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SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS
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SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 2023
LETTERS TO THE NEWS-PRESS Brent E. Zepke
The author lives in Santa Barbara.
Wendy McCaw Arthur von Wiesenberger
Escape from New York: Timing
Co-Publisher Co-Publisher
GUEST OPINION KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors approved additional protections for tenants Thursday after mass eviction notices were issued at the CBC & The Sweeps apartments in Isla Vista.
Don’t punish everyone because of one developer
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Lost in time or saved for eternity?
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omorrow is If all good people go to Easter Sunday, heaven apart from Christ, the day that the Bible then asks, then Jesus rose from why did Jesus have to die? the dead, after The Bible references life having paid for the sins of on Earth, apart from faith the world by way of his death in Jesus, as living in the and atonement. shadow of death. However, The gift of Easter when people place their represents that if you believe faith in Him, they discover in Jesus’s substitutionary life and experience life death for your sins, you have abundant. That has been been given eternal life. described as follows. For What does this mean in people who believe in God, this age, when America is Earth is as close to hell as no longer a Christian they will ever get. nation, and most For people who young people no don’t believe in God, longer believe in Earth is as close to God? Who needs a heaven as they will savior from sin, death ever get. and hell when one Jesus said that the doesn’t believe in any world hated him Andy Caldwell of them? and subsequently Regarding the crucified him lack of faith among so because he testified that many young people, the its deeds were evil as they resulting hole in their soul denied they needed a savior. is evident for everyone to To this day, the world that see. Anything goes, and, God so loves still doesn’t as a result, the levels of want to be convinced they fecklessness, depression and need to be saved from suicide are off the chart. themselves and this world They don’t know who they we live in. are because they have never The church, which is met their loving creator. supposed to be a witness They are drowning in a sea of and to the truth, is of moral, social, sexual and only too happy to oblige historic relativism, leaving the unbelief of the world, them with nothing to believe as heaven and hell are in during this life — and scarcely talked about these ultimately nothing to live for. days. Albeit, how can you This has happened before, have one without the other? unfortunately. In a previous Too many churches preach age, a brutally prophetic forgiveness and the hope commentary was written of eternity but without by British Pastor J. Stuart repentance, thereby Holden during World War I. distorting the holiness of He wrote, “God’s rule could God by way of a heretical scarcely be considered doctrine of tolerance. moral if it did not involve An allegory of the main the destruction of that which theme herein was depicted has been robbing the nation in the movie classic, of its soul. Something of a “Blade Runner,” in which great and overwhelming a group of bioengineered calamity simply had to come humanoids, known as to arrest and bring to an end replicants, returns to Earth the flippant folly which was to meet their maker to beginning to characterize demand an extension of life. every class of society. To In the final scene the many of our young men, leader of the replicants, as this war has come as a he faces death, bemoans positive redemption from that “the life he knows will vain, empty, and worthless be lost in time like tears living. Their lives have been in the rain.” The absolute redeemed from destruction truth here is that life apart even though they go to from any aspect of eternity death.” becomes meaningless in the Pastor Holden’s words end. only make sense if there is life after death. Andy Caldwell is the COLAB Do you believe that all executive director and host of “good people” will go to “The Andy Caldwell Show,” heaven apart from believing airing 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays in the substitutionary death on KZSB AM 1290, the Newsof Jesus Christ on the cross? Press radio station.
