This week presented a lot of flying days, wings-in-the-sun days, and a few step-away-from-the-desk-and-get-to-know-your-community days. A free fly day gives a bird time to think and see things in a new perspective.
It was on one of those reflective flights that I spotted some strange words scrawled across a wall in an Orcutt neighborhood.
It was graffiti. I won’t provide detail. It doesn’t matter, that’s not the important point. What was really impressive was how members of the online Orcutt Neighborhood Watch group spotted and reported it so quickly.
The group has brought together a large number of residents who are not inclined to sit back and let crime overtake their neighborhood. I’m a plucky kinda bird, a shut-your-beak-and-do-something-about-it bird. And I’m liking the pluck coming from Orcutt. Residents there are getting proactive in keeping their streets safe.
One Orcutt resident, Teri White, told the Sun that it’s probably a helpful thing to take a proactive stance and work together and that maybe Santa Maria would want to do the same.
You betcha they should. And in many other ways they are doing just that.
While they may not have a neighborhood watch or even an online group that shares information, Santa Maria is getting proactive too.
Nonprofits, community groups, and even students are staging peace walks. Increased patrols have netted several arrests in the last few weeks.
It’s great to see the community turn the tables on crime, but it would be greater to see a more proactive approach in other areas that often get overlooked.
The Pacific Pride Foundation’s executive director Colette Schabram announced that because of significant funding shortages, the foundation would shutter its HIV case management and food pantry programs. The move would effect its Santa Maria and Santa Barbara locations. Schabram said the move was difficult but necessary in order for the foundation to continue providing its other services to the community.
According to the release, losing those state and federal dollars has made it hard to cover the sharply increasing costs of rent, utilities, groceries for the pantry, and insurance. Basically, Pacific Pride now needs to raise four times as much from donations to continue certain services as it did 10 years ago.
Unfortunately, bringing home money for programs like those offered by Pacific Pride wasn’t a subject that came up during the first debate for what’s bound to be a heated race for the 24th congressional seat that will be vacated after Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) leaves office this year.
Plenty of worthwhile topics were discussed however, like student debt, making college accessible, tax reform, and health care. For now, there’s a lot of talk from the candidates. So I’ll take a wait-and-see approach and give them a chance to develop their platforms before I sharpen my little beak and start picking them apart. Eventually though, we’ll get the chance to wade through all the talk and see what they are made of. Just a friendly reminder candidates: Your communities are tired of talk and are feeling empowered to take action on their own. Don’t let us down.
The Canary is feeling a little feisty. Contact her at canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 11-18, 2016.