I first met Eve Johnson with a friend at a restaurant in the early 1980s. As an evangelist, I had her pray the World’s Most Important Prayer. Since then, Johnson would occasionally call me for prayer or advice, seeking to live a life that pleases God. I would see her at local Christian meetings.
I am convinced, based on God’s Bible promises, that Eve is now with Jesus in Heaven. In 2 Corinthians 5:8, the Apostle Paul states that, for the sincere follower of Jesus Christ, physical death results in being “at home with the Lord.”
Dr. David Hupp
Santa Maria
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The results of the study of the feasibility of Montecito benefiting from groundwater injection, as reported in the Oct. 22 Noozhawk story, “Study Not Optimistic About Groundwater Injection for Montecito Basin,” are valuable in helping pattern future solutions to that community’s feared “water shortage.”
Among the disclosures of the study is that wealthy people in Montecito have been tapping the water basin and aquifer for their own benefit for decades with the number accelerating and the effect unknown. Why the Montecito Water District has allowed this brazen theft of a community resource is unclear, but one suspects that no one was going to stand up to money on this issue.
Minimally, the people who are depleting the basin for their lush lifestyles should be assessed serious charges based on this use. Minimally, their wells should be metered. Minimally, the existence of these wells should be documented by making it a crime to not disclose this behavior.
Also worth discussing is the present restrictions on direct reuse of recycled water. Around the world, sanitarily recycled water is reused directly (no injection and repumping) with healthy and economic results. California is allegedly investigating this concept with the possibility of allowing the practice. The Montecito Water District, the City of Santa Barbara and all other water districts should lobby for this.
Direct recycling of water is the most efficient and most beneficial to our environment. It eliminates discharge of huge amounts of brine and other wastewater into the near shore ocean, and it saves a substantial amount of energy being used for the less satisfactory and much more expensive process of desalination.
While the article seems to suggest that groundwater injection is a dead end, one hopes that the people making this decision will consider it as well as the other procedures noted above instead of the corporate profit-centered alternative of expanding the desalination plant in Santa Barbara.
Glen Mowrer
Santa Barbara
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We are writing in response to recent Noozhawk articles regarding the affronts levied on our Santa Barbara Unified School District superintendent, Cary Matsuoka.
While we appreciate Noozhawk’s intention to provide the community with transparency and truth on our public schools, we are displeased with the lack of fact checking and research that went into these articles, and the subversive, one-sided argument presented in recent months.
While 800 anonymous signatures on a petition may provide a great sound bite or headline, it is far from the reality of what actual stakeholders feel, believe and desire.
We encourage Noozhawk to spend some time in our public schools, to speak with our dedicated, selfless and passionate educators, and to report on the various success stories of our amazing students. We promise you, there are plenty.
We encourage Noozhawk to use less inflammatory language in reporting on school board meetings and to take a more objective approach to the facts laid out, rather than fanning the flames of emotional appeals presented.
In addition, regarding Matsuoka’s performance, we encourage the school board to take into consideration feedback from the school district’s 2,000-plus staff members and educators and to elicit comments from the 13,000-plus families we serve — not just those encouraged to click a provocative link on a private Facebook group.
And finally, we encourage James Fenkner and Santa Barbara Fair Education to do the same.
Tomorrow, just as every day in our career, we’ll be going to work for our students — to love, care for, and nurture them while providing them with the best education and future we can. We will do so proudly under Matsuoka’s leadership and guidance, his stellar cabinet team and our fearless local site administrators. We serve at their pleasure.
And we would sure love the community’s support.
Bethany Bodenhamer
Lisa Koppenjan
Kelly Savio
Kortnie Cruz
Matt Moran
Anna Guerrero
Mike Lynch
Adam Shive
Mercy Rudolph
Samantha Limkeman
Heather Magner
Joe Zamora
Terri Ingram
Robin Selzler
Rebecca Bucher
Megan O’Carroll
Kevin Gleason
Eliesa Peters-Bollinger
Sarah-Sue Wadell
Kelly Choi
Julia Elliott
Todd Borden
Jeannine Forslund
Chrissie Cable
Kathryn Mendenhall
Sara Griswold-Sanchez
Danelle Muhr
Chris Jones
Li Harper
Educators, Dos Pueblos High School
Kate Rice
Linda Guereña
Elizabeth Dominguez
Patty Ferguson
Classified Staff, Dos Pueblos High School
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There has been a dramatic increase in local airplane activity in the past few years, and it’s only going to get worse. The City of Santa Barbara has realized what a cash cow it has in the airport, and the city is milking it for all it’s worth.
To encourage commercial airlines to come into Santa Barbara, the city waived some landing fees. To encourage private pilots and general aviation, it is reconfiguring its facilities for new, fixed-based operators.
Plane traffic starts around 6 a.m. and often can still be heard at midnight. Pilots are supposed to use the preferred noise abatement program route, which is over the ocean and across More Mesa. Unfortunately, compliance with the program is strictly voluntary and the airport has no way to enforce it.
Moreover, the city has a disincentive to censure the very airlines it is so desperately courting.
The situation is even worse with private planes. The airport doesn’t seem to know who is coming and going, much less regulating their flight patterns. Instead of the Friendly Skies over Santa Barbara, these days it is more like the Wild, Wild West.
Frequent, jarring airplane noise is preventing residents of Hope Ranch, San Roque and neighborhoods throughout Goleta from sitting outside, enjoying their backyards, and, sometimes, even sleeping.
Where will it all end? Airport officials are not putting a cap on growth, they’re just hell-bent on making it happen.
Barbara Greenleaf
Santa Barbara
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