hat happened in Isla Vista recently happened several years ago, so it is not that common, and it is not good business. As you know, out-of-town developers target buildings ripe for investing large corporate money. They build and leave! I’m writing because you must understand that one or two developers does not mean everyone that owns and/or lives in Isla Vista has to be punished. Making up new rules and regulations often have very bad results for the people you want to help. For example: rent controls hurt the very people it is supposed to help. (Contact Peter Ruppert, a professor of economics at UCSB, to learn more about that). Property ownership is a basic principle of our country. and housing providers are basic, too. We realize that housing — or the lack thereof — is problematic: There’s not enough supply. If there were, then tenants could move around more easily. Penalizing the housing provider community for one out-of-town corporate developer is not an answer, even though the activist housing alliances demand punitive action. Build more housing by offering incentives to developers; not demanding harsh rules and regulations, with dismal results. Better jobs for people is another way to pay for market housing, but that requires better education and industry. It is not the housing providers at fault. It’s the lack of housing and good jobs. Michael C. Schaumburg Santa Barbara
Parklets’ accessibility violations are disheartening
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eading “Mixed Results for Parklets,” by Neil Hartstein and published April 5 in the News-Press, I realized that your readership could benefit from more context on the persistent
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accessibility violations in the Parklet Program. I have served on the City’s Access Advisory Committee since 2017. This committee is advisory to city staff and council on issues related to accessibility. The AAC has consistently objected to the city allowing the construction of new inaccessible facilities in the public right of way (PRoW) since May 2020. The city promised from the start that the parklets would be completely accessible. So it is very disheartening to read that almost three years later, the city is reporting that more than a quarter of the parklets are still inaccessible. The fact is that these accessibility requirements, which are outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act and Chapter 11B of the California Building Code, existed long before the parklets were built, and no local ordinance can lessen those requirements. The December 2022 deadline was at least the third such deadline for accessibility as I recall. When the city wants compliance with parklets, they get it and fast. The fire lane width was widened, and most of the storm drains were cleared without much fuss or delay. The sidewalk clearance was brought in to compliance pretty quickly too, once the city finally agreed to require it. If the city had a commitment to providing legally required accessibility in the PRoW, it would have been done long ago. Frustratedly, Nicholas Koonce Santa Barbara
U.S. no longer at its pinnacle
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hese are the times that try men’s souls” — again. We now have four parties: Democratic, Republican, Independent and Don’t Know. I don’t think our citizenry is as intelligent as we would like to believe. We are ignorant of our history, our progress and our values. We will never be perfect, but we must learn from our past or it will be repeated as we are now experiencing. Once a faulty precedent is accepted, it will be repeated over and over again as “law.” When we pick and choose which laws we
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President Joe Biden
and reduced taxes for small businesses. All individual rates were lowered while the corporate rate fell from 35% to 21%. The TCJA also lowered and widened the tax brackets that benefited middle and lower class taxpayers. In addition, the TCJA made significant tax reforms that finally aided small businesses creating the small business deduction
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(section 199A), which is a 20% tax deduction for small business income. Nevertheless, since the reforms in the TCJA were not permanent, many are set to expire after Dec, 31, 2025. If this is allowed to occur, most taxpayers will be faced with a large tax increase. Further, President Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget proposal calls for an estimated $4.7 trillion in new tax increases that will be especially harmful for small businesses. Some of the proposed tax increases would reverse the TCJA including raising the top income tax rate back to 39.6%, creating a new 5% tax on small business income, increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%, among other increases. President Biden is arguing that these tax increases will only impact those at the very top, but what is often forgotten is that many small businesses will be greatly impacted as they pay their business taxes via the individual personal income tax rates. Iowa taxpayers and small businesses have struggled to
