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Regarding the June 1 article, “One Owner of Pacaso Home Pushes Back on Controversy: ‘We Love Santa Barbara’,” this new Pacaso business model negatively impacts neighborhoods and mental health. I looked into Pacaso as I prepare to lease or sell my Montecito home of 37 years. It’s a good option for sellers, but not for neighbors.
I can’t imagine having to deal with eight different owners next door. There are four contiguous properties to my only home that, if sold to Pacaso, could result in possibly 32 different families, lifestyles, values and issues to contend with. No thanks!
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and the county assessor need to implement a disincentive. How many owners of local homes do not take the $7,000 homeowners’ exemption? Perhaps add a 10%-15% annual supplemental fee or tax to residential nonexempt properties to put into a designated fund for neighborhood preservation and security.
I’ve heard that 15% of Montecito houses are vacant second or third homes as more people buy locally to safely park their money in real estate.
Full-time, year-round residents need more facts from local government officials.
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Santa Barbara County Assessor Joseph Holland should be aware of dubious calculations used in the assessment of property values. I have discovered some strange distortions of generally accepted mathematical principals to arrive at erroneously inflated assessments. I am writing this letter because I have found Holland completely inaccessible to the public.
When a property with a structure under construction is assessed for present value, construction costs are continually revised upward, backward through time. That is, if the assessor-determined construction cost goes up during the course of construction, then the cost is revised upward for the years predating the increase.
This is erroneous math. The correct calculation would be to use a summation over the years of construction, using the correct cost for each year.
This may seem like a subtle difference, but this math is simply not correct. Having discovered this grave error, I brought it to the attention of Assessor’s Office staff but was met with very surprising defiance in the face of facts.
Having raised the issue to the highest level available to the public, the chief deputy assessor, it was explained to me that the error was intentional. They had somehow hybridized the concepts of cost and market value to arrive at a number that was neither cost nor market value, but exceeded both.
This kind of intentionally erroneous math, when perpetrated by the public, is prosecuted as tax fraud. And yet, how is this justified by the tax assessor?
There was no concise explanation. I was given some printouts of legal jargon making vague statements about base values. No math was described in the text.
Then I watched a manager jump back and forth between the terminology of cost and market value, unable to stand on either point. He was simply blurting gibberish to confuse and obfuscate the issue. Ultimately, I was told that I needed to pay for gold-plated toilets in Montecito.
The Assessor’s Office is there to serve the public. There must be accountability and integrity for the public to rely on. Using wrong math to inflate values is beyond unacceptable.
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Opponents of my campaign for Santa Barbara County schools superintendent have been leaking fragmented items of information regarding my current employment status at Dos Pueblos High School in an attempt to distort public perceptions. I believe that the best response is to set the truth free, for it will defend itself.
In a May 27 letter to the editor, Bonnie Beedles leaked dates and pay status of my voluntary leave from my personal employment files. Beedles is the wife of Santa Barbara Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Frann Wageneck, and they co-own a business together. There is no way that Beedles would know this information unless she was provided it from someone inside the district with access to my files.
Even more disturbing is that she distorted my current status by leaking selected snippets of information from my files. Such information, like a student’s grades or medical records, is protected by law even for those, like myself, who are seeking public office.
Leaking such information demonstrates, at a minimum, a lack of professionalism and administrative controls. This leak also demonstrates the lengths that unethical insiders are willing to go to maintain the failed status quo.
To be clear, I have already indicated that I am on voluntary leave from Dos Pueblos High School and I have never tried to hide it. It’s no secret the current SBUSD administrators have created a hostile work environment for me, as well as many other teachers and staff. I have been a high-profile and consistent critic of administration policies, especially regarding transparency, student outcomes and safety.
One of the issues, which precipitated my current voluntary leave, was my public advocacy for Safety Resource Officers to remain on campus. Rather than address critical safety concerns, the SBUSD administration retaliated by undermining my personal safety and refused to authorize a transfer to another school.
Those familiar with the current SBUSD teacher protests, demand letters and critical survey of the superintendent by hundreds of teachers, as well as the mass resignation of administrators at the SBUSD offices, would understand why I requested this voluntary leave. Those who speak out in our schools are not safe.
Campaigning for the position of county schools superintendent has been one of the greatest pursuits of my life.
