Our Community
I have been
stunned this past week to observe the wanton disregard for the feelings of the
valley community. With the naming of Highway 154 the “Chumash Highway,” a huge
amount of very ugly expressions have surfaced.
The naming of
the highway was guaranteed, in the first place, to cause what little good will
still existed toward the Casino, not to be confused with the tribal members, to
be forever torn asunder. Funereal signs have appeared on Highway 154 depicting
the demise of responsiveness by public representatives to their constituents’
sensitivities and, just as quickly, those expressions of grief have been
maliciously destroyed by persons unknown.
Hatred has
not been something known in this valley, at least not on such a wholesale
level, until one group of people, or at least their spokespersons, exhibited
such a level of condescension and animosity towards the rest of the valley that
it became obvious to everyone: we all were now to be considered not only
outsiders, but interlopers to boot. This kind of attitude usually is referred
to as “a chip on one’s shoulder,” and it just as usually leads to anti-social
behavior toward all others. Behavior of this sort often is rooted in a belief
that one has somehow been singled out for unfair treatment while others, more
favored, collect undeserved rewards. Individuals who feel this way usually go
through life with the “victim syndrome,” whether their plight is real or
imagined. Until these individuals begin to see themselves as capable within themselves, they will continue to blame everyone but
themselves for life’s occurrences and will continue to show anti-social
behavior toward everyone else, including members of their own family.
For the last
several years, I have been very concerned that the amount of bad behavior on
the part of certain people in the community would lead to what we see today.
People don’t like to be lied to, and they also don’t like to be told that they
themselves are liars when they know they are not. People don’t take kindly to
high-handed maneuvers such as falsely naming something which totally discounts
the contributions to this valley of numerous groups of people over many
decades. What is particularly hurtful is when people who are leaders pretend to
speak for their group and don’t even have the group’s interests in mind. A
letter published in the Journal last week made this point very clearly.
It is
unfortunate that our elected politicians have shown such disdain for the
residents of the Santa Ynez Valley, and I am sure
that you will all express in your own way your own disdain for them. It is my
personal belief that because our elected representatives have refused to
represent us, and have selfishly thought only of their re-election or personal
coffers, we must try to solve this dilemma ourselves. From the Santa Barbara
County Board of Supervisors to the governor himself, we have been abandoned.
These politicians have been fooled into thinking that gambling is going to
solve their fiscal problems when study after study has shown that this is not
going to happen. In fact, these studies show just the opposite. It is very
expensive to have gambling in one’s midst because of the totality of problems
that accompany it. You are already familiar with the traffic problems, the drug
problems, and the problems arising from a lack of representative government,
but you may not be aware of the prostitution problems, the gang problems and
the potential for organized crime, such as those being found at a tribal casino
down south.
Having a
casino in our midst is not the problem for our community. What is the huge
problem, to my mind, is having a casino in a small rural community without the
necessary infrastructure to contain and support it. The fact that the casino
was allowed to be built without an immediate response from Santa Barbara County
saying, “Oh, we seem to be having a casino built, we need (1) better roads, (2)
more law enforcement, (3) more medical facilities or personnel” and a myriad of
other concerns. Where was the leadership looking while all this was going on?
Didn’t anybody think to call someone in Las Vegas and ask how they do it, what
sort of infrastructure they have to cope with the gambling crowd? Common sense
would dictate this.
The other
part to the mess we find ourselves in is due to the apparent unwillingness of
our legislators, locally and statewide, to come to terms with the reality that
they are spending us all into bankruptcy. For some unknown reason, they all
seem to feel that they can continuously raise taxes on the citizenry to feed
their insatiable appetites for more and more of whatever they fancy. I guess
the promised revenues from statewide casinos were just too tempting to turn
down. Of course, there is no guarantee that they will ever see that money in
the amounts promised, and there is no way to verify the sums or require that
they be delivered. As with the money due Santa Barbara County in 2007-2008 from
the tribal fund, the Governor just took it back. So although there is much
noise about “donations” and money from the tribes put into funds to help deal
with some of the problems that gambling brings to a community, it can also
disappear in the blink of an eye to fix someone else’s shortfall -- and too bad
about ours.
So how do we
begin to fix this very broken system? I am sure I don’t have all the answers,
but I do have a few ideas we could begin with. First, I believe we need to
become a community again. We need to acknowledge, one and all,
that we have a problem that affects us all, and we need to stop acting
like two-year-olds calling people names. This is probably the most difficult of
all of the things we need to do to heal our valley. Next, we need to look
around us and ascertain if there are any political people in our area who have
not been tainted by gambling money. If not, we should look around us and find those who understand and appreciate the extremely negative
impacts that gambling without proper infrastructure brings to a community. When
we find those people, we must ask them to devise a plan we can follow to get us
back on a reasonable road to solvency and community planning. The incredible
lack of good planning is almost too bad to believe, but nothing is
unsalvageable, including our valley. Finally, we must have the will to make
this change. We must believe that we can bring our valley back to a place we
can all be proud of, not one of divided groups with rampant crime, traffic and
unhappy residents. We can do this.
Happy Times
It was one
year ago today that I purchased the Santa Ynez Valley
Journal because I had felt for a long time that the residents of the valley
only heard a part of some stories and some not at all. Being part of the
agricultural community, I often lamented with my friends and neighbors that if
only the rest of the community understood what we did and why we did it that
way, they would quit supporting those rules and regulations that were squeezing
us out of business.
We have
naturally had our share of bumps in the road and I am sure that there will be
others to come, but through it all, we have persevered to bring you the stories
no one else would print, information and education about agriculture, which is
where your “viewsheds” come from, and some rural
experiences that our urban friends wish they had.
I had no
experience with journalism and have had to learn some new terminology, among
other things, but I am grateful to those who stuck with me through every bit of
it. Sometimes it was crazy, sometimes it was extremely tiring but always it was
with a dedication to you the reader to bring you your paper each week. Some of
you hated what we had to say, and you told us so; some of you loved it, and you
told us so as well. We are all glad to hear from you because we, like you, are
part of this community.
Reaching Out
In case you
are interested in contacting the legislators involved in the renaming of our
highway, these are the names and contact numbers of those most prominent. In
order for them to know how we feel, pro and con, we must reach out to them in
whatever fashion we feel most comfortable.
Politicians List
With From the Ranch
Sen. Tom McClintock, Santa Barbara:
Capitol Office,
State Capitol,
Room
3070
Sacramento,
CA 94248-0001
(916)
651-4019
senator.mcclintock@sen.ca.gov
Sen. Member
Abel Maldonado, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Santa
Cruz:
State
Capitol,
Room 4082
Sacramento,
CA 94248-0001
(916)
651-4015
Assembly
Member Pedro Nava, Ventura, Santa Barbara:
Capitol
Office,
State
Capitol,
Room 2148,
Sacramento,
CA, 94249-0035
(916)
319-2035
Assembly
Member Sam Blakeslee, Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo:
State
Capitol,
Room 4117
Sacramento,
CA, 94249-0033
(916)
319-2033
Assembly
Member Audra Strickland, Camarillo, Fillmore, Los Angeles, Moorpark, Ojai,
Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks:
Capitol
Office,
State
Capitol,
Room 4208,
Sacramento,
Ca, 94249-0037
(916)
319-2037
Assembly
Member Joe Coto, San Jose:
State Capitol,
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0023
(916) 319.2023