Dear Mr. Brown,

There is a real need for new housing in Ventura, which is full of ageing, sub-standard housing, but what seems to happen is that instead of infilling areas in the city where  streets and sewers etc. already exist, the building is done on what is probably the most valuable and productive farmland in the world.  And once it is taken out of farming, it is gone, never to be replaced, and there isn’t going to be more made elsewhere.  We can build housing on empty lots, or tear down old warehouses and buildings that have outlived their purpose, but we can’t ever grow strawberries or lemons or avocadoes when the farms are built upon.

The proposed Hillside development, if it passes all the geological testing, etc, at least will be built on non-productive land and will be a tremendous boost to downtown businesses, as will the proposed housing where Joe’s Crab Shack was. That area (Sanjon and Thompson) is full of boarded-up stores.  Ventura needs to grow its tax base and building higher-level or luxury homes adds people who pay higher taxes and spend more money, which helps underwrite all of Ventura’s services to lower income people as well as supporting restaurants and stores.

The City of Ventura needs to move forward on some of these projects.  I understand that water use will be an issue, but the technology exists to make new construction much more water and power efficient than the old homes, and either a city moves forward or it moves backward – it doesn’t and can’t stay the same.

Sincerely,
Lynne Hiller

Dear Sheldon,

Once again, Edna and I have the pleasure of thanking you and the Breeze for presenting us to your readers! We thank you. And since we’re sending a copy to Radio Station WPPB in New York, they surely thank you, too.  Thanks also for the good reading in other Breeze articles.

Chuck & Edna Cecil

Editor:

…was clearly not visible to the sponsors and speakers at the Chambers of Commerce Alliance presentation of October 14, as described in your Nov. 11 – 24 issue. Your meeting synopsis read like a report on a get-together of the “Ventura / Santa Barbara Society of Luddites and Flat- Earthers.”

It was blatantly clear that the so-called symposium on the future of energy was a propaganda gig for the area’s willfully ignorant deniers of the hard facts, science-supported proofs and obvious realities of human-caused climate disruptions and general warming from two centuries of burning fossil fuels. That such a mindset is put on stage as respectable thinking is especially ridiculous in a region beset by record drought and facing rising sea levels with their concurrent damaging effects.

And it sure doesn’t behoove a publication that seeks credibility to report on such an organized farce as if it were a serious assessment of the future of energy. It was not. The future – and even a significant and growing part of the present – belongs to solar, wind and other renewables, not to finite, filthy fossil fuels.

Tom Manning
Ventura

Sheldon:

I don’t know what the anti-growth people are celebrating (Regarding the CC approval of Regent’s hillside project) .  We’ll have to ask the clerk for the record, or watch the streaming video.  I tuned out after one too many repetitive screeds during the seemingly interminable public comment period.

The loudest anti-growth voice is a documentary film maker who moved here a few years ago and who will evidently say just about anything to win.  He uses ad hominem insults to deprecate the people who support the project (I am neutral about it) as has a recent history of demagogues who have built political careers by doing so.

We might point out to him that some of our town’s historical leaders, including Eugene Preston Foster, William Dewey Hobson, and Abe Hobson were developers and subdividers, and others were Realtors, such as Mayor Al Albinger and Supervisor A.C. Ax.  It wouldn’t make any difference: he is trying to win and has nothing to lose by libeling anyone he can.

Realtors know first-hand how people need move-up housing during their lives as much as the poor need housing.  They know the economics of real estate better than anyone, since they manage it, too.   They have a lot to contribute to the conversation, and ought to be praised for their many good works.

I can’t think of anything any of these major opponents has ever done for anybody in Ventura except themselves.  Name one board they have been on for any registered charity.

Never mind that his house was “developed” by someone, as long as it wasn’t him.  Never mind that his is either a cut lot or a fill lot.

Interestingly enough, they have formed a group of some strange bedfellows:

Regards,
Kioren Moss

to publisher

you seem very surprised at the reaction you’re getting for your editorials on hillside development. how long have you lived here? this is a volatile issue. with 2 council members recused and a planning commission member suspected of conflict of interest the voting pool is smaller and i suspect that will make it easier to allow this abomination to be built. just as they rammed the new water agency down out throats i suspect they’ll do the same with the hillside development. again, where’s the evidence  that these “executives” will contribute anything other than more traffic, boutique “foo-foo” wine bars and higher tax assessments and rents? this is not santa barbara, montecito, or la jolla, however much the elites want this fantasy. 600k “santa barbara style” condos on the avenue next to a homeless center and oil fields do not make this area any more than it already is-and i like it the way it is. as for companies investing here to improve the economy, well tell that to kinko’s-we sure let the big one get away, didn’t we?

Richard Goad

If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed,
if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.

~ Mark Twain