Feng Shui for Beggars

I’m a 65-year-old lifetime Santa Barbarian, my extended family has lived here for generations, so I feel I’ve a proprietary interest in how our city is governed and how our public monies are allocated.

Fifty thousand dollars of public funding, no matter the source, to study the arrangement of what have become sleeping areas, latrines, and places of business for beggars, seems a complete abrogation of fiscal responsibility by our city council. If the funding was used to provide aid and shelter to the addicted and/or addled, it might be a stopgap measure for the problems business owners and shoppers are having on the lower State Street corridor, but throwing taxpayer dollars at reconfiguring seating for the aimless is more political posturing than sound budgetary procedure.

I expect more than touchie-feelie sound-bytes from my elected representatives, and would hope they’d find a better use for an extra $50,000 than providing feng shui for the unconscious.