Did You Know? Bonnie Donovan
“I will stand my ground, and I won’t back down.” – Tom Petty
Did You Know you are on your own? And you live in the hamlet of Santa Barbara! Think of all the other cities currently under attack by an element whose behavior is being encouraged by their local government, the same local government who is defunding the police then leaving the citizens in harm’s way.
“God helps those who help themselves.” – Ben Franklin
Last Thursday at noon, a West Beach rental was broken into and was still occupied by the perpetrators when 911 emergency was called. Even with several more calls to 911, and the property still occupied, the 911 Center was unable to give an ETA for help to arrive. Forty-five minutes later, while the suspect was still in sight of the caller, still no officer was available to respond. Six hours later, dispatch telephoned to ask if police were still needed. Six hours? What if no one had answered because the suspect had killed the caller? The travesty is that for several days after, the same suspects tried to enter multiple West Beach properties. At the same time, this same scenario was happening downtown, in one incident, the neighbors located the suspect at his campsite for the officers. Who is responsible for our safety? Is it the Police Chief? The Mayor? Who can help us? Is it our Representative Salud Carbajal? Our District Attorney? Are we now on our own and is this the reason gun sales are up? Yet ammo is unavailable because of Gov. Newsom’s ban. Another perfect storm. In all fairness, only six officers patrol the city during most 10-hour time shifts. In a city of over 100,000 people, that translates to each officer being responsible for the safety of approximately 17,000 people. And this is your level of service without defunding of the Santa Barbara Police Department. That is a crime. If our officers are so overwhelmed that the public must chase down the suspects, why can’t the chief of police and her command staff take a patrol car and help?
Why are non-citizens being given the benefits and the rights of citizens? The right to vote is a hard-fought privilege and should be protected and treated with respect. It is not a subscription that came in the mail. This is fertile ground for bad seeds and an outcome which may not be representative of the voice of the American people who voted! What did come in the mail was the Official Voter Information Guide for the California General Election Tuesday November 3, 2020. It was addressed to “Registered Voters.”
Last year 449,163 Californians received a jury duty summons to which they declined, stating, from one side of their mouth “we are not citizens; therefore, we cannot serve on a jury.” From the other side of their mouth they will say, “we are not citizens, but we still want to vote!” Have you ever seen anything like this?
It appears an alarming disregard exists for the most important right and responsibility of US citizenship — which is to cast one’s ballot. On July 28, 2020, we filed a Public Records Act Request (PRAR) on behalf of several Democratic voters in Santa Barbara who discovered their votes were not counted for the November 2019 election. As of July 28, they had received no response nor acknowledgement from the city regarding their January 2020 inquiry as to the status of these “lost votes.” That is six months! On July 28, the voting records were presented to the city council for destruction by the keeper of the records. They were getting no response from the city and they could see the evidence was about to be destroyed per schedule. The citizens contacted the writers of this column, DYK, in desperation that morning as they still had received no response from the city regarding their January request; and the ballots were due to be destroyed. DYK made a public records request for the information on behalf of these voters.
So far, we have just received the city’s fourth notice of an extension to fill the public records request. If the ballots were ready to be destroyed on July 28, why aren’t they available for the public records request? Is someone hiding something? Will this request not be filled until after the election, same as the L.A. public schools will not be open until after the election? Again, have you ever seen anything like this?
They will take whatever you will give up! Remember, our government is run by people, those who believe in freedom and those who would take it away. The government entities pushing these changes of power will back off when they are backed down. Just like any bully. For example, all the business owners of Fresno have banded together and agreed to “open for business” on October 1. Although this is contrary to the Governor’s orders, because of this push-back, the Governor has acquiesced, announcing that, “ … it looks like some communities will be able to open on October 1st.”
It pays to push back.
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm” – Abraham Lincoln
