Regarding the Oct. 21 article, “Santa Barbara Hires New Consultant to Finish Work on State Street Master Plan,” as before, the Santa Barbara City Council just decided to spend more taxpayer dollars, this time another $343,250 to “finish” the State Street Master Plan.
This is on top of the money already spent on multiple consultants, economic advisers and staff planners (after all, we even have a dedicated staff State Street master planner).
We taxpayers are now into this mythical plan for more than $2 million all the while free plans from local architects and planners are ignored.
But during all these years while committees meet, planners plan and consultants consult, the City Council dithers and seems only capable of deciding to spend more taxpayer dollars.
On the brighter side however, we now have half-million-dollar boardwalks on one block of the street for fans of the Old West to stroll on and reminisce about the old days.
Art Thomas
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the Oct. 17 article, “State Street Consultant Terminated as Property Owners Push to Reopen Corridor,” the Downtown Santa Barbara Improvement Association’s push to reopen State Street to cars as a fix for State Street’s decline is laughable.
If the association truly wanted improvement, it would start by lowering sky-high rents to attract more businesses and restaurants. Instead, it leans on faulty data and misleading corridor comparisons.
The association claims State Street is in decline because of the car-free closure, but the one true comparison it avoids is La Cumbre Plaza, a destination with plenty of cars, multiple access points and a plethora of free parking that is struggling and undergoing major redevelopment.
The comparisons to Milpas Street, the Westside, Upper State Street or Coast Village Road are also misplaced. Those streets serve dense neighborhoods with grocery stores, parking and daily errands.
Coast Village caters to an affluent community with front-door parking. State Street is a pedestrian promenade and community hub thriving because people feel safe and welcome, not because cars drive through it.
Would we like more shopping? Absolutely. But this landlord association that they’re attempting to rebrand as an “improvement association” keeps rents too high, blocking economic growth of retaining and welcoming new businesses.
Reopening State Street won’t solve downtown’s problems, nor will this landlord association. It needs landlords with realistic rents and a city that protects space for people, not property portfolios.
Sam Benon
Westside Santa Barbara
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The City of Santa Barbara has had more than 40 years to prove the narrowing of State Street would improve and sustain downtown businesses.
It has failed.
The normalization of this failure in this process is astounding. The City Council philosophy of transportation planning is not based upon outcome.
The past 20 years has proven Cars Are Basic’s case for opening not only State Street, but surrounding circulation streets that provide efficient and smooth travel.
Our proof of concept is the consistent failure of Santa Barbara street planning while locations like Solvang, Buellton, Goleta (Calle Real and Storke Road areas) and Ventura had almost instantaneous recovery from the minute COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
Why has the city continued to follow the direction of the Bicycle Coalition when its numbers have fallen? How can the city support the heavy-handed statements by the Community Environmental Council, which cannot point to success and needs taxpayer grants to exist. These organizations pretend to represent what is less than 2% of the commuting public.
City staff continues to use alternative concepts of travel — including bikes — based upon items like federal government census check-off boxes. There is no way to verify the numbers of people stating they ride bikes or use alternative transportation, as reported from this count. Zero verification.
With far less than the money the city has spent destroying the Caltrans-designed emergency evacuation route under Highway 101 at State Street, the city can reopen State Street between Carrillo and Victoria streets to the configuration that is now in front of the Arlington Theatre. Proof of concept.
Cars Are Basic does not understand how the idea of a one-lane State Street will work in view of the failure of the single lane to stimulate businesses in the 1200 block, in front of The Granada Theatre.
With the long term and a mountain of evidence of the failure of the State Street closure and with the total lack of success of Vision Zero, Cars Are Basic can only come to one conclusion:
OPEN STATE STREET and bring back the Jewel of the California Coast.
Scott Wenz
Cars Are Basic president
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Regarding the Oct. 21 article, “Supervisors Support Phasing Out Oil Production in Santa Barbara County,” against all fiscally responsible logic, Santa Barbara County Supervisors Laura Capps, Joan Hartmann and Roy Lee rely on a UC Santa Barbara Political Science Department study built on speculative models and questionable assumptions to justify their elitist conclusions on climate change, detached from the realities of working families.
In doing so, they disregard the county’s growing energy needs and align instead with the well-funded environmental organizations and academic circles that helped place them in office.
The “beholding three” turn a blind eye to economic forecasts projecting a loss of roughly 1,800 local jobs from their shutdown policies, along with the disappearance of more than $750 million in annual economic output — threatening both tax revenues and community spending.
The UCSB study’s claims of “mortality-cost savings,” and the supervisors’ unquestioning embrace of its findings, seem less an evidence-based policy decision and more an ideological pursuit of greater government control: restricting personal choice, erasing livelihoods and suppressing commerce that diverges from their worldview.
Socialism, after all, is a system in which the means of production — factories, land and resources — are controlled collectively by the state, usually in the name of equality but often at the cost of economic freedom and individual opportunity.
J.W. Burk
Santa Barbara
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I applaud Supervisors Joan Hartman, Lara Capps and Roy Lee for their courageous and forward-looking votes.
Making the transition from fuels whose pollution is literally killing us and devastating our planet, and moving to a clean energy future is only rational.
The costs to our economy, our health and our environment have become unbearable.
The transition will not be easy, and it will take time. The oil and gas industry has deep roots in Santa Barbara County. It has provided work for generations of residents.
Although its production has been declining here for years, emotional public comments from oil company workers reflect how important this industry is for many residents.
