Regarding the April 28 article, “Santa Barbara Council Backs State Street Plan, Sidesteps Vehicle Access Hours,” I sure am glad that the new plan for State Street conforms to City Councilwoman Meagan Harmon’s vision.
It looks to me like it will resemble a theme park, with designated hours of operation, complete with “districts that feature separate themes” — like Frontier Land, restaurants, entertainment, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
And at a bargain price of $68 million, it’s a steal, not unlike the Learing Center in Minneapolis.
We once used to visit parks like this — Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm among them. But now the generation that lives Disney instead of making the occasional visit, will transform the once productive and welcoming State Street into a hybrid mini mall/theme park.
I have to agree with Michael Mota; it just doesn’t look like Santa Barbara, nor will it feel like it either.
How about saving $68 million and bring back the original look and feel of this iconic main street. This is like Joe’s Café ditching steaks and hawking Big Macs, turning Hendry’s into a kiddie park with floats and slides, using the Lobero as an adult theater, Cold Spring Tavern hosting drag shows. It just won’t work!
So please BRING BACK STATE STREET. It was a historically proven recipe for success.
Brian Massey
Sonoita, formerly of Santa Barbara
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The difficulty in reaching consensus on the future of State Street is quite predictable. Any plan for development or improvement anywhere in the city or county that accommodates oil production or automobiles is, well, verboten.
Glenn Dorfman
Montecito
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Regarding Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen’s April 24 column, “State Street Master Plan Reaches a Costly Crossroads,” State Street will not return to profitability until the street is reopened to traffic, and bicycles are sent to Chapala and Anacapa streets.
The parking lots will not fill up when there is nothing to offer in the shops nearby. Parades brought people eager to participate in our city’s celebrations and spend much-needed funds.
Who are the people on the City Council? Why does Santa Barbara still elect them?
Why is the issue of State Street not on the ballot? It could have two options: restore, or not.
I have not encountered many people who even go down to the center of Santa Barbara anymore. With many of our citizens over 60, they used their cars to visit State Street or attend parades.
I, for one, am not going to park at Earl Warren Showgrounds, carry chairs and snacks on a bus, walk Cabrillo Boulevard for a spot, watch a parade, carry everything back to the bus stop, and return to Earl Warren. At 83, those days are long gone.
Please put this issue to the yes-or-no vote of city taxpayers.
Edith Ogella
Santa Barbara
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After reading Bill Macfadyen’s column, I had to weigh in. I have written several letters to the editor over the last five years about my wife’s and my experience on State Street before and after the COVID-19 closure.
Before closing State Street to vehicles, we have been frequenting Santa Barbara approximately every six months for almost 20 years. We would stay three to four days, and LOVED State Street!
The bustling, thriving street traffic. The street entertainers playing music. The movie theaters always busy. Paseo Nuevo thriving. The parades. The easy access to whichever shop we wanted to go to by just jumping off the inexpensive trolley. Sitting and watching the different cruising vehicles and tour buses with parties on them.
No speeding e-bikes threatening pedestrians. No drug deals on the streets. A decent police presence even though not really needed.
The Hotel Santa Barbara since then has had to remove its awning because of a bad element climbing on it and no one to stop it. The breakfast buffet in the lobby … gone, because the vagrants come in and steal the food by the handfuls.
State Street is now empty most of the time. Every time we go, there are more shops for lease. Outside of the 500 block, restaurants and businesses seem to be steadily dying.
I have no idea who these city council members are or why Santa Barbara allows them to serve. They refuse to breathe life back into the city’s main artery. Only Mayor Randy Rowse cares and he has given up.
David Chalfy
Las Vegas
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I will NOT go to downtown Santa Barbara anymore because the city has intentionally made it an welcoming, sketchy environment. The city did that — not the business owners, not the landlords, not the public. The city is 100% to blame.
Thank you to Bill Macfadyen for continuing to call this out.
G. Chavez
Santa Barbara
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I think “Rosie Scenario” has been involved with many budgeting projects, such as trackless high speed trains, wildlife overpasses with no funding to connect to the hills, affordable housing that costs $1 million per unit to build/renovate, to name a few.
Glad we now have a name for the person in charge!
