Nancy Kapp wasn’t the only person to distill and misinterpret Cheri Rae’s complex column on heartbreak over failed leadership and misplaced priorities in Santa Barbara.
Former News-Press blogger Craig Smith, who is back writing with his daughter Taryn, reacted to the piece by stating that the crime rate is no greater now than it was back in the late 1970’s; rather, crime just gets covered by more media. Even in the wake of a deadly shooting, an outbreak of graffiti, and a rash of gang-related stabbings, Smith writes, “year-in-and year out from then until now we average about 12 homicides a year, for the whole county! Murders were never confined to the seedier parts of the county… The difference between now and then is that back then you didn’t have a guy named Roger listening to police calls on a scanner and posting them on Edhat.”
Adding to the conversation that arose from Rae’s widely-read column, Roger the Scanner Guy immediately disagreed with Smith’s assertion…” I got here in 1980, I lived on the streets,” wrote Roger. “There were some problems, but nothing like the problems of today. While we have always had gangs they usually fought each other and did not attack, and beat up your regular Joe. There were not as many homeless people then as there are now. The homeless people back then were not as much of a problem as they are today. Ex-offenders on parole, sex offenders, and people wanted from other states they might get extradited from their own state but not a few states away in California so they come here. There are more people, more condos, more business, more industry, a HELL of a lot more bars on State Street than there was in the late 70′s.”
What’s your view… is Santa Barbara better off than it was 35 years ago?
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My family has lived here for a hundred generations..
Believe me when I say…SB is much worse than it was 35 years ago.
I have had family members in the police dept. for many years, & they agree…
Craig should stay retired. The only crime here in the 80s were Cito Rats smoking pot at Picadellli Square and drunks ransacking IV
What about the mysterious numbers of dumped and dismembered bodies or left in Mafia execution style on San Marcos Pass. I believe there are still many cold cases from this era. Cocaine cash was king in then and very readily spread around the swish enclaves of this town. Little petty street crime, but no one wanted to go to Haley Street after dark. The town was very divided. There was the barrio on the west side of the freeway most Anglos in SB did not even know existed.
Now crime is more widespread around the city, more random and impersonal with far more crazies on the street who menace and threaten, if they not outright attack. Not safe to be downtown. Kids are bratty and knock you over on the side walks.
Chumash claim they have been here for 13,000 years. Typical generation is 25 years long.
So anyone coming here only a ” hundred generations” ago is a new-comer, like the rest of us.
For street cred historical, you have to claim your “family” has been here for 520 generations. Go to the back of the line, newbie.
Dumb. Anyone who lived here in the 1970es would never say something like that. The paper before wendy covered the town with more reporters than we have now.
If the consensus is YES, then i theorize that it changed in the 80s. I have been here 24 years (came here when I was 20) and i think it has gotten much better! Better bars, better restaurants, better women, less crime, (more homeless) nicer homes, more shopping, nicer State Street, internet..etc etc.. Everyone fantasizes on old times, its human nature. Ask 100 elderly people if times in SB were better 50 years ago, they would say yes!! Safe downtown? I have never seen a homeless person or gang member jump random people on the street. I would have to say that I have been on State Street and downtown more than anyone on this website.
Sorry Queeny, I should have said “Many Moons ago”..
I used poor judgement in thinking you had ever sat with a Native story-teller, or that you know any Native people…that`s how we speak sometimes.
I wish we [meaning all of us] could be better friends. Then, I could invite you to my home & you could HOLD artifacts that Chumash medicine people have used, wear regalia handed down to me, or come to my sweat-lodge to purify yourselves from the diseases of these times…..but…
Irredentism – word of the day. ……. Pros and cons, talk among yourselves.
I thought only movie Injuns used terms like “many moons ago”. Guess this got lost in translation.
Coming also from a family that existed for “many moons” on this planet (who hasn’t?), we already all share planet earth regardless of the exclusive territorial vanities your tribe wants to impose upon the rest of us.
Handle that artifact, historical. Many handle slot machine levers your tribe also allows us to fondle and touch — although only for a price – that hand to handle contact will just have to suffice for most of us.
We sure dine better in this town than we did 35 years ago.
