What a pleasure to read about Noozhawk being honored in the the June 13 article, “Noozhawk Among Honorees at South Coast Business & Technology Awards.”
Noozhawk has kept me on the go —for years — every morning and evening with much important news to read.
Am I ever pleased how all the work publisher Bill Macfadyen and many others have done to make Noozhawk stronger and worth honoring.
Congratulations, which is much deserved!
Susan Gulbransen
Montecito
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Congratulations to the Noozhawk team for a well-deserved —and long overdue —award recognizing Excellence in Service in Santa Barbara County.
We are blessed to have such a thorough, well-regarded and professional publication serving the community. Thank you.
Kim Evans
Santa Barbara
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God bless Noozhawk South County editor Josh Molina for taking good care of his father, as he shared in his June 15 column, “Being aFatherto Your AgingFatherFeels Upside Down, But a Reminder to Seize the Moment.”
Josh will no doubt be rewarded in Heaven for his loving, caring ways with his father and children.
Please know we thank you for your approach to life. Very rewarding in the long run, even though it’s tough around the edges now!
Hang on and keep that beautiful smile; it’s one of a kind!
Peggy Morgan
Santa Barbara
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Thank you for the June 16 feel-good article, “Old Town Goleta’s Iconic Santa Cruz Market Sold, But ‘Nothing Will Change’,” and owner Tom Modugno’s lifetime involvement with it.
Modugno seems to have done everything right for his community, his employees and himself.
Both Santa Cruz Markets are important independent grocery stores with strong neighborhood support. Unionized longtime employees advance to leadership positions. Modugno is also Goleta’s foremost historian.
Unfortunately, Noozhawk South County editor Josh Molina couldn’t resist spoiling it by injecting his usual shot at local government. So inappropriate in this human interest story. Hey editor: edit thyself.
Richard Closson
Santa Barbara
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One of my favorite quotes: “I will never understand why it is called common sense, when it is so uncommon.”
I recently sold my office/retail property in the 900 block of State Street after almost 40 years of ownership, and moved my investments to Texas. Being a third-generation Santa Barbaran, it pains me to be forced to make these kinds of decisions.
The one-on-one relationship between retail sales volume and available shopping time should easily be discerned by even the most unaware city official. Obviously, this is not the case.
When I purchased this property, there were no parking garages, State Street was VERY healthy and getting healthier by the year.
Note: Public parking downtown was FREE for four hours and many retailers offered coupons to customers for the $.25 per hour overtime charge.
Then along came the parking garages, which was a good thing, and the four-hour free period, due to questionable budgeting, was “necessarily” reduced to three hours with the overtime charge being increased accordingly.
Not too many years later, to balance the budget, free time was again reduced to 2½ hours. Then to two hours and currently 90 minutes.
The progressive loss in income from retail sales continued to negatively impact the city parking garage budget so efforts were made to increase the income from parking fees to make up the difference.
It should be obvious to anyone with just the tiniest amount of common sense that retail sales have diminished in PRECISE parallels with the reductions in free parking time.
Admittedly, Amazon’s brilliant execution of online retail sales has had a significant impact; but the fact is inescapable that these two factors have destroyed the health of our once vital downtown.
Had city budget administrators been aware that cutting shopping time to balance the budget was such a certain path to self destruction, downtown could have readily handled Amazon’s impact.
Hopefully, city officials are aware of the recent change increasing free parking time in San Luis Obispo. At least there is someone with a modicum of common sense making important government decisions in that city.
It is just incredibly sad that Santa Barbara city administrators are so oblivious to the obvious.
Ronald Hays
Santa Barbara
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Regarding the June 20 article, “Caltrans Discovers Tension Cracks on Highway 154; Starts Traffic Control Near Santa Barbara,” perhaps this would be a good time for our local elected officials, Caltrans, the Transportation Department and the California Highway Patrol to get together and limit/restrict/ban semi trucks that have no business on Highway 154 from using it as a “shortcut” between Highway 101.
Locals have known and complained for years about the impacts these vehicles have on local travel, commute times and crashes on this dangerous road.
Clearly, the road is not able to withstand the weight and frequency and now would be a good time to act.
Don Barkas
Buellton
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My husband and I volunteer with the Bethania Lutheran Church feeding program helping residents of the Santa Ynez Valley experiencing food insecurity.
On June 10, we attended the Solvang City Council, where this program’s requests, along with that of other nonprofit organizations helping people, including the Solvang Senior Center, were drastically reduced in the city budget.
Previously, Solvang’s financial situation had been described as dire. We attended the meeting to desperately explain how the feeding program aids the many farm workers and needy of our Valley, and to ask that the requested grant money be included in the budget.
At the meeting, it was announced that due to accounting errors, the city budget was no longer in the red. There now appears to be a healthy surplus.
