MONTECITO TIDE GUIDE

was considering three female candidates for the position, contrary to what he previously had told me.

I was expecting the Board of Supervisors’ vote to remove me from the MPC – given their policy of supporting each other’s recommendations in the matter of commission appointments – but I was very disappointed that the more important issues I raised were not addressed or even acknowledged by the board. I am raising them again now.

Sincerely,

Susan Keller

Montecito resident and community volunteer

Parklets: Hazard Response

Bob Hazard’s plea to reinstate restaurant parklets is an obvious attempt to keep restaurants’ windfall COVID profits flowing. The emergency COVID dining restrictions ended on June 15, 2021, yet restaurants were permitted to keep their expanded parklet seating, allowing them to reap profits unrelated to the pandemic. Mr. Hazard overlooks the fact that Coast Village’s restaurants were not the only ones who were harmed by the COVID pandemic. He builds a case to restore parklets, benefiting five restaurants, while ignoring the harm they do to retailers. Remember that retailers too were impacted by fire, flood, and COVID.

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The elimination of parking spaces along Coast Village Road significantly exacerbated an already serious parking problem. Mr. Hazard seems to imply that parking is not a big problem, but as we all know, it is. A petition to the City by 25 retailers and seven property owners (of which I was one) spelled out the harm caused by parklets and demanded their removal.

Mr. Hazard extolls the so-called benefits of the extra millions (according to Mr. Hazard) they made from the emergency restaurant ordinance, but none of those wonderful millions trickled down to retailers.

Now these restaurateurs claim that they will lose millions of dollars because they have to go back to life as it was before the pandemic. The assertion that they are losing millions is a bit of a joke. It was a temporary benefit to keep them alive during the pandemic, not to make them millions in windfall profits. But for the pandemic, the City would never have allowed parklets. It’s all about money, folks.

Mr. Hazard then wanders off into traffic issues. He rightly complains about traffic jams on Coast Village Road, the construction related to the new roundabouts, and the freeway construction to come. All these projects will negatively impact the street. That is another reason why the parklets need to be removed. Aside from reducing parking, they create congestion and hazards by encroaching on the street. If anything, during this construction, it is even more important to have a free(r) flowing parklet-free street.

Mr. Hazard also criticizes the City of Santa Barbara for its hands-off approach to Coast Village Road. I’m not sure what that has to do with the parklets, but he has a point. I should remind him of the recent formation of the Coast Village Business Improvement District which was approved by property owners on the street. The goal of that organization was to address many of the problems he brings up: cleanliness, maintenance, street and median improvements, traffic and safety, and business promotions. As I pointed out in a previous Journal letter, change for the good is coming to Coast Village Road. We property owners and businesses on Coast Village Road want a level playing field. It’s time for the parklets to go.

Jeffrey Harding

Decisions by CalTrans

In reading Bob Hazard’s opinion piece, “The Wrong Solution to the Wrong Problem at the Wrong Time,” in the Feb. 2 MJ, I noticed two glaring errors.

First, Hazard states, “In 2008, the City of Santa Barbara made a tragic decision for CVR when then-Mayor Helene Schneider and her transportation director Rob Dayton opted to close the southbound on-ramp to the 101 at the Hot Springs/Cabrillo interchange.”

It was not the S.B. mayor, nor the City Transportation Department that mandated

BY