I am fighting for parents, taxpayers and students, all of whom have been ill-served by our county schools. More than half of the students in our county are not proficient in English and nearly two-thirds are not proficient in math. Taxpayers are footing a $1.1 billion a year bill for these dreadful results.
I am also fighting for the parents’ right to know what is being taught to their children in our schools.
My campaign is based on my 18-year in-school experience across all K-12 classes. I believe we must remove the closed-mindedness of partisanship from the classroom. It is unhealthy for staff, teachers and students, and the antithesis of education.
It is well past time that our county Education Office lead by example and became an open book. How are the $100 million in county funds or millions of dollars in Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) funds actually used?
Perhaps those attacking me most viciously are the same ones pushing aside the real needs of foster youth, English language learners and socially economically disadvantaged students to gorge themselves at taxpayers’ expense?
To give all our students any real chance at success, we must focus on educational outcomes. And to do this, the first fundamental step is to ensure safety. Learning requires a healthy environment of openness and vulnerability, not fear of violence or threat of cancel culture.
Clearly, the prospect of change has rattled the failed status quo. They are playing petty political games in a desperate attempt to cling to power.
What is also clear is that if our students are going to have any shot at a successful future, I will have to endure vicious ad hominem attacks. Inasmuch as I am giving voters the first electoral choice of county schools superintendent in 40 years, I will do so.
And finally, win or lose on June 7, I will be exploring whether Beedles and her enablers illegally leaked confidential information regarding my employment. If they did, they will be held accountable.
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Regarding the May 31 article, “Sharp Differences Emerge Between Candidates for County Superintendent of Schools,” I listened carefully to Christy Lozano and Susan Salcido in their Zoom forum as they contend for the position of Santa Barbara County schools superintendent.
As a teacher for 45 years, a longtime administrator at Crane School Country Day School (retired) and a consistent advocate for public schools, it became patently obvious that Lozano is winging it and doesn’t have much to offer.
Whereas Salcido answered the moderators’ questions thoughtfully and in some detail, Lozano mouthed ultra-conservative shibboleths and meaningless charges. Her main slogan has been “Get politics out of the classroom” when she clearly wants to bring “politics” INTO the classrooms! Her comments about critical race theory made very little sense, whereas Salcido was thoughtful and informed.
Lozano betrayed a shocking lack of understanding/experience in school administration. While I have never met either candidate, Salcido stands out as forthright, honest, experienced and highly capable.
Vote for Susan Salcido on June 7.
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I finally read the four-page, primary ballot in my “procrastination box” for weeks. Twenty-six people, an entire column on the first page, are unhappy enough with Gov. Gavin Newsom to run against him. I guess that’s no surprise. On the third page, I noted that, for the first time in decades, the election for Santa Barbara County schools superintendent is contested.
The office was mandated by the state Constitution in 1879. All counties have one and they provide regional support to a county’s school districts and are a go-between with the state Department of Education.
Of late, the county office has attracted attention because “success” is a misnomer when it comes to student performance in the county’s public schools. Of our 67,500 public school children, not even half are proficient in English and only a third are proficient in math, despite the State of California periodically dumbing down proficiency minimums.
With past elections, I never paid attention to the “Sup Schools” because only incumbents ran. This time, with the office contested, like many voters wanting to understand each candidate, I read their websites.
Astonishingly, nowhere does incumbent Superintendent Susan Salcido’s web content even acknowledge an English and math proficiency deficiency exists, much less put forth a solution.
What about school safety? This Election Day, that’s on everyone’s mind, but Salcido doesn’t address it. Even in a 45-minute Santa Barbara Talks on Jan. 24, when it came to improving student proficiency and school safety ... crickets.
Until two weeks ago, I’'d never heard of challenger Christy Lozano. Content on her site suggests that, if she’s elected, the academic skills students need to succeed will become a higher priority in county schools. She presents a way forward to improved English and math competency. She promises budget and curriculum transparency. She lays out a policy for school safety. Finally, Lozano wants sexual and political activism left off-campus.
Shortly after Lozano filed her candidacy, she became a lightning rod for progressives coveting the status quo in county schools. So much so that, to quash potential change in English/math proficiency, transparency and school safety policies, a Democratic Party consultant sued to have her removed from the ballot. The suit failed.
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My county schools superintendent vote goes to Christy Lozano. I hope yours will, too.
