As someone who has actually litigated the complexities of criminal law with all of the senior deputy district attorneys who will be taking massive amounts of public money to retire early as private individuals, I am not all that convinced that the County is actually losing anything in terms of their so-called “experience.” [News feature, “D.A.’s Office Set to Lose Decades of Experience,” 10/15/09.]

Simply piggy-backing off a system in which they earn highly lucrative salaries with less than top notch skills is not truly proof that their “experience” is actually all that valuable.

I would prefer to see an organization that hires the best and the brightest and the most qualified talent rather than simply covering up for those with mediocre legal skills.

In fact, weeding out some of these who do drain and siphon off enormous amounts of public money each year by taking unjustifiably excessive salaries relative to their actual skill is at minimum, one way to approach good government because we as the People can finally begin to expect higher standards of skill, ethics, and honesty in that office.

There are many good, decent, and talented lawyers in that department. But, thank goodness, the mediocre ones are being weeded out.

After all we are an internationally recognized place to live and at some point, the dumbing down of Santa Barbara ought to end. So these early retirements are actually a good thing because we truly, as the People, do not lose out on any significant or substantial experience, talent or skill.

We can do better and this is at least a start at improvement and for raising the bar to higher standards of exceptional and ethical public service.We the People.-Gil Armijo

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