Regarding the June 22 article, “Developers Sue Frontier Over Carpinteria Property for 18-Story Housing Project,” the citizens of Carpinteria should petition the city and Frontier California Inc. to set aside the local land in dispute with the developers and keep it a natural open space reserve.

The developers want to buy the land and build the proposed 18-story building for housing.

What good does it do to destroy the very nature of Carpinteria’s open space and natural beauty by building “up”18 stories? Why build there at all?

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story in which platforms were built across the ocean to the nearby islands to accommodate housing. How psychotic are we going to get?

The reality is Carpinteria wants to remain Carpinteria. Beautiful, and natural, and open.

That is a good reality whether or not one lives here.

Who are the developers? Do they really want to build an 18-story building? Or is this a strong arm means to another end? This is evil no matter their motives.

Here’s a laugh: Do you think that the developers would condescend to live in that 18-story building? Or have it built near them? I am gonna guess no.

Phyllis Sfetku
Carpinteria

•        •        •

Regarding the June 23 article, “Santa Barbara to Explore Bringing Vacancy Tax Measure to Voters,” the Santa Barbara City Council’s stated goal of a “vacancy tax” is not to generate revenue but to change owner behavior to rent their vacation home.

Problem: It won’t create more long-term rentals.

Targeted “vacant homes” are owned by affluent households that are not especially sensitive to such costs, particularly when the property is held for lifestyle, family or legacy reasons rather than for income.

Taxing these homes may generate some revenue, but is unlikely to generate new rentals. If the owner of a Riviera vacation home values privacy, flexibility and occasional personal use, a tax is more likely to be absorbed, resented or the house sold.

Instead, offer carrots rather than sticks. Create a pilot program for higher-value second homes: offer owners help and incentives to place their homes in the local rental market for up to six months.

This would recognize a basic reality of the Santa Barbara market: some affluent owners will never choose a full-time lease, but a limited, seasonal rental may be acceptable. Not a permanent conversion.

Structure around simplicity, protection and civic value rather than coercion. Use a tenant pool made up of highly qualified local renters such as teachers, nurses, professionals, etc.  Offer a package that includes tenant screening, lease preparation, property management, etc.

The Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara already uses landlord incentives. Let’s encourage positive individual behavior, not decrees from the state.

J.W. Burk
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

Regarding the June 13 article, “Santa Barbara Council Faces Off Over Budget Reserve Crisis,” we are looking at a city budget with depleting reserves, a vanished contingency fund and a growing deficit.

But our true problem isn’t a shortage of taxpayer dollars — it is a shortage of fiscal discipline and financial transparency.

Look at the facts. When voters approved Measure G in 2008, the city made a clear promise: 50% of the tax would be permanently sequestered to fix our broken streets, and 50% would go to the General Fund. The public trusted that promise.

Now, City Administrator Kelly McAdoo and finance director Keith DeMartini are pushing an amendment. They call it a “modernization” to provide “flexibility.” In reality, it is a shell game to transfer our much-needed road money directly into the General Fund to cover their budget deficits.

This is the exact same deceptive playbook we saw with Measure A 2026. Every time this City Council uses the word “modernization,” it is a vague disguise to pull a bait-and-switch on the public.

The voters thought they were voting on a binding mandate to fix infrastructure. Instead, the council set up a structure in which the tax is permanent, but the promise to fix the streets is temporary.

Taxpayers did not vote for an open-ended piggy bank to hide structural deficits.

The public deserves to know exactly what was promised, exactly what is changing and exactly where their money is going.

Joann Olejnik
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

The June 24 article, “County’s Emergency Management Office Is ‘Understaffed and Underfunded,’ Grand Jury Finds,” states:

“The Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management is ‘understaffed and underfunded,’ according to the county Grand Jury, which concluded last week that the seven-person office is not adequately prepared to address emergencies.”

Additionally, grand jurors said:

“The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors should ‘recognize (the office) as the critical department it is, increase staffing, and provide full and dedicated executive support’ to the office’s director, the Grand Jury said in the report. ‘The safety and protection of county residents depend on it.’”

So, the county grand jury gets one of my “Beacon of Reality Awards” for telling the citizens of this county that their emergency management organization is a dumpster fire.

But wait, there’s more … the same Board of Supervisors, along with the City of Goleta, while falling all over themselves to build more and more housing, are still ignoring the safety of citizens of the county, especially those of us living in the western Goleta Valley, by continuing to delay construction of County Fire Station 10.

The building of Station 10, at the corner of Hollister Avenue and Winchester Canyon Road, was announced in November 2016. Supervisor Joan Hartmann, that was a decade ago! The people of the Third Supervisorial District deserve better!

When are the Board of Supervisors going to start paying adequate attention to the safety of the people living in the county?

They’ll probably wait until after the next big wildfire, then spend at least a couple of years talking about doing … something someday.

Hib Halverson
Goleta

•        •        •

I immensely enjoyed reading Collin Harmon’s June 25 column, “At Joe’s Café the Past Is Always on the Menu,” but would like to point out an omission, and make an addition.

Omitted from the list of owners was Harry Davis (the same Harry of Harry’s Plaza Café in Loreto Plaza). He purchased Joe’s in 1958 from Joe Govean and ran it until he sold to Nancy Peery.

It was Harry Davis who had the neon sign installed on the building. Additionally, the original location of Joe’s was in the middle of the 500 block of State Street, where Holden’s Steakhouse is presently located.