s of this writing, the indictment of the former — and possibly future — President Donald Trump brings to mind the movie “Escape from New York.” Of course, the target is a conservative, much as it was when “someone” leaked the pending opinion in Supreme Court opinion in the abortion case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in order to create a reaction to influence the decision makers. When this failed, they started picketing the home of the conservative justices, but not liberal justices, as the DOJ refuses to enforce the law barring such pickets. Similarly, did “someone” leak the Trump indictment — in advance of it being unsealed this week — to cause a reaction to influence voters and potential jurors? Rumors are that some Democrats were hoping the leaked news would provoke Republicans to react in a way that they could, have and are, using the activities of Jan. 6. A rumor had previously surfaced that the top FBI officials had hoped for the same results when sending agents with automatic weapons to raid his home at Mar-a-Lago for documents he had offered them. When there were no riots, the rumors were that the top brass kidded that they needed a Ray Epps, a reference to the man with the megaphone inciting people to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6 but who was not charged. Was this the reason for the leak in the indictment? The reference to the movie “Escape for New York” is appropriate as this was a story about the crime in New York City being so out of control that there was no justice after the city’s Manhattan borough was made into a maximum-security prison. Director John Carpenter used actors Kirk Russell, Lee Van Clief and Ernest Borgnine to present the story of the convicts being able to force a president to come into their prison in Manhattan. Getting chills yet? I wonder when the writers John Carpenter and Nick Castle wrote their script in 1981, they experienced a Nostradamustype moment, or if they based their story on their actual experiences that may have been similar to a few of mine in the 1970s? For example, when one of my legal cases was in the Bronx, crime caused my local management person to drop me off rather than accompany me into the court house. Once inside, I saw why. My laughing at the sign above the judge proclaiming “No spitting” was interrupted by the spat as the first defendant punctuated his sentences by loudly spitting on the floor. By the third defendant, even the judge no longer appeared to notice the spats. My being the only person in a suit, as well as the only “nonspitter,” caused all the others to ask if I was a public defender. The men’s room had an armed policeman stationed there. I felt for the guard and the judge. At about the time the Eagles were writing “This could be heaven…” in their song “Hotel California,” it could have been applicable to my business trips beginning with runs in Central Park and finishing with walks to dinners and Broadway shows. However, even then as the Eagles completed the above sentence with “or this could be hell,” there were indications of crime even in the federal courthouse in Manhattan. For
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will accept or ignore, we will have no law, no borders, no character and no values. We are no longer the pinnacle of national power, empathy, compassion or aid. We are seen as a nation disintegrating very rapidly. We are not feared, or appreciated as the leading miracle nation, desired by people from around the world. We can rise to the occasion once again if we choose. This is my concern for a future generation. Randy Rosness Solvang
How can it be wrong to prosecute felonies?
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ouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the Trump indictment has “irreparably harmed” the country. What on Earth is he talking about? Prosecution of a misdemeanor or felony crime is harmful, illegal, unconstitutional, wrong? The answer to his befuddling statement is found in a message on a popular T-shirt: “Trust God. Not government.” Speaker McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, is trafficking in the popular libertarian philosophy, which is also the evangelical church argument, that government is evil. The fundamentalist church and its anti-civic bedfellows, patriotic libertarian Republicans, are the only forces for good on Earth. The problem with this is that our patriotic ancestors in 1776 were not fighting against government and law. They were fighting against “King’s government” and “King’s law.” And those bad laws of King George III are listed in painful detail in the Declaration of Independence. Our ancestors wanted “People’s government” and “People’s law.” When laws are made by the people, they are blessed by God, and people have respect for them. Speaker McCarthy is trying to use our ignorance of history to return the nation to a British-style autocratic government in the form of Donald Trump, himself or a new Republican leader in 2024. I get it. And now you get it too. Kimball Shinkoskey Woods Cross, Utah (Former Goleta resident)
President Joe Biden’s budget threatens Main Street
he Tax Cuts and Jobs Act brought historic tax relief to taxpayers. For example, taxpayers and small business owners across Iowa benefited greatly from the economic growth created by the TCJA. Many businesses expanded, hired new workers, and increased wages or provided bonuses to their employees. The TCJA also sparked a tax reform effort in Iowa with Gov. Kim Reynolds and the RepublicanMatt Everson led legislature John Hendrickson enacting income tax rate reductions starting in 2018 and leading to last year’s historic tax reform measure that will create a flat 3.9% rate by 2026. The economic benefits of the TCJA are clear, but key provisions will expire in 2025, and President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget proposal threatens significant tax increases that will harm taxpayers. The TCJA cut individual and corporate income tax rates
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series by News-Press columnist Brent E. Zepke.