Goleta’s Shelby Trust Moves Toward Re-zone, Development

With the Goleta Chamber of Commerce now running the City Council, we will wish we had stayed in the County. I remember Jean Blois used to say she supported keeping Ag land as Ag. I guess she changed her mind when she got the word from the Chamber. Pity.

I find the actions of the Goleta City Council's .... pro-growth majority saddening and infuriating. They are now voting against their own staff recommendations to build, build, build! (See article from the S.B. Independent below.)

Shame on you Eric, Michael and Jean! What a disappointment your actions are! PLEASE wake up and realize what you are doing to our wonderful community or your legacy will be one of destruction and a drastically reduced standard of living. PLEASE start acting on all of the public input AGAINST further growth which you received!

The problems caused by rampant, irresponsible growth do not just affect the residents of Goleta, but rather the greater community as well. Being hemmed in by mountains on one side and the ocean on the other is one of the things that makes our beautiful community unique. It also puts us at risk in the case of a natural or other disaster. With our current population we would already find ourselves in dire straits as we all attempt to flee via our ONLY main artery, the impacted 101 freeway. How can anyone believe that MORE building, more rampant growth can be good for our town or for southern S.B. county?

We deserve better, YOUR own families deserve better. It is time to do what is best for our community, not for the handful who will benefit financially from all of this development. You were elected by the people and I cannot imagine that most of us knew the building frenzy which would result during your tenure. Do you honestly see yourselves being REelected by your constituents if you keep this up? I hopefully urge you to reconsider your stances.

Roger and Jonny, I applaud your efforts to do the responsible thing! Impossible when you are outnumbered.... I would also like to thank Martha Sadler and the S.B. Independent for reporting on this issue.

Knowing Eric and his family personally, this is a difficult email to send, but I feel so strongly about this issue that I must do so.

Sincerely,

Liz Zok
Goleta resident since 1988

Amazing. The power of a reporter's perspective. I watched the hearing on TV the other night, as I do most Goleta hearings. Martha Sadler's coverage was one-sided and that is disappointing. I agree with her that what I witnessed was a landowner saying her property isn't viable for agriculture, therefore she was asking for a rezone to residential. But I didn't hear the council support this notion; in fact they spent a great deal of time talking about what true, viable agriculture is, and how should the city define this. It turns out the city doesn't have detailed definitions of what exactly constitutes good agricultural land. Both the landowner and the council majority agreed that there should be more fact finding here in an effort to get to the bottom of this. What I heard from Eric Onnen is that once a bottom line is established regarding true, viable farmland, then this project or others either WILL or WILL NOT qualify as such. Now, Martha Sadler didn't mention any of this and that is why I'm disappointed. I depend upon the Indy as a trustworthy news source. Flaming angst in our community thru either biased or insufficient reporting is unacceptable.

I'll never understand how things like this happens. You people have been to LA, right? Or at least seen pictures? Urban sprawl sucks.