County Sued by Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

Disgraceful!

I fail to see what a Japanese tea house, for instance, or a large terrace taking up a good part of its mountain view garden section has to do with "constitutional rights" of a 501(c)(3) BOTANIC garden.

It's mission is "The Garden is dedicated to advancing the knowledge and understanding of botanical and horticultural sciences, to enhancing the public appreciation of plant life, and to fostering the conservation of natural habitats and species." Maybe they should add to that "fighting the neighbors and County" who seek to preserve and protect the Garden as a California natural native plant resource.

Too bad the SBBG prefers to spend money on lawyers and the contentious high-salaried executive director who has indeed turned the SBBG around since he came here.

(Check out guidestar.org for the most recent, 2006, tax form 990 of the SBBG, showing that Schneider received $253K plus $42K in contributions.; next highest was the "director of development, Johnson; 3rd was the research director, Muller, $80K. Shows where the "garden"'s priorities are.)

Bad Garden!! You be good garden!! eerrRRR

Such a tempest in a tea (house) pot!

The space for the terrace was once occupied by a large oak tree that died, despite all efforts to prevent it from succumbing - thus there is nothing there to be preserved. The area vacated by the oak will be used for the display of native plants so that the public, especially handicapped individuals, can better learn about native plants.

And, the "native" plants growing in the SBBG garden are not representative of only the local area. There are plants from all over California in the garden - and in the context of "native", could be regarded as alien to the Santa Barbara area.

Using the logic of preserving "native" plants - whole areas of the garden should be uprooted and replaced. But then, the educational value of the garden would be lost.

The terrace would do exactly this: "to enhancing the public appreciation of plant life, and to fostering the conservation of natural habitats and species" - and in all parts of California.

The present Botanic Garden management has undertaken a campaign to significantly alter the historic character and ambiance of the garden that has been it’s signature since 1926. Their plan is to turn the Garden into a campus-like setting and a cash generating event center designed to attract a variety of events such as weddings, parties and other non-Garden related activities. These are the very same people who only a few short years ago were actually proposing a multi-level parking garage, a bridge across Mission Canyon Road and a helicopter pad! Their so called “vital mission plan” includes 22 new buildings nearly doubling the present square footage; the removal of over 80 trees; the grading of 12,000 cubic yards of earth; over 3.5 acres of new hard paved surfaces including the paving over of once-natural trails; surrounding the entire garden with a 6 foot chain link fence; the addition of commercial food preparation facilities; substantial amounts of additional lighting; fourteen new air conditioning compressors , increasing ambient background noise; a totally inadequate fire management plan and an increase of 91,000 additional vehicle trips to and from the Garden every year. Does this sound like the Botanic Garden we have all come to know and love?

Please do not turn the SBBG into SB's version of DISNEYLAND! Please adhere to the spirit of the original plan. I was raised and my family continues to live in Mission Canyon, on the border of the SBBG. I have watched the Santa Barbara AND California native plants gradually dwindle and succumb to the presence of non-natives, cultivars and commercial lawn-grasses under the "care" of the current administration. It would make better sense for native and/or long - time local Santa Barbarans and persons with actual advanced degrees in botany from California universities to be in control of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. These TRANSPLANTS who are now at the helm have no clue as to the history and beauty of this unique garden, and they are slowly eroding its once - pristine character.

"The removal of over 80 trees" is incorrect - they have planted over 3,000 oaks on the property. Since that is incorrect, I wonder how many of your other "facts" are valid. The staff at SBBG are highly professional people who care deeply about the preservation of native plants. I am guessing that you do not know .01% of what they have accomplished in this regard - and they have received awards from people who know a whole lot better than you. As for the notion that they are trying to turn it into a Disneyland type place, is patently ludicrous. Try taking a few courses at the SBBG - you may learn a few things about SBBG other than botany.

When I first came to Santa Barbara, over 28 years ago, the Botanical Gardens had free admission. It was a beautiful and wondrous place. Then at some time it was determined that the Garden had to charge admission to support itself. Everyone pretty much agreed with that. But they started out immediately charging $3.00 rather than gradually bringing up the price. the first effect was that people, including myself went to the garden less and less. The second more insidious effect was that the Garden began accumulating large sums of cash. And they kept raising the price. Now we have a garden with too much money on their hands and no way to spend it. In comes the newcomers who feel that that money just needs to be spent. But how do you spend millions of dollars when your charge is a native, low maintenance, garden? Why you come up with grandiose plans and large buildings. But maybe you don't have enough to pay for all that so you come up with money generating ideas - weddings, parties, all kinds of private affairs where you lock out the public. What's wrong with this picture? I can hear them saying, "We must destroy the garden to save it."