Thanx Queenie…..
I really don`t understand what you said, but it was pretty funny to try.
Did we just have a quake?
I would say without a doubt SB was a friendlier place in the 70′s. More laid back and more people smiling and saying hello to each other. There is always “crime” but the big difference between someone caught smoking pot… a big crime in the 70′s, or stealing a bike, to the gang violence today, getting more violent and widespread.
Who really cares when anyone’s family got here? What your race is or why you feel superior to anyone else. We all came here from somewhere else… so what’s the point? It’s boring.
Santa Barbara is only a good as the people who live and work here. Much harder to raise a family here than it was in the 70′s. That would be my main point.
Let’s see: Much more traffic; aggressive driving; (I started to see that trend back in ’94) impossible for kids who grow up in S.B. to buy a home unless they make a huge income; downtown turned into one big bar. Add to that all the “no parking” notices and increased fees for public parking lots. I moved there in 1973 and first became aware of the change in 1980 when I was walking down State Street. I noticed the street hustler vibe/L.A. scene and the general sense of quiet desperation. I said to myself “it’s starting” (or words to that effect) I knew then the urban blight was coming in.
My family and I finally realized it’s hopeless to engage in the “rage against the machine” mentality and escaped in 2005. Like the Joni Mitchell classic goes “they paved paradise and put in a parking lot”. All the ostensibly “progressive” politics is pointless: The very people those politicians represent (the working-class) cannot afford “Paradise” which they still could in 1977.
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Bill Clausen Also: Back in ’77 there were no strip clubs (excuse me: “Gentlemen’s Clubs”) where guys (and I imagine women) could go and drool at nude young women but there were a bunch of clothing-optional beaches. (To wit: Rincon/Bates; Butterfly; Mesa Lane; More Mesa; Devereaux, and Gaviota) now thanks to “progress” we have the Spearmint Rhino nudie bar, but as far as I know, More Mesa is the only clothing-optional beach because apparently only sexual nudity is allowed in and around S.B. To put it another way: A young woman can make $$$ being a stripper–uhm–I mean “exotic dancer” but if she wants to enjoy skyclad freedom frolicking in the sun and ocean the gendarmes will be sure to rush down and give her a ticket. Yeah, things are sure a lot better–NOT.
Santa Barbara is run like a country club where living there is considered a privilege. When my parents bought their home in 1973, it cost about $44,000, when they sold it in 2005, it was sold for slightly over $1 million–an increase of 22 times. I don’t remember what the comparative minimum wages were but I think it was about 3 and a half times more so the de facto cost of housing increased about 6.2 times. Meanwhile, people wonder why there’s so much quiet desperation?
You mean you can’t afford your image of Santa Barbara? Plenty of working class families are enjoying Santa Barbara as you speak – just visit the Eastside and the Westsides of this city. Or delve into the Mesa or the tons of cheap condos. Santa Barbara only has a very few wealthy enclaves, but 85% of Santa Barbara ain’t just what you see in the Riviera or San Roque to the north of State Street.
Anyone claiming they can’t afford to live in Santa Barbara is really saying they are choosing not to live in the parts of this town that they can afford. Meanwhile there are plenty here who do choose to live here, raise families and work so they can afford it on fairly minimal incomes. Get over yourself.
In 1973, a $40,000 house was the height of luxury. Most were still in the $20-30,000 back then. No surprise this became a million dollar home in 2005. California housing prices were the last to rise nationwide for anyone tuned into the market during the 1970s. This started to turn in the late 1970′s when California started playing catch-up. Houses back East were easily going for over $100,000 in the 1970s. While Montecito was peaking at $300,000 then, for lavish mansions on multiple acres.
Not until the Reagan ear did the national spotlight start shining on Santa Barbara and its stock finally began to rise. So Santa Barbara today is as affordable or not affordable as it always has been. Except now 17% of the housing stock is government controlled to be permanently price-fixed which trashes the market economics here permanently.
Of course the irony is it was the well-paying defense industry jobs that made Santa Barbara “affordable” back in the 1970s, but lets sweep that dirty little secret under the rug of SB’s latter day piety.
Worse.