Letter to the president

Dear President Biden, I am obligated to call you president out of respect for the office, though in my heart I don’t feel your actions warrant the title.

Do you remember when you won the election by 83-plus million votes, more than your former boss, Barack Hussein Obama? President Obama ran a powerful campaign and drew large crowds of tens of thousands and won nearly 70 million votes, the highest number in American history up to that point.

I’m curious if you know how you won by such a wide margin running your campaign from your basement. And on the very few occasions when you did venture out for a “rally,” you only managed to muster a few dozen supporters.

Quite typically, a piece of land that could easily accommodate dozens of homes was downgraded in scope to a handful of homes while the rest of the property was forced into some type of conservation easement meaning the rest of the property could not be developed in perpetuity. Rancho San Marcos and Ellwood Shores are but two examples of this status quo approach to prevent housing from being built on the South Coast.

Now that the state mandate with teeth has kicked in, Santa Barbara County is doing what it has always done when it is in a pinch. Dump the housing into the Goleta Valley in much the same manner as the city of Santa Barbara located its airport in the valley, by hook and crook.

One would think that the residents and city officials of the “Good Land” would wake up and realize that “with friends like that, who needs enemies?”

What about Montecito?

Well, both the city and county of Santa Barbara have always pandered to the elites in Montecito by way of the Montecito Growth Management Ordinance, which conveniently declared that growth in Montecito was a threat to public health and safety, albeit county Supervisor Das Williams may have been shamed into approving at least one project in Montecito this time around.

What’s worse? It was always left to Ventura County, Lompoc and Santa Maria to bear the brunt and the impacts of growth, commuters be damned. Hence, Ventura, Lompoc and Santa Maria have built their fair share of housing, including family housing, which has been to the advantage of their economy and quality of life.

The same cannot be said about the South County, in general, which will now end up with extremely highdensity neighborhoods, including high rises that have always been anathema, because the failure to plan is always a plan to fail.

I understand and support the need for every resident to have access to reproductive medical information and care.

As a gerontologist, I worked years for the right to Death with Dignity, end-of-life care; for each person’s needs and written wishes to be honored; and for no licensed medical professional to be mandated or coerced to provide medical intervention.

I do not support government overreach, dictates, mandates, control or violations of constitutional rights. Dogma from both the right and left certainly fuels voter registration of No Party Preference locals and is divisive.

I encourage tolerance.

Please note: Assembly Bills 352, 793 and1194 address in some form the California Privacy Rights Act protections of electronic, digital data sharing of medical records and/or internet searches.

Here is a list of 25 bills being considered in the Legislature and their sponsors.

• AB 90 (Petrie-Norris): Improves access to longacting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) for those seeking abortion services.

• AB 254 (Bauer-Kahan) Adds CMIA/HIPAA protections for data collected by menstrual, fertility, and sexual health apps and websites.

• AB 352 (Bauer-Kahan) Enhances privacy protections for medical records related to abortion, pregnancy loss, and other sensitive services through electronic health record sharing and health information exchanges.

• AB 571 (Petrie-Norris) Ensures that medical malpractice insurance includes coverage for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care.

• AB 576 (Weber) Aligns Medi-Cal coverage of medication abortion with evidence-based clinical guidelines.

• AB 598 (Wicks) Requires school districts to participate in the California Healthy Kids Survey and include a module on sexual and reproductive health care as one of the core survey modules.

• AB 710 (Schiavo) Launches a public information campaign to provide women with accurate information regarding access to abortion care at crisis pregnancy centers.

• AB 793 (Bonta) Provides privacy protections for digital data related to patients accessing abortion services in California.

• AB 1194 (Carrillo) Ensures that California Privacy Rights Act protections always extend to accessing, procuring, or searching for services regarding contraception, pregnancy care, and perinatal care, including abortion services.

• AB 1432 (Carrillo) Requires every health insurance policy or certificate that is issued, or delivered to a resident of California, regardless of the situs of the contract, to comply with California laws that require coverage of abortion services and gender-affirming care.

• AB 1481 (Boerner-Horvath) Clarifies Presumptive Eligibility for Pregnant Individuals (currently called PE4PW) coverage policies and ensures PE4PW patients can access abortion services regardless of other health coverage.

• AB 1646 (Nguyen) Expands access to abortion and gender-affirming care by allowing out-of-state medical school graduates to practice in California for up 90 days.

• AB 1707 (Pacheco) Provider Protections.

• SB 36 (Skinner) Strengthens safe haven protections by making it illegal for bail agents or bounty hunters to apprehend people in California and protect access to public benefits.

• SB 345 (Skinner) Provides legal protections for medication abortions and gender-affirming care.

• SB 385 (Atkins) Seeks to extend many of the updated training rules from SB 1375 last year to additional providers (i.e. physician assistants, etc.)

• SB 487 (Atkins) Provides additional safeguards for California abortion providers and other entities and individuals that serve and support abortion patients that reside in states with hostile abortion laws.