I’ve lived in Santa Barbara and Summerland for nearly 50 years and while I love our community, the continued lack of transparency needs to end. The current gas station remodeling in Summerland is a microcosm of the darkness that shrouds many County-decisions. More importantly, it demonstrates how our 1,500-person community is being run: In the […]
As we face the new year, it is lost on no one that those of us fortunate to have made it this far are heading into our third year living with COVID. At the same time, we are careening toward another all-important midterm election inside a nation seemingly as politically divided as ever. In addition, […]
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I am a concerned community member. Please share my concerns with the entire Board before or at your January meeting. In your email to the Cate community dated December 15, 2021, you make several statements which need discussion. 1. Page 1: The note about “social media’s anonymity and public nature can be particularly harmful in […]
So, the numbers are in for the most recent Quarterly Cannabis Tax Revenue and — like before — they are completely underwhelming and leave us with more questions than answers. Allow me to explain. First a bit of history: Santa Barbara County is the only county that relies solely on self-reported grower revenue to calculate […]
This is one very difficult column to write. It is the end of the year, a time typically filled with Holiday cheer — whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or just Santa Claus and family. We pause to celebrate the happiness of the season, complete with the exchange of gifts, and to bask in the warm embrace […]
Almost every parent of a K-12 school age child is really concerned about the incessant school shootings that plague our nation. These have been escalating in violence and complexity over the 23 years since the Columbine massacre in 1999, and it is past time for a national conversation on gun violence and young people. If […]
One of Santa Barbara’s premier tourist attractions, the Santa Barbara Arts and Crafts Show, every Sunday along Cabrillo Boulevard at the beach for more than 50 years, has had a facelift. Besides the recent remodeling of the bridge and sidewalks, the show is now integrated, no longer separating the arts from the crafts. Now is […]
I previously wrote in this space about how only recognizing perspectives “for” or “against” an issue can get in the way of understanding and potentially resolving conflicting views. The recently heightened polarity around discussing race and bias in school classrooms is a prime example. We are seeing advocates frame debates in ways more likely to […]
Inflation is on everyone’s mind these days. Currently running at 6.2% (4.6% if you strip out food and energy), inflation is at its highest rate in many decades — since 1990 to be precise. And, although that number is unacceptably high, a historical lens can put things into perspective. From the early 1970s to the […]
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It may have slipped by you with everything else that’s been going on lately — the new variant and two national murder cases — that this year was our country’s 400th Thanksgiving! And all was going well at my family’s annual Turkey Day celebration at my sister’s home in Los Angeles. Until my sister made […]
Public speaking is a commonly held fear, but I have noticed a dramatic rise in fear of speaking privately – particularly with those whom we love and respect, but also disagree. Local conversations about school bonds, water, masks, racism, elections, and conspiracies escalate with unnerving speed and ferocity, as if all these issues are connected […]
My last article talked about the climate crisis as an example of market failure. “Free” markets in fact require a vast government infrastructure: Laws, enforcement, courts, established financial systems. And a system to rebalance extreme wealth inequalities. Homelessness results from a lack of the latter mechanism. Wealth begets wealth. This can happen directly as wealth […]
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of year. I love how the holiday allows us to reflect and give gratitude before we launch into the rest of the end-of-year holidays. Oh, and I love the food. This year I find Thanksgiving especially poignant. For those not felled by COVID, we’re coming up on the […]
The last six months of my father’s life were spent in isolation from our family and his friends, but not, as I was to learn, from a new, adhoc family that embraced him. Like millions across the U.S., the COVID lockdowns kept me, my mother, and my siblings completely apart from my 80-year-old father. But, […]
