Isla Vista Discomfort

Dear Board of Supervisors,

I have been a homeowner and resident of Isla Vista for the past 22 years. Before that I lived in Old Town Goleta for 13 years.

Even though I lived on Nectarine Aveenue, a street with a supposed reputation for gang activity, I never witnessed the lack of respect, lack of responsibility, or bad conduct there that I have witnessed from some students over the years in Isla Vista.

Police stopped and harassed young men of color on a regular basis in Old Town while here in Isla Vista students who do some serious wrong doing, such as blowing up my mailbox a few years ago, are deemed “kids with too much energy who need to channel it more creatively,” a quote from the police at the time.

And now, with COVID staring us in the face, there are parties going on with more than a hundred attendees. They have no fear of consequence because there are none. Imagine how you would feel if a party of a hundred intoxicated kids was going on down your street. Would you feel slightly uncomfortable?

I see from the news that UCSB has taken the step of going to all online classes because of this. Maybe they should go the extra step and suspend students as was done just recently New York’s SUNY Oneonta campus.

But what about this Board of Supervisors? What have you done to protect the public from folks that refuse to be responsible to their neighbors ? It is like starting a fire in one’s yard during a drought and wind storm and refusing to put it out claiming that it is one’s own property all the while sparks are flying onto other peoples’ houses.

Are you willing to allow a possible spreader event take over Isla vista and then move into your neighborhoods — yes, students have cars and travel — and know inside that you could have done something about it but refused, or delayed, or ignored, or looked the other way all the while humming a little tune?

This is a life and death matter and yet you prevaricate. Don’t you have a responsibility in all of this?