Comments by banjo
Posted on February 23 at 8:17 p.m.
My wife called the city, and the guy told her (don't have a name) that Santa Barbara Beautiful, or some other organization, is thinking about replacing trees on Valerio. He said that, despite the fact that queen palms line both sides of the street between Castillo and State, the official street tree for West Valerio is the Fire Wheel Tree (another non-native), and that will probably be the tree that they would plant, IF they decided to. I understand that trees need to be removed from time to time for safety reasons, but I thought the way it was done was pretty rude. If they aren't going to replace them, then I would be very happy to pay to replace them myself. However, my understanding is that this isn't allowed without a permit. I haven't looked any further into it, but would welcome input from people with more knowledge than I.
Posted on February 23 at 2:21 p.m.
I live in the 100 block of West Valerio. I came home in the middle of the day to pick something up, and found my driveway blocked by a stump grinding machine. After waiting about five minutes blocking the street, they moved the machine. Then I watched in horror as they cut down all three queen palms from in front of my house, all while crushing the plants in the parkway, and making a deafening racket. After they left, I found several empty soda cans left in front of my house, along with three huge mounds of palm tree sawdust smothering the plants, which the workers didn't bother cleaning up. I would guess that these trees were planted about the same time as the concrete sidewalks were put in - 1922. We received absolutely no notice, and the City is telling me that they have no plans to replace the trees with new one. Insanity.
Posted on January 24 at 8:31 p.m.
Are you crazy, Dogs?!? Dogs are permitted off- leash in most of the Los Padres, including nearby places, like Tunnel Trail. Why don't you get your facts straight before you go spouting off and blaming the owner. If you don't like it, then stay off the trails.
Posted on January 24 at 8:14 a.m.
I am so, so sorry for your terrible loss, Ian. It's a sobering tale, as well, for anyone who enjoys the local trails with their dogs and families. The local mountains are crawling with people who kill animals for fun (one of the behavioral indicators for incipient serial killers, by the way). In light of your horrendous experience, I will definitely be taking extra care while hiking with my dogs and kids during the various local animal killing seasons.
Posted on January 2 at 8:36 p.m.
Oblati, except for the blathering on about Democrats (booooring), you make a good point about wealthy locals wanting to keep the huddled masses away from their estates. The massive inflow of cash from Montecito to SB nonprofits serves to ghettoize many areas of SB by creating a charity economy that draws and supports a huge population that can only afford to live in the subfloor area of my house. I would gladly suffer another assessment to my property taxes to pay for bulldozing the hill and extending Haley, Gutierrez, Cota, and Ortega over to Montecito.
Posted on December 18 at 4:53 p.m.
HAHAHAHA! Is he in for a rude awakening.
Posted on November 27 at 8:04 a.m.
Religious states, whether Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, or whatever, have no place in the modern world.
Posted on October 16 at 7:42 a.m.
If Prop 30 doesn't pass, it will, most likely, be even worse than Brown claims, since his budget revenue projections are already unrealistically optimistic. This also means that there will probably need to be cuts even if Prop 30 passes. Pretty depressing, actually. Still, Prop 30 not passing would be a disaster for public education at all levels.
Previous Month
Posted on February 27 at 8:09 a.m.
How many people have been murdered or assaulted in SB by knives and various blunt instruments during the last 10 years? I'm way more worried about a gang member or other dangerous person with a knife in SB, than with a gun.
On Shoot-Shoot, Bang-Bang