Words on Paper

Wow, Supervisor Hart. Do you really believe that legal conservation easements such as the one the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County holds on the Modoc Preserve and on numerous other special, beloved open space lands all around our county such as the Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve, the Rincon Bluffs Preserve, and the Sedgwick Reserve are “just words written on a piece of paper 30 years ago?” [Santa Barbara Independent, Nov. 10, 2022.] Are you saying that this critical tool that we have used for years to protect special ranch lands and open spaces around the county by carefully delineating the permitted and prohibited uses for each property tied to specific conservation values have no legal standing in your eyes nor in those of your fellow county supervisors?

Alas (and possibly regrettably), I voted for and supported you in your recent successful bid to represent us in the State Assembly, where I had assumed you would not only enact new, relevant legislation but also serve to uphold and respect our existing state laws and statutes, defending along the way, when called upon, the principles of our California State and United States Constitutions. Am I now to assume that you will treat all of these legal documents, many of them written well over 30 years ago, as merely “just words written on a piece of paper”? Tell me it ain’t so!