Comments by GregMohr
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Posted on January 4 at 6:40 a.m.
Good thoughtful article.
Posted on December 16 at 9:48 a.m.
"Also interesting to this saga is the involvement of Carla Frisk, who was working as a Santa Barbara County planner during this application period [1995-99 and, apparently in the view of the author Olson, up to 2007]."
For the record, Carla has never been employed as a county planner. In 1979 she was the office manager at the former county Department of Environmental Resources (DER), and left in 1980 to work for a private firm, EarthMetrics. I know this because I was hired by DER in January 1979, and Carla processed my paperwork.
Carla is a friend of mine and, given this blatantly false depiction of her professional history, I must question the whole of Olson's story.
Posted on November 23 at 12:57 p.m.
Good story! We have some things to teach AZ, OH, FL and others where standing in voting lines for hours is part of the civic duty, and where imperfectly-submitted ballots stand a good chance of not being counted at all.
Posted on November 23 at 12:31 p.m.
Nice observation about Catholics. When I was a kid, my Dad told of seeing his Dad, in Wichita KS in the '30s, come home bloodied one day after mixing it up with some Klan boys at a Klan parade. Grandpa, like Dad and I, was about as white as white can get, but he also proudly was a Catholic. That was when I realized that although we were "white," we weren't "White."
Still, I ate my share of Twinkies, Snowballs, Ho-Hos and Ding-Dongs. Wonder Bread, not so much; we kids used to compress it into fake Communion hosts and pretend to be priests. One slice, sans crust, would moosh down to just about the right size and color.
Posted on November 23 at 11:48 a.m.
Many thanks to Jana and the other Coastal Commissioners and staff.
Posted on November 23 at 11:33 a.m.
Oooh-oooh, Muldoon, I can't resist...
Maybe we should blame Apple and its "point-and-grunt" approach to computer use, now firmly embedded in Windows and every other GUI. Back in the day, I always could tell which document was "written" on a Mac and which on a PC. These days, they all look better, but nearly always have substantial mistakes in their attempted communication of written facts.
As for Casmalia, -sigh-. All this time and so little constructive remediation, with us taxpayers still holding over 60% of the financial bag. Collectively, we used the products that produced the wastes, so maybe that's fair. On the other hand, some companies and individuals profited disproportionately by transferring those hidden costs to all of us.
Posted on May 20 at 2:44 p.m.
I'm a homeowner of limited and practically fixed means, and I'll be voting "Yes!" on Measures W & X. I don't have kids, but am proud to support our public school programs and all kids, who are our collective future. I benefited from the public schools when I was a kid, and now am happy to give back in kind.
Posted on May 20 at 1:38 p.m.
BeachFan, you are correct: guns & hoses always trump human services & park roses. However, one other historic fact is that the county acted in 2005 to split the active employees and retirees into two separate risk pools for health insurance rate-setting. The result was a doubling of retiree health insurance premium rates between 2007-09, with commensurate savings for the county and its active employees. The main excuse given was, "Why should the county and its active employees subsidize health insurance rates for retirees?" Hell, I wish someone had asked that question in 1979, when I started working for the county. I could've saved a lot of money over 28+ years...but, it would have been wrong to do so.
And before anyone starts wanking about paid health insurance for retirees: we retirees pay full freight for any health insurance plans we may choose from the menu of options, minus a subsidy of $15 per year of service. In my case, the subsidy amounts to less than $400 per month, while I chip in an extra $373 per month that goes straight to the insurance companies, and that's for the lowest-benefit and lowest-cost plan available. The "subsidy" is fixed for life--it never increases, while premiums go up and up.
Oh yeah, I also have over $600 per month deducted for federal and state income tax withholding. Plus property taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes, and every other kind of tax paid by every other taxpayer.
Posted on May 19 at 7:56 p.m.
Ahem...as for the crack about "this Board Majority," it's a matter of historic fact that the retirement formula for the DSA was approved by a Board majority of Willy Chamberlin, Tim Staffel and Mike Stoker, with the whole-hearted support of COLAB. It was in 1993 or '94.
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Posted on February 13 at 4:49 a.m.
Ahh, nice tight story. Two of the happiest times I've spent were group camping at Prisoner's, back in the hunting & camping club days in the '80s, once in the summer and again in the spring. Tents and sleeping bags above the beach to the east of the pier, hiking and swimming, sitting on the beach at night and looking at the mainland, wondering what all the poor people were doing right about then (as my grandparents used to say).
On Prisoners Harbor