It was sometime in the early 1980s that Joe’s moved to the corner of State and Cota streets.

Here’s to the stiffest drinks in town!

Craig Smith
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

Nice piece, but there was no mention of the Joe’s Café move from where Holdren’s is now to its current location after Maggie McFly’s flew the coop and Joe’s took over.

As I recall (I know, it was a thousand years ago …), locals were involved in the moving of things with a mini parade of stuff from the old place to the new.

Kent Richards
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

Colleen Macey and Cassandra Ensberg’s June 13 commentary, “The Road to Downtown Recovery Runs Through a Reopened State Street,” makes an important point: State Street was closed as an emergency measure, not as a permanent surrender of Santa Barbara’s main public thoroughfare.

What began in 2020 as a temporary COVID-19 response has become an expensive, prolonged experiment affecting taxpayers, business owners, residents and visitors.

State Street belongs to the public, and decisions about its future should be guided by transparency, accountability and practical community needs — not shifting plans, consultant reports or political preferences.

For years, the city has spent public money trying to “fix” something that was not broken. Residents deserve a full accounting of how much has been spent, who has been paid and what measurable benefit the public has received.

Before committing another dollar to reimagining State Street, the city should restore it to its pre-pandemic function and evaluate the result honestly.

Reopening it would not prevent future improvements; it would simply return the discussion to a fair starting point grounded in normal civic process.

Reopen State Street first. Account for the money already spent. Then, and only then, should city leaders ask taxpayers to fund a long-term vision for downtown.

Lesley Torgeson
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

Retail shopping is an important service and often a fun activity for both tourists and locals.

To be profitable, businesses need to be easily accessed and with high visibility to attract customers. An important way that this is achieved is by people driving by in their automobiles. We see this on Coast Village Road, in Summerland, in Carpinteria, in the Funk Zone.

The most simple, practical and wise move that the City of Santa Barbara can do right now is to reopen State Street to restore the access and visibility to businesses on State Street and in the central business district downtown.

This can happen quickly and for relatively low cost. It also would help restore State Street as the economic engine it once was by providing the essential access and exposure that businesses need to be successful and to generate more revenue that, in turn, generates revenue for the city.   

City Administrator Kelly McAdoo has estimated the cost to reopen the street to be around $700,000 for cleanup, slurry sealing and restriping. This is money well spent to revive the flow and vitality to downtown businesses and Santa Barbara!

By the way, the city has spent at least that much in experimental pilot projects on State Street, including big plastic pots and plantings, green painted bike lanes, pedlets, etc.

Let’s do this before Old Spanish Days Fiesta and celebrate as a community with the biggest, most famous horse parade in the nation back on State Street!

And then let’s thank Mayor Randy Rowse and the City Council and move forward together, continuing to work on production of housing in downtown and to study all the ideas for State Street as part of the longer term Master Plan!

There is room for all of us!

Cassandra Ensberg
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

Just a note to laud Wayne Mellinger’s June 22 commentary, “How a Monthly Lunch Helped Shape Santa Barbara’s Response to Homelessness.” It was inspiring.

Sharon Allbright
Lompoc

•        •        •

I am offended by T. Harris’ June 19 letter to the editor tirade criticizing Santa Barbara County Supervisor Joan Hartmann’s eloquent commentary on the occasion of Juneteenth.

Everything Hartmann wrote is factual. What kind of context for this information is required when the facts stare the reader in the face?

We are talking here about the loss of civil rights and freedom of speech, about outrageous bias and the warped retelling of American history, to mention just some of the insults to democracy we are experiencing.

I hope I am not alone in rejecting the arguments of this letter writer.

Susan Shields
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

The Santa Barbara Unified School District approved $175,000 in salary increases for central office administrators, including confidential and management staff during one of the worst fiscal downturns in district history.

These “me, too” raises were included in a budget already projecting a $69 million cumulative deficit and a collapsed reserve fund now sitting far below the legal minimum.

These are not union employees. These are nonrepresented administrative staff, many in cabinet roles, the very leadership families have repeatedly asked the board to scrutinize. They received raises while paras (paraeducators, teaching and instructional assistants), teachers and counselors were given layoff notices.

At the same time, the district reports that 67% of high school students are performing well below grade level in math, and schools continue to operate under deteriorating physical conditions. Our facilities are eroding, and yet there’s still room in the budget for top-tier executive raises.

When a district is financially failing, academically underperforming and cutting frontline educators while the superintendent’s office has grown 68% in cost over five years, it’s necessary to ask: Where is the leadership?

The cost of the raises could fund basic student supports. That’s not just a math problem, that’s a values problem.

If SBUSD wants to restore public trust, it must stop shielding top administrators from the very sacrifices it’s demanding from classrooms. This is about integrity  and integrity starts with being honest about who gets paid and who’s left behind.

Michele Voigt
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

OMG, I couldn’t be happier! I wrote about Assembly Bill 1955 and protested this law, and low and behold, look what has happened.

California parents have actually, finally won something! More work to be done on getting more of their parental rights returned to them.

“The Ninth Circuit has confirmed that parents’ rights still exist in California — despite Gavin Newsom’s effort to stamp them out.

“Last week, the appellate court — still known as the most liberal in the land — blocked the enforcement of AB 1955, the 2024 law that prevents schools from informing parents when children tell schools that they want to change genders.”

Andrea Henrikson
Santa Barbara

•        •        •

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