• • •
Longtime teacher Christy Lozano is running against Santa Barbara County schools Superintendent Susan Salcido. Because there hasn’t been a competitive race for this elective office in 40 years, very few people have ever heard of it, and even fewer know much about Salcido and her record.
Admittedly, the County Education Office is not well understood in California. It does not run local school districts or directly interact with students and parents. Instead, it performs administrative functions for the local districts, as well as specific oversight functions with respect to their budgets and local funding for minority students and English language learners.
The SBCEO also provides grants to a number of nonprofit organizations that work with children in some capacity.
Salcido was handpicked by her predecessor, Bill Cirone, who had held the job for more than 30 years. While he was in office, California went from having one of the top public school systems in the United States to one of the worst.
During the tenure of Cirone and Salcido, the performance of our Santa Barbara schools have suffered grievously, to the point where the majority of students lacks basic reading, writing and math skills.
You would be hard-pressed to cite any accomplishments of Salcido during her time as superintendent. Since she learned she had an opponent, she has begun to talk about low test scores and the poor academic outcomes of our students.
I have scoured all her speeches and the 30 or so commentaries she has written as superintendent, and not once have I found a single reference to the poor performance of our schools or what she would do to reverse this sorrowful showing.
In recent interviews, Salcido has had a divine revelation that student achievement must improve. Mind you, she is discovering this in an election year.
It’s too bad her musings on this all-important topic are confusing. She complains that as county superintendent, she doesn’t have the power to help our schools improve their academic performance. In the same sentence, she also claims she is working on it. She contends she has applied for literacy grants, but there is no record of the County Education Office ever having done this, even though seven other counties have applied for and received $5 million grants.
Other counties are running college prep high schools for educationally disadvantaged students or vocational high schools for students not on a college track. There are even counties operating schools for the arts or with specific literacy programs for students who can’t read. There is nothing in our county anything even remotely similar.
Also troubling is that none of the $100 million the SBCEO has at its disposal is specifically used to fund programs that will raise student test scores. Even though the county spends little or no money for literacy, millions of dollars are being spent on travel to attend conferences, dues and memberships to various associations, and communications and consulting services.
Unfortunately, transparency doesn’t seem to be a priority at the SBCEO, since the budget does not provide any detail beyond these broad categories. Tens of millions of dollars are going to nonprofit organizations, but good luck trying to identify who they are.
What is Salcido’s solution for the 25% chronic absentee rate in our schools or the doubling of mental health referrals and the exponential increase in student drug use after Sacramento closed our schools for 18 months? So far, Salcido isn’t telling us.
Did she urge the local districts to apply for waivers to open their schools during the year and a half they were closed, the longest of any school districts in the entire country? No, she didn’t.
It is revealing that in the many letters to the editor supporting her, various people speak in laudatory terms about her personality. Salcido is well-liked and has demonstrated she gets along well with her colleagues. And while this is not insignificant, it is equally compelling that no one is able to point to anything she has done in her years in office that has made a difference in the performance of our schools.
Salcido has not demonstrated the aptitude, vision or creativity to produce the results we are sorely lacking in our schools. If she hasn’t been able to improve our schools in the nearly four years she has been superintendent, why would anyone think this will change in the next four years?
Please vote for a better future for our children. Their lives depend on it.
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As members of the Society of Fearless Grandmothers Santa Barbara, we are writing in response to Ron Fink’s May 24 commentary, “Did Board of Supervisors Majority Overstep Their Authority?” which reiterates the tiresome rhetoric of Big Oil and endangers the future of all our children and grandchildren.
Contrary to Fink’s assertions, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors followed the law in denying the ExxonMobil trucking proposal. Its findings were supported by significant data on the negative impacts of oil trucking.
Oil tanker truck crashes on Highway 166 and elsewhere were convincing evidence of the limitations of the proposed route; for example, the March 2020 spill of 6,600 gallons of crude into the Cuyama River just 10 miles upstream from Santa Maria’s Twitchell reservoir.
Contrary to Fink’s claims, the loss of ExxonMobil tax revenue to the county is underwhelming. ExxonMobil estimated that the seven-year trucking permit would generate $8.6 million, or approximately $1.2 million per year. Resort businesses that depend on clean beaches and a healthy environment contribute many times more annual tax revenue than this!
