Banning guns isn’t the answer

Guns, guns, guns. It’s always about the guns. An inert object that does absolutely nothing on its own. A bunch of metal. Guns don’t breathe. They don’t eat. They don’t think. They don’t move.

The only thing required for a gun to do something, is a human finger.

Control Board is trying to force Santa Barbara County, the city of Santa Maria and the Santa Maria Airport to fork out tens of millions of dollars via a cleanup and abatement order. This, despite the fact that nobody, including the water board, has any reason to believe these three local government entities had anything whatsoever to do with the contamination.

This is par for the course for the tyrannical and abusive water board, which answers to no one. Whereas a sympathetic audience might feel sorry for Santa Barbara County for finding itself in the middle of lawsuits for pollution it did not technically create, in my opinion, the county deserves the karma because it has done similar things to countless others in the past.

The county has been oh so happy in numerous times past to turn businesses in to the water board (and other agencies) for matters that were legacy issues from long ago that the current owner had nothing to do with. In one instance, the county went after a fuel distributor for ground contamination, whereupon further investigation the contamination had come from a county operation.

The most infamous case of abuse ever? Instead of building houses on ground that had been slated for development, Peter Adam (years before he became a county supervisor) and family instead purchased the land to farm it. The county subsequently fabricated a wetland designation on the property and got caught redhanded doing it. The county was fined by a jury for $7 million as a result, because the land was never a wetland to begin with. The fine got thrown out on a technicality, but the finding of “fraud, malice and oppression” stands.

“Fraud, malice and oppression” sounds like somebody’s de facto mission statement, if you ask me.

W hile I prefer to ignore most of the propaganda that currently passes for political discourse, as a retired public school teacher, I feel compelled to respond to the recent editorial characterizing school choice as the new civil rights movement. The article — and virtually all like it promoting school choice — leaves out one very important difference between public and private schools: the choice that schools have.

I’m quite sure that testing outcomes in private schools are substantially higher than those of public schools. Of course they are. Private schools get to choose their students whereas public schools must accept anyone within their boundaries. That includes students with emotional and physical disabilities (excuse me, differences) for whom it can be incredibly expensive to provide appropriate care and who are unlikely to be academically high functioning.

Students must be enrolled regardless of their language skills with dozens of languages other than English represented in California and nationally. Students with behavioral issues or low academic potential must be accepted by public schools when they enroll and their needs must be addressed regardless of the extra cost and drain on district resources. Private schools can reject any of these potential applicants, and they do reject them. Is it any wonder their outcomes appear superior?

So to all proponents of school choice, let’s make this fair. Give parents their checks for education expenses, but require any school to which they apply to accept their children with no additional fees. Do that, and I predict the differences between the educational outcomes of private and “failing” public schools will disappear in a heartbeat.

Robert Lindsay Santa Barbara

The proper regard for money

Re: Frank Sanitate’s column, “SVB Board, Executives Became Greedy,” News-Press.

I enjoyed Frank Sanitate’s article on March 18. It made me think of the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 2, verses 1-11. Many view the Bible as the word of God others see it as a good book with some good stories. The book of Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon, who, if our understanding is correct, was one of the wisest men to ever walk the earth.

Those verses in chapter 2 outline all the riches and pleasures he was able to accumulate in massive amounts.

What I have always found interesting is what he wrote in verse 11 concerning riches. “But when I reflected on all the works that my own hands had done and all the hard work that I toiled to accomplish, I saw that everything was futile, a chasing after the wind, there was nothing of real value under the sun.”

If the Bible is the word of God, it is interesting He had these verses written down for us to meditate on the proper place money and things should be in our lives. Thanks for your writing, Frank.

Jay Gretchen Santa Barbara

We can do better

I think it’s pretty obvious that the U.S. is a mess: drugs out of control, Southern border destroyed, gender confusion, governmental spending, one-way justice, reverse racism, green new deal and problems with national strength, education and spiritual values — and the many “byproducts” of all of this.

Crime is rampant, along with inflation, as we head into our own destruction.

We have forgotten the pillars and lives that brought us to 2020. It’s all about money and power.

Our last presidential election remains very dubious,and was won out of hate for the opposition, which continues to this day, as we head for 2024. There are too many people who will refuse to acknowledge an unwise decision. Presidential candidates often choose running mates for their own tenure ”insurance.”

I still remain hopeful that, as a nation, things will turn around for us again. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again! Love this country. There is nothing better!

Randy Rosness Solvang

Let’s act to prevent school shootings

School shootings. It is a shocking travesty that those two words can occur next to each other!

We all feel helpless in the face of evil. However, I believe it is a multi-faceted problem, and until all three problems are addressed, the carnage of the innocents will continue.

The United (I prefer Untied) States of America is the only country where children are murdered, and homicides are through the roof. I hosted a student from Belgium for a semester, who asked if it was safe to go to school or would he possibly be shot. They think our country is completely nuts in Europe and Canada for electing crazy people and allowing assault

Please see LETTERS on C4