The photos in the May 27 article, “Watch Artists Create Chalk Masterpieces Over 3-Day I Madonnari Festival,” are wonderful!
Both the choices and the actual photos present the scene so beautifully I don’t feel like I missed it after all.
Christine Hall
Goleta
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The May 27 article, “8-Story Apartment Tower Proposed Behind Santa Barbara Mission Closer to Reality,” and the May 24 article, “Housing Authority Shares Challenges, Success from First Year of Buena Tierra,” demonstrate what should be obvious: not all housing is created equal.
A thoughtless plan to plunk a 255-unit tower behind the beloved Santa Barbara Mission — a national historic landmark and the city’s beating heart — threatens to scar both skyline and soul.
In contrast, Goleta’s Buena Tierra project proves that housing crises can be addressed with heart and intelligence, without torching what makes Santa Barbara special.
The Mission proposal would loom like a concrete afterthought over sacred adobe walls and rose gardens, choking serenity with scale.
This so-called “builder’s remedy” scheme — intended to ease housing woes — would shatter the peace of a site that has anchored this community for more than two centuries.
Allowing this structure to rise would render Santa Barbara another casualty of perverted idealism.
Housing should lift communities up, not flatten their character. Buena Tierra shows how.
With a $20 million investment (mostly from the state’s Homekey 2.0 program), a dilapidated motel became 59 supportive housing units for people exiting homelessness.
Annualized capital cost: $1.02 million. Add $790,000–$890,000 in operating costs, subtract $212,000 in tenant rent, and the net public cost is about $1.7 million a year.
But that’s mostly offset. According to UC Berkeley’s Terner Center, supportive housing saves $20,000–$40,000 per person in emergency services annually.
At just $25,000 per resident, Buena Tierra saves $1.475 million per year — leaving a net cost of only $225,000.
For less than the price of a Starbucks coffee per resident, we restore lives, reduce strain on public systems, and foster dignity and independence. That’s housing with a heartbeat.
Now compare that to the Mission Canyon fiasco. One project heals and honors. The other divides and desecrates.
Santa Barbara doesn’t have to choose between housing and heritage. Buena Tierra proves we can build in ways that honor both human need and the irreplaceable soul of this community.
Peter Sadowski
Santa Barbara
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I want to thank Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen for his sensitive and empathic accounts of the Highway 1 tragedy in his last two columns, especially the respect he has shown Dr. Hafez Nasr and his wife.
While we grieve for the dead teenage boys, the Lompoc community is also dealing with the trauma of what happened to the Nasr family. His patients are praying for their recovery.
Thank you.
George Cabrera
Lompoc
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Regarding the May 25 article, “Making Nearly $100,000 in Santa Barbara County Now Considered ‘Low-Income,’” ignore former state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, whose past bills and voting record confirm her economic ignorance.
Higher taxes to fund social services simply pushes the now defined “low income” at $100,000 or less down closer to very low or poverty level.
Countywide, we need to do less, not more, until after the “progressive” cabal of local officials solve our huge budget deficit; reduce our income, bond and sales tax burdens; address the revenue loss from the quickly departing middle and professional classes; and fund our taxpayer-obligatory public employee union pension liabilities.
I’ve yet to meet anyone who wants to be taxed twice to pay for a government employee’s guaranteed pension when most working class locals don’t have any retirement guarantees.
Our elected officials and top-level bureaucrats are self-serving, not focused on community, except to hold onto their lucrative tax-funded positions.
There’s no shortage of revenues. We’re short on financial literates: leaders with proven private sector business experience to prioritize spending needs.
Denice Spangler Adams
Montecito
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More tax increases can’t fix it, different politicians might.
This letter is for all of you out there who drive to work every day, vote for all Democrats and can’t afford to own a home or buy an electric vehicle.
To solve the low-income threshold problem, former state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, “said the state needs to do more to address the issue of poverty and called for higher taxes to fund social services.”
According to the Center Square, a conservative website, “California Republicans are launching an investigation into the Low Carbon Fuel Standard update that is expected to increase the cost of gasoline by 65 cents per gallon on July 1.”
So, there you have it, according to Democrats, raising taxes will fix everything.
Why do you keep voting for people who can’t admit it’s their policies that created this mess?
Ron Fink
Lompoc
• • •
In his May 23 letter to the editor, John Deacon wrote, “First, the county doesn’t have the money — nor will it ever have the money — to pay for the lost resource.”
While I agree with Deacon that Santa Barbara County will have to replace that revenue somehow, I think the county will consider raising the sales tax (again), upping the bed tax, increasing fees for all sorts of county services, and maybe taking advantage of two bills moving through the Legislature — if they’re signed into law.
State Senate Bill 720 will allow widespread use of “red-light” cameras. It will also eliminate the right of a court trial, make the registered owner rather than the driver liable for fines or jail time, replace any judicial review with city- or county-run administrative hearings, and treat a license plate image as irrefutable proof of guilt.
Also, traffic “engineers” can reduce “amber timing” to make red light violations more plentiful.
Assembly Bill 382 will reduce school zone speed limits to 20 mph and make them continuously enforceable, regardless of whether school is in session or children are present.
You can bet if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs those bills, Santa Barbara County and local cities will have potential new revenue streams.
All they need do is contract with the vendors that install and service red light cameras for a cut of the take and station traffic enforcement officers near school zones on evenings and weekends.
So, petro-haters and climate change alarmists on the Board of Supervisors, not to worry. Red light cameras and 24/7 school zones may save your bacon. Well … at least some of it.
Hib Halverson
Goleta
• • •
Regarding Peter Roff’s May 27 commentary, “FEMA Exposes Dysfunction by Stiffing Twitchell Reservoir Storm Contractors,” I hope Noozhawk will follow up with a report on the unpaid contractors’ lawsuits over the 2023 Twitchell Dam emergency project. It’s been a while since the last update.
Aaron Palmer
Savannah, Georgia
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I literally choked when reading this part of Peter Roff’s commentary:
“‘You pay what you owe’ is a time-honored Americanism that someone like (President Donald) Trump, who made his fortune developing and redeveloping some of the nation’s most impressive real estate, knows well.”
Trump may know this, but what his real property development experience has shown is that he stiffs contractors, investors and workers.
His businesses declared bankruptcy at least six times in about 25 years before he entered politics. This invariably meant that creditors were left holding the bag for work done for his companies.
Of course, on other occasions, he just didn’t pay for the work he contracted and thus he has also been sued thousands of times by contractors, lenders and workers just to get their agreed payment.
This is a tactic Trump has used to negotiate discounts from small operators that simply couldn’t hire the legal teams needed to fight him.
His tactic is simply to bully others, not to act with integrity and “pay what you owe.”
Glen Mowrer
Santa Barbara
• • •
I almost dropped my teeth reading Peter Roff’s commentary because, for at least this one time, it appeared that Noozhawk actually broke step and published a piece that put President Donald Trump and his administration in a favorable light. A long time coming.
That’s just good journalism.
Stephen Slomski
Mesa, Arizona
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I enjoyed the laugh lines in Peter Roff’s “critique” of FEMA. My favorite: “‘You pay what you owe’ is a time-honored Americanism that someone like (President Donald) Trump, who made his fortune developing and redeveloping some of the nation’s most impressive real estate, knows well.”
Yup, Trump always pays what he owes. Just ask the contractors he’s stiffed. Or check into his bankruptcies.
But, hey, Trump concluded that FEMA wasn’t getting it done in North Carolina (it was, according to the governor), so I guess that settles it.
Michael Fay
Santa Barbara
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