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DID YOU KNOW? Bonnie Donovan
Do you realize nearly $11 million of COVID-19 relief grants was distributed among seven downtown restaurant owners? We admit that restaurants needed a leg up, but it appears they got one.
That’s why we are disappointed at their complaints about complying with regulations and efforts for a consistent look on State Street. It’s hard to swallow this overreach by the restaurants who insist this is such a hardship to lose 2.75 feet of free parklet to allow for emergency vehicles to respond. After all, the rent was suspended for their sidewalk dining.
While we know that our Mayor Randy Rowse was the owner of a very successful restaurant, the Paradise Café for 37 years, we want to remind him and others that State Street is not and never should be considered restaurant row. We don’t know of any downtown corridor that could flourish with just restaurants. There was a serious lack of leadership by the former mayor and council along with the transportation manager, who failed at keeping the restaurants to maintain a reasonable, prudent, and consistent clearance down State Street from the very beginning.
We think that their agenda encouraged these restaurants to take on as much of State Street real-estate as they wanted. Think eminent domain.
State Street belongs to the people of Santa Barbara, not just the restaurants. From the beginning, a 20-foot clearance should have been enforced. We are not surprised if the Santa Barbara City Fire Department requested the 20-foot clearance and was ignored.We like restaurants as much as the next person. We are talking about balance on State Street.
But let’s look at what is really at stake here for State Street besides the support of the diversity of businesses.
Anthony Esolen recently wrote, “The elites have been in the vanguard of cultural evisceration, in all kinds of ways. … by comparison with what people still within living memory once took for granted, there are now no dances, no socials, no local ball league, no community singing, few parades — and those but exercises in garishness and obscenity. And no genuine common life.”
While, for the most part, our Santa Barbara parades have fortunately remained true to family venues, under the guise of COVID-19, we have enjoyed no parades whatsoever for almost three years on State Street.
Just think about what those parades bring to Santa Barbara — especially the Summer Solstice and the Fiesta parades, but also the July Fourth, Veterans Day and Christmas parades. Ponder the wealth of the unifying celebration bringing all segments of Santa Barbara together, every year for over a hundred years and more. Thank goodness we still have our local ball leagues.
We read with interest, as the Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino objects to the move forward to spend $17.9 million on the purchase of the Motel 6 on East Main Street in Santa Maria. (County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said the county shouldn’t complete the project without Santa Maria’s support.)Mayor Patino expressed concerns that the project at the North Depot Street apartments in Santa Maria, developed by County Housing Authority, has turned into a place where residents have expressed, “I don’t feel safe here.”
We appreciate the wisdom of the mayor in not approving another haven for the activity that put the residences there in the first place — abuse of drugs, alcohol, and other anti-social activities.
Andy Caldwell, in last week’s Voices section, observes that this Santa Maria Motel 6, is barely a block away from a junior high school. He goes on to say that “the county started renting motels in the city of Santa Barbara, more than a year ago.” What are the results of that experiment? Look at the Rose Garden Inn, on upper State Street, and the expensive price tag we have written about in other columns. And now the super rushed purchase of Super 8 on Hollister Street in Goleta. Imagine what this will do for the crime and safety for that end of Goleta.
Bottom line, this whole homeless situation is so out of control because we will not stop the drug proliferation that is surging through our unsecured borders. These multi-million-dollar projects do nothing to fix the problem. In fact, they exacerbate them. Get addicted to drugs and we will put you up in a Motel 6, where you can engage in this self-defeating behavior in the privacy of your free hotel room with a flushing toilet.
What is a public nuisance; Flagrant drug use, sleeping in business doorways, panhandling? But Chick fil-A, a public nuisance? We suspect that Chick-fil-A is a target because the restaurant promotes family values.
Other places cause traffic to back up and have for decades: the Granada garage, Milpas Jack in the Box, Mesa McDonalds and the Santa Barbara County Bowl.It appears to be a righteous attempt to harass Chick-fil-A. A spokesperson for the business said it was blindsided by this as it is already working with the city to address the problem.
During the Santa Barbara City Council meeting, after much confusion, decipherin, and deliberation about the intent of the agendized item (No. 14, to spend $200,000 on a rent control economics analysis) versus several of the city council members’ wish to solidify the Dec. 7 rent control and rent registry ordinance, the city council decided to spend the $200,000. All this for a study to determine if the Santa Barbara rental market could survive a rent-control ordinance more stringent than the state mandates.However, per the city presentation, the Dec 7 action by council was to “FURTHER CONSIDER the above.” Not a done deal, as inferred by Councilmembers Meagan Harmon, Kristen Sneddon and Oscar Gutierrez.
Funny thing, the Santa Barbara Housing Authority’s Rob Fredericks called during the meeting to request that SBHA be exempt from the Rent Control Ordinance/Annual Rental Registry. If the landlords of privately owned property must share their personal business of rents received, should not the Housing Authority be held to the same standard and reveal their rental agreements? Hilarious.
When Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez decried a housing crisis, Mayor Rowse responded, “A housing crisis has been touted since the 1930s … You ask for housing and in the next breath you want to control what they build.”“Hypocrisy is the scarlet letter in politics.”
Bonnie Donovan writes the “Did You Know?” column in conjunction with a bipartisan group of local citizens. It appears Sundays in the Voices section.
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