Gail Anikouchine
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the April 22 article, “45 New Income-Restricted Santa Barbara Apartment Units Expected by Fall 2027,” so a $44 million project to develop 45 new housing units is worthy of a groundbreaking ceremony? At about a $1 million cost for each unit. What?
On top of that, each resident will only be required to pay 30% of their income in rent, meaning the rest of the liability will rely on public funds.
Consider a $1 million mortgage, and paying, say, $300 a month. What a deal!
This is part of the reason California has spent many billions of dollars on the homeless issue, with virtually nothing to show for it.
And a nit: 19 parking places for maybe 50 or more residents? We know where that goes. Urban planners just keep making the same mistake, assuming people will opt for public transportation. Never happens.
Maybe it would be wiser to just give needy folks half-a-million dollars and let them buy something.
John Bowen
Goleta
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Thank you to Ann Pieramici for her comprehensive and well-written April 24 article, “Person of the Year Tradition Honors Spirit of Service That Sustains Santa Barbara.” She truly captured the spirit of the recognition and the benefit of giving for our entire Santa Barbara community.
Katina Zaninovich
Santa Barbara
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I can’t help but marvel at the sentencing disparities in our so-called criminal justice system. They can be found in every jurisdiction, including Santa Barbara County.
I will point to two Noozhawk articles in the last week, both referencing criminal cases with vastly different outcomes: “Man Sentenced to 7 Years in State Prison for Attacking Restaurant Worker” and “‘It’s Shocking’: DA Criticizes Sentence for Drunken Driver in Fatal Crash.”
Assaulting someone without causing death led to a man being sentenced to seven years in prison, while a woman who killed someone while driving under the influence won’t spend more than nine months in jail.
There are many factors that drive such sentencing disparities, far too many for me to list or discuss in a short comment, but I felt the need to point this out to readers so that we may all ponder this subject and come to our own conclusions. (I also wonder whether an outside judge with zero connection or accountability to the local community should be handing down sentences in criminal cases.)
Jacob Brady
Goleta
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Regarding the April 20 article, “‘It’s Shocking’: DA Criticizes Sentence for Drunken Driver in Fatal Crash,” Judge Brian Aronson is a retired judge from Sutter County who was appointed in 2003 by the abject failure, Gov. Gray Davis — one of only two governors to ever be recalled in U.S. history.
Aronson recently came to Santa Barbara to fill in at the sentencing for a trial.
The facts: A 29-year-old woman pleaded guilty to driving with a .167% blood-alcohol level, cocaine in her system and no license, resulting in the death of an innocent 24-year-old woman.
The result: Instead of the district attorney’s or Probation Department’s recommended prison sentence of seven to 10 years, Aronson gave the guilty woman a sentence of less than one year!
Does the punishment fit the crime?
Aronson believes this needless death of the young woman and the ensuing devastation to her family is only worth a nine-month punishment. His sentencing after the cruel and senseless death is appalling and shameful.
He demonstrated arrogance that our judicial system must not tolerate. He bucked precedence, ignored the prosecutor’s sensible recommendations, and claimed to know he knew the deceased’s wishes better than did her own family.
A travesty like this should disqualify Aronson from ever wearing the robe again.
Mark Philibosian
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the April 13 article, “Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse Will Not Seek Re-Election,” years ago, as a city councilman, Rowse was very helpful when my neighborhood was experiencing questionable actions by city employees.
When citizens requested information, a city employee gave Rowse a false statement in an email regarding the issue, an email that was forwarded to me. Later, when Rowse questioned the City Attorney’s Office about the same issue, he was told that the city would not follow local zoning ordinances and state laws and rectify the problems.
Rowse was in the unfortunate position of seeing a serious issue.
When our neighborhood campaigned to have the issues placed on the council agenda for discussion, there was no response from any of the other council members. Even our District 1 representative failed to respond to our requests for help. And after a new District 1 representative was elected, that new council member also did not respond.
Rowse has been the only city employee who has stood up for us citizens seeking fairness in ordinance applications.
With all of the discussion of events happening within our federal government, citizens should remember that having a trustworthy local government that follows its own laws is just as important.
Rowse saw the cracks in the foundation and did his best to shine sunlight on the issues, and for that I say thank you to Randy Rowse for his service.
