Poverty Rates, Housing Insecurity,” reported that “the living wage of a household in Santa Barbara County — classified as the minimum income a family needs to cover basic necessities for two working parents with two kids — is roughly $151,000 a year.”
I think it would be hard to find many families earning that kind of money. The U.S. Census report for 2025 estimated the average household income in Lompoc at about $72,000 — so you can see that this falls short of what the study feels is needed.
But it’s also well known that it costs less to live in Lompoc than almost anywhere else in the county.
While there were several potential solutions to their findings discussed in the report’s Appendix A, “Considerations for Action,” how to obtain a living wage wasn’t one of them.
I have one: Politicians need to stop trying to fix the problem.
Their solution is usually to raise the minimum wage. This only causes all the things we buy and services we use to increase in price and, at the end of the day, low- and medium-income families are still in the same financial condition.
Ron Fink
Lompoc
• • •
Underage drinking and excessive alcohol consumption have become normalized in our community, and it’s harming our youth.
Five teenagers lost their lives after a tragic crash in June due to suspected drunken driving. Underage drinking is not only glamorized in our community, it has become commonplace.
Underage drinking has immediate and long-term consequences, like physical injuries, increased suicide rates and long-term health issues. The human brain is actively developing until one’s mid-20s. When alcohol is consumed during this development, there can be major developmental delays or long-term emotional and behavioral problems.
Alcohol consumption in teens can also lead to poor academic performance, poor decision-making, legal problems, and an increase in depression and anxiety.
Impaired driving is costly, not just financially but for the safety of others’ lives.
We as a community need to address this problem head on.
It starts at home with parents. Parents need to have healthy discussions regarding underage drinking with their teens. Initiatives such as Talk It Out identified that 93% of teens believe honest and open family communication can prevent teenage drinking.
Parents who have a trusting and supportive relationship with their children will influence the likelihood of their child not drinking at an early age.
Alexis Leyva Morse
Santa Maria
• • •
In her July 27 commentary, “Santa Barbara Doesn’t Need to Become a Strong Town — It Already Is One,” Cass Ensberg continues to be right about the (self-imposed) conundrum of State Street in Santa Barbara.
She is the adult in the room! Please heed her message.
Joseph Garred
Santa Barbara
• • •
Santa Barbara is a wonderful place to live, and I care deeply about keeping it that way. That is why I am a member of Strong Towns Santa Barbara.
For me, the point is not to “fix” Santa Barbara as if it were broken. It is to ask how we can make a great community even stronger, more resilient, and more welcoming for the people who live here now and those who will come after us.
I was struck by Cass Ensberg’s commentary suggesting that Santa Barbara does not need Strong Towns ideas because it is already a strong town. I respectfully disagree.
Being beautiful, beloved and historic does not automatically make a city financially or socially resilient. When housing is unaffordable and transportation choices are limited, it makes it harder to maintain the civic and financial health of the community.
What I appreciate about Strong Towns Santa Barbara is the spirit behind it: a group of people asking, “What’s one thing we can do today to make our neighbors’ lives better?”
That practical civic mindset is part of Santa Barbara’s tradition of stewardship, from Pearl Chase onward.
If we care about Santa Barbara’s beauty, character and prosperity, we should also care about its resilience.
Being part of Strong Towns Santa Barbara gives me a hopeful, practical way to do that. It’s a place where I can join with others who want to be good stewards of a city we love.
Kevin Heim
Santa Barbara
• • •
Regarding Cynder Sinclair’s July 29 commentary, “Nonprofits Strengthen Santa Barbara County Every Day,” I wonder how many of our citizens are aware of the treasure chest of nonprofit organizations we have serving us at every stage of life and for every imaginable issue.
To mention just two with which I am familiar, the Center for Successful Aging serves seniors with counseling and social opportunities to combat isolation, and our community also benefits from the many services of the Parkinson Association Santa Barbara, an independent, local agency that provides many services to people with Parkinson’s disease and their caregivers.
Both these small agencies run largely on volunteer power.
Margaret Levine
Santa Barbara
• • •
Regarding Brian Epstein’s and Susan Shields’ July 24 letters to the editor, I’m not sure you can trust statistics from so-called sanctuary states and cities, which don’t report immigration status in their crime stats. Noozhawk won’t even report it, unless it’s a sympathetic portrayal of an illegal immigrant facing deportation.
But let’s say they’re right and there are NOT thousands of killings committed by illegal immigrants. What’s an acceptable number to Epstein and Shields? Hundreds? Dozens? Twenty?
To the dead victim’s family, I’ll bet the answer is not even one.
Cam Martinez
Santa Barbara
• • •
Brian Epstein missed my point. His purported crime statistics are meaningless to the dead victims and their families.
Protests and local media coverage when U.S. citizens are killed by illegal immigrants are rare, if ever, yet individuals who are killed evading ICE arrest in far-away states become heroes.
The immigration laws of our sovereign nation are not multiple choice or optional. Illegal versus legal, big difference.
Improperly licensed commercial drivers who are unable to speak English or read road signs have no business driving big-rigs on our roadways, and they tragically have caused the death of innocent people in several, states including California.
As a side note, a July 24 article, “Driver Shortage Disrupts Santa Barbara MTD Bus Service,” notes that Santa Barbara MTD unexpectedly lost seven of its drivers but would not say why, claiming privacy issues.
Simple Google search: “Nondomiciled commercial driver’s licenses are being canceled statewide in California, including in Santa Barbara County, affecting approximately 13,000 drivers. This statewide action by the California DMV took effect on March 6, 2026, following federal audits and directives.”
Patty Darr
Lompoc
• • •
I wrote a letter to the editor about illegal immigrants killing Americans. I was responding to a Noozhawk article. Then, Susan Shields and Brian Epstein both responded to my letter.
Instead of responding about the deaths of Americans, they responded that my numbers were too high. They didn’t care that someone’s loved one was dead by an immigrant criminal. They quoted that only a few hundred Americans were dead, not thousands. I guess in their eyes, that’s OK.
I got my numbers from the White House totals that included fentanyl deaths. More than 10,000 American deaths are attributed to illegal immigrants.
Obviously, like most liberals, Epstein and Shields want to distract you from the travesty and convince you there isn’t a problem because it’s only a few Americans.
The outrage to them, is the numbers, not the dead.
Now compare this to the outrage of a dog drowning reported in Noozhawk: protests and nasty posts galore.
A single dog death gets more outrage than thousands of dead Americans.
I point this out because the narrative is skewed in the wrong direction and silence allows it to grow.
Bart Bader
Goleta
• • •
Mail Calls
Noozhawk welcomes and encourages expressions of all views on Santa Barbara County issues. Click here to submit a letter to the editor.
Letters should be BRIEF — as in 200 words-BRIEF — and letters under 150 words are given priority. Each must include a valid mailing address and contact information. Pseudonyms will not be accepted, and repeat letters will be skipped. Letters may be edited for clarity, length and style.
As a hyperlocal news site, we ask that you keep your opinions and information relevant to Santa Barbara County and the Central Coast. Letters about issues beyond our local region have the absolute lowest priority of everything we publish.
With rare exceptions, this feature is published on Saturdays.
By submitting any content to Noozhawk, you warrant that the material is your original expression, free of plagiarism, and does not violate any copyright, proprietary, contract or personal right of anyone else. Noozhawk reserves, at our sole discretion, the right to choose not to publish a submission.
Click here for Noozhawk’s Terms of Use, and click here for more information about how to submit letters to the editor and other announcements, tips and stories.