The projected ExxonMobil revenue is a tiny fraction of the county’s $1.41 billion operating revenues, not a “dramatic loss.”
The oil industry contributes far less to our revenue base than the burden it transfers to taxpayers when we are forced to deal with the consequences of their “take the money and run” business model.
After the Refugio spill, more than $100 million in taxpayer funds were allocated to decommissioning aging oil industry infrastructure. (Fink forgot to mention the criminal conviction resulting from the spill.)
Health hazards associated with oil and gas operations are well known and add untold millions of dollars in medical expenses for vulnerable citizens.
In a 2019 public policy poll, more than 70% of county voters said they would be concerned about safety with the addition of 70 oil tankers per day on county highways. The evidence presented at the March 8 public hearing was clear: Highways are not adequate to carry the type and quantity of traffic generated by the proposed use and it would be detrimental to the comfort, convenience, general welfare, health and safety of neighborhoods and incompatible with the surrounding area. There is no basis for ExxonMobil’s frivolous lawsuit.
The Board of Supervisors doesn’t represent only “monied environmental activists,” but ALL the people of county who bear the burdens of the fossil fuel industry. They understand that the costs and risks to taxpayers outweigh any delusional benefits from the ExxonMobil trucking proposal.
Fink should stop shilling for Big Oil and wake up to the fact that we need to put our efforts toward developing renewable energy, not propping up the dying oil industry, if our children and grandchildren are to have a habitable planet.
Irene Cooke Michal Lynch Maureen Ellenberger Sharon Broberg Pam Bury Society of Fearless Grandmothers-Santa Barbara
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The Los Olivos Community Services District has lost its way, and the district’s directors run the very real risk of forfeiting local control over the solution to this community’s longstanding groundwater quality problem.
Rather than doubling down on the board’s decision to enlarge the sewer and sewage treatment component of the wastewater management project the district was formed to implement in 2018, it is time to adjust course back to the project approved by voters and endorsed by every relevant stakeholder.
It is time the board stops misleading the community about actions taken without community engagement or approval. The board has never acknowledged or explained that it changed the nature, size and scope of the plans for a sewer system. Its response to anyone attempting to hold directors accountable for the unauthorized actions has been to label them an “outsider,” misinformed or worse; this is destructive and divisive at a time when it is critical that the entire community works together to get this project underway.
A “Local Phased Approach” was identified as the appropriate option for the 391-parcel district at least a decade before the LOCSD was established, and then was promoted and adopted by the board.
» A small wastewater treatment plant that is fully enclosed in a barnlike structure and located to serve a sewer constructed for the fewer than 80 small, compact lots that make up the downtown commercial core of Los Olivos
» A decentralized wastewater treatment project that can include a variety of approaches for collection, treatment and dispersal/reuse of wastewater for individual residences, clusters of homes or businesses
It is unfortunate that community members must now try to remind the board of the many reasons it adopted the Local Phased Approach for Los Olivos, but here are a few reminders:
» A compact, enclosed wastewater treatment plant in and for the commercial core is consistent with Santa Barbara County’s land-use policies discouraging extension of sewer service to rural areas because such extensions encourage density and urban sprawl; avoids environmental impacts associated with extending sewers through agricultural lands; enhances groundwater recharge by treating and reinjecting the district’s wastewater at the northern end of the Special Problem Area; and protects against threats to biological resources in the Santa Ynez Valley, including the effects of urbanization (noise, fencing, odor, trucks, vermin) associated with a sewage plant to serve every parcel inside the district and expandable to process sewage from parcels north of Highway 154 and south to Ballard.
» A decentralized wastewater (advanced septic) project is more cost-effective and economical, avoids large capital expenditures and costs less to operate and maintain; is green and sustainable; protects public health, mitigating contamination and health risks associated with sewage treatment plants.
It is time to work on securing funding for the Local Phased Approach. The most rudimentary Google search reflects the availability of federal and state funding for decentralized projects for small communities like Los Olivos. The board’s assertions that a larger, expensive, growth-inducing system is required for funding are flatly untrue.
The Los Olivos Community Services District board still has time to succeed, but every day defending its recent decision to abandon the mission presented to and supported by the community brings it a day closer to failure — for the district and our community.
Kathryn Lohmeyer Rohrer Los Olivos
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