Escape from New York: Timing

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series by News-Press columnist Brent E. Zepke.

I’m writing because you must understand that one or two developers does not mean everyone that owns and/or lives in Isla Vista has to be punished. Making up new rules and regulations often have very bad results for the people you want to help.

If all good people go to heaven apart from Christ, the Bible then asks, then why did Jesus have to die?

The Bible references life on Earth, apart from faith in Jesus, as living in the shadow of death. However, when people place their faith in Him, they discover life and experience life abundant. That has been described as follows. For people who believe in God, Earth is as close to hell as they will ever get.

For people who don’t believe in God, Earth is as close to heaven as they will ever get.

Jesus said that the world hated him and subsequently crucified him because he testified that its deeds were evil as they denied they needed a savior. To this day, the world that God so loves still doesn’t want to be convinced they need to be saved from themselves and this world we live in.

The church, which is supposed to be a witness of and to the truth, is only too happy to oblige the unbelief of the world, as heaven and hell are scarcely talked about these days. Albeit, how can you have one without the other? Too many churches preach forgiveness and the hope of eternity but without repentance, thereby distorting the holiness of God by way of a heretical doctrine of tolerance.

An allegory of the main theme herein was depicted in the movie classic, “Blade Runner,” in which a group of bioengineered humanoids, known as replicants, returns to Earth to meet their maker to demand an extension of life.

In the final scene the leader of the replicants, as he faces death, bemoans that “the life he knows will be lost in time like tears in the rain.” The absolute truth here is that life apart from any aspect of eternity becomes meaningless in the end.

For example: rent controls hurt the very people it is supposed to help. (Contact Peter Ruppert, a professor of economics at UCSB, to learn more about that).

Property ownership is a basic principle of our country. and housing providers are basic, too.

We realize that housing — or the lack thereof — is problematic: There’s not enough supply. If there were, then tenants could move around more easily.

Penalizing the housing provider community for one out-of-town corporate developer is not an answer, even though the activist housing alliances demand punitive action.

Build more housing by offering incentives to developers; not demanding harsh rules and regulations, with dismal results. Better jobs for people is another way to pay for market housing, but that requires better education and industry.

It is not the housing providers at fault. It’s the lack of housing and good jobs.

Michael C. Schaumburg Santa Barbara Parklets’

Accessibility Violations Are Disheartening

Reading “Mixed Results for Parklets,” by Neil Hartstein and published April 5 in the News-Press, I realized that your readership could benefit from more context on the persistent accessibility violations in the Parklet Program.

I have served on the City’s Access Advisory Committee since 2017. This committee is advisory to city staff and council on issues related to accessibility.

The AAC has consistently objected to the city allowing the construction of new inaccessible facilities in the public right of way (PRoW) since May 2020.

The city promised from the start that the parklets would be completely accessible. So it is very disheartening to read that almost three years later, the city is reporting that more than a quarter of the parklets are still inaccessible.

The fact is that these accessibility requirements, which are outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act and Chapter 11B of the California Building Code, existed long before the parklets were built, and no local ordinance can lessen those requirements.

The December 2022 deadline was at least the third such deadline for accessibility as I recall.

When the city wants compliance with parklets, they get it and fast. The fire lane width was widened, and most of the storm drains were cleared without much fuss or delay. The sidewalk clearance was brought in to compliance pretty quickly too, once the city finally agreed to require it.

If the city had a commitment to providing legally required accessibility in the PRoW, it would have been done long ago.

Frustratedly,

Nicholas Koonce Santa Barbara

U.S. no longer at its pinnacle

‘These are the times that try men’s souls” — again.

We now have four parties: Democratic, Republican, Independent and Don’t Know. I don’t think our citizenry is as intelligent as we would like to believe.

We are ignorant of our history, our progress and our values. We will never be perfect, but we must learn from our past or it will be repeated as we are now experiencing.

Once a faulty precedent is accepted, it will be repeated over and over again as “law.” When we pick and choose which laws we will accept or ignore, we will have no law, no borders, no character and no values. We are no longer the pinnacle of national power, empathy, compassion or aid. We are seen as a nation disintegrating very rapidly. We are not feared, or appreciated as the leading miracle nation, desired by people from around the world.

We can rise to the occasion once again if we choose. This is my concern for a future generation.

Randy Rosness Solvang

How can it be wrong to prosecute felonies?

H ouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the Trump indictment has “irreparably harmed” the country.

What on Earth is he talking about?

Prosecution of a misdemeanor or felony crime is harmful, illegal, unconstitutional, wrong?

The answer to his befuddling statement is found in a message on a popular T-shirt: “Trust God. Not government.”

Speaker McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, is trafficking in the popular libertarian philosophy, which is also the evangelical church argument, that government is evil. The fundamentalist church and its anti-civic bedfellows, patriotic libertarian Republicans, are the only forces for good on Earth.

The problem with this is that our patriotic ancestors in 1776 were not fighting against government and law. They were fighting against “King’s government” and “King’s law.” And those bad laws of King George III are listed in painful detail in the Declaration of Independence.

Our ancestors wanted “People’s government” and “People’s law.” When laws are made by the people, they are blessed by God, and people have respect for them.

Speaker McCarthy is trying to use our ignorance of history to return the nation to a British-style autocratic government in the form of Donald Trump, himself or a new Republican leader in 2024. I get it. And now you get it too.

Kimball Shinkoskey Woods Cross, Utah (Former Goleta resident)