That meeting was the last before June 24, when the final Solvang budget is to be approved. Yet, not only was money requested for nonprofit organizations reduced drastically in the budget, but several items, never discussed or justified, were approved by a 5-3 vote.
Mayor Mark Infanti and council members David Brown and Robert Clarke voted for three new town positions, without justification.
Members Claudia and Liz Orona felt we could do better to assist our needy. They were defeated.
Besides shoddy accounting, is this the best we can do for the at-risk population of Santa Ynez?
Elayne Klasson
Santa Ynez
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Regarding the June 15 article, “TwoSanta MariaAreaSchoolDistricts Agree to Put Bond Measures on Ballot,” if the school boards of their respective districts would cut their expenses they would not have to ask the taxpayers to bail them out.
How many of our taxpayers actually look at their tax statements and see how much is taxed already for the schools? When was the last time we actually saw a school district administrator recommend cutting their budget expenses?
Where is the common sense of these administrators?
We have principals cheating on tests and awards for students. We have students who are not getting an education. We have parents expecting the teachers to raise their children and we have students misbehaving and who have no respect for their teachers.
Dottie Lyons
Santa Maria
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Regarding the June 18 article, “Vandenberg Conducts Test Launch for Development of New Weapon System,” let us not glorify Vandenberg Space Force Base’s ICBM test launches, but instead remind ourselves there will be no victors in a nuclear war that kills or maims millions of people, including all of us in Santa Barbara, 60 miles south of the base.
Yes, Vandenberg’s proximity to Santa Barbara makes us a target in a nuclear exchange.
Although the test launches do not involve live nuclear warheads, the purpose of these launches is to test a new nuclear arsenal called The Sentinel, a trillion-dollar escalation of the nuclear arms race and a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that obligates the United States to pursue nuclear disarmament.
Each ICBM launch must be a wake-up call to uphold international law and push for the United States to honor its treaty obligations.
Marcy Winograd
Santa Barbara
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The new Earl Warren Showgrounds mission statement says, “Earl Warren Showgrounds … serves the existingand changing needs of Santa Barbara’s culture, history and community.”
I wonder if Earl Warren serves the more modest socio-economic citizens of our community? Can a family of four (two adults, two small children) afford the $279 I recently spent at the Santa Barbara Fair & Expo there?
Upon entering the fair, where we paid $20 to park and $20 each for two adult entries, staff required us to toss out a homemade lunch and waterfor the 4 and 2 year olds so wecould spend $54 on two hot dogs, two bottles of water and Oreo cookies. The adults didn’t eat.
Our four unlimited-ride tickets in Kiddieland cost $148 (young children must be accompanied of course) and the two games (one for each child) cost $30.
Last and maybe least, the two cups of grain for the mosh pit or a petting zoo cost$6.
The grand total was $279.
Maybe the “existingand changing needs” of the average family includes $240 (less $39 for games and $9 for Oreos) in their entertainmentbudget for a day at the Santa Barbara Fair & Expo but I doubt it.
Better to spend $250 at the Santa Barbara Zoo for a year’s membership for a family of two adults and up to four kids, including free parking.
I will say the grandkids had a great time after the meltdown watching their own cookies being tossed in the garbage, and they loved the hotdogs.
Suzanne Duca
Carpinteria
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Regarding Cheri Rae’s June 9 commentary, “Why Is ‘Tree City’ Santa Barbara Destroying Historic Landmark Pines?,” I would like relate that we had one of those huge lovely Italian Stone Pines planted on our property here in Goleta in the 1960s, and recently had to have it removed because it was just too dangerous.
We love trees and had lived with the danger for more than 30 years, despite very heavy limbs dropping dangerously close to our house twice.
Finally, our home insurance company contacted us, and the only way to mitigate the danger was to remove the tree as it was only 12 feet from our eave, and there was no way to trim it to make it safe.
These trees are not appropriate street trees, and some other species should be planted instead. They are also extremely flammable as they are full of sap that is high in creosote.
We planted two flowering trees in the parkway from the list of approved trees and don’t have to worry about the liability.
It’s more important to protect lives and property than to “pine away” wishing for things to remain the same.
Susan Braden
Goleta
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As a native Santa Barbaran, I rely on Noozhawk for news of my hometown, and I particularly enjoy the letters to the editor as a way to keep up with what Santa Barbarans are thinking about on all kinds of local issues.
However, the back-and-forth between Glenn Dorfman and Nancy Freeman seems to have run its course after Freeman’s June 14 letter.
It started out with Dorfman writing a May 24 letter expressing some surprising (to me) suspicions about a media literacy training course being offered later in the summer.
Then Freeman responded with a letter of her own (May 31), misquoting Dorfman’s letter and seeming to mischaracterize his position (for example, I couldn’t find any “statement” in his letter that “facts are a question of opinion.”)
Then he responded, then she responded, both talking past each other. You get the idea.
At this point, maybe Dorfman and Freeman could just get in touch with each other.
Paul Gowler
Altadena
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