By Noozhawk Editors
| 9:00 p.m.
Eight years ago, we had a choice of remaining in Santa Cruz or moving to Santa Barbara.
When we compared the two communities, Santa Cruz had a hostile homeless population downtown that would harass you while you were walking around. Santa Cruz had filthy parks with syringes and drug paraphernalia, making it an unsafe and unpleasant environment for children. Santa Cruz had multiple murders within a mile of our house near downtown in the “best”school district.
So, we chose Santa Barbara.
Now, in seeing the post-coronavirus state of downtown and the parks, it appears that Santa Barbara has chosen to go the path of Santa Cruz. Our children are now deprived of the ability to feel safe walking around downtown or to visit parks without a sense of wariness.
What else is news in NoozWeek’s Top 5? A dead man at East Beach, Santa Barbara’s selective vagrancy strategy, a new Starbucks, and California’s refusal to unmask in the face of COVID-19…
Peter Hartmann & Stacey Wright: Santa Barbara’s ‘Westside’ Bike Project an Eastside Nightmare
Santa Barbara Fire Department engine 73 is parked in the 100 block of West Sola Street while firefighters respond to a medical emergency at the Edgerly Apartments across the street. (Peter Hartmann / Noozhawk photo) By Peter Hartmann and Stacey Wright
April 24, 2021
| 3:00 p.m.
As residents of the historic neighborhood bordering Santa Barbara’s Alameda Park we feel the need to shed light on a troublesome situation taking place in our city.
We are a diverse neighborhood of people from newborns to centenarians, renters, homeowners and the homeless. Among us are residents of multiple ethnicities and races. There are lawyers, teachers, health-care workers, engineers, small business owners, civil servants and, while he was alive, we could count a Nobel Prize laureate among us.