The Future of Our Valley

Good Grief! The hornet’s nest that has been stirred up by asking a few legitimate questions is unreal! I have been aware that our small Valley has become a “destination of choice” for many wishing to escape the frenetic pace of the big cities but I was not that aware of the possessive attitude that came with some of these people.

I grew up with the farming and ranching families, owners of the small businesses like the restaurants, gas stations and pharmacies. It has been a rude awakening when any of those moved to some other place; feeling like one has lost a member of one’s extended family. It is a real delight when I discover “newcomers” who have the same appreciation for where they live and do business. There are many such individuals who have moved here and embraced the small-town values that the long-time residents enjoy. They are such a breath of fresh air compared to those people who move here and immediately want to change the Valley to reflect the community they just moved from.

We all expect change to happen as we absorb more and more residents but there have been some significant deviations from what was expected. Overall, the vision for the gradual development of parts of the Valley has been distorted by some people who either refuse to acknowledge the rights of other residents to use their property as they see fit or who care nothing for anybody else’s rights other than their own. This dilemma is creating a very cloudy picture for the future of our Valley. The recent questions directed towards our Chumash neighbors have been very legitimate with regards to what their future plans might be and how it might impact the current residents here. You will notice that there is NO value judgment attached to the question. There is no implication of good or bad assumed in the answer-just a straight forward question. So why does this simple question bring forth vitriolic, racist, demonizing responses from the tribe’s leaders and spokespersons?

Perhaps it is to cloud the issue and to prevent the truthful answer that they don’t want us to hear? Perhaps they don’t want us to know that they intend to “control” the hospitality industry in this Valley. Perhaps they intend to use your gambling money to buy up as much of the Valley as possible to control its destiny and be able to develop it all to higher densities. Maybe that is why they are calling us all liars even though the words we reported came from the Chairman himself. It is unfortunate that they feel they cannot be honest with the rest of the community and have to resort to fabrications of incidents and misrepresentations of the situation they now find themselves in. All we invited them to do was to talk to us so that we could all plan our futures together. What we have gotten is a very sad attack on people who are concerned about how to deal with increased traffic, increased crime and the lack of an infrastructure to accommodate those increases. From my first request for all parts of the Valley to work and plan together, I gather from the Chumash responses that it is not something they would ever consider.

Even the overtures from the Boardof Supervisors were roundly rebuffed eventually, after being strung along with promises of meaningful discussions forsome time. I could speculate as to the outcome of this impasse but I don’t think that would be productive. What would be productive would be for the local bought-and-paid-for press to stop printing these nasty remarks and start taking the high road to bring us back together as a community; if they can find it.

UNIFORM RULES UPDATE-STAY TUNED

So too, the County Planning Department staff have consistently refused to be realistic about our future and, instead, have forced their own vision and agenda on Valley residents. Local politicians have also abdicated their responsibilities to reflect the wishes of their constituents and have, repeatedly, voted to support a minority view that is not shared by most people in the County. In fact, the view that has changed little over the past twenty years has been biased in favor of a radical environmental agenda espoused with little or no scientific basis being perpetuated throughout the educational systems in this country.

Recently, I have written about the Uniform Rules Update which was supposed to help farmers and ranchers to modernize their operations on Williamson Act contracted land. Essentially the modernization was supposed to reflect the changes in Santa Barbara County such as the advent of a booming wine industry that didn’t even exist when the Rules were last revised.

Currently, there are housing issues that have become important all over the County that agriculture, as an industry, could help alleviate to some extent. A couple of months ago I took around my ranch a couple of people who are very involved in finding solutions to the housing crunch. The point of the tour was to show them what the facilities were, how many families were supported directly by the ranch and the fact that a maximum of four of them could be housed on the ranch,out of view of any public road, giving better security to the operation and have no significant impact on the land.

This, if getting permits to do so were made timely and reasonably priced, could relieve four housing units in Buellton for other residents and reduce daily trips on the highway to and from their homes. It made a lot of sense to them. But no- we have some seriously obstructive and misinformed people making accusations about the eligibility of a Supervisor’s vote on the issue and some other Supervisors apparentlynot being any better informed, and here we stand, months later with no decision on the topic.

Do these people really not understand what is going on here or do they have the same agenda as the radical environmental groups who stalled the decision in the first place?

It is simply insane to force agriculture to stand still while misinformation is being tossed around. What is there to be discussed except to determine who's spreading this misinformation (we already know the answer to that) and why are we even still talking about it?

This is what happens when you have uninformed (one hopes that is all there is to it) politicians who simply don’t know enough to make common sense decisions.

LACK OF COMMON SENSE

I see this problem at all levels of government. So called public servants have decided to deal with issues based on their own agendas instead of their constituents. On the Federal level, we have rampant illegal immigration which is straining all sorts of budgets trying to pay for people who don’t belong here. This would not be tolerated anywhere else in the world.

On the State level, our Governor is trying to balance the budget with gaming dollars while we know for a fact that for every gaming dollar the State takes in, it costs the State (or actually the taxpayer) six to ten dollars to pay for increased infrastructure needs and increased services required for gambling addictions.

On the local level, Supervisors just passed a resolution to put aside $1,000,000 for medical insurance for uninsured children. On the surface, this is a wonderful idea but further investigation reveals two enormous problems with the program at this time. First, Santa Barbara County cannot afford to entice more people to move here who are not in this country legally. Secondly, Santa Barbara County currently has a backlog of unfunded infrastructure (like roads) to the tune of $155,000,000.

Is it responsible to take away some of that money to give to people who should not be here in the first place? I know we are a generous people here in the U.S. but shouldn’t we try to keep our infrastructure soundly before we try to help others?

It was reported recently that the County is losing property tax dollars which is what pays for many of the services we count on like law enforcement, fire department, health and welfare. I am not sure of what the reasons are for this but one thing that surely will stop some of the problem is to stop trying to “save the land”

I know some in the more radical environmental groups will strenuously disagree but I don’t think most people understand that every time land is “saved” it is taken OFF the property tax rolls and no longer produces income for the County. Unfortunately, people are not told this and do not realize that now instead of the taxpayer (property owner) paying taxes to the County, now the County is having to maintain the property. This is why so many of the “public” properties are not well maintained-the public agencies don’t know how to take care of the land and they don’t have the money to do so anyway.

Therefore, they need more tax money from you. The good news is that you have the ability to reverse this change by voting for people who do not feel that government can take care of things better than you can. Radical idea, huh?!

HAPPY EARTH DAY AND OTHER SPRING EVENTS

On April 22 Earth Day is celebrated. Many interesting activities are planned some of which are educational, hopefully to be adopted by the public. For the ranching and farming communities, Everyday is Earth Day because that is what they work with and if they do not make good earthfriendly decisions, their business and lifestyle will suffer.

Spring is finally here and the wildlife in the Valley is, as always, right in tune with it. Linnets are making nests in windows, eggs are being laid, and turkeys are prancing around each other, the females being coy and the males showing off their plumage. The deer are still mostly in the hills where there is green forage and water, waiting for their fawns to be born. We anxiously await their arrival. Whatever else is going on in the human world,the rest of the world has it right. It’s time to renew.