But here are the facts: we have the necessary technology and resources to make this transition. Solar and wind energy is now the cheapest way to generate electricity. Electric cars and trucks and electric heating and cooling, electric water heaters and stoves for our homes are available, safe, affordable, and more efficient than gas or oil models.
Life after the transition will be better, safer, healthier and our grandchildren will inherit a brighter world.
Robert Taylor
Montecito
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Talk about misguided, at the urging of environmental activists, Supervisors Laura Capps, Joan Hartmann and Roy Lee voted to support a future ban on onshore oil and gas operations.
What were they thinking? In earlier meetings this month, they were told by staff that there will be a serious drop in revenue and that, according to an Oct. 2 Noozhawk report, “could lay off more than 100 people in multiple departments as a way to balance budget shortfalls ahead of next year.”
Is banning oil and gas production a good way to solve their future budget problems? No, it will take a considerable amount of staff time to prepare the necessary proposals for the resolutions necessary to implement this ban.
That is time that could have been spent identifying the future revenue stream that continuing the production of oil and gas would add to county coffers.
Hartmann, Capps and Lee need a refresher course on how to keep revenue flowing and stop pandering to environmental activists.
Ron Fink
Lompoc
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If Santa Barbara County follows through on its ban on oil and gas production, fuel suppliers should stop delivering gas or any other oil or oil-related products in the county.
Do residents realize Santa Barbara County will be losing the oil and gas severance taxes when the county shuts it all down? Good luck in the future.
Greg McCall
Bakersfield
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Once again, liberal, short-sighted Supervisors Laura Capps, Joan Hartmann and Roy Lee have moved to close all onshore oil and gas production.
Once again, they are not acting in the interest of their constituents. Only Supervisors Steve Lavagnino and Bob Nelson, who voted no, show any backbone in what is best for the population.
Capps, Hartmann and Lee have bought into the narrative that we will be all-electric in the near future (without acknowledging how many tons of coal it takes to make a kilowatt hour of electricity).
That thinking is 1964 tree-hugging thinking — maybe with honest intentions, but certainly without common sense.
Just FYI, it takes .86 pounds of coal per kilowatt hour and 3.9 pounds of CO2 is eliminated per kilowatt hour of electricity.
Natural gas is cheap, abundant and relatively clean. Hydrogen, hydropower and nuclear power are much more practical than all electric.
California is losing $200 million per year in revenue right now due to electric-vehicle adoption laws. It is projected to lose $400 million per year by 2040.
Where is the money going to come from to build our crappy roads? It will be the typical tax, tax, tax.
It’s time for the liberals who run our city, county and state to face the reality of their thinking and how it is destroying California. Do your homework. You owe it to your constituents.
Kathleen Lanstyak
Noleta
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The Oct. 19 article, “Santa Barbara Faces Tourism Shift, Fewer International Visitors,” fails to mention the decrease in short-term rentals.
The City of Santa Barbara has been shutting down short-term rentals over the past year. Ours was shut down in April, even though we are in the Coastal Zone, due to an auxiliary dwelling unit covenant we signed under protest.
Previously we had five to eight guests per month. Since the short-term rental shutdown, we’ve had two requests for long-term rentals, one during the summer and the other one will be in January.
The irony is long-term rentals pay no transient occupancy tax. Last year we sent the city $10,000 in TOT. Going forward, the city will receive nothing.
Tourists love Airbnbs. The decline in Airbnbs is probably contributing to the overall decline in tourism.
Anna Sterne
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the Oct. 18 article, “13,000 People Rally Against Donald Trump at No Kings Event in Santa Barbara,” I hit a wall when I read the rally description as a “massive show of support” in little old Santa Barbara.
While not acknowledging 65,000 Santa Barbarans stayed home. Nor the fact there are easily 13,000 government employees, family members and friends ready to “fight the fascists in order to save democracy” (aka mob rule, since we are a constitutional republic and we never had nor can have a king).
The consequences are too dire to not keep fighting back; but rethinking the battleground is in good order. Back to learning what are common issues conservatives can share with Gen Z/Independent voters.
What is the good that can still be done, because only reactionary fighting against the current entrenched political forces is a no-win game?
Continuing to go head to head with Democrat, anti-Trump forces and their astroturf rallies is the definition of insanity. Being energized only by their constant string of self-serving and wildly inaccurate talking points is a junk food diet.
Regroup. What is the real message we want to reach Independent/Gen Z voters. What is our platform that does energize and give positive hope for the future?
Since all politics are local, the need for important conservative fundamentals is playing out right now on State Street and in City Hall. What can we do locally to make conservatism a winning alternative, when analyzing local matters so it can also become a local teaching experience?
How does limited government, rule of law, protection of private property, and free and competitive markets play out in the future of State Street and the future of our city itself?
J.M. Livingston
Santa Barbara
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The political aspects of Denice Spangler Adams’ Oct. 17 letter to the editor can be honestly discussed. However, her last paragraph unequivocally and sadly says it all:
“What ‘failed’ is the latest Santa Barbara Unified School District graduating class with 18% math proficiency.”
No discussion, no maybes, just the pathetic truth.
Stephen Weiss
Montecito
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Regarding Clint Belkonen’s Oct. 17 letter to the editor, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is a passive reporting system jointly managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food & Drug Administration.
Anyone — health professionals, patients, even the public — can submit a report after vaccination. The CDC and the Health & Human Services Department emphasize that VAERS data are subject to incomplete details and unverifiable information.
The data cannot establish cause-and-effect relationships. Deaths reported after vaccination might have unrelated medical causes, even automobile accidents.
These systems have repeatedly confirmed that serious adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines are rare and that the benefits far outweigh the risks.
Brian Epstein
Oak Park
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