Dave Blunk
Santa Barbara
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Wayne Mellinger’s April 27 commentary, “Everyone Was Being Reasonable, and He Died Anyway,” reminded me of a similar situation I worked on in the early 1970s in Honolulu.
The focus there was on “problem families.” There was a realization that certain families were using/taking an inordinate amount of resources from the schools, police, the court and probation systems, welfare, public and mental health, vocational rehabilitation, and receiving welfare checks, disability and unemployment payments.
If there could be a coordinated intervention, focused on the whole family, any success would benefit not only the family members themselves, but this entire spectrum of public agencies.
We wanted to use a convener/facilitator to bring these different agencies together on a part of Oahu called Waianae. Finding the right person was itself a problem. Resources were scarce but, for a while, model cities funds were available.
Agencies were willing to co-locate their staff, but the lack of ability and/or willingness to share “official records” turned out to be an impossible obstacle. Constant “team building” was needed because of staff turnover.
The firm I was with at the time was led by Marshall Kaplan. This effort was supported by the Governor’s Office, the Housing & Urban Development Department, and we had technical assistance from a UC Berkeley professor, Harry Specht, who, as I recall, was a sociologist like Mellinger.
But the feds lost interest due to a “lack of progress,” the Governor’s Office advocate retired, and so it goes.
To me, Mellinger’s solution sounds easy, but it would be very difficult to implement. What I would like to see next, in a future article, is a “success,” a successful coordinated intervention that he perhaps helped to achieve, and what it took to get there.
Decision-makers need to be convinced that their limited political capital is worth using for this effort. And entrenched bureaucracies that don’t want to lose a single resource, or have staff participate on an interdisciplinary team, or say that “we are already collaborating as much as we can” will need to be coaxed along.
Wayne, on a personal level, I share your frustration.
Ken Masuda
Santa Barbara
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Regarding Jim Langley’s April 25 commentary, “No Kings, No Concerns,” it’s time to get rid of Langley.
Jim Ritchie
Santa Barbara
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We are proud residents of a progressive city, but our progressivism is in peril.
Santa Barbara City Hall is currently bound by a provision in our City Charter that requires all contracts exceeding five years to get approval by the City Council by an ordinance. That has been part of our city’s operation since we were chartered.
Now, this City Council wants to do away with this requirement. Why?
Why would any public body want to remove a level of oversight? Because they want to be able to do deals and make contracts without the public scrutiny that an ordinance requires.
We can say no. The city has asked for a special election that cost taxpayers $195,000 to rush through an amendment to the charter. We can say no. Don’t let them get away with this.
Let’s all vote “no” on Measure A2026.
Joann Olejnik
Santa Barbara
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I believe Santa Barbara County government should be run with competence, transparency and real accountability to the people who pay for it.
That’s why I am endorsing Kyle Slattery for auditor-controller in the June 2 primary election because this race matters more than most voters realize.
The auditor-controller isn’t a glamorous office. But it is the financial backbone of a $1.7 billion county government, responsible for payroll, financial reporting and internal auditing.
When it works, you don’t notice. When it doesn’t, taxpayers pay the price.
In 2022, the Board of Supervisors voted to modernize the county’s financial systems, a straightforward step to align with what other counties and Fortune 500 companies already use.
Our existing system, custom built in the 1990s, lacked modern cybersecurity and functionality.
The project was delayed by more than two years (and counting), with cost overruns estimated to total $7.6 million. Other counties completed similar upgrades on time and on budget.
Santa Barbara County is an outlier.
Why? Because the effort was met with resistance from the very office responsible for implementing it.
The auditor-controller stopped participating in key meetings, failed to staff the project despite having funding, and treated the work as something to resist rather than accomplish. Progress stalled and costs grew.
That kind of leadership doesn’t deliver results. It drives them off track.
Leadership means showing up and getting the job done, especially when millions of taxpayer dollars are at stake.
This isn’t about software. It’s about accountability and whether county government is willing to adapt and improve.
The Auditor-Controller Office needs a forward-thinking leader, someone who embraces solutions.
Kyle Slattery is that leader. A CPA and longtime county employee, he understands what went wrong and how to fix it.
On June 2, I hope you’ll join me in voting for Kyle Slattery. Santa Barbara County deserves an auditor-controller who shows up, does the job and protects the public’s trust.
Joan Hartmann
Santa Barbara County supervisor
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