GOLETA COUNCIL RACE: 'SAFER CITY' OR JUST SAFER FOR TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO DISAPPEAR?

It’s election season again, and the esteemed Noozhawk is once more gracing us with the groundbreaking news that candidates for local office are promising... wait for it... a ‘safer city.’ Apparently, this is still a novel concept in Goleta, where common sense often seems to take a back seat to progressive virtue signaling and endless studies on how to spend taxpayer money into oblivion.

The District 1 contenders, one a business owner (presumably one who understands a balance sheet) and the other an executive from Planned Parenthood (presumably one who understands how to secure government funding), are each trotting out their visions. One can only imagine what ‘safer’ means to a professional in the abortion industry – perhaps more 'safe spaces' for government grants, or a guaranteed budget line item for 'reproductive justice initiatives' that somehow always involve more local government spending.

Meanwhile, actual public safety, like keeping criminals off the streets and ensuring law enforcement is properly funded, often gets buried under layers of bureaucratic jargon and 'equity assessments.' It's almost as if the current crop of municipal 'leaders' believes crime will simply evaporate if they just talk about it differently enough, or maybe if they install enough diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants on every street corner. This paper trail from the last few years alone shows enough 'vision' documents to build a new civic center out of recycled paper, yet the streets still suffer.

What’s genuinely missing from these 'visions' is a concrete plan to actually roll back the progressive policies that have inadvertently — or perhaps, quite intentionally — made our cities less safe. Instead, we'll likely get more empty promises and a fresh wave of consultant reports, all paid for by the hardworking taxpayers, while Goleta's 'vision' continues to be blurry, expensive, and decidedly not 'safer' for anyone’s wallet. Let's hope the business owner has more than just a 'vision' but a actual plan to address actual crime, rather than just abstract feelings of 'safety' for the establishment.