Archive » December 18, 2008

Transit system valuable

Thank you for the article about the Santa Ynez Valley Transit.

For the past two years, we have taken this bus every morning into Los Olivos for coffee and then walked back home, three and half miles, as our exercise routine. We have put 2,000 miles on our shoes this way.

We thoroughly enjoy the bus ride and especially our expert and cheerful driver Alex Robledo. Alex is always on time.

The Valley’s Transit system is a terrific resource for our community.

It is very convenient, friendly and cost saving.

Dave and Margy Houtz

Santa Ynez

 

 

Bailouts should incite outrage

We are being asked to bailout a multibillion dollar hedge fund (Cerberus Capital) and the press and Congress are not making the American public aware of this fact.

Our Congress must do something for the unemployed, including the soon-to-be unemployed auto workers. But why is Congress even considering the bailout of a secretive and private hedge fund (Cerberus Capital), the owners of Chrysler.

Now, Cerberus, a private company, is asking us tax payers to bail them out. Why doesn’t Cerberus invest its own capital from the hundreds of other profitable companies it owns to support its own failing business? WE SHOULD BE OUTRAGED.

Wake up Americans. Cerberus Capital has PAID former senators, vice presidents, White House general counsels to make sure they are included in the auto bailout.

B. Bernsten

Sun Valley, Idaho

 

 

Mattei’s plan needs to be smaller

The scope of the current project for Mattei’s Tavern must be drastically reduced. In my opinion, we have already lost so much of the small-town feel of Los Olivos, and a project of this magnitude will further erode our community. This project will use the current tavern as a front for a large-scale project that will strip the community of its history. 

I was disturbed by the recent community meeting that was sponsored by the new owners of the Tavern property.  I felt handled.  I expected a presentation with public discussion. I felt that their meeting had much less to do with a sincere desire to better Mattei’s Tavern than with getting their way so that they can make more money.  Listen, these people want to make money period.  That’s their right.  They are an out-of-town, for-profit investment group that specializes in these types of projects.   But this is our community and Mattei’s Tavern is a jewel of this community. By the way, where were the Brothers at the community meeting and why was it moved from Mattei’s to Saint Marks after the invitations were sent out? I asked employees at Mattei’s and they told me that the Brothers have not been involved in all this.  So does that mean that they are out as well?

I hope that everyone who looks at this project does so warily and in the context of the Stagestop Plaza project that will be built across the street.   How much traffic?  How many more people? Is the Mattei’s Tavern neighborhood legacy worth protecting? 

Les Jones

Santa Ynez

 

 

Election result clean and fair

Thank you for your consistent advocacy for property rights; a small, livable, rural valley; the needs of agriculture and working landscapes. The Journal expresses these values so well that it makes me feel Grinch-like before Christmas to say that Nancy is wrong about the 3rd District supervisor election.

 County Clerk Joe Holland is as honest as the day is long. He doesn’t tolerate hanky-panky on who registers to vote, or how votes are counted. Inferring, without specific, tangible evidence that this happened in the race between Steve Pappas and Doreen Farr is wrong.

 It’s also wrong, and un-democratic (small “d”) to imply that younger Americans living in Isla Vista, or UCSB, have less right to register and vote than other 3rd District residents.

 Congress moved the voting age from 21 to 18 during Viet-Nam, noting that if young Americans were old enough to be drafted, fight, bleed, die, for America, then they were also old enough to vote for officials making laws and policies that govern them.

Why assume something’s awry if many younger voters supported Farr; why not ask why Steve didn’t connect with them? Why assume “fraud” is involved?

The Journal’s preference for Pappas aside, recent columns suggest ignorance about university life. During a campus I.V. voter registration drive, you easily could get numbers of “consecutive P.O. boxes for addresses.” Thousands of students live in dorms, densely-populated I.V. units, and thousands more get their mail at UCSB P.O. boxes. Finding hundreds of sequential addresses and P.O. boxes isn’t unusual; it’s expected.

 Is this really about “honest, fair elections,” or about Pappas running a good race but falling just short? About “justice” or about political power and ego? Hannah-Beth Jackson could have demanded legal action in her close senate race. So could Lyle Reynolds 31 years ago in his narrow loss to Dave Shiffman. So could Nixon in 1960, when Daley and Johnson had dead people give Kennedy his victory margin. Each chose honor and statesmanship to avoid disrupting the public welfare by lengthy, divisive challenges. Our county already faces so many big challenges. Do we really need another expensive lawsuit right now?

Lee Moldaver

Santa Barbara

 

 

Fraud is ‘mind boggling’

It is about two weeks since I wrote to Chancellor Yang of UCSB, with copies to four chancellors at other campuses.

 To date there has not been a single reply. This suggests that the chancellor is not concerned about the local community.

 In my day, such a serious breach of etiquette would never have occurred.  Citizens in this community should deluge his office with letters, if not separately, then with a petition signed by those who feel disenfranchised by such suspected misconduct by students at UCSB. Perhaps the Journal could put up such a petition and list the signers! To think that such fraud can go on and on, but not be reported, is mind boggling.

Howard E. Morseburg

Solvang

 

 

IV vote was more than students

I’m writing regarding the November 27, 2008 On The Ranch column by Publisher Nancy Crawford-Hall. As usual, your column contained some good questions about election procedures. We all want fair elections, so good for you. But some of Mrs. Hall’s observations could also have created some wrong impressions about the district itself, so here are my two cents.

Ms. Hall referred to “… those who feel that the UCSB student population for the last 30 years has been used to dictate policy, particularly land use policy, to the residents and property owners of the Santa Ynez Valley.”

 The above statement suggests that the 3rd District is made up of just two parts — students in the South Coast and Santa Ynez Valley residents. But that view leaves out the residents of the Goleta Valley and the non-student renters and homeowners of Isla Vista. These additional groups probably make up the majority of 3rd District voters. I’m sure Mrs. Crawford-Hall would agree that our views should also matter.

 And the statement quoted above also suggests that South Coast voters have promoted land use policies that oppose and have hurt SY Valley residents. I don’t agree. As shown by our overwhelmingly opposed rezoning Bishop Ranch for housing, we in the Goleta Valley favor preserving agriculture. 

And if South Coast voters have been dictating policies that were bad for the SY Valley for 30 years, it’s hard to explain why the SY Valley is doing so well, with world class wine and tourist industries, record agricultural production and record agricultural land prices. And then there’s the election of valley resident Brooks Firestone as this district’s supervisor.  That didn’t happen from valley votes alone.

 I’m hoping these reminders will clear things up that a majority of South Coast 3rd District voters are not students, and that just like valley residents, we vote for and support policies that help, not hurt residents throughout the district.

Richard Saunders

Goleta

 

 

 

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

It’s the Journal’s policy to publish anonymous letters if the writer will identify themselves to us, knowing that we will not reveal their identity. We understand that some issues are so sensitive that harm may come to the writer should their information or opinions become public.

 

 

 

The Santa Ynez Valley Journal welcomes letters from readers, and does not suppress or censor letters unless they advocate violence or contain obscenities or racial, religious or ethnic slurs. To be published, a letter must be signed by its author and must identify the community in which the author lives. Upon request and for good reason, the Valley Journal will withhold the name of the author of a letter, but the author’s name must be included for our records.