•••“Santa Barbara County Cracking Down on Street Food Vendors [….] Supervisors Launch Task Force to Get Grip on Unlawful Roadside and Sidewalk Pop-Ups.” A task force! That ought to have them quaking in their boots. It would make more sense to lean on our state representatives to fix the “two state laws—passed in 2017 and 2022—designed to inoculate sidewalk vendors—as low-income and largely Latino participants in what’s known as ‘the informal economy’—from criminal prosecution. These bills effectively strip the power of local authorities to shut down operations for sanitary violations that would get an ordinary restaurant closed.” —Independent
••• Efforts are afoot to close the Hot Springs trail during Red Flag Warnings (which has occasionally happened in the past), but of course the trail is permeable from other areas and enforcement is everything. Perhaps more noteworthy: “the initiative also looks to prevent the pools from being rebuilt after heavy rainfall.” —Independent
••• “Channel Islands National Park loses a half dozen positions” to the Trump administration’s widespread federal cuts, “which will impact its ability to monitor the health of the park.” —KCLU
••• “Two ancient, leaky oil wells at Summerland Beach were re-sealed last week. […] Left behind from oil and gas operations of the late 1800s and early 1900s, there are roughly 200 of these high-priority legacy oil and gas wells that could leak oil into the marine environment along the California coastline, primarily at Summerland Beach.” —Independent
••• A local historian recommends books about Santa Barbara. —Newsmakers
••• The Ava Hotel in Paso Robles is on track to open this summer. The “name is a nod to the American Viticulture Area that the building sits on,” and the bland, institutional architecture is a terrible fit for the town. —KSBY
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Enforce the law regardless of skin color, spoken language or nationality. Enforce the laws and make scofflaws pay for their choices and their crimes. If you dont like the law and rules, work to change them but stop gifting special treatment to people because your hormones and emotions drive your decisions.
People are tired of the double standards in how laws are enforced and applied in our community. It’s become grossly imbalanced when the only people held responsible are those who are responsible people to begin with.
Sam, I’m afraid the leadership we’ve had in place for far too long is incapable of common sense approaches to inequity. I’m not talking about the poor individuals “just trying to make a living” but instead all the actual tax-paying business owners that endure the un-ending task of compliance with local building permits, zoning ordinances, ADA compliance, health codes, tax codes, employment rules, and market competition. We will continually turn a blind eye to being taken advantage of in the name of “fairness” marketed as DEI accomplishments.
Regardless of your stance on the federal employee layoffs, it’s shameful and a mark of mediocrity that the CI National Park workers (and countless others) were laid off with a letter that stated “the Department has determined you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment.”
If this is about cutting costs, there’s no need to abuse those we’re laying off. Just say that their positions are being eliminated.
There is also the issue of arrogance, credibility, and a culture of clear thinking. Everyone with a functioning brain cell knows it was a mass layoff and individual workers weren’t vetted. Credibility is a currency and it was an unforced error to squander so much when different language could just as easily have been used. It may not be a problem today, but eventually the chickens come home to roost. You have to feel that this level of unnecessary, reckless arrogance will eventually become a problem. And with this wanton disregard for clear thinking and decision-making, those at the very top are setting a poor example for the entire federal government.
Though they may disdain bureaucracy, those at the top are now part of it. And undermining all structural respect for the institutions and replacing that with loyalty to individuals is an extremely fragile and unstable proposition likely to ultimately collapse, hurting their own cause as well as others’.
My point is, even if you’re a supporter of the current administration’s changes in principle, you should be worried about the sloppiness.
That kind of sloppiness I can handle, the sloppiness I can’t handle are things like our state spending $20B on homelessness, with zero accountability, no audits, and for the homeless population and overall situation to get worse.
Go Elon Go🚀
Very well stated. Regardless of political party, I think all can agree that these federal layoffs have been handled in a sloppy and cruel manner. I have incredible respect and love for those who dedicate their lives to the service of our national parks. These are not lucrative positions – you do it because you want to be a steward of our country’s natural beauty.
However, I’m not surprised that your eloquent and thoughtful comment was met with “what-about-ism” and just random Elon cheering. Sigh.
Thank you for opening the door to discourse despite it all.
Have you